The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at drkenner.com. Gary, you have a question about emotions?

Yes.

Yeah, what?s the question?

I have actually a friend that is 54 years old. He is a fanatic about exercise, about what he eats, organic food that he eats, sleeping habits, and he is like almost not emotional about anything. He has trouble expressing emotion. And he told me that he?s bisexual. So his girlfriends have told him he?s unemotional. His boyfriends have told him he?s unemotional. And he says that there was some phobia that was listed as that, and I was trying to help him find some solutions for this, but I can't find a name of that particular phobia, of not expressing emotion.

Dr. David Burns, who?s written many books, including his early one, The Feeling Good Handbook, talks about emotophobia, fear of expressing emotions, fear of owning your own emotions. And the problem is when you try to deaden the bad emotions?typically, people deaden emotions when they are afraid of guilt or anger or fear or the negative emotions that boil up. So they feel like emotions are bad things. But when you deaden the bad emotions, you deaden them all, and so you become like a flat line. If it were a heartbeat, it's not pumping up and down, it?s flat. And that?s not good. You?re not breathing life.

Emotions pertain to values?meaning, when you think of the things you love in life, think of your kids or a good friend or somebody in your life, a partner that you love, and/or activities or hobbies you love to do, or your career. When you think of the things that matter most to you in your life and without which your life would feel like it's got an empty hole in it, it moves you. You feel emotions. And he's not allowing himself to breathe the content of life, the goodies in life, the values. And why? And then he does what? And I can ask you some more questions too, but you're saying he?s taking actions. And typically, when you picture someone who exercises or takes care of their sleeping and eating habits, what do you picture?

Someone that, you know, is complete and cares about themselves and takes good care of themselves.

I also have an image that comes to my mind of somebody who is living and breathing life, who?s laughing, who?s crying when they need to cry. This individual never does that. And so the fact?I don't know, he may be using the exercise as an outlet, as just a way to escape thinking. People do that at work.

He runs, he rides a bike 30 miles a day. And if he doesn't ride, he has to go to the gym and exercise for three hours.

Oh, that almost sounds like a little OCD going on there. They have to? I mean it?s wonderful to exercise. Three hours a day. Three hours a day. Now I'm raising my eyes, but my own son is a ballroom dancer, so he's out bike-riding early in the morning at 5:30, but he's doing it for his career. And man?

What is OCD?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where you have?

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

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What is OCD? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where you have some negative thoughts and you don?t want them to surface. Like you have ?Oh my God, what if?? thoughts?that?s typically the form.

If he's got something that he has to face, like his mother's getting older and he needs to get power of attorney to help her?yes. He does not want to face that responsibility. He shuts and shuns any type of confrontation, of reality, of urgency. He can?t make a decision. He always says this phrase of: ?Well, let's just see how it works out,? or, ?We'll tackle that later and we'll see how that works out.?

Which must be very frustrating for you.

Because, you know, it?s getting to the point where it?s becoming dangerous, because he can't make a decision. I mean, he can't even make a decision on what he wants to eat sometimes, or does he want to eat sometimes, or does he want to go, you know, to the park? Or, you know, he says, ?Well, I don?t know.?

Can you hear your own emotion in evaluating your frustration? It's frustrating with him.

Well, it's very frustrating to try to live with that person when they are in a constant state of unrest and flux. They have no sense of purpose to every day. It's just like, well, whatever randomly happens is what he'll accept is happening. And he can't make any decisions to have any goals or any achievements, because that puts too much pressure on him. Like, if he travels?which he travels every month to see his mother for a week?you can ask him, ?Well, are you going to be gone for three days, or are you going to be gone for three weeks, or a week, or two weeks?? He says, ?I don?t know until I get there.? And that?s his candid answer??I don?t know until I see what?s going to happen.?

So he's got this?

Here?s the problem: every single person who is not defective, you know, brain dead or something?every single person has to make hundreds of choices every day. How you brush your teeth, when you go to work?hundreds of choices. And so it's almost like he hates the nature of his mind?that he has volition, that he has free will. And you have no choice that you have to choose. But he can make himself into what looks like a deterministic being, where he fatalistically floats through life and lets whatever happens happen. And shame on him. Because what he needs to do is?and when I say shame on him, psychology is causal. He is the first victim. He is suffering. Because the alternative is he needs to face whatever has caused him to adopt that coping strategy. That's what it's called in Cognitive Therapy?that deadening. He needs to face those issues in therapy, because psychology is causal. I will guarantee you that there is some big issue that would make sense of why he's coping as he did from childhood.

His father died in a car accident when he was about 30.

Okay, so something like that. If he is still frozen in that state?mentally frozen?and he's just saying whatever happens happens, because you can die the next day, and I don?t know what his thoughts are. Then if he wants to live his life, he's going to need to go through the grief. He?s going to need to work with a really good cognitive therapist. You can go to my website, drkenner.com, and see academyofct.org. Oh?academyofct.org is the Cognitive Therapy website. And you want to find a good cognitive therapist if he wants that.

If he does?here?s the second piece. You?re living with him. You choose who gets into your close circle, what the cognitive therapists call an intimacy circle. Who gets in close. And if you're living with someone who brings you chronic frustration, you want to figure out?do you want them as close as that? Or do you want them a little further out? If he's a partner of yours, then you may want to help him and give him some suggestions, which I think is what you?re trying to do, and then see if you can have a new partner?if he will work on his problem and the two of you can become closer.

Listen, thank you so much for your call.

Thank you very much. And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

Look at history. Everything we have, every great achievement, has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots without personal rights, without personal ambition?

And that is from The Fountainhead. And think of what?s going on culturally today. Are we encouraged to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps? Or are we encouraged to be each other?s brother?s keeper, neighbor?s keeper, bad family member?s keeper, stranger?s keeper? Are we encouraged to live everybody else?s lives but our own? And so you want to take a close look at that.

And I highly recommend The Fountainhead. It?s one of my favorite books. It helped me turn my life around from somebody that?I didn't understand the world. And I went to Brown University and was trying to make sense of things on a fundamental level. And boy, when I read Ayn Rand?s books The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged, I went back and got my PhD and gave myself a life. And more importantly, I have a rational philosophical foundation to my life?a rational one. Not mystical. Not no foundation at all. And not just a mishmash from your childhood, but a rational one.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to drkenner.com. And please listen to this ad.

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Your ability to value romance can be helped if you have a rational approach to raising your own family. Being a parent is an awesome, time-consuming, long-term responsibility. Do not choose this role out of duty or conformity. Remember that it costs not only time and effort but also a lot of money to raise and educate a child. Plan long-range by saving money and by locating your home in a good school district. Make time for parenting and for romance. Thus you maintain parenting as a value rather than letting it turn into an unwanted duty or allowing it to undermine your romantic relationship.

You can download chapter one for free by going to drkenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at amazon.com.