Dr. Doner’s Blog

I don’t know about you, but 2007 contained a lot of fear for me.  

As the stocks dipped, so did the safety net of savings. As people had less disposable income, less was spent on non-essentials. People resorted to well-known comfort measures—food and cigarettes, not powerful change techniques such as Hypnotherapy.

 

My income suffered as has the income of millions of Americans. Construction is down, so I meet licensed electricians bagging groceries in Wal-Mart.  Restaurants are hungry for customers. And we don’t even have to mention the roadside signs of struggle–foreclosure signs, “Will mow your lawn”, or “Fill dirt cheap.”

 

We are tightening our belts and we are worried.

 What to do with fear?

We all have our strategies. Turning to action— such as better marketing and skill-building. Feeling safer—such as not-spending, hoarding, trying to control what we can control.

Positive thinking, prayer, imagining success, denial, complaining, bonding with others…

Whatever our time-tested coping techniques have been, we use.

 My question is always this:How can I use this adversity to make me a better person? 

Just asking the question every morning brings answers everyday.

 

For example, that we are all in this mess together and I shouldn’t take it personally (sort of like the hurricanes). And, although this uncertainty is nothing compared with terror in Sudan, I can relate to their suffering with more compassion. And it’s easy to imagine just how little bad luck it would take to actually end up as a homeless family here in the US, living out of a car. If nothing else, this loss of financial security blows away any illusion of security.

 The results of this adversity can be compassion and wisdom. 

Although trying really hard to accept the current situation and work with it, I found myself still wallowing in fear while getting ready for taxes.

“What’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you meet your financial goals last year?” I harshly judged.

So, I asked the question again:

“How can I use this undesirable situation to make me a better person?” 

Have you ever just picked up a book and found the answer?

There it was. The perfect paragraph that would get me up above the whining to a clearer view. And this new perception was in alignment with a value much higher than “Total Income” on the 1040 IRS form.

From the Tears of the Giraffe, the story of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, set in Botswana, Africa:

“She had not made a lot of money, but she had not made a loss, and she had been happy and entertained. That counted for infinitely more than a vigorously healthy balance sheet. In fact, she thought, annual accounts should include an item specifically headed Happiness, alongside expenses and receipts and the like. That figure in her accounts would be a very large one, she thought.” 

The riches that count…maybe even the riches that are free… the riches that can’t be taken from us by circumstances…

Happiness. And it’s moment by moment job.

Kathy Doner, MD 2-11-08

 

“Eating healthy just takes too much time!” protested a retired 65 year old weight loss client of mine. “You know, I’m quite busy with volunteer organizations.”
(I wondered where that belief came from and what purpose it served her?)

“Can we get specific?” I asked her, with a playful attitude.
(No direct confrontation here, because that would bring up resistance.
Beliefs are locked as old patterns in the brain and like to remain as rigid beliefs, almost like immovable concrete. What works so much better than criticizing a belief is to approach it with a willingness to examine it with a sense of curiosity.)

“Specifically, what takes too much time?” I asked.
(Questions are a great way to loosen the concrete of beliefs.)

“Preparing the vegetables,” she decided.
“Which vegetables, specifically?”

She thought about it for a moment and realized: “Well, not the cooked ones because I use frozen vegetables. I guess it’s the tearing up the romaine lettuce for salads.”
“The ‘salad-in-a-bag’ approach won’t work?” I challenged gently.

“No, because the already cut up salad goes bad quicker.”
(Here I was wondering how long it actually takes her to eat up a bag of salad!)
“Well, specifically how long does it take to tear up a bunch of romaine, enough for three and one half days of salad?”

“I guess only ten minutes, and actually I could do it while watching TV!”
“Really? So, preparing enough romaine for seven days would only take twenty minutes. Do you have twenty minutes a week to care for yourself?”

“Of course I do! If you put it that way I guess I was being pretty silly,” she realized.
“The whole idea of eating healthy was just overwhelming! Before, when I took on a diet program it was such an enormous departure from what I was normally doing that it felt like a big effort. But if I break it down into small doable steps I can do it. And preparing crisp green healthy romaine feels good!”

She was right and her healthy eating progressed beautifully, as did the weight loss. She had all the answers inside of her—she just needed to question her old beliefs by asking specific questions.

Beliefs are not concrete – they are not “things.” They are in fact fluid. They were created from certain conditions – inherited from parents or society – or they serve a purpose – preventing this lady from putting more workload onto her overflowing busy life. Beliefs may be useful for awhile but they aren’t necessarily true. In fact, they can hold us back and keep us from moving forward into a healthy life.

When we question them with patient and kind curiosity then we can dismantle them, like taking off layer after layer of excuses. We can finally get to the core reason the belief is there. In this case, the resistance was protecting her from feeling overwhelmed. When she saw that for herself she actually made some decisions to cut back on her outside commitments.

“It makes no sense to help others to the extent that it makes me fat!” she concluded.

The new belief?
“It’s easy to care for myself. I enjoy giving myself the gift of fresh delicious vegetables!”

© 2008 All rights reserved. Kathy Doner, MD kathydonermd.com