Sometimes I wake up and realize that I’m doing it “that way”. I recently consented to take my middle son, and his friend to ride their ATV’s in Estacada, Oregon. The day had it’s own adventures, but the real teeth grinder was the effort it took to load two large atv’s into the back of my pickup. First, they are very heavy and require Tetris like skill to make them fit due to their width and their length. It soon became apparent whilst in the house that neither my son or his friend had “the whatever is needed” to accomplish this loading task on their own. So “we” heaved and groaned each machine in to the back of the truck eventually squirreling them in, and strapping them down.
At one point while holding the front of the first atv up in the air, over my head from the side of the truck, I waited for my helpers to dutifully push the back of the atv forward in the truck bed so I could set it down. Don’t try to picture it, just think Tetris mixed with Beverly Hill-Billies. My helpers were talking and had just sort of stopped working. My son’s friend said “man your dad is a savage lifting that like that “. While I guess being a savage might be a good thing to a 15 year old, this 45 year old was getting very angry. “Push the quad forward so I can set it down” I snapped loudly ……twice….. along with some other angry grumbling (truth is I really did not want to be doing this). They immediately complied and apologized, and I retained “savage” status which has not earned me any more money to date. I got to thinking about how I had said that I wouldn’t get stressed out and snap at people about things like loading atv’s in the back of pickups when I’m an adult. Definitely, not like my own upbringing.
In many ways I didn’t, but I started to. I remembered that this brief exchange of frustration would not have been the case when I was their age and all thru growing up. Such a moment could have brought hours of anger and withdrawal from those in charge, especially if it happened at the wrong time, already stressed, time crunched, already screwed up that day, maybe you get the picture.
Growing up I experienced a great deal of anger in my home. It was by no means the worst situation for me to be in, but it resulted in struggles (and decisions) that I as person have had, and continue to face. The truth is that many people are challenged by what they experienced from their childhood and adolescence, and that result in predilections towards certain behaviors and thinking. In my home of origin , frustration and anger as a result of very real financial stress, or very real unmet expectations, seemed to be a nightly occurrence. The result was a definite resentment and fear on my part towards the source of that anger and frustration which led me to saying, “I will never be like that” .
With much prayer, discipleship ,personal work, and most importantly the power of the Holy Spirit I now don’t live my day-to-day life with the kind of anger reactions that I was privy to growing up. That is not to say that I don’t have moments when old reactions work their way out, but even then not to the degree of years ago. There is no one size fits all solution to destructive expressions of anger or any emotion for that matter. I certainly don’t hold a special super ability to address my own triggers to strong emotions with great composure each time. In the moment of loading the atv’s that I could have easily escalated to react inappropriately, yelled, or stormed into the house. I certainly felt the urge. The quality of my relationships is valuable enough to me that I have needed to learn how to manage my emotions even in the midst of more important life frustrations and challenges.
One way that can be helpful in growing away from excessive and damaging reactions, is to carefully recognize who is driving your bus (life)? Is it you driving the bus towards your values , or is it backseat drivers of pain from the past…..fear….. or insecurity just waiting for the stress to tip the balance. We each have our own set of back seat drivers who, if allowed, will steer us into infinite feedback highways… loops of behavior, thinking, and emotions…. that don’t keep our bus headed towards what is valuable to us.
Often they loudly yell, and grab for the wheel to steer back to the familiar suffering that poor behavior produces. Behavior like withdrawal, angry outbursts, isolation is certainly not an exhaustive list, but I think that it’s a start. For me, keeping my relationships with family strong, trying to demonstrate compassion, and trying to live in a disciplined way are important values I want to steer my life towards. If I am allowing frustration, stress and anger to pervade and cause me to breach my relationships thru yelling and withdrawal then I am driving in a loop back to my past. If I am using my anger to control others thru fear, demeaning criticism, or demonstrate rage slamming and throwing stuff about then I am not driving my bus towards what is valuable to me.
The back seat drivers of fear, insecurity, past pains, complacency, and pride are screaming turn here, turn here, and I can turn if I don’t recognize them for what they are…..coping mechanisms that produce nothing, but more suffering. The reality is that it takes so much more energy to pick up the pieces of what I produce in poor relating then it does to do it differently…better. I want the “better” of life.
Moving towards what is valuable can be painful and even fearful at first, that is why your back seat drivers try to tell you to go back to what you know. Avoid, distract, get big, get small, drink this, smoke that, all become ways that our passengers keep us from pain …and from growth and from life itself at times. If you stay with what you know and don’t move thru, then that pain will turn to suffering as pain pushed away usually returns; festers. There is so much more that could be written about this subject, and nothing to be taken lightly as walking thru some of this type of thing is tough work, and can involve healing from pain and trauma as well as significant relationship realignments. It is worth the work because staying the same is even more exhausting in the long-term.
What is valuable to you today? ( just a couple of things for now will do)(these are not goals they are values) Don’t let them be remote to your life!
How are the back seat drivers pushing you, yelling at you to steer you away from moving forward?
What is it costing you in energy and lack of vital living to let them push you around and steer your bus away from what is valuable to you?
What would it look like next time there is frustration, stress, or fear, to take values guided action like using a new skill to act differently?
Changes take time and energy, but so does staying the same. The first type of energy is way more satisfying.
An Excellent resource for more information and skills to steer your life towards what is valuable can be found at https://www.actmindfully.com.au/free_resources
Russ Harris is an excellent therapist and author who has highly readable and relevant material about living vitally and moving towards what is valuable..
I would highly recommend his books, “The Happiness Trap”, or “The Reality Slap” as good starting places for looking at ways to address living into your values even with back seat drivers that are loud and unaccommodating..
Also if needed find an ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) based therapist or coach in your area and check them out to see if it could be helpful for you.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
I am easily distracted from writing things. At the same time I am constantly thinking about subjects to write about. Usually things that are related to helping people live more fully and thrive, my own experiences, ways that I think God is speaking to me, and the occasional movie script. Today, I find myself writing somewhere between the distraction of my news feed and new ideas for art.
So much has been written about the power of distraction in today’s world as if distraction is this new and powerful coping mechanism that no one knew about until smart phones were invented. It is quite amazing the level that humans will go to create and participate in distracting events. Of course there are some great distractions out there……..wait a minute you think, I thought distractions were not good. Distractions can result in loss of productivity, procrastination, internet addiction, social media time-wasting, substance abuse. The reality is that there are healthy distractions and they are a natural way of alleviating tension and stimulating creativity, but like all coping mechanisms they can have a dark side. That dark side is when distractions move from restful moments to painful avoidance.
If I am concerned about what is distracting me the first question I have to ask myself is, “what am I avoiding and why”? Obviously, if we are too distracted we miss out on life, and we can also exacerbate or create significant relational problems, lose out on what is valuable to us, or most frequently stay stuck in the same patterns of unsatisfying behavior. Distractions as avoidance can take away not only the pain, or stress of the moment, but part of our total experience of the world as well.
I learned early on that trying to look at future rewards to get thru stressful experiences worked really good (at least in the first few years). The problem was that I couldn’t keep up with the need for bigger and bigger rewards as the challenges of life grew, and sometimes I was missing out on the moment just trying to “get thru”. Sometimes a hard day, hard week, or hard month ends in an equally hard way without any momentary reward, but the journey produces something in me much more important.
If our natural tendency is to avoid painful or difficult events than distractions or avoidance can take all forms. I believe that deep within us the natural tendency is to move towards wholeness, and that is why pain or challenge pushed away thru distraction tends to come back even stronger. Much like a splinter working its way out to keep the body whole. The splinter hurts to remove, but if left it creates greater suffering. Our very Spirit is trying to work towards healing thru experiences that challenge us to grow and change. Pain will inevitably be experienced, but pushing it away will create suffering. As we experience the full range of emotions from pain to joy we start to thrive in our lives.
Think of pushing on a spring, or holding your hand over a leaking hole. It takes energy to hold the spring, and it takes perseverance to keep the liquid in the container. I may be strong, but soon I start to buckle and release the spring, or the liquid starts to leak around my loosening hand on the container. All that effort to hold back the spring, or the liquid keeps me distracted and avoidant from the other parts of my life that would be filled with vital and creative living, enriched relationships, or freedom of choice. It is suffering to keep that spring pushed in and keep the liquid in the bucket all the time. Pain unfelt creates suffering, and robs us of tremendous energy in the act of keeping it stuffed away as the symptoms of anxiety and depression tell us that there is something amiss as much as chest pain tells us of an impending heart attack.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in early October, 2012 at OHSU, the pain in my hip was breathtaking. Not being one for opiate pain killers I waited. I finally gave in and felt the momentary relief . That momentary relief was just that, momentary. My transplant Doctor walked in and told me that he wanted to do another PET scan that night to see why I was having so much pain. After the PET scan he informed me that the cancer that was not evident on the PET scan 3 weeks earlier was now back with a vengeance. He told me that to proceed with transplant at that point had about a 35 percent probability of being successful. If it was not successful then I would be on palliative chemotherapy from this point forward, and there would not be another opportunity to try the transplant. You see in order to do the transplant the recipient has to be as disease free as possible going into the procedure in order to insure that the disease is eradicated and the new stem cells grow and rebuild the patient to cancer free health. “You will have to go back to Eugene, and do a new chemo drug to prepare for another attempt at transplant in January” he said. My heart and gut sank.
All of the preparation from moving our RV to Portland, placing our children, preparing our home, leave at work, and countless little details had been suddenly thrown into the blender, and splattered on the ceiling. I had a choice. Rush to the procedure with very little chance of success, and hope it worked. If it didn’t work then live on chemo for however many years that I was to have. I would be probably be alive, but ……..? The other choice was to go thru the uncertainty of a newer chemo drug and future transplant with all of its pain or struggle, but a higher chance of success at being cancer free. I choose to try the new drug and the transplant in the future. The process would be painfully drawn out in the short-term, but would give me the best probable long-term outcome with the least long-term suffering. We went back to Eugene and waited for January. That was 5 years ago.
Many of our decisions that we make in the course of our days are not this weighted, or maybe even this straightforward, but they do hold weight. Sometimes we decide to do important actions or avoid important actions based on our fear of the unknown, and the anticipation of pain. In the process we limit and distract ourselves from all that we were intended to be. That is whole vibrant beings, experiencing life and moving towards what is valuable to us. In fact, we increase our suffering, and end up surviving, but not moving to wholeness.
I was tempted to take the first option because I was tired after 4 months of salvage chemo, saying goodbye to my kids, seeing the stress on my wife. I wanted my life back. I thought, “lets just go for it” pushing all the other implications out of my mind. Ready to sacrifice the potential of the future on the altar of the day . Foolish right?
How many times have I done the same with other parts of life that mattered, but weren’t life or death. You can only distract, push away, take the shorter less painful way so much before it doesn’t work anymore. I wanted a chance at vibrant health. I hope that if this finds you in a position of making a decision to survive or thrive that you will choose to thrive even if that is tougher in the short-term. Seek counsel, seek a friend, seek a pastor, identify what is valuable to you and what is keeping you from moving towards it. Maybe it’s not the right time yet, but if its, and fear is leading you to distraction and avoidance, then pray about identifying what that first step is then carefully move towards it.
More to come about thriving and living vibrantly and addressing avoidance of pain…….
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
Other Parts of this narrative will eventually find their way into this blog.
I remember looking at the Hong Kong restaurant on 18th Ave from the back window of an office building on Willamette St. I built the best forts in that little room. The smell of the pile of vinyl bean bags drifting thru the air. I could peak out of the crack in the door and see my mother sitting across from another man talking. It was weekly and it always felt long. Off course most things felt long at 5 years of age. I don’t remember everything but I do remember the things that happened over and over again. This was one of those things.
So were the weekly visits to Lane County Mental Health on Garden Ave, usually on Wednesdays.
Dunkin Donuts was down the street and I could get a cherry filled mountain of goodness if I sat still outside the group room. The other people, all adults, filling the air with a steady stream of cigarette smoke as they awaited their appointments, or whatever it was that they were there for. It was super great when they put in a soda machine and I got a bottle of Sunkist for 25 cents.
I could see thru the rear view mirror of the truck as my father struggled to get my mother back in the cab. We were in the middle of some state driving home from Yellowstone Park. There was a lot of loud talk and a physical struggle. A police officer stopped to see if help was needed, all I remember is that things got calmer. I remember being afraid sitting in the middle of the cab as we drove straight thru from Yellowstone to Veneta. I slept. My Father told me years later that he was afraid that my mother’s psychotic and paranoid state at the time would have caused her to be hospitalized far from our home. He drove straight thru to get her to help in Eugene near where we lived. He also told me that my mother’s counselor told her to quit taking her medicine and take a vacation. We went to Yellowstone.
All though I did not really know, years later I learned that my mother had gone for eight full hospitalizations from 1970 to 1981. I remember my father taking me to work. My father said that “she could not think rationally”. I used to sit in my dad’s truck waiting for him as he went into visit her at Fairview hospital in Salem, always with a stern warning not to unlock the doors or get out of the truck. I played like the truck was a spaceship and fell asleep. Ice cream was to follow.
This was the life that I knew as a young child. There is so much more both very beautiful and very tough thru those years and beyond. It is one story in thousands that should be told to let people know that they are not alone.
When I was starting out working as a therapist in a local agency,
I remember a person telling me that he was glad that “he didn’t need that kind of help”…
I guess I was glad too.
The statement highlights the stigma that asking for help has, especially help that involves our emotions, our minds, or our spirits. My mother was a quiet and vibrant person. My mother was able to facilitate life in the midst of the difficulties of mental illness (anxiety, depression, paranoia, and delusions). She did this with professional support (such as it was in the time), several close friends, the commitment of my father, and with her faith in Christ.
This is my call and my encouragement for those who are helping, those who are struggling, or those that are watching someone they love struggle.
It is time to set aside the stigma and the underlying fear that you may have and get or give support. If you are a helper then accept the help and support that you will need to assist others to health. If you are struggling with issues realted to mental health click below for resources.
https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help
I read that there is as much as 40% drop out rate for those working in the mental health field each year. I am not sure if that statistic is entirely true, but even if it was 30%, it underscores the incredible challenge of the field. If you are going alone, stop being a lone ranger. Do the health inspiring things that you know you need to renew!
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/151715081174805807/
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
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