Hey Dave? My sister is a bully who jumps over tables in anger...
Hey Dave? is an advice column. That’s a picture of me, hard at work solving the world’s personal problems. Dave is my real name, and I’m here to help. Why? There are lots of reasons, but mostly because I care about you getting good advice. Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here.------------My older sister and her husband came to visit us last year, and during that time my sister had a meltdown and actually leapt over the table and screamed in my husband’s face while they were having a political discussion.The next evening, she lost her temper while she was having a discussion with our neighbour.The following morning at breakfast, I mentioned that our younger sister was thinking of coming for a visit. My older sister started describing our younger sister with foul words and yelling that she had abandoned her children (her sons are now grown men). I defended our younger sister, replying that she had done the best she could, but that there was also much more to the story than my older sister was aware of. Then my brother-in-law started yelling at me, calling my younger sister a terrible person, and other things. I asked them to please stop yelling in my home and my sister stopped and apologized.A couple of months later, my younger sister posted a picture of her sitting on her patio with a glass of wine, and the message read: “A beautiful evening at home, what more could you ask for?”. My older sister replied with a snide comment about the President, to which my younger sister said that she was not responsible for the actions of the President. My older sister replied, calling my younger sister terrible names and accusing her of abandoning her children. This was all done publicly on Facebook. Then, my younger sister's husband called my older sister to ask her what the heck that was all about. My older sister warned him to never call her again or she would "hunt him down."My older sister is a lawyer, she works for the government, she is a very intelligent woman, but this behavior is very disturbing. She has always had a volatile temper and likes to intimidate and bully people. Now my older sister wants to either visit me again, or have us visit her. I feel torn. She is my sister but her behavior is out of control. How do I resolve this? Should I turn my back on my older sister and no longer have a relationship with her or should I confront her about her behavior? Will confronting her do any good or just be more upsetting?Thanks,Second-Born------------Dear Second-Born,Wow, there’s not just a lot going on here but, overall, your family dynamic also seems to be a little tense, if not outright hostile. Also, your sister leaps over tables?Second-Born, if you’re here for quick solutions, then here are your short answers: Like most problems, this one can be resolved by talking like adults. No, don’t turn your back, but yes, you probably need to confront her. Yes, confronting her will probably do good, but it will also be upsetting.RELATED: Hey Dave? I got the family blues...If you want to make real change, we’re going to have to put some effort in:Oh, brothers. Right out of the gates, tell all of the husbands to shut up and sit down, now. Make a rule with your sisters that, until a wider solution is found that can bring a level of peace between the three of you, keep your husbands out of this. Yes, they can talk to their wives and fume from the sidelines, but that’s where it stays. No phoning or talking to anyone but their partners. Adding extra people to a volatile situation makes it easy for groups to form and then for one person to feel ganged up on, which only further complicates the matter.Sister Act. Your sisters clearly have some deep-seated issues between them that they need to work out. While I’m sure it’s a drag to see them fight, it's unfair to you to be constantly placed in the middle, defending one or the other. Mediating is admirable, but exhausting and time-consuming, and your presence -- by adding one more person in a not-so-fun telephone game -- only complicates the matter. So for issues that don’t directly concern you, step back and try not to play mediator between your sisters. It may be difficult, and they may try to drag you into the beefs that come up between them, but they need be able to talk to each other without your intervention or interpretation. Related is that, until your older sister can talk about your younger sister without flying off the handle or leaping over tables, you should establish a rule that you are not allowed to talk about your younger sister.Anger mismanagement. You older sister has obvious anger-management issues and you need to have a very mature discussion with her, in which you make several interrelated issues clear:That you are deeply concerned for her because you think her temper is not just hurtful to you and other, but that it is eroding her relationships. As evidence of this, tell her that you can no longer have discussions with her when she is angry, and that as soon as she displays anger, whatever conversation you are having will be immediately put on hold until she calms down. If she wants to move forward with her relationship with you, she should seriously consider anger-management therapy, not just because bullying is a terrible way for adults to carry on conversations, but because you are concerned for her general physical and mental well-being. That what you are saying to her is not a confrontation, but a “care-frontation”. Judging from the way you described your sister, I imagine it will be upsetting to both of you, and that if there is a table in the vicinity, she may leap over it. But you need to remind her that you love her just as much as she loves you, and that her behavior is hurting you. Ultimately, if you don’t confront your older sister, she will continue to believe that she can get away with behaving like a child, because that’s what bullies do.Politics by other means. There are two instances in your question when politics are mentioned. Politically, we are living in polarizing times, and family and politics don’t always mix well, even at the best of times. If politics is something that triggers a discussion, which triggers an argument, which triggers your older sister to leap across a table in anger, then maybe you shouldn’t talk about politics. Make a family rule, that everyone - sisters, husbands, kids, dogs - is banned from talking politics. The Rules of Engagement. Most of the above advice revolves around establishing rules of communication. This involves sitting down and agreeing on how to talk about talking. Doing this may at first seem like an overly unnecessary step, but it is crucial. Rules help set the boundaries for not just what can be said, but how it should be said. Rules serve as a reminder to everyone that words can have an effect on people, and that there are ethical and behavioural guidelines to follow when dealing with emotional subjects.RELATED: Hey Dave? Help! My Parents Are Holding Me Back!If all else fails… Maybe you should explain toyour sister that her behaviour is not conducive to a productive conversation and that you need to postpone all visits for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, that would give her a little bit of time to think on some of the consequences of her behaviour.Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here:[contact-form-7 id="6920" title="Contact form - Hey Dave?"]
Hey Dave? I got the family blues...
Hey Dave? is an advice column. That’s a picture of me, hard at work solving the world’s personal problems. Dave is my real name, and I’m here to help. Why? There are lots of reasons, but mostly because I care about you getting good advice. Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here. ------------ I am a fourth-generation, 70-year-old musician. The other musicians in my family haven't helped my career because I play country-bluegrass music, and they are all jazz and rock musicians. I'm tired of my family thinking I have talent, but not helping me invest in my career. Just some down-home support on the part of my family and the music world would be appreciated before I go to meet my maker. Family Blues ------------ Dear Family Blues, Let’s talk about the two kinds of support you may be looking for: financial and moral. Family or not, fact of life across the board, is that people don’t like to part with their money just because you want or even need it. Family or not, people just giving away money with no strings attached and out of the kindness of their hearts doesn’t happen too often. Family or not, it’s not because people are mean-spirited or vindictive or don’t want you to succeed, it’s just that people feel very proprietary about their money, and it’s always tough to convince people to dip into their wallets, especially in these tough times. We’ve been told that money is the only thing that counts, so there are a lot of emotions that are wrapped up around money and its loss: insecurity, fear, desperation, self-worth, entitlement; people get anxious when they give money away. So, if you’re looking for financial support from your family, that they invest money in your career, you are going to have to treat it like a business transaction. Straight, honest, above board. So, you have to be very clear about what you want from them, what they will get and how they will get it; an investment in your career means that they will expect something in return that is of equal or greater value than their investment. Let’s say you think $1000 will help you out. You need to sit down and explain exactly - showing them in detail, broken down in numbers, charts, graphs, whatever - what you need the money for, how you will succeed in using their money to make more money, and when they can expect to get their money back. And if you don’t think you’ll be able to return their investment in actual dollars, you have to: 1) be honest with them about this, and 2) offer them something in return that they feel is worth the same or more than that $1000. Any which way, an investment is a give-and-take, a two-way street. Both parties have to give up something to get something in return. That said, before even going down this path, remember that family and money don’t always mix well. Proceed with caution. Okay, onto the second, much trickier, very different kind of support; moral support. Let’s tackle this from a few angles. If you are looking for a little support, nothing stops you from asking for it. One of our most profound abilities we have as humans is to be simple and direct. To walk up to someone you care for, take their hand, look them in the eyes and ask “Can you help me out? It would mean a lot to me” is a profound and powerful exchange that echoes throughout the ages with the spirit of human companionship and cooperation. Being a little different can also mean a bit of a tougher road sometimes. In your case, playing your own different style of music, while all those around you play the same, you’re going to feel a little isolated. But you need to know that that’s okay, too; that’s what it is like to literally “do your own thing”. A little isolation is a small price to pay for creative freedom, right? However, a more complicated issue may have to do with how you relate to your own life, and that has to do with how you define your happiness. If you are upset that people haven’t shown you the support you think you deserve, then there’s a larger problem. See, nobody owes really owes you unlimited, unchecked, unconditional moral support, not even family and friends. More often than not, support you receive will be specific, in that it will be a specific kind of moral support, for a specific activity, at a specific time. Thing is, it isn’t written anywhere that you get to choose who gets to provide what kind of support, for what and when. To dig a little deeper, I will ask you a series of questions that will sting a bit, but they will get to the heart of the problem: Why do you think you deserve their support? Or better yet, why do you even care? Why are you even playing music in the first place? Are you playing music because you want people to say nice things, or are you playing music because you love it, and can’t imagine living your life without it? If you are searching for external approval, and you want somebody to say “well done” and “good job,” and that you are unhappy because they haven’t, then the peace you have to make is not with your family, or with your maker, but with yourself. Happiness is measured by internal variables, not external ones. That is, if you are doing something for reasons outside of you, external variables like money, fame, glory, cupcakes, whatever, you will always inevitably be disappointed. There is a hole inside people that is difficult to fill, and if left unchecked and unexamined,will always demand more and more of those external things that provide feel like approval. The only approval you need is your own. If it makes YOU happy, truly happy, on the very deep down insides of you, then that’s the only measure that counts. We’re not given a whole lot in the short time we have here on this fair earth, so to have a talent and a passion is a wonderful, rare and precious gift. To have made a career of a passion is even more rare. Don’t waste your time worrying if other people recognize you or your talent, or give you words of support or even truckloads of cash. Cherish the time you have with something that you love. Once you can do that, once you can lose yourself in that uncanny place where body meets mind meet spirit and submerge yourself in the passion of your gift, and do it without rancor or bitterness, you will truly be set free to move on. ------------ Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here: [contact-form-7 id="6920" title="Contact form - Hey Dave?"]
Hey Dave? Help! My Parents Are Holding Me Back!
Hey Dave? is an advice column. That’s a picture of me, hard at work solving the world’s personal problems. Dave is my real name, and I’m here to help. Why? There are lots of reasons, but mostly because I care about you getting good advice. Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here. ------------ Hiya Dave, Someone recently asked me what it is I want in regards to a career, and to be honest I don't know. I'm 23 and I have no idea what it is I want to do with my life. I feel like most of my friends and family who are my age have an idea of what they want, and then there is me. I have a full time job, and although it isn't fulfilling, the people are nice, and it pays the bills. I'm stuck in an endless cycle of repetition. I really want to travel or break out of the mundane life. However, being both British Pakistani and the only daughter, it's pretty much impossible. For the longest time, my parents have always “wrapped me up in cotton wool” [ed. note: British expression for coddled, sheltered], and whenever I suggest doing something on my own, it's almost instantly shot down. All these thoughts result in me having days where I feel anxious and down. Do you have any advice on how I would be able to change up my routine, or at least convince my traditional parents that this is my life, and I should be free to make my own mistakes? Thanks for reading, Cotton-Wooled ------------ Dear Cotton-Wooled, Immediately, let me say that you are almost there. You are close to a moment of change. And I believe you can do it. You are off to a great start. Here’s why: While you may not know what you exactly want to do with your life, you know that you want something else, and you feel that something needs to change, and soon. You are still young and you have a level of courage and self-awareness to be asking yourself some serious existential questions. While perhaps not fulfilling, your job at least affords you the time to plot your future awesomeness. Whether it’s built into our DNA, part of our cultural upbringing or a sign of our fast-paced times, most people operate at a low-level of anxiety and uncertainty and fear because they feel incomplete, or that something is missing from their lives, or that they are not doing the “right” thing, or that the grass is greener on the other side. Your friends that have all the answers? Well, they are just as scared and undecided as you. Maybe not about exactly the same things, but know that the fear and indecision is never really that far away in anybody’s life, no matter the age. The bad news? There’s a good chance this feeling will never go away. I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m still scared and plagued by indecision every day. I still feel that something is missing from my life. Truth is, people, all people, will never be 100% completely satisfied. The good news? Realizing that this feeling will probably never go away unshackles you from its power and control over you. Let yourself feel the fear and anxiety, and then let them pass. If they’re always going to be there lurking in the shadows anyways, there’s no need to give them all of your time. More importantly, in the long run, you should devote that time instead to shifting your perspective when those feelings arise. An unknown future doesn’t need to feel anxious; it can feel exciting. Don’t know what career you want? That’s an opportunity to try a variety of cool jobs. Uncertain about your unfulfilling job? Think of it as being paid to plot out your next moves into happiness. And here is where all of this translates into action - if it’s natural to feel a little scared and a little anxious about the future, you might as well do something RIGHT NOW that makes you happy and healthy, right? Going down this path - of doing the things, big and small, that make you happy - you’ll start to see, from a long-term or higher-order perspective, that that anxiety will melt away because you are starting to learn to live in the moment, where present happiness replaces future anxiety. You’ll start to see that doing things you love makes you feel that you - and only you - are in charge of your happiness. And this, then, brings us to Mom and Dad. What you seem to be missing is that last boost of confidence to confront your parents, which, no doubt, can be daunting, so here goes: no matter colour or creed, culture or country, no one can decide for you how you should define your own happiness. No matter the circumstances in which people find themselves, it is one of the few freedoms that people will truly ever have, this ability to decide how to be happy, and this is the point you need to get across to your parents. Cotton-Wooled, there’s no easy way around this one. You have to sit your parents down, but - and this is key! - not as their child, but as an adult that is their peer and equal, and have a frank mature conversation. (You can even start the conversation like that. “I’d like to have this conversation with you as an adult peer, and not your child.”) And then ask them if they would deny another person the freedom to choose their happiness. You have to explain to them that: you have one life this one life belongs to no one but you; it is you who are in possession of it, and feels its consequences because of this, while others may help, there is no one else but you who is responsible for your life the only way to learn responsibility for your life is to grow the only way to grow is have the freedom to make decisions for yourself and that you have very much appreciated all the support they have shown you, but it is time for them to perform the most noble and true act of parenting (also the hardest), that of giving you the freedom to grow into your own person, and that, what should matter to them, is that out there in the world, as a free and responsible adult human being, everybody will know what a great job they’ve done raising such an amazing person, so that, ultimately, letting you go only makes them look good! I would also add the need to let your parents know that the current situation is negatively affecting your emotional and mental (and possible, eventually, physical) well-being, and that to stay in that situation is becoming detrimental. Part of the above responsibility of being an adult is to have the freedom to remove oneself from harm and take control of one’s overall health. Their inability to accept your decisions is causing you pain, and that’s unacceptable. It’s not easy being at your crossroads, Cotton-Wooled. But I have so much hope for you. Follow your heart and do all the things you love, because it is only in that pursuit will the weight of existence be lifted. The deeper you get, the more you will see those passions unfold in strange, new directions. Be curious, follow those directions, always ask deeper and deeper questions. There is a bottomless well of passion inside everybody. You just have to jump in! ------------ Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here: [contact-form-7 id="6920" title="Contact form - Hey Dave?"]
"Hey Dave? I’m a bit stuck. I feel “happy” but concepts such as passion or joy are alien to me."
Hey Dave? is an advice column. That’s a picture of me, hard at work solving the world’s personal problems. Dave is my real name, and I’m here to help. Why? There are lots of reasons, but mostly because I care about you getting good advice. Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here.------------Hey Dave?I'm a bit stuck. I feel “happy” but concepts such as passion or joy are alien to me. Don’t get me wrong I can lose myself in some things such as a video game or a movie but I seek to return to a place more of honest caring than distraction. I am trying reduce the advice I get down to a short list of actionable tasks that can at least be a foundation of a solid actionable starting point to a happy life.I meditate and I ponder things that I enjoy and I make a gratitude list or a dream / want list, but in the end writing the list is the extent of my progress. I can look at it, acknowledge that I would like to travel more or help those in need but in the end I face the task of beginning. Without passion or desire there is just numb action that starts with a bit of momentum and then stalls. I have all of the means necessary to accomplish everything I set my mind to, except for the fire. It’s like being in love with cooking, truly loving it, loving every step, every seasoning, every single aspect of it but in the end you come to find you have no taste buds. You can’t taste anything for yourself so you try and make food for others and for a while0 you can savor your passion through their happiness but there is the ever present knowledge that it’s not your own. I’m trying to get past that. I feel like the ramblings of this long worded question is a good reflection of the directionless meandering of my mind. I feel like a broken watch trying to fix itself and without external input, direction and an outlet I'm not sure where to aim or how to find a use for myself. Thanks friend,Not Dreaming------------Dear Not Dreaming,First of all, it’s important to acknowledge that most people have a directionless, meandering mind most of the time. This is the burden of consciousness. Also, most people often feel aimless and without purpose. This is, amongst other things, the burden of living in a social and economic system that ties a person’s self-worth to what they do (i.e. often, their job).So, first things first, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, let me welcome you to the malaise of the human condition in a post-capitalist society! Huzzah!Passion-Action Feedback LoopYou’re in a funk, Not Dreaming, because you seem to be having trouble kickstarting the Passion-Action Feedback Loop (this is not at all a scientific term (yet!) but bear with me). See, if you’re passionate about something, you will feel motivated to act upon it in some capacity. When your actions have positive results (however you choose to define that), then you will be motivated to continue acting on that passion, thereby increasing those results. Simply then, doing something you love makes you feel good, so you continue to do it, which makes you feel even better. Deep Questions and the Multiplicity of PassionLet me commend your fine cooking metaphor and then extend it through a rebuttal. Your taste buds may be on the fritz, but don’t forget that your brain relies on other senses to construct how a food tastes, like smell and touch. (Okay, really stretching the analogy here) So, if you’ve lost the taste for a passion, maybe you should try smelling it instead (i.e. reconceptualize it and approach it from a different angle).This means that there are always many entry points into finding new passions or re-kindling old ones. In order to discover, multiply and explore these other entry points into passion, maybe you need to dig a little deeper than what you’ve already done. I’m not saying that what you’ve done so far hasn’t been long or difficult or stressful, and you’re definitely pointed in the right direction. But how you’re going about it seems surface-level, and maybe you need to go deeper. Pondering, making wish lists, reciting gratitudes, imagining yourself a better person and thinking about dreams and travel - these activities have their place, but they are all surface-level compared to unearthing the deep, down messy specifics of desire and what gives you pleasure. And, because of this, you’re only getting surface-level results, i.e. not “real” pleasure. If your goal is to find your true passions, reciting gratitudes feels hollow because it is the wrong method to achieve that goal. And this is because to achieve deep fulfillment requires deep thinking. Similarly - okay, yanking the band-aid here - if you want real pleasure, you have to ask yourself real questions. Even your question reflects this somewhat; you’re looking for a short list of actionable items to find happiness, except engaging with real questions about serious personality preferences cannot be reduced to a listicle that will shortcut you to happiness, despite what a million websites will tell you.(True, the exercise below involves lists that need to be written down, but you’ll see that it’s designed to access deeper states of feeling).Like anything truly meaningful, it will take work to get there (some would say that the work itself is the meaning, but let’s not digress too much). Let’s jump in!Your Passion ProjectWhat do you love? Make a list of the things you do love. Not “like”, not distractions, not gratitudes, not vague resolutions, but a short list; no less than three, no more than five of the things you love, like loooove, that you really can’t imagine living without or that you remember loving as a kid or that you find yourself looking forward to or excited to tell someone. For me, it’s reading books.Write it down, even if it is the smallest, weirdest, most obscure thing that really makes you heart thump (see, the thing is, oceans of passion can be poured into the smallest vessel, as if it was bottomless, which is a wonderful, strange law of the physics of love and passion (not a real law, btw)). (for brevity’s sake, I’m only going to write down one)Dave loves to readWhy do you love?Now take your list and ask yourself what is it specifically about each of those things that gives you the feels. Again, no limits on why you love a thing. You’ll have to do some deep thinking to peel back the layers to figure out why you love something. Desire and pleasure are mysterious creatures and can takes many forms.Okay, here goes for me:1-A. Dave loves to read because it makes him feel smarter.1-B. Dave loves to read because it makes him more empathetic.1-C. Dave loves to read because books smell nice.1-D. Dave loves to read because it helps him fall asleep.1-E. Dave loves to read because it momentarily shuts up all the racing thoughts in his head.1-F. Dave loves to read because watching too much TV gives him a headache.Now you have a list of the reasons why you love one particular thing. Some of those reasons are practical (books helps me sleep), some are feeling-based (books make me feel smart), some are inexplicable (books smell nice). It doesn’t matter, just keep on writing it all down.How do you love?Now we’re going to go even deeper. For each one of those reasons, try to elaborate on the positive feeling that is associated with that reason. In the same way as you just did, you have to peel back each one of these reasons to get at what the root feeling is. Here, I’m going to select 1-E from above, I read because it quiets my racing thoughts.1-E-i. Dave likes to quiet the racing thoughts because it makes him feel calm.1-E-ii. Dave likes to quiet the racing thoughts because it makes him feel more focused.1-E-iii. Dave likes to quiet the racing thoughts because it makes him think more clearly.Now your list is getting massive. Based on this limited exercise, had I continued with the full exercise and wrote down 3 things I love, I would have had 18 reasons why I love them and 48 positive ways how they make me feel. What do to with this?Few things drive human beings more than the pursuit of pleasure, and you’ve just made a huge list of the things that give you pleasure and what that pleasure is. What you’ll start to see is that there is some overlap and repetition in your answers, and those are exactly the answers that you should pay close attention to, The same positive feelings are showing up in very different activities, a clear indication that you are doing those activities precisely because it triggers those feelings. When I did this exercise, I realized I enjoyed many of my passions because they gave me this feeling of mental calmness. I saw how this particular feeling was appearing in different activities, and realized it must be important, something I wanted or needed.Therefore, your job is to pursue those feelings by finding activities that trigger them.Think of this exercise as a recommendation algorithm for your passion. You enjoy [feeling X] ? You should try [activity Y] !For my part, I sought out that very particular effect/feeling/quality - for me, mental calmness - in other activities, even ones I had never tried before. I tried yoga, meditating, video games, podcasts, anything to stop the racing thoughts and impose a state of mental calm. In the end, none of those stuck, but what I did find was running. It absolutely silences my inner voices while I run, and leaves me in a zen-like state of calm for hours afterwards. I’ve been running 10K every two days for 4 years. The deeper you get, the more you will see those passions unfold in strange, new directions. Be curious, follow those directions, always ask deeper and deeper questions. There is a bottomless well of passion inside everybody. You just have to jump in!------------Are you in a tough spot and want to say Hey Dave? You can ask me your question here:[contact-form-7 id="6920" title="Contact form - Hey Dave?"]