I had an interesting question today from Anne, who is planning to incorporate Anger Solutions into her Caregiver 101 workshop. The question is this (in a nutshell), "When people needing care, and those providing care get caught in the cycle of frustration and hopelessness, what can they do to move themselves out of it?" Here are my thoughts, with the help of Jack Canfield's great video program, "Self Esteem and Peak Performance".
Jack coined this term many years ago, prior to the success of his Chicken Soup for the Soul series: E+R=O
This means: Event + Response = Outcome. In other words, it is not the events of your life that determine your outcomes, but your response to those events. It is important to understand that when someone sustains a stroke, or acquires a head injury, or suffers some other debilitating illness, this is an event. We cannot control the events in our lives - they are external circumstances much like the weather - we have no control over them. What we can control is our responses to the events: how we deal with the barrage of emotional highs and lows that come from providing care, or coping with the physical, emotional, and sometimes behavioural changes that accompany personal injury.
Look at it from this way with the help of an excerpt from my new book Stress Less in 26 Days.
"Too often we believe that our outcomes are out of our control, that the event itself is the outcome, or some other adulteration of the truth. What is true is this: how we choose to respond to the events in our lives is what determines the outcomes we achieve. In effect, we create our own outcomes.
Take this story as an example. Jim and Marty are co-workers at a large firm. They are not friends outside the office, and are content to co-exist at work. Jim sees his job as a chore, and is fairly unenthusiastic about every aspect of his work. He is really just there for the paycheque. Marty is a keener who likes to take the initiative, and works for recognition because it fuels his passion for his job.
Their boss pairs them together on a new project. As they begin to brainstorm how they can be successful in this task, they try to work out the delegation of tasks, and Marty says something to Jim to imply that he is not as skilled in public communication as Marty is. Jim takes offense and punches Marty in the face. Jim is suspended for a week and told that he must enroll in anger resolution classes before he returns to work. Jim blames the whole thing on Marty. If he hadn’t been such a over-eager jerk, Jim wouldn’t be losing a week’s pay.
Let’s analyze this scenario a bit more closely. The first event was the assignment of the project. We can assume that Jim accepted the task half-heartedly, probably because he couldn’t find a way to get out of it without looking bad. His response may have led to Marty feeling frustrated about Jim’s apparent lack of enthusiasm. The second event occurs when Marty, being more of a social animal anyway, suggests that he should take the lead on public communication, while Jim does more of the low-key work. Jim’s response begins with his perception of what Marty said.
You see, if Jim had approached his work with a different, more positive attitude, he might have perceived Marty’s comments as a fair assessment of their unique skill sets, rather than a judgement about his ability or lack of it. Jim perceived Marty as an “over-eager jerk”, and his response was in keeping with that perception. The outcome of that response (punching Marty in the nose) was one that should be expected when one engages in workplace violence – a suspension without pay. How could this possibly be Marty’s fault?
The bottom line is this: it is not the events that happen to us, but how we choose to respond to those events that make us who we are, and determine the quality of life we are going to have.
Here are some interesting facts about visual and auditory perception:
- Nobody really knows exactly how many colors the human eye can see. The closest researchers can estimate is millions and millions. Scientific experiments have shown that humans can discriminate between very subtle differences in color, and estimates of the number of colors we can see range as high as 10 million.
Remember this the next time you venture outside and look at the beauty of nature. You will note that the trees, the grass, the shrubs, are all for the most part green. What contributes to the beauty of the outdoors is the subtle differences in colour created by the interplay of light and shadow on everything we see. Imagine how boring our world would be if everything were monochromatic. Perception is powerful, and it has the ability to add immense richness to our life experience. - The human ear can cope with an incredible range of sound. Your ear can, in fact, cope with a 10,000,000,000,000 fold difference in loudness. That’s a range of 130 decibels.
- The ear can pick out and focus in on a particular sound or conversation in a roomful of noise.
- The human ear can detect a difference of just two degrees in the direction of a sound source.
- The ear is able to recognize at least 400,000 different sounds, matching them up against those stored in the memory banks.
Now, what about our thought perceptions? Take a look at this statement and tell me what you see:
IAMNOWHERE
Do you see the statement:
“I am nowhere” or,
“I am now here”?
What you see is a matter of perception.
Try this little grammar and punctuation test on for size. Punctuate this sentence.
A woman without her man is nothing
I’m willing to bet that all you gents are punctuating the sentence like this:
“A woman without her man is nothing.”
Period. Full stop. No other way to look at it, right? Wrong. Ladies, don’t panic! Try the sentence this way:
“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”
You see, just a little shift in perception can completely change the meaning of a simple sentence!
Think about what is causing or contributing to the stressors in your life right now. Ask yourself these questions:
1) What am I doing to create the outcomes I am experiencing right now?
2) What circumstances am I looking at from only one perspective?
3) If I change my perspective or shift my perception, how might this situation become easier to handle?
4) How can I begin to respond effectively rather than just reacting to stressors in my life?
5) What is really true about this situation? (Not what I perceive to be true)
6) What can I do differently today to create shifts in my perception?
Challenge yourself to look at your life through a different lens. Please don’t misunderstand me and think that I want you to look at your circumstances through rose-coloured glasses. What I am saying is that we need to look at life as it really is, before we react, before we colour it gray with our misguided perceptions. Remember that nothing in life has meaning, except the meaning we give it! Take ownership for the outcomes you have created thus far, then make a concerted effort to create better ones for yourself. Begin to alter your perceptions and you’ll realize that the view is much better than you first thought."
Anne - I hope this is helpful. In my next post, I will upload the Self-Awareness Wheel that helps people to see the difference between what happens when we Think, Say and Ask - and when we jump right from the Frustration Signal to Reacting.
