Isolation is the dreamkiller, not your lousy attitude

The other night on one of my Resistance Teleclasses, a woman named Rita presented a not-unusual problem: "I got downsized right out of my job about six months ago and thought it would be a great opportunity to start my own internet business. For a little while I was going great guns. Then I slowed down and now I don't make the phone calls I should and sometimes I don't even answer emails. Everything's too hard. I thought this would be fun!"

When I heard her say everything was too hard, I asked her if she was feeling depressed. “Yes, I guess I am,” she said, sounding a little surprised. “But that’s not me. I mean, I’ve never had a problem with depression.”

What she didn't realize is that there are two events that can cause a temporary depression, even in the most cheerful, energetic people -- and she had both of them.

The first is loss. We know that loss of a loved one can result in the heavy-heartedness and lack of interest in activities that signals depression. What is less known is that the same thing can happen when you leave a job, like Rita did. It can even happen when you move away from your home or become separated from anything that’s been a daily part of your life. Even smoking.

Over 20 years ago I went into an unexpectedly dark place for six weeks after I quit smoking. It wasn’t the first time I’d quit smoking (once for six years) so I was as surprised as Rita to find myself waking up each morning feeling totally rotten. I’m not willingly athletic under the best of circumstances, but I dragged my reluctant self out to the park and went running every morning just to get away from my morning misery. Then, after six weeks I woke up my usual non-miserable self. The unhappiness disappeared as unexpectedly as it had arrived. (I immediately stopped running, so you don't want to get all inspired by my conversion to exercise. But I never smoked again. That’s something, right?)

So, if you've got the blahs, look around your life for loss. Don't try to talk yourself out of it. Just do your best until it passes.

By contrast, the other source of the blahs and lack of enthusiasm that signals depression is much less well known: isolation. If you work alone and live alone, you're a candidate for what Rita was feeling. Too much solitude eventually causes apathy and depression. You can ask anyone who has experienced solitary confinement in prison, of course, but the situation needn't be that dire. In fact, idyllic solitude will give you just as much trouble.

I was once at a writer's retreat where the respected American writer, Tom McGuane, spoke. He told us that early in his career he got a wonderfully big advance on a contract to write three novels, Delighted, he immediately followed the dream he’d had for years: to move to a cabin in the mountains and do nothing but eat, sleep and write. Like paradise for a writer, one would assume. But it wasn’t paradise at all.

McGuane said that he learned something there that he never forgot and wanted us to know about. He found that, for the first time, he had a serious case of writer’s block. That's when he realized that the worst thing a writer can do is become isolated. I'll never forget his advice: The best place for a writer to live is over a bar on Main Street where you could see and hear people coming and going day and night and you never felt alone. “I always thought I wanted to be alone,” I remember him saying. “I wanted more time, fewer obligations and interruptions. Freedom. But I wrote just fine before I went off to that cabin, and I write just fine now that I’m back among people.”

Add all that freedom you have when you're isolated and you're heading for problems. A happy life needs some structure and accountability. By that I mean that at some predictable time of day, on a regular basis, you should be expected to show up somewhere. Someone should be waiting for you to arrive. Humans need that. Too much freedom makes life shapeless. Unending choice means that every day you have to wake up and decide what you want to do. We’re not designed for that.

At least a minimum of necessity, some ongoing obligations and predictable appointments are necessary to give us a sense of direction and keep us energetic and focused. While no one wants to be suffocated by these things, we can’t tear them entirely out of our lives without becoming disoriented, and feeling overwhelmed. They provide essential nutrients that keep social animals active and engaged with life.

To help Rita work up the enthusiasm to keep her home business going, I didn't tell her to think positively, believe in herself, love herself or 'just do it.' If she continued to be isolated, that won't work.

Here's what did work:

1. I told Rita to hire a part-time personal assistant to come in two afternoons a week. This person will do the things she never enjoyed doing, and that’s a good thing, but main reason is that no one should work week after week entirely alone.

If Rita knows someone's coming she'll get into gear and a schedule will take shape. If her assistant is coming on Mondays and Wednesdays, Rita will pick up her clothes and straighten up the place Sunday and Tuesday nights.

Then every morning she can pick up the mail and toss everything she doesn't want to deal with into the assistant's inbox. When it comes to dreaded sales calls, she can have her assistant initiate the call and hand it over when someone answers. It will make her feel very important and it looks good, too. And poof! There goes the feeling of being overwhelmed.

An event like the regular arrival of an assistant will give structure to the whole week.

2. Rita was so down in the dumps that I advised her to also get a part-time job or volunteer somewhere at least once a week, working with people. (Joining an amateur theater group can be just as good.)

The prescription worked. In a few weeks, her energy was back and she was working as she had at the beginning of working at home.

Needing people, structure and accountability is not a weakness any more than needing food and sleep. Humans aren't designed to be isolated. We weren’t hatched from an egg like snakes. We all started out in someone's arms, discovering who we were by looking into someone’s eyes.

That's why affirmations and positive thinking aren't enough: they're too isolated. And you can forget looking in the mirror and saying you love yourself. When you're feeling bad, you just don't, and you know it. Get dressed, make some appointments, and show up. You'll feel your internal engine turn on and your soul shift back into gear.

It works like a charm.


http://www.shersuccessteams.com

Today I bought a Mac Air

I've been looking at them a long time. I love Macs, my existing laptop is 5 years old, and I travel, so that 3 lbs looks very good. But I've given up acting on impulse so I waited, watched the problems, figured I'd better get one before I go overseas again.

Also, during the election campaign, I gave all my extra money to Democratic senators, knowing that Obama would need them. I sent some to him, too, but I knew he was okay money-wise, so I focused on the senators.

And though I often found myself staring longingly at the Mac Air, I just didn't feel the enthusiasm that would prompt the impulse to reach for my credit card.

Finally, a few months ago, I decided that if Obama got elected, I would buy a Mac Air. I don't think he's going to be able to have much effect on this economy in the short run, but I wanted the message to go out, in my own little one-vote way, that confidence is up and somebody's buying. The most expensive one was reduced by a huge amount, and is almost the same price as the low-end one so I got that, hoping the big reduction doesn't point to some flaw.

But the hell with caution. It's time to act. This is not the first recession I've been through (I was born during the Big One) and when I see one coming, I stock up on sheets and towels and buy one important thing I might not be able to afford for a few years with which to entertain myself until times get easy again.

This year it's the Mac Air. And I'm feeling nice about it. Tekserv, a good outfit and good to me over the years, will send it in the morning. Wish me luck.

My own private Christmas. Hope I don't have any problems, you know, new computers and all that, but it's the same operating system as my iMac desktop so maybe everything will be okay.

Feelings: Should we control, ignore or give in to them? How about none of the above?

“The young man who has not wept is a savage,
and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.”
George Santayana

Feelings play a special role in building a life you will love. They serve as a compass that can guide you toward the right goals, but they can also gather up into a heavy burden that can stop you. Behind everything you do – or avoid doing – are your feelings. If you find you’re often stopping yourself, or if you just don’t know what direction to take or even what you really want, all you have to do is listen to – and understand – your feelings.

They’re always talking to you. They know what you need. Are they always right? Not always. Sometimes they mistake the present for the past. At those times, the fear or anger or hurt you feel doesn’t belong to today. Something has triggered them. As you might already know, there are ways to send feelings about the past back to where they belong so you can see today with fresh vision.

The problem is, you can’t use reason or logic to do it.

Reason and logic are latecomers to human development. Feelings have been with us longer and remain far more powerful. Happiness and hurt, fear and anger have all been put inside us by nature to protect us and keep our species alive. They’re in operation every moment of every day, driving us to act – or to avoid action. The expectation of pleasure or safety draws us closer to food, love, shelter. The apprehension of pain or danger pushes us away from snarling animals and unfamiliar territory.

For the most part, feelings do an admirable job of keeping us away from danger and sending us toward nourishment and affection. But they become increasingly tangled when we move into more complex areas. Nature sends primitive reactions into more subtle, modern situations so, although our survival is in no real danger, we cringe at the risk of rejection when we ask for a raise; we wince at telling a parent we want a career in acting; we give up our dreams rather than feel the guilt of becoming happy when our parents weren’t.

Often, we’re completely unaware of the feelings at work in our attempts to go after a life we love and we make the mistake of applying logic to these issues. The result is confusion After all, there’s no logical reason to avoid rejection or criticism or happiness. They won’t kill you – right?

Tell that to your feelings.

No, you can’t ignore your emotions. They’re strong and primitive and must be dealt with.

(How? Watch this space. And please send comments.)