The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Aisha, you're worried about if you're not feeling quite right?
Aisha: Yes, yeah.
Yeah, tell me what you said. You said you're not feeling that well. You want to know what you're experiencing.
Aisha: Yeah, I've been having some trouble in my life lately. I just had a recent breakup, and my financial fee has not been so good, and lately I have just been something really lonely, depressing and easy, but I've been noticing that when I start to think about things, like I begin to feel anxious, like my heart begins to race, and I don't fully, fully feel at ease, like I have problems sitting still, like I pace back and forth, and I just wanted to know, like, what exactly am I experiencing?

In a nutshell, what you're experiencing are the symptoms of a lot of uncertainty in your life. You need to make choices, and it sounds like you've made some, and you're in a situation which—I'd like to frame it as temporary. You don't want to be here forever, right? But your finances, would you say that you're totally comfortable with them? Or do you think you have some uncertainty about finances?

Aisha: Well, I just started a new job. It was a part-time job, but I was offered a full-time position, so I know that my finances are going to come together pretty soon, but it's like, in the process, I can't keep myself from worrying about things.

Okay, here's what I was getting to: the point that anxiety is due to uncertainty. If you have uncertainty about the relationship—you know, what was going on there? Did he reject me? Did I reject him? Was it a mistake? Was it not a mistake? Was it relief? Will I ever find anybody else? You know, if you have any of those types of thoughts, and if you predict a negative future—What if I... What if I... What? What if I never find anybody? You know, what if I don't find anyone as good as he was? Was he a good guy or not a good guy?

Aisha: He was a very good guy.
A good guy. And how did it break up?
Aisha: I guess we just really grew apart. He's impatient. I'm a full bear—
You're what person?
Aisha: I'm just not fast-paced.
Oh, so you have a more comfortable pace in life, and he's on the fast track.
Aisha: Yeah.
Okay, so you broke up. So you feel like that's an appropriate breakup, then. He wasn't angry with you. He wasn't an alcoholic. Are you drinking at all or using drugs? Okay. Or self-medicating any other way?
Aisha: No, no.
Okay. Here's what I want to say. When you're juggling several different uncertainties in your life—things and some self-doubt, you know—and you start predicting a negative future—what if things turn out badly? What if I don't pull my finances together? Guess what emotion your mind gives you? The self full moon—it gives you a lot of anxiety. That's that revved-up feeling that you said—your heart racing, that you're pacing back and forth. When we have anxiety, that's a signal that—

Hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Aisha, we'll be back.

Romance.
"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.

When we have anxiety, that's a signal that there are uncertainties or some self-doubt that we want to work on. We want to bring them out of the closet and look at the thoughts that are generating that. Let me tell you one of the things that happen when I get nervous, and when you get nervous, and when my husband gets nervous—by which I mean when anybody gets nervous—we trigger a part of our body that is called the autonomic nervous system.

I'm not going to go into details on this, but it is life-saving. If I were about to cross the street and a Mack truck is coming towards me, I don't want to be chilling, do I? I don't want to be here. I want to be revved up. I want to be anxious, because that will save my life. Is that correct?
Aisha: That's correct.
When we have Mack truck thoughts—the thoughts such as, "What if something bad happens? What if I don't have a boyfriend? What about finances? What about..." fill in the blank—you know, something in your future. That's a Mack truck thought, and it's going to create the same—it's going to trigger the same normal response in our nervous system.

So the first word I hope you hear is that it is normal. It's just your autonomic nervous system triggering. Here's what typically happens. You may—different people experience different aspects of these, because we can't all be aware of all of them—but some people feel their heart racing, or they can be moving, you know, agitated, you're moving back and forth, sweating, sometimes a little shakiness or choking feeling, sometimes a little nausea, sometimes even dizzy. But all of this is just your autonomic nervous system. That's all it is.

Here's where the problem comes in. When people feel this intense anxiety, they don't know what it is—like yourself—and they start to say, "Oh my God, what if I'm losing control? What if I'm going crazy? What if I'm dying? What if I embarrass myself in public?" They give themselves, "What if..." fill in the blank—something very negative. Which—does that—is that going to relax them or agitate them more?
Aisha: That's going to agitate them more.
So all you're doing is dealing with some anxiety. And if you see that that's normal and don't make it into an anxiety disorder by focusing on it, but just try to figure out how to work on the finances, how to work on the loneliness—to find some friends or family—and how to understand the relationship breakup and maybe find someone new.

So listen, I know we're right at the end of time here. Thank you so much for your call, and I wish you a lot of success in having a happy life.

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

And right before the break, I was talking with Donna, who has a 20-year-old college student, and she's just really concerned about her daughter. Her daughter has been passing out, sleeping around, even wetting in her pants. They think that it's—she thinks that it's—she's just an alcoholic. Her other daughter went to visit her and verified that it's like, "Oh my gosh, my sister's out of control." And she was always a good kid until her boyfriend broke up with her.

So what do you do in that case? How do you reach out to your own daughter? One of the things that we couldn't get to on the air a few moments ago was that if you try to force her mind—if you try to say, "Wake up, you know, pull yourself together. What the heck are you doing? You have to go to therapy. All the you have to, you got to, you ought to"—people resist that. People resent it.

And what I suggested is coming—is that you try to find your own daughter's ambivalence. You try to look for the part of her that is unhappy with the drinking, is unhappy with the poor grades or the sleeping around. And you catch those moments. "I know a part of you doesn't want to look at it, and it sounds like another part of you is in a lot of pain, honey. Let's talk about that. I can remember better times, and tell me a little bit about that." You try to reach out through their ambivalence, and that helps.

I also had recommended off the air that there are wonderful alcohol-treating people—cognitive therapists who can treat alcohol dependence. I have a book in front of me: a coping skills training guide by Peter Monti and several other authors. Now, this is obviously for group therapy or to do with a therapist, but there are good resources out there.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:
"You’d be quite a handsome girl if it weren't for your eyes."
No one's told you?
"Well, you’d be quite a gentleman if it wasn't for your manners."

And that's from The Miracle Worker. That's Annie Sullivan, and boy does she have guts and courage. And what do you say when someone delivers you an upside-down compliment—meaning it isn't a compliment, it's an insult?

And how do you answer them? Do you just let it slide and just turn the other way and bury the resentment? If there's someone close in your life, that kind of matters. If there's someone that you might never see again, it's just—you give them the cold shoulder, and that's it. You know they have to go through life with themselves. You don't have to deal with them, and it's over.

But I think her comment was great: "You would be a gentleman if it were not for your manners." Manners really matter. If you think of people that you might have lived with—whether it's roommates who are messy, or who burp, or who expel gas, or who just don't open a door for people, that are rude—they matter. They matter in romantic relationships.

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, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Edwin Locke:

"Good communication cannot save every troubled relationship, but effective communication is essential to all successful romantic relationships, and it can save many relationships that might otherwise fail. Your communication style and skills determine how intense conflicts become, how long they last, how complicated a single issue or a laundry list of complaints, how many people become involved, how many aspects of your life are affected—home, work, sex, family relations—how the conflicts are ultimately resolved, and what emotional scars, if any, such conflicts leave on the partners."

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and buy it at Amazon.com