Self Care in Divided Times

Pretty much every woman I speak to is stressed out. Really stressed out.  We are having trouble concentrating at work. We can’t seem to get work done in a timely manner. What’s up and how can we help ourselves?

It should come as no surprise to anyone that as a humanist – I really don’t like Trump. He scares me. Not only is he a bully that routinely dehumanizes people he disagrees with – he’s a bully, which means he also has autocratic dictatorial tendencies.  I happen to like democracy and human rights and things like that, so what this guy and his enablers might do to our democracy – has me worried.

Even if you like Trump, and many do, there are a lot of people who are just as worried about “liberals destroying America” as I am of Trump destroying America. And when you think about it, that’s a pretty sorry state of affairs. We are being played against each other by politicians and Putin. The solution to that is to remember we are all humans and not evil. We all pretty much want the same things.

But back to self care. Given our fear levels and stress levels and the need to safeguard all we hold near and dear, we need to engage in some serious self care. I don’t view self care as an abdication of my responsibilities to other. I view it as an important part of my activism.

By taking care of myself. By taking time to enjoy the little and big things in life. And yes, by getting on with the normalcy of life, I not only reduce my stress levels, I also remind myself what it is I am fighting for.

Albert Camus wrote and fought in WWII in Europe. He struggled to keep his humanity and to remember the humanity of the people he fought. And he wrote about his struggles to maintain a sense of beauty and humanity in himself during the struggles. His essay Return to Tipasa is about exactly this and I am linking to it here.  https://genius.com/Albert-camus-return-to-tipasa-annotated

“For violence and hatred dry up the heart itself; the long fight for justice exhausts the love that nevertheless gave birth to it. In the clamor in which we live, love is impossible and justice does not suffice. This is why Europe hates daylight and is only able to set injustice up against injustice. But in order to keep justice from shriveling up like a beautiful orange fruit containing nothing but a bitter, dry pulp, I discovered once more at Tipasa that one must keep intact in oneself a freshness, a cool wellspring of joy, love the day that escapes injustice, and return to combat having won that light.”

If you are struggling with anger – consider taking this course by Dr Leon Seltzer: https://humanistlearning.com/angermanagement101/

If you want to learn how to advocate for your positions without being a jerk about it take this one:  https://humanistlearning.com/socratic-jujitsu/

If you need help learning how to cope and integrate your values into your day to day life – take this one: http://humanistlearning.info/livingmadesimpler1/

If you want to learn how to overcome your hidden biases against other people so you can once again view them as truly human – take this free course: https://humanistlearning.com/controlling-our-unconscious-bias/

And finally, if you want to learn how to sort out the falsehood from truth – take this course: https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Coming to terms with your inability to control your fate

You can’t control everything in your life and trying to will only make things worse.

Not being in control is stressful. Not knowing how things are going to turn out is scary. It would be nice if we could be assured of everything going our way. But that’s unrealistic.

The universe does not conspire to help you out. It doesn’t conspire to hurt you either. It’s not sentient so it doesn’t really think.

Other people do though. And they may or may not be trying to help you and a few of them may actually try to harm you for their own gain. That’s life. That’s what we all have to deal with. And some of us come into this life with a better hand and more privilege than others.

I’m not going to get into the subject of privilege here. What I want to talk about is how we best make do given the difficulties we have and the fact that we are going to have to work to get anything we want because – again, the universe isn’t going to magically provide for us.

The first step is to accept that reality. You don’t have control over everything in your life. You don’t’ have control over other people. You only have control of yourself and your choices. And your choices have an impact. In fact, your choices impact your future ability to make choices.

Each choice has a consequence. Those consequences can be good, bad or indifferent. While you can’t guarantee whether any given choice will result in a good outcome, you can change the odds to your favor and the cumulative effect of changing the odds slightly to your favor over the course of your life is astonishing.

Take for instance the choice to drive drunk or not.  Driving drunk doesn’t guarantee you will get in an accident. Driving sober doesn’t guarantee you will get to where you are going alive. All that choice does is change the odds – to your favor or against you.

You make hundreds of decisions every day. What to eat, who to have sex with, whether to have sex, etc. The cumulative impact of all those choices, either in your favor or against you – impacts the quality of your life. The more you choose to do things that improve your odds, the more likely good things will happen to you.

You don’t have a lot of control over what happens to you. But you do have some control. If you want to be successful, it would be stupid to leave your fate totally to chance.  Smart people make choices to improve their odds and they do this consistently throughout their lives.

If you want to learn more about how to exercise more control over your life and to improve your chances of success, however you define that, consider taking Planning for Personal Success – a Humanist Approach online course. Both of these will help you with your personal development.

Stress Awareness and Humanist Meditation

Stress happens. But you can minimize its impact on you by choosing how you respond.

April is Stress Awareness month. And yes, this is apparently a government recognized thing: http://www.foh.hhs.gov/calendar/april.html According to Federal Occupational Health – “Stress happens. Sometimes it's unavoidable, at times it's unbearable. That's why taking time for yourself is a necessity.”

They go on to say, “While you can't avoid stress, you can minimize it by changing how you choose to respond to it. The ultimate reward for your efforts is a healthy, balanced life, with time for work, relationships, relaxation, and fun.”

I agree, which is why I practice meditation, as a Humanist. It’s why I encourage others to meditate as well. And yes, meditation is one of the ways the government says you can relax and recharge. And if they endorse it, well, it has to be good.

What meditation does for me is it helps me learn how to calm my mind. That’s what meditation is about, learning how to consciously choose your response, even when that response is hard wired into our nervous system like stress is.

What Humanist meditation isn't is a spiritual practice. I don’t become one with the universe. Nothing supernatural happens. I just relax, consciously and become more present and that feels good and that’s reason enough to practice it.

If you want to learn more about Humanist meditation, Humanist Learning Systems offers,  free guided meditations by Rick Heller of the Humanist Mindfulness Group at:  https://humanistlearning.com/humanist-meditations/ 

And if you want to learn more about the science of meditation and what exactly happens in your brain when you meditation, consider taking Humanist Meditation: Answers for Skeptics also taught by Rick:
https://humanistlearning.com/meditation101/ 

Happiness and Existential Angst

We all experience existential angst at some point – but are there ways to answer these questions in such a way that will help us to eliminate that stress and be happier?

I think the answer is yes.  According to – this page - http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/types/existential – existential anxiety is a product of not having good answers to the big questions of life – like – who am I, why am I here, and do I have a purpose. As well as the really big question – how much control do I really have over my life?

The big problem seems to not know.  When we don’t know what the future will hold, we get nervous.  Really nervous. When we don’t feel like we can control what happens to us in the future, we get nervous too. Trying to figure out whether our actions will help us or hurt us – stresses us out.

And if we don’t figure out how to cope with that stress – it can overwhelm us.

As a Humanist – I cope with not knowing by accepting I don’t know. And I realize that may seem really strange. How can accepting something that is stressing you out – help you relax.  Well – when I accept that I can’t know – I stop trying to know. So I stop expending my mental energy on it and – that’s what relaxation is.

Who am I?  I don’t really know. I mean I know my name and who I want to be. But who am I and why am I?  I don’t have an answer to that and I’m actually totally ok with that. It doesn’t bother me. Why? Because I have accepted that those questions don’t actually have answers. And so I don’t have to ponder them anymore.

What is my purpose in life?  Well, that one is a bit more interesting and can have a really good answer.  I can’t know if I have an “ultimate” purpose or not – so I choose to not worry about that. But I can decide who I want to be and what I want to accomplish. And it turns out – that’s enough. In fact, it’s REALLY satisfying.

There is a reason this blog has as its tag – encouraging people to live ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.  That’s my life’s purpose. To help other people adopt a similar purpose. And the great thing about this – is – working towards it makes me happy.

Do I need answers to the big questions to be happy? No. I just need to do my best with the life I have to do my best to be my best. And stop worrying about things that don’t really matter. Like – whether I have an ultimate purpose in life or not. Can’t know it and if I do – I do – but clearly – not knowing is part of how I’m supposed to do this thing called life – so let’s get on with it.

Life is Uncertain

And that uncertainty causes a LOT of stress. Here are the ways I handle that as a Humanist.

One of the things I like about what I do is that I get to know people I otherwise wouldn’t. People who have been moved by my writing contact me and we become virtual friends.  One such friend emailed me to let me know she was having a tough time. Her husband had been battling cancer and was in remission and she was finding that she was more upset about it than he was. She worries about what would happen now if he died.

I can relate. I almost did die this year. And then my hubby came down with a bad infection and went to the emergency room a couple of times. My son has even had a couple of visits. Needless to say, the ER staff at our local hospital knows us now.

What I noticed is that when I was the one in the hospital, I wasn’t worried that much. When my hubby went through his turns in the hospital, I was a nervous wreck. What would I do without him?  The very thought makes me sick to my stomach.

And that physical response to the fear of uncertainty and worry is real.  I am very sure that one of the ER visits my husband had was caused by his worrying. He was so unnerved by what happened to me earlier in the year, it has affected him physically.

The problem with fear of uncertainty is that – while I think it’s totally reasonable to be worried about losing someone you care about. That worry can cause health problems and it can incapacitate you and prevent you from getting on with the business of living.

Here’s how I cope and stop my brain from going into overdrive when I start worrying about the worst happening.  I actually have a lot of practice at this and it works.  My husband used to be a travelling salesman. And I used to worry that he would get in an accident on the road. Every day I would worry about that.

I spent my nights trying not to think of all the ways he could die in a traffic accident on a daily basis.  To stop, I created a plan for what I would do if the worst happens.  Just go there. Don’t fight it. Write up a plan for your finances, and what you are going to do to get everything together and move on eventually if he dies. Once that plan is in place, you don’t have to worry about it anymore.  This may seem morbid – but the realism thing really helped me cope with the stress. I’d given my brain what it needed, some assurance that I will be ok even if I was devastated.

The other thing I’ve learned is that I don’t have to be up and positive all the time. Given what I’ve been through and what most people have been through, if you haven’t earned the right to cry – no one has!   My feeling on grief is that you just need to experience it. It involves pain, and crying. And yes, figuring out how to look to the future even when it is uncertain.  Nothing you can do about that really – except accept it.  Serenity prayer – change the things you can – accept what you can’t. Wisdom to know the difference. You can’t know what is going to happen. So you prepare for the best and the worst and move on with life as best as you can.

How do you deal with uncertainty and the possibility of someone you love dying?

Status Anxiety

Why comparing yourself to others is a recipe for unhappiness.

In my book – The Humanist Approach to Happiness: Practical Wisdom – I have a chapter dedicated to no keeping up with the Joneses.  My advice is to make sure you live within your economic limits so that you don’t stress yourself out economically – which would lead to unhappiness.

It turns out I’m not the only person whose noticed the connection between status anxiety (feeling the need to keep up with others) and unhappiness.  Alain de Botton has a great video on this topic.

In this video he comes up with the following equation.

Self Esteem = success/expectation.

The higher your level of expectation, the less good your success will seem and therefore the less you will experience a sense of self-worth.  If, on the other hand, you have low expectations, then your success, whatever that is and however small it might seem, will seem larger, and you will have greater self-worth.

This makes sense. We all know it intellectually. The problem is how do we withstand the peer pressure to do and be more in real life.  It’s called peer pressure because it causes a lot of pressure!

The key is in how you define your expectations.  If you decide to value independence, then the less you are like others, the more you are successful.  This is why iconoclasts are so happy, for the most part.  As long as that is their goal and expectation, it works. If, they are iconoclasts by accident and don’t want to be, their differentness will make them very unhappy.  Which is why, when kids are different, the best advice to give them is to embrace their differences.

But what if you can’t?  What if your status anxiety is getting the best of you? You know intellectually you shouldn't care, but you do.  Again, I find that accepting the fact that we are evolved tribal animals so of course we care what other people think helps.  It helps me to find humor that my anxiety can’t be helped, and that actually makes me less anxious. Instead of fighting my anxiety I accept it and it lessons it’s grip on me, just enough that I can think of other things for a bit – like – I wonder how insecure everyone else is.  Because they re, because they evolved to have social anxiety too.

Work Happy

Humanist advice for finding more happiness and satisfaction at work.

1)          Do your best. Just deciding to focus on your personal ethics, has a huge impact on how satisfied you feel as an individual. Even if the people around you aren’t ethical, the fact that you are making it a priority to be good will help you withstand and cope with the stress of a difficult workplace. It isn’t a panacea, but it really does help.

2)          Make sure you balance work and life. No one can balance your work and life for you. You have to make it your responsibility to find a balance that works for you. You have to respect your limitations and understand that the need for personal time to recharge helps your business. Not all managers will see it this way, but you have to do this for you. These are the boundaries you have to set for yourself. Not that you aren’t willing to go the extra mile when called upon. It is more that if your company is always in crisis mode, it isn’t being managed very well. Studies show that working longer hours does not translate into higher productivity. You actually can get more done in less time and at a higher quality if you limit the time you allow yourself to work. 

3)          Be honest with what is possible and reasonable. This ties into the work life balance thing. Don’t lie and say you can get something done just to be a team player. Management is better served by you if you are honest about the amount of time it is going to take to get it done and what resources are needed. Whenever I was asked by a manager to do something ridiculous or stupid or was not provided with adequate resources or time to get it done I would laugh and then say “seriously, when do you need this done by.” I always did this with a smile on my face and was never fired for being so brazen. The only way to have a rational conversation about what was really required to accomplish a goal is to insist that the conversation be rational. Of course, having done this, make sure you over deliver; otherwise your credibility will be shot.

4)          Be nice. It is very easy for conflicts and disagreements in the workplace to become personal. Don’t let them be personal. You are working with a variety of personalities. They all have experiences you can’t even imagine that go into forming their behavior, interests, personalities and more. Allow everyone to be who they are and don’t expect them to conform to your ideas of who they should be. Most interpersonal conflicts arise because we try to control other people or they try to control us. Instead, view all your co-workers as your partners. Celebrate the differences because together as a workforce you can do so much more if your combine your strengths instead of focusing on what you perceive to be a weakness. Everyone there was hired for a reason. They have something valuable to contribute. Let them.

What advice do you have to make work happy?