Conversationally Speaking

by Alan Garner

  COPPING OUT

  You may be telling yourself that things that happen to you are “making” you feel anxious. This type of self-talk is known as copping out because it involves placing the blame for your unpleasant emotions on outside events, rather than where it belongs: on your beliefs about those events.

  Challenging Your Copping-Out Beliefs

  When you find yourself blaming outside events for the way you feel, ask yourself, “Where is the proof that these events are making me feel anxious?” You won’t find any proof. Using the logical method outlined earlier in the chapter, establish the fact that it’s your beliefs about those events that are responsible for your anxiety. Tell yourself this in no uncertain terms, adding that you will no longer respond like a puppet on a string, automatically becoming anxious whenever things may not go as you would hope. (According to several psychological studies, simply understanding this principle may well have a liberating effect on you, enabling you to become far less anxious in situations that were formerly troublesome.)

  Finally, examine your self-talk for catastrophizing, over-generalizing, and demanding beliefs and dispute those too.

  (Note: If you are in a hurry or are confronting irrational beliefs that you have already disputed in the past, you may want to use Wolpe’s technique of cutting short your irrational self-talk by saying, “Stop!” silently or out loud and then doing the things you had planned to do.)

  CATASTROPHIZING

  Catastrophizing means telling yourself that things may not go as you want them to (a rational belief), and adding that if they don’t, it will be “terrible,” “awful,” or “horrible,” and that you “won’t be able to stand it” (an irrational belief).

  Catastrophizing self-talk like this causes your stomach to churn, your skin to perspire, your adrenal glands to pump adrenalin into your bloodstream, your heart to pound, and blood to be directed away from your brain and toward your muscles. It triggers in your mind an emergency alert system developed over thousands of years during which our ancestors—cavemen and nomads—needed immediate energy to fiercely fight off or rapidly flee attackers. Although you’re not really in danger, when you catastrophize, your body reacts as though you were, and the high level of anxiety that results is exceedingly uncomfortable.

  If you do run away, you will be rewarded with an immediate and dramatic drop in your anxiety level. If you stick it out, your tension will probably cause you to respond awkwardly. It’s ironic that when we most want things to go well, we are least able to make them happen. Just when we are most concerned with speaking well, we begin to stumble over our words. When we desperately want to do well on a test, our memory goes blank.

  I remember once inviting a professor and his wife to dinner. Starting days before the event, I began vividly imagining all the things that might possibly go wrong and telling myself how horrible it would be if even one of them happened. I became a nervous wreck well before my guests even arrived. When they did arrive, I was so worried about silence that I couldn’t think of anything to say. I retreated to the bathroom, where I calmly threw up. As I brought out a serving tray piled high with chicken, I was so worried about it falling that my hands and legs shook. This caused one piece to start tumbling off the side. Scrambling to catch it, I watched in horror as most of the food fell off the side and landed at the professor’s feet.

  CHALLENGING YOUR CATASTROPHIZING BELIEFS

  When you find yourself catastrophizing, ask yourself, “How probable is it that these dread consequences I’m imagining will come about?” If you decide that it isn’t likely, tell yourself that in no uncertain terms. You might even make fun of your catastrophizing. If you think it is possible that things won’t work out well, ask yourself, “What’s realistically the worst that’s likely to happen if I fail?” The reality is probably not nearly as frightening as you might have imagined it would be when you thought in general terms.

  One 16-year-old student of mine named Anna made a personal project of finding out what really happens during a rejection. Like many men and women who greatly fear rejection, she had never really experienced it. Anna started a number of conversations with people she met on the street and began asking students she barely knew to come to a party she was planning. Her discovery: “No one slugged me or screamed at me or called me names. The worst that happened was that some of the people I tried to talk to didn’t respond much and some of the students I invited said no, or accepted and then didn’t show up. I don’t know what I thought was so ‘horrible’ about rejection. In fact, no matter what response I got, I felt pretty proud of myself for trying. All in all, I guess I’ve caused myself far more pain by holding back than I ever would have gotten by being assertive.”

  After you have thought through what is realistically likely to happen if things don’t go as you want them to, challenge your use of words like “terrible,” “awful,” and “horrible” to describe those consequences. Put those words into perspective by telling yourself that they may be suitable for describing events such as the slaughter of millions of Jews by the Nazis, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the sinking of the Titanic, the crash of the Hindenburg, and the Son of Sam murders—but certainly not the possibility of someone failing to accept your invitation, laugh at your joke, or agree with you. A negative response just plain isn’t in the same league with those events.

  Finally—and this is important—provide yourself with realistic alternative self-talk. As Dr. Dominic LaRusso of the University of Oregon once said, “As a fluid assumes the shape of its container, ideas and experiences take on the qualities of the words we use to describe them.” A number of recent psychological experiments back up this idea. They show that people who do nothing more than begin using less emotionally charged words in their self-talk can normally significantly reduce their anxiety.

  Given this information, it makes sense for you to consciously work at replacing “horrible,” “awful,” and “terrible” with words like “unfortunate” and “inconvenient.” For example, if you are about to introduce yourself to a group of strangers, instead of catastrophizing, you might say to yourself, “I’d like to chat with those people. If none of them wants to, it will be unfortunate, but I’ll certainly survive. Anyway, since taking chances is the only way I’ll ever make any friends, I’m going to go for it.”

  OVERGENERALIZING

  Overgeneralizing About Yourself

  How do you describe yourself? Many people who have acted shyly in the past label themselves “shy” in the present. Many who have failed label themselves “failures.” Lots of otherwise completely sensible people pin labels on themselves like “quiet,” “neurotic,” “nervous,” and “introverted.”

  If you accept such labels, you will tend to go round and round in vicious circles like these:

  All these labels are based upon poor past performance. When you use them, you make past failure an excuse for present inaction. Your present inaction provides you with still more “proof” that those negative self-labels are accurate and with still more justification for future inaction. After playing the part for a while, you may end up concluding, “I just can’t help acting the way I do,” or “This is just my nature,” and then give up trying.

  You as a person are an evolving process. The fact that you chose to act in a certain way doesn’t mean you have to forever continue to do so. All of these labels are nonsense—faulty conclusions based upon faulty reasoning. You may have chosen to act shyly in the past, but that doesn’t mean you have to make the same choice in the future. Anxiety may have held you back in the past, but if you stop copping out, catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, and demanding, that won’t be the case any more. As Carl Sandburg wrote, “The past is a bucket of ashes.” If you’ll only let go of the dead weight of your past shortcomings, you can be free to change and grow and experience a world of exciting possibilities. It really isn’t any more involved than that.

  Failure Is the Price You Pay for Success

  Besides s
aying that past failures can influence what you’ll do in the future, labels say that past failures can determine how you’ll do. If you search for evidence to support this belief, you’ll find none. In fact, what you will find is evidence that everyone who has ever succeeded at practically anything has failed a good deal. Ask any realtor, for example. In order to sell a given house, she almost always has to show it to quite a number of potential buyers. People differ in their needs and in their taste: for some, the house will be too big or too small; for others, it will be too close to downtown or too far away; still others may conclude that it is outdated or too modern. If the realtor isn’t willing to risk, and accept, the “failures” that go with trying to sell the house, she’ll never succeed. As a psychiatrist once told me, “Failure is the price you pay for success.”

  Similarly, no one receives unanimous approval. When a president of the United States has a 60 percent favorable rating, he’s regarded as being unusually popular. But that means that four out of ten people, tens of millions of people across the country, don’t like him or what he’s doing. Everyone isn’t enamored of Taylor Swift or Ben Affleck. Everyone doesn’t enjoy the humor of Amy Schumer or Stephen Colbert. Everyone doesn’t admire Chief Justice Roberts or Megyn Kelly. Everyone wouldn’t welcome Elizabeth Warren or Paul Ryan into their homes.

  And everyone isn’t going to like you.

  Think about it: No one gets unanimous approval. Everyone who ever succeeds also fails. Your past social failures don’t prove anything about your future. Failure is simply a part of life. Failure is the price you pay for success.

  Labels Limit You

  In addition to being irrational because they assume that your past behavior determines your future behavior and that your past failures make future failures inevitable, labels are irrational because they wrap up your entire being into one word, making situational problems appear global. They confuse who you are with what you’ve done in one small area of your life.

  No one is totally shy. Even Grant wasn’t totally shy. He may have been too anxious to talk to Dana, but he wasn’t shy around his parents, around his teachers, around his dormitory chums, around clerks at the supermarket, and so on—which is to say he wasn’t shy around 95 percent of the people he met! Now, how reasonable is it for him to label 100 percent of himself based upon his behavior with 5 percent of the people he sees?

  For the same reason, no one is a failure. People who pin this label on themselves after failing in one area of their lives often have close friendships going. Their careers are often thriving or they are often doing well in school (or in at least one subject at school). They are often excellent cooks, gardeners, or tennis players.

  Labels are frequently harmful, but always inaccurate. You may have made mistakes in deciding not to be more assertive in the past. You may have made mistakes in deciding to be assertive with what turned out to be the wrong people. You may have made mistakes, but those mistakes haven’t made you anything.

  Overgeneralizing About Others

  Just as you may be overgeneralizing about your “nature” or your “fate,” so you may be limiting yourself by overgeneralizing about others.

  “People are just no damn good. You just can’t trust ’em.”

  “I’ll never find another friend like Gerry.”

  “Women aren’t interested in a relationship nowadays. All they want is money.”

  Many men and women overgeneralize about others on the basis of an extremely limited sampling. For example, after being rejected by one person, they’ll often conclude that all men or women are no good or that it will be impossible for them to establish a satisfying relationship with anyone ever again.

  In saying that, they are writing off thousands of potential friends and lovers as a result of unfortunate experiences with one or two. Chances are good that if they allowed themselves to sample enough people, they would find someone they would like as much as if not more than their original choice, and who would be more worthy of their trust. One thing is certain: if they don’t try, they won’t succeed.

  Challenging Your Overgeneralizations

  Instead of blindly accepting the labels you pin on yourself, demand proof of the accuracy of your statements. Say, for instance, “Where’s the proof that I am shy just because I held back again?” “Where’s the evidence I’m a failure and so will never succeed with anyone, just because I failed this one time?” You won’t find enough proof to support any self-labels since overgeneralizations are, by their very nature, sweeping conclusions based upon an incomplete sampling.

  Next, continue refuting your overgeneralizations by reviewing in your mind the opposite of what the label implies: times you have been assertive, ways you have succeeded. Most likely you’ll find plenty of those.

  Then, add a rational self-statement, such as:

  I may have held back in that instance with that person, but that doesn’t mean I’m shy. The fact that I haven’t been more assertive up till now doesn’t mean I can’t be. It just means I’ve got to work on talking more rationally to myself, challenging the nonsense I sometimes tell myself, and doing the things I want to do.

  I may have failed in this one instance, but I’ve succeeded in maintaining some good friendships, in getting and holding a good job, and in decorating my apartment beautifully. What nonsense for me to call myself a failure! Besides, I don’t like everyone, so how can I expect everyone to like me?

  In a similar vein, when you label others, ask yourself what evidence you are basing your conclusions on and then look for evidence to the contrary. Counter your limiting statements with ones which leave you free to grow and explore your world, such as:

  One man did leave me, but millions of men do stay with their wives. Charley’s been with Gen for over thirty years and they’re still going strong. Maybe if I keep myself open for a new relationship with another man and really make an effort, things will work out next time.

  DEMANDING

  Demanding Obedience to Self-Defeating Rules

  You may be adhering to rigid rules of conduct which are impairing your ability to be socially effective. Men and women follow literally hundreds of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts,” “oughts” and “oughtn’ts,” “do’s” and “don’ts, “musts” and “mustn’ts,” despite the fact that they only result in failure and frustration.

  For example, here are a few of the rules women in a Conversationally Speaking workshop of mine in Miami revealed that they follow:

  I should: Always agree once my husband has announced a decision, be polite under all circumstances, always help my children whenever they ask, check with my husband before buying a new dress, only speak up in a group when it is urgent.

  I shouldn’t: Go outside without my makeup, smile at strangers, initiate conversations with men, ask men to dance, invite a man to go out with me, telephone the man I’ve been seeing, accept a date for Friday night later than Tuesday night even if I’ve no other plans, beat my husband at bowling twice in a row, go to a movie or a party alone, turn down a request for help unless I’ve got “good” reason.

  Men in my classes have revealed that they also obey rules and regulations which prevent them from establishing relationships and from deepening those they already have. Perhaps the most common (and the most self-defeating) of these limit expressions of emotion. Many of these men don’t believe they should openly express love and caring for their parents or children or friends—and sometimes even for their mates. They don’t believe they ought to cry, no matter how badly they hurt. They don’t believe it’s right for them to share their worries, no matter how much they are plagued by them.

  Before I knew better, I blindly followed a rule which said I shouldn’t ask a woman for her phone number or to go out right after meeting her. “Every guy she meets does that,” I told myself. “So, if I want to seem special, I ought to wait till I see her again.” But Los Angeles in general and UCLA in particular are so huge that months would elapse before I would see a woman a s
econd time. And by that time, I would usually find myself recalled as just a dim memory from the past.

  If you follow rules like these, you are not only limiting your actions, you are sending out false messages to others. Since you can’t not communicate, when you fail to smile or to start a conversation or to issue an invitation or to state your preferences or to talk about yourself or to express love, others will probably conclude on the basis of what they can see that you just don’t care about them.

  Obeying rules like these usually makes successs impossible. Now ordinarily, you would stop doing things that don’t get you what you want. But when you follow rules, you can tell yourself that you’re acting “properly” and so it’s hardly your fault when things don’t work out. You don’t have to take responsibility for your lack of progress, the rule is at fault. Not only are you off the hook, but you’re even rewarded for obeying your rules and backing off from risk-taking with an immediate and dramatic drop in your anxiety level. You’re safe again, though you still haven’t gotten anywhere.