Quick Trick for Preventing Emotional Meltdowns

image: wikipedia

By Crabby McSlacker

So this is a "Quick Trick" in that it doesn't take too long to implement it, but as usual, I wrote a long-ass blog post to provide some context for it. As regulars know, I am pretty much incapable of getting straight to the point.

And the usual disclaimer applies: this may only work for me and my odd brain.

Plus it's only a shortcut to help you access all the emotional regulation skills you've already mastered as a thoughtful, responsible, adult human. If you don't have them to start with, and you've been blowing off all that personal growth and/or therapy stuff your entire life, it probably ain't gonna work.

It's basically a metaphorical tool I've been using to create an almost instantaneous mindshift in difficult situations. Simplistic and goofy? Sure! But I find it really helps. And there's even a fitness angle too, so I thought I'd pass it along here.

Inner Energy: Harnessing the Blissful Forces of Weird

photo via James Vaughan

By Crabby McSlacker

Being a self-absorbed nutball, I've embarked on boatloads of psychological self-improvement projects throughout the years. And while there's still a ton of stuff left to improve on, I gotta say, it's kinda working: I'm now way less of a worrywart party-pooper than I used to be.

So with all this introspection and reading and listening and practicing, I've come to learn some interesting things that my crazypants brain can do, if I have the patience to give it some room to play. And some of it is proving helpful and/or amusing, even if it's a little hard to explain.

But, you may wonder, is any of this relevant to your fine brain?

Letting Go of Negative Thoughts and Feelings

image: someecards

By Crabby McSlacker

So does that cartoon seem sexist?  Yeah, well, it's an overgeneralization, but I gotta say I think we women tend to a bit more prone to hanging on to emotionally upsetting stuff than guys are, and mulling it over in our heads and perhaps making it bigger and uglier and more devastating than it needs to be.

As you may have guessed, this is a continuation of the “Catch and Release” post, in which I was talking about the benefits of tuning in more to your inner psychological world, “catching” and “releasing” dumb and counterproductive thoughts and emotions that can drag you down.

And actually, "releasing" or "letting go" is just one way of looking at it. You could use more active, confrontive terminology and be all kick-ass, and talk about fighting negative thoughts and feelings, or heck obliterating or pulverizing or exterminating them.

It's just that I started with the whole "catch and release" theme, and put up a bunch of fishing pictures... and beating the crap out of some poor fish you just caught seems kinda mean, doesn't it?

Another problem? I realized there are so many ways of working with negative thoughts and emotions, and I have so freakin’ many opinions and weird ideas, that I’m just going to start with one basic aspect of it and follow up with more later.

Because while it sucks to feel bad about stuff, there really are tons of helpful tools out there than can help.

On Being a Quitter

I was originally going to title this: "Dead Horses... When to Stop Beating Them."

But then I thought, do I really want to encourage people who are googling "dead horses" to find us here, where we prefer our horsies not dead and, in fact, frisky and rarin' to go? Oh, and sporting wings if possible.

Plus I also wanted to offer a nod over in Rick Hanson's direction, since he's a constant source inspiration, and watching one of his recent "Just One Minute" videos on accepting the limits of your influence was the impetus for this post.  Plus Rick is moderating what looks to be a very cool, FREE online seminar in October called The Compassionate Brain and I wanted to let folks know about it.  And then I thought, sheesh, would Rick really want to be found in the company of dead, depressing, and possibly rotting and smelly horse corpses when he could be in a post about the joys of being a quitter instead?  Oh wait... that doesn't sound much better, does it?  But hell, coming this blog, it could be a lot worse.

This post also contains an Exciting and Totally Premature Announcement, which I will most likely regret but what the hell.

Coping with the downturn: a quiz

Guess what? The experts have decided that it's official: we're in a recession.

Gee whiz, really?

Being an economic forecaster is something like being a weatherman reporting on yesterday's news. It's much more interesting to be a blogger, especially on a blog like this one.

How's your economic attitude?

Rather than writing a serious, perceptive, and intellectually challenging post about the economy, it seems like a much better idea to present you with a pop quiz. You've read all about the economy -- if you haven't experienced a layoff, you've probably felt the chill breeze of one pass nearby. Are you prepared, attitudinally, for this economic climate?


The Quiz

A) Your boss calls you into her office and says that you're being downsized.
Your response is to:

1 - Go home, curl up in a dark room, and whimper.

2 - Go out and eat a dozen brownies. (Sugar is good for shock, yeah, that's the ticket.)

3 - Ask her, "Does 'downsize' mean I'll fit into my skinny jeans?"

4 - Put on your running shoes and do a long run... as far from work as possible.


B) The company has decided to enforce time off during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holiday weeks. In other words, you're taking the time off whether you have vacation time saved up or not. You decide to:

1 - Buy a bunch of stuff at the mall to cheer yourself up.

2 - Eat your way steadily through all the Thanksgiving leftovers, chocolate Advent calendars, and even aunt Agnes' deadly annual fruitcake. It's wasteful to throw away food, plus there's less clutter that way.

3 - Decide to use the time to finish your Great American Novel (or Great Canadian Novel, Great Peruvian Novel, you get the idea). That way, when the company actually does go under, you'll have a book ready to be published.

4 - Spend the time off working out three or four hours a day. Hey, it worked for Madonna.

C) Because of the relatively low cost of gas, your grandmother, mother-in-law, and your aunt Fanny each expect you to drive to their house for a holiday dinner ... on the same day. Do you:

1 - Forge a doctor's note and try to convince the relatives that you're suffering from lethargy, lumbago, and leprosy.

2 - Drive from one house to the next and eat three full dinners.

3 - Delegate the blame decision and let your significant other decide.

4 - Annoy all three by deciding to do what you want to do instead.


*******************
Add up the numbers to determine how prepared you are, attitude-wise, for the recession.

3 points. You have a sensitive soul, which in this economy means you're probably going to be toast. Need to try the emotional equivalent of boot camp to toughen up -- or else marry a billionaire until the recession is over.

4 - 6 points. Using food as an emotional band-aid is a bad idea when you're supposed to be tightening your belt. Can you try another approach for dealing with turmoil? (And if so, could you let me know what it is?)

7 - 9 points. You have a nice combination of optimism and sneakiness. If you can find a way to throw in some ruthless cunning and guile, you might make it through this downturn relatively unscathed.

10 - 12 points. Given the fact that people who are obese encounter more job discrimination than people who are fit, you're probably in pretty good shape in both senses of the phrase. Of course, you're going to feel pretty silly about all that exercising when the sensitive soul goes out and marries a billionaire, but that's life.

Well, how did you do? Should I do a post on the number of single billionaires in the world today, or do you think you'll get through this okay?

Graphic: Azrainman

Diets & Cults: is there a difference?

I'm a bum.

I was going to post a long, incredibly well-written and irrefutably researched review of Barry Sears' book, Toxic Fat. But I'm going to put that off until next week so I can put this up today.

(Okay, also because I still want to tweak it a bit more. It's not quite right yet.)

I absolutely loved one thing I read in Sears's book. To quote:

"Three things in life are visceral because they are based on belief systems: Religion, politics, and nutrition."

Yep.

Emotions are closely tied in with food

You know how some people get a 'gut feeling'? The gut has such a high concentration of nerve cells that it has been called a second brain. The highest concentration is of course the brain.

No, I don't care what you've heard about some men, it really is in the head brain.

If there's a second brain in the gut, would that explain why people get so emotional about the favorite diet?

Whatever you do, don't disparage the diet

It looks like people develop an emotional attachment to a certain diet, or the philosophy behind it. As an example, take this review that Diet Blog did about Dr. Joel Fuhrman's diet book, Toxic Hunger. It's a pretty straightforward review, but what caught my attention were the comments. People got emotional over whether this diet was, or was not, a good idea.

Putting down a diet plan is a sure fire way to get a ton of comments on your blog. (Ah... the real reason for this post comes out.) The blog Starling Fitness averages a couple of comments on a post; when she wrote a mildly disapproving post about Weight Watchers and the points system, she got 95 comments. People are really into their particular diet.

If this blog were being written by Ms. Crabby, at this point there would be an insightful paragraph or two about why people defend their diet plans like a lioness defending her last cub. Since she ain't here, just imagine that something insightful was said at this point.

Deep, thoughtful moment

Okay, enough already.

Being me, I have to confess that I don't get why this is such an emotional issue. Being healthy is a good thing. Yeah, I got that part. But we're all different, right? So if diet A works for me, and diet B works for Crabby, why should the two of us have a huge argument about which is better?

I think diets are like cults in that people can get really obsessive about them both.

Weight watchers is evil!

It's tempting to disparage a whole lot of diet plans so that the post would get lots and lots of comments. (Weight Watchers is evil! The Zone Diet is followed by Terrorists! Hitler was a vegetarian!) But in all honesty, I don't get it. Why can't we all get along? Or agree to disagree, or something civilized like that?