The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

This is a call that we got on our after-hours line. And this is when you're a kid, you can have a lot of fears. I had fears of cats and dogs biting me. I had fears of spiders. Yeah, I feared the class bully. You can have lots of fears growing up. I even feared the boogeyman, but here is a fear that one mother is dealing with in her daughter that is a very rare fear. She is afraid of the weather. Listen to this:

"Yes, my daughter is having some personal issues with weather this summer, and kind of worked herself into a frenzy and throwing up at watching weather reports, and I'm happy to block the Weather Channel from her TV. I just wanted to see how I could handle it with her. And you know, I've tried to relate with her, but it's just so extreme."

Okay, if a daughter is throwing up at looking at the weather report, you know what’s running through her mind. If we had an audio track of what her thoughts were versus what my thoughts are when I look at the weather, mine would be, "Oh, yeah, you know, I better bring an umbrella today. It's going to rain," or "It's hot out today, I'll wear lighter clothes." Those are my thoughts. Her thoughts might be, "Oh, my God. What if there's a tornado here? What if I die? What if I lose my kitty? What if a flood comes in and I no longer have my beautiful bedroom that I love? What if a tsunami hits us and I don't know how to swim and I lose my parents? What if a hurricane hits us and it blows the roof off of our house or does so much damage, and I don't have my swing set anymore?" If we were to hear her actual thoughts, we would hear that she got them from somewhere, probably from watching news, because there’s been a lot of weather in the news recently, and especially if you have access to the Weather Channel, you don't even have to have something bad currently happening in the news. You see tsunamis. You see the devastation. If you listen to any talk shows, you hear people who had lost loved ones in floods. You hear them talking about how painful it was to go through the losses of all their belongings, of their loved ones, of their future hopes, of their career, of their home. So it's loss after loss after loss. I don't know what images are in your darling daughter's mind, but I think that if she could talk them through, you have a much better chance of putting them in a rational context. You can't just tell her, "Don't worry," because these are real concerns. She's seen the imagery, but just seeing all the pictures culled from all over the world doesn’t tell you your current risk factor. Her risk probably, where you live, is very low that any of these big things are going to happen to her. It's remote, so that’s what she has to grasp. You could go to a cognitive therapist to help her out, a therapist who deals with thoughts and helps her to put her thoughts in a rational perspective, and teaches her thinking methods so that she isn't prone to doing this with other issues in her life—catastrophizing. You could just draw her out, if you wanted to, and let her talk about what her genuine fears are, without laughing at her, without making fun of her, and then telling her the facts that make her fears unfounded. Facts are terrific here. So again, listen specifically to her. Get her the therapy help, if you think that will help. That would give her lifetime skills too. You can get a book for yourself that's on my website, Mind Over Mood. It teaches a thought record for adults. Now, I would not necessarily give her that book if she's young, but you could teach her a thought record. I've taught young kids to do a thought record, and it's amazing—the same cognitive therapy methods that we use as adults, kids can use it. They put it on a big whiteboard with colorful markers, and they love it. So again, you need to know why she is terrorizing herself. What is the thought content? And then help her put the news in a rational perspective. I was told when I first went on radio 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 Alan will 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."

Then, help her put the news in a rational perspective. I was told when I first went on radio that, "Ellen, you've got to put gory stuff in here. You've got to really get the sensational stuff on radio. Otherwise, people will tune you out." I was told that in the news media, they know that "if it bleeds, it leads," it'll become the lead story. If it's a bloody story, people don’t want to hear a feel-good story, such as my husband having a hip replacement and going out dancing about a week later. They don't want to hear that stuff. They want to hear that the operation went…what is it? It went south, and it went bad—that my husband's crippled for life. They found aliens. It's like they want to hear weird stuff. Well, I disagree with them, but the news media is driven by that "if it bleeds, it leads." So, your daughter is hearing the bloody stories from around the world. She needs a dose of really healthy stories, of good weather stories, and that's what you want to help her with, to help her hold context, to put her fears in perspective, and I wish you some very good success with that.

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

This is a sad one. A woman writes, "I'm nine months pregnant, and my spouse gave me an STD, a disease. I know he cheated, because he has been the only one I've been with, and I got an STD. The only way you can get that is by somebody picking it up sexually." So he swears he didn't, even though I've gotten rid of it. Should I try to work on our relationship or let him go? Now, you're nine months pregnant; by now, you probably have your child, and this is a very painful decision. Did your husband deceive you right in the midst of bonding even closer, having a child together? Well, first, I want to let you know that pregnancy and the first two years of having a child are the roughest on most relationships, because sex goes out the window. Mom sees herself typically as a mommy, the breasts are there for breastfeeding, not for feeling, thank you. And it's a real difficult time for the guy and for the woman too. The woman will feel guilty because it’s not enough sex. So I would really encourage a partner to open up, tell him, "Level with me. I know we may not have been having as much sex. Tell me, did you do anything?" If he is a chronic liar, dump him, because you don't want to be married to him anyway. If he's a good guy that just cheated one night—let's say he went for a lap dance and then bought something above and beyond that but hadn't done anything else—it may be repairable. I would get the book After the Affair that's on my website by Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring. My website is DrKenner.com, and hopefully that will help you out.

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

"You're not perfect, sport. Let me save you the suspense. This girl you met, she isn’t perfect either, but the question is whether or not you're perfect for each other. That's the whole deal. That's what intimacy is all about. Now you can know everything in the world, sport, but the only way you're finding out that one is by giving it a shot."

That's from Good Will Hunting. That's obviously Robin Williams. And what do you do if you're in a relationship and you're really, really, really attracted to someone, but the person is not perfect for you, and they're attracted to you, but you're not quite perfect for them? How do you deal with those situations? You have to figure out what it is that's not perfect. Is it their looks that you don't like? Well, can you be married to someone whose looks you don't like at all? I mean, if the looks… let's say that I don't like tall blonde men, and I'm married to a tall blonde man, and he's a really good man, but you know, when I wake up in the morning, I just… I don't like his looks. That’s a problem. So you want to be able to realize that you're not going to get everything that you’re looking for in a romantic partner. Some of the things will be moral issues. If the person's dishonest, then you want to dump them. But if it’s just looks, and it’s something you think you can live with, or if it’s something that you don't like, the way they’re messy around the house—they drop their clothes all around—but you think you might be able to live with them, then those are the trade-offs. You will have some trade-offs, and then you grieve the losses. "Well, you know, I won't have anybody that looks… I won’t have a partner that looks exactly what I am looking for, but I will have somebody that gives me so much. It’s such a rich relationship, and I will gently grieve my losses and move on. I'm not going to grieve them for life. I'm just going to say I'm willing to accept this trade-off." So when you're looking for a good romantic partner, you want to do the thinking work. And then, as Robin Williams said, you need to check it out. You need to test it out.

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

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner:

"To sustain a positive emotional climate, both partners need to have an attitude that encourages personal growth. When couples don't grow together, they often grow apart and end up unhappily married or divorced. Couples are in danger if there are significant differences in the way they grow their lives. For example, one may grow in intellectual ability, character, or self-esteem, and the other may not. If one is ambitious, expanding his or her life and making it interesting, while the other stagnates or grows at a much slower rate, the discrepancy often leads to the breaking of the loving bond, leaving the couple mismatched, even if they initially were well-matched. Partners need to grow together, intellectually and emotionally, for a relationship to thrive."

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