workplace relationships and spotting trouble...

Relationships are hard work. And in the workplace they can not necessarily be plain sailing. We find relationships at work a lot easier as they are structured and role driven. Workplaces are made up of a spectrum of personalities. They are made up of genders. And they are made up of at least 4 or even 5 generations. Workplaces are focused on commercial outcomes. Productivity matters. And to avoid legal liabilities all types of boundaries of behavior and speech are put into place. These are  reduced to regulations around what can be said or done in the work place. Humans are what they are. And its very difficult to regulate every sentence or monitor every non verbal. If anything, the more stringent the governance that exist in any setting, the more that people try to test the boundaries. On the other hand bullying happens. Some individuals are not aware of what they do. Some individuals are very aware and calculated in being bullies or just by personality making life difficult.

These are notes from introductory lectures given by the author on relationship and family therapy. The 4 theories found here have their origins with a famous relationship theorist called John Gottman in the United States. Gottman says that there are 4 major destructive behaviours in relationships. 

Gottman says that these 4 destructive behaviours are so insidious that if they are practiced they will bring about ultimate destruction of a relationship. In counselling some couples or families might persist but they endure hell in the meantime.  Gottman is quite dramatic fellow. He labels the 4 destructive behaviours as  “the Four horseman of the apocalypse.” 

The first of the apocalyptic horseman is Criticism. By criticism he does not mean some disagreement or banter. He means a personal attack on your partners personality or character. We are not talking about an airing of differences or an exasperated debate that will occur in all relationships, but the consistent pursuit and prosecution and tearing down of an individuals personality and their actions and their behaviours. If your on the end of this you learn that you are incapable of doing anything right. Applying this to a work relationship the impact on someone going to work and being critiqued continually should be obvious.

The second horseman comes in the form of  Contempt. The tearing down and insults that can come openly in words, can be shown contemptuously in non verbal’s. Eye rolling, sneering or physically turning away, are all part of contempt. A cultural note might be worth mentioning. In Australian settings, we have a high tolerance to insult and mocking. There is banter and insult which is mutual and reciprocated and accepted satire. There is also pure contempt. Workplace bullying can make its appearance in forms of  contempt and can be quite subtle and secretive or non verbal and unobserved  by third party observers. Workers as well Managers can be victims of it as much as be perpetrators of it.

Gottman’s third horseman is the unrelenting, ongoing defensiveness, which is more than just an individual being hyper sensitive or vigilant. It is the protracted commitment to taking everything personally and being closed off to any other way of seeing the world or issues. It usually follows, that individuals will take no responsibility, nor can they be reasoned with to consider the impact on others of their actions and behaviors.  They are blind and deaf to any opinion or statement that they will translate as personal. Such individuals rarely show any initiative and retreat to their own personal fortification.

The 4th Horseman is euphemistically called Stone walling by Gottman. I call it Barb wiring as we in an Australian setting are more familiar with barb wire than stone walls.  I think it conveys something sharp and unwelcoming as well. Barb wiring  is the deliberate ignoring and total lack of responsiveness to any invitations or overtures to communicate or be part of a conversation or another persons projects or pains or issues. It is a deliberate ignoring in the face of a required need to be available or to be present.

Banks , Credit Unions  and Mine sites and Power stations and Resource Companies and Government offices  are not families.  They are however made up of people working in hierarchies with a complex array of psycho-social and political and financial  dynamics in place. 

That’s why Managing people and exercising leadership is so interesting. Its also why it can be so difficult. They are also made up of individuals who want to be treated by their work mates and their managers with a dignity and respect. Gottman has never written anything on management or business theory or Risk management. But the apocalyptic horsemen released from the starting gate, and tolerated or ignored  by Managers in a workplace will create their own hell.

on leadership and frogs......

There is that unusually cruel experiment, and hopefully illegal experiment, which seeks to demonstrate how an amphibian metabolism is highly adaptive, especially to temperature variations. The experiment requires a frog to be put in water, and then heat is very gradually applied.  Partial portions of heat by small degree. 

The hapless Freddo simply adjusts his internal thermostat to the raising temperature. Freddo adapts to the small increase in heat , perceiving and accepting the environmental change. By the time the steam is wafting around his nostrils, it is sadly too late to make good his escape. 

Office and work environments can be like that with bad or odd or destructive behaviours. Some years ago I consulted at an office perhaps once a fortnight. The administrative officer at that office had a penchant for completing jigsaw puzzles atop desks in what was a large open planned office area. No doubt that the puzzles were complex 1500 piece puzzles. 

I would see her bulked over a desk on my fortnightly visits.  Mt Fuji being constructed. A Gondoliers buttocks the Jigsaws epicenter, from which all of Venice emanated. The pieces would take shape on the desks and as a crown of thorns starfish populates coral they would grow over desk space. In my absence fortnight to fortnight, imperceptibly and gradually. But day by day none the less until a complete desk top was taken over. Then another desk top. Then another.

Given the general politeness of everybody in that office and the managers passive accommodation  nothing was said. Then the tea room. That sanctum, where one could normally retreat to have a coffee, was invaded by The laughing Cavalier. People would squeeze onto another space to drink and eat. No one said anything. By then, they had to beware of spilling tinned  tuna onto Girl with a Pearl Earrings head scarf.

Individual jigsaws were never dismantled by their builder. More to the point they were never dismantled by staff or management out if fear they might cause offence. Nor in my knowledge were there those conversations that had to take place. No Manager showed any leadership,and delivered an apocalyptic pronouncement and dealt an end to mountains , canals , cavaliers and demure Dutch girl with pearl earing and Japanese national parks. 

In other places I heard of  people introducing their pet rats. All very tame and quite cute. But a rat none the less. Introduced with  confidence and bravaro. Introduced. Recognized as a personality extension. Not questioned for fear of offense. And thus the issue escalated. Or an office where I once worked where we dealt with family violence and domestic violence. The feminist cabal had adorned the hallways and  entrance  with posters about struggling poor peasants, invariably women or third world subjects, with mandatory heroic smile, or steely I will not be oppressed looks, for the camera or women looking oppressed. -The usual suspects. - The narrative amongst those women professionals about men generally was never flattering. It was language and behaviour that was never checked or confronted by leadership.  However when a client invariably a violent man "went off" it was the men in the office who were the first responders. Leaders lent towards the ideologically safe and the safety of supporting the loudest voices.

Or the sanctum of men’s football clubs where even in that setting of sports immortals, grief and addictions and episodes needed to be addressed. Or for that matter the emergency service males, some of us were called to work with. The public rhetoric to the media in those clubs or organisations was publicly " we won’t tolerate or condone violence towards women ". You would see public gatherings of blokes chanting say "No to violence" en masse. But the weekly attitudes and language and behaviours towards women colleagues was ordinary. Their established WAGS could expect no loyalty for all their faithful support. They were easily dispensed with and replaced by eager aspirants to the role.

No one ever said anything in those settings. There was no spoken or acted leadership.  Like the viral Jigsaws, like the friendly little rodent companions scuttling about the office carpet and begging food in the kitchen, no manager ever simply turned the heat up. No leader ever called it what it was. Perhaps it was too late to confront the changes that had happened because they were wrought by confidence, by a sense of entitlement and by attenuated barely perceptible degrees.

site closures and relocation

A site closing down is not a normal or welcomed event in anybody's workplace. The news of a site closure may be balanced with the consolation that staff are not being laid off but having to move elsewhere. Other closures are much more difficult and employees are terminated.   There are however issues that employees face in learning that a workplace is closing a branch or shop front and being relocated. Site closure and relocation can be a real shock to some.

 For others it may not be such a surprise.  Some employee’s may well have read the writing on the wall and that company strategy is moving in the direction of closing offices or recognising digitalization and generational change. For others it might be declining client numbers or falling revenues. Closure may be seen by those individual workers as the inevitable. Announcement of closure might come as unhappy news. Albeit news that eventually had to come.

None the less, for those who saw it as coming-or for those who did not see closure coming, it still presents itself as a grief and a shock. In life, we feel safe with predictability. A work life and home life is generally ordered around making life as predictable as possible. The closure of an office or branch makes life unpredictable for a short period of time.  It’s also about the emotional losses and also the grief around those losses.  

People feel a range of  losses.  They are not always obvious at the time when a closure is announced. But predictable things are lost.  Predictable patterns of going to the same workplace. Predictable contact with workmates and friends at a site. These will change. Workmates can be moved to different geographies. They move away, along with their personalities and stories and histories. That might not always be a bad thing either. It’s also the anticipation and unease that comes from having to make new workmates.

Over all there will be losses. 

Also where there has been regular contact with customers or members, it is only reasonable that relationships are established. There will be a familiarity with some people’s stories.  This can be difficult, because you know those customers who do business as an opportunity for social contact with a friendly face.  Equally there can be anger around the exiting of services from a community of customers in a isolated  geography.

Moving location or exiting a predictable office can mean that your own family's transport arrangements around drop off and pick up are disrupted.  Once again the unpredictable enters into the world that you would prefer to be kept predictable. Especially if it involves your family. The impact is multiplied if the closure and transfer requires movement interstate or overseas. 

There are  a number of things to consider and think on around closure and relocation.  It is a disruptive time and you can feel sad and even angry. 

It's important to accept that a commercial decision has been made. It is beyond your control so focus on those matters that need to be finalized.  Its important for your own mental well being that you need to move into that personal place of acceptance of the closure. 

Accept the feelings that go with closure.  Also be focused on the present need to assist the business and your  Management in shutting and relocating.  Be active in being positive about the move with other colleagues. If necessary, initiate some leadership in keeping morale going and being positive about the move.  Not only have you maintained your employment, but also gained new work possibilities and potential friendships elsewhere. 

adjusting to workplace change....

Adjusting to change, can be hard to deal with. 

It means that the familiar and the predictable are threatened or even disappearing  in our lives. 

As humans we have a drive for things and events being the same, or at best, being able to predict with some degree of probability what’s next in our lives.   Its only when the predictable is threatened or disappears or is passing away that we begin to respond and get worried or begin to behave differently.

Adjusting to change especially in our working life or family life is not always straightforward. Change can happen dramatically or catastrophically.  Or sometimes we have hints or warnings of it. At other times it may not be catastrophic or dramatic but it happens and its annoying. As humans we  prefer to have warnings of change. At least we comfort ourselves that we can adjust or prepare for it. Or it might be, that having  a time in the future helps us to put off and avoid the realities to come.

Our workplace is perhaps the significant area of life where there can be a set of  predictable’s.  Its  made up of  routines and times and regular income and the mates we see every day.  Its made up of protocols and expectations and rules of behaviour. Workplaces are generally safe because of those things. Predictability is what makes it safe.

The other predictable of work, that is sometimes forgotten, is that its where we are known for our talents and abilities. We don’t have to prove a thing by showing or talking to a new set of faces about what we do or how we do things. Our predictable role and skills are already known. When we move from one workplace to another, no one necessarily knows us or what we do well or what our skills are.

So workplaces closing down is about two things. Adjusting to change. Its also a grief. Both of these issues impact on workers and they impact on families. That’s why its important to take some time to talk these things through.Work closure is not always bad. Opportunities and new directions in life and employment can come with change.

Everybody is different. Working with the things that need to be adjusted to, will be different for each and every person. Dealing with the grief of losing a predictable workplace with its behaviours and safety is another. Losing the company of  work mates we have worked with for years is no small thing. 

What seems to be apparent though in life is that we can have some control over some aspects of life - but not all. We have control over some circumstances. Other circumstances , despite our protests,or distress or pain at the change, we can do very little or nothing. Nothing can be done to alter the course of events or decision's made for us. Health issues , relationship issues and workplace change are some of those areas.

So what can be done ?

• Recognise that you might feel anger or sad or grieved or fearful.However change is a life constant. These are normal responses. But you will need to feeling this emotions with having a plan to respond proactively and practically. Just acknowledging that life will always be unpredictable and change will be part of that unpredictability.

• You need to be optimistic and to remain positive in your own thinking. If workplace change or closure has occured you will be best served to accept the matter as soon as possible and be as positive as you can be in dealing with the new emerging situation. There is a time for grief or anger or annoyance. There is also a time for getting on with the new world. No matter how much you personally don't want it to happen.

• Show some leadership in helping others through the change process. If you expend some energy in helping others to adjust and to keep positive it will have a remarkable effect on yourself in keeping you in a positive place. In any transition there will always be tasks in the present to be done and focussed on to bring about closure anda moving on. Make up your mind that you will give your full attention.

Outside of work keep up the normal routines that are positive and healthy. If you exercise or list friends on a regular routine ,now is not the time to stop. You don't need to drink more or eat more to get through this transition. Talking to somebody within Inwit Consulting as your Employee assistance service is a good choice around your emotional and thinking well being.

thinking ,thinking , all the time...

It’s a place of  frustration and sometimes distress when a person says “I cant stop thinking” Its accompanied by comments about just wanting to turn off the thoughts or images and  have some quiet from the demands. It’s a unpleasant place to be in. I also think its related to the despair that people express when they say " I just can't sleep ".   However there are times when the thoughts and images and repetitive stories in our minds become debilitating. They become tiring and ever present.  First thing is this. Everybody has them.

Our thoughts are so internal and private no one knows what we personally, are thinking, unless we disclose. The thoughts are multiple and multi themed.  They are like the branch of a tree. The more it grows the branches multiply. I think thoughts become distressing when they begin to be unstoppable. The thoughts just go into freefall. They become debilitating because they seem out of our control. The thoughts are debilitating because they are not rooted in the present.

The cascading thoughts are either past thoughts or future thoughts.  The past and future thoughts are not in the present reality. Past thoughts,where the past is reauthorised and relived and stepped out in phantasy are not by definition true or even honest. Future thoughts,with future conversations and reactions cannot by definition be true or honest either.

The distress comes from the reasonable and sensible desire for the thoughts to be truthful. For the thoughts to be in the present space of today and this time. Another matter is this. Thoughts past or future manufactured and ruminated over have ourselves as the central character in the drama. We either live in the past in some revised and dramatic way where we can redeem ourselves or cast out some perceived injustice or slight. Or we act out a future scenario where we act as the central character dealing with the anxiety which occupies our thinking. 

   The significant thing to remember is the thoughts are monologues in our head between ourself and audiences past or future. They are invariably associated with phantom audiences where the monologue is both prosecuted by you and then defended by yourself. The cascading and pain comes out of the fact that you can never out prosecute or outwit the phantom audiences.  Nor can you outwit the imagined re-creations of the past or the imagined stories or monologues of the future in your head.

Perhaps the answer lies in what we think about or the rules that we make when we are thinking about a task that needs to be solved.

Perhaps its the difference between fantasy and Imagination. True imagination is creative and even artistic and takes effort. In Imagination you are not the central character in the story. You are attempting to solve a problem or create something or observe something from the perspective of the audience as well as the players on stage. In fantasy you are on the central stage and you can be the villain, the hero , the celebrity or the talent,without any reprecusions or any accountability. You can be a gallant, a Lothario, a slayer of dragons human and otherwise without critique.   You also write the script for yourself. Fantasy is never hard work.  Imagination requires work. Fantasy and unreality cascades and frustrates.  Imagination produces an internal satisfaction or even dissatisfaction. But imagination deals with reality.

In counselling, its not uncommon for people to describe horrible episodes in their past lives, such as the suicide of a parent or a hideous household marked by alcoholism or violence or constant bickering between parents. And it may not just be episodes like that. Some people were very sensitive children, who mask a lot as adults, but still have the same sensitivities, and can be prone to anxiety or to depressive ideation.  It is in such contexts they turn to consolation in the fantasy world they retreated to as children. The stories and characters and actions change. But fantasy becomes an established escape and continues unabated into adult life.

So what works ?

Talking to some one who is calm. Its probably a good idea but at 3.20 am they’re not usually available. If they are a 24/7 service like Inwit Consulting you have that available. As long as your employer is associated with a company that Inwit  services you can call.

Count your blessings . Yes, that’s what I said. You want to know what breaks the terrible introspective journey, start exactly where you are. What are 50 things you can be thankful for ? Counting your blessings takes you immediately to an honest thinking place. It puts you in touch with reality not fantasy and darkness.If you don't like that idea - feel free to stay where you are. The other place it takes you to is the present. 

What is the present ? Its not the past which is done and dusted, and its not the future, which is unknown. The present is the space with all its issues in your present waking and functioning place.

Its also about recognising that at any point in our waking hours, scores of invitations and themes and stories and images enter our thinking zone to be distractions from the present hard reality of life and those invitations urge us to  avoid the present or to be entertained or to relive the past or plot out a future where we are the central player. None of this is real.

the power of stories

There is a great deal of power in stories. Stories and language are very powerful. Our use of language and where we put language in a story and how we use it adds to the forcefulness of a story. Stories and words effect peoples lives. They can destroy people. They can reorientate and give life back to people.  

Stuff is spoken into peoples lives that is done with malice and intends harm. Some people have a way of planting time bombs in peoples lives. You hear some very cruel stuff in counselling spoken many years ago into a persons life.Wonderfully you hear of some wise or kind words that totally re orientated someones broken or insignificant or unloved life.

Enjoying  stories or listening to stories is part of life. Stories which relate to us, with links to our family or to where we are in life are intriguing. Stories which relate to where we have come from and what we’ve been shaped by are good because they hint at where we are going. Families have lots of stories. Communities and nations also have stories. Workplaces have stories. There are lots of story tellers. The stories that are shaped and moulded and retold within families in various ways speak to people’s lives and create a picture. Stories can be funny or ironic, they can be wise or silly. They have a power to penetrate deeply. Forbidding stories is another way of controlling what people think. I think that has happened in the media space and academic space with Australian history over the past 40 years.

Some stories are not true. Some stories emphasise the darkness and discount the goodness or resilience or domestic bravery of an ordinary life. Some stories paint things in a rosy flowering hue and ignore the toxins dripping from the thorns. Some stories are more about the story teller and reflect on their conspicuous virtues as they emphasise sentimentality and their compassion.

Individuals can have their own internal repetitive stories. Some of those stories need to be acknowledged as unhelpful or even destructive. It becomes obvious in counselling that people carry around a story teller in their own minds. “I’m not good enough, I’ll always fail and life and success belongs to others, but never to me, and nothing will ever change, or I should just put up with this as its my lot"

In life, some story tellers need to be well and truly exited from the workplace of the mind and all access passes and invitations back into the workplace, rescinded for life.

Practical Mental Health Tips

We live in a psychological age with numerous public conversations. Some of it is useful stuff for living. Some of it can be quite narcissistic. Popular psychology via the medium of glossy magazines or newspapers or social media is invariably self orientated and based on the reader being the centre of their own universe. Its glossy psychology has a lot to answer for in relation to how it has encouraged narcissism. Other people or relationships are expendable in the pursuit of ones own self identity. Victimhood and attaching oneself to some category of the marginalised also has currency in this present age.

So many of  those conversations in the public square, are about how we should feel or how we ought to be feeling and thinking. Popular psychology books abound along with a plethora of downloads in the digital space.  I would go as far to say that the last 40 years have been decades of mental health awareness. That movement converges with another generational theme of economic affluence and time rich orientation towards self focussed exploration. Many disappear into their own dark rabbit holes of the mind, without hope of surfacing. At no time does there seem to have been such a widespread vocabulary around ways of looking after yourself as an individual. 

This blog is in two parts. It is in preparation for a short seminar requested on the subject of good mental health in workplace settings.

My knowledge on this subject comes out of a lot of counselling over many years. It comes from clinical reflection and hearing thousands of cases in years past. It comes from clinical supervision where I’ve listened or had conversations with numerous peers around their cases.  It comes from a lot of serious reading and working and writing training packages on behavioural therapy and the various genres of that subject.  My reflections come from listening to clients and trying to understand from them what works and what doesn’t work. It comes from listening to people wiser than myself. This exercise is not meant to be exhaustive. But I intend adding to it as observations come to the fore front. Each of the collected themes will be an eventual blog in itself.

I find myself frustrated with a lot of the material in the Mental Health space,not because it is necessarily misleading, nor has wrong intent. My issue with it is that it cannot be translated into practical actions or real life without sounding rather plastic no matter how well intentioned. Some of it can also be about making the mental health professional the hero or heroine who delivers the hidden knowledge about how to do life well. When some of the material is really the screaming obvious.

This is a beginning.

If you go to a responsible and usually government or non government sponsored mental health site, they will give you some useful life hints about good mental health. Conversely they also step lightly around saying direct or strong things that might upset political sensitivities.

They are worth paying attention to. They inevitably include.

• Sleeping well and getting enough rest. Getting 7-8 hours in a normal day makes good sense.

• Eating well and sensibly by consuming lots of veggies fruit and protein. Avoiding carbs and sugars and processed food along with exercise will make a big impact on how you feel about yourself.

• Being cautious about how much alcohol or non-prescribed medications or illegal drugs you consume.

• Building strategies around life and coping with your inner life and with relationships with others. Consequently,the sites will talk about relaxation techniques -talking with friends-self talk –relaxation –breathing techniques-not personalising issues –resolving conflicts.

• Being socially involved and involved with groups or in your community and being kind to others.

• Being assertive and learning to ask for things or to say NO.

I think that’s a reasonable and basic summary of some of the useful offerings made in the mental health space.

I want to reflect on some collected responses from people I have worked with. And observations I’ve made around the deliberate thoughts and actions and behaviours of those , who seem to have navigated this stormy sea of life wisely.

• Life is going to be hard and even brutal and we have to accept that. Bad things happen to good people. Worse still, good things can happen to bad people. There is no such thing as karma. To have an expectation that life will be otherwise or that any of us are entitled to an easy ride will put us in a fragile place. Refuse to accept any invitation to be a guest at the offered smorgasbord of victimhood.

• Paradoxically to see life as nothing but a series of crisis, surrendering to all that happens to us and capitulating to life events is just fatalism. The attitude that adopts a world view of “different day, same crap” is nihilistic and self centred and death seeking. Take responsibility. Choose to act as a grown up. Lift a load in your life.

• In life and work and with family and friends you need a plan.You cannot just turn up to life or relationships and see what happens next and seek out what feels good and arbirtrarily float along. Life will be wasted and your own mental health will begin to suffer and become loose. If its difficult to make plan or you were never brought up in life to plan or be accountable in some way it might be really useful to consider a mentor or a life coach. Mentors or coaches don’t have to be forever and they can be varied over time and with different backgrounds. As rule of thumb someone who is older than you and has evidence of achievement and of the same gender can be immensely helpful.

• Be aware that people will treat you the way you allow them to treat you. Don’t make a habit of getting angry or taking offence at everything. On those occasions when you have to draw a line in the sand or have a difficult conversation , don’t avoid it . Reflect, rehearse, be brave, but refuse to be angry. Get the matter over and done with. When you talk to the person don’t beat about the bush. There is an adage that you should never salute your executioner and always look them in the eye. Translation- don’t smile or joke. Say what needs to be said standing up with a bare economy of words. Move away. Forgive them. Tomorrow is another day.

• As far as alcohol is concerned. If it depresses you or makes you angry or has ever compromised your safety or others around you, it might be worth making some personal rules about how much, and under what circumstances. and with who, you will drink.

• You don’t have to try to be nice or agreeable to everyone you meet. Concentrate on listening and understanding what people are saying rather than being agreeable. Being civil and being polite are different from being nice and being agreeable. Being civil will keep the peace and keep you safe 90 % of the time. Manners and exercising civility is about respecting others and having integrity yourself. Others lack of manners or civility are other peoples issues, not yours.

• We live in a fragmented postmodern world with pluralistic belief systems. The broad cultural consensus in Australia is believe everything as someone else’s truth. In the same breath, it is believed that nothing can be accepted as absolute truth. I like the saying “if you stand for nothing – you will fall for anything”. Holding a position and knowing why you hold it is important to your mental health. It means you won’t be tossed around by every new idea or thought bubble that comes your way with the intention of capturing your thinking and re-orientating your life.

• Never make decisions or choices or part with cash or your income or relationships in a time of crisis. Never make big decisions or choices when your angry or ill or overly happy or sad. It is far better to reply with silence. Step away. Get safe. Settle your thoughts with people you can trust. Return to the matter with a clear plan and head.

• Family and friendships really matter. Choosing to invest time and maintain friendships is important. Family keep us on track. Friends can tell us when we have acted foolishly or are about to act against our best interests.. In the mental health space they also keep us sane. Aristotle talked about friends of virtue. These friends he says, want our good and whats truthful in our lives. He says they're the best type of friends. They are the friends who bat for us and want our best.

• Don’t live life as if its an emergency. Be aware of the language that others use around you urging you to believe that some life event or situation is dramatic or life changing. We all need thinking time and time to sort things. Its never a wise thing to rely or trust your emotions alone. Feelings are important. None of us are robots. They should not be discounted. However emotions are always the trailer attached to the vehicle. Emotions are secondary in making good decisions . The vehicle, drives the trailer. Its not the other way around. A lot of life is about reasonable reorientation following disorientation. Our social media and news provokes the view that life has to be about deconstruction and reconstruction.

• Imagination and what you dwell on becomes part of your reality. Imaginary dialogues in our heads with imaginary audiences from the past or the future might be the stuff of avoidance and anger and time wasting. But it will paralyse action and create fears about the future and it will distort relationships in the present. Such exercises will consume time and will make you poor. Don’t waste head time plotting or scheming to have vengeance on your enemies. If you must have retribution, your success is the best form of vindication. Wasting your time with revenge or phantasies does not serve you or those you care about.

• Avoid the company of the perpetually angry and the violent and the dishonest and the addicted. No matter how sophisticated or articulate or well presented they are. Keep away from them and their social company. Your time matters along with your families and friends. The company you keep and the people you mix with does have an affect on your behaviour and outcomes. The loud voices around us can influence values and how we orientate to the world.

• We need to act our age and accept that our age gives experience and knowledge and it requires us to behave according to life’s time clock.. Acting our age and being appropriate to our age will save us a lot of grief and shame. There is something utterly undignified and embarrassing about men or women speaking or behaving 20 or 30 years younger than what they are chronologically. 40 is not the new 30. And never will be. Despite media presentations and sales and marketing pitches you are the age you are. If your 50 or 60 you are going to be medically and biologically older than a 20 year old. Grow up and seriously consider a response that is age appropriate and mature. Younger people should be the recipients of wisdom and experience - not manipulation.

• Refuse to be any bodies slave or to be a slave to money or the workplace. Historically we don’t like the word servant. Servants are different from slaves. Servants traditionally had rank and honour and dignity. They were not hirelings or slaves. The paradox is that if you treat the workplace like you own it , you will do very well. In your service at work attempt to be the best you can be. Have an attitude which is enterprising and aspirational in what ever you do. Just don’t turn up. If you don’t fit, despite giving your best, give the workplace 2 silent warnings. Plan your exit, and go.

• Loneliness is associated with boredom. And boredom is an expectation and belief that I am entitled to be entertained by life and be continually happy. Loneliness puts people in very emotionally vulnerable spaces where they can make dangerous decisions to be entertained or seek some sense of release from the boredom outside their established boundaries of common sense. Under stimulation and repetition are the mechanics of boredom. A loss of passion and engagement in life. Boredom is a post modern phenomena despite us being able to be electronically entertained continually. Loneliness is fed by self rumination and a subtle cutting off from being concerned about others. Loneliness is life without a plan.

Panic Attacks

A panic attack can be a very scary experience where you have an episode of feeling overwhelmed by fear or anxiety.You may that anxiety is spiralling out of control. And nothing you do is able to stop it. The more you attempt to remedy the anxiety the more intense it becomes. It is a very uncomfortable place to be in and what is experienced is a combination of mental and physical symptoms.

The actual experience of a anxiety or panic attack.

People will experience an intense apprehension or fear despite their circumstances being quite ordinary. People feel and become aware of their heart rate rising. They might experience sweating, trembling or shaking. Having difficulty breathing is another scary symptom. Chest pain and shoulder and arm pain can happen. This seems to duplicate signs of a heart attack. Feeling like vomiting or the need to go to the toilet is common. Or mentally just a sense of being in an unreal out of body state like de’juvu. These are all physical and mental signs of a panic attack.

These symptoms can last up to 10 minutes. They can last for as little as seconds or a couple of minutes or 30 or 60 minutes.  Sometimes they move like waves through a day coming and going. The waves of panic also move with varying degrees of intensity and different physical symptoms.

One of the problems with panic attacks is that it makes people believe that they are really odd or strange or going insane. This is certainly not the case. And statistically 1 in 5 people will have an experience of a panic attack in their lives. If anything, it means a lot of people are keeping very quiet about it. !!!

Another problem with Panic attacks is that people can also get into avoiding ordinary every day events out of a fear of having a public panic attack. They avoid going out or even being in the company of people or circumstances that they believe will induce an attack.

What happens when we get anxious ?

Just a few reflections. Next time you get anxious try and be aware of what happens to your breathing. More than likely breathing becomes faster and shallower. Likewise when people are sighing or panting they are only taking breaths from the upper part of their lungs.Anxiety provokes this upper lung breathing. At the same time our thought processes are probably telling ourselves how hopeless or terrible our situation is . This cycles into more dark thoughts and more shallow breathing. Before you know it the physiology of the lung and heart joins with the catastrophic thinking and a anxiety or panic attack is occurring.

Using our radar

In talking with some people about their experience of panic attacks they will sometimes mention spending time thinking on their inadequacies and comparing themselves to particular people or groups of people. Other people will talk about the high or idealistic or romantic notions that they have invested in some person or social event or place or ceremony. The theme of avoidance and escape into fantasy can also be part of those conversations when discussing precursors to panic attacks in counselling. Fear is the engine room of panic attacks. Panic attacks appear to come quickly and without apparent signs or warning. However we do have radars. Detecting my body signs ,such as shallow breathing or just clearly being aware that my my mind is at this time making mountains out of molehills, means that our radar is working. Taking note of the thoughts from a distance and naming the dimensions of it also goes along way in dealing effectively with panic attack and anxiety.

What are some useful strategies in dealing with Panic attacks?

When the panic or anxiety begins to rise breathing is essential. You may even have been holding your breath while you have been thinking or worrying without knowing.Breathing in deep controlled and gentle manner without frantic deep breaths will start to work.

Very useful to talk with someone who understands and does not view your panic attack as strange or that you need to snap out of it. Counselling with someone who takes time to understand the genesis of your panic attack and can provide some useful directions in counselling at your own pace can be immensely helpful.

Remind yourself at the time that the attack is only temporary. Some people have found distraction and doing something that is reassuring really helpful. Watching some mindless television, listening to the radio, internet surfing (just avoid Googling up Panic attacks or heart attacks) In fact anything that is distracting. Distraction works because the subject material producing the anxiety is focused away from the thoughts and physical sensations.

Some people find it useful to restructure their thinking by writing or just thinking through the evidence as to why they should be so panicked. This process invites people to ask the question, “what am I really in danger from?” “What catastrophe am I really facing?” “What is the worst possible thing that is going to happen to me?”

Don’t live life like is an emergency. Relaxing or learning to relax is a lost art in our busy world and sometimes needs to be relearnt or even taught for the first time. Relaxation has three methods that seem to produce some relief from the demanding thoughts and dynamic effect of panic attacks. They include progressive muscle relaxation, controlled breathing and imagery.

I have already mentioned the potency of avoidance which can generate panic attacks. Mental avoidance of tasks or conversations or matters that cannot be put off are a universal culprit in panic attacks and I think a lot of mental health issues.

Dare I mention exercise. It clears the head and releases endorphins.

Memory and Remembrance

Memory and the remembrance of things past is a unique capacity that humans share. We can be dismissive of memory because we are overly familiar with it. The extraordinary capacity we have as humans to remember our past or remember the narrated stories of our lives is extraordinary. Memory is an incredible resource which colours the blank canvas of our lives as we age. Memory has a practical purpose as well. Its about having a useful and available library in our heads so we will avoid the things that harm us or cause us pain. There are however problems with using or misusing memory.

We may neglect our memories. We can be so busy and focused on the future or the present that we pay no attention to the past or to our memories. That is to say, there is no reflection what so ever on ones own past, either its mistakes or its achievements or others behaviours whether good or bad. This can come out of pure laziness. It can also flow from a view that the past and its memories have no relevance.

The other problem with memory is that people can over use it. They are forever in the library. They never leave. Its unhealthy. Their thoughts are never in the present or planning for future events but concreted into the memories of the past. A continual recycling of the same dark memory or series of images and stories and events occurs time after time. The regurgitation of failures and select, past conversations can lead to the procrastination and hopelessness and subtle despair that leads to mental paralysis or surrender to fantasy. As benign as that sounds, it can lock people into a barbed wired entrapment for years.

Suisse Post

Switzerland for the most part fits the delivered stereotype. Its pretty, orderly, Alpine and everything seems to function purposefully. Its hard to put your finger on the Swiss, but everywhere there is evidence of a purposefulness and order. The streets, the flowerpots, the service in the shops and supermarkets. The affable soldiers travelling on trains with their assault rifles. The Helicopter gunships that have hovered near my campus have a purpose, but it presumably has nothing to do with us. The bus that takes me down or up the mountain to Campus runs on time to the precise minute. The F16 jet Fighter may be the same one I see most visits. I feel for the pilot. He takes off, kicks it into some acceleration module then must slow down and turn the plane around for another north south or south north sprint across the length of Suisse. He must count off the years before he can go off and work for Swissair. Or perhaps he is already flying for them, and its his 4 weeks of military service.

A friend of mine, says of Suisse, its Germany, with class. I go further, its Germany with guns.

This is my 5th visit to Switzerland in 9 years. Things are changing. The young gangs of African refugees looking like American rappers are new. The number of aimless unemployed is more noticeable. The trains are still spotless, but the railway station sidings have graffiti now. The quarries chiseling into the beautiful countryside are expanding between Aigle and Lausanne as are the factories that pump out something or other that can drift across into the French Alps if the wind blows south. Why they built a hideous factory on the side of the Alpine mountain is any bodies guess.  

When I first visited a decade ago, I would get off the train from France at Berne or Genève. There was no customs or police checks.  There was a wooden box where you had to fill in a card about your stay and purpose. I remember not being able to find any paperwork on one occasion and on another I was catching a connecting train to Lausanne and just didn’t bother. Now its more stringent. Customs with black pistols and computer pads get on the trains and request your passport. Like all officials with pads and especially pistols, they can appear to like their jobs a little too much.

Unlike the Germans, where it is best not to mention the war, with the Swiss, it is best not to mention neutrality. Neutrality meant that while everyone beat the living daylights out of everyone else the Swiss were able, for some 500 years, to make the best of geopolitics around them, stay in their geographic fortress and make the most of neighboring chaos and mayhem. To be perfectly blunt it was a choice of manufacturing and finance or join in the brutality. They chose the former. Now of course their national conscience is up for dissection as some Swiss ponder if too much gain was made at the cost of playing the neutral observer. The Swiss, from my observation, are also re examining themselves in a global context rather than the safety of historical isolation. The national change appears to be imposed on them externally and with a haste that is somehow not their conventional transition speed.

Windows and Doors

I occasionally reflect on doors and windows and gates. Not an obsession about checking to see if they are locked and secured 27 times you understand. Its what they represent as a picture or illustration in common expression or anecdote. When you visit old places in England or Europe the height of the doors and physical doorways stands out as does the placement of windows. I also noticed in these long-abandoned ruins or castles as well that you had to bend down to get through the doors. The windows were a witness perhaps to the best upshot of the industrial revolution. No longer closet hovels but an invitation for the outside world to be observed and a place to let light in. The German theme of the Torschlusspanik, the terror at the closing of the gate was there in the old towns. It derives from the horror in Medieval towns when you found the gates of the town locked at curfew and you were outside the safety of the keep. You faced the potential harm of wolves and brigands and violence. And no way of entering or pleading for entry as the gate was shut without negotiation.

The builder is here. Replacing a door. The new door is solid. Like things that are meant to be protective. It conveys a sense of privacy and maintains an inside space from the outside world. Its a proper solid door. It takes time to hang. There are technical difficulties to hanging doors. You have to make sure it maintains privacy and security and discretion. The door is like the new windows he is installing. Doors and Windows are functional. They have  a job to do.  

I mention these things not as an excursion into home maintenance. It brings me to reflect on the analogy of doors and windows that occurs in counselling.

I reflect that some people can have all the doors and windows of their personal house totally bolted. Double deadlocked and curtained. No one is meant to come in. And no one is meant to observe the other side or the inside of their lives. You keep community and others out.  Fear and open defiance and even loathing might lurk within the doors and windows and gates. There is no invitation to the outside world or the people in it.  And there is no entry and the closedness is simply more than just prudent discretion. Suspicion and withdrawal and cynicism to the outer world and a shutting out is part of the imagery such people project. They appear in counselling often as conscripts,brought by a spouse or partner at the end of their rope with them. Or they appear by themselves and have an expectation that you will work hard to decipher the reason for their attendance. They are prickly and defiant and dying through lack of sunlight.

At the other end are those who seem to inhabit houses with no windows and no doors. Or perhaps I should say the doors and windows are wide open for all and sundry to enter.  Their house is open to the street and to the neighbourhood. There are no constraints. There is a blindness to their vulnerability and even to issues of their own health and mental safety. They make themselves and their families vulnerable by never imposing limits on who or how or what people may say to them or demand of them. They have little care for the impact on themselves or the capacity to say No or disagree or hold a contrary opinion. They are unable to say, thus far but no further. Others may choose to enter via the door front or back at will and others who should enter by the door simply climb in via the windows. Wide open to the house. Entering or exiting at will. They are there for other people in a naïve and unconstrained or even sentimental way. They have no borders nor boundaries. They see it as heroic to live that way.  The harsh and takers and violent seem to smell where those unguarded houses and their occupants dwell time and again.

Doors and windows and gates are there for a reason literally and metaphorically.  They provide boundaries and they are there to operate and make choices about when and how and under what conditions people come into your space and how you will choose to deal with them. Your “house” is your own. Its not healthy as a bunker nor is it a healthy space when it has totally fluid borders.

Trauma and Critical Episodes

What is a trauma or critical episode?

It can be any number of incidents that involve the loss of life or a near miss that could have involved death or serious injury. More specifically a critical incident might be a death or suicide or assault in a workplace. Or it might be a serious accident in a workplace which results in serious injuries for one or numerous people. An accident offsite or in its proximity affecting  family members or workers. It might include violent or very threatening behavior on a site such as a robbery. It could be a catastrophic industrial implosion or explosion. All might be considered to have an affect on people psychologically.

The time after a critical episode.

Critical episodes can be distinct and contained in a small discrete geography which affects the people directly exposed to the immediate circumstances of a trauma such as a armed robbery. On other occasions a trauma might involve a very public and significant number of people witnessing it or hearing about it or being on site and vicinity when it happens. For example a fatal plane crash. Or a significant work accident on a site.

If you or workmates or family members have been involved, or have witnessed or been in the vicinity of a traumatic event, it will bring about dislocation and disruption to your life in some shape or way. Being involved in a critical incident or trauma will affect people in their thinking, their emotions, their behavior and their physical health. At the time and the time after the trauma people can experience a spectrum of thoughts and emotions. There can be a sense of relief, guilt, numbness, regret, agitation or fear. The range of thoughts and feelings can be jumbled together or experienced like a rollercoaster ride. Trauma  is real in our lives and initially people can experience I sense of being emotionally and psychologically “all over the place” This is not uncommon and does not mean people are losing their minds.

 Some of the responses to trauma.

Some strong emotions come to the surface in the hours and days after a critical incident or witnessing something traumatic. Initially people can feel any range of reactions. Sadness. Numbness. Guilt or shame for no good reason.Anxiety or fear. Even relief about escaping themselves.

People react to grief and loss in different ways depending on their personalities and characteristics. With trauma it is very similar and the invasion of the unexpected into an otherwise predictable world sets the thinking and feeling world of individuals on its head. It should be noted there are no set rules of timeframes or measured and timed rules about what or when people should be feeling or recovering or not crying or feeling OK again. People who have gone through trauma are on a journey. They are  making sense and responding to the thoughts and feelings or images of life threatening events. Another way I put it is to say that the past present and future become tangled up all at once. With time and space and reassurance things will return to normal. The severity and the proximity and the relationship with the trauma and who was involved and its effect on immediate loved ones or friends or workmates are all factors in dealing with trauma and moving into a recovery from the trauma or critical incident. Individuals react to stress and anxiety differently. Some people have friends to talk with others have limited contacts or networks or families to reach out to.

Some specific responses to trauma.

• Confusion and disbelief that the trauma has happened at all. Some people report feeling physically numb or initially being in a dream like state.

• An inability to sleep and not being able to concentrate or focus.

• Disbelief and denial and an ongoing thought, that this awful thing, could not have occurred.

• People will feel overcome with emotion and cry or they can display great resentment or anger and want to blame someone for the episode.

• Guilt at surviving a critical episode or avoiding an accident where others were harmed.

• Self examination and blaming and questioning ones own culpability in the episode.

• “I could have, I should have, why didn’t I,”.

• Sadness and feeling isolated or hopeless in the circumstances.

• Feeling the trauma physically by having intrusive thoughts or failing to sleep or being hyper sensitive or overly vigilant.

What is important is that like many episodes in life  things will over time return to the safe normal. The critical episode however is still part of memory and bruising for an individual or group. However the severity and the proximity and psychological and emotional impact of any traumatic event and the make up of the person experiencing it will be a major factor in peoples response.  

Also the dynamics of the trauma and who was involved and its effect on immediate loved ones or friends or workmates are all factors in dealing with trauma and moving into a recovery from the  critical incident. Talking about what happened matters.

Individuals react to stress and anxiety differently. Some people have friends to talk with others have limited contacts or networks or families to reach out to. Other times horrific things happen and there is never an easy exit in the short term.  Talking with a counsellor confidentially can be useful.

Some practical ways ahead.      

• Being around a scene or site where trauma has occurred will be confronting for a while. But not forever. Just brace yourself and steel yourself and look after others who are in the vicinity.

• If you were close to the episode you will hav intrusive thoughts and images.These will go with time. Again there is nothing strange about them but talking about the images with someone you can trust matters.

• You could be emotional about what’s happened . You may even think you're the only person. You're not. It’s important to reach out to other people or workmates.

• Eat regularly and go easy on the alcohol.

• Keep up with your normal routines and if your alone be deliberate and time limited about thinking or exploring the episode in your head. Every reasonable person always beats themselves up with” I should have. I could have. why didn’t I.

• Try not to work or bury yourself in work with no rest or recreation time planned

• If you can’t sleep at least rest. Don’t ruminate or relive the event when you rest.

images and their power

Perfectionism is a hidden obsession in life and the workplace.

We carry in our minds many internal images. Images are powerful in and of themselves. Images are dynamic and powerful in our thoughts. They can be of events or people or conversations from our lived experience. They can be vicarious events lived through others stories. They have the capacity to comfort or instruct or gain joy in remembrance or just make sense of new situations because somehow, we have gone through an experience similar.  They also have the capacity to metastasize and poison and provoke anxiety or paralysis. 

In counselling, you know people carry images around for decades. Stuff that should have been dropped years ago. Or images that are replayed and feeds the imagination that does no one any good nor can redeem the past.  They are triggered especially during times of anxiety or flatness. The images can also hover like a sore tooth, just enough to remind its subject when people think its disappeared.  Sometimes people cannot say what triggered them. Sometimes they are not sure if the images came first then triggered behaviours and feelings or if circumstances triggered the images. The images are at peoples waking and give them vicious company when they should be asleep or near them in their everyday work or conversations. Constantly replayed. They are very strong. We should always be aware of that and the impact and currency in our thinking and behavior of images.  Its always good to have some strategies to deal with them as well.

At another but related level, as constant consumers we are also invited to feast on images and narratives that feed imagination, in diverse forms. Magazines and electronic media promote the perfect look. The perfect body. The perfect holiday. They write narratives about the perfect relationship with the perfect job. Popular psychology abounds everywhere, money and time expended on the perfect relationship or perfect balance of intellectual and behavioral performance. Be assured, unattainable tripe ultimately and a waste of money. Humans are human and not impersonal machines. Media promotes a whole range of other perfections as well. The high-performance engine of a car the powerful elegance of a hotel or even the perfectionism of cuisine. Lest we are bored by this all, is accompanied by perfect technology, in some form or other.

Some people offer no resistance. They may even boast of being perfectionist, as if it’s a badge of accomplishment or that it might be an employable trait worth investing in. Therapeutically, you might as well tell me you have contracted an aggressive Tapeworm. I won’t be congratulating you, I’ll offer my sympathy and an invitation to do something therapeutic and medical about it.

Interestingly, very few, have, over the years, boasted of being perfect or having achieved it. The occasional immortal does creep through into that category. On their way to the perfect mental health facility, in my observation.

Media and life generally sells on a smorgasbord of enticements. We are surrounded by them.  If you look through the magazines in the glossy pages or movies or commercials, smiling or pouting or sternly staring back at us, you will find the well turned out models. They are of course, what is suggested we ought to aspire to. Its tied up with the subject of what is constructed for us as heroic or beautiful or something to be aspired to. But always unreachable and just beyond our grasp.

Loneliness

Loneliness is nothing new. Verbalization of it, particularly in counselling, over the past decades is. I hear it talked about directly or obliquely in counselling more often. Common sense suggests the topic has always been there in some form. Perhaps there is less inhibition about talking about it. Perhaps social demographics and disintegration of families make it a stronger social reality and it has wider currency and plausibility as an issue. Perhaps its symptomatic of geographic and social mobility. Perhaps in sociological terms it’s a post-modern condition. In a life where all authority and structures are uncertain, relationships are the one feature that promises permanency and predictability. Loneliness encapsulates the essence of the loss of both these features.

I notice that people across age groups allude to it or voice their fear of being lonely. Old and young people facing the reality of a relationship or marriage collapsing. Individuals cemented in relationships, staying because the fear of loneliness, is greater than the pain of staying. Individuals making dangerous decisions and being manacled impatiently to incompatible strangers because they fear loneliness. Decisions made to be single mothers to virtually unknown or unknowable donors. For fear of loneliness. People being conned for large amounts of money in lonely heart scams.

Social media emphasizes the world-wide connectivity of people. On the other hand, it leaves people totally barren and alone in terms of real relationships. You can be befriended on a screen with total strangers. You can be befriended by people just collecting the largest list of followers. Facebook loneliness is avoided by forever being vigilant to promoting yourself and tapping away in the pursuit of your own news coverage.

Virtual relationships seem to offer the hope of real face to face relationship. At its worst it leaves people suspended and fantasizing about unreal possibilities and futures. Social media is a virtual world. The translation of that is that it is not real. Its a fantasy world. People will even believe the lies and fantasy because it offers some escape from the present.

Impatience goes with loneliness. We want and demand to be fulfilled now. We must not be bored for that is the new Millennial sin. That is our 21st Century expectation. Its our new Millennial entitlement. We want to have friendship and relationship instantly. We want the entertainment and stimulation and recognition now. Friendship and relationship doesn’t occur with the ticking of a Like box on a screen or a meme. Friendship and relationship doesn’t occur instantly, and we can’t buy it or subscribe to it or down load it.

The Pursuit of Excellence and Perfectionism

Media and life generally sells us a smorgasbord of enticements. We are surrounded by them.  If you look through the magazines and the glossy pages or movies or commercials, you will see manufactured perfection smiling or pouting or sternly staring back at you. You will find the well turned out models. They are, of course,presented to us ,as what we ought to aspire to. Its tied up with the subject of what is constructed for us as heroic or beautiful or significant and to be aspired to. But always unreachable and just beyond our grasp.

Art of the renaissance or the later reformation periods presented beautiful forms of ideal and romanticized men and women.  Michelangelo’s David in Florence is really the ideal renaissance man.  Not a real model but the renaissance view of what humans were to become in that heady age when they believed that nothing but their own intellect and cleverness could overcome all the foibles and superstitions of the past.  Michelangelo could construct an imaginary beauty. But knew it was a dream. Michelangelo got old and his sculpture and his paintings got real to life. Grieving, hurting, reflecting, plainer looking. His Pieta or even the Sistene chapels ceilings  are truer and uglier to life.

Down south and then a left turns you come to Venice. I mention this because it was in Venice that I am told that much attention was given to George Clooney recently and his new wife. A most well turned out and very cool couple indeed. I honestly didn’t dwell too much as its time better spent and none of my business at one level. But Venice really is a lovely place. But I couldn’t but help be struck by the sense of perfect setting and elegance. Not simply of the couple... Mrs. Clooney’s name escapes me… but she apparently is not simply elegant but also a lawyer of no small substance on the international stage.

On the one hand their coupling evokes a sense of all the best and hopefully it won’t be another Hollywood Marriage. It made me wonder about what a construct of perfection by the media was surrounding them. Hopefully Mr. and Mrs. Clooney will hopefully make things work even though the media jackals will gather

Here are not simply a couple with style but a constructed and stylized couple for us to consume and to acclaim here is constructed perfection - until the Media gods wish to act against them and deconstruct their marriage for the audience in the coliseum.

What I am suggesting is that there are many parts of our life that we consume or read in hard glossy copy or digital form and that give a message that we can attain (with a suitable pay packet) perfection. Not quite now. But like Michelangelo’s David and the ideal ,its always around the corner.

I do some relationship counselling and what used to be called marriage counselling. I think I have some therapeutic skills in it. But I don't really like it as I grow older. Much of it, in my observation, is too late. Give me a trauma or critical episode or attempted self harm any time. Inevitably one of the individuals is more keen on being at counselling than the other. What is sad is that people want their relationship to succeed and to be different. They have ideas in their head, and so they should. Some of those ideas are glossy constructs of masculinity or femininity created by thrice married cinema script writers and bundled together with cynically researched story lines and actors that the producers know people will pay money to see. Or some ideas emerge out of the glossy magazines which are evangelical about living the life you want which usually means  living for yourself and always looking for better options . Why? Because you deserve it. -There is no particular philosophical monologue given as to why you deserve it !  You just do.

Our occupation with heroes a heroic image has been around for a long time. Recently looking at the pre-war movie synopsis along with commercial posters of movies from the 1930 s and 1940s one can view the characteristics of what constituted heroes and heroines in that historical space. In 2018 they look shallow, twee and quite wet by modern graphical standards.

However, look at them long enough and they’re no different in theme or even stance from modern movie presentation’s. They are strangely similar. Cool or pouting or stern or masterful individuals.  Shallowness and submission to fashion and manners and its composite desire for the perfect look or to be part of the culture of perfection, we live in hasn’t really changed They are in some strange sense supposed to be stereotypes or fantasies for us to reflect on. Images that offer something to be strived for.  In some way we might attain something of the perfection of the form and manner or affect the manner of the so cool images that would engrave themselves on our minds.

More recently I noticed we have had the 50 most powerful business people or the 50 most influential women. There are various variations of the theme. Such things cycle around the media. You can pick the current zeitgeist over the glossy magazines in the plane or the hairdresser or on the Morning TV programs or numerous other settings. If you look carefully the question is  "What cultural group or political bent or gender is upbeat and who is currently a has been. And what are we subscribing to or what are we being told to subscribe to in our thinking "  Image and language matter in the arena of perfectionism.

 Fame or beauty or status or wealth is of course transitory and fical. Some new upcoming starlet will replace todays chicken or rooster no matter who or what they do or how they sell their lives or bodies to attach themselves to, or by what sacrifices venal or talented that they climb the slippery pole of success.

I need to say that excellence or having a high standard is by no means to be dismissed. If my dentist was nonchalant about my root canal work or my Surgeon about my torn knee cartilage I would be along with any responsible person a bit miffed. And why wouldn’t we want to do a good job of something or do something properly rather than half baked. It will reflect badly on us, we won’t get return business, and it comes back to bite. Importantly and beyond these things however is that doing something well reflects what means to be human. Doing something perfectly is different than having an attitude of excellence.

I think I want to break it down to excelling at something being a noble pursuit and a safe place to be. I think with perfectionism we need to ask what or who is it in the imagination that says, “Not good enough”. That audience needs to be named and exited.

Perfectionists can be dangerous to themselves and dangerous to others. We value friends for example who say they are going to do something and then go and do it. I think there is an excellence and integrity in that. Excelling is not that we pursue significance it is that we privately hold to an integrity.

Depression is a first cousin to anxiety.  Perfectionism is a cousin to obsession.  With obsession comes fear and paralysis or in its extremes cruelty and manipulation of others. Pity the staff that have to work for a perfectionist. Pity the perfectionist who cannot live up to their own imagined standards. Work tasks will never be good enough and failure and inadequacy of others will be the watch words. Alternatively, work started will never be completed out of fear that the final product will never be good enough and therefore failure is denied the final word.

Key performance indicators will strangely never quite get there. Perfectionists will be paralyzed to make any decisions. Never finish tasks and work long hours without any apparent result. Blaming others is always a suitable escape hatch for the perfectionist. It can make for disaster in marriage or families.

Punting the critical audience in our imaginations is a great place to start. The exiting of the perfectionist voice in our heads needs to happen.