Category Archives: Money & Emotion

Frustration

We are all feeling it these days. Everything seems to be difficult. We could probably handle most of the things that have been going lately one by one, but the challenges just pile on until something sends us over our edge. It could be the littlest thing…and behind that little thing is a giant pile.

People around me have heard my opinion that humans have failed the experiment. We had two major things to learn:

How to get along with others (even if they are different, and we don’t agree with them)
Learn from history and our mistakes!

As I watch myself and others cope with everyday life, I’m noticing some things that seem to be common threads. I’m seeing anger erupting disproportionally. We get heated at having to wear masks, we rail at the server because the restaurant isn’t using a paper menu. We have little patience and even less empathy.

We all feel a loss of control! And the words that relate to that in my mind include Sovereignty, Autonomy, Independence — Basically the ability to have control over my life.

For several years now I have been reading and studying about the lives civilians lived during WWII. I have reflected on how terrifying it was for my grandparents to worry about my dad when they learned he was interned in a POW camp. And how crappy it was for them to get the telegram saying he was shot down and presumed dead, right before Christmas. I can hardly imagine what it was like to be living in London during the Blitz! From September 7, 1940 – May 11, 1941, the Luftwaffe flew 571 sorties and dropped 800 tonnes of bombs. I can’t even fathom how that felt. It does seem that the fact that everyone had to come together to survive helped. Maybe, just maybe, being forced into air-raid shelters brought some empathy for others and comfort? Maybe they were too busy just surviving to process their emotions?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we are doing in this crisis. The last two years have been very much like a war, haven’t they? Setting politics aside, it’s hard to single out an enemy to blame it ALL on. The weather is crazy with hurricanes and tornadoes flattening entire cities. Fires burning towns to the ground. The pandemic is still very present, and frightening. People are hiding behind guns and shooting people they know, and people that are strangers. Masks seem to add to the isolation — Closing us off from the smile we had used to connect with people in person.

Our way of life has changed so much that It often feels to me like we have entered an alternative universe!

And we are frustrated, angry, grumpy, touchy….pissed off!

I think it’s very likely that what is really going on behind all this kvetching is Grief!

Gut-wrenching, exasperating, maddening grief. We have lost our way of life. We can’t just hang out with friends. Our jobs have changed or even gone away. It’s challenging to travel and even send our children to school and feel that they will be safe. In short, almost every aspect of life has changed, and we are grieving the loss.

There is a benefit to having a name for this! It gives us a path through the onslaught. Here are the handy-dandy ‘Five Stages of Grief‘ from Elizabeth Kübler-Ross:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Abbreviated as DABDA. Makes sense, doesn’t it? We are all grieving. If we can embrace that, recognize which place we are in, and allow ourselves to accept it, perhaps we can find a new path. When we lose a loved one we grieve, and yet most can find a way to engage in life while honoring the loss. We can do that now.

We can be kinder to ourselves and those around us. We can ride the storm and come out whole…it’s worth the effort, isn’t it?

Shell Tain, The Untangler

Doable Change

Changing a habit can be more doable than you think! We get mired in habits, and we get stuck in behaviors that are actually habits. The stuckness seems unchangeable…kind of the definition of stuck, isn’t it? I think there is a way to gain more traction on change that you might not have thought of or applied. But first, let me point out some things about habits and how they work – just a bit of information.

‘The Power of Habit’ by Charles Duhigg, is a great resource about how habits work and affect us. The author’s main point is that you can’t stop the cue or trigger from happening — ‘What you CAN do is change the routine or actions you take!’ Instead of having that piece of Dutch apple pie you are craving, you can have an apple.

The second thing to consider is: What are your habits? What do you do that is so routine you don’t even think about it? Habits are how you fold your socks or biting your nails. Sometimes we set them up on purpose to keep us feeling safe or prepared. I personally have a well-established routine each morning that includes tasks like making the bed, cleaning the cat box, and putting away the dishes left to dry overnight. It’s a groove that works very well and has served me for years.

A less effective one I have is saving the special food I like best for my last bite. I really noticed it a while back when I took myself to lunch at my favorite Sushi place. I truly loved everything I ordered and was really stuck trying to figure out what to eat first and what to save for last!

So we have habits of all kinds – bad ones, good ones, silly ones, neutral ones…on and on it goes. Start noticing what is behind the habit — Did you start it based on something that happened in your life? What was its original purpose? and do you still want/need that habit?

What is a habit you really wish you could change? Perhaps, one that you have tried and tried to shift but are still stuck in, or even think there is just no way out of it? Maybe you really aren’t ready to break it, or really down deep like repeating it?

Either way, I’d like you to consider this new idea I’ve been exploring with some clients. The thought process has to do with confidence. This involves truly believing that you actually can change if you truly want to. You don’t have to bare-knuckle your way through! By combining and exchanging the routine or actions you take with the added knowledge that you absolutely can change!

What?!! Change? Impossible! That’s probably what your ever-present ‘Inner Critic‘ is telling you. I contend that you can remodel your thinking because you have absolutely changed before! It turns out that reminding yourself of a habit you managed to shift sometime earlier in your life actually bolsters your ability to change now. In addition, the habit you previously modified doesn’t have to be in any way related to the pattern you are trying to change now!

Realizing that if you quit smoking years ago, you could also change the penchant for buying way too many shoes now. You can shift from ‘It’s not possible!’ to ‘Change is possible because I did it before…and I’m more effective now.’ Of course, I can!

You might need more support around building your confidence than just noticing that you succeeded before. If so what do you know really helps you change your thinking and actions? It might be talking to a good friend, or maybe listening to a hypnotherapy recording based on what you want to change.

So revision just might be more doable than you thought. Not necessarily easy. It may just be that you choose to not change. And if that’s the case isn’t it better to actually choose not to change than to feel like you just can’t change?

Things often come down to refocusing our perspective. Transforming habits, including ones around money, is doable. Figure out what you really want and own it!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, The Untangler

Mixed Signals

We all know about mixed signals, don’t we? You know, that thing where someone says one thing, but really means something else? Signals come in a variety of ways. Let’s explore a couple:

The Hint: This one has been around forever. The hint is primarily used so that if the person you are asking something of doesn’t like what’s being asked you can easily retract it. Frankly, women (Including, I hate to admit, myself) have been using this one for centuries. Men still don’t seem to have caught on to it. For example, she says: ‘The grass is really getting long isn’t it?’ What she means is: ‘Please mow the lawn.’ What he hears is just a passing comment about that lawn. The silent war continues?

The Dodge: as in “dodging a bullet”. I’ve been in several relationships where this one was used. A prime example is this money one with my first husband. I had hit a place where I was tired of handling the money and paying the bills. He volunteered to take over for a bit. I kept asking how things were going and he kept saying ‘coasting along.’ The truth is that they were ‘coasting downhill into oblivion!’ He had gotten a new job and was going to be gone for several weeks of training. I said I would take overseeing the household expenses since he was going to be out of town. Well, when I finally looked at our bank accounts, there was nothing in the checking account…nothing! Keep in mind, this was a time before credit cards. I ended up eating all the sardines in a can and Ramen Noodles left in the back of the cupboard while he was getting ‘wined and dined.’ I’m sure it’s not a surprise to you that after that experience, I always stewarded the money! The Dodge never really works, it just postpones the truth and pain.

The Deep Cover-Up: in this instance, we grab the symptom instead of the issue underneath. We seem to be upset about one thing, but it’s really something else. Most often, we don’t even know we are doing it. Now both parties are missing the communication. Here’s a great example: I have a client who is very extroverted and married to a guy who is quite introverted. Opposites attract, right? She is exasperated with vigor about how much time he spends on his phone, texting, Social Media, email you name it. Now, is this really about the phone? Nope. It’s actually about the isolation pressed upon them in these Covid days. She was used to being around people, bunches of them, all the time. Even if he gave her all his attention all the time, it wouldn’t fill her need. Can you see how we often don’t dig deep enough to figure out what the real issue is? We are pretty much trained to come up with a quick solution, and often that only serves to create more frustration. For my client, it was less about her husband being on the phone and more about her not having enough people contact to fulfill the need to be around others. Seeing what the real underlying issue is, helps both of them solve the problem.

Can you see that the result of ‘sending’ these mixed signals is most often confusion and sometimes anger and pain? I think it’s quite likely that one of the main reasons we resort to such tactics is to avoid being vulnerable. Vulnerability has often gotten a bad rap. We think that opening ourselves up to others will always cause pain. Sure, we have evidence for when it did…mostly in our youth. It was kids at school or possibly anxious or controlling parents. It was rooted in situations where we didn’t have personal power. Now we forget, that as adults, we DO have personal power. We can honor ourselves and our truth.

I truly think when we are vulnerable and are living a life of being open and truthful we are very powerful. We are unstoppable. Nothing someone says can really hurt us when we are clear and standing in our personal truth. We can risk admitting we are afraid, or sad, or angry in a clear manner. By doing just that we may actually get what we need from others without having to send mixed signals!

We have plenty of challenging things to deal with these days, truly an overwhelming reality. We are often much more on edge. If you are clear and direct in your communication with others, you have a better chance of getting what you want, or at the very least knowing that the recipient of your intentions has no doubt what you want.

Let’s make all our relationships including the one with ourselves better without mixed signals!

Ka’ching

Shell Tain, The Untangler

It’s the Little Things

There are lots of big scary things happening in the world right now. Frankly, that’s not new. What is new is that the same frightening things are happening to people all over the world at the same time. As much as the idea that we are “all in this pandemic together” may be comforting, it’s true that at the same time we are all in this alone.

We have things in common and on the other hand, we have things that specifically challenge each of us. Each day, we must find our way through not only the circumstances but the emotions they bring up.

For me personally, it seems to be the little things that both push me “over my edge” and bring me joy. That’s probably not a new occurrence. Now that the day to day hustle has slowed down to a crawl I’m much more observant of myself and my reactions.

I have been working a bunch on pivoting in the face of the adverse things! I did a blog just a couple of weeks ago about pivoting when something doesn’t work (Lot’s of Pivoting) It’s a way I have learned to move past the obstacle or problem. Things that break, don’t work, aren’t what’s expected…you know, everyday stuff we’ve come to depend on that seems more complex than it used to be! Little things!

Just when I’m exhausted from coping and pivoting and I don’t think I can take it anymore, some wonderful little thing happens! For example, I got an email from a client I haven’t worked with in years, telling me that our work around money has really helped her, and has given her the strength to cope with the money issues of this uncertain time. Or when I find a joke on Facebook that really tickles me, or a friend calls to share something funny.

It’s the little things that add up and really matter.

Sometimes the positives just come by themselves. Sometimes they are like a response to the negative — For example, when finding fresh rhubarb at the store cheers the part of me that is hunting like mad for toilet paper.

The best example I have of the ‘duel-aspect’ thing is my recent internet adventure. My internet was literally making me crazy! It would be on for about a minute, off for a minute, on for 3 minutes…on and on it went. I kept thinking/hoping it was some temporary glitch. I finally gave up and called my internet provider. About half an hour later on the phone with a representative, it was sorta fixed and a guy was scheduled to come sort it out the next day. (This in itself was a miracle…I have often had to wait for days for someone to come out…and for me that means no internet and no phone! Yipes) Meanwhile, several weeks before the internet decided to get petulant, the Pandora Music app stopped working on my theoretically ‘smart‘ TV. It worked on my tablet and my computer, but not the TV! It just froze. This was a big deal because crazy dancing to music from my youth has become the only viable form of exercise available to me while Covid-19 is with us. Another cause for pivoting…and not in a good way. The tech was nice, friendly and not only fixed the internet, but I asked if he had any suggestions about the Pandora thing and he fiddles with the TV and gets that working too! Hot Damn!!! It’s a little thing, but it sure made my heart sing to be able to rock out and dance myself silly once he left!

There are really several things to ponder in this blog:

We are all doing the best we can
Perhaps it’s the little things that make a difference for you too?
Who knows a broken internet may end up with a fixed Pandora!

Please take some time to find out what brings you back to joy, and what helps you through angst. It may even turn out to be the little things.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Lots of Pivoting

Seems like I have been doing lots of pivoting lately. I am reacting to the difference between what I expect to happen and what actually shows up. Yesterday morning was a good example. I got up early, which is not my best time of the day, and zoomed over to Costco with the idea of being able to breeze right in as a Senior. Ummm, not happening. I have never seen a longer line, not at an airport, not even at Disneyland. I began to try and find the end of the snaking line of humans and then chose to pivot! I got in my car, went to Freddy’s (a local chain supermarket) and actually found toilet paper, gluten-free bread, and chicken thighs. The majority of my list was handled and I was actually in a good mood for the victory of having saved myself from an unpleasant wait.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into this pivot idea. We, as humans, are mostly creatures of habit and these days it feels like even the most basic of activities are disrupted. We can’t gather together. We can’t get a massage. We can’t give or get hugs. We can’t do a myriad of things we are used to doing in our day and to top it off, the information we receive to stay safe changes constantly. Mostly we can’t really wrap our heads around the idea that there is a global pandemic happening right now! It feels like we have all entered an alternate Universe. Personally I’ve been feeling that way since November of 2016, and yet the last couple of years have only been a warm-up for managing change and expectations beyond my wildest dreams.

Recently, I found myself falling into despair over the human race having failed the experiment of figuring out how to get along and be kind to one another. Then, it struck me. We are all in a cauldron of grief and loss! Which means that DABDA is running wild. No, my spell check hasn’t failed me, DABDA is the acronym created by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to help understand and unravel grief:

Depression, Anger, Bargaining, Denial, Acceptance — Not necessarily in that order, and often bouncing around all over the place.

I bring this up because once you figure out you are in one, or more of those places, you can then choose to pivot… and do something else.

Can you see how these stages are playing out? The Denial one is pretty evident with people who aren’t keeping social distance. It seems to me the idea that younger people wouldn’t be effected was a good way to grab onto some Bargaining. I myself have been pretty Angry that I can’t exercise the way I did a few weeks ago— Just so you know I found a great pivot for that one. For me, it’s, dancing and singing wildly to songs of my teenage days, thanks to Pandora Radio. I think the mindset of Acceptance is subtle yet consistent, we need to stay home, keep our distance and find new ways to connect.

The big daddy of all of them all is, Depression, and with it comes another acronym, HALT. This one is where all the components line up together to create Depression:

Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired — When those symptoms pile up, we fall over the edge. It’s one of the reasons I ‘ate’ my own feelings for at least the first week of this!

Checking in with you all to see if perhaps you too have some DABDA or HALT stuff going on? Observing these symptoms can give you the information and tools you need to pivot, then shift and move on to something different. The recognition of these feelings can really pave the road for a good transition out of the tangle of emotions. It will help fortify you for the opportunities to pivot in the weeks still to come.

Take care, stay safe, and be kind to yourself!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Keep Calm and Carry On

We are all facing the restrictions and social distancing around the Covid -19 challenge. As a reminder for myself, I decided to grab onto the “Keep Calm and Carry On” British slogan. After feeling like this was the mantra for me, I discovered some fascinating information about “Keep Calm and Carry On” as I researched the history of the famous phrase.

As we are diligently trying to Keep Calm and Carry On let’s take a trip in the ‘Way Back Machine’ ala Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman (from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon hit) to England just as WWII is looming in the summer of 1939. The Ministry of Information has been given the task of raising morale and inspiring public support for the war. There were three posters designed:

Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory
Freedom Is in Peril / Defend It With All Your Might
Keep Calm and Carry On

Between August 23rd and September 3rd of 1939 2.45 million of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters were printed. Only a handful was ever used. The bulk of the posters were destroyed at the end of the war in 1945.

Today, we only know of 16 of the original posters still “Carryin’ On.” One was found 60 years later by Stuart and Mary Manley, co-owners of Barter Books, Ltd. in Northumberland. The other 15 showed up on the BBC version of Antiques Roadshow in February of 2012.

So what happened? Why weren’t they used? These two links have all the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On

https://history.blog.gov.uk/2014/06/27/keep-calm-and-carry-on-the-compromise-behind-the-slogan/

Suffice it to say that there were too many opinions presented at once. There were complaints about the costs. There were arguments about the content. Too many politicians in the mix — We can all relate to that, can’t we?

Winston Churchill managed to send out 14 million leaflets in June of 1941. He used the phrases Stand Firm and Carry On but not together or even in the same sentence. This leaflet started with the phrase: “If invasion comes…” and included 14 questions and answers around ‘practical matters’ of the invasion. By then he had enough pull to avoid the flurry of opinions from a committee.

As we know, Britain made it through the war. There was an immense amount of cooperation, collaboration, and courage expressed by their citizens — everything from the Black Outs to rationing, to sending your children to live with strangers for their safety, and too many other challenges to mention.

I agree with France’s current President Macron: “We are at war — in a health war” and we have a choice as to how we react to the hardships and restrictions. Let’s all do our best to Keep Calm and Carry On

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Money Brooding

Do you find yourself brooding about money? Perhaps you spend hours analyzing how much you have, trying to find the magic key to the numbers? Or maybe you check your accounts multiple times a day? If you do, I’m guessing there might be a surprisingly different impetus hidden in all that fretting that isn’t tied to money.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I really want you to have a great interactive relationship with money. After all, money has so much to tell you. Money lets you know when you are achieving your goals, or when you need to reevaluate and focus more. It tells you if your mood is up or down. Lots of good internal data is available by looking at money.

Like many things, there is a place where it stops being informative or engaging and becomes obsessive and compulsive — kind of like tequila, chocolate or ice cream.

Frequently my clients share with me that they are so tied up in brooding over money that they can’t sleep. They spend hours in the dark fretting and worrying. Their minds are sent zooming over all sorts of bad scenarios. Thoughts tossing and turning around extreme situations like going broke. Losing everything. Starving. YIPES! Very scary stuff.

This worrying is NOT effective. It’s just spinning and brooding. It’s not planning. It’s not motivational. It is a pain in the ass!

What’s behind it? I think it’s your Inner Critic. Now, I know you may hear that from me a lot. That ‘should, must, have to’ voice is your Critic. Your Inner Critic is very vigilant at keeping you right where you are!

There are plenty of blogs here on my website that talk about this ‘piss ant’, omnipresent, irritating voice in our heads, so I will just give you a bit of the top notes here.

Your Inner Critic is there to keep you safe. The problem is that its perspective of safe is very narrow. Your Inner Critic thinks that as long as you are not in imminent danger of losing your life in the next 30 seconds you are fine, and should stay right where you are. It believes that doing something new will lead to death and disaster. So it’s ultimate job is to keep you right where you are! It does not care that ‘where you are‘ may be struggling, or unhappy, or even broke. You are alive, so don’t rock the boat.

So what does all this Inner Critic stuff have to do with brooding about money? The Inner Critic’s most effective tactic for keeping you where you are is to distract you! When you are fretting, obsessing and panicked you aren’t really present. You miss things. You don’t hear anything else. You don’t notice what is going on. You stay stuck.

Money is the perfect topic for the Critic. Money is still very much a taboo topic, so we are likely to not talk to anyone else about our money worries and concerns. Most people don’t feel at ease or comfortable around money, so it’s easy to stir up angst about it. Oh, and money is tied to our feeling of self-worth and value. A perfect place for the Critic to stir up distraction!

The next time you find yourself brooding and nattering about money, press the pause button. Spend a moment or two seeing just how distracted you are. Are you actually coming up with solutions? Or are you spinning weird scenarios?

And if you determine that it’s your Inner Critic creating chaos in your brain…TELL IT TO SHUT UP! Stop giving it ‘air time.’ Change the channel in your head. Do not engage with it!

You’ll sleep better, and be much more present in your life without the constant distractions.

PS: Critics do not go away — instead you can choose not to pay any attention to them!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Really shutting up your critic can be a challenge. I’m happy to help. Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Mind the Horses

When I first learned about Dr. John Gottman’s work around the ‘Four Horsemen’ I was so impressed. By doing extensive research he had discovered four behaviors that are crucial for us all to both understand and to learn from. He based it on the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ and his message was clear — We need to mind these horses!

Dr. Gottman, after spending countless hours with couples, applies his work surrounding the story of the “Four Horsemen” to the marriage relationship. My take on the matter is that these principles can be applied to ALL of our relationships, including the one with money — Yes, you do actually have a relationship with money! And the horses can give you insight on how that relationship is going.

As long as there have been horses, people have been tasked to mind their horse, meaning to pay attention to what it’s doing. I think understanding and minding these particular horses is essential to all our relationships and interactions. Dr. Gottman has given us four of them to be attentive to:

Blaming or Criticism: We know this one, right? It’s all about judgment and more snarky than a complaint. We may complain about something, but when we add a bit of character assassination, it turns into blaming.
Defending: This one really got my attention when I read what Dr. Gottman said about it. You see, defending is really veiled blaming. “The dog ate my homework” shifts the responsibility away from you and to the dog. It just tends to add more blaming, instead of calming things down.
Contempt: This one is more about tone and intent than the actual words. It includes things like sarcasm, mockery, eye-rolling, and name-calling. The best example is Dan Aykroyd’s classic opening Point/Counter-Point line on Saturday Night Live with Jane Curtin: “Jane, you ignorant slut…” Literally anything can be said in a contemptuous manner.
Stonewalling: This one is all about distancing and disengaging. It’s the ultimate cold-shoulder. It increases the frustration of the person who is talking to you if you don’t respond or even look at the person. The word really says it. Originally it was a noun, meaning “an act of obstruction.”

It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that these ‘horses’ tend to travel in pairs. Blaming and Defending trot along together, as do Contempt and Stonewalling. And they both stir up a bunch of dust. I liken this to the Wild Horse Race at the Rodeo. If there an issue worth paying attention to in the center of the arena — Like an important topic to be discussed — it will be invisible and ignored, shrouded in all the dust and fury of the horses galloping around.

Okay, so there they are — four horses. And what do we do about them? It’s really a three-step process:

First, when you find yourself facing a ‘horse’ you repeat this mantra as many times as needed: ‘It’s not about me, it’s not about me, it’s NOT about me….’
Second, you avoid getting on a ‘horse’. Stop, don’t ride at all. Dismount.
Third, in order to help the other person dismount their ‘horse’ try this:
- Instead of joining them on a ‘horse’, try acknowledging the ‘feeling’ underneath the uneasiness by saying something like: “Wow, I get when that happens it really bothers you.” Notice that you aren’t agreeing, or surrendering, or apologizing — you are acknowledging and affirming that they are in a tough spot. It just might slow the ‘horse’.

I know, I know, easier said than done. We all experience ‘riding horses’ in our lives. They are in our heads and in our relationships. Dr. Gottamn’s work can show us something deeper about your relationships. Try this small experiment if you will. Think of a horrible relationship from your past…we all have at least one of those to ponder. Got one in mind? Okay, now which specific ‘horses’ were present in your interactions with each other? Which ‘horses’ did you ride and which ones did the other person gallop into the arena? Now let’s ponder a different relationship. One where you and the other person got along really well. A ‘good’ one. Any ‘horses’ there? How does that positive interaction compare with the first one? Finally, just for grins think about how you are with money — any ‘horses’ trotting around there?

Intriguing, isn’t it? You can see why the concept of the ‘horses’ is something I cover early on with my clients!

What’s really going on with these ‘horses’? What’s underneath all this? And why do I say it’s “not actually about you” when the other person is on a ‘horse’? The answer is the most important thing for you to know about ‘horses’!

We get on a horse to quite literally, get a leg up. We trot out a horse when we feel diminished — when our sense of self-worth is low or is challenged, especially when we feel powerless. ‘Horses’ are a distracting way to pull ourselves up by laying the responsibility elsewhere. We see it constantly. A prime example today is road rage. Even children can be seen getting on ‘horses’ to navigate their emotions— but they usually do it more cleanly. It’s not hard to see when children are on a ‘horse’ because they have hurt feelings. It’s harder as an adult to be vulnerable and admit that we feel diminished or put down — so instead we mount up and charge in!

Understanding and taming ‘horses’ matters now more than ever. They are no longer just running around in our personal lives but are stampeding all over! It’s time to learn to mind our own ‘horses’ with care and diligence.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want some help getting off a ‘horse’, or avoiding each other’s horses’? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

The Perfection Trap

It seems like it’s everywhere these days: People seem to expect to just magically be perfect at something without practice or study. I don’t really know what’s behind it—or even if I’m just noticing it because I have several clients who expect themselves to be perfect right ‘out of the chute’.

What I do know is that it’s not only a futile endeavor but a trap. It’s one of those handy tools that our Inner Critic voice uses. You have heard me speak of that, and I will continue to do so. Frankly, I think helping people to stop giving their Inner Critics ‘air time‘ is one of the most important things I do… whether it’s about money or not. This perfection thing is just another diversion in the Critic’s Toolkit.

Somehow many of us feel like we are supposed to be able to be perfect without practice or effort. I beg to differ with that. Even the things that we are ‘good‘ at, or have some innate talent for, require practice, enhancement, care—or we either lose them or they get stale.

This desire to be instantly successful and perfect at something is everywhere in our lives. We should just know how to write a blog, cook a great meal, play an instrument, or manage our money, right? Um, no. All those things and many more take practice—lots of practice.

It’s not even just a matter of patience. It seems to be more about expectations. We expect that we will magically be able to do something without struggle or effort.

One side of my family was full of artists, and I do some art myself. Art is a particularly good example of a skill where you have to give yourself the time and patience to fail, experiment, and just mess up.

Long ago I was taking a beginning drawing class at a local college. A young guy in his twenties had the easel next to me. We were doing some kind of sketching, I don’t remember the actual objects. What I do remember is that he kept drawing a bit and then wadding the paper up and throwing it on the floor. There were grunts, gnashing, and colorful language that accompanied this endeavor. The instructor noticed the pile and came over to talk to him. I both love and agree wholeheartedly with what she told him. She explained that every art piece goes through a very ugly stage where you just want to rip it up and start over. I was delighted to hear that because I thought I was the only person who had that problem! She also said that you just have to keep working at it and get past it. It’s part of the process.

Along the same line, I recently read an article in Artist’s Magazine about starting a drawing practice. The article, by Danny Gregory, had a box in the corner titled: NOTE TO SELF which included these points:

Never compare yourself to other artists… Let their progress inspire, but not intimidate, you…
You’re making more progress than you think you are. You may not see it, but it’s happening…
Everyone struggles at the beginning… the struggle is normal, inevitable… and a positive sign that you are working through things.

I have several clients who feel like when they take a class to learn something new they have to do things well from the very beginning. Maybe that comes from competition in school or the need to get good grades to meet family or cultural expectations, but it is not an effective method of learning something new as an adult. What that idea is really good at is keeping you from even trying to learn something new or improve how you do things. It distracts you from engaging, and that is a shame. It’s a Perfection Trap, and none of us want to end up in a trap.

The real question is: How would your life be different if you allowed yourself to be messy, awkward, and nowhere near perfect? And even more radical, what if you could think of doing that as the ‘perfect’ way to be? Give it a try!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want some help getting out of the Perfection Trap? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

The In-crowd and Money

Remember your teenage years? It seems to me that Junior High, which is today’s Middle School, was where it really became clear. There were the cool kids, the in-crowd, and there were the rest of us. Most of us weren’t in the in-crowd. That’s part of the value of a clique: exclusivity. There were different forms of cliques. Some were for the athletic types, some for the nerds. Tough kids, surfers, hippies — all had their own groups with specific rules around dress, language, and behavior. They worked hard to stay in their group and to exclude others. Without excluding others there isn’t anything to feel special about.

Many of us didn’t meet the criteria. We weren’t good enough for whatever reason. We weren’t pretty, or thin enough. We weren’t smart enough—or were too smart. We didn’t have the right clothes. It hurt and made us feel ‘less than’.

This is not new for humans. We have been doing it forever. And the solution is in a very old fairy tale: ‘The Ugly Duckling’ written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1843. You all know the story, and the point was and remains to be — stop hanging out with ducks! Go where you are appreciated.

Now there is a particular reason I’m bringing this up. I’ve noticed over the years that many of my clients get Money tangled up in this ‘do I belong’ conundrum. It goes something like this:

If I was rich I could fit in with the ‘in-crowd’
I’m jealous and envious of those who have more than I do
It’s not fair that I don’t have more money
I messed up because I didn’t save when I was young, or get a degree, or…
I feel like I’m always being judged as ‘less than’ others

Somehow we make up that it’s all about money. Money is the problem. It caused it. I don’t have it. On and on it goes. And here’s the rub. Yes, money may be a factor in this tangle, but not in the way people think. You may be tired of hearing it, and here it is again: “Money is reflective, not causative!” You made choices, some good, some not so good. And sad to say, you may still be stuck in those choices. Going over them and over them. Letting them consume you.

This idea of making it all about money is a giant distraction! It keeps you from living your life now. It has you trying to fit into places you likely won’t like when you get there. It’s the Duck/Swan thing again. I remember once putting an offer down on a house in a particular neighborhood. I had this weird thought in my head. It went like this: “If I lived in this neighborhood I’d have to put on make-up to get the mail!” I liked the house, the price was fine, yet it didn’t feel right. I was not going to be with my peeps if I lived there. Luckily there turned out to be a siding issue that had us not buy the house.

The thing that has you not be in with the ‘cool kids’ is not money—really! And if you keep thinking it is, and fussing with it around money, you will just keep spinning in circles.

The problem is that the real issue is harder to deal with. It’s what’s under the money stuff, and it’s likely about your own feelings of ‘worth’. It takes courage and fortitude to dig in there, but it’s well worth it.

I’ve recently been on my own journey around this tangle about ‘where do I fit’ and realized that I was hanging around with people who were not nice to me, and I was trying hard to get them to like me. Finally, I figured out that they just weren’t my peeps! I set some new boundaries and am hanging with swans instead! And there is a huge weight off my heart and soul. See, hanging around with other swans is easy. They laugh at your jokes, they like you, they respect you… you can be yourself.

Please give yourself the gift of hanging with your own particular in-crowd!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want some help getting out of this tangle? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.