Quotes from the Top of the Mind™

For those of you who are looking for new ways to create meaning and success in your lives, psychologist, Dr. Bill Crawford, offers this podcast which combines concepts from two artists from different worlds and times. William Shakespeare, of course, is famous for positing that, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players," which, while a much quoted perspective, and certainly one that is poetic, doesn't by itself necessarily help us create a meaningful life. Add to this, however, the concept that this "stage" is the setting for a play, and further, that a loving or benign presence might be the playwright (which is taken from present-day composer and lyricist, David Wilcox, and his composition, "Show the Way") and you get a very interesting perspective that I believe can be used to bring meaning to our lives, and allow us to become more influential in our daily experiences. "Show the Way" is a song from David Wilcox's album, "Big Horizon," and even though it was written over 15 years ago, it begins where many people find themselves today . . . speaking to what it's like to be frightened and having trouble holding on to hope. But then it goes on to speak of a higher purpose in the chorus when it says: It is Love who mixed the mortar And it’s Love who stacked these stones And it’s Love who set the stage here Though it looks like we’re alone. In this scene set in shadows Like the night is here to stay There is evil cast around us Not that there is evil all around us but that evil, or fear, or negative people and/or situations are cast around us . . . or that they "play a part" and are is there for a reason. There is evil cast around us But it’s Love that wrote the play... Why? For in this darkness, Love can show the way This means again, that fear and darkness are playing their roles, which are to allow love to show the way, or guide us in our journey. The image that comes to my mind here is a series of rooms that are brightly lit, but confusing in their layout so that we don't know which way to turn. Bringing a guiding light into this situation would serve no purpose because we wouldn't be able to see what it was showing us. However, if the rooms were dark the light could "show the way," which, of course, is the name of the song and the message David Wilcox is wanting to get across. In order to make this work, Dr. Crawford suggests that we start small and begin to see these daily situations as scenes in a play. There could be the traffic scene, the kids scene, the work scene, the stuck at the airport scene, the spouse and/or family scene. etc. And just as in a play, our job is to step on stage and define our character. What have we got to lose, other than a part that never fit us very well in the first place?

For those who are trying to create a meaningful life by avoiding problems, certain emotions, certain people, etc., psychologist, Dr. Bill Crawford offers a quote and some comments on why this may not be working. He then goes on to offer an alternative strategy that goes way beyond "positive thinking" and actually shows listeners how to shift to the most intelligent, creative, part of the brain. In other words, how to access our clarity and confidence, and create the life we want versus trying to find happiness by avoiding the aspects of life we don't want.

When being rushed is the problem, rushing is never the solution. If there is one thing that almost everyone can agree on today is that we all have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Whether it's meeting deadlines at work, picking up the groceries and the kids, getting that report out, or getting that school project in, this inequitable amount of work and time seems to be a fact of life for almost everyone. In this podcast, which is one in a series of weekly episodes from psychologist, Dr. Bill Crawford, he offers a quote on the subject, and some thoughts on what we can do to make the best use of our time, even when there isn't enough of it. For th ose of you familiar with Dr. Crawford’s "Top of the Mind" philosophy which is based upon the latest brain research, you know that the reason rushing in response to being rushed is doomed to failure is because we are being driven by the lower 20% of our brain. This part of the brain can only do two things, fight, or push harder and go faster (i.e. rush) or flight, give up, give in, and just stop trying. In fact, this is why well-meaning advice such as "just calm down" or "don't rush" never works. The lower 20% of the brain hears this as "give up" or "be late," and the part of us that knows how important it is for us to accomplish the task rejects this idea. Unfortunately, these only leave us with "fight", or go faster/rush, which would be fine if this actually helped us finish faster. However, this is rarely the case. As we all have experienced, when we rush, we make mistakes which require us to go back and repeat steps and since speed versus quality has become our prime objective, not only do we take longer, the quality of our work suffers. So, what's the solution? Are we supposed to just close our eyes and meditate when we are being rushed? No, when we are short on time, there is truth in the fact that working at our peak proficiency and finishing as soon as possible are valid and important goals. The question is how do we speed up without going so fast that we end up making mistakes and taking longer? The answer is "w e don't," meaning that our metabolism and the speed at which we do things aren’t like an accelerator on a car. We can't just speed up a little, because the reason for the speed (our concern that we will be late or not accomplish the task) throws us into the part of the brain that only knows "really fast" and "give up trying to make it on time" (fight or flight). No, the answer is to come from the other direction. In other words, let's use our natural tendency to increase adrenaline when pressed for time as a way to increase our focus on the task, and then take the manic or frantic edge off by enacting what Dr. Crawford calls "The 2% Solution." In his book, "Life from the Top of the Mind," he goes into detail about this concept. However, it's actually quite simple to describe. Basically, it's about just noticing when we are rushing in response to being rushed, and slowing down just 2%, or doing everything just 2% slower. There are several reasons this works. First, the ability to notice our speed and take that manic or frantic edge off by going 2% slower is driven by the upper 80% of the brain (versus the lower 20%). This means we are making purposeful choices versus reacting to a fear of being late. Secondly, we don't have to wrestle with the fear of giving up or giving in because we are only going 2% slower. Finally, when we notice that even as we slow down by 2% we are still going faster than we would if we had plenty of time, we feel good about our efforts to finish on time, and the fact that we are proceeding with speed, but not at a frantic or rushed pace. Put another way, rather than responding to being rushed with rushing, we are instead bringing our clarity, confidence, and creativity to the situation, and working effectively at the speed of life.

Quote: ""There are two ways to make someone important in our lives . . . we can either love them or hate them.” - Bill Crawford, Ph.D. Comment: This perspective has come to me from the work I do with individuals and organizations around stress and dealing with difficult people. For example, it never seems to fail that in my presentations, when I ask the participants to describe the problems they encounter on a daily basis, many will speak to the challenges of dealing with a particular person. The stories they tell about these people are very convincing, and I have no doubt that the person or persons that they are describing are indeed hard to live and/or work with. And yet, I wonder if our tendency to focus so intently on these problematic individuals is truly serving us? In other words, by continually thinking about all the ways they drive us crazy and make us nuts, aren't we really making them more important and even more powerful than they really deserve to be? To find the answer, after the participants have identified the difficult people who are "stressing them out," I ask . . . . "OK, on a scale of one to ten, how important do you want this person to be in your life?" Most people will then respond with "zero" and it is then that we begin to discuss the concept behind this week's quote. For you see, while I can certainly understand how we might experience difficult people as frustrating, stressful, problematic etc., I’m concerned that our tendency to hold them in our thoughts, and make them the focus of our conversations might be making this person much more powerful that we want them to be. This is especially true when we use phrases such as, "so and so just drives me crazy!" or "he or she just makes me so angry!" because in describing these problematic individuals in this way, we are actually giving them the power to "make us" feel a certain way or control us! If you have determined that you no longer want this person (or people like them) to have that sort of power in your life, then you must be willing to take on that power yourself. In order to do this you must first, move from a vision of the problem (them, and how they have "made you feel") to the solution. In other words, if you have decided that you truly want them to have zero effect on how you feel, then you must create a vision of what this looks like and feels like in your mind before you can make it a reality in your life. This means creating an image or imaginary movie where the difficult person is being their old predictable difficult self, and you are responding in a way that has you in control of your emotions and experience of life. You might choose to see them as frightened versus frightening, You might choose to smile, nod, and go on your way, you might choose to say something non-inflammatory such as "How interesting" and move into some aspect of your life that you enjoy. Whatever you decide, you will be choosing to deal with them "on purpose" and in such a way that neither requires them to change nor makes them the focus of your life. Of course, this new perspective will take practice. However, given that we are always practicing something (meaning that, up to this point, we have been unwittingly practicing giving them more power than we really want) then practicing reducing their ability to effect our lives while increasing our own power and influence would seem to be worth the effort. Therefore, once you have decided what you want to practice with respect to difficult people, then you can begin to use them (to practice with) versus them using you or being able to “make you” feel one thing or another. And, given that any anything we practice will eventually become a skill, we can feel good in the knowledge that at some point in the future, we will be totally in charge of the effect others have on us and our lives. Not a bad skill to have, and even pass on to future generations, don't you think?

Quote: "We've all heard that in life, when one door is closed, another is opened. Unfortunately, many of us are so focused on the darkness left by what has been lost, we never see the light coming through the newly opened door.” – Bill Crawford Comment: By the way, while I believe that this week's quote has much to offer for those of us looking to better navigate life's ups and downs, I want to begin by making sure that this concept isn't misinterpreted to imply that grieving a loss is somehow wrong, or a failure on someone's part to "see the light." As a psychologist and someone who lost both of my parents to cancer in my early 20's, I know how important it is to allow oneself to grieve after a significant loss. If you are interested in more of my thoughts on the grieving process and its role in healing, feel free to read my two-part essay on the subject under “grief” on my website. For this discussion, however, just know that my thoughts on seeing the light versus the darkness are not a prohibition against grieving. Instead, they are an observation on our tendency to focus on the past and the problem when things don't turn out the way we had hoped, and how this perspective may very well have us missing those other more beneficial aspects of the situation that have also changed. This situation could be something we had but lost, such as the loss of a job or relationship, or sometimes our disappointment is centered around something we wanted, but didn't get, such as a promotion, a date, a new business opportunity that fell through, etc. Regardless, the tendency for most of us is to pay a LOT of attention to the loss, or the "closed door." We find ourselves fixated on what is no longer available to us, which, of course, has us feeling dejected and deflated. Unfortunately, this then has us looking for who's to blame ("them" or us) which adds resentment and/or guilt to our list, and deepens our feelings of despair. While this is understandable, I'm going to suggest that it is not working for us, and that there is another alternative to dealing with those aspects of life that don't turn out the way we had hoped. This alternate view is wider and more encompassing than the typical myopic perspective described above, and takes in, not only what doors have closed, but also what new rays of light that might be spilling from other doors jarred open by the upheaval. My guess is that we all have had this experience. Something is lost but eventually something else is found which often, is even better than the experienced on which we were so transfixed. . . a light spilling through some newly opened door that would have never been seen if it were not for the darkness created by the door that was closed. In fact, maybe the question shouldn’t be "should we feel bad?" or “isn't it normal to feel disappointment when something doesn't turn out the way we had hoped?" but instead: “Given that this door is closed, how long do I want to dwell on what is lost and feel the feelings that accompany this view? A month? A week?, A day? An Hour?" Or, "If someone I loved experienced this loss, how long I would recommend they feel bad, what would I want for them? You see, while it's true that the "normal" reaction to a loss is some degree of sadness and/or regret, the length of time that these feelings need persist is not fixed. Plus, as this week's quote suggests, the real goal here isn't to just "avoid feeling bad" or even to simply limit the amount of time that we feel bad, but to look for what else has changed, or the ray of light spilling through some newly opened door.