The Happiness Blog:

A Rocky Childhood - Part 3

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, March 2010

On 12^th March I wrote about a young woman, who I anonymized as ‘Jain'.  Jain had written to me to ask for some kind of guidance on how to be happy.  She described her problems like this:

"I feel that I've had a rather rocky childhood that made me the person I am.  I'm a young woman, but I always feel very alert and find it hard to relax and have fun.

"I guess I'm unhappy because I don't know how to loosen up or I don't tolerate a lot of things that people do.

"Also another thing is that my mother and I argue every day about petty things.  We never seem to get along.

I took very seriously her point about having had a ‘rocky childhood' and so I began by looking at the ‘deep end of the pool' of psychological therapy.  I suggested a couple of processes that might help her to explore her ‘story of origins' and how that might have affected her childhood experiences; and also her ‘story of relationships', which might help to identify old problems with her mother which might have resulted in an ‘insecure attachment' to her mother.  Throughout, I was careful to advise Jain not to attempt any of this work unless and until she had a good counsellor available as backup, in case she got into emotional difficulty.

I also gave her some advice about learning how to relax - i.e. a formal relaxation exercise approach; and I offered some advice and recommended books on the subjects of ‘emotional literacy' and ‘self assertion'.

I hope Jain found my advice and recommendations helpful.  They were certainly likely to be time-consuming, so I was not surprised when I did not receive an urgent response.

~~~

A second instalment

On 19^th March I added some further advice for Jain, on three aspects of her situation:

1. Firstly, if she had an insecure attachment to her mother when she was very young, and this continued into her present relationship, then there is some work to do in processing whatever is incomplete from the early childhood period; and I gave her some advice on how to do set about doing that work.

2.  Secondly, I indicated that, if she had missed out on some aspect of mothering, because of how her mum was with her, then she can seek out relationships with nurturing women, and make up for those deficits in the here and now.

3. Thirdly, I indicated that, if her mother had been a very critical and/or perfectionistic woman, and Jain had modelled herself on her mother's behaviour, then Jain and her mother could now be squabbling because they both judge each other to be deficient and/or defective.  I outlined the basic theory of Transactional Analysis as a way to deal with this area of potential difficulty, and recommended that Jain learn to have her Adult ego state in the executive position - or ‘driving seat' - or her personality.  This would result in a reduced incidence of conflict with her mother, and a greater capacity to manage her communication with her mother.

Amongst other things, I recommended a range of books on Transactional Analysis, and on how to be happy.

~~~

A third instalment

Today I want to add some more strategies to the list that Jain could use to solve her emotional, behavioural and relationship problems, including that with her mother.

BEING 'ON IT', AND 'GETTING OFF IT'!

Now that I have given some serious attention to the deep end of the ‘psychotherapy pool', I want to look at some ‘shallower' techniques.  Specifically, I will outline some ideas from the work of Werner Erhard and Albert Ellis.

Back in the 1970s, Werner Erhard developed a form of ‘personal development', or ‘personal enlightenment', which was based on a fusion of eastern philosophy, Gestalt Therapy, aspects of phenomenology and existentialism, and many other strands, based on his extensive personal search for meaning over many years of learning.

One of his ideas can be summarized as follows:

Children judge their parents, and find them wanting.  This is how they learn to separate and become autonomous individuals.  However, they then get stuck in a position of ‘being on it' with their parents.  Being on it is like being on ‘your high horse'; contemptuous; enraged; disappointed; rejecting; condemning; and so on.

Erhard said we have a choice.  We can simply CHOOSE to get off it!  Just like that. 

The penalty

The penalty for staying on it with our parents is apparently this:  We develop a set of rules about our parents: They SHOULD not have made me do X.  They should have let me do Y.  They should not have been Z.  They should not have shamed me by being too ‘different'; and on and on.  However, when we come to choose a partner, get married and reproduce, we will find, if we keep those rules about our own parents, we will not be able to parent our own children, because we will feel like hypocrites when we have to tell them to go to bed early; to brush their teeth; to stop being like this; to start being like that; to behave themselves; to do their school homework; to clean the kitchen; or whatever.  Thus, in order to make it as parents ourselves, we have to be willing to create for our parents the experience that they made it as our parents.  That at least in their role as parents they won!  They succeeded!  They made it!

Jain may be ‘on it' with her mum; and she can simply choose to get off it.

The benefit

The benefit of getting off it is this.  As soon as you create for your parents the experience that they made it as your parents, THEY IMPROVE!  They still have all those ‘annoying habits' that you used to hate, but they don't seem so important anymore. 

So Jain, if you can ‘get off it' with your mum, and create the experience for her that she made it as your mum, she will do anything for you!  Miracles can happen in your life.

Furthermore, when you have children you will be able to parent them from the best thoughts and feelings that you can muster, without feeling crippled by guilt about ‘getting it wrong'.  (Parents are just ‘blokes and birds muddling through', [which, in American English is ‘guys and gals trying their best']).

(Caveat: If your mum physically, or sexually, or emotionally abused you when you were a child, it is not a good idea to create for her the experience that she made it as your mum.  Get the hell out of there, and work on the ‘cutting the ties' process developed by Phyllis Krystal, in ‘Cutting the Ties that Bind').

But if your mother is in the ‘normal range' of average parents, then seriously consider ‘getting off it' with her.

Albert Ellis and the REBT approach

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), developed by Dr Albert Ellis in 1952-62, is a meatier system of getting off it with yourself, other people and the world.

Albert Ellis would want to ask you:

‘What's so awful about your mother's being the way she is?'

When you give him any justification for the belief that ‘it's awful', he would challenge you by saying: ‘Awful means more than bad, badder than bad, and badder than it should be, which almost nothing ever could be'.  He would put you under pressure to reduce your assessment of how bad your mother's behaviour (or lack of certain behaviours) seems to be.  You might eventually have to agree that it's about 20% bad, or 30%.  For example, we could use Tom Miller's question: Would you give up an arm or a leg in order for her to change?  If the answer is No!, then her way of being cannot be more than about 15-20% bad.  So stop saying it's AWFUL, which means 100% bad!

Ellis's next question to you probably would be: "Why must your mom be any different than she actually is, in the way she interacts with you?"  But as soon as you give him any reason - such as: "Because it would be nicer for both of us" - he will tell you.  "But that only makes it preferable that she change.  Doesn't it?  What makes you think you must get what is preferable?" And so on, until he has persuaded you to give up using ‘shoulds' and ‘musts' about your relationship with your mum, and only stick to ‘I wish...'; ‘I want...'; ‘I would like...'; ‘I would prefer...'.  In other words, he would get you to give up ‘demandingness' about your relationship with your mum, and to stick to ‘preferential thinking'.

(Where CENT parts company with REBT is that we in CENT advise that you hold on to your moral musts and shoulds, your oughts, etc.  It's a good idea to give up using shoulds and musts in relation to your mum's technical competence, in relationships, etc; and in relation to her non-moral judgements, etc.  But it is not only permissible to use shoulds and musts in relation to any overt moral transgressions[1] on her part, but it is your moral duty to do so!)

The next thing Ellis would go after is this: "Are you telling yourself that you cannot stand having this kind of conflicted relationship with your mom?"  And if you say "Yes", he will point out to you that "...you clearly are standing it, coping with it, being it, even if you don't like doing so.  You can stand it! You just wish you didn't get to stand it".  His goal would be to get you to give up the idea that you are literally collapsing under the pressure of this conflicted relationship, which you most probably are not doing!

And, finally, Albert Ellis would want to know if you are telling yourself that "She's a rotten louse", or "I'm a rotten louse" because of this history of conflicted relationship.  If you are, then he would advise you to only rate your poor relationship skills, or mum's poor relationship skills, and not the whole of you and/or the whole of her.

The theory of REBT maintains that if you gave up your demandingness, awfulizing, ‘can't-stand-it-itis', and condemning and damning of yourself and/or your mum, then you would cease to be depressed and angry, and miserably upset; and you would only be sad and disappointed, and perhaps a little irritated, but not miserable.  Eventually those reasonable upsets would pass, and you would become quite happy with your life.

For books on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) by the late Dr Albert Ellis, go to Books on REBT by Albert Ellis.

~~~

Defining relationship

Back to Werner Erhard and my CENT theory:  You are unhappy with your relationship with your mum, Jain; and you are intolerant of things other people do, which will spoil your relationships with them also.

In CENT we say that you are looking at your relationships through a non-conscious frame - like tinted spectacles - and you only see the interpretations that ‘show up' using those particular lenses or frames.  I don't know what frame you are using to look at your relationship with mum and others, and perhaps you don't know either.  But we have ways to surface that.

Here's Werner Erhard's definition of a relationship:

"A relationship is an understanding and being aware of another person's way of being.  That is to say a relationship is the condition of understanding and being aware of another person".

Werner constructed that definition by looking up the word ‘relationship' in Webster's English Dictionary, and then looking up the words that define relationship, and then making a definition of those words.

If you held Werner's definition of relationship - which is a ‘new frame' to look through - then, how could you ever make yourself upset about your mother's ‘way of being'?  Do you understand her way of being?  And are you aware of her way of being?  If you answered ‘yes' to both questions, then you have a relationship with your mother.

Involvements, rackets and power plays

If you are still upset with your mum, then you must not be using Werner's definition of relationship.  So what is your definition of relationship?  What ‘must' your mum do in order to be a ‘good mum'?  Does she have to be perfect?  Does she have to go along with your way of seeing the world?  Does she have to kiss your hand, bow down before you, or acknowledge your superior judgement?  Does she have to ‘stop embarrassing you' by not being like the ‘lovely mum's' that all the other kids had? (Every kid has that one!)  Are you saying that you are always right and she is always wrong? 

If you answered ‘yes' to any of those questions, then what you have with your mum is not a relationship, but an INVOLVEMENT.  An involvement is about entanglement, danger, difficulty, as defined by Werner Erhard.  If you stick with that involvement, you will always be miserably unhappy.  Involvement often centres on power plays and top-dog / under-dog rackets.  There is no joy in involvements and rackets about power.

Back to Werner's definition:  "A relationship is an understanding and being aware of another person's way of being.  That is to say a relationship is the condition of understanding and being aware of another person".

Could you teach that definition to yourself, and then apply it to your relationship with your mum?  Could you choose to ‘get off it' with your mum, and accept her exactly the way she is?  Could you do that with some of the other people you find it difficult to tolerate?

Plan to have fun and recreation

Erhard also believed that ‘successful relationships are based on agreed on goals'.  What is it that you want to accomplish with your mum?  What could you and she agree to do together?  To build together?  To share together?

Perhaps you think your mum and others ‘should be perfect'?  Are you perfect?  What kind of world would it be if everybody had to be perfect?  If every ‘imperfect human' had to be ‘perfect': FOR YOU?

To paraphrase a famous saying: "A relationship is a house that is built every day".  What do you do every day to build the house of your relationship with your mum and others?

Erhard used to argue that what most people want from their relationships is ‘recreation' - fun, pleasure, good times.  How could you plan some kind of recreation with your mum?  Have you asked her what she would like to do that would be pleasurable for her?

For a collection of books on how to be happy, see the special collection by Jim Byrne on Happiness and Life Enhancement.

I hope some of this proves to be helpful.

Best wishes,

[1] By ‘overt moral transgressions' I mean something that was definitely established to have been done which breaks a moral rule, such as: do not harm others; do not lie (unless the lie prevents a greater harm); do not engage in sexual misconduct; and so on.

The Happiness Blog:

A Rocky Childhood - Part 2

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 2010

Last week I wrote a response to a young woman, who I called ‘Jain', who had written to me to say:

... I feel that I've had a rather rocky childhood that made me the person i am.  I'm a young woman, but I always feel very alert and find it hard to relax and have fun.

I responded to Jain with a number of suggestions, and said I would probably return to this conversation again this week.  So here I am. Jain explained that ... my mother and I argue every day about petty things.  We never seem to get along.

So let us look at what could work here:

Firstly, you may have had an insecure bond with your mother when you were very young, and this continues into your present relationship.  If you had time to read my paper on the Story of Relationship, that will have given you some ideas about where and when things could have gone wrong between you and your mother, during your childhood.  Once you know that, then the next task is to process that information: to feel it fully; not run away from the unpleasant reality that you have unearthed.  It's important to go through whatever pain and grief you need to go through to complete your experience of what went wrong, and then to move on into a brighter future.

Secondly, if you missed out on some aspect of mothering, because of how your mum was with you, then you can seek out relationships with nurturing women, and make up for those deficits in the here and now.

Thirdly, if you mother was a very critical and/or perfectionistic woman, and you modelled yourself on her behaviour, you and she could now be squabbling because you both judge each other to be deficient and/or defective.  This is called, in Transactional Analysis, ‘being high (or scoring high) on Critical or Controlling Parent ego state'.  We each have different parts of our personality from which we can operate.  The most important are the Parent, Adult and Child ego states. 

When you are in Parent ego state, you are thinking, feeling and acting just like some parent figure from your past; your mum or dad; granny or granddad; school teachers; etc.  You will either be in Nurturing Parent, which (in its most positive aspect) is kindly and supportive; or Critical/Controlling parent which (in its most negative aspect) is judgemental and carping.

When you are in Child ego state, you will be thinking, feeling and acting just like you once did when you were a child.  You will either be in Free (or Natural) Child, or Adapted/Rebellious Child.  The most positive aspects of Free Child are to do with curiosity, playfulness, creativity, fun loving, and so on.  The most negative aspects of Adapted/Rebellious child will swing from craven conformity to open rebellion against authority figures.

When you are in Adult ego state, you will be functioning like a computer: reasonable, rational, cool, clear thinking, weighing up the pros and cons; calculating the angles and options, and so on.

The most effective way to be is to have your Adult ego state in the driving seat of your life, and to filter in Nurturing Parent and Natural Child ego states under the supervision of your Adult state.

Think about this:  Are you in Rebellious Child with your mother?  Or are you both in Critical/Controlling parent, having a Parent>Parent ding-dong of a battle?

If you want to learn to be more Adult, and less Parent/Child, then you could benefit from studying Transactional Analysis.  Here are three books you might want to consult:

***Counselling for Toads: A Psychological Adventure, by Robert de Board; (London: Routledge).

***I'm OK, You're OK, by Thomas A Harris MD; (New York: Harper and Row).

***TA Today: A new introduction to Transactional Analysis; Ian Stewart and Van Joines; (Nottingham: Lifespace Publishers).

These are three of the 18 recommended books that you can find at my Online TA Books Store.

You could also look up Transactional Analysis on the internet, and read some articles on the subject.

Finally, you might like to read my page entitled The Psychology of Happiness, which contains some pointers to what to do in order to become happier.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Jim

The Happiness Blog:

A Rocky Childhood

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 2010

Last week I wrote about creating happiness by developing mindfulness and self responsibility.  This included a number of specific actions that you can take to improve your self control and to enhance your happiness.

I think it was Wednesday before the following response arrived, from a young woman I shall call Jain (not her real name).  Her text is in blue, and my responses in grey, below:

I just read your blog on thinking your way to happiness, and
really subscribe to most of the ideas that you've discussed.

That's very kind of you to let me know, Jain.  And, of course, it's not so much those ideas that matter as what you do with them.  Unless you take action in the world, nothing will change.  Visualizing a better life for yourself helps with motivation towards action, because it creates the idea that improvement is possible.  But unless you take action, nothing will change.

But I feel that I've had a rather rocky childhood that made me the person i am.  I'm a young woman, but I always feel very alert and find it hard to relax and have fun.

Rocky childhoods certainly leave their scars, and it is important to work on them, in order to promote healing, which will then allow you to move on.  I will return to this theme below.

I guess I'm unhappy because I don't know how to loosen up or i don't tolerate a lot of things that people do.

"Loosening up" might here refer to "relaxation", which is the opposite of tension.  Physical tension and mental tension are interrelated.  You can work on the one by working on the other.  In other words, if you learn to relax physically, it will tend to relax you mentally (all other things being equal); and if you learn to relax mentally (by changing your thinking, and/or you emotions) then you will tend to relax physically.  Again, I will deal with this issue below.

Also another thing is that my mother and i argue every day about petty things.  We never seem to get along.

This aspect of your problem can be looked at in its shallow and deep aspects.  The shallow, or surface aspect probably relates to skills that exist, or don't exist, within your birth family.  The skills that are most likely involved are ‘Emotional Literacy' and ‘Assertiveness'.  By developing emotional literacy, you get the ability to develop meaningful and loving personal relationships, and increase you chances of leading a successful and happy life.  Assertiveness training overlaps emotional literacy, and deals with: asking for what you want; saying no to what you do not want.

It is important to recognize that some families are ‘high functioning' and some ‘low functioning' when it comes to emotional intelligence, or emotional literacy.  And we acquire our emotional literacy level initially from our parents; and we had better work at raising the level if it is too low to maintain good relationships.

Do you have any practical advice for me to just forget about
everything and just let go and be truly happy.  I mean that is all I really want in life.

If I could wave a ‘magic wand' and fix you and your mother, then I would willingly do that.  However, as it happens: "the best relationships exist on the other side of conflict", according to Robert Bolton, PhD, the Author of ‘People Skills'[1].  But you have to learn how to ‘fight fair' in order to work through your conflict issues, and get to that ‘better side' - the green pastures of effective relating.

And you definitely cannot improve your situation by "forgetting about everything and just let go".  What you need to do is to become more conscious, not unconscious.

Dealing with a rocky childhood

You did not give any indication of just how serious or difficult the problems were in your rocky childhood.  But some general ideas can be addressed here. 

Firstly, your mother, and how she related to you, especially in the first three years of your life, is not just crucially important - but she is actually a big part of the very foundations of your personality, your ego.  If any significant disruption occurred in that relationship in the first three years, or (less importantly) in the subsequent four years, or (still significantly) around puberty, then there may be some deep therapy work to be done with a suitably qualified female counsellor (and probably a TA counsellor, who believes in ‘reparenting therapy'; or an Object Relations psycho-analyst).  See my Story of Relationship which will probably give you some insights into just how rocky your childhood was, relative to mine, and whether you can then see what needs to be worked on.

If you find anything significant about your childhood from reading my paper, you might then want to write your own Story of Relationship; but do not attempt that unless and until you have made contact with a good counsellor in your neighbourhood, who can support you if you get into any kind of emotional distress while writing your story of relationship.

(PS: You did not mention your father.  Is he around?  How do/did you get along with him?  How does/did he get along with your mum?)

Secondly, from your name I infer that you might belong to a minority religious or ethnic group.  This can also be highly significant if you went to a school in which you were ‘the outsider', or one of a very small number of outsiders.  See my Story of Origins to explore this possibility.  That should give you a good indication of just how serious your ‘outsider' experience was, if at all.

If you find anything about your Story of Origins that needs to be worked through, then you can write up your own story of origins, again with the support of a counsellor in the background, who can be quickly available if you get into more distress than you can handle.

Feedback: If you do happen to write up your Story of Relationship and/or your Story of Origins, and you would like me to analyze them and send you some feedback, then I would be happy to do so.  Just send your text to jim.byrne@abc-counselling.com, as an email attachment in ‘Word'.

Learning to relax

Relaxation, in the language of yoga, is ‘the non-doing of tension'.  Yoga is a very good discipline for promoting physical and mental relaxation. 

There is also a system called Jacobson's Progressive Muscle Relaxation process, which can be found on audio tapes, available over the internet.  A good source of audio hypnosis for relaxation is Glenn Harrold, at http://www.diviniti.co.uk/.

Meditation is also very effective for promoting relaxation, and it can be learned by attending a class, or watching a DVD, which can be sources over the internet.

Emotional literacy, assertiveness and conscious awareness

I have recently finished reading a very good book on ‘Achieving Emotional Literacy'[2], by Dr Claude Steiner, a famous Transactional Analyst (TA practitioner).  His system has three stages as follows:

1. How to open the heart with specific techniques directed at breaking down the barriers which separate us from our feelings;

2. How to recognize your feelings; to express them productively; and how to listen with empathy as others express their emotions.

3. How to take responsibility, by defining any problems in relationships; admitting our role in those problems; and making meaningful changes.

I think this book might be a very valuable part of your journey.  You could also try Helen Clinard's ‘Winning Ways to Succeed with People'[3], which teaches a very gentle form of self assertion which is easy to learn.  Clinard teaches seven skills; but you only need to look at the first three for your present purposes, and you should begin with skill number one, practice that for a while; learn skill number two; practice that for a while; and only then read about skill number three.

Another book that would be very helpful, especially in countering any verbal aggression from your mother, is Barbara Berckhan's 'Judo With Words'. [4]

But it's practice that makes perfect, and while you are learning these new ways of relating, you absolutely must remain conscious.  Once you have mastered any new skill - including driving a car - you can then drop into ‘automatic (non-conscious) mode' much of the time.  But for the next couple of years, you need to be keenly conscious of how you relate to your mother and others, and which ideas and skills to use, when: from Bolton, Steiner, Clinard, Berckhan and others.

Finale

I may have some more to add to this message next week.  There is certainly much more that could be said - especially about the ‘shallow' end of the range of possibilities - where there is not deep distress buried in your childhood memories, in long term memory.  Meanwhile I hope this helps.  And remember, in every area of life: "Success is paid for in advance".  You cannot claim the reward if you have not done the work!

PS: If you want some immediate relief from unhappiness and low mood, try a brisk walk every day; and write out three things you can be grateful for every night; and then focus on one of those three things as you fall asleep, with the aim of trying to dream about it.  (Nobody's life is so miserable that they cannot think of three things to be grateful for.  I, for example, am grateful that I am not a child soldier in a war in Africa; or hungry and powerless in a Palestinian refugee camp!)

[3] Clinard, H.H. (1985) Winning Ways to Succeed With people.  Houston, Texas: Gulf Publishing.

 Berckhan, B. (2001) Judo With Words: an intelligent way to counter verbal attacks.  London: Free Association Books.

~~~

Friday 5^th March 2010

The Happiness Blog:

Mindfulness and Self-Responsibility

Yesterday afternoon, I asked myself: ‘What shall I write about in the Happiness blog tomorrow?'  The image that came up - from the basement of my mind (my adaptive unconscious) - was a famous TV cigar advert:

"Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet"

This process of asking myself a question and then striving to answer it is what I call ‘thinking'.  Thinking is a process of asking and answering questions, or posing and solving a problem.

But what is the significance of this cigar advertisement?

Well, the advert went like this:  An image would appear on the TV screen of a man reclining in a comfortable chair, and in the background would begin an intensely relaxing piece of classical piano music.  The man would put a long, lighted cigar to his lips, inhale the toxic smoke, and smile as he threw back his head and exhaled the smoke skywards.  The voiceover, at that point, would say:

"Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet"

I know lots of people who were influenced by that advert to go out and buy a packet of five Hamlet cigars, to try to capture that ‘happiness moment'.  I was one of them!

But cigars and cigarettes cannot create happiness.  The first one, or even a few, cigarettes or cigars produce a brain chemistry response which shows up experientially as a ‘nice buzz' - but thereafter we former smokers did not smoke to experience that happiness moment.  No.  We had to smoke to take away the craving induced by the addictive nature of tobacco.  We were hooked by false advertising.

Here's a comment from Richard Nelson Bolles which is relevant to where I am going with this blog:

"You have got to know what it is you want!  Or someone is going to sell you a bill of goods somewhere along the line that will do irreparable damage to your self-esteem, your sense of worth, and your stewardship of talents that God gave you".

If you do not know what you want, your mind will be taken over by those who do know what they want.  This can be done via the TV, radio, newspapers, political parties, cults, other individuals, and on and on.

You have got to develop a respect for your mind, and to protect it from being controlled by others.  I recently read this little parable:

"Imagine you are sitting in a coffee shop, and somebody comes past your table and, using a small bottle of liquid and a dropper, squirts a few drops of a clear liquid into your coffee cup, would you drink that coffee?  No?  Then why would you listen uncritically to the propaganda of people who are trying to poison your mind?"

Perhaps you think I am exaggerating here?  I am not talking about big political issues, like Iraq and Afghanistan, although many people have serious doubts about the stories they have been told by the media and the US and UK governments about those wars.  No, I am talking about much smaller, but nonetheless significant, issues.

Did you see that TV commercial where a little mobile (or cell) phone waddles onto the screen and declares that it is ugly, because newer models have come out with sexier screens?  The sad, crestfallen little phone takes to wearing a brown paper bag over itself, while it scuttles off to the nearest ‘carphone warehouse to trade itself in for a new, sexier model.  That advert, which was designed to make almost all mobile phone owners feel ashamed of their 'outdated' models, ran for months on UK commercial TV channels.  Shame would force them to buy the newer, more exotic models.  But what if they could not afford one?  Around the same time, the incidence of muggings, in which some of the newer, sexier phones were grabbed from richer kids by poorer kids in the street, seemed to skyrocket in number.  Mobile phone muggings in London became such a big issue it took up lots of time on national TV news and current affairs coverage.  Nobody seemed to make the connection with the sad little phone in the brown paper bag.  But this is somehow related to status anxiety:

"'Tis very certain that each man (and woman) carries in his/her eye the exact indication of his/her rank in the immense scale of men/women, and we are always learning to read it'.  Indeed, psychological experiments suggest that we make judgements of each other's social status within the first few seconds of meeting.  No wonder first impressions count, and no wonder we feel social evaluation anxiety".  Wilkinson and Pickett (2010)[1].

How does this relate to thinking your way to happiness?

Firstly, it is the job of advertisers to spread discontent and unhappiness, and to suggest that this discontent and unhappiness can be solved by owning a bigger car, having a sexier holiday, wearing more expensive clothes, having a beautiful, expensive home, and on and on.  None of those claims is true, but the more of that stuff you imbibe, the more negative judgements you will make of ‘yourself' relative to people who have ‘lots of stuff' and who go 'lots of places'.

Secondly, it is your responsibility to stop others putting poison drops in your coffee, and poison ideas in your mind.

Thirdly, you can protect your mind from a lot of pollution by taking a ‘news fast': Stop reading daily newspapers and watching TV news for at least a month.  (And repeat this every few months!)  You will feel a whole lot happier without all that socially divisive, inequality-emphasizing bullshit washing around in the basement of your mind.  You will also free up a lot of time in which you can pursue your own meaningful goals - such as connecting with significant others; engaging in health promoting exercise or games; making a contribution to the lives of others. 

You can defeat social evaluation anxiety by developing anti-materialistic values, like honesty, diligence, integrity, commitment, compassion, contribution, community development, family life, spiritual values, and so on.

If you run into any London School of Economics professors who try to tell you that the solution to unhappiness in the UK is to give a few thousand people 6 to 10 sessions of cognitive behaviour therapy, refer them to the Equality Trust, which has amassed a great deal of data that shows that mental health and drug use problems are a function of greater inequality in the UK and the USA, and in other grossly unequal societies; and that more equal societies have less mental health distress, such as anxiety and depression.

Check out the Equality Trust, at http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/.

Or read the book - The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone - by Wilkinson and Pickett (2010), below.

Quick tip:  If you want to be happier in this unequal world of ours, then start to ask yourself this:  "What can I control?" and try to control that.  Then: "What is beyond my control?"  Give up trying to control the uncontrollable.

I recently read about a man who was 108 years old, who attributed his long and happy life to one thing:  "When it rains", he said, "I just let it rain!"

Try to fit in a couple of brisk walks this weekend.  List three things you can be grateful for, and go over them every night before bedtime.  Develop your compassion for others, and offer love to those people who are important in your life.  And try a news fast!

Learn to meditate.

(PS: And if you see some new equivalent of a little mobile phone in a brown paper bag passing before your eyes, look for the immoral villain behind it who is dropping clear drops of poison into your coffee!)

[1] Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2010) The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everybody.  London: Penguin Books.

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