Thoughts

The glory in life is not in never falling, but in getting up every time you fall.
-many famous people

It is a good thing for leaders to know when they are appreciated
-one not so famous person

Procrastinating

It is a talent of mine.  Maybe a talent of everyone.  Putting off the things that we don't want to do.  Sometimes putting off things that are, in and of themselves harmless, but they are related to something or some outcome we don't want.  

I am doing it right now, writing this blog post instead of packing and cleaning my apartment, because I don't want it to be Sunday night, and I don't want to have to leave tomorrow morning, and it was so incredibly beautiful here today, and the city is still beautiful and warm and alive, and I have to leave my dog, and the pool and running by the river, and friends and my really comfortable bed, and my Apple computer, and yummy food and.... ok, I'll stop, cause this is just making it worse.  

Denial

Definition

a defense mechanism, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit the fact but deny its seriousness (minimisation) or admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility (transference). The theory of denial was first researched seriously by Anna Freud. She classified denial as a mechanism of the immature mind, because it conflicts with the ability to learn from and cope with reality.

Types of Denial

Denial of fact: This form of denial is where someone avoids a fact by lying. This lying can take the form of an outright falsehood (commission), leaving out certain details in order to tailor a story (omission), or by falsely agreeing to something (assent). Someone who is in denial of fact is typically using lies in order to avoid facts that they think may be potentially painful to themselves or others.

Denial of responsibility: This form of denial involves avoiding personal responsibility by blaming, minimizing or justifying. Blaming is a direct statement shifting culpability and may overlap with denial of fact. Minimizing is an attempt to make the effects or results of an action appear to be less harmful than they may actually be. Justifying is when someone takes a choice and attempts to make that choice look okay due to their perception of what is "right" in a situation. Someone using denial of responsibility is usually attempting to avoid potential harm or pain by shifting attention away from themselves.

Denial of impact: Denial of impact involves a person's avoiding thinking about or understanding the harms his or her behavior has caused to self or others. Doing this enables that person to avoid feeling a sense of guilt and it can prevent him or her from developing remorse or empathy for others. Denial of impact reduces or eliminates a sense of pain or harm from poor decisions.

Denial of cycle: Denial of cycle is where a person avoids looking at their decisions leading up to an event or does not consider their pattern of decision making and how harmful behavior is repeated. The pain and harm being avoided by this type of denial is more of the effort needed to change the focus from a singular event to looking at preceding events. It can also serve as a way to blame or justify behavior.

Denial of denial: This can be a difficult concept for many people to identify with in themselves, but is a major barrier to changing hurtful behaviors. Denial of denial involves thoughts, actions and behaviors which bolster confidence that nothing needs to be changed in one's personal behavior. This form of denial typically overlaps with all of the other forms of denial, but involves more self-delusion.(source: Wikipedia.com)

Banks, foreign relations, credit cards, relationships...
Why do we all work so hard to avoid short term pain when the long term consequences are so much more vastly difficult to deal with?

Instincts and bad decisions

Instincts, we all have them. Bad decisions, we've all made them. Theoretically (at least on some level) one is supposed to keep you from the other. But as I am sure all of us can attest, that is not always the case.

But let us disect that conclusion a little.

I am going to argue that with many bad decisions, our instincts do tell us to do otherwise, we just choose to ignore them and make the bad decision anyway. Yes, of course there are exceptions, but generally if I look back on the many, many bad decisions in my life, right before nearly all of them, I felt this funny twinge in my stomach, and I didn't listen!

Why do I ignore this time tested signal? Do I really think this time will be different than all the ones before it? Do I really think that the accumulated knowledge, or reason, or common sense, or just plain fear that combine to create a surge of adrenaline that causes my stomach to do a flip flop will be wrong? Why can my "rational" brain overpower my "irrational" gut, when usually my "irrational" gut is right? I mean WTF?

I think maybe it is not quite that simple.

Pain II

Sharp, shooting, knife pain demands instant action. Reflex like responses make us cower or change position or flee. That is pain that is easy to know what to do with. The cause and effect are closely and obviously linked.

Dull pain that creeps around the edges, that stays in the shadows and gnaws, that we fend off, that we can feel coming nearer, that waits for our weakness, a crack in the wall of protection we have built. That kind of pain is much harder to figure out. The cause is often hidden, or delayed, or it is caused by some habitual action that we don't even realize we are doing.

How do we overcome this cowardly pain when it doesn't want to show itself? Must we let ourselves be weak, let the pain over take us, see what comes of feeling it? To do so feels like giving up, this being weak and succumbing to the pain. But maybe that is the only way to overcome it. We can not keep up the walls, I know we don't have the strength for that, and the pain is too much of a coward to come out and fight, so maybe surrender is the tactic.

Surrender?! Is it so ingrained in me to think of feeling an emotion as surrender. Emotions are meant to be felt. Pain is a very useful and instructive feeling. Why Why Why!!?? Do I see it as weakness.

There have been more than a few yoga classes, where at the end of the class during the last 15 minutes when we are quiet that I have lost the battle to fend off the pain, it all comes crashing in on me. Probably the only 15 minutes in my week that I let down my guard. Scary, but ultimately healing. Another common time is at night when I lay down just before I fall asleep. Sometimes randomly (thankfully this is pretty rare) last week when I was waiting for water to boil, or in response to a song I hear on the radio.

I realize that this maybe is kind of a dark post, but it shouldn't be, right? Pain is something we all deal with everyday. It shouldn't be hard to talk about.

Pain

So I hurt my back about a month ago. I first hurt it in college and ever since the same injury seems to crop up every couple of years. Usually it gets better within a week if I just rest. However this time, I have not been resting, I have been trying to continue training for a triathlon. My back doesn't hurt when I am running or biking or swimming, so it wasn't hard to keep doing those things. But it has continued to hurt when I am not working out. So this week I told myself I was going to take the week off and let myself get better. So far it is not working. I am frustrated that my back still hurts, and I can't seem to figure out how to make it better. I want to know what I can do to fix it (I suppose I am kinda like a man that way).

Additionally I was just starting to really enjoy training and now I don't have an outlet for my energy and work frustrations. But I really really want it to feel better, so I will try to be patient.

The worst part is the last few days it has been worse not better. I can't figure out if it is from sitting at a desk all day, or if the working out actually was helping my back in some ways and maybe I just need to find the right combination of workouts to make my back better. Grrr...

One good thing I have learned is that the most likely reason for me hurting my back in the first place. So that is good for the future, I know what I need to work on to keep it from happening again. However, I just want to feel better now. Funny though, I don't want to take advil because in my mind that is just masking the problem and not allowing me to work with the pain to try and figure out how to fix it. However pain makes me cranky and I mostly want to go home (not travel) so I can go swimming and get a massage, and maybe even see a doctor (however extremely unlikely given my schedule).

So that is my whining for the day. Interestingly enough there are so many great lessons to be taken from what I just wrote. Bet you can't wait to read them :)

The Silver Lining

So every Monday my coworkers and I have Silver Lining Lunch, where we list off the things that are either good about being staffed in Buffalo, NY for the winter, or we try to think of places that would be worse. Our funny little ritual emphasizes the importance of finding the positive in our lives.

I grew up thinking that life was generally good and bad things only happened every once in a while. However over the past year, I have done a 180 on this topic and now am pretty certain that there is infinite capacity for sad or bad in our lives and much more limitted capacity for good things. Therefore it is crucial that we celebrate the good. We have to accept that the bad is going to be there, always in the background, and that there will always be the potential for more bad, but we choose to focus on the good.

There are many examples of people who went through terrible things, like cancer or loosing a spouse, things that you would think covered them for life. But then something else terrible happens to these same people. Stories like these remind me of two things

1. the enduring human spirit - the sheer strength that humans have to overcome tragedy
2. life's infinite capacity for bad and the absolute choice we must make to celebrate good

Celebrating good is a choice. One that we must continually remind ourselves of. Because for whatever reason we focus on the bad when that is exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing. We must look for the silver lining.

Adventures in Between

One of my classmates was inspired to start blogging on her job search in the worst economy in decades. I am sure lots of other good things will creap into her blog too. Check it out.

adventuresinbetween.blogspot.com