Reflect, Renew, Rebuild Six Disciplines for Eliminating Self-Defeating Attitudes
Life does not consist—mainly or even largely—of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that are forever blowing through one’s mind.
Mark Twain
During the darkest days of World War II, when the Allies were struggling and losing on every front, Winston Churchill had the uncanny capacity to quiet his active mind by focusing on some entirely new—often offbeat—activity and giving it his undivided attention. Later, he could return to the strategies of meeting head-on the hated German war machine with his keen mind rested and refreshed.
I can’t think of many people in the history of the world who have held more responsibility in their hands or had more monstrous crises to face than Winston Churchill during the years when he was prime minister of England. However, not everyone realizes he was able to face up to the sort of challenges that would have killed a dozen lesser individuals because of a pattern of behavior he had developed early on—a system for eliminating self-defeating attitudes. Fortunately Churchill’s system is bound by neither time nor geography and can operate as freely and effectively in the wars you and I fight in our minds today.
The Master Key
In the context of learning to change gears while in the center of mental conflict, I once heard commentator Earl Nightingale read a quote by Winston Churchill that explained how the great statesman could concentrate on the many affairs of government without becoming stressed. He would consciously force himself to think about things that were completely unrelated to the problems before him.
Winston Churchill knew how to tap into one of the primary antidotes for emotional exhaustion: Change your focus momentarily so you can come back to face your challenges with fresh insights. Without using the exact words, Churchill was sharing with us one of the keys to regaining control of our lives.
We all know how a negative life view can keep us trapped, fearful, and stuck with choices that ruin any opportunity we might have for success. Let’s look at six proven, practical disciplines that, when implemented, can turn an attitude of defeat and despair into hope, energy, and confidence.
Discipline 1—All Attitudes Must Be Reviewed and Renewed Daily
Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz would tell his players, “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Victor Frankl, survivor of a Nazi prison camp and beacon of light for hundreds of other prisoners suffering under Hitler’s Third Reich wrote, “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
Isn’t it amazing that a football coach and a prisoner of war are saying the same thing—that it’s not our circumstances that hold us back but rather the attitudes we display in our circumstances? We all know people who delight in laughing at the cockeyed optimist—the one who always seems to be happy and on top of things, the person who has a bumper sticker on her car that declares, “Business is great, the sky is blue, and people are wonderful.” But what’s wrong with this?
A life of cynical pessimism is a poor second choice and does nothing but drive us deeper into sadness and depression, making us weaker, not stronger, and ultimately setting us up for emotional exhaustion. Oscar Wilde said a pessimist is one who, when confronted with the choice of two evils, chooses both. Bad way to live.
On the other hand, a spirit of optimism is life-giving. People who are upbeat regardless of their physical or emotional circumstances look for the good, just as bees gravitate to the center of a flower for their honey-making resource. But it’s not a onetime flyby. The bees in your garden need to fly back to gather the pollen from the flower again and again, even as the best of attitudes must be constantly refreshed through daily action. It’s the only way we can keep them positive, vibrant, and alive.
Since we know the reviewing and renewing of our attitudes begins with the renewing of our minds, we can see why the apostle Paul found it necessary to write:
But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Colossians 3:8–10 (italics added)
Without a regular renewal of our attitudes, we will remain stagnant and uninteresting, and will be able to offer little to those who need us most. It’s just not possible to win at life and relationships with a self-defeating, unrenewed, boring, business-as-usual attitude. That’s why the real attitude winners are the ones who:
Provide valuable service to others before thinking of their own needs
When discouraged, dig deep to the source of their faith and confidence
When trapped in a tunnel of misfortune, believe there will be light at the end of the tunnel
When roadblocked by poor decisions, remember that God is still in control and that no failure is ever final
Know that the greatest degrees one can earn are not academic but degrees of growth, persistence, and compassion for others
Discipline 2—Get Physical
Some of my best ideas and most profound attitude adjustments come while I’m cycling or jogging. While jogging I can actually run the gamut from thinking negatively about a problem, to being open to new possibilities, to actually coming up with a positive solution to my concerns—all during a few miles of physical exertion. Perhaps you’ve had the same experience. Brisk walking, running, cycling, hiking—any kind of physical exercise that’s challenging for you—can help you see your life’s problems with new eyes and can, in fact, even alter your attitude. Let me give you an example:
The other day while training for a half-marathon, I was thinking about some of the challenges we were facing at The Center, where we provide a nurturing environment for adults and children to talk about their lives. I love my work, and the rewards far outdistance the difficulties. But as with any business, not all aspects of it are pleasant. As I started my run this particular day, I was pretty much down on a couple people—and on myself for my reaction to some of the things they had said.
The first couple of miles I heaped one negative thought on another. I was making mental mincemeat of those people, thinking, Just who does that guy think he is, anyway? . . . Imagine her daring to talk to me like that! . . . Man, the next time I see him, I’m going to sit him down and let him know exactly how I feel, and he’s not going to like it one little bit.
This went on for miles, and my usually buoyant spirit was fast dissipating under the weight of my wallowing in negative thinking. Here I was, a counselor committed to helping people work through the pain of their own emotional exhaustion and I was demonstrating the same behavior as those I’m committed to helping.
On the spot I made the decision to change my attitude. I picked up my pace and got my heart rate up. Then I said a prayer, asking God to forgive me for indulging in an attitude of despair and complaint. I started to count my blessings—thanking God for my wonderful wife, who has been my partner for so many years. I thanked the Father for the beautiful Northwest where I’m privileged to live. I started reciting the names of my friends who care about me and who had touched my life when I was at the brink of my own emotional exhaustion. I prayed for each of them, one by one, asking God to give them strength and courage and that they might always have the inner resolve to be the persons our heavenly Father designed them to be.
Brisk walking, running, cycling, hiking—any kind of physical exercise that’s challenging for you—can help you see your life’s problems with new eyes and can, in fact, even alter your attitude.
By now I was cruising—picking ’em up, and laying ’em down. I scarcely remember the scenery, the rocks on the road, the traffic, or anything else on my run that day. Everything had suddenly come together for me—the physical, emotional, and spiritual—and it started by simply getting some exercise for my body. When I came home, I felt taller and stronger inside and out. Gone were my earlier complaints—still to be dealt with but now with a different attitude—and in their place was a spirit of gratitude.
We dare not underestimate the importance of physical activity in helping us to eliminate self-defeating attitudes. As mentioned in chapter 6, it’s not necessary to purchase expensive equipment to exercise. We just need to get up, get out, and get moving. There are now scores of studies that confirm that exercise can be a direct antidote to stress. Whether a workout activates stress-destroying endorphins or simply provides for a relaxing pause in the action, we know that something good happens. Many times I’ve heard people say it’s impossible to take your troubles on horseback. I guess that’s because the troubles just bounce off—which would be particularly true the way I ride a horse! But I assure you it can be the same with any form of physical activity you choose where you push more blood to your heart, strengthen your muscles, increase your brain’s alpha waves, and get the kind of juices flowing that make your body perform in the manner God intended.
Discipline 3—Become Accountable
An acquaintance I’ll call Peter spends much of his time defending himself as a self-made man. Instead of a clothes brush, I think he may use a Brillo pad to clean the armor suit of cynicism he wears as he walks his daily road, which he does not realize can only lead to despair. He doesn’t want to be “taken in” by resorting to the counsel of others, because he feels most people would not be bright enough or savvy enough to meet his higher standards. He considers anything that smacks of a team effort as demeaning.
Each day Peter dons his protective helmet and squeezes into his emotional chain mail and armored plates as he goes out, solo, sword of false self-assurance in hand, clanking through another day of stiffly meeting his obligations in punctureproof attire that shields him from his environment and from ever knowing there is more to life than being locked in a prison of fear. Peter, to this point, has still not learned the life-giving possibilities that come from being accountable to another human being, and I can only hope he makes more progress in seeing his self-imposed prison in the days ahead.
If we are to grow and develop healthy attitudes that will serve us for a lifetime, we need to share our despair, happiness, sorrow, and joy with a few trusted friends. We all need a friend or two who will be honest enough to tell it like it is. If, instead, we rely on pessimism, cynicism, or suspicion to shield ourselves from others, we’ll find ourselves truly alone one day—and in that hour, our aloneness may be more than we can bear.
If, instead, we rely on pessimism, cynicism, or suspicion to shield ourselves from others, we’ll find ourselves truly alone one day—and in that hour, our aloneness may be more than we can bear.
Accountability keeps us on track. It prevents us from falling off steep cliffs. It provides an objective point of view when we’ve lost our ability to reason. Accountability reminds us we are not alone with our hurts and fears but that we are members of a fragile human race and that none of us is self-made.
We don’t want to be like the little girl who was asked by her Sunday school teacher, “Who made you?” After much thought, the five-year-old answered, “Well, you know God made part of me.” “What do you mean God made just part of you?” asked the teacher. “You see,” the girl replied, “God made me really, really little, and then I just growed up all by myself the rest of the way.”
Some day she’ll understand, won’t she? The bigger question is, when will we understand that success and winning in life is not a go-it-alone procedure. Self-defeating attitudes feed on the self-made-person syndrome—a lonely dead end. Ask yourself: To whom am I accountable? Am I wearing a protective, emotional armor that keeps me from loving others or being loved? If so, now is a good time to change your wardrobe so you can experience the freshness and exhilaration that come from a relationship of mutual understanding, honesty, and respect.
As we’ve already said, this kind of relationship requires love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Identify a person with whom you can build such a relationship. This person is probably someone already in your circle, perhaps in your church. To develop a reciprocal relationship of accountability with another person, you must believe in each other, encourage each other, honor each other, and serve each other. You must allow the friendship to develop over time. You can’t force it, but there are things you can do: Try to spend time together doing fun things and learning new things, pray together, listen to each other, and be available to provide mutual support. At the same time you will need to give each other space and allow each other to grow. Developing intimacy and giving each other space are the ways to nurture a deep friendship of accountability, and accountability always plays a key role in recovering from emotional exhaustion.
Discipline 4—Learn to Be Content with What You Have
Wise men and women know that happiness comes from accepting the impossible, doing without the indispensable, and bearing the intolerable. Yet some of us allow our lack of contentment to so overpower us that we compromise our physical, mental, and spiritual health. Wouldn’t we all have a better shot at happiness if we didn’t place so many conditions on it? Sometimes it seems like a broken record as people come to me and tell me how they could be happy if only . . .
If only my husband would lose some weight, then I’d be happy.
If I just had another five hundred dollars a month, then I’d be happy.
If I just had a different spouse, then I’d be happy.
If I only had a nicer house, then I’d be happy.
If only I’d had more education, then I’d be happy.
When I start to have children, then I’ll be happy.
If I didn’t have so many children, then I’d be happy.
When my children leave home, then I’ll really be happy.
The conditions we demand for happiness are often what keep us from being content. Unfortunately life is simply not fair, nor will it ever be. Justice will not always be served; tragedy will strike the innocent; the actions of the cruel will go unpunished. You and I may not approve of this singularly cavalier arrangement, but that’s the way life is.
It takes only a cursory reading of the Book of Job to understand that the upright will feel the sharp end of the stick as often as the scoundrel. To believe and accept this as part of your belief system is to embark on a journey to peace, acceptance, and contentment. We do well to follow the example of the apostle Paul, who wrote in Philippians 4:11–13:
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Discipline 5—Relinquish Your Anger
Men and women who are chronically angry face four to seven times the risk of dying of heart disease and cancer as those who are not prone to anger. Anger is a natural emotion (see chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion), but it is harmful when it becomes our focus or a continual part of our personality. Some anger is obvious, but there is also an inordinate amount of hidden anger lurking in the hearts, souls, and spirits of people. What we refuse to acknowledge, we cannot comprehend, and what we cannot understand, we cannot influence. To deal with the problem of anger, we must first be honest and open about the feelings we may have refused to acknowledge or tried to suppress.
Self-defeating attitudes are often symptoms of anger, mistrust, and self-hate, creating so much havoc with our self-esteem that it becomes impossible to see God’s presence in our lives. It may be anger over the way you were treated as a child that continues to dog your steps as an adult. Or you may harbor anger stemming from a failed relationship, being fired from a job, being discriminated against because of your race or gender, or feeling that life has been unfair to you.
Anger enters our lives in many ways, but when we lock it up for fear of being honest with our feelings or from anxiety over possible reprisals, it does not go away. Instead, it grows inside the emotional walls until it becomes so strong it cannot be contained. For some, the anger seeps out slowly for years—deadly, toxic anger and discontent. For others, the power of the anger is so intense that it bursts all bonds, emerges as a flood, making us out-of-control terrors on the loose.
When you feel anger coming on, learn to ask yourself three simple questions:
If you can honestly answer no to these three questions, you should take this as a warning to slow down, calm down, and relax before you do anything that might hurt you or someone else. Ask yourself these three questions the next time you’re stuck in traffic. Then, instead of steaming and fuming about the inevitable, put on a relaxing music tape, say a prayer, and thank God for your blessings. Learn to slow down and make good use of the time rather than letting your anger get the upper hand.
If you find you continue to hurt yourself and others with your anger, then you need to talk through your anger in a safe place with a counselor you trust. If you do not investigate your rage and resentment, you will set up insurmountable roadblocks that prevent you from traveling the path to inner healing. You need to recognize that your anger is essentially raw energy and a result of hurt, frustration, or fear. So get to the bottom of the real issues: What/who has hurt you? What/ who is getting you all frustrated? What/whom do you fear? As you deal honestly with your anger and come to grips with it rationally, determine to use what was once anger energy to deal with the real issues at hand, which usually means dealing with unfinished business that can lead you out of the pain and sorrow of emotional exhaustion.
Discipline 6—Clean House Emotionally
In an effort to clean house emotionally, I would like to give you six “brooms” you can use to sweep your emotional house from stress and self-defeating attitudes:
1. Learn to relax. Often just thirty seconds of quiet, deep breathing, and prayer can give you the stamina you need to carry on with your day’s work. I do this several times a day and I invite you to do the same. Make relaxing one of your major priorities. If you need to write relax in your daily planner, do it, and do it often. Take whatever steps are necessary to slow down your busy life and you’ll discover it will help you gain a new perspective on what is important.
2. Don’t be afraid to cry. I have a cartoon in which a little boy is counseling his dog. The child says, “When you feel sad, you get little gray clouds inside your brain. When rain falls from those clouds, your head fills with water. That’s where tears come from.” Regardless of where your tears come from, let them come—whether you are a man or a woman. Crying is one of the ways God created for ridding the body of stress, through the outlet of tears. Over the years I’ve discovered that it actually takes a stronger person to cry than not to cry. Don’t deny yourself this natural, drug-free opportunity to alleviate stress and exhaustion. If a movie makes you cry, don’t choke back your tears; let them flow. When you read an article or story that touches you, go ahead and cry. It will refresh your soul.
3. Give up perfectionism and admit to being human. If you want to stay perpetually self-defeated, then demand perfection of yourself. You’ll make yourself absolutely miserable. Recognizing you are not perfect does not mean you’ve thrown away your standards. It does mean you refuse to be paralyzed when life doesn’t move according to your rhythm or plan. When actors get stage fright, it is usually because they think if their performance is less than perfect, they will have blown it for good. This mindset actually increases their anxiety. In the same way, we increase our stress when we mistakenly assume we are somehow inadequate if we ever make a mistake. Robert Eliot, director of the Institute of Stress Medicine in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, says professional women are prime candidates for perfectionist thinking. In his book From Stress to Strength, Eliot says many women feel they’re fighting a biological clock and trying to get through the glass ceiling at the same time. He suggests we ask: Do all of these things really have to be the very best I can do? How about changing I should, I must, and I have to to it would be nice if. . . .[1] I assure you that your body will say thank you when you do.
4. Do less. Most of us simply try to cram too many activities into a finite number of hours. You don’t need to see every movie, go to every sale, sign up for every class (for yourself or for your children), be on every committee at church, bowl every Thursday night, and work to develop a cure for cancer on the weekends. It’s just too much.
Recognizing you are not perfect does not mean you’ve thrown away your standards. It does mean you refuse to be paralyzed when life doesn’t move according to your rhythm or plan.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Make a list of all your activities. Then indicate after each item: must do, sort of important, or can be put on hold. Then use this list to determine which activities you can drop from your hectic schedule. If you don’t take control of your activities, they will continue to rule your life, make you weak, and keep you emotionally exhausted. Ask yourself: Do I really need to watch that much TV? Could I spend more leisurely time with friends?
This concept can also apply to our vacations. Leave the cellular phone at home, and don’t check your email. Don’t pack your vacation with so many activities that you need to come home just to revive your worn-out spirits. The real at-ease vacation is time with family, lots of belly laughs, and not worrying about what you accomplish—along with a deep, quiet reflection on God’s merciful kindness to you and to those you love.
5. Adopt a pet. You probably didn’t think I’d put this one on the list, but I now am beginning to fully understand how important loving an animal can be in reducing stress. Yes, they get fleas, slobber all over, chew on or scratch your furniture, and mess up your carpet, but these are small prices to pay if you want an in-house, faithful, relatively low maintenance, cost-effective stress buster. A survey of 5,471 Australians reported that those who owned pets had cholesterol and triglyceride levels markedly lower than those who did not own a pet. We now know that heart attack victims are more likely to be alive one year after their attack if they have an animal at their side. So whether you’re into lizards, rottweilers, or Siamese cats, consider the therapeutic value of having a pet as your good buddy and stress reliever.
6. Clean up the clutter and make a master list. Most people seem to spend half their time looking for things in the midst of clutter, saying, “I know it’s here someplace. Just give me a couple minutes, and I’ll find it.” Trouble is, those minutes add up to hours and days and weeks and eventually months of frustration. Clutter has the power to wear you down and make you weak. So I encourage you to clean your desk, tidy your room, organize the trunk of your car. As you remove the clutter, you’ll begin to realize the joys of a better organized life. Now you can also remove the clutter from your schedule. Make a master list of what you really need to do. Put it on your computer and refer to it regularly. Or get a notebook and outline your priorities. One of the best times to review your master list is just before you retire at night. A job half organized is a job half done, and you’ll discover that by morning you will have already thought your way through many of your projects.
Reflect, Renew, Rebuild
Reflect. Thomas Merton wrote, “For how can I receive the seeds of freedom if I am in love with slavery, and how can I cherish the desire of God if I am filled with another and an opposite desire?” What does this statement say to you in light of what you have just read in this chapter? What slavery might you still be in love with? How do you see yourself eliminating self-defeating habits as you work toward regaining control of your life?
Renew. Which of the six disciplines in this chapter have spoken most directly to your needs at this time? Write a couple of paragraphs in your journal that describe what you have learned from this chapter and how you will put this into action.
As you begin practicing the six disciplines, you will discover many wonderful things begin to happen in your life that help you refocus your priorities and reduce your level of emotional exhaustion. But just as the appearance of one robin does not promise a spring, so you must trust these disciplines for the long haul rather than expecting overnight success.
Rebuild. As you review what you’ve learned in this chapter, I encourage you to write these words on the tablet of your heart: God did not make me to live in frustration and defeat. He created me to sing his praises even in the center of some of the greatest storms of my life.
If you want to live life with joy and abandon, then attitudes of self-defeat and despair can only run counter to what you were created to be. Because of your persistence in determining to be all you can be, you are now one step further removed from your earlier state of emotional exhaustion and one step closer to inner healing. Congratulations on your progress. The good news is that the best for you and your life is yet to come.