From Where I Sit

I almost fell off my chair when Hazel (no real names or individual stories are used in this blog) sat down and announced she had only lost her temper twice in the last fortnight. From where I sat this was an extraordinary change from the days when Hazel was experiencing major explosions on a daily basis. Hazel had a long history of a fiery temper that kept getting her into trouble and driving everyone away from her, and this was the reason she had sought counselling. She had struggled for a long time to try and curb her temper but it just kept getting the better of her and her good judgement, and kept upsetting her, and everyone around her.

So when Hazel announced only two small incidents in the last fortnight I wanted to know how she had done it, what had made it possible for her to bring about such a large change in behaviour? How did she feel about the progress she was making? However Hazel only wanted to talk about the two days where she had “failed” and lost her temper, rather than the twelve days where she had managed to keep her cool.

This was very characteristic of Hazel, throughout all our work together, she seemed unable to see her achievements and was drawn to forever notice her shortcomings. Each time we met and Hazel would tell me about how badly she she was going because she was still experiencing temper outbursts, and therefore how bad she was as a person. Even if I drew her attention to the degree of success over temper outbursts, and how much progress seemed to be happening, Hazel would immediately return to how much work there was still to be done, and see the negative side of the story.

Hazel was not wrong for focussing on the two days where she had lost her temper, but she was inadvertently working against herself and making it harder to progress in life. Focussing selectively on the challenges we still face while ignoring the progress and gains we have made, makes the journey through life more difficult.

This aspect of Hazel, where the focus on the negative nearly blinded her to a view of the positive, was having profound impact on her life. When Hazel chose to focus on the two days she considered “failures”, she felt a little bit worse, a little bit more negative, and little more despondent. It left her with a sense of climbing uphill, or fighting against strong habits of the past and would rob her of some of the energy needed to gain control over the temper outbursts. Remembering the “failures” was keeping her mired in the past and making the task of overcoming the problem harder.

By contrast, when Hazel chose to focus on the twelve days she kept her cool, she ended up feeling just a little bit more positive about herself and her potential to overcome this problem. Her attention was drawn to how far she’d come and the skills she has used to achieve this task. This provided her with a bit more of an incentive to press on, a bit more energy for the next situation where her temper control was tested. When an aggravating situation arose, Hazel could remember her successes, and that the history of bad temper was being rewritten. She could believe that it was possible to take control because she had been doing it.

If you keep focussing on what you don’t do well in life to the exclusion of what you do well, this is not a recipe for happiness. While I am not suggesting people ignore so called shortcomings, I would warn against a narrow focus on the struggles. Don’t get blinded by the challenges still to be faced, always keep an eye on how far you’ve come.

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