On Balance, Where's Your Attitude?

Last week we looked at attitudes (What’s in an Attitude? Only Peace of Mind) and how they affect peace of mind. Now let’s get down to brass tacks with practical examples in an area we all struggle with at different points – relationship conflict.

Relationship conflict is certainly in the top 10 causes of stress and anxiety for most of us. Conflict can take the form of verbal and physical fighting or appear more subtly as avoidance, repressed anger, resentment, grudge-holding, silent treatments, disrespect, and dishonesty.

Here are some familiar (if negative) responses to conflict with others:

We blame others

• “They did [X] to me, so it’s their fault we’re fighting and they should be the ones to apologize and make this right!”
• “That person is [fill in the blank ______________; eg., selfish, mean, rude] and does not deserve my effort to resolve this.”
• “I’m right and she’s wrong!”

We blame ourselves

• “It’s all my fault, if only I hadn’t done [X], this would never have happened!”
• “I’m such a mess-up, I should just withdraw and not address this, and pretend it never happened. I’ll just keep my mouth shut from now on.”
• “No matter what I do, I get into this kind of conflict. There’s just no point in even trying!”

No matter how we respond, the basic fact is that most people do not like or enjoy conflict with others. We want to feel peaceful and happy in our interactions with others.

Here’s the amazingly good news about conflict: We can feel better whether or not the other person cooperates!

But how do we do this? How can we feel better when it seems to depend on someone else – don’t we have to deal with that person directly and have a resolution first?

The answer is no. We can feel better, whether the other person is involved or not, by changing our attitudes. When we improve our attitudes, we can directly affect our feelings about conflict.

Applying Improved Attitudes

If we truly want peace of mind, we can replace old attitudes with new ones. The first step, as always, is to practice awareness. Recognizing those negative attitudes and acknowledging them opens the door to trying something new. Here are some examples of improved attitudes in relation to personal conflict:

How Do I Get From Here to There?

As with all personal change, improving our attitudes takes time and effort. It’s a process of trial and error that looks something like this:

• Become aware we have negative attitudes
• Understand how they are playing out and how they are affecting our relationships
• Decide to try something different
• Brainstorm options for responding to conflict the next time it comes up
• When conflict arises, try to apply one of those options
• If we’re successful, look at what worked and what didn’t, and continue to improve our responses
• If we’re not successful, allow credit for trying, don’t beat ourselves up, and keep thinking about options for the next time

In a previous article (Finding Peace of Mind After a Conflict Depends on No One But Yourself), I shared my formula for dealing with conflict. It’s incredibly simple and simply works. Next time you run into conflict with someone, try using it to sort out your feelings, attitudes, and approach to resolution:

Inner Work First

1. Get clear about: a) How you feel – identify the feelings, b) What you were reacting to? – describe the behavior/situation/activity that the feelings arose from, c) That you are responsible for your reaction, no matter how “bad” the other person’s behavior.
2. Look at your part in the situation and examine your attitudes – can you admit the role you played?
3. Decide if you need to apologize for your part.
4. Determine what you want to say to the person to express your perspective.
5. Explore your motives for saying it.
6. Practice expressing your feelings with a trusted friend or write them down before communicating with the person you’ve had the conflict with.

Working with the Other Person

1. Come from a place of clear intention and good will. To do this, use “I” statements so that you stay in your own perspective and reduce temptation to comment on the other person’s intentions, motivations, behavior, or attitudes.
2. Admit your part in the conflict and apologize if that’s important for you.
3. Ask for what you would like/need from the other person to feel resolved now or in the future.
4. Stay detached from the other person’s response (good or bad).
5. Stay centered in good attitudes and intentions.
6. Let go of the outcome.

While the process is simple, it is not easy. It’s iterative, meaning we must go through it over and over again before it starts to come more naturally.

Attitudes underly our experience of life. If we want to feel better and have peace of mind, we must dig under the surface of our reactions and look at what’s causing them. Remember that we are never too old to change. It is always possible to improve our relationships, and it begins whenever we decide to begin.

So start today! And if you stumble over the first efforts to change, you can just start again. Every conflict is an opportunity to improve your attitudes, and thus your level of peace. Try it. Ready, set…go! 

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Photo credit: Brenda Starr

Our series on Peace at Any Point kicked off with the idea of making a PACT with yourself to: Practice Attitudes, Characteristics, and Techniques. Since practice applies to all three, we’ll weave it into our explorations of attitudes, characteristics and techniques. Today the focus is on attitudes.

at·ti·tude
noun
1. manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, especially of the mind: a negative attitude; group attitudes.
—Random House Dictionary

Attitudes have had a significant impact on the quality of my life. I started off with a set of pretty negative assumptions, including:

• The world is not a friendly place; it’s safer to hide than to risk being myself
• There is no purpose or spiritual direction outside of my will; I must make my own way and success in life
• I am not worthy of love, attention, or value
• My feelings are determined by other people’s feelings
• It’s my job to make everyone around me happy
• I don’t match society expectations for beauty and behavior, so I must be a loser
• Life is deadly serious – there’s no time for fooling around

These attitudes led me down the road of depression through college and into early adulthood and working life. Though I appeared to “function well,” I felt an inner emptiness that I tried to fill with romantic relationships. I thought if I had a boyfriend and the potential to meet societal standards of marriage and family, then I would feel whole inside.

As I’ve shared here before, it took an abruptly canceled engagement and four long years in an alcoholic relationship to bring me to the willingness to face my negative attitudes about life and to decide to change them.

How’s Your Attitude?

Attitudes shape our perspectives and are sometimes difficult to even recognize. And attitudes are contagious. So the question is: Are yours worth catching?

• Do you bring people down when you’re with them?
• Are you easily affected by others’ negativity?
• Do you get sucked into gossip sessions and use them to feel better about yourself?
• Are you envious of what others have?
• Do you suffer from self-pity?
• Do you pick fights, or are easily provoked into arguments?
• Do small things annoy you disproportionately?
• Do you find yourself naysaying others or putting them down?
• Is your instinctive response to invitations and opportunities to say no?
• Are you critical and judgmental toward yourself and others?

Answering yes to any of these questions may be a clue that you have underlying negative attitudes about life.

I wish changing attitudes were as easy as slipping off a negativity nightshirt and putting on a positivity parka. Unfortunately, changing attitudes is not like changing clothes. As I discovered, it takes a big first step – one of waking up and becoming aware. Before we can change, we must recognize the attitudes that have brought us to a place we don’t want to be.

For me, I had to hit a hard bottom – a place of pain so deep and sustained that I became willing to face my negative attitudes and begin to do something to change them. I realized that by living out my fear, self-doubt, anxiety, and insecurity, I was making myself miserable. How did I know? I was completely focused on someone else – a boyfriend – as the source of my peace and happiness. If he was not well, happy, and healthy, then how could I be? My attitudes and beliefs turned me on myself. I had no worth without a man; I had no peace without control over his moods and behaviors; I had no safety when he defied society’s expectations. If I kept on with this approach, I would soon lose myself completely, along with any shred of sanity or serenity.

And so I began the hard work of turning my attitudes around. I didn’t know how to be positive, but I didn’t want to live in deep fear anymore. I had to find a bridge from my accustomed ways of thinking to new ideas. I eventually found a set of practices that helped me work on attitudes, but each of us must find our own way to change.

Changing Attitudes

Although each of us must follow our own specific path, there are some general principles that guide changing attitudes. It’s important to:

• Consider that our perspective is not necessarily the only way to see things
• Be open to changing the way we think
• Let go of having to be right
• Embrace our humanity – everyone makes mistakes and it’s not the end of the world when we do
• Have compassion for ourselves and for others – stop listening to that harsh judge in our heads
• Take responsibility for our responses to the world – when we stop blaming others, we can find a lot more relief and serenity

In future posts we’ll look at ways to put these ideas into action. Changing attitudes takes a lot of practice – a theme we’ll be returning to here again and again. I couldn’t make an immediate shift from believing I had to manipulate and control my way through life to letting life unfold and trusting I would know what to do when it was time to do it. That shift has taken huge effort, a number of years and many tears as well as some laughter – largely at myself.

If you’ve had experiences with turning your attitudes around for the better, please share the process and the methods you’ve used. Everyone has to create their own path to peace, but we can all gain from others’ experience, and incorporate ideas that might work for us.

Next in the series, we’ll continue looking at attitudes, and also begin a discussion of the characteristics needed to effect internal change.

To keep the flow of articles coming from Insanely Serene, subscribe now. You’ll also receive a free copy of the e-booklet, One-Liners to Restore You to Sanity:

Photo credit: kg.creative

At this time of year, we often talk of and hope for peace on earth. That goal is too large for one individual to effect – but each of us can start creating peace for all by focusing on creating peace within ourselves.

As the year nears its end and we rush about in a holiday frenzy, many of us wish we could just stop the world and get off for awhile. Follow the example of a traveling monk and crawl into a cave for a month, or a year, or several. Peace through isolation may not be realistic, but there are methods for fostering calm in the midst of chaos, methods that can be used at all times of year and for all of life’s conditions.

What would you give for peace at any point? Are you willing to trade in your anxiety and worry? Would you invest time and energy to learn new ways? How about giving up your resistance to change? These are among the costs for securing peace at any point in your life.

Finding peace at any point requires:

• Practice. Putting in lots and lots of practice.
• Attitudes. Changing from negative to positive.
• Characteristics. Building the traits that support change and growth.
• Techniques. Finding and committing to a discipline – a path that works for you.

Are you ready to make a PACT with yourself? Are you ready for peace at any point? Let’s take this journey together. We’ll explore individual stories of change, hear from some experts, and contribute our own ideas in the process.

Change is often a slow, incremental process. It starts, then stops, jerks along, and might even run smoothly at times. The important thing is to keep moving forward at whatever pace makes sense for you.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
—Vincent Van Gogh

Next week look for articles on the topic of Attitudes and for the announcement of a new contest for generating ideas for peace of mind with special prizes for winning entries.

Subscribe now so you don’t miss the next articles in this series!

And the winner is…María Ortega García of Online Spanish Tutor! María submitted this collage representing the places and activities that bring her peace of mind:

Thank you, María, and look for the Serenity Basket coming your way!

More submissions will be featured in upcoming posts.

In Sanity and Serenity,

Linda

Photo credit: Gayang3

I don’t know about you, but my mind drives me crazy. Left to its own devices, it will run endlessly over the to-do list, throw worry after worry in the mix, play the game of “What If,” catastrophize from minor mishaps, torment me over errors small and large, and then ask me what the hell is wrong with me?!

For years I lived in this self-imposed torture, comfortable in my discomfort. But in all that time what I wanted most was peace of mind. Not wealth, not fame, not material goods, but peace in this fear-ridden, anxiety-driven brain of mine.

But how to find peace in the sea of insanity that is daily living? Everything around us tells us that our mind’s messages are correct and the only way to succeed. We must drive ourselves into the ground checking things off the list, being productive, and proving our work ethic to be successful in our careers. Likewise at home, we organize, schedule, repair, and take care of others. All of this relies heavily on the same crazy-making mind that then beats us up if we don’t get it all done well, on time, and just right.

Is it possible to escape the lunacy? Staying in our minds makes us crazy. No matter how much we do, how well, and how often, there’s always more. We drive ourselves relentlessly with no break, continually striving for resolution, achievement, success, perfection.

So what can we do to end the insanity?

The solution is obvious: we’ve got to go out of our minds.

“Are you out of your mind?!” you ask me, “my mind keeps me on track! Without it, and despite – or maybe because of – the judgment that comes along with it, I’d never get anything done!”

I’m telling you now, that is not true. Yes, the obsessively organized mind is important and can play a role in our lives. But it is not the only tool we have. When I say we’ve got to go out of our minds, I mean go out of our limited, fear-based mind. Expand into a greater world of knowledge that we have access to.

I had to go out of my mind to find peace. I’ll tell you how I did it.

Slowly. With great effort. Step by step.

It’s not an overnight transformation. But I did find relief along the way, and you can, too.

The first thing to recognize is this: the fearful mind – you know, the one that keeps us on the hamster wheel? – that’s not all there is to us. We have access to other aspects of mind, other ways of knowing. I don’t just mean intuition, though that is certainly part of it. I’m talking about trusting ourselves more deeply and drawing on a lifetime of knowledge that we have accumulated through thousands of experiences. When we open ourselves to these possibilities, we can begin to short-circuit the anxious mind.

It takes commitment – but not perfectionism.

It takes time and repetition – but it’s ok to forget, and remember, and then try again.

It takes practice – but no one is judging your performance.

It takes others – no one is an island, and if others have survived self-torture before you, why not learn from their experience?

If you’d like to learn more about how to short-circuit the crazy-making mind, stay tuned. Over the next few weeks, Insanely Serene will launch a new series on the process of finding peace of mind at any point. The series will include practical tips for getting started, developing a self-care routine, expanding access to your own wider knowledge, and sustaining a practice in peace of mind.

In this new Peace at Any Point series, I’ll share my own experiences of moving from depression and self-hatred to self-care and serenity, and offer perspectives from other experts who use a variety of techniques to bring themselves back to peace of mind time and again.

Because life will keep happening. And while no one is exempt from life’s extremes, it is possible to learn to weather them gracefully, gratefully, and well, and to feel good about yourself through the process.

I hope you’ll tune in again as we start this journey toward peace of mind together.

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Photo credit: KerryLinn Terace CowGirlZen Photography

Turkey isn’t the only thing to gobble today, and it’s not even the tastiest. As we celebrate the end of the fall and a bountiful harvest, the best thing on the menu is gratitude. It’s better than food for so many reasons:

• It’s an attitude anyone can choose at any time – no matter what’s going on (and holidays can come with plenty of drama, to be sure!)
• Gratitude feels good
• It can drown out negative thoughts and thinking
• Once we focus on gratitude, it makes everything else look brighter
• It’s contagious, and can help others shift their attitudes toward feeling good
• Gratitude is linked to love

Here’s the thing about gratitude – when we focus on it, we go out of our minds. In a good way! We go out of our analytical minds – that monster that needs to control things to feel ok – you know the one? When we go into gratitude instead, something short-circuits in the monster mind, and suddenly we’re free floating. The action of conscious gratefulness helps us access…another space in the mind. When we stop controlling with the analytical mind, and focus on the things we have and appreciate, it opens a door to the unknown. The hope of something different, something better.

Choose to be GRATEFUL and embrace:

Goodness – Gratitude feels good. It helps us focus on what’s good in ourselves, others, and the world. It takes us out of our normal mode, our analytical brain, and gives us access to a feeling of well-being.

Reality – When we acknowledge and accept things the way they are, and even have appreciation for them without judging them as “good” or “bad,” we are living in reality. We have a much better chance of finding peace when we simply accept life as it is and adjust our attitudes toward the positive.

Appreciation – Every human being has a deep need for appreciation and the best way to receive is to give. Look around for those things – large and small – that you can appreciate in others.

Tenderness – To be grateful, we need to be a little bit vulnerable, willing to open ourselves to feeling good, believing the best about the world, choosing goodwill over suspicion. Gratitude requires and engenders tenderness for ourselves and for others.

Effort – Since our minds tend toward the negative, it takes effort to focus on the positives, to look and notice and give consideration to the people, events, and world around us.

Fun – Choosing gratitude is a lot more likely to lead to having fun than choosing negativity. Wouldn’t you rather feel good, laugh, and enjoy yourself?

Unity – Gratitude generates compassion – both for ourselves and for others. By recognizing the good in each of us, we see each others’ humanity and foster unity over disharmony.

Love – The door opened by gratitude leads to love, unconditional, unquestioning love. Love bathes the mind, soothes negativity, brings peace, just plain feels good. Whenever you have a chance to step through that door, don’t miss out.

Take the gratitude challenge today:

• Really look at someone whom you don’t like or get along with and try smiling at them
• Say thank you and mean it at least 10 times
• Write a list in the morning of 5 things you are grateful for; write 5 more at night
• Whenever you have an uncharitable thought about someone, think of something you appreciate about that person
• Give something to another that you wish they would give to you
• Do a kindness for someone without their knowing it
• When you sit down to eat, suggest to your Thanksgiving party that each person say something they are grateful for
• Play a game – using the alphabet go around and have people name something they are grateful for starting with each letter

Gobble the goodness!

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

—John 8:32, King James Bible

The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.

—Gloria Steinem

The recent post on denial discussed how blinding ourselves to the truth is sometimes an essential life coping mechanism. Some truths are too painful to face and still “survive” emotionally. Denial is important, an ability we need to honor in ourselves. But we don’t have to stay in it forever. There may come a time when we would rather face the truth than continue to live a lie or a false illusion. But when? And why?

When is it Time to Face the Truth?

Every individual will have a different starting point. But I believe there is a commonality for all – we face the truth when staying ignorant of it is actually MORE painful than looking at it.

I suppressed many of my emotions for a good part of my life. It was too painful to express the full range of anger, sadness, happiness, etc. To survive an environment in which I did not learn how to handle emotions, I stuffed them down and stayed mainly in sadness. I lied to myself, pretending everything was fine and preferring to stay in numbness than to open Pandora’s box. Eventually, the build-up of mental pain – in the form of unhealthy romantic relationships – and physical discomfort – a tight throat, constricted breathing, and the chronic feeling of tears – led to a crisis. When I got into a relationship that I could neither move forward in nor get out of, the pain of suppressing emotions became greater than the comfortable discomfort of denial.

How Do You Know if You’re Ready?

Recognizing our own denial is our responsibility. No one can do it for us. Even if people point it out to us, we may be unable to hear or see what they’re saying. Likewise, there is no way to make someone else break through their denial if they are not ready. And denial may be multilayered. We lie to ourselves in many ways, and we often come to face our truths a layer at a time. Stripping away all layers of pain would be like ripping off a bandage, causing more harm than good. What we need is gentle management of the wounds to allow them to heal.

So how do we know if we’re ready to face some truth? Here are some of the signs:

• Desperation – We have tried the same things over and over and nothing is changing.
• Obsession – We have thought through and obsessed over the situation ad nauseam and still don’t see a way out.
• Avoidance – We know deep down that there is something to look at but we’ve been avoiding it, and now we realize unless we do, we’re going down – into depression, anger, rage, aggression, catatonia, name your poison.
• Mental pain – The noise in our heads can get so loud it interferes with normal functioning – or at least with our ability to enjoy what is going on in the present. When we are stuck in mental pain, with tiny glimpses of an alternative, we might be ready to try another way.
• Feeling alone – Often when we avoid the truth, we isolate ourselves and believe we are alone in our pain. This is a sign it’s time to reach out and consider another perspective – which might help us get to the truth of what’s going on.
• Physical symptoms – We feel it in our bodies – sick stomach, pulmonary distress, ulcers, restlessness/anxiety in the limbs – get to know your body’s signals that something’s wrong.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Denial may feel like a chronic, aching pain, but at least we are used to it and it has become bearable. Facing the truth is often the opposite – acute, hot, stinging, and severe. To take it on, we need lots of help – maybe even a bit of body armor.

Taking these actions might help you prepare to face your truth – and help you come out of hiding behind denial sooner than later.

Gather inner resources

• Give yourself options for expression – Reading, writing, talking with trusted friends, meditating, praying.
• Practice non-judgment and acceptance of yourself – Remember that denial is a survival mechanism; we don’t have to beat ourselves up, simply acknowledge that it served us well and we can trust ourselves to find another way forward.

Get support

• Lean on friends – It’s hard to do this alone; look for others who have gone through their own crises, or who are otherwise open to hearing your struggles, and share from the heart.
• Use “sandwiching” – Whenever you’re taking a big step to face up to something – whether yourself or with other people, get support before and after the event.
• Tap your network – Take advantage of all connections that might help you face truth and keep you buoyed up – phone, text, online communities, blogging, social media, writing letters (yes, the old-fashioned way); keep the love alive at all times to raise your spirits.

 Do the follow-up

• Put back up in place – No police officer goes into a dangerous situation without back up; likewise, don’t jump off the cliff of truth without a net. Have a plan for the inevitable fall-out – whether depression, anger, or any other wild emotional swings.
• Deal with backlash – Often when we step out of our comfort zone, we stir the pot and disturb relationships with others; you may get negative reactions to your truth-telling – you may get positive ones. Are you prepared to handle either or both? Make sure you plan ways to calm and soothe yourself in the aftermath of doing something new and different.

In the end, the only way to heal a flesh wound is to clean it and continue to treat it. Just so, we will never heal the perhaps less obvious wounds of our past until we expose the truth, accept it, and let it go. It hurts, that’s for damn sure. But left to its own devices, an untold truth will fester and rot, causing us a long and ultimately more painful demise.

Photo credit: Espen Faugstad

Photo credit: Linda Wolf

Driving along New England country roads this week, I realized how much serenity I feel when my eyes are filled with the crispy colors of autumn. The amazing pop of fiery red and brilliant yellow against the blue sky perfectly satisfies my senses, and drive all worry and anxiety from my mind.

And it gave me an idea:

I invite you to participate in a contest – “What Brings You Serenity?” Answer this question by submitting a photo, essay, poem or other expressive work to Insanely Serene. The deadline is December 1, 2011.

All submissions will be entered into a raffle for the chance to win a prize – the Insanely Serene Serenity Basket:

Prize: Serenity Basket

It’s a basket full of peace, including Wayne Dyer’s beautiful book, 10 Secrets to Success and Inner Peace, Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith, a tin of loose Awake tea by Tazo, some soap, and a candle, plus a surprise bonus item.

I’ll also publish the best works over the next few weeks so we can all bathe in the energy of calm and serenity.

Send your submissions via email to linda (at) insanelyserene.com.

Can’t wait to hear from you!

In Sanity and Serenity,
Linda

Photo credit: Walt Stoneburner

Special Notice: This post was originally published  in The Infopreneur. Since it is no longer available there, I republish it here for your reading enjoyment.

denial

[dinī′əl] Etymology: L, denegare, to negate

1. refusal or restriction of something requested, claimed, or needed, often causing physical or emotional deficiency.
2. an unconscious defense mechanism in which emotional conflict and anxiety are avoided by refusal to acknowledge those thoughts, feelings, desires, impulses, or facts that are consciously intolerable.

—Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.

In my experience, I have found denial to be an excellent coping mechanism for surviving my own life and an extremely frustrating phenomenon to run up against in others. It serves a purpose – it protects us from truths we are not ready to face. Too often, though, we carry it too far and forget once we get past the trauma to go back and look more rationally at what we were avoiding.

Denial in Myself

As a child, my home life was fraught with emotional conflict. My response was pain, and then avoidance through withdrawal into my own world of books and imagination. Over time, I also bottled up my emotions so I would not have to look at them. As a result, I managed to get through my adolescence and college years, but under the cloud of depression. I knew I was depressed, and I knew it was related to pushing down my emotions, because my throat had a constant lump in it from keeping them corked up in my body. But to face the pain and the unexpressed emotions felt much scarier and more painful than the depression and bodily discomfort. My denial protected me from what I thought would be intolerable pain.

Although many people were concerned for me and tried to help me, breaking through my denial had nothing to do with them. I’ll tell you what forced me to my knees. The first time, it was a relationship in which I felt ambivalent about my partner. We came up to the question again and again, “Fish or cut bait?” The pain of being unable to commit to the relationship but also unable to let go of it forced me to take action. I finally started facing my bottled up emotions, letting them out in a safe environment and dealing with ancient hurts and neglected, gangrenous wounds. I had to clear out the garbage before I could even begin to address the current relationship issues. In the end, I recognized I was only hanging on for reasons of security and fear of being alone, and I ended things with my boyfriend.

The second time I broke through my own denial was when I was dating a man I was madly in love with. I couldn’t understand why he was so unreliable and would often fail to keep his commitments. When I found him one night passed out and surrounded by beer bottles, the light dawned. He had a drinking problem! I went on to try to “fix him” in every conceivable way, until I realized I was beating my head against the wall. I finally had the breakthrough – in focusing on him, I had been distracted from the real problem – looking at myself. This led to tremendous internal work to uncover the source of my need to control others and to begin to take true personal responsibility for myself, my thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Denial in Others

I’ve run into denial in others in many forms and find it frustrating, irrational, and sometimes outrageous. It boggles my mind when a person stares me in the eyes and basically tells a lie, yet really thinks he or she is telling the truth. But now, when I run into irrationality and, frankly, insanity, I can recognize it. I know I’ve run into a deep-seated survival skill still essential to this person’s ability to function. Challenging it leads to arguments and bad feeling. Take the example of my boyfriend who drank. He’d tell me he’d stop, and he’d mean it at the time, but it was an unconscious lie. Because drinking was covering up some deep intolerable pain for him. Turning to alcohol was actually a solution that had become another problem.

So I’ve learned my lesson. I no longer beat my head against the wall, trying to convince anyone in denial of the obvious realities clearly visible to anyone who really looked. These days, I let them be. But I protect myself, too. Denying reality can negatively affect relationships, and I prefer honesty and transparency. I prefer admitting my weaknesses so I can work on them and acknowledging my strengths. I’ve moved away from close relationships with people too far into their denial, and even let some friendships go completely.

Suggestions for Dealing with Denial

In Yourself

• Are you feeling a great deal of pain? Or perhaps deep in depression (which for me was caused by suppression of feelings)?
• Are you ready to try something different than you’ve always done? Can you identify what you are avoiding?
• List what you’ve tried already and brainstorm new methods for doing something different.
• Consider a radical step for yourself, something you have resistance to. For example, making an appointment with a therapist, signing up for a self-help workshop, trying a meditation center, or attending a 12-step meeting as an experiment.

In Others

• First of all, know that you have absolutely no control over someone else’s defense mechanisms.
• Rather than trying logic with the person, see what happens when you stop challenging and simply let things go, let them be. They’ll stick with their behavior no matter what you do or say, and they’re more likely to actually hear themselves (and their lack of rationality), if you stop arguing with them.
• Instead of engaging with the person’s denial, turn your attention to healthier pursuits. With the extra time, go to the gym, practice your craft, pursue your passions.
• Modeling healthy behavior is the best action you can take to inspire others in denial.

What is your experience with denial? Have you had your own breakthroughs? How have you managed it in others? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you were subscribed to www.insanelyserene.wordpress.com, please resubscribe here using the handy sign-up form in the right menu. Everyone who subscribes will receive the new e-booklet, Insanely Serene: One-Liners to Restore You to Sanity. This little booklet is a collection of quotes and phrases previously published on the blog in a series of posts about interrupting negative thinking.

Thanks go to Niall Doherty and his special offer at 50dollarblogs for making the change happen and helping me through the transition. For those of us who are less technically savvy, I highly recommend his easy-to-access and use services. Plus his customer support, including clear and short screencasts, is beyond compare (and nicely enhanced by his Irish brogue).

Insanely Serene will continue to focus on explorations of moving from anxiety and insanity to serenity and peace of mind. Look for more on Self-hatred/Self-love, Truth Telling, Letting Go, Trusting the Universe, and Sustaining Serenity. If you have topics or questions of interest, please send them along for us to examine together.

In Sanity,

Linda Wolf