Don't Mess With Mister InBetween

Don’t Mess With Mister In Between

Last week on the Oprah show, I was persuaded by a man on a mission. The message this zealot sends out with his “Complaining Bracelets” encourages millions of people to break the habit of bitching about their lives. The way I understand it is that I am to wear a bracelet on one arm unless I complain. Then I must switch it to the other wrist. If I go 21 consecutive days without having to move it, I will meet his ‘scientific’ criterion of the number of days it takes to break a habit.

Now I’ve been sick of being sick for over a year. I find myself not only complaining about my lousy lungs but worse, I grumble about my inability to accept my symptoms with grace especially when I think I know how to help others. You’d think that with the 55 years it took me to get a Masters degree in Applied Clinical Psychology, I would have the savvy to deal with pain and suffering in a healthy way. I know. I know. I have just chalked up four or maybe even five more moves of that darn bracelet!

Reckoning that the magic isn’t only in this man’s rubber bands, I picked out a favourite pretty blue butterfly tiled bracelet from my jewellery drawer. For years I have believed in “the power of positive thinking”. I named my Transformational theatre company “Yes oh Yes Drama Outreach”. My meditations often consciously breathe in “the good” and breathe out “the bad” prana yoga style. Sundays, I enjoy watching “The Hour of Power” for its guests bearing witness to their successes through positive thinking. I also adhere to the basic premise of the popular DVD, “The Secret”, which offers the “Law of Attraction” as proof that like attracts like - though I’d rather think good thoughts to manifest health and happiness than to visualize the multitude of material things it uses to sell its message. Recently I exulted in loudly calling out “YES” to Peace and all good things with James Twyman and 6000 other New Agers on a conference call.

I often quote Dale Carnegie and facilitate a powerful exercise which shows how we are weakened physically when we think bad thoughts. With Bing Crosby, I want to “Accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative; latch on to the affirmative and don’t mess with Mister in between.”

But wait a minute! How many dramatic re-enactments of childhood horror stories which forbade the expression of true feelings did I facilitate in my psychodrama practice? How many times have I encouraged unconditional acceptance and love of self and others in all of our colours whether we are painted with happiness or sadness? Haven’t we all been emotionally wounded by being told, “Don’t cry. It’s going to be all right” or that to be angry is to be bad. As a child I couldn’t understand why I should never complain about having to eat food I didn’t want because I was to think of the starving children in Africa. We are conditioned to fault ourselves for being anything other than happy campers even if a bear takes all of our food.

Many analogies exist to celebrate the darkness too: a painting with no shadow would be pretty unnatural; we don’t get rainbows without cloud bursts; and as far as the “like attracts like” theory goes, how about the magnetic poles which prove positive pulls negative to it? Maybe there’s truth in the old adage that God sends trials only to those who can handle them. Why else would I have stayed married to a negative thinker for 20 years? I had the perfect mate to blame while I projected my own shadow. By my second husband I had grown enough in wisdom to choose an obvious opposite in race, colour, religion, creed with a 32 year age difference. My soul learned the lessons of unconditional love and acceptance while we were together and of non-attachment when it was time for us to part.

Since I have chosen not to take the toxic medication that would arrest my T.B. again, I would dearly love to not complain about how sick I feel despite being drug free. I would like to remember that since I’m assured of not being contagious, I am very wise to refuse the drugs knowing how much worse I would feel if I were taking them. In truth I want to keep my bracelet on one arm as a reward for saying, “Yes” to my dreaded uttering of the word, “No.” When I get “Pollyanna-like”, my daughter Jan says, “Mom, say what you really feel. It helps me to know you better.” My surrogate son, Rob, applauds embracing pain as one would care for a hurt child. I cannot help though but admire my friends who stoically get on with life through physical suffering and challenges without complaint. I realize that my guilt for not doing so becomes its own burden.

I know in my heart that the lessons of my life’s journey would be wasted if I didn’t acknowledge that far more than the circumstance, it’s my reaction to it that causes me the pain. Although it cleanses me sometimes to “dump my garbage,” it can become boring and I must admit to being totally unsympathetic when someone else cries, “Wolf. Wolf” just once too often. A major path of mine, A Course In Miracles tells us that our two main emotions are love and fear and that all negative feelings come from fear and all positive thoughts from love. Since I love to love, I want to be in sync with my nature by letting go of all the grumbling and complaints which surely come from fear of losing my health on some permanent basis.

Interesting that the journey this poor bracelet takes so often between those two wrists crosses over my heart and my lungs. Since my preference seems to be to stay in my heart, why not just lovingly let my struggle for the breath of life that my lungs incidentally continue to support be a-okay too? Does it really matter in the scheme of things if I grumble once in awhile?

I haven’t gone a day yet without moving my bracelet from one arm to another. I’ve scarcely gone an hour. Maybe the Mister in between was that guy on the Oprah show. If I just stop messing with him I can enjoy my bracelet. I like it on my left arm best!