Overcoming Helplessness

Picture of clouds lifting from Microsoft Clip Art…

 

 

I had a question from a reader asking how one can overcome helplessness.  It was not clear if the helplessness was for the person or for a friend.  Keep in mind that often helplessness is a learned behaviour . It is learned from parents who tell you that you cannot do anything and therefore do everything for you.  And it can come from an injury or illness where others must do everything for you because you are helpless at the time.  Then, being helpless feels comfortable because one is used to it.  Helplessness becomes a way of life.

Some of the tools that I use in coaching folks on how to move beyond helplessness, comes from a book Helplessness by Martin E. P. Seligman.  If you feel helpless or you have someone that you see as helpless or powerless in your life, try this, and read the book.

“Helplessness, then, can be recognized by: 

1. Lack of motivation, listlessness. 
2. Cognitive breakdown between actions and outcomes - inability to link actions to the consequences they bring about - also manifests as blaming others or external factors for your situation, condition, and outcomes. 
3. Negative emotions: boredom, anxiety, frustration, anger, hopelessness, depression (sometimes suicidal).

Apply this procedure to cure helplessness: 

1. Recognize your helplessness, lack of motivation, listlessness. 
2. Recognize that as a baby and subsequently you've had many experiences where you were unable to control consequences or outcomes. 
3. Recognize your negative emotions: boredom, anxiety, frustration, anger, hopelessness, depression. Acknowledge them to yourself, for example, by saying, "I recognize that I feel helpless, hopeless, and depressed." 
4. Consciously and deliberately choose to experience any or all of these emotions. Make a cognitive link between that choice and what you experience, for example, by saying to yourself, "I consciously decide to feel helpless, hopeless, and depressed. Therefore I feel helpless, hopeless, and depressed." 
5. Perform a simple action such as washing the dishes or combing your hair. Observe the consequences or outcome. Form a cognitive link between your action and its outcome. (Examples below.) 
6. Divide a sheet of paper into three columns. In the second column list both positive and negative outcomes you've experienced during the past 24 hours, including emotions. In the first column write down your corresponding actions or inactions that preceded those outcomes. In the third column write down the causal or cognitive links between actions/inactions and outcomes. Consider only your own actions and inactions. (How to express the causal or cognitive link is explained below.) 
7. Don't blame others or external factors for anything.
8. Pat yourself on the back for all the positive consequences you did produce.” 

from Helplessness by Martin E. P. Seligman

Blessings,

Judy

Bored!

 “Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored.”  George Saunders

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I saw the quote about boredom, and I tried to see where, in my life, I might be bored.  I could not find a spot of boredom!  So, perhaps I was not defining the thought correctly. I turned to one of my favourite resources, www.thefreedictionary.com, and found this definition of boredom.  

Boredom is “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest”.  Now, that applied to me when I was nearing the end of my time at some jobs that I have held. 

Here is what else www.thefreedictionary.com had to say about boredom.  This was under their Thesaurus section.

Boredom or ennui, tedium; dissatisfaction - the feeling of being displeased and discontent; "he was never slow to express his dissatisfaction with the service he received";  blahs - a general feeling of boredom and dissatisfaction; fatigue - (always used with a modifier) boredom resulting from overexposure to something; "he was suffering from museum fatigue"; "after watching TV with her husband she had a bad case of football fatigue"; "the American public is experiencing scandal fatigue"; "political fatigue"

With all of these different meanings of boredom, it almost seems fashionable to be bored!  What I realized as I read through all of this is that boredom really means that there is no excitement; no passion.  

Really, what people are saying by being bored is that they want some passion and enthusiasm back in their life.  When passion is absent, people eventually get tired, depressed, and as George Saunders says, they leave. 

I wish you passion in your life. I wish you success in all things, but mostly in finding something that fills your heart and makes you spring out of bed in the morning.

Many blessings,

Judy