Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
No, not seriously ill, but miserable enough to render me basically good for nothing. So I’m writing this now to explain why none of you wonderful people have heard from me. My intentions were good. I had promised my house sitter to post regular accounts of this trip. Instead I was exhausted from coughing myself out of sleep for at least a week and a half. Closest thing I can remember is whooping cough as a child, tho’ not officially that. Then followed a period of sleeping constantly and feeling lousy in between. My nutritionist won’t like it, but I finally saw the ship’s doctor for an anti-biotic.
I have managed to squeeze in some excursions which I hope to blog about later. (But both my cameras needed a battery recharge, so no great videos to offer.) I think I’m recovering. Planning later today to participate in a walk on the Rock of Gibralter. Pushing it.
So I just finished going through almost a thousand e-mails. Presumably every room on the Koningsdam has WiFi access, but our cabin is the last one in the rear of the ship, and it doesn’t quite reach us, so I have to travel to other parts of the ship to log on (to my very expensive package.)
By the way, with all the wonderful food, my appetite has gone underground. Oh well, I expect things will pick up, and I’m glad I’m here.
My real purpose is to tell all you who have tweeted and re-tweeted things about me and “Figs & Pomegranates & Special Cheeses” that I greatly appreciate it and would, under ordinary circumstances, be thanking you. So please accept this as my thanks.
And thanks, too, to you who have commented on my blog who haven’t yet received a reply. And the newsy folks who have sent me interesting e-mails to which I may never get to respond.
Life is good. I have to be grateful that being sick is such a rarity for me. I think the last time I felt this awful (except, maybe, for the accident) was when my daughter was two and I taught through a bout of viral pneumonia until my Doctor finally ordered me home and to bed. What a relief!
Anyway, thanks. I hope this reaches you, and the next blog will be much more joyful.
Figs & Pomegranates $ Special Cheeses is getting nice exposure these days on Twitter. Now I’d like to know more people are reading and enjoying it. So, if all goes as intended, the Kindle version should be available in a day or two for $0.99.
I’d be overjoyed to see your review on amazon.com. In the meantime, you might enjoy reading the reviews that are already there.
And thanks!
One big truth behind caring about the use of “I” or “You” is the question of responsibility. For a simple example, the difference between “Did you understand me?” and “Did I make sense?” is the attribution of responsibility.
And attribution is a wiggly thing. When I stumble, I look for the crack in the sidewalk that I can blame. When you stumble I may look for the crack, or I may wonder what you did to cause you to stumble? We see the same action differently when it’s “you” doing it rather than “me.”
Some of us are really good at depression, so we may be quick to blame ourselves for things that we really had no control over. We may even be quick to blame ourselves for things that happen to other people.
But more generally, the tendency is to find an outside responsibility – luck, or other people, for example — for unpleasant things that happen to ourselves and claim our own responsibility – competence, for example –for good things that happen. With others, quite the other way, we aren’t so quick to see that bad luck caused the problem for the others, but rather we look for the fault in them.
It’s really handy to do things like blame the working poor for their own poverty rather than to recognize the social/economic truths at work. It’s equally handy to look at our own success and pat ourselves on the back for the good work we’ve done rather than appreciate the social/economic gifts we’ve been given.
This is tough business, but if the goal is to save therapy expense, or even just to like ourselves better, it’s a good idea to look at the rationality of our attributions. Problems don’t get solved until our attributions become more accurate.
So now, when it comes to selling my books, it’s not that I’m poor at marketing, it’s your fault for not buying them.
I’m delighted to kick off a series at Auburn Homes and Services here in Chaska at 6:00 p.m on Thursday, April 14. It will be a challenge to do something useful with such a complex topic as forgiveness in such a small amount of time, but I think I’ll provide something worthwhile. And providers can collect CEUs by attending these offerings.
I’d love to see you there.
When, as in my last post, I advise people to avoid using “you” because it is so blaming, I encourage the use of “I” because it is honest. But just like the pitfalls related to “you,” there are hazards in using “I.”
Consider when I say, “You make me feel so angry.” It’s good to recognize a variant on the thought attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. “No one can make you angry without your cooperation.” It’s more honest to say, “I feel angry when you say/do things like that.”
It’s that basic issue of control again. “I” am the one responding with anger. “I” can decide how to handle my anger. “You” can control what you do. “You” can decide to refrain from such behavior in the future in order to avoid contributing to my angry feeling. Or you can choose to decide that I’m being ridiculous. Or you can realize that what you said/did was appropriate, and maybe there’s some conversation needed between the two of us. Or whatever. The point is, “I” am responsible to myself and “you” are responsible for “you.”
Whenever “I” hold you responsible for my reactions, “I” am not only being dishonest; “I” am ceding my power and control to you.
As a general rule, I prefer the “I” word.
But, of course, there are other things to consider. “I” can be a very selfish word when it attempts to turn the focus of attention on “me” and away from “you.” Consider a few examples. There’s the sympathetic listener whose first response is, “Oh, I know just how you feel.” — No, you don’t!
Or maybe there’s the “sympathetic” response that goes like this. “Let me tell you about my accident/operation/breakup/whatever.” No, I want you to listen to me! I’m hurting and I need someone to hear about me. When you start your “I” comments, you are not showing support for me.
Another example of the undesirable use of “I:” We’ve all experienced it, I’ll bet, like when we have – or overhear – a conversation between two people on a date and one person is doing most of the talking, with lots of “I”s.
So yes, “I” puts the focus on the speaker, with all the aspects of honesty and control mentioned at the beginning. Or “I” puts the focus on the speaker with little concern for the “you” of the other person.
For all these reasons, I developed the practice when teaching a class never to ask “Do you understand?” (potentially blaming) But rather to inquire, “Have I made myself clear?” (acknowledging my responsibility as teacher/lecturer.)
Whew! “I’m” finding it hard to make my point clear. Only “you” know whether I have.
In general, I suggest to people that they never use the word “you” except to say something positive like “I love you,” or “You did such a great job on that project.” But there is another way that “you” becomes a positive word, as in “I’m so interested to hear your opinion about that,” or “Please tell me what interesting experiences you’ve had around that issue.”
But I still advise caution with that word “you.” Too often it’s a shaming word, as in “Why did you fall for that scam,” or “You should have known better.”
Worse yet, it’s a blaming word, as in “I lost because you gave me bad advice,” “Everything would have worked out OK if you hadn’t interfered.”
Sometimes it’s a blaming word even when it’s meant to be inspirational. I heard recently of a lecture session in which the speaker recounted the historically bad ways in which an ethnic group had been treated. At the end he suggested to the audience something like “You have a chance now to go out and rectify this situation.” Many were heard as they left saying something like, “Why should I be blamed for something I didn’t do?” It’s that word “you.” All by itself it’s heard as an accusation.
Maybe the most annoying use of the word “you” is when it’s intrusive. I’d be willing to bet each of us has experienced the negative effects of this, and done our share of “you” intrusiveness in speaking to others. It happens most often, I think, when people are trying to be helpful. The person in financial, emotional, or other difficulty is bombarded by friends and other helpers attacking with, “Have you tried … ?” Why don’t you …” “You should …” “If you’d only … “Had you thought of … ?” Put them all together they amount to shame and blame. The victim of the unsolicited help is usually too polite to say, “Come off it. Do you think I’m stupid? Of course I’ve tried everything I could think of. Get off my back.”
The promise of “you” is a matter of respect. When I ask to learn more about you and what you did or do, it may come through as intrusive. Or, well presented with genuine interest, it may be experienced as a neat opportunity to share oneself with someone who cares.
Now I’ve told you what you ought to know about the word “you.” Are you sufficiently annoyed yet?
OK, now that my “Crash” is out of the way, I’m back to offering rules that – should you decide to accept them – will save time and money devoted to therapy. Well, maybe not, but I hope they are helpful.
So, what is “cognitive dissonance?” Well, first of all, lets go back to the issue of control. One thing control requires is a feeling that things make sense. Cognitive dissonance refers to the times when things don’t make sense, because we are trying to hold and/or act upon two (or more) conflicting beliefs. In order to restore a sense of order, we’ll change one or the other (or both) so the two are no longer in conflict. The other alternative is to avoid recognizing the conflict and basically give up trying to make sense. Let’s try a couple of examples.
Representative Donaught (obviously a made-up name) ran for office because he believed that to establish economic equity in the community is a basic moral requirement. Once he was involved in the political game, he discovered that the only way to stay in office to fulfill that moral requirement was to accept large financial contributions from people who expected him to support causes which would ultimately undermine his goal of economic equity. The stage was set for cognitive dissonance. It might be stated this way: the moral responsibility to work toward reducing inequity vs. the need to commit himself to causes that would maintain inequity. What might he do?
In order to stay comfortably in office, he may change his opinion about the morality of his contributor’s causes and vote to support them because he now sees their cause as good. He may decide that he was being too rigid in his earlier beliefs. Or he may stick to his original moral view and refuse the contributions, potentially being voted out of office. Or he might accept the money without modifying his moral convictions, consequently maintaining a high stress level resulting in psychological symptoms like perpetual anger, or maybe depression, or perhaps physical stress symptoms. And his constituents might complain that he is a do-nothing representative.
Maybe the potential for cognitive dissonance is a reason to prefer public officials who are super wealthy in their own right.
And don’t forget, this will all become more complicated if he isn’t wealthy and needs to stay in office in order to support himself and his family.
Or maybe changing his moral standards vis-à-vis the reason for public office will spill over into other issues, leading, perhaps, to formerly unacceptable personal behavior like sexual affairs. Now poor Mr. Donaught is really in a potential mess. I hope he had a back up plan before he decided to run for office in the first place.
Anticipating cognitive dissonance might be a very good idea before making an important behavioral decision.
Oh, but, most of you who have had the patience to read this far have no plans to run for public office, though it may be a good idea to increase understanding of those who are already there.
So, why read on… ?
How about parenting?
Try this. “I’m punishing you only because I love you.” Cognitive dissonance. “The person who is hurting me says it’s love.” Which is it?
The child may conclude, “She doesn’t really love me. If she did, she wouldn’t hurt me.” Or, “hurting me is part of loving. Love hurts.” Or, given the superior power of the parent, the conclusion may be, “She must be right. There’s something wrong with me. I am bad.” Or how about this, “If this is love, I’ll try to avoid it.” One way or the other, the child has to modify the understanding either of love, or of hurt. Or maybe this could contribute to denial. “It isn’t really love,” or “It didn’t really hurt.”
Maybe one of those conclusions is one the parent really wants to encourage
(I hope it’s obvious that just one event isn’t going to change the child’s whole understanding of love, life, and relationships. I’m way oversimplifying here.)
How about applying this to spousal abuse?
And then there’s the cognitive dissonance some of us pick up in some churches. “God is love, but some things you do are so bad you may spend eternity burning in hell.” Personally, I’d rather give up the belief in hell. But maybe the best move is to get away from the church that’s delivering cognitively dissonant messages. (Again, oversimplifying for the sake of making a point.)
“Mona is good at making things clear; Mona has just messed with my brain. Mona has just created cognitive dissonance.”
I messed up yesterday. Let me be clearer today. To access my story of the April 15 accident and subsequent events, go to forgivenessoptions.com and click on “Crash” at the top.
Just go to monagustafsonaffinito.com to get to the right place. (cross my fingers.)
I goofed the first time around. If you click on my recent entry now it will take you to the right place.
