Oppression in the workplace

I have felt that the past week has been one of oppression. Work conditions at the hospital truly have been oppressive.

• There is a heavy air at the facility as it gets ready for state inspectors to come back at the end of this week to see if we did what we were supposed to have done.
  
• There is still the shock and disbelief over the termination of the hospital CEO and vice president.
  
• The replacement management is talking about cutting back even more in light the situation.
  
• People around me, especially my boss are expressing their concerns as to whether they will have a job?
• There are junior executives from the healthcare system asking lots and lots of picky questions trying to cover all of the bases to save the hospital and the healthcare system in general from losing Medicare and Medicaid. This has the net effect of slave driving given the current emotional state.
• The hospital has continued to be under extraordinary scrutiny from the state. It is getting old. It is getting tiring.
• The narcissist and borderlines that I supervise are even more wound up and reactionary, stirring up unwanted emotional turmoil and tension.
  

When this kind of stress keeps up at a steady rate I think that the effect is that of “oppression.”

It does not help that the unemployment rate in Louisville has reached 6.1 percent. It does not help that Seven Counties Services (the local public mental health agency) has laid off a bunch of people creating more competition for whatever few mental health jobs there might be in the local market. There are a number of environmental stressors outside the hospital that compound the feeling of oppression.

I have not heard much use of the word “oppression” in the past several years except when it was referring to the hot summer heat. In Louisville, the summer heat can be oppressive as it was the last few weeks.

Oppression usually means to be burdened mentally or spiritually. It can mean to be crushed. The connotation is that someone is acting in a tyrannical fashion, abusing or suppressing others.

However, as a actual MSW-bearing social worker, I also have been leery of the term “oppression.” The term “oppression” was thrown around at my Social Work school by anyone who wanted to call themselves and their ethnic or demographic group oppressed. Yep, they are victims and you should feel sorry for them and guilty for your more privileged status, and maybe you should be a nebulous advocate for them in ways that they cannot even think of at the time, which means that you should keep their victimhood and your guilt at the front of your mind 24-7 and feel oppressed along with them for no other rational reason.

There is only so much consciousness that can be raised, and I found oppressed by their claim of oppression, and I found myself turned off by it. While this is not politically-correct (read liberal)

I had begun to feel that the slogan “It's a black thing you just don't understand” was overused by certain people I knew at the time and I came to view their use of the slogan as their excuse to avoid their responsibilities for their own personal situations.

But I find myself concluding that I am feeling a sense of oppression now. I find a great weight on me. It is not just burnout. Burnout happens as result of the ongoing oppression. I think that any one can be burned out in any situation when they work too many hours—even if they enjoy the job.

In the oppressive situation, there is either a high degree of tension or anxiety that remains constant. The following are some examples that come to mind.

I believe that some work situations are oppressive by their very nature. For example I consider the entertainment field to be very oppressive. I consider any job in front of a TV camera to be oppressive. You have to look the part. You have prima donnas complaining about this or that imperfection. You have the paparazzi being intrusive and offensive all the time looking for that one photograph of someone being without underwear or being off guard or throwing a tirade. If you are successful, you have everyone wanting a piece of you in some way or another. Thus, many stars get addicted to drugs and alcohol to cope and have multiple marriages as a result of the pressure. (Thank God, I am an otherwise average joe bloke without acting or musical talent!)

I also consider the offices of politicians to be oppressive and working as a elected official's staff member to be oppressive. I have thought that a white house appointment would be fantastic. Spending more with your family is given as a standard reason for resigning from those jobs, but I really think that kind of appointment owns you, chews you up and spits you out. It is in that respect I am thankful that my wife has vetoed any jobs in Washington DC after I get my doctorate.

I think that many workplaces become oppressive when there is an especially dysfunctional boss. The boss in this case is a tyrant that rules by emotion and abuse. The boss acts by impulse and without judgment. The boss has no clue how to treat people with respect and dignity. People who grow up with an abusive mother or father figure likely migrate to this kind of tiny kingdom and stay that “realm” re-enacting family relationships. People who are otherwise stuck there (and despise it) because of lack of opportunity, engage in survival behaviors which make life a living hell for those around them—becoming perpetrators as bad as the boss.

One personal experience in this case was a mental health agency (that's right a mental health agency) in an east central Indiana city. The old woman who ran the department ruled by her emotional whims and insecurities. She was controlling and abusive and patronizing in the 1.5 years I worked there. She enabled the other borderline therapists to run things make decisions about my job performance. I was under some kind of probation half of the time for some b---s--t reasons that I almost walked. She acted stupid when I tendered my resignation. She and her lieutenant in retrospect were both borderline personalities and had no insight as to why they had such high turnover. I just knew that I had been treated better in other agencies. My personal responsibility to myself and my wife was to get out as soon as I could land another job in an area we wanted to live.

One other personal experience was when I was working at a Cellular Phone agency of “US West” in Minneapolis before I went to Social Work school. This was before I really developed emotional intelligence. I had no inventory to sell and little support in the way of good leads. The owners of the agency were somewhat exploitive—they controlled the phone calls in and made most all the sales while others scraped by. I sold very little during the one year I had been there. I look back and ask myself: “What were you doing in that crappy job?” My answer back to myself continues to be: “I did not know any better and it is okay. Nobody gets all the smarts at the beginning of life. You get them as you go.”

One last example of possible oppression that is relevant now is in times of economic hardship and recession. I have talked with numerous people over the years about their worries as to whether they will continue to have jobs? Will their factory or workplaces stay open? Employers seem to take great liberties when they have employees by the economic neck or male body parts in the lower half of the body that exhibit excruciating pain when grabbed or hit.

I have talked about examples of oppression, but what does it do to someone? In sum I think that it leads to burnout and depression.

In my current context, it has taken my mental edge off. I found myself forgetting today that I had already told my Sunday School class my story of work. I also found myself having less energy to do things.

I also find myself engaging in probably not the best coping activities. I also found myself engaging in comfort food snacking, which is not helping my diet.

I have had less motivation to do certain things like clean up my home office. I also believe that it is taking me back to job burnout again.

I have found myself preoccupied with work on the weekend when I have usually been able to forget about work and clients. I had a work dream last night, which is usually my signal to do something about it.

Okay, now what to do about work-place oppression? As usual, the answers are not easy.

First, I think first, it is important to be mindful of the oppression. I look back and I realize that I was not mindful of the oppression until later in the earlier jobs. I realize that what is going on is oppressing.

Second, try not to dwell on it. It does not mean that you are denying it. Denying means you are sticking your head in the sand. When you are refraining from dwelling on something, it means that you are seeing that there is more to life than just the oppression you are going through.

Third, try to see gray areas. Oppression is a time when people go to black and white thinking such as “always” and “never.” They also dwell on the most horrific or catastrophic possibility, even though there is only a remote chance it would happen.

Fourth, make choices thoughtfully. I think that the concept of oppression overall means that a person under oppression has no choices. You have some choice today. You have a choice to do something. Making a choice and being mindful that you have made a choice gives a sense of some power. Make a choice to have a grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwich today if that is a choice you can make.

Fifth, think about options (for a time-limited period). I have given a little thought as to what could happen if the hospital closes down due to some tyrannical state inspectors. I could be getting another job sooner than I expected. I may have defer the new siding and windows I am going to put in my house. I could be filing for unemployment. I could be applying to some hemophilia aid services to help my son continue to get his blood factor medication. My wife could be getting a better job as a necessity. But there limits to analysis—too much analysis leads to dwelling and dwelling leads to worry. Analysis is only good if you can really use it to improve a situation or take care of a problem.

Last (at least for now) make a survival plan. There are many times we have to make survival plans. My survival plan for this week includes: 1.) a cup of Starbucks coffee at least three times this week in the morning, 2.) video games where I destroy something, 3.) painting my garage floor at least one night this week, 4.) having something good for lunch every day, 5.) watching the “Big Brother” TV show, 6.) wear my ear plug and listen to the radio while at my desk in the afternoons so I do not have to listen to the borderline personality nurse who can't shut up about her worries, 7.) talk about it to my friends at church and of course 8.) write this note to myself and whoever else cares.

This as usual has been an imperfect discussion about dealing with a subject. I recognize that there is all kinds of oppression in the workplaces of the world. I close with this, while I may feel it and can do nothing about the sources of it, I can take some responsibility today for me. I hope that you will consider doing the same for yourself.

Assumptions get broken

At a religious, church-related social services agency and administrator frequently told me if you cut “assume” three ways, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” (A heck of a statement by some guy in that position.) His message was don't ever assume. I had a journalism professor that also said “assume nothing.”

Despite their advice and admonishments, the reality is that we all make assumptions or we assume. We assume good things and we assume bad things.

In my job, one of the bell-ringers is that people with panic attacks and agoraphobia are people who assume the most. They assume that they are going to have bad things happen to them in Walmart and other big box stores and any public place and any time they are alone.

I have also learned that the grief and loss process has something to do with assumptions as the first stage is shock or denial. The shock or denial goes against assumptions that we make that the loss of the cherished person, thing or idea taught otherwise.

I think that we all tend to assume that things will go on as they have always gone on. I have learned that lesson this past week as I have found my assumptions crashed.

On Thursday, August 28, 2008 my boss came up to the floor I was on and had a special meeting to inform us that the CEO and Vice President of our hospital had been terminated that day. For the most part, I had assumed that the CEO and Vice President would always go on in their roles.

We loved them dearly and I respected the CEO greatly. I was most interested in how a nun came storming in saying that she would no longer volunteer at the hospital because of how unjust the terminations were. She really assumed hard.

One of the people I had talked with had been in a meeting with the Vice President the night before. She related that the Vice President had talked about details of future plans and what the hospital was going to do about several situations. The conclusion was that the Vice President was truly blindsided with the termination early in the morning. The CEO and Vice President had been called downtown for a meeting at 8am where they had been informed they were no longer with the organization.


My unit's medical director (a psychiatrist) also said later in the day that the terminations were a shock to him—and he had been at the organization a long time. A second psychiatrist made the comment that the changes going on were crazy.

Things have been happening very quickly at the hospital over the past 72 hours. I have had the advantage of walking by certain places in the hospital and have seen that there have been a lot of emergency meetings.

From what I can judge, the top brass at the healthcare system home office have acted amongst themselves out of what appears to be desperation. They have been acting so quickly secretively and in what seems to be a crisis mode that they have not changed the website to remove the photographs of the hospital CEO and Vice President.

The facts of the terminations are coming slowly. Some of the scuttlebutt has to do with allegations of fraud as to how a case was handled. Some of the more reliable “intel” is that the CEO and VP are being blamed for the state putting the hospital and the whole healthcare system under a 23-day probation to fix some problems or lose Medicaid and Medicare billing ability. I figure that more facts and factoids will be coming.

I got a call today from my supervisor saying that there will be a 8am meeting on Tuesday, immediately when we come back from Labor Day. There are going to be a series of emergency educations to achieve compliance.

I believe that there will be many other changes. I believe that my supervisor will probably be a basket-case. She has said to a number of people that she fears that she will be terminated too. For what I do not exactly know, but probably because they want to downsize even more.

Things are suddenly feeling like recession as like other corporations where they are talking possible cutbacks and layoffs. There is a air of instability. I am back in the spirit of why I started this blog!

I go back to the matter of assumptions. Only when this kind of stuff happens do you realize how you assumed that it would not.

I think that we must assume things will go on the way that they always have. Otherwise we would never move ahead with dreams and goals. Also, if we did not assume, we would likely be paralyzed in our generalized anxiety over every and all things.

I think that we must assume that reasonable people act in certain reasonable ways. People who are anxious assume the worst while claim they are hoping for the best.

In addition to making the normal human assumptions, it is important to trust in your own problem-solving abilities. You and I need them when our assumptions turn out to be wrong.

Problem-solving abilities and your belief in yours are two elements everyone needs as no one can tell what the future is and no one can be truly prepared for the future.

I have decided that my problem-solving abilities will be along the lines of staying calm and focusing on the job. I will try to allow others to vent feelings and share as they need.

I also feel that I will need to be careful about how I think about things, and how much I try to pry and find out new things. Curiosity kills cats. Otherwise, I am confident that more and more facts will come drifting out and I will learn all I want and need to know without looking like a busy body.

There could be advancement for me within the organization. I have wanted to stay with the organization, but I have not seen anywhere I could advance. Now that there are changes, more executive roles could be created.

I have given some thought to what could happen if the hospital gets closed down. I have thought what would happen. However, I also assume that things will get worked out as I see the state of Kentucky bureaucrats in Frankfort not wanting to get themselves stuck with closing down a non-profit facility they have made the De facto state psychiatry hospital for children and having no place else in the state to put these kids and explaining to the governor why they shipped 200-plus kids to out of state facilities.

However, I assume that I would file for unemployment and then I would begin looking for work. I would probably have my wife get a more substantial part time job. I would probably apply for factor assistance to get help acquiring my son's factor replacement therapy medication. I assume that I would get another job in my field, or my new field in which I am getting my Ph.D. Any which way, I assume at this time the options I will likely have.

Would I have the options? I don't know and I may never know as I assume that the potential situation is only a potential situation composed of a number of different variables. Thinking too much about this causes way too much stress that I really do not need.

Well, we win and lose, laugh and cry on account of our assumptions. It is okay and it is rather human to do, but be ready to work on picking up pieces and solving problems should the assumptions crash.

Character and values—It's happening here?

(Note--this is a very different post than what I have done--it has my interest at this moment and I will probably write more along some of the themes in future entries.)

There is a local story going on in the city where I live at the University of Louisville. The former dean of the ”School of Education” is currently under federal investigation as to how he spent grant money.

Today (24 August 2008), the Louisville Courier-Journal ran the closest thing to an editorial that is not an editorial—a personality piece starting on the front page of the first section. It was more than a personality piece . . . it was actually an expose' of the guy's history and behavior. I conclude that this is the newspaper's not-so subtle statement that the guy should be ran out of town and fast.

The guy in question is under investigation for how he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants. Apparently, the grants were for the University of Louisville, and a big chunk was not spent at the University of Louisville, but the guy in question has reportedly spent them elsewhere.

I make the disclaimer that I am drawing my facts from the Courier-Journal and I am going to choose not to use names. I also am making the disclaimer that I am going in the order of the facts as they have usefulness to me in this blog (you can read the story for yourself if you want—your public library should have access to the story though its web-based database).

The former education dean was reported to have been emotionally abusive. The story said that he humiliated faculty publicly. He was also reported to have stood out in the hallway and mimicked the faculty member who had applied for his position but lost to him. (That faculty member moved on to another school). The story reported that a student got up and shut the door to the hallway. That is childish behavior if it really happened.

The story also had reports of the former dean engaging in sexual harassment at U of L and at one of his former places of tenure. Why is this surprising in light of this next piece of information?

The former education dean was married four times and is being divorced from his fourth wife. I think that secularism downplays how many times people get married. I want to say that it does matter. It takes maturity to stay in a marriage. Even if someone is not book-smart, they can be mature enough to be in a marriage and do just fine. I think that four marriages is indicative of someone's lack of maturity. (And this guy is a doctoral-level clinical psychologist?)

While I am not going to tell an abused person to stay with an abusive and tyrannical spouse, I have had numerous patients who have been married several times. In hearing their stories, I repeatedly found that they had tremendous abandonment issues and jumped from marriage to marriage impulsively without realizing that they were repeating the same mistake again and again. They needed to be good consumers of the person they were dating—and fight the negative thoughts that they were never-ever-ever-ever going to find someone again . . . and thus jump into bed and get married to the next person that said hello to them.

The more endearing part of the story is that two people I used to go to church with were quoted about how shady and hypocritical this guy was. These two people are of high character in my opinion—which had me all the more mindful.

Anyway, this guy was allowed to stay for awhile by the University. He was a “high performer.”
University administrative officials were quoted a number of times. The university president called the earlier complaints '”anonymous crap.”' The provost's comments were interesting as to how she dismissed early complaints because she took the view that faculty members were rigid in their ways and being naturally resistant to change. She also said that most organizations give '”high performers'” time to change their ways.

The term “high performer” then stuck with me. The guy had an appearance of being a high performer. He had done some good work earlier in his career. He worked fast and slashed and burned quickly. In his slashing and burning he was abusive and ruthless. He had enough success in bringing in the money, which likely bought him time and the appearance of being a high performer--but then he has had a number of short-term jobs in the process.

Money covered a multitude of character defects and sins . . . until the sins became too great to be covered by the money. The University of Louisville is striving to become a leading research university—something encouraged by the powers in Louisville and Kentucky. The University strongly encourages pursuit of grants and has some pretty verbose rules about spending the money.

Nevertheless, as I am learning from academia, many people are there who cannot function in the regular work world. I have had a number of professors who have few if any people skills—and would probably not make it past the 90 day probationary periods of a regular job because they cannot work well with others (clinically these are called narcissistic and borderline personalities).
I think that the University of Louisville has a number of them.

These low-emotionally intelligent types are protected by political correctness. They know how to invoke political correctness when it serves their interests—but will violate it in like manner too. What you get is a cloud of emotional dysfunction that ironically masquerades as acceptance. However, political correctness is really emotional and intellectual tyranny—academic freedom and freedom of thought on most campuses does not exist.

An example in the form of “a rabbit I want to chase” was when I was at Iowa State University back in the 1980's. The dean of students was a black lady who appeared to be a controlling borderline personality. Since I was a journalism student at that time, I had heard the story from the white “Iowa State Daily” editor who did the story himself. She wanted him to read back the quotes—which he did. However, she then reached across the table—grabbed his notebook—and read them for herself. I had one other second-hand encounter which told me something was not right with this woman—when I got into Clinical Social Work—she was one of the first that came up on my scope as a past example of a Borderline Personality who is a paranoid control freak.

All that being said, my gestalt is that the provost was thinking along these lines. The former education dean could hide in the cloud of emotional dysfunction until it became clearer and clearer, that the former dean was a problem. The story hinted that more and more complaints were made and insinuated that the former dean was leaving for such a reason. The elephant in the middle of the room is that he was leaving to take a job that paid $50,000 less per year than what he made at U of L. It appears that his high performance was not mattering anymore and his heavy-handed methods were bringing diminishing returns.

After the recitation of some of the details of the story, I have thoughts about leadership and character. There are multitudes of people in leadership around the world with bad character, little emotional intelligence and little moral fiber. I might have a little sympathy for the former dean given the details of his upbringing and my understanding of how personality disorders happen.

However, it comes back to me how this guy brought in money and made changes. It did not turn out until five years later how he spent the money and made the changes that something was supposedly done. Character took a back seat for such a long time.

I think that money will always replace character as the first standard in judging performance. It is becoming more evident that way in academia and in most work places--even with corporate statements of purpose and value.

Given this push for grant money it seems that the biggest message outside of the money piece is that universities are not proving to be places where character is nurtured and practiced. There are two many personality-disordered faculty members who can provide cover for the even sicker personality disordered faculty and administration who accidentally know how to manipulate situations under the cover of research grants and political correctness.

The story tells me that it is questionable whether the University of Louisville can honest say that character “is happening here.”

Insecurity

When the economy starts to go south, or when the politicians really sling mud at each other, people feel dissatisfied and insecure. Satisfaction and security seem to be very much related.
My situation lately has been a study in insecurity.

While the economy appears to be stabilizing and the price of oil appears to be going down, the sense of security (at least in me) is improving. Maybe the war going on right now between Russia and Georgia is a little unnerving. But the Olympics and Michael Phelps' achievements remind me that there is more to the world than bad things. Nevertheless, I have been thinking a lot about inner security and insecurity.

Inner security and insecurity are both powerful motivators. They make people do things without thinking based on their level of inner security or insecurity. I also think that many people are not conscious about inner security versus inner insecurity.

Inner security is an important asset that hopefully is a component of maturity. It seems to be another way to look at self-esteem and self-concept.

Inner security is a sense of peace and calmness about what is. Inner security is matter of trust and faith. It does not necessarily mean happiness, but I think people who are secure on the inside tend to find more happy and satisfied moments.

Inner security is a matter of faith in your abilities and your knowledge, and your perceptions.
I think that someone with inner security also trusts their thoughts and senses. The thoughts and senses of anyone are not 100 percent accurate, but I think that the thoughts and senses of a person with inner security are far more accurate than inaccurate.

I have decided that the person with a lack of inner security obsesses on the future and goes “What if? what if? What if?” They look back on the past and say "if only . . . if only . . . if only." They might think "are they? are they? are they?" when it comes to what other people are doing. They try to read other people's minds and interpret everything in terms of themselves and their own insecurities.

Insecure people spend the present looking forwards and backwards and miss what is in front of them because they are so miserable in their obsessive imaginations.

The insecure person confuses imagination with analysis. Analysis can only go as far as the facts and logic. Imagination in this case is only a guess.

Insecurity creates a parallel myopia or tunnel vision. Imagination going too far makes the microscopic look massive. Oh it still is microscopic, but it takes some faith to pull your face away from the microscope and see the big picture as it is clearly a risk.

There was one occasion where there was a young woman, who was clearly a borderline in my group when I was doing group therapy. I had a bottle of water and I put some of that powdered flavoring in my bottle and it clumped. She got all upset because my powder clumped. Why? It was my water and my bottle. It was not her bottle of water and she was not going to drink it—but she was all bent out of shape. I learned something about insecurity.

Another thing I would do from time to time when I did group therapy every day was to put a box of tissue in the middle of the group on its end on the floor. I would then ask who was anxious about it? It became my codependent and borderline detector. They would begin to report anxiety, and irritability, and a strong urge to pick it up off of the floor. They had no inner security to be at peace with things.

Inner security provides a sense trust in your limits. Inner security allows you to be at peace when you have reached your limits as to what you know or what you can do. Insecure people worry and get irritated beyond what they actually know or what they can control.

I think back to the story of the emperor's new clothes. The emperor and the whole town tended to be insecure. They went along with the lies of the advisors because they did not trust their senses. It took the child calling the spade the spade—but mama . . . the emperor has no clothes on.

I have two people that I supervise who are extremely insecure. One is a narcissist and one is a borderline personality. Both in their own ways are control freaks. However, I have determined that their their own ways, they have bonded together in insecurity (I think that the “Frank Burns” and “Hot Lips Houlihan” characters from M*A*S*H* are examples of the borderline and the narcissist.) It is my estimate that the two I am dealing with are so insecure right now, they are latching onto whatever they can. They themselves are otherwise scared. The narcissist acts withdrawn and shy when he is not in control of the situation and the borderline constantly seeks to care-take and smother.

Normally, a narcissist thinks that the world revolves around them. A narcissist can be very challenging of strangers and very inappropriate. A narcissist can act in thoughtless and careless ways. A narcissist can also act grandiose. A narcissist tends to terrorize or hide depending where you are at or how you are feeling at the time. Narcissists also act autocratic and tyrannical. However, the narcissist is very insecure. The narcissist is short-circuited to look only within themselves.

The borderline personality is a person who is also insecure. They feel like they inwardly are abandoned all the time. Their response to the feeling of abandonment is to control everything that they can. There is no sense of peace as to when enough is enough! It is all or nothing with them, and they really cannot tell when they have all? But it sure feels like nothing all of the time.

One more . . . the dependent personality also has similarity to the borderline in terms of abandonment. They are so needy that they can control through their neediness. Borderlines and dependent personalities are very similar in their abandonment. They are always insecure and always anxious about everything. They have no sense of balance and limits.

As a person coming into my own in my 20's and 30's I began to trust my sense and knowledge. I admit that my mother was obsessed with the concept of the “blind spot.” My mother has always been an anxious person. As I figure out where I came from and from what I came from, I realize that my family did not teach inner security.

My mother did not get it from her family given all their alcoholism and emotional neglect. It taught many of the stereotypes of “family business is private business” and “don't air your dirty laundry in public.” Insecurity puts people in hiding and on guard 24-7, and when you do come out, you have to look perfect.

My mom did the best she could in retrospect, but I have had to learn inner security by myself. I wanted what other people had. By some luck or maybe bad luck, I have figured some of it out.

While life is complex and understanding it is always a learning experience, security says that, your experience is largely no different from everyone else's under the sun. So, you have problems—everyone has problems. Insecurity is a lack of faith that makes people not trust and go into their corners. Insecurity is always about protecting yourself even when there are no real threats because insecurity says you can never tell the difference between real and not real threats.

Inner security says—your eyes are as good anyone else's. Trust yourself. Use your brain and your reasoning. To gain inner security I think means to work on looking out at the world. I have had to create a sense of inner security for myself. Yes me . . . I wanted insight . . . I wanted to be happy . . . I wanted to be able to mix it up for myself in this world.

As one of my colleagues has said . . . there are no freebies. I cannot get you over what it will take. It will take you doing it.

I can tell you the beliefs that help foster inner security, but you have to choose. It is the power that you have over your life.

Here are some starting questions to challenge yourself to begin to develop inner security.

The vast majority of people in the world are living out there mixing it up in the world. Why can't you?

Other people do just fine in the world. You can be like them.

Other people have faults. Just like you.

There are very few things in this world that cannot be fixed.

You like all people have the ability to slow down, look at options and resolve situations.

The majority of situations in this world have more than one possible solution.

The vast majority of mistakes people make are small and can be resolved or worked through.

You are going to dwell on the few bad things in this world and continue to feel insecure or you are going to look the larger picture that has both good and bad.

The great news is that life goes on and the vast majority of the people forget what mistakes you have made because they have their own lives to get on with.

The few people who keep reminding you of your mistakes are family members, in-laws or other people who are insecure and are slaves to their insecurity. These people have few friends and have no other life. They keep their world small because they are insecure. They will burn bridges to places out of their world because in their tunnel vision, they cannot see anything else.

Closing comments.

In this time in history—as in all times—there will always be something to be worried about.

Some periods in history will be more stressful. People make it through these situations and periods. Whether it is recession or war, some sense of shock and insecurity is normal.
How you manage it is up to you.

Hopefully, my note to myself and whoever else cares gives you are start to feel less bad today and better tomorrow.

Coping with no spending money or being broke

It has been said in a number of different ways that money is power. Money talks and Bull---t walks, right? One more—the new golden rule . . . He who has the gold makes the rules. (I have met people who practice this last one.)

When we do not have money, we tend to have lower self-esteem. We do not want to be without money. When we do not have it we vulnerable and insecure. We can worry about the worst possible things that can happen to our cars, houses, and our health.

Many people go to town in false confidence with credit cards as a money-substitute. But like the saccharin-based sugar substitutes, high interest rates and aggressive collection departments give a bad aftertaste. People can go bankrupt being unable to make the minimum payments on several maxed-out credit cards. You still need money if you have credit because the bills will come every month.

In the times of recession, people have less money. They tend to find themselves having to spread the money more and more thinly. They have to stretch their money farther and farther. The money runs out and you will not have any money sooner than later and they are broke!

Yes, we need money for necessary things and services, but there are many times when the necessities go up in price or we have just enough money for the bills and basic groceries. After that, the checking account has just a few dollars and there is no extra money for 10 to 13 to 25 days until the next paycheck.

Many people are in pain because they do not have the spending money they used to have, or feel they should have, or that other people feel that they should have. Well, the reality is that they do not have the money. They can either cope or fall apart.

I have decided that there are four concepts of personal growth that come into play here. The first is that one is going to have to grieve the reality that they do not have the spending money they want to have or feel that they should have. Second, they are going to have practice contentment and I do mean practice. Third, you are going to survive through the discovery of the character of other people and whether or not you will continue to have relationships with them. Lastly, you can thrive and use your creativity.

GRIEF AND LOSS

Yes, I think that people who are wanting to cope in healthy ways without money have to go through the grief process. Kubler-Ross (1969) identified the stages of the grief process as:

1.) being in shock or denial,
2.) being mad,
3.) trying to bargain within themselves,
4.) being depressed and feeling stuck, and then
5.) acceptance of the situation or reality.

It is easy to discuss this grief process. But when you are going through it, it is painful, disorienting, and just plain miserable. It is like your private dungeon, experience of being lost in the desert or wilderness after your plane has crashed. You have lost something that is of meaning to you when you do not have the money you think you should. Your pride is tremendously hurt and you do not know where you are at or whether you will survive. You may have based your identity on having money in your pocket to spend it whenever you wanted to and you are now embarassed.

You can feel like you are living on the edge of dying. It feels like all you can see is your lack of money. It is all you can think about.

My feeling is that you are reading this because you are reading it for you—you are likely grieving. You may or may not be experiencing this grief or loss exactly the way I am describing it.

Shock/Denial

Shock or denial can be a number of things. Someone in denial may continue to get things on credit cards even though they do not even begin to have the money to pay the bill (nor will they have the money to pay even the minimum). But it is probably more like the statement: “I cannot believe I have the money I want to have” rolling over and over in your mind.
Being mad is another stage of grief. I think that in this stage, there is anger towards oneself over not saving money or getting into such bad debt problems, not saving money, or buying large ticket items (this also means feeling guilty). There can be anger at oneself for getting fired or laid off (and thus even more guilt). There can be anger towards the former employer for not keeping things afloat. There can be anger at incumbent politicians for the way the economy is. There can be anger at spouses or significant others for the way they spent money or wanted to spend money. There can be anger at children who dare ask you for money to buy something frivolous. There can be anger at family members or friends who borrowed money when they needed it and who did not pay you back and still cannot or won't pay you back. People can be just irritable and miserable and guilty-feeling during this stage.

Bargaining

Bargaining is trying to make deals to get back to the old situation. It is a way of trying to re-establish control over the situation. I think that people will search over all their accounts for mistakes in numbers—looking for money. They might call their former employer back begging for the job back. They might try to keep hitting their debtors (people they lent or gave money to) again and again for the money.

Depression

Depression hits when someone is done bargaining. It is the reality that you are stuck, you cannot regain control of the situation, and you cannot go back, and the bargaining is over. It too is a miserable stage. People may fall like they are going to fall off the earth. You have always looked or played some part you thought you needed to, and now you can no longer do it. Some people can become clinically depressed. (If you are feeling clinically depressed and feeling like you want to die—GET SOME HELP—please call your local mental health agency, your police authority or go to your nearest hospital—the problem of not having money is a temporary problem that can be solved.)

Acceptance

The feeling of acceptance tends to creep in during the depression stage. Acceptance usually means that one begins to see that it is possible to move on and heal. In this case I imagine that one sees that other people cope without extra money, so you can do it too. A person also might begin to see (really see) that there is a difference between wants and needs, and that life is not all about money. Lastly, I think that acceptance means being able to see this time as a chapter in one's life that will end and a more prosperous chapter will begin.
Not everyone will experience grief over not having spending money in their pocket in the same way. Some will take it harder than others. More will be said about this.

PRACTICE CONTENTMENT.

Out of the acceptance stage I think people begin to practice contentment. I think for the purposes of this blog, contentment means being in a state of relative tranquility or peace about a situation in order to show self-control and self-restraint.
I use the term practice strongly here because contentment is generally something that does not just happen to someone. Contentment is a state one chooses to create and maintain.
I think that it is different from self-control and self-restraint. To maintain self-control and self-restraint, you need some level of contentment.

As children, we did not have contentment. We wanted stuff. We wanted what we wanted. We threw tantrums in stores when we did not get what we wanted or get our way. We learned to cope with not getting what we wanted in a round-about way. We got conditioned to the idea that we were not going to get the candy or toy in the store through consequences or through the hard reality of crying and recovering from the tears. Little by little we became content in a child-like way.

I think that well-adjusted adults gained a basic sense of contentment through the human development process. Those adults that never developed contentment are likely to have issues of addiction (food, spending, gambling, substances, work, control/codependency, etc). John

Bradshaw has defined an addiction as a pathological relationship with a mood-altering experience that has life damaging consequences (Bradshaw, 1986 Shame and Addiction Video). I suggest though, that there is a basic building block in every adult for contentment. You are just going to have to find a new way to apply it now. (I will discuss contentment in another blog soon.)

We begin to practice contentment in three ways: changing our negative self-talk to healthy self-talk, we do the self-talk everyday, and we change our behavior and habits.

We practice it by talking to ourselves in affirmations or slogans. We tell ourselves things like:

• I have what I need today.
  Nobody gets everything they want.
  It is okay if I do not have everything I want.
  I will make it.
  It will be okay.
  We all live life one day at a time.
  I will be okay.
  The world will not end because I do not have any extra money in my pocket.
  I am a good person making it in this world and some days are going to be harder than others.
  This too shall pass.
  I am going to be a stronger person for getting through this.
  Money is not everything.
  I am thankful for what I have today.

Yes, we talk to ourselves. Some people hold conversations with themselves out loud, and some keep in their heads, but we all talk to ourselves. We are either going to tear ourselves down or build ourselves up with the talk in our heads. We originally learned to talk to ourselves from our families and we continue to talk to ourselves as our parents and grandparents did. For many of us adults, personal growth means taking charge of the talk inside our heads.

Next, we practice contentment daily. It is hard work and one must use these affirmations frequently to be content. Advertisers count on consumers not being content. Advertisers try to create the appearance of needs, and so our self-esteem is going to be under attack. It takes critical thinking when looking at advertising to maintain contentment. We must constantly ask ourselves if we honestly need that stuff?

Third, we practice contentment behaviorally by our choices. We avoid those places that lead to us to think “Gee, I wish I had that.” We choose contentment by making budgets. We choose contentment by taking up the practice of bargaining shopping and making a hobby out of how much can we squeeze our money, so we can save what little money we do have. (My original penny jar was a creation of my squeezing as much value as I could out of my money.)

CHARACTER

In a sense I find myself writing something that sounds like a recovery piece for someone recovering from addiction. A slogan in the different recovery programs or groups includes that you must change your playground. I think that in our reality of not having money in our pocket, we will find people who will continue to have money and who will not empathize with our plight and will make fun of us—or even shun us.

Yes, there are immature and cruel people in this world, and we discover them everyday. We always run the risk of discovering the immaturity and cruelty in our family and friends each and everyday we breathe. As one of my colleagues put it well: if you get to know me long enough, you will see me get stupid.

Well, the people who make fun of others in this plight are stupid and I have taken the attitude of “don't let the door hit you in the buttocks on the way out.” (I am trying to keep it clean here—so you can fill in the A-word). There may be another reason for grief and loss here over some friends who are no longer part of your life, but your life will move on. Tomorrow will come with or without them.

I have decided that people of good character are mindful or insightful that it could happen to them too. They also have respect for people in general. They have taste and manners. In other words, they are mature.

Some people are not as mature. As a social worker I have ran into them quite frequently. They never developed the insight as to the human plight so as to be sensitive to the suffering of others. They do not have the room in their hearts and minds to be respectful. They may actually be selfish and have their own private, childish agenda—believing that you are going to ask them for money—which is THEIR'S THEIRS THEIR'S and not YOURS YOURS YOURS. They would probably not be able to get through the grieving process themselves to the point of healthy coping and wind up in a psychiatric facility or institution.

So, when someone insults or belittles you for not having money in your pocket to go somewhere or do something—look at the other side of things and the character of people. Good people are mature people and sympathetic people in this case.

THRIVING

Thriving without money in your pocket I think means being able to be happy regardless of whether or not you have money in your pocket. Yes, it may feel like surviving at first, but in many cases, the difference between surviving and thriving is your perspective and attitude. In thriving, you are looking more at what you can do today, in surviving, you are more mindful of what you cannot do today because you do not have money.

Thriving and surviving become lifestyles. People build their lives around one or the other. I have decided that the people who are “survivors” from trauma usually build their lives around the idea of surviving. Everything they do . . . and most of what they think has to do with living in their pain and surviving the pain. Survivors become victims of themselves and tend to alienate others because of the survivor's whining. To start thriving means to start choosing to be happy and doing things to make you happy.

I suppose that this is a time where someone can start improving themselves by reading or learning new things. I think that the act of bettering yourself is a great way of thriving. My recommendation is to go down the video aisle of your nearby public library and start noting things that you have wanted to learn about. Make a list. Throwing yourself into a new pursuit that you can focus your energies on is a beginning start.

This is also a great time to start reading books. Reading is a great way to spend your time without spending money. Whether you are about fiction, non-fiction, or biographies, learning distracts you from unnecessarily dwelling on your pain.

Lastly, if you do not feel like reading, volunteer someplace. Make a difference in this world in some little way. Thinking about the help you are giving is a lot better than dwelling on not having any money.

CONCLUSION (FOR NOW OF COURSE):

I make the disclaimer that even though you can do everything I am recommending, the pain of not having the spending money you would like to have is never totally going away. We have to practice contentment everyday in some way and some days will require more work than others.

I have not discussed the matter of faith in this blog, but faith is a resource that helps people through these times. The Bible has much about contentment and material things, and human character. The Bible also has much about peace and being able to rest inside while the rest of the world seems to be in turmoil. It is a good book. If you comment on this blog, I will be more than happy to discuss what I mean and tell you where in the Bible that material can be found.

I close by emphasizing that getting the point of contentment is not going to be easy—whether you are a religious or non-religious person. I think if you are in enough pain about it and want to do something about it—you will follow the strategies I am recommending. They will work if you give it some time and keep doing them.

Vacation or No Vacation?

Memphis--
I am writing from a moderate-priced hotel in the east end of the city. It was a small but tough decision as to whether or not on vacation given the economic environment and gas prices.
When the air conditioning broke and it cost almost $180 to fix, again, it was a tough decision whether or not to go on vacation? But we decided to go since a friend who lives five hours in another direction is going to meet us here tonight.

It is now on the backside of the short vacation. We went to Graceland and took the medium price tour—which means we saw his grave, got to go into his plane and see his cars. I saw some of the weirdest things to be branded with Elvis's image and name. We went to Beale Street and ate at B.B. King's restaurant (strawberry preserves on Fried Green Tomatoes was quite interesting). We went to the Sun Records Studio. We had some BBQ (barbecue/barbeque) at Corky's. We head home tomorrow.

We got a picture of all of us in front of Graceland. We got a picture of the kids by Elvis's music note on Beale Street. (Hollywood has stars—Beale Street has musical notes in the pavement.)
While this is not meant to be a commercial for Memphis, the point is we did stuff as a family. My wife and I took our kids to see things that we value and wanted to see.

We made memories in a worthy place for memories. At the end of the day it was cool to have a conversation with my five-year-old son about our favorite parts of the Graceland tour.

Well, like many people's vacation, this was one where we are putting balances on credit cards. I have a plan for paying them off. The assumptions of the plan are: 1.) my job is secure, 2.) the central air conditioning continues to work, 3. nothing else major breaks down and 4.) the cars don't break down.

Number four is looking shaky. The 8-year-old car that we have is quite dependable but the computer said to check tire pressures. Well I did this morning and took them all up to 41 PPS again this afternoon the same light came on as we headed back to hotel. I checked them again and they are back down to 35 PPS

I will check tire pressures again tomorrow and add air—worst case scenario means new tires—something I am not thrilled about. But if you own a car, you will need to maintain it.

Am I glad we have taken this mini vacation. Yes. There is a time where one must take risks.

There are some moments in times that will not come back. My kids are only going to be young once. While I would like to take them exotic places and have the best accommodations, I am like most people—I work for a living and we can afford what we can afford.

I think that at the end of this, life is a balance between risk and no risk. The miserly side of me said that this was a foolish thing, but then the other side of me said to seize the day. The conversation with my five-year-old last night about Graceland was worth it even in the midst of unsure economic times and high gas prices.

Vacation or no vacation? It was tough for me. It may be tough for you. It is okay if your better side says to do a "stay-cation." If you stay, just make some memories.

Thinking about Christmas in July

Today is July 4, 2008. My wife is watching some Christmas movie on a cable channel known for having women as its prime audience. The channel has some gimmick going about playing Christmas movies this weekend.

My kids are watching a Christmas DVD. They had to get into the act. They started to talk about what they wanted for Christmas.

Okay. I will bite. I actually did not want to even think of Christmas until the end of September, but our western economies have exploited something that is to be the birth of grace and salvation for all into a time of expected profit-taking and meeting inflated sales goals.

I think in the recessions, people get distressed about Christmas. If you are reading this in July, or whenever, I hope I have something that can work for you. Hopefully, if you are reading this, you will get some kind of comfort today from it and it won't be boring.

The holidays are a time of the year where there tends to be the most suicides. I think that the shortened days causing “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (a form of depression) have something to do with it, but many people feel empty, depressed, hopeless, and abandoned at Christmas.

Well, since people are expecting a recession this year, the stress of Christmas likely becomes an increasingly severe stressor. Christmas is supposed to take a lot of money. You are supposed to spend a lot of money on your kids and others.

You are supposed to show how much you care by what you give. On the other hand, others are supposed to show how much they care about you by giving you stuff that hopefully shows they were thoughtful.

There are many ways I can take this. But lets assume that you are worried about what you will do for Christmas in five months if you are facing a short supply of money and that it will be a struggle to get through Christmas. Another stressor is: what will they think of you if you do not give them presents.? The main question is: how do we cope?

The following is a recipe. I cannot guarantee that it is perfect for you. Nor can I guarantee that it will work perfectly for you. Also, just reading it will not do. This stuff below needs to become a lifestyle if not a philosophy that guides what you do!

First, you will tell yourself that you will do the best that you can . . . whatever that will be. I think when we are looking far ahead we tend to get all black and white in our thinking, and we get the magnifier effect—very small things look larger than they actually are.

What is far more helpful is to begin to trust in yourself and your ability to solve problems. When it gets here, you will be able to come up with solutions when the time comes.

You and I have no way of predicting the future. It is stressful if downright painful to let your imagination run wild about all the different, possible, negative options.

It is also far more helpful to ask yourself repeatedly: do you think you are blowing this out of proportion?

A question that you may be thinking is: does this guy really know how I do not think I can do anything? Can he see what a joke (or other profanity-up) I think I am?

Well, know I don't. I don't know you or your unique problems. It is just like you do not know me or my unique problems.

What I do know is that people with low self-esteem do not believe in their ability to solve problems in general. People with low self-esteem carry on the messages from childhood abuse and neglect into the present.

• Today it is a choice whether or not you are going to continue to believe those messages from childhood.
• I made a choice to stop idealizing my mother—just because she is mom does not make her right about everything. (dads, brothers, grandparents, sisters, uncles and aunts all fit in this spot.)
• I made a choice to stop believing that everyone was staring at me, and that strangers giving me dirty looks for no logical reason were being stupid or having trauma flashbacks from something in their way-back past.
• I made a choice to stop worrying whether people were mad at me?
• I made a choice to make others responsible for telling me if they were mad at me?
• I made a choice to decide whether they were mad about something valid?
• I made a choice to see that I was not the only one in the world who saw their own faults.
• I made a choice to decide that I was in charge of my feelings.
• I made a choice to write the book of my life with whatever ink is available at the time that I liked.
• I made a choice to start seeing that I was not the cause of everybody else's anger.
• I made a choice to pursue happiness.
• I made a choice to believe that there are some good people in this world I can become friends with who are also looking for good friends.

I do not regret any of those choices—they were good choices.
But the most applicable for this blog entry . . .

I made a choice that I can do things as well as the average human being, and therefore since other people solve and resolve problems as the come . . . I WILL TOO!

A third thought that can be helpful is that if it is indeed a recession this year, other people will be economizing too. Other people will be cutting back. Other people will be relying on their creativity to express their thoughtfulness.

A fourth thought is that this is your opportunity to start shopping now and practice thriftiness.

1. Make a list of the people on your list and start going to the overstock stores—you know those stores that have either seconds or things that the other stores could not sell on the first try.
2. Do not buy anything just yet—but look through the stores at things that the people on your list might like and match things up on your list.
3. Buy at most for one or two people per paycheck between now and before the time you are to be giving gifts. Et voila—you have done your shopping.
   

Again, these ideas may or may not work for you today. If they are not your cup of tea, I hope that they have stimulated your good creativity and faith in yourself to solve your own problems.

Yes, Christmas is coming again. I predict that the nightly news will run lots of stories about the winter of discontent and about the poor retail chains who were hoping that their cash registers would ring loudly at Christmas. I will visit this subject again between now and then.