20MAR2013

Clumsy Solutions

by Petar Sardelich LMFT/PT/MAC in abandonment, abuse, addiction,anxiety, behavior, boundaries, counseling, critical thinking, depression,ego, emotions, feelings, friends, intimacy, letting go, loss, marriage and family therapy, mental health, mindfulness, Pasadena, perception,philosophy, principles, psychologist, psychology, relationship,relationships, responsibility, sadness, self esteem, self help, self worth,service, spirituality, suffering, therapist, therapy, treatment Tags:addiction, counseling, depression, loss, pasadena therapist, principles,psychology, self esteem Edit

For many years now, I’ve noticed something that I think is pretty interesting.

We all have similar problems.  Problems of love, death, loss, fears, mistakes, power, our bodies, work, school, relationships, resources, abuse, abandonment, depression, addiction, self worth and the like.  In one way or another, most of these touch all of our lives.  Our responses to them too, seem common between us- we all have “bad” feelings and “good” feelings associated with these experiences.

It appears to me, that we also have solutions in common.  But what’s strange about it, are the solutions themselves.  If we just look at the “problems” (for shorthand purposes) we have in our lives, and our response or “reaction” to them (or as I’m calling them here, “solutions”, though we may not see them as such in the moment), the way we deal with them from this perspective is tragically ineffective.

Here’s what I mean, more specifically.  The way I see us (and of course, have done myself in many cases), is that we respond to perceived problems with (in no particular order):

  1. Avoidance, procrastination.
  2. Using our limited human intellect, and our limited human will, coupled together as a salve we cover everything with.
  3. Drugs, alcohol, food, spending, money, property, prestige, gambling, etc. ad nauseum.
  4. “Codependent” behaviors (oversimplifying: doing things for others that they can and should do for themselves, so that we don’t have to feel bad for one reason or another).
  5. Lying (or, in addict nomenclature, “manipulating”… insert tongue-in-cheek emoticon here), often, when telling the truth would be easier.
  6. Perfectionism.
  7. Control.
  8. Enduring untenable circumstances or relationships.
  9. Isolation.
  10. Ruminating.
  11. Reasoning with “unreasonable” people, or in circumstances that may not always be subject to such (there’s a large philosophical question here that can’t be addressed in a blog, hope the spirit of the thing comes through…).
  12. Self obsession.
  13. Being critical.
  14. Thoughts or attempts of suicide or related self harm.
  15. Worrying (the behavior… not to be confused with being afraid- as John Bradshaw once opined, “Worrying is like beating the drums to keep the evil spirits away.”).
  16. Pride or ego.
  17. Lashing out verbally or physically.
  18. Intellectualizing…

Et cetera.  This is clearly a truncated list, but am hoping most of us can see our most frequent responses here.  What I’m hoping to get across (at the risk of reiteration) is that these are our responses to perceived problems, and arguably, when observed, appear to be solutions that we employ to a whole host of life’s difficulties.

More striking to me is what’s absent from the list:

  1. Emotional availability, disclosure, and the like.
  2. Asking for help (having a “responsibility partner”, other similar ideas).
  3. Responsibility.
  4. Having “boundaries”.
  5. Kindness.
  6. Critical thinking skills.
  7. Service focus on others.
  8. Writing (and preferably, sharing that writing with one or more people).
  9. Art (painting, sculpture, music, performances, poetry, etc).
  10. Honesty.
  11. Support groups, 12-step meetings, or other types of community.
  12. Amends.
  13. Mindfulness.
  14. Meditation.
  15. Diet, exercise, natural healthy sleep.
  16. Being self supporting through one’s own contributions mentally, emotionally, physically and “spiritually” (for lack of a better term).
  17. Acceptance.
  18. Therapy, counseling, coaching.
  19. Community, relationships.
  20. Intimacy.
  21. “Non intervention”, being still.
  22. Forgiveness, “letting go”, and other similar solutions.
  23. Gratitude…

Seems I’m laboring the point here (hopefully in a continued effort to be helpful).  Have long looked at my own old behavior (though it still shows up sometimes!), and of course the behavior of others, and as I see “problems” come up, inevitably, I see the first set of responses above.  Often, repeatedly and perpetually for the same problem and/or new ones.  Have also observed that these responses almost inevitably make things worse, or create new problems.

While the second set of ideas don’t always “solve” things (sometimes, when honest, simply in the shadow of our own limited perspective), when practiced, my experience is that we all start to feel better about things, and certainly act better.  Very rarely, do I see the second set of  ideas create or perpetuate more problems.  Making a practice of replacing our first responses in the first section with the ideas in the second section, has been life changing for me, and lots of my clients.  If the theme rings any bells for anyone, would love to hear/see other ideas.

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