The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

Kathy, you're dealing with stress, yes?

Yeah, tell me what's going on.

Well, I had a few, well, about a year ago, I had a series of traumatic events. Like within a week, my house caught on fire, someone tried to break in, I went through some storms—just a whole series of things, and I developed a tremor inside. Okay? And I don’t shake on the outside; I shake on the inside. And my question is, I've had some people tell me I should rest totally, no stress, and other people tell me I should push on through it or I'll become agoraphobic or whatever. And so I'm not sure how to handle this situation.

Okay, and this was a year ago, you said?

Yeah.

Okay, and they all happened… it sounds like you had an acute stress reaction. I mean, so many things happened at once. And notice it affects our body. It doesn’t just affect our mind, which is critical, but it affects your body and your nervous system. So you're saying you have tremors inside. Are you feeling the shakiness all the time? Or, explain to me—are you feeling it in your legs, your feet, your hands, your whole torso, or your head, or what?

Well, it starts at the top and kind of works its way down to the bottom. And if I push myself, it’s like the back of my legs really start trembling, and I have muscle twitches. And I've kind of gotten to where I don't like to go places now, because things get on my nerves that never used to. Like, I've always been a really strong person, and it’s just kind of frustrating, and I don’t know what to do about it.

Okay, the very good news is that you have strengths. You've always been a very strong person. And what you want to do, if I had that same type of trauma or injury, I would want to be very supportive of myself. There's a skill in cognitive therapy—cognitive is a fancy word for thinking therapy—that tells you to treat yourself as you would your best friend. What would you tell your best friend if she went through a house fire, a break-in, and storms in one week, and a year later, she’s tremoring? What would you tell her?

Well, I would tell her that… I don’t know, yeah…

And she was always a strong person; she wasn’t, you know, wishy-washy or just always afraid of things. What would you tell her?

Well, I would tell her those events triggered something in her mind, I guess. I mean, I would tell her… I’m not sure what to tell her.

Okay, so you’re not sure what to tell yourself either. But what happens with the best friend approach is that you approach it in a warm manner, rather than in a self-critical one. So that’s one skill that you want for yourself—when you're working with yourself, to be very loving and supportive rather than thinking, “Why can’t I get over this? Oh my God, it’s just me. Maybe I'll never change.” Those types of thoughts will make you either more relaxed or more nervous. So if you have different self-talk—what you say to yourself—if you say to yourself, “My gosh, you know, this is an out-of-the-norm experience,” meaning it doesn’t happen every day to people. This was severe trauma—my security was shaken, my home, fears of people breaking in, a house fire. And I need to deal with this on both a physical level and a thinking level. On the physical level, I want to learn relaxation techniques. Have you been trained in that at all?

No.

Oh, man. This would open up a world for you in terms of relaxing your body, because most of us don’t know how to relax. You know, we have tight shoulders, or we jut our jaw out, or clench our teeth, or shake our legs or whatnot. And people don’t know that it’s a skill to actually be able to release the tension in your body. And there are three basic methods to do it.

I have to interrupt because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. You. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where’s that ad I saw? Here it is—The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com, huh? The Selfish Path to Romance, that is interesting.

There are three basic methods to do it, and you can use them all in combination too. But one of them is, if you’re relaxed, let’s say, what’s the most relaxing situation for you?

When I’m laying down. Sometimes I get so nervous I just have to go lay down, even though I don’t want to sleep. I just lay down on my stomach and think about good times in the past.

Wonderful. Because one of the skills is making those special good times in the past very good imagery, whether you were at a beach, in the mountains, with family, or during very good moments. Collect them in your mind—maybe only one or two, maybe three, maybe you want a whole book of them. But imagery helps to recapture your world for you, and that will relax your body. Another thing is muscle relaxation. If you tensed your fists right now while we’re talking, and kept them tense, and then gently let them go, let them float. Just relax your fingers as they release, and think of your fingertips unraveling. You can feel that it’s more relaxing. And when you do that, you can learn what’s called progressive relaxation, where you go through your whole body, learning how to relax each muscle group: the muscles in your face, arms, torso, legs, learning to relax yourself. There are a lot of nice books, maybe a workshop you could go to, or maybe work with a therapist. And another thing is your breathing. When we get anxious, we tend to breathe more superficially. If you can learn nice, relaxing breathing, it can put your mind into a better state. But the payoff is actually the thinking component. I would recommend a book, Mind Over Mood, that you can get at my website, DrKenner.com. And what you want to do is figure out, when you get anxious, what is triggering it. What thoughts? And I know we only have a second or more left, so I’ll talk with you offline. But what thoughts are triggering it? Fear of a house fire? Fear of break-ins? You need to deal with each specific thought and be able to answer it to restore your sense of safety again.

And here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner.

I’m not sure I understand—you've got the brains, I want you to tutor him. Percy is flunking history. I think it seems to be able to motivate him.

Hey, I'm challenged! You’re lazy, self-involved, and spoiled. That’s quite the challenge. So you’re going to take on a little teaching job. I know how you enjoy teaching, yes, but I still have classes and I know Rosenberg, it's time to give something back to the community.

I know you want to help your school out here. Ask me how I know. How do you? I just know.

That is a perfect example of unearned guilt—not earned guilt, but that global phrase you may have heard, or used on yourself or others: “Oh, I should give back to the community.” I remember listening to one person who said, “You know, what did I take from the community?” It’s not like you stole something and you have to give something back. And guess how, if you wanted to use their language, you give something back to the community? You make yourself into a person you love, pursue your dreams and goals, become benevolent and warm. You don’t have to sacrifice. The minute you make people give up and tutor somebody they don’t want—like in the case of Buffy—or give up their time, their energy they would rather spend with their children for some cause they don’t care about, “giving back to the community,” you need to avoid that trap of unearned guilt. If you've earned the guilt, you need to make amends. But if you haven’t, know the difference.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

Here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Drs. Kenner and Locke:

Help protect one another against stress. Consider Sandra, who felt overwhelmed by stress. Although her job was intellectually challenging, her boss was bad-tempered and critical. He never praised good work and constantly blamed subordinates for bad results, most of which were due to his own poor leadership. The hours were long and unrelenting, often including weekends. Sandra went home every day in a tense and resentful mood. After this went on for months, she asked for help. Her partner, Scott, suggested she seriously consider quitting her job, taking a rest for a while, and then searching for something better. He showed her how their budget could be adjusted to compensate for her lost salary. Sandra took his advice, and her stress diminished dramatically. She subsequently found a better job with much less stress.

You can download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at amazon.com.