Your Friends and Loved Ones Have Enough of Thier Own Elephants...

Don't Add More!

Thanks to some encouragement from some very dear friends, I've returned to my keyboard in hopes of planting more of the content residing in my pea brain in cyberspace... enjoy!

 

This is the 6th installment of my personal blog. I started it when a friend advised me to write to cope with a very deep and personal loss. The theme thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

 

Ok, some of you may be a little confused about the topic. In an earlier blog I encouraged you to share your elephants with friends and family as a technique to aid you in dealing with your issues. (See Nugget #2 – Share Your Elephant Bites With Others). Now it appears I'm discouraging the practice. I'm not. What I'm saying is that you need to be aware that the people who are close to you automatically have to eat servings of elephant that you create.

 

For example, a husband loses his license because he was caught drinking and driving. With no way of getting to work it falls to his wife to drive him so he doesn't get fired. The wife is now eating a slice of her husband's "drinking elephant". Be aware that you do not live in a bubble. The consequences of your actions resound to everyone in your circle of life.

 

I would like to think that most of you avoid the practice of drinking and driving, so let me approach this from different angles. There's more than one way to create elephants for those who love you. It's not limited to getting into trouble, you can dish up headaches in many different ways.

 

Let me fall back to the husband and wife dynamic for a moment. My understanding of the way a marriage should work is that both spouses should be the primary sources for affection and companionship in life for one another. This doesn't preclude outside relationships, but external relationships should take a lower priority to the spouses' relationship towards one another. Keeping that in mind, lets look at Bob and Mary.

 

Bob collects lint. Mary has no interest in lint. Despite this, Bob spends the majority of his time collecting, categorizing, and storing his lint. In addition he entertains other lint enthusiasts and they meet often to watch lint shows together, and even go on trips to lint conventions. As a result of his focus on his own interest, Bob has essentially abandoned Mary creating a "loneliness" elephant for her. Mary, feeling abandoned and hurt, creates an "affection" elephant for Bob when she denies his advances when he does get around to spending time with her. This drives Bob even further away, and the situation spirals downward with each spouse dishing up more and more elephant until one day they both mis-identify the marriage itself as their elephant and toss IT to the curb.  

 

I'm going to digress just a little here. The most lonely feeling is that of a spouse of someone who ignores them, causes them stress through carelessness, tries to control them, or sadly hurts them physically. If you're the latter, keep this in mind. You took on the mantle of soul mate when you married that person. There is no other person in the entire world that can fill that role. It would also be accurate to say that you're their SOLE mate as well. There is no other they can turn to. By design you are the person they should be able to pour their hearts out to. You are the person they should be able to trust with their very lives. There is nothing more beautiful than a pair of spouses who trust, love, and honor one another completely, and conversely there is nothing more tragic than a spouse who violates that trust, withholds that love, and dishonors their spouse. Don't oprhan your spouse, they deserve 100% of you.

 

The final scenario focuses more on the child/parent relationship. If you're under 18, EVERYTHING you do has the potential to either remove or add elephant to your parent's plate and the older you get the bigger those servings can get. On one hand, you can apply yourself to learn an instrument, perform in sports, or score high marks in school. These are great gateways to scholarships which are wonderful ways to knock the "Oh, crap, I've got to pay for Billy's college tuition!" elephant off of your parents' plates. On the flip-side, you can party, rebel, argue, and fight which are all excellent ways to dish up nasty adolescent elephants like, "Teen Pregnancy", "Addiction to Substances", "Legal Problems", "Financial Burden", and in the extreme, "Loss of Life". Though they don't have to eat the elephant you dish up for life, they still have to endure the ones you dish up before you're 18.

 

This leads me to this weeks' nugget:

 

Nugget #7 Don't BE Your Friends' and Families' Elephant.

 

The bottom line is make good decisions. If not for your sake, then do it for the sake of all the people who are in your life. You and they will be happier for it!

 

Your Dog-Loving Blogger,

 

Bunji 

Pink Elephants

Aren’t the Only Imaginary Ones

Welcome once more, Dog Lovers.

Let me first apologize for my extended absence. I traded elephants when I accepted a position with a local freight company as a data entry specialist.

My unemployment elephant got sent packing along with some of my debt elephants (HOO-RAY!). However, now I work long hours and I work exclusively at night, so there’s been a trade off. My new elephants, Loneliness and Reduced Free Time arrived. The good news is that I’m doing very well in managing these two elephants. I’ve avoided feeding them, and I share my elephants with friends and family. (See nuggets #2 and #4) All in all its well worth it. I like my job and the people I work with, and my commute is very short.

This is the 5th installment of my personal blog. I started it when a friend advised me to write to cope with a very deep and personal loss. The theme thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

Off we go!

We sometimes (and when I say “we”, I mean “I”) have a tendency to see problems where they don’t exist.

Allow me to illustrate:

First there is a possibility of something that may not go our way.

“I hope Bob lets me borrow his car so I can make it to my job interview.”

We then assume the worst case scenario.

“Bob probably won’t lend me his car.”

Then we make a series of quite logical if/then statements.

“If I don’t get Bob’s car, then I can’t make it to the interview.”

“If I can’t make it to the interview, then I won’t get hired.”

“If I don’t get hired, then I won’t ever make money.”

“If I don’t get income, then I’ll go broke!”

“I-I-IF I go broke, then I can’t pay my rent!!”

“IF I CAN’T PAY MY RENT, THEN I’LL BE HOMELESS!!!”

“IF I’M HOMELESS, THEN MY GIRLFRIEND WILL DUMP ME ‘CAUSE I STINK, AND I’LL WIND UP EATING DOGFOOD OUT OF CAN IN A DANK ALLEY DOWN-TOWN!!!!”

Ok, so let get me get this straight, Mr. Wizard. Not getting Bob’s car equals you being a single dog-food-eating homeless person living in a dank alley down-town.

(or IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER for you Chris Farley SNL Fans.)

Ever think of rescheduling or taking the bus to your interview, genius?

“Oh, hadn’t thought of that.”

It’s natural for us to play the worst-case-scenario game. It can be a good game to play sometimes. It motivates us to purchase car insurance, make a will, and wear our seatbelts. It even helps us make good decisions in the here and now. For instance:

“Hmmm, if I call my boss a stupid, lazy, worthless pile of cow dung, then I’ll probably get fired.”

Most of the time, the worst-case-scenario game keeps us out of trouble. The trouble happens when we go to extremes with this game. We wind up twisting ourselves into knots over all the "what-if's" and "might-be's". We do this ad nauseum, ruining our meals, our sleep, and even our relationships. Its at this point when two brand new elephants appear out of thin air and plop on our laps – they quite simply called, "Worry" and "Anxiety"

Of all the elephants, these two are the trickiest to eat, because they're not real. We create them. We are so certain that the worst will happen that we make ourselves miserable anticipating terrible events. The only way to combat these two is a change our attitudes towards life.

This leads me to my next blogs’ nugget:

Nugget #6 Take Life One Day At a Time, Accept the Fact that the Future is NOT Fixed.

Its important to accept the fact that future events are not fixed. Just because something is likely to happen, it doesn’t make it so. Even if that thing does happen, there’s no guaranty that the outcome will be what you expect.

I’m personally struggling with this one. I’m in a tough spot at the moment, and I can’t see a positive outcome. As I write this blog though, I’m reminding myself that even in the event my worst case scenario happens, world ending events will NOT ensue. (i.e. alien attack, Milli Vinilli reuniting…)

This leads me to a very crucial component to defeating this elephant. I’ve not touched on it up to this point, but its key – faith. I am a Christian. I firmly believe that God is the governing force in the universe and I have a personal relationship with his Son, Jesus Christ. I don’t stand up to be counted as one of his followers enough. Often times I’m more like Peter cowering on Good Friday than I am like Peter preaching in the streets and being executed for his efforts.

At any rate, faith is so important. The belief that God is keenly aware of your situation and that he is with you when you’re going through it, might be the only thing that gets you to another sunrise. This doesn’t mean you’ve got a guarantee that the good times will always roll. It does guarantee that you’ll be given what you need to sustain and endure. If you adopt this belief and hold firm to it, you’ll feel much better about facing all the unknown tomorrows that lay in wait for you.

This leads me to two more nuggets. (More like a nugget “A” and a nugget “B”)

Nugget #7A Keep the Faith!

(This nugget is for those who’ve established a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.) Trust that no matter what, God resides within you to steel you through tough times.

Nugget #7B GET the Faith!!

(This nugget is for those who’ve never trusted Jesus with their lives)

It’s a surprisingly simple process.

No secret handshakes (course its kind of fun if you do)

No weird rituals

No chanting

#1 Admit you’re flawed, that you were born imperfect - in short admit you’re HUMAN.

#2 Believe, truly accept the fact, the truth, that an innocent man, free of sin or flaw, named Jesus Christ allowed himself to be executed. Accept the truth that this man was in fact was God’s only Son and he died in order to be resurrected so all humanity could be cleansed of their flaws - their sins through his sacrifice. Finally, accept the fact that he is the one and only way to get into God’s Kingdom.

#3 Pray for the gift of salvation. Ask the Lord to govern your life and turn your life over to him. Ask for him to forgive all your sins.

Told you it was simple. Cooking frozen Asian stir-fry is infinitely more difficult by comparison. (I know this first hand)

It’s a frightening concept. Faith in anything is mocked in our times. Don’t judge Christians by what you hear or read in the media today. Meet us, ask questions, and really see who we are. We’re not what you’d expect.

Just remember, you’re not surrendering you’re identity, you’re just allowing God to make you a far better you.

Finally, take this into account:

Christianity isn’t a religion – it’s a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Well thanks once more for reading my blog. I don’t know when I’ll fire another one off, but I’m glad you poked in and read my latest. I pray my impending brick wall turns out to be a paper banner : )

You're Dog-Loving Blogger,

Bunji

P.S. Just as I mentioned with depression, its not uncommon to have anxiety and worry so severe that you personally aren't equipped to deal with it. Countless people are caught in the throes of this emotional condition, so you're not alone. Its not an admission of weakness to admit you have anxiety you can't shake or control. So please, if nothing you've tried on your own is relieving it, don't go on suffering in silence. There are scores of professionals who'll provide you the care you need, seek them out so you'll finally get some peace of mind.