Is It Worth Dying For?

By Jill Cody

(Part 1 of a 4 part series)

IS IT WORTH DYING FOR? A synopsis of Dr. Meyer Friedman’s research into Type A behavior

“Self-confirming nature of thought is amazing - we only see what confirms our thoughts.”

- Dr. Roger C. Mills

“There is nothing wrong with being a Type A personality. Some of the most interesting people are Type A’s. It’s just that Type B’s won’t kill themselves”. When I was in his Institute, I heard Dr. Friedman make this point. He is the cardiologist who identified Type A behavior and has amassed over 40 years of research into the personality. Along with Dr. Ray Rosenman and Dr. Sanford Byers, Dr. Friedman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Friedman) began to suspect that behavior might be involved in the development of coronary heart disease. They were implementing a cholesterol diet study of 46 San Francisco Junior League women and their husbands, when they realized that something more must be at work to raise cholesterol levels. The men’s levels were higher then the women’s, yet the women ate just as much animal fat. The president of the Junior League told them that she knew what it could be. She said it was the stress their husbands encountered in their jobs.

Dr. Friedman writes in his book (coauthored with Diane Ulmer, R.N., M.S.) Treating Type A Behavior And Your Heart that the thought “coming as it did after the negative results of the dietary study and on top of our own suspicions about the possible role of emotional stress, it made us realize that we had to cease armchair philosophizing and start some serious investigative work.” Now, the concept that stress effects our health isn’t even questioned any longer, but many people still don’t believe they can do anything about it. Well, you absolutely can and that’s what has been keeping Dr. Friedman busy since 1954. (An article written by Dr. Meyer Friedman can be found at: www.sfms.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=1732&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&SECTION=Article_Archives)

Definition of a Type A Personality

A Type A personality (as quoted from Dr. Friedman’s book) “is above all in a continuous struggle to accomplish or achieve more and more things, or participate in more and more events in less and less time. This struggle fosters the emergence of a sense of time urgency. A Type A personality is dominated by covert insecurity of status or hyperaggressiveness, or both. As the struggle continues the hyperaggressiveness shows itself in easily aroused anger termed free-floating hostility. Finally, if the struggle becomes severe enough and persists long enough, a tendency towards self-destruction develops.” In other words, time urgency plus free-floating hostility may equal self-destruction.

A year after I had been diagnosed with Lupus I went for a check up with my doctor. I was feeling slightly better. I had taken the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People workshop a few months before and was starting to integrate what I had learned. At my first appointment with him I confessed that I still didn’t think I’d live to fifty. I was tired. I just didn’t think I was going to keep it all going and that I would just exhaust myself before then. He looked at me hard when I said that, but he didn’t say anything at the time. During the second visit to go over my lab results, he told me that Lupus wasn’t my main problem, that it was my personality. I was stunned. What? You mean I have something else to worry about? He told me to read a book and to call him when I finished and that if I felt it was on target, he would give me further information. The book was Treating Type A Behavior And Your Heart.

I read it cover to cover and thought that Dr. Friedman must be a psychic. It was me. It was my history. It was my childhood. The chapter about Type A women stated that they will find surrogate fathers … which I did! I walked too fast. I ate too fast. I never felt there was enough time in the day to do everything. I was in a constant state of struggle. There was no doubt about it, I was a Type A personality. It might be interesting to note here that we view the words “Type A” now as a cliché. Back when Dr. Friedman was studying the behavior pattern he needed a method to identify one personality from another. In a non-judgmental way, he called one behavior pattern “A” and the other ”B” just to distinguish the two. I think the history is good to remember so that we fight labeling personality traits as negative. When I had completed the book I called my doctor who then told me about the Dr. Meyer Friedman Institute. I signed up for two years.

(Part 2 covers "Time Urgency" and "Free Floating Hostility")

Life Happens

by Pettis Perry

Life's Jagged Edges

When you get right down to it, Life just happens. Every time we think we have Life figured out something happens to remind us that we don't. It's as though there appears to be a conspiracy of forces beyond our control that interfere with our best made plans just at the moment we are beginning to feel real good about ourselves.

Applying this principle to my own Life, when I try to find an analogy I think of the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest with their brutally jagged, spectacularly beautiful, cliff faces that shape its harsh profile edges. They stand majestically over the landscape resembling the obstacles that become challenges to human ingenuity. They remind me that Life has many obstacles that have to be surmounted along the way with many, many emotional highs and lows that are just part of living. I am also reminded of the numerous lectures I've given to students about dislodging their mental models that somehow Life is supposed to progress in a neat and orderly manner without any disruptions or problems. 

The sooner we make this mental switch the sooner we are better able to handle the highs and lows presented by Life circumstances. This is not some metaphysical poo poo but real Life  stuff with which we might have to contend on any given day. 

In my own case, I was riding high at the end of 2011 and looking with great anticipation to 2012. So many wonderful events happened that simply made my year incredibly special (see my December 25 and December 31, 2011, blogs to understand more fully what I am talking about). Here it is, now on this 44th day of 2012, and today is the first time I have been able to even look at my blog let alone write anything.

Thus far, my year has been filled with more work than I care to think about. Of the 44 days thus far in 2012, I've worked all but two of those days; and the two days I did not work I spent moving from California to Washington. I've become mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted to the point that my body began to breakdown from the sheer weight of work and other responsibilities--most of which I can't do anything about other than to adapt to the changes that are taking place. For me, this is a process of having to let go of my own beliefs, needs, and wants about how things should be done, because I am not the one pulling the strings this time around. I am a fixer and I am currently in a situation within which I cannot exercise my best talents to solve the problems I am confronting--others are driving the star ship and I am just along for the ride.

One of the ways I learned to get my arms around what has happening in my Life is to visualize the major events (milestones) in my life and to plot them as in the example in Fig. 1. (See below.)

Life Happens Through Ups and Downs

What I found through trial and error was that by plotting the major Life events it becomes possible to examine individual events in more depth by exploring their dynamics more fully and by looking at the relationships between one event and another. I found that by examining the underlying supporting belief systems, Life scripts, and feelings that evolved as a result of each event I can work my way to the heart of what has caused me to self-sabotage and thereby contributing to (and possibly creating) the very conditions that I was telling myself I hated. 

Exploring my life in such a manner allows me to gain some control of my life by examining what is happening in my life. My experiences in 2012 are no exception. While things have been out of control at work, thanks to a great set of friends and an awesome family I've been able to keep myself from collapsing under the sheer magnitude of the problems I am confronting. My brother, sister-in-law, roommate and Frat brother, and several close California friends gave me a great send-off and ensured that I had what I needed to make my move to Washington. Seven of my Washington friends stepped up to help me physically make the move to my new home and several of them  offered to take me shopping since I am currently without a vehicle. And, since making the move one  month ago today a number of other friends have come to my aid.

As I have been struggling through sheer exhaustion with keeping my Spirit-self  alive, several friends from around the country have come to help me keep going. I even have one new friend who I have not yet met other than through correspondence share her gifts with me even though she herself needs to receive more than she gives. Like all of us, the outpouring of friendship and love forces me to reflect upon how Life happens--and for me that means going inward to reflect upon what is happening to my Life as a result of external forces that are beyond my control.

My journey inward reminds me of more difficult times when I was forced to confront my most deep-rooted demons. I am so glad that over the years I have dispatched my demons or they would have remained below the surface exacerbating my current situation and controlling how I now live. This past week, as I contemplated my current circumstances I was better able to see one of my Life scripts  appearing to play itself out again. The difference between today and the past is that, today I can recognize the Life script so that I am better able to proactively respond rather than being blindsided by something that was staring me in the face all along.

My Life lesson that I want to share is that we cannot escape our demons or our past, no matter how hard we try, and they will keep revealing themselves at the most inopportune times until we pay attention to them and put them to rest. Ironically, because Life happens as it will, at some point we will experience having emotional highs and lows during a day, week, month, many months, a year, or many years and there is nothing we can do about it but to learn from each circumstance to prepare us for the next occurrence. 

The 44 Day Life Lesson 

In 2012, the entire spectrum of my emotions are being tested to their extremes thus far this year reminding me that Life does not happen in some nice neat liner fashion--moving from Point A, to Point B, to Point C in a tidy neat straight line. In fact, Life is anything but linear--and that's an important concept to grasp. Once, we grasp this idea and embrace it as a fact of Life, then we are free to move on with Life knowing that the best thing we can do to help inoculate ourselves from the effects of Life's circumstances is to live fully and completely by being productive, taking the challenges as they come, and never giving up.

Today, after 44 days of what I will call pure hell, I have decided to let go of those things I cannot control and to allow the Universe (my God) to work Its magic. Ironically, I have know this all along but like all mortals I have allowed myself to become entrapped in a hell of my own making. Today, after 44 days I have come to remember that this too shall pass--one of the key lessons I teach others, but I had forgotten while embroiled in my own mess. Today, after 44 days I have awakened from what seemed like a nightmare not knowing whether I was coming or going to once again realize that it is my choice to decide whether I want to come or to go. Today, after 44 days I have remembered that the majestic beauty of the Cascade mountains also created the lush and fertile valleys that provide the vistas from the top of the mountains. Today, after 44 days I can feel the wind once again begin to fill my sails so that the journey of my choice can once more continue--as evidenced by today's blog entry.

(2011) Pt. Richmond, CA Ferry Point Tunnel

On this 44th day of 2012, I have come to see that I have been so wrapped up in the moment that I have forgotten the larger meaning of Life--to create for myself that which is most meaningful--which for me is living with abundance and love. How could I let this happen? I know better than to allow this to happen to myself; yet I have to remind myself that out of being human I am susceptible to the human condition which is to be imperfect and to lapse back into old habits. As though I needed a kick in the pants, the irony of it all is that my fortune cookie for today read: 

You are free to invent your life.

To borrow the words from a friend, "I know we are all mirrors for one another, and while we are all love at our essence, the shadows that arise are difficult to embrace, and I am learning to love myself through them, as the love that abounds around, for us and within us is unlimited. Be gentle with yourself. Know you are beautiful as you are." Thank you Christina LaFever for reminding me what is important at the precise moment I needed to hear it. Your words in particular have given my Spirit-self the energy I needed today to do what I live to do--to share Life's experiences so that others may have something to hold onto as Life happens for them wherever and whenever it occurs.

Thank you also to all of my friends and family who have helped me when I needed it the most. Your kindness and love does not go unrecognized.  I hope you know just how much you mean to me. We have been and remain committed to each other whenever Life simply happens!