Recently, Cosmopolitan magazine published a list of the 32 Books About Mental Health That Everyone Should Read, and I am pleased that my book, “Don’t Feed The Monkey Mind,” has made their list and that people are finding benefit from using it.
The very things we do to control anxiety can make anxiety worse. This unique guide offers a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based approach to help you recognize the constant chatter of your anxious “monkey mind,” stop feeding anxious thoughts, and find the personal peace you crave.
Ancient sages compared the human mind to a monkey: constantly chattering, hopping from branch to branch—endlessly moving from fear to safety. If you are one of the millions of people whose life is affected by anxiety, you are familiar with this process. Unfortunately, you can’t switch off the “monkey mind,” but you can stop feeding the monkey—or stop rewarding it by avoiding the things you fear.
I went to Eastern Africa for two weeks on Safari in Tanzania with two dear friends of mine. It was a mind-blowing experience for me, and I learned a lot!
On one of our drives, we wanted to hang out with a herd of elephants. While watching them, I noticed they would pull up grass and shake their trunks vigorously. I asked our brilliant guide about this, and he told me they were shaking off the dirt and rocks. Elephants eat over 300 pounds of vegetation daily. For this, they need to be able to chew their food. Dirt and rocks wear down their teeth, and once their teeth wear down, they will die. They are shaking off the dirt to get the necessary nutrients and have a long and healthy life.
Watching the elephants feed was a metaphor for my trip. The terrain itself was visually stunning. I learned a tremendous amount about Tanzania, its history, economics, and different tribes through our guides and the staff at our lodges. I added 100 new birds to my bird list. I saw lions mating, the wildebeest crossing the Mara river, and a hyena stealing a leopard’s kill. It was an incredibly rich experience and fed me in many different ways.
I also had to shake off a lot of dirt, metaphorically and figuratively—much more than I do when I am in my familiar surroundings. We could not drink the water and had to be careful about what and where we ate. We went at the end of the dry season, so the roads in and out of the preserves were dusty. After one of our safari drives, I had dirt everywhere: my clothes, camera, hair, eyes, ears, and nose. Even with precautions, I ended up with traveler’s diarrhea off and on for most of the trip.
The grandeur and newness of Africa were so absorbing; it created effortless mindfulness; I was very much in the present moment, more when I am at home.
Now that I am home, I am incredibly grateful, feeding on the green grass of my life, the clean air and water, familiarity with my daily routines, being near the ones I love, and returning to seeing my clients.
I am also back to the familiar dirt and small rocks of my daily patterns, particularly my perfectionism. Trying to get too much done and my tendency to base my self-worth on how much I accomplish. Instead of grinding down my metaphoric teeth, I am shaking these well-worn habits and patterns off with the tools I use and teach others to use, for example, setting timers when I start a task and taking short breaks in between. Reminding myself that it is the process of how I do things, as opposed to the goal of getting things done.
Like the elephants, I am taking in the nutrients of my life while shaking off the dirt and stones of the things that wear me down. I too want to live a long, healthy —and happy—life.
A 30-day cognitive workout to help you cultivate self-acceptance, resilience, and the “mental muscle” needed to thrive in an imperfect world!
Do you hold yourself—and others—to unrealistically high standards? Are you afraid of making mistakes? Do you live for to-do lists and deadlines, and yearn for flawlessness? You aren’t alone. In our competitive, high-pressure world, it’s natural to strive for excellence. But over time, these perfectionistic tendencies can feed the internal anxious “chatter” known as your “monkey mind.” So, how can you quiet the monkey and stop feeling like you need to be perfect all the time?
In this illustrated guide, psychologist and anxiety expert Jennifer Shannon will show you how to break free from the monkey mindset that drives your perfectionism and set realistic goals; unleash creativity, joy, and productivity; and foster self-compassion and compassion for others. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to give yourself permission to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, leading to a fuller and more meaningful life.
Our monkey minds are hardwired for survival. They depend on the approval of others and the need to fit in and be accepted by the “tribe.” But monkey minds can also get in the way of reaching our full potential. If you’re ready to welcome imperfection and start taking risks, give this workout a try!
“I’m a procrastinator,” Andi said. “I put off exercise, house cleaning, paying bills, everything! I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m just lazy, I guess.”
I’d seen a lot of procrastinators in my practice, and I’d yet to see one who was genuinely lazy. I had a different guess about Andi.
Going Deep, Uncovering Perfectionism
I began our session by asking Andi to imagine opening her mailbox and seeing a credit card bill. What feeling came up for her? She said it made her feel anxious. I then asked her what thoughts went with this anxiety. She identified thoughts like, I’ve been spending way too much money, and This bill’s probably overdue and I’ll have late charges.
Thoughts like these would seem to act as motivation for Andi to pay the bill before things got worse. But she wasn’t doing that. There had to be some deeper cognition that was stopping her from paying her bills, which were piling up. I asked her, “If it’s true that you’ve accrued late charges and you’ve been spending too much, what would that mean about you?”
She didn’t hesitate to answer. “It would mean I’m STUPID!”
Feeling stupid, less than others, or not up to a task is painfully crippling. If every time Andi sat down to pay bills, she ran the risk of feeling that way, it’s no wonder she put it off.
“I don’t think you’re lazy,” I told her. “I think you’re a perfectionist.”
Andi looked at me like I was crazy. “No way,” she said, “Perfect people get things done!”
Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Pain
Andi’s misconception about perfectionism is a common one. As I’ve learned from my practice and my professional life, the central tenet of perfectionism is to stick with what you’re great at and avoid altogether the tasks that make you anxious. It’s a great short-term strategy. So long as Andi was distracted by social media, cooking, or doing anything that was fun or easy for her, she was not worrying about her bills. But in the long run, Andi’s procrastination was making her feel worse about herself and interfering with solving her budgeting problem. It was clearly a failed strategy.
As a cognitive behavioral therapist, I approach problems like procrastination as more than a behavior problem; it’s a thoughts and feelings problem too. Once my clients connect the dots, they are ready to imagine a new picture for themselves.
Three Strategic Steps
The first strategic change I asked Andi to make was in her thinking. Her present perfectionistic assumption—that overspending and paying bills late meant she was stupid—needed an upgrade to something more realistic. After all, lots of people have difficulty in this area. A non-perfectionistic mindset—or what I call an expansive mindset—is, If I spend too much and have late charges, it means I am human. When we view or shortcomings as part of our fallible human nature, we decrease our sense of shame and are better able to take effective action to address a problem.
The second change of strategy was regarding Andi’s behavior. Every time she tried to sit down to pay her bills, she felt overwhelmed. Rather than expecting herself to settle all her overdue bills in one big session, I suggested she break them down into manageable pieces. When we limit ourselves to a short time frame, after which we will stop even if we haven’t finished, we are way more likely to begin the task. To practice, I had Andi set the timer for ten minutes and start to pay her bills, right in session.
Thinking and behaving in any new way is bound to cause feelings of discomfort, and facing up to her unpaid bills, without getting rid of them was painful for Andi; she felt ashamed. In response, I asked Andi to employ a third strategic change: to pat herself on her back and repeat her expansive mindset out loud. She felt silly, but I reminded her that what is really silly is berating ourselves. When we do something that is hard, we need to be encouraged. With self-compassion, we can get so much more done!
Less Than Perfect, More Productive
Andi wasn’t a lazy person, and she wasn’t stupid either. But like so many other perfectionists, she had fallen into the trap of seeing herself that way. These harsh self-judgments won’t die easily, but with practice, anyone, including you, can beat procrastination with these three strategic steps:
1. Change Your Mindset from perfectionist to expansive
2. Break Tasks Downinto manageable pieces
3. Give Yourself Praise instead of punishment
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This article first appeared on the Blog @ NewHarbinger.com
I love a day alone at home. I can tune into myself, find my own rhythm without any sense of obligation or accountability to anyone but me. Personal time at home is something I need. It doesn’t happen as often as I like because my husband works primarily from home, but last weekend Doug was scheduled for a job that would take him away. I’d have all of Sunday to myself. I’d been looking forward to it all week—secretly, because if Doug knew just how much I cherish my time to myself, I thought it would hurt his feelings.
We had a lovely Saturday together and we were feeling close. Then that evening Doug realized he’d been mistaken, he wouldn’t be flying out until Monday. Now we could do something together, he reported cheerfully.
UGGGGGH!, My day to myself was snatched away! I couldn’t have hidden my disappointment if I tried. The intimacy we’d been feeling vanished, replaced by a mutual disappointment with each other. I was disappointed with the loss of my personal day, and resentful of Doug for his mistake. Doug was disappointed that I didn’t want him around. He said he would spend as much time away on Sunday as possible to give me time to myself. He didn’t complain, but to me, he looked sad and dejected. And that wasn’t the kind of personal time I wanted, nor the way I wanted to get it.
Instead of enjoying my personal private Sunday, I was haunted by a whole bunch of yucky thoughts and feelings—disappointed that I was not going to get the day I had envisioned, guilty that Doug’s feelings were hurt by my disappointment, angry that I “never” get much time to myself, anxious that this conflict made me feel separate and alone, and confused, wondering if my desire for alone time was reasonable or not. Was I to blame for Doug’s hurt feelings? Was it selfish of me? Or was it his fault for messing up his schedule and for failing to give me enough space?
Despite my raw feelings and confusion, I knew in my heart that when we blame ourselves for our desires, or blame others for getting in the way of our desires, we are assuming the stance of victim, a powerless position from which personal growth is impossible. I knew that wasn’t me. I didn’t want to merely survive this Sunday, I wanted to reclaim it. But how?
I had a strong urge to try to retreat. I could apologize, and find something we could do together to bring back a feeling of connection. But was that an any better answer to the dilemma than laying blame? Where was my urge to fix things coming from? Was it from an expansive and loving place or was it fear of losing connection?
The answer, I knew, was fear. Instead of trying to smooth things over, I committed myself to move towards my values of honesty, my own health and happiness, and courage to stick with my alone time even though it may be hurting him. This was my personal responsibility to myself. That Sunday turned into a day of practice. I practiced saying what I wanted. I practiced allowing my feelings of guilt and anxiety and anger to wash through me without acting out by accommodating Doug or blaming him. I practiced my expansive mindset, reminding myself that If Doug is upset with me, it does not mean I have done something wrong. He has a right to his feelings, and I have a right to mine. And I practiced honoring my higher values of Self-Acceptance, Authenticity and Courage.
Last Sunday was not the day I had been looking forward to all week, a precious day of personal time. But in retrospect, it may have been something more precious. A day of personal growth.
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