The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

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

Right now, I want to turn to the phones and invite Mary. Mary, you're dealing with some crying. You're crying a lot, all the time. Yeah, tell me what's going on.

Well, it seems like my emotions are so out of control. Like I get very, very angry, or I'm crying all the time. I don't know what's going on.

Okay. And the screener said that you're going through menopause.

I don't know. I had a total hysterectomy when I was, gosh, I was 33 years old.

Okay, and how old are you now?

Forty-eight.

Okay, so first, it's always a good idea just to get a medical checkup. If the doctor says you've got a clean bill of health, there's nothing wrong medically with you, then that's fine. But let's take a closer look, assuming that you get checked out medically. Let's see if there are any possibilities that it could be psychological, because that would be good news.

Why?

Because it can be fixed. You can fix it. Yeah, it's in your control then. So what goes through your mind that would make you angry or crying out of control?

Well, I had a very rough year.

Okay. What happened?

I lost my brother unexpectedly.

Okay. What happened there?

He was killed. He was hit by a guy who wasn't paying attention in the car.

Okay. He was riding his bicycle?

Okay. And so he got killed. And then my father has cancer, and my mother told me today that she accidentally took too many of her Ativans and thought she almost OD?d. And ever since she told me that, I just can't stop crying. I've always been the strong one. I've always been able to handle stuff in a positive way. And now, for some reason, I either get extremely angry and go into a rage or I cry. And I'm so tired of crying.

Okay.

I did go see a psychiatrist, but they want to put me on all these pills that make me zombified. And I don't want to not feel. I want to be normal.

Okay, so what you're doing is you're wanting to value your own mind. You don't want to just be doped up. They say pills don't teach skills. So you don't want to be doped up. And if it was something where you definitely needed pills ? I mean, I almost got shingles once, and I needed a pill. No psychiatrist or psychologist could help me with that. I just needed to take a pill. Then obviously you use the medication. But when you don't need medication, when you can see that there's a cause, then you want to be able to address it.

So number one, you need to know that every emotion has a theme ? T-H-E-M-E. Sadness is our subconscious, our mind's way of telling us?

Hey, I've got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Dr. Ellen Kenner will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship.

Boy, 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.

Hmm. The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

Sadness is our subconscious, our mind's way of telling us that we have experienced a loss ? L-O-S-S ? and the bigger the loss, the bigger the sadness.

And so if, as you tell me, you have been traumatized multiple times this year by the horrific loss of your brother in a bike accident ? suddenly, he was healthy, I'm assuming, he's out there riding a bike ? so that is what they call an unanticipated death, and it's also an untimely death. When people die when they're 95 years old, that's what's considered a timely death. It's at the end of their life. But when you have someone relatively young dying when they're healthy, that is trauma. That is huge trauma.

And if you don't give yourself permission to go through the grief and then simultaneously build a parallel world for yourself ? and there's nothing mystical about that ? it just means connecting to the good things that remain in your life that are important to you. Mary, it's important to grasp that that's what sadness is.

So you have a father who has cancer. You have a mother who made a decision ? I don't know what happened, but it certainly sounds scary to me. If my mother called me and told me that, I would wonder about her stability. I would wonder about what's going on with her psychologically or medically, and if she's dealing with the losses too. I mean, it's really hard for a mom to want to go on after they've lost a child. And she needs you desperately, I'm assuming. And you need her.

She has six others. I mean, come on, what about the rest of us? So I feel like I didn't just lose him, but I lost her too.

Yeah. And when you feel that things are not fair, guess what emotion we feel when our subconscious evaluates the situation as not fair?

Crying?

Well, that's loss. Crying, yes. Yes, anger is ?it's not fair.? Big anger ? and big, huge, very big anger ? is rage. That's what you said. And that's saying something your mind is picking up is not fair. It's not fair that your brother died, right? It's not fair that this guy hit him. I mean, even if the guy was doing what we all do, you know, some distracted driving, it still is not fair, right? It's a huge loss in your life. It's not fair that your father has cancer. Now obviously, these are medical things, so it's not that someone's doing anything. It's not fair that your mom took Ativan. Was she suicidal, or was she just?

She takes it normally. She takes a lot of it normally.

Yeah, but I think she needs to monitor things, because that burdens you and the other children in the family, because she doesn't know how to cope without it. So she needs therapy ASAP. Good cognitive therapy, okay? A good cognitive therapist. And you could use it too, because the sooner you learn how to read your own mind ? which is what we're doing with the anger and the sadness ? this happens for every emotion, for guilt, for happiness.

Happiness is the achievement of values. And believe me, Mary, you need a huge ? you need to overdose on that right now. You need to connect with any friends or anything that you enjoy, whether it's music or hobbies or something, while you're also grieving. Not simultaneously, but you need to take breaks from the grieving and reconnect with your life.

Yeah, I'm so disconnected.

Yes. So listen, thank you so very much for calling. You may not need to visit the doctor about menopause, but it may be very important to rule it out. But yes, go to my website and pick up some cognitive therapy books, especially Mind Over Mood. DrKenner.com ? D-R-K-E-N-N-E-R dot com.

Thank you for joining me. I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner on the Rational Basis of Happiness.

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

When I was in seventh grade, I was the fat kid in my class. I was the one that all the pretty girls used to make fun of every day. After school, I would come home and flip through the pages of my mom's Vogue and Glamour and look at these women ? these perfect, beautiful, unbelievable, skinny women. I couldn't understand why I didn't look like them. I just didn't get it. So I became bulimic.

Bulimic doesn't mean that you can read minds. Bulimic is an eating disorder, and you can just feel what it's like. And it may have brought you back to times in your life when you just felt so sad. You just see that you're not perfect, like the way you think perfect should be. But you need to rethink that. Because if you want to be thinner or have a better shape or be more exercised, those are legitimate values ? not an eating disorder, not binging and throwing up, or taking diuretics, or starving yourself, or doing things to your body that are not healthy. But really, truly valuing yourself and pursuing those values, whether you want, as I said, a good body or to feel fit ? those are values that are worth pursuing.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com, and please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner.

One way to cherish your partner is to be reasonably generous with your time. Cook a special meal. Make your partner a romantic card. Write a tender email that expresses your love accurately. Or take the kids for the day and let your partner have the day off. You might also offer to run errands or do chores if your partner is busy with a work project.

Generosity sometimes involves sharing one's belongings. There may be particular objects you don't want to share, such as a toothbrush or comb. But there may be many things you can share with pleasure, such as favorite cookbooks, clothes, sweaters, T-shirts, caps, cars, food, laptop computers, and cameras. Of course, partners shouldn't take unfair advantage of one another by monopolizing something the other person needs, such as a computer.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.