Herculean/Xena Effort

With Herculean effort (or Xena effort, and I have come to call it), I pull myself up out of my comfy front-porch morning-bliss, where I have just finished a meditation on embracing joy even in the midst of a global pandemic and racial justice reform. I walk to our home office with my still-full coffee cup and bravely try to drink some, only to splash it down my chin and neck. I laugh at myself, narrating the moment in my head because that’s how I amuse myself when I spend so much time alone.

My voiceover self is often amused by my antics, and it helps me to keep a different perspective (almost literally). Sometimes I worry that this development is new, and is unduly influenced by social media – that I’m trying to live my life for an audience. But then I remember that I have always operated this way. I have always assigned different voices to my inner dialogues to sort out my problems – sometimes as a narrator offering commentary, and sometimes as other voices altogether.

As a child, Donny and Marie Osmond were often assigned different sides of a debate. The mischievous choices were voiced by Donny, and (of course) the good-girl choices were voiced by Marie. And just like on their TV show, when I let my mischievous side take action, I was often gently, lovingly scolded by my inner Marie.

The other day I described a specific struggle and its assigned voices to my therapist. I struggle with being consistent with physical exercise, and the spoken-word piece “Rise and Swim” is very motivating. I appreciate that it acknowledges how strong the struggle to exercise is, even for professional athletes. I falsely imagine (fantasize, really) that the struggle gets easier when people get more physically fit. That there will be a day that it isn’t a struggle for me, and I exercise without fighting it.

My inner dialogue to exercise is a battle between the voices of Xena Warrior Princess and a whiny Woody Allen type (all intellectual with none of the incestuous rapey part). The Woody Allen voice feebly argues that physical fitness is important and that it is one of my important goals for this year. The Xena voice loudly shouts excuses and delays. A third inner voice, the narrator, heartily laughs at the irony of these voices being assigned to those sides of the argument instead of the opposite.

I also explained to my therapist that the well-intentioned suggestion of reversing those voices doesn’t work for me. An acquaintance once said she named her inner complaining voice “The Itty-Bitty Bitchy Committee,” and while that’s completely adorable and I’m glad it works for her, it didn’t work for me. For one thing, the feminist in me doesn’t ever want to stifle an inner Xena voice, no matter what she’s talking about. Instead, it is validating to me to acknowledge the strength of that side of the struggle. That, when I do manage to exercise, it is not because I have overpowered a whiny Woody Allen-y voice, but that I have defied a Warrior Princess who was complaining about the wrong thing.

But to be able to defeat an inner Xena voice, I do have to shift power away from the Woody Allen intellectual voice. I have to summon my inner Gabrielle. If you haven’t watched the show “Xena: Warrior Princess” in a while, Google has a great description: “Gabrielle — bard and friend — keeps her company and helps her stay on the path of good.” Yes! I can acknowledge that my inner-Xena gets misguided sometimes and steer her back towards good. That works for me. Then, that Xena voice can start to be an inner force towards good without having to stifle her at all.

If you have inner struggles, and who doesn’t, try assigning different voices to them to figure out how big or small those struggles are. And don’t be afraid to reassign the voices that don’t fit. But acknowledge it when you do find a fit, even if you don’t like it. I wish my inner Xena always wanted to work for my best interest, but she gets misguided sometimes. Enlisting other voices helps me steer her strength towards my better good.

NOTE: It is intentional here that there are no jokes about Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple-Personality Disorder. Intentionally using distinct voices to sort out thoughts is not comparable to a mental illness characterized by a fractured identity because of abuse or trauma.

Smarter than the Average Bear

I’m smart. It’s hard to say that without sounding like a braggart, but it’s true. And it bothers me sometimes in a way you might not expect.

I publish a note like this in October for two reasons. 1. To encourage you to consider taking the Mensa Admissions Test in October when it is 1/2 price. 2. To hold myself accountable for reaching my potential. (See below)

If you have any sense that you might be smarter than the average bear, I recommend you take a swing at the Mensa Admissions Test. But read this note first to understand exactly why I think its important for you to know your own IQ level.

For those of you that are competitive brainiacs, I’ll just get this out of the way. I don’t know my exact IQ number. The raw test score results I received gave me a percentile rank (more details below) not an intelligence quotient number that we are all more familiar with. So I only know a low IQ number that I at least ranked at. For what its worth (read more about that below too) my IQ is 135 or higher.

When I chose to take the Mensa admissions test, I didn’t tell anyone. Understandably, if I wasn’t accepted, I didn’t want to have to announce that to a lot of people. It’s like pregnancy. Assuming you want to get pregnant, you don’t go around telling everyone you *might* be pregnant before you have test results – in case you’re not.

But when I was accepted and then joined Mensa, I didn’t tell very many people. It’s not the kind of thing one can easily brag about without looking like a jerk. “Hey everybody! I’m really smart! Isn’t that great?!?” It’s not like pregnancy. Almost everyone is genuinely happy for you when you want to be pregnant and your test results show you are.

But I did tell a few people. I told the people that I knew would be genuinely happy for me. And I only told people to whom I could also explain that, armed with this new-found information, I don’t feel vindictive either. I feel no need to say “Haha world! Take that!” Thankfully.

To qualify for Mensa, you have to score in the top 2% of the general population on an accepted standardized intelligence test, also called the 98th percentile. You can qualify with pre-existing scores from certain tests, or you can take the Mensa Admissions Test and Mensa Wonderlic Test. (Some of you may recognize Wonderlic from the NFL draft or corporate business.)

But when I found out I scored in the 99th percentile, I told even fewer people. (In 2010, Mensa changed their policy on releasing specific scores to test takers. They used to only tell you yes/no if you made it in or not.) And that got me thinking more about why I wasn’t telling people something that I should obviously be proud of and celebrate about myself. I’ve come to realize there’s a stigma and level of judgment attached to being smart. A stigma I chose to avoid by keeping that information closely guarded. Until a few years ago when I started posting about it. Obviously, posting anything means it is no longer closely guarded. Now it’s out there, announced, for the world to know about me. Yep. I’m smart. Really smart. Scary, I know.

And now we run into the controversial topic of what intelligence actually is. What does it mean to be smart? Don’t misunderstand me that my IQ score indicates any level of superiority in anything other than the precise areas that the Mensa test assesses. Mensa’s website doesn’t publish any written description of the specific areas that the Mensa Admissions Test assesses. But accepted theories of intelligence indicate that a high IQ score demonstrates an ability in verbal comprehension, reasoning, perceptual speed, numerical ability, word fluency, associative memory, and spatial visualization. And that means I’m good at what? Recognizing patterns. Putting puzzles together. And writing blog posts…

And just as importantly, there are things that a high IQ score does NOT indicate. High IQ does NOT indicate knowledge or any level of education. I do not have more knowledge than anyone else, except in the areas I have learned more in. My doctor does not need to be smarter than me in order for me to trust her ability as a doctor. She has studied and learned a lot more in medicine than I have. I’m not innately better at knowledge trivia games than others. I am often not As Smart As A Fifth Grader. I really kind of stink at Scrabble.

A high IQ does not indicate skill. I am not more skilled at anything, except in the areas I have developed more skill in. A high IQ does not indicate motivation. It doesn’t measure focus. It doesn’t demonstrate my level of personal discipline. As a matter of fact, IQ alone only measures potential. It doesn’t measure any indication of achievement in the real world. High IQ, without motivation, focus, or discipline, will only leave you sitting on a rock feeling smart for yourself.

Knowledge and skill are a true measurement of success in the world. And those are developed with motivation, focus, and discipline. So, now that I’ve explained that there’s a stigma attached to being smart AND that it doesn’t measure any real achievement, WHY would I want to announce this, subject myself to all that judgment, and suggest that you do the same thing?? Because it does measure potential. It measures the ability to understand AS LONG AS the motivation and focus and discipline are added to it. I wish I had known this about myself earlier in my life. I wish I had known about my innate ability to understand something when I struggled to gain knowledge and develop skills. I wouldn’t have been able to give up on myself and say “I just can’t understand this.” I couldn’t have believed it was beyond my level of comprehension. As much as I HATE to admit it, my teachers were right when they commented on my report cards “Jennifer is not working to her full potential.” But I don’t hate it because I wasn’t working hard, I hate it because I believed my full potential was a lot lower than it actually is.

And now that I know what my potential is, the only reasons I can’t learn something, gain a specific knowledge, or develop a specific skill are because of a lack of motivation, focus, or discipline. That has made a big difference in my approach to learning something new. Now when I struggle to understand (and I still do – often), and I want to give up and say “that’s my limit of understanding,” I know I have to try a different approach to understand or try other learning techniques to get it into my thick skull.

And now that YOU know what my potential is, you know those are my only legitimate reasons too. AH, THERE’S THE RUB. Now I’ve gone and announced to the world that I can be held accountable for something I set my mind to do. That it really is within my reach if I add enough focus and discipline. That’s a pretty big burden to admit openly to the world. When I didn’t tell people about my IQ, I wasn’t only scared about the judgment and stigma, I didn’t tell people because until now, I could get away with not focusing as much and not motivating myself in order to accomplish things.

So again, if you suspect that you might also be smarter than the average bear, I recommend finding out for sure. Consider taking the Mensa Admissions Test. It will make you accountable to yourself about your own ability. And if you dare, tell a few other people that are willing to hold you accountable too.

Authenticity

Our most authentic self MIGHT be defined by our core personality traits, but NOT if that leaves us out of society.

 

This article, Finding Authenticity, was an interesting read and it helped me refine my own desire to be my most authentic self. Instead of only honoring my preferred personality traits, being my most authentic self also includes adaptive behaviors to function well in all situations. It’s a balancing act.

(If you need to backtrack and read more about 16 personality traits and the Meyers-Briggs Personality indicator, here’s the blog post I wrote about that.)

 

From the Authenticity article: “Total freedom to express our core preferences without restraint is an absurd concept that we best dispense with early.” True. It’s a fantasy blanket fort. Yeah, it feels awesome to be in there, but we can’t stay there all day. Not if we really want to be our best selves.

 

“The trick is making sure you find ways to stay true to your core personality while leveraging the power of your strengths and adapting to the complex world around you – all at the same time.” We are capable of more than just our core. It will take energy out of us, but that’s okay, energy is designed to be spent. Unspent energy at the end of the day isn’t readily available the next day. Instead of making more energy available, unspent energy at the end of the day will only make you get used to a lower threshold of energy use each day. The way to have more energy is to spend more energy and build a higher threshold.

 

“It may sound cliché but there is some truth to the idea that growth happens most when we leave our comfort zones.” How very, very true. Our core preferences are our comfort zones, but our growth doesn’t happen in complete comfort. There are growing pains. So personal development happens when we strengthen our abilities outside of our core preferences where we are already strong. 

 

As an INFP, one of my strongest traits is my introversion (88%). But as a Mediator in whole, if I always indulged my introversion, I would never spend time/energy with others; and understanding my place WITHIN the world is a strong part of my personality too.

I’m not all that capable of writing examples from the perspective of the other personality traits, but the article provides this one, “Instead of rejecting the ceremonial aspects [of a funeral or wedding], the rationalist might fully participate and even add a much-needed note of calm and even insight.” The rationalist’s reverence is not for the emotional impact of the ceremony, but instead a reverence for family and friends that are important to them.

Overall, achieving your intentional potential involves knowing your core self, but not always indulging only your core self. You have so much more potential than that.

 

My brain went fishing, and I didn’t take the bait

Cognitive Distortion, Unhelpful Thinking Styles, or Brain Phishing/Fishing. These three titles describe the same idea. I underestimated just how influential they can be in my mental health. Depending on which source you use, there are 10-15 different ways that our thoughts can lead us down the wrong path when we’re analyzing ourselves. (Which, I don’t know about you, but I do A LOT.) My counselor calls it phishing, just like email scams, because it’s a scam that can lead you to feed it more information, and that can be very damaging. She also relates it to fishing, because it lures us with a familiar bait, and if we fall for it and take the bait, it will take us for a ride we don’t need to be on. In professional psychological terms, it is called cognitive distortion, because it is a distorted process of cognition. And in layman’s terms, it is called Unhelpful Thinking Styles, because, well, that’s self-explanatory, as all layman’s terms should be.

My counselor introduced me to 10 in this worksheet. I can identify with some, and some I know I am not lured or deceived by. In my research, I found this description that lists 15, and the additional 5 are helpful to me too. I will describe them here, but first I want to explain when I finally could recognize it happening to me.

My counselor taught me about this a few months ago, and I had a hard time figuring out what to do with it. She was asking me to stop trusting my thoughts. That was going to shake my foundation if I couldn’t trust my thoughts. I looked through the list and could vaguely associate with some of them, and I knew that others didn’t affect me much. I drew them in my Bullet Journal, and the photo above is that page.

Jump to Wednesday the 4^th, two weeks ago, when I was headed to the first month’s nutrition class (post-surgery) back at the surgery center’s office. I was thinking about the big picture, of why I had surgery, and my weight-loss process, and how fortunate I felt about it all. Then this thought jumped into my head, “You really don’t deserve this. You’re not worthy of it. You’re unlovable.” I was taken aback. Where did this come from? Without knowing about cognitive distortion, I would have assumed this thought had “escaped” from somewhere deep inside my core. Somewhere that I had repressed or that this was “truth” that was escaping to bring me back down to reality. But at that moment, because I DID know about cognitive distortion, I could separate myself from those thoughts and dismiss them. Not without convincing. But the thought really didn’t seem to come from deep inside my core; I recognized it as a fishing lure, and I decided not to take the bait. I told myself, “I am lovable, I am loved by many. I do deserve this because I am doing the hard work to earn it. And I am worthy of regaining my physical health.”

It really was a paradigm shift for me. Because of many positive experiences in my adulthood, I had grown to implicitly trust my thoughts and my intuition. I’m an INFP, after all, and in Mensa. Thoughts and intuition ARE who I am. And then, there I was, dismissing random thoughts because I could separate them from myself and realize they were not true. It was a breakthrough. And when I told my therapist about it, she was almost giddy. She told me she was very proud of me, and then she asked me if I could identify what had brought on that dissonant thought. I realized it was because I was headed to that 1-month post-op class. That I would be sitting in a room with 30 other 1-month post-op people, and I didn’t want to feel judged. I didn’t want to be labeled. And so, somehow, illogically, I was labeling myself unworthy, undeserving, and unlovable. Funny how the mind works sometimes. And even funnier how it DOESN’T work sometimes.

So, as I go through these descriptions, see if you recognize any of your faulty patterns of thinking. See if you fall for any of these phishing scams in your own brain.

In no particular order:

ALL OR NOTHING THINKING – Sometimes called “Black or White Thinking”. Examples: “If I’m not perfect, I have failed.” Or “Either I do it right, or not at all.” This one hits me when I disappoint other people. One of the ways I counter it with my bullet journaling, which isn’t perfect at all, and is my own collection of doodles, notes, and not-perfectness.

MENTAL FILTER – Only paying attention to certain types of evidence. Examples: Only noticing our failures but not our successes. Or only noticing other’s successes, but not their failures. Journaling and tracking help me counter this. I have a faulty memory when it comes to how well I’m doing sometimes.

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS – The tendency to be sure of something without any evidence at all, or very flimsy evidence. There are 2 main types: 1) Mindreading – imagining we know what others are thinking, 2) Fortune-telling – predicting the future. I don’t think I fall for this one as often. I’m better at recognizing this as “unknown” information. But it can catch me sometimes.

EMOTIONAL REASONING – Assuming that because we feel a certain way, what we think must be true. Examples: “I feel embarrassed, so I must have done something wrong, or I’m an idiot.” This is a huge one for me. I trust my emotions to guide me a lot. What I didn’t realize is that my emotions are not always based on logical reasoning. How I feel is not always a natural conclusion of a reasonable thought process. Writing it out sounds ridiculously simple, but it isn’t always easy for me to realize that my emotions are sometimes untrustworthy.

LABELING – Assigning labels to ourselves and to other people. Examples: “I’m a loser.” “I’m completely useless.” “They’re such idiots.” I didn’t initially think this one affected me, but apparently, my brain throws out this bait every now and then to see if I’ll bite.

DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE – Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done for some reason or another. Example: “That doesn’t count.” I do this a lot when I am counting my successes. It takes perspective to see progress, and sometimes we don’t see it clearly.

MAGNIFICATION AND MINIMIZATION also called CATASTROPHIZING – Blowing things out of proportion or inappropriately shrinking something to make it seem less important. Example: “I messed up on this project, I’m going to get fired and I’ll never get another job.” This is so easy to do, but we can’t let ourselves get carried away with these unhelpful thoughts.

BEING CRITICAL or SHOULD-ING AND MUST-ING – Using critical words like “should” and “must” and “ought” can make us feel guilty, or like we have already failed. If we apply “shoulds” to other people, the result is often frustration. “Should” refers to the implicit or explicit rules we live by. Recognizing what those rules are is one way to follow the logic and see if this is a phishing scam or truth.

PERSONALIZATION – Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn’t completely your fault. Conversely, blaming other people for something that was your fault.

These are the 10 I learned from my therapist. The other source here offers more ideas of faulty, unhelpful thinking: Fallacy of Fairness, Control Fallacies, Fallacy of Change, Always Being Right, and Karma Fallacy, also called Heaven’s Reward Fallacy. This article addresses all 15 and offers therapeutic ways to help recognize and dismiss these cognitive distortions.

In all, being able to resist the bait of unhelpful thinking styles will help us all strive towards our potential. And that’s why I am so open about it here. Because I am intentional about reaching my potential, and I want the same for you.