The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com, and@amazon.com

Right before the break, we were talking with Cosmos. Cosmos, are you there?

Yeah, yeah, I can barely hear you. Hold—I'm sorry. Oh no, that was my part there. So I asked you, right before the break, what would happen if you say left the lights on all day and just said when you left, "I'm leaving. I know there's a lot of anxiety that I'm feeling, but I am not going to go back and check," or "I am not going to—I'm going to close the garage door once, drive away, and the heck with it. If I left it open, I left it open." What goes through your mind in that anxiety state? What comes to your mind? What images or thoughts keep coming to your mind if you don’t go back and check?

Well, the thing is, I don't think about the consequences. My mind just thinks about checking this or that as part of the daily routine. I don't think about the consequences and that—say that I started thinking about what, what would happen, right? I think that my mind would still have to go through the exercise of, well, let me see. Okay, it's just a light, that's okay. But then I have to think what, what would happen. And I guess it’s hard for me to explain it, but I have to actually think of the consequences an ordinary person wouldn’t, okay.

You want to do the introspective work, because you want to get to the bottom of this. First, you need to know that usually those repetitive behaviors—the checking the door to make sure it’s locked, or some people wash their hands, some people have to pray all the time with the rosary beads to ward off bad thoughts. Some people just… they have all irrational rules that they have to follow during the day, and it destroys what could be a phenomenal life, or it undermines what’s currently a relatively good life. And as you say, it can grow over time if you don’t wrap your mind around it and figure out what’s going on. If we were working together, I would let you know that it’s normal. Some of what you’re doing is very good because it’s important to check the oven, to check the heaters, and to check to make sure the door is locked. So a lot of those are based on rational precautions that we all take. We close the garage door. My sister didn’t and her bike was stolen, right? But not the way you’re doing it. It’s, it’s ruining your own image of yourself. I’m assuming that you’re a bright—you’re a very good person with other values in your life, things you enjoy, with a good career, and this is going to mess up a romantic relationship. So it, yeah. So it’s hard to, it’s hard to just tell yourself directly, "Okay, don’t do this anymore," because if I told you right now, “Don’t think about your garage being closed or open,” what comes to your mind?

Well, there’s that uncertainty. Now you’re saying that these are rational precautions, but I’m just taking—

You’re just taking them to—you’re exaggerating them way more than they ever need to be, which puts them into the irrational category. You want to so treasure your mind that you want to know the difference between minor things, like leaving the light on or leaving the garage door open, and major things, like a hurricane coming right towards our neck of the woods, or a tornado. And so you want to be able to just value your mind so much that you can discriminate between, hey—

I got to interrupt this, because we’ve got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where’s that ad I saw? Here it is—The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it@amazon.com hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

And so you want to be able to just value your mind so much that you can discriminate between unimportant things and important things. That’s one point. I do exercises in therapy to help with this. You also need to be able to see how much evidence you have to know what the threat is. Because if you haven’t done the introspective work to figure out what the threat is, if you don’t check the lights, if—well, if you leave the oven on, assuming it’s not a gas oven, you just waste a lot of electricity. You know, I don’t think it would do much harm, because when we clean our ovens—I have an electric oven. It’s not a problem. I mean, it’s on for a few—what is it? An hour or so when you’re cleaning it. So you’d have to pay a little more. The iron is a problem, but you can buy an iron that has an automatic turn-off. The garage door, unless you’re in a very bad neck of the woods, it’s not a big problem. And there’s no such thing as 110% sure. There are some things you don’t need certainty for. And if you have just locked the door, you’ve gotten all the sensory input of putting the key in. Say it’s a key lock—you can feel with your hands locking the door, you walk away, and then your mind vomits up an arbitrary assertion that says, “But Cosmos, what if you just didn’t? What if you didn’t just lock the door?” You’ve got to trust your own sensory input. You just did it. You felt it. You saw it with your eyes.

See, and that’s what I have to do, though. I have to actively know that I locked a door, and an ordinary person would just lock it, not even think about that, because—

Once you automatize the behavior, you don’t have to think about it. And I suspect you don’t have to think about which is the brake and which is the gas pedal. We do it automatically. If you have any hobby, such as tennis, after you train your mind, you don’t have to think, “Well, how do I get a shot?” I don’t know how to play tennis, so I’m at a loss. I know ballroom dancing, so I would say at the beginning, learning a new step, learning a silver step in waltz, is hard for me. But after I’ve practiced it, it’s automatized. I don’t even have to think about it. You want locking your door in your home, doing the quick check-through that all of us do—you want that to be on autopilot at this stage, not to have to constantly question your mind as if you’re your parent and treating yourself like a two-year-old. “Are you sure you didn’t check things?”

You know, I used to be automated like that. I used to be when I was younger.

How old?

I mean, in high school, earlier than that, I used to lock a door without thinking about it.

Something happened then, Cosmos. Something happened at that point. That’s what you want to go back to. You always look for when—when did I not have this problem? Because that tells you you can return to that wonderful state of having this be a non-issue in your life. It’ll take a transition period. It will take skill-building. I want to recommend some books. There’s a workbook Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Gail Steketee, where you can actually work with a therapist on getting rid of this once and for all—you don’t have it for life. I hate it when therapists say stuff like that. There’s a book by Edna Foa called Stop Obsessing: How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions. But you, what you want to do is remember that you once had a period in your life when you didn’t have this baggage and that you can return there—you have the skills. It’s just that you have to break a bad habit. So I would recommend breaking it sooner than later, driving away, living with the discomfort of not checking that garage ever again.

Training—

I wish I could.

You can. If you tell yourself, “I wish I could,” that’s implying that you can’t. Just drive away. Observe what happens in your mind. What’s the worst thing that can happen?

I don’t know. The bike gets taken.

Everything too. I mean, I had my first checking account when I was, like, 17. I had no problems writing a check. Then now it takes me, like, three times longer.

Well, you don’t have to. You have to decide whether you want to make slow change or quick change. I would opt for the quicker change. And I think those books will help you. You can also go to my website, Dr kenner.com—there may be some information. Thank you so, so much for your call. And call me back, let me know how this goes.

Thank you very much.

Okay, for more Dr Kenner podcast, go to Dr kenner.com.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by Drs. Kenner and Locke.

As you learn more about your romantic partner, it becomes easier to nourish your relationship. Each day, ask yourself, "What can I do today to make my partner feel loved?" Avoid the error of assuming that what makes you feel loved is exactly what makes your partner feel loved. In The Five Love Languages, author Gary Chapman recommends that each couple know one another’s most important love languages. One category of love language includes positive encouragement (“I know you can do it”), giving recognition (“Great work”), and showing appreciation (“Hey, thanks for doing the dishes”). We recommend that you show sincere appreciation to your partner every day. These positive gestures are great visibility enhancers.

You can download chapter one for free by going to Dr kenner.com and you can buy the book@amazon.com