Using natural rewards to increase motivation OR confessions of a blogaholic

One of the unexpected outcomes of starting a blog is that I’ve become completely addicted to it. I only have a limited number of ‘up’ hours of good energy each day so I need to be fairly self-disciplined about how I use them if I’m to run my life effectively. But I have to work hard to stop myself from spending every waking hour blogging. Writing posts is fun, as is thinking of topics, but the most addictive part of it is putting in the pictures. I’m truly embarrassed to admit how many hours of my weekend I spent doing this. The writing is taking a back seat to the illustration. In fact as I write this I am impatient, wanting it to be finished so I can go online and look for pictures, as fixated as an alcoholic waiting for that first drink of the day.

This is my nature. I know. I am a person of driving passions. Physical drugs have never had an addictive effect on me (apart from that legal white powder called sugar that has caused me such misery but which I crave nonetheless). But processes I find all-absorbing. So I do what I normally do with these compulsions. I structure my day so that the activity becomes a reward for the things I’m less keen on doing. I make deals with myself like ‘OK I’ll do my post when I’ve done an hour of X’. X could be the dishes, my tax return, putting a grocery order through online. And even within the rewarding activity I structure rewards. Only once I have posted the paras I’ve already prepared and written something new will I allow myself to start searching for illustrations. The way my day has gone today this works out to be 10.05pm i.e. right now, when I’m twitchy with tiredness. So here I go – byeee!

Good things for the last week

• looking at the photos of Mounts Ruapehu and Ngaruhoe in the background with desert plants and snow in the foreground, all coloured orange with violet shadows by the rising sun
• I enjoyed staying with Susan’s parents when I went to town
• did an entry for my blog every day
• enjoyed writing blog entries
• helped Susan’s mother set up her own blog
• cuddles with Barney dog
• lovely Hummingbird cake and Earl Grey tea at the Metropolis café
• ordered firewood
• fun conversation with Gary
• finally managed to buy thermal socks, a polyprop long T, batteries for my scales and a bulb for my reading lamp after meaning to for weeks

Accentuate the positive, minimize the negative

The dog situation gets me down, especially at night when I’m exhausted and my hands are sore and bleeding from his nipping. Then it’s easy to think of myself as a failure at dog training. But I need to stay focused on the positives – what I have achieved in the past three weeks. My single worst mental habit is focusing on the negatives and ignoring what’s going well. It’s not deliberate, just the way I was brought up to view the world. So it’s important to remind myself that this dog is now almost toilet trained, sits on command, comes when told (sometimes!) and has started to settle at night without sounding like he is dismantling the living room first. Those are real achievements on my part. So I will keep trying, repeating as I go ‘I am the alpha bitch, I am the alpha bitch, I am the alpha bitch…’

The single best tool I’ve ever found for countering my tendency to over-focus on what’s wrong in my life is making a regular note of what’s good. It was suggested to me by a psychologist I was seeing way back in 1984. As I already kept a journal to dispute my automatic thinking in, it was no problem to add a section at the back where I noted down what I had achieved, however small, what I had enjoyed and positive things that had happened. On the facing page I also wrote down what I called F+ events – things I was looking forward to in the future.

When I did the Authentic Happiness Coaching course with Martin Seligman and Ben Dean in 2004/2005 I was interested to find that making a note of ‘three good things’ each day was a technique developed by positive psychologists to increase happiness. At that stage I’d been doing this almost every day for 20 years. I still do it regularly because it makes me feel good. A recent study by Marty Seligman, Chris Peterson and colleagues shows that noting three good things each day can increase happiness and decrease depression significantly over a six month period (you can find a copy of this study at www.authentichappiness.com). Another study shows that it works just as well to note good things once a week*. I think it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve done to transform my depression into happiness and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon – certainly not before the dog is trained!

*Emmons R A and McCullough M E (2003) Counting Blessings versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84: 377-389.

Is it possible to change yourself?

The community hall standing isolated at the edge of a cow paddock with one lonely car outside elicits a forgotten memory. 19 years old, turning up at a community hall on a winter’s day like this, sunny but chilly in the shadows. Unlocking the door and turning on the heaters, waiting for the drama tutor to turn up, wondering if anyone would come to the workshop I'd organised. I always had such a feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach, of embarrassment in case no one came, or only one or two, and I was seen to be a failure. Why I thought I would be seen as a failure I have no idea – logic would suggest it would reflect more on the tutor’s pull-power than on me. But back in those days I thought everything that went wrong was my fault.

As I drive to my writing group past green meadows, past black and white patched cows munching grass in the sun, glittering brooks and winter-bare trees, I reflect on the person I am now. first went to this group several months ago alone, as I went most places then, knowing no one because I was new to the area. Not a thought about failure or embarrassment had crossed my mind. Now I have friends there. Today at least one person there will be expecting me and glad to see me. I will speak up and say what I think when others read their work, and read mine for critique, and feel relaxed and confident about doing so.

I wonder what that 19 year old version of me would think of this 51 year old version. I remember her well enough to know that she would hate me, fear me, envy me, despise me, loathe me. That was her response to confident, articulate, outgoing people with high self-esteem back then, people like the woman I am today. That girl who cowered in corners at parties, too scared to talk to others unless she was drunk, who hated herself so much that she sometimes wished she was someone else, even a bent, shuffling old woman living in poverty, just to escape the shame of being her – what happened to her? Because she doesn’t live here any more.

What happened was that I changed her. I read books, did courses, forced myself to join groups and apply for jobs, did therapy, learned self-help techniques, until she disappeared, piece by piece, and was replaced by the me I am now. As I drive I muse that this proves to me that people can change, that trying to change is worth it. There will always be some things that I find hard to change, like my poor ability to delay gratification, or tendency to get anxious and catastrophize. But I know if I try I can change even those tough, recurring patterns. If someone was to ask me 'is it worth trying to change the person you are – to become more positive, more outgoing, happier?' I would unhesitatingly answer ‘yes, absolutely yes - don't waste a minute starting’.

The 'if only' chorus

I woke up in the early hours of this morning to hear rain on the corrugated iron roof and thought only of the almost dry laundry on the clothesline. Once it was in I drifted back to sleep, waking near nine. Just before ten the phone rang.
‘It’s the firewood man here. Your wood is going to be a bit wet when we deliver it today. Is that OK?’
Damn! The blasted firewood. I hadn’t made the connection that as they are gathering it from the forest it would have gotten wet in the rain overnight. After almost a month of sunny days I’d assumed today would be another one.
‘Let me think about it and I’ll ring you back,’ I said, then hung up feeling disgruntled.

The mental chorus started.
‘If only I had ordered it on Monday like I intended to, I would have a garage full of dry wood now. If only I hadn’t gone to Hamilton yesterday I would have beaten the rain. If only I’d been just one day earlier. Why didn’t I ring on Monday?’
Another voice, sounding wryly amused, chimed in.
‘Counter factual thinking,’ was all it said.
This is the wonderful piece of jargon experimental psychologists have come up with to describe what those of us outside the laboratory would call ‘if only’ or ‘might have been’ thinking. It simply means that what you are thinking is counter to fact – that it does not accord with reality. I think it must be fun to be an experimental psychologist, spending hours coming up with counterintuitive terms to describe phenomena that already have everyday labels, to confuse the rest of us.

I find it helpful to say these words – ‘counter factual thinking’ – to myself. It reminds me that the facts are the facts, however little I like them. Lying in bed feeling grumpy and hard done by I said to myself ‘Now is now.’ I have the circumstances that exist right now to deal with. I can’t change a thing by saying ‘if only’ or beating myself up. In situations like this I sometimes look at my watch or cell phone and say to myself ‘what time is it?’ When I answer ’10.19am’ or whatever, I then ask ‘can I change anything that happened before this moment?’ The answer to that question is clear, so then I get on with dealing with what is with much less mental noise. Today I have breakfast, as I never think well on an empty stomach, then ring back and establish that some of the wood is dry. That’s all I need to light a fire to start drying the rest of the wood, so I tell them to go ahead and deliver it. It turns out to be a complete lie (as does their assurance that ‘the wood is dry on the inside’) but by the time I discover this I’m well into coping with what is happening now, the ‘if only’ chorus silenced. Now is now and in the now that is I light a fire and start the mammoth task of drying two cubic metres of wet firewood.

A low flying UPO lights up my life

Today a low flying UPO swooped into my garden and lit me up. That’s an Unexpected Positive Occurrence, not an Unidentified Plying Object. I was just about to walk the dog – which since I started using an anti-pulling lead has been more like ‘sit the dog’ as he refuses to move when it’s on – when Bianca, the little girl across the road, spotted me at the gate.
‘Hi, Kaye,’ she called out in her sweet four year old voice.
‘Hi, Bianca,’ I called back. ‘I’m just walking Barney – do you want to come?’

Bianca has a special interest in Barney. He was originally her dog, until it became clear that keeping him in her family’s unfenced yard was going to be a logistical nightmare. I had suggested I take him on, as I have a fully fenced yard and it would mean Bianca could still see lots of him. Bianca had been very generous about her dog, saying 'Kaye I would like Barney to come and live with you and for you to be his new Mum'. So it seemed the ideal solution. Ideal until Barney went from being the sweet little dog he was at Bianca’s to being the bitey little beast he is at my place.

‘Careful Bianca,’ I warned her when she reached us. ‘He’s a bit bitey.’
But to my surprise Barney was completely docile with her. His tail went into overdrive as she kissed and petted him. I stood by protectively but Barney didn’t bite, jump or act aggressively in any way. Rather, in Bianca’s presence he became again the lovely little dog he used to be, affectionate and playful. It simply reinforced to me that his biting was due to something I was accidentally doing.

‘We could go to the park,’ Bianca suggested with a winsome look and smile. She loves going to the park and has a genius for getting what she wants. I suspect that’s how she got her puppy. Barney was actually walking now that Bianca was with us so I thought ‘why not?’ Once maternal permission was granted we piled into the car. At the park Bianca slid, hid, climbed on the monkey bars and generally had a ball. So did Barney, and to my surprise, so did I. Barney walked, played, licked our faces, sat on my lap and never once tried to bite. The anger and fear I sometimes felt towards him melted away as he became again the dog I liked in the presence of his little friend. ‘Barney is basically a good dog,’ I thought. ‘I just have to find a way of helping him be that good dog with me.’ I felt so grateful to Bianca for coming into our afternoon and lighting it up, for helping me to feel good about the dog again. It was a classic UPO – an Unexpected Positive Occurrence coming at me without warning out of a clear blue sky.

HAVE YOU HAD A UPO FLY INTO YOUR LIFE?

If so I'd love to hear about it - just post it using the 'comment' function below.

Does health = happiness?

As I walked down the drive today I reflected that there have been days in past months when doing so would have been beyond me, as daunting as climbing a mountain. At the end of my drive my little white and tabby cat Suki was high up in the branches of a tree. I stood looking up into the canopy of green leaves. The crystalline sky beyond was so blue that I could have believed it was summer if I hadn’t been wrapped up in a thick dressing gown, scarf, woollen hat, thermal socks and sheepskin lined boots against the cold! When I glanced across the road I noticed with surprise that the neighbor’s lawn looked like someone had sprinkled confectioners’ sugar over it, but very carefully so that the concreted drive was missed. Just then I realised how happy I felt. It was nice to feel happy and healthy at the same time – the two don’t always go together in my life.

This got me thinking about whether health equals happiness. I remember a friend who was diagnosed in her 30’s with an illness that will get progressively worse for the rest of her life. A woman she told about it said to her ‘You poor thing – I’ve had poor health myself, and if you haven’t got your health you’ve got nothing’. Hardly a cheering thought for someone facing a lifetime of ill health!

But it hasn’t been my experience. When my health improved after seeing my lovely naturopath she said to me ‘you must feel so happy now’. But in fact I didn’t. I felt quite low. Thinking back to the first time I’d seen her, when I’d had to lie on her couch for the consultation because walking from the car had made me too ill to sit up, I remembered how blissfully happy I’d been then. This was despite the fact that I was deeply in debt and having to sell my much-loved house. In contrast, as my health started improving my mood slipped. The two did not seem intimately linked. And recently, when I was almost housebound for 3 weeks with carbon monoxide poisoning and spent most of my time lying in bed reading and watching videos, I was happy almost every day. So in my experience it’s not true that if you haven’t got your health you’ve got nothing – I can be happy and enjoy life even when I’m not healthy.

Never give up - never surrender

It’s a gorgeous sunny winter day (the upside of global warming). I have a fire going to warm the icy corners of the living room, but my view as I sit at the computer is of a bushy green tree with olive tints in the neighbor's yard, dappled with sunlight, blowing in the wind. As I sit I muse over the problem with the dog. From being a playful, docile little puppy almost three weeks ago he has gone to being an aggressive, bitey little beast. I know this is what IT people call a ‘user problem’ – the fact that this happened after he came to live with me cannot be a coincidence. I watched him grow up at the house across the road and he never bit anyone there. This is not what I envisaged when I offered to buy the dog because they were having difficulty keeping it on their unfenced property.

But I will not be giving up any time soon. If there’s one thing I have learned from three decades of learning to transform depression into happiness, it is (as they say on that goofy film Galaxy Quest) to ‘never give up – never surrender’. (I think Winston Churchill might have said something similar during WWII, although his version went something like ‘never, never, never, never give in’ and wasn’t applauded by aliens on their inter-galactic space ship. As far as we know.) I’ve learned that while tenacity does not guarantee success, it sure as hell makes it a lot more likely. I wouldn’t have achieved the happiness I have today if I hadn’t got up every time I fell over and tried again. In the immortal words of Chumba-Wumba:

I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never going to keep me down.

(They also sang ‘pissing the night away’ but that’s not so apt here. My apologies to those romantics who thought the lyric was ‘kissing the night away’). So it’s back to my bible – ‘The Dog Listener’ DVD with Jan Fennell – and on with the various techniques she suggests. Experience suggests that if I just keep trying and looking for new information I’ll solve this problem, just as I’ve solved the problem of my depression.

Light up my life – puhleeaaase!

I cannot believe the difficulty I’m having buying a light box. I suffer from mild SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder (one of the finest acronyms ever invented, in my book, and I am a connoisseur of acronyms). Normally I cope with it by going for a walk every morning. Since walking any significant distance has become a no-no because it knocks me out for the rest of the day, I’ve had to look for other solutions. Apparently the winters in my new home are long and grey, so I thought a light box would be a good idea. My approach to getting happy and staying that way is that ‘every little helps.’ I use lots of different techniques at the same time, working on the theory that the cumulative weight of them will make the positive difference. I’m not interested in finding a magic bullet – in my experience there is no such thing. What I am interested in is proven effective techniques, and lots of them. Even cognitive therapy, without which I would not want to be in the world (and probably would not be), is not enough on its own for `me.

For someone whose depression started later than mine did, or has been less severe or less chronic, one, or even two, techniques would probably be enough. Like exercise and an activity schedule, or meds and cognitive therapy. But I’ve found that I need many more than that to stay in the feeling good zone. Currently I use cognitive therapy, behavioral techniques, diet, St John’s Wort, fish oil (for omega 3 fatty acids), a mix of vitamins and minerals, keeping note of positive things that happen and things I’m looking forward to, social contact and support (a wonderful counselor), a rough activity schedule, savoring, and others. Bright light and exercise are two of my favorites but they are harder to do now that my energy is so limited. Hence the attempt to buy a light box – it may be just enough to give me that extra edge and help me stay in my happy place. Why it’s so difficult to buy one in New Zealand I have no idea. The best offer I’ve had so far is from a company who can ship me one from their Netherlands warehouse. That might be the best I will get. But I will keep on trying to find one closer to home.

It's the weekend!

I woke up yesterday morning and gradually realised what day it was. Saturday. ‘Yay, it’s the weekend!’ I thought. Which may not seem so unusual except for the fact that I’m off work with a chronic illness and thus every day of the week could potentially be the weekend for me. But I work hard to have a structure and routine in my life despite this. As a teenager I hated the word ‘routine’ – it was too close to words like ‘duty’ and ‘curriculum’ that suggested a whole lot of things I ought to be doing and didn’t want to. It suggested a world of adult responsibility that I wasn’t overly keen to be part of. But coping with my first episode of major depression in my twenties I found that ‘routine’ and ‘schedule’ were words I could grow to love. In fact they might even prove the saving of me.

It started with an activity schedule – an hour by hour list of what I intended to do each day. That helped me get through each day and get better. Then in my thirties I realised that if I incorporated all the techniques I’d learned to reduce depression and build happiness into a daily and weekly routine I was much more likely to use them. Let’s face it – however effective a technique is, it’s not going to be much help if it’s not used. Building things into my routine meant that after a few weeks I started to do them automatically and they became habits. That was the start of happiness becoming my default position.

So these days I try to keep to my normal routine – four work days, Wednesdays off so I never have more than two work days in a row, and weekends to socialise. This week I’ve been working hard to do two hours of writing each morning, then two hours of admin each afternoon, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. If I can do this it means I can go back to my normal working week of 16 hours. Some days ‘morning’ has ended at 2pm and ‘afternoon’ at 7pm, but most days I achieved my goal. Hence my joy that the weekend is here – I was exhausted. Yesterday I could do what I wanted without a nagging little voice reminding me of things I should do that I’d rather forget. Bliss!

Doggone happy

Barney barndog jumps on my lap while I’m typing. That is, he puts his paws on the arm of the recliner and waits for me to haul him up. In the week I’ve had him he’s become such a lump I can hardly lift him.
‘What am I going to do when you’re fully grown?’ I ask him. He remains silent, focused on licking my chin. He has enormous paws. It looks like I’ve adopted a monster.

My mind drifts from my writing to what I will do next. I’m halfway through a romance with George Clooney (on DVD, that is). Then there’s the history of the Rolling Stones, a book I’m finding strangely gripping. Plus I’m keen to watch their ‘Bridges to Babylon’ DVD for the third time this week. I’d also like to ring a dog-owning friend back home and talk about dog training. (Barney is bringing me closer to other dog owners – I had dinner with a couple of friends and their three pooches on Saturday night and we had a ball.) Also there’s the ‘Dog Listener’ DVD I’m eager to watch again for more tips. Not to mention a heap of novels that are lying neglected while I study dog care. But right now I’m enjoying writing and it’s going well, so I’ll keep going. It’s almost 9pm and I have so much I want to do I could be up til the early hours of tomorrow.

A strange, grating sound penetrates my consciousness and I look over to the sofa to see what the dog is chewing. Kindling – that’s OK. I look back to the screen and suddenly a heavy black body lands in my lap. A quick hug and lick and he’s off. Boots to chew, a fire to lie by – such a busy life. We went out to the dam late this afternoon – a foggy, misty day with mountains in the distance, a still lake in the foreground, swans honking among the reeds, a world in moody shades of brown and green. One of my new friends had invited me to lunch, but then realised she had a client coming over, so it was on to plan B. Now we’re home in front of the fire. He’s happy, and so am I. Not ecstatic. Not rapturous. Not elated. Just a gentle, quiet kind of happiness that means I don’t have to constantly check my emotional temperature but can relax and enjoy all there is to enjoy. And there’s so much. Life feels easy (apart from taxes!) Now I’m yawning. My DVD player is in the bedroom so it’s time for bed with George.

Blue sky day

It’s sunny again today. I had dreaded winter up here after what my brother told me about the intense cold and long, grey, wet days dragging on for weeks. But for the last two and a half weeks I’ve woken to blue skies most days. He was right about the cold – it’s been as low as -2 degrees at night. When I pull the curtains the winter sun makes the frost patterns on the window sparkle. Outside the water is frozen in the animals’ bowls, even on the vinyl cover of the ute. It’s fun to slide the discs of ice off and watch them shatter on the ground. And it’s lovely to light a fire – last night I left the door of the wood burner open and sat there watching the flames, especially a bright green one that flared up when I put blue cardboard in, the dog snoozing at my feet, both of us enjoying the heat.

Yesterday I crashed. I’ve felt so well recently, over the carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a leaky gas heater. Even the ME that has had me off work for over seven months seemed abated. It was so great to have energy to walk the dog, write more, do more housework, go out to dinner or a movie with friends and work on the dreaded taxes. I started planning my return to work. But after 21 years of ME I know that high energy doesn’t always last. I pushed myself too hard and now I’m struggling to get things done again. The parental voice in my head says ‘you should know better’. But another voice, a cheeky young one, answers back ‘yeah, I should but it was great while it lasted. If I’m going to be sick at least I’ve done something worth being sick over.’ I had my normal moments of despair – will I ever get well? Is life worth living? But they were brief, because it’s clear that life is worth living, very much so. And today I managed to get to my computer before 11am for the first time in weeks – animals fed, dog outside romping in the sun, washing on. I’m full of enthusiasm for my writing and excited about the blog I will set up today. Despair is not even a whisper – life is good.