So today’s SuperBetter tricks are concrete things you can use to get through difficult holiday moments.  Or, really, any moment.  We’ve been using them all over the place.

Distraction

The twins sat down for dinner and looked out the window. Every night, a family of deer ends up walking through our front yard or a neighbour’s yard, so we spend a lot of time looking out the window, waiting for them. I set down the meal and said, “I’m going to give you a task. I want you to spend 10 seconds NOT thinking about the deer. Don’t think about the deer AT ALL. Got it? 10 seconds, no deer. I’ll count.”

They both started giggling nervously as they looked at each other, and admitted at the end of the 10 second count that they had spent the entire 10 seconds thinking about the deer. How could they not? I had told them (1) don’t think about deer and (2) they were sitting by the window which is where they always see the deer. So there was nowhere to look that didn’t trigger the thought that I had just reminded them several times not to have.

I gave them the second part of the task: “Once again, spend a minute NOT thinking about the deer. But this time, I want you to come up with a list of words that contain an “S” somewhere before an “E” like house or seat or stare. As many words you can come up with in a minute while not thinking about deer. Got it? I’ll count again.”

They giggled through the first few seconds, but then I started seeing their fingers pop up as they counted how many words they could list in a minute. When I called time, they told me that while the deer had popped into their brain a few times towards the beginning, by the end, they had mostly forgotten about the deer until I stopped the activity.

The exercise highlights the idea of spotlight attention (p. 33), which explains how we can fully lose ourselves in a game and not realize how long we’ve been playing it. It’s also something that a person can use to distract themselves from anxiety when you’re in an uncomfortable situation or you’re going to your worst case scenario mental place, even if triggers for those thought are all around you. If nothing else, playing this quick game is an internal reminder that you need to re-focus. At best, it can break the anxious or disruptive thoughts long enough that you can get back on task. And it only takes a minute to do.

Power Breathing

I love this one.  I’ve been reminding the kids to do it whenever they’re scared, and I do it whenever I start panicking as I’m lying awake at 2 am, going through what ifs.  Breathe out double the length of time that you’re breathing in.  That’s it (p. 82).

So breathe in for the count of 3 and breathe out for the count of 6 (or use 4 and 8 if you have enough lung power).  In for 3, out for 6, over and over again, for as long as you can keep up this rhythm.  If fact, set the timer for a minute, close your eyes, and try breathing like this until the timer goes off.  It may not solve all of your problems, but I’m willing to bet that you will feel calmer or more relaxed after one minute.

These are just two of the hundreds of exercises in the book.

I’m writing about SuperBetter the app as well as SuperBetter the book because… well… I learned about them via a podcast and now I want to talk about everything I’m learning on them.  If you want to talk about them, too, join along.  If not, skip the posts marked SuperBetter.

I’ve obviously been giving a lot of thought to happiness this year through SuperBetter.  I don’t know why I connected with that book whereas all the other “happiness”-themed books rolled off my skin like my internal vinegar repelled those books’ oil.  Maybe it’s because SuperBetter doesn’t directly aim you toward happiness, though admits that happiness tends to be where people end up.  More on that over the next few weeks as I finish up unpacking my thoughts on the book and how I set up my own personal challenge.

Despite all of that, I clicked on Atlas Obscura’s recent post about a man who drew a map for 18th century foundering youth who couldn’t figure out the way to happiness.  I mean, if there was a direct route, I wanted to know about it.  Enough with this traipsing willy-nilly through the woods trying to find the other side.

Spoiler alert: It’s just freakin’ hard work and morality.  That’s the secret sauce: passion, reason, and religion.

But… I guess the idea interested me because, so often, people DO speak about happiness as if it is a tangible object or physical space that people can get to akin to hopping a plane to London.  (Unless you live in London, and then change that to hopping a plane to New York.)  You can find happiness in the physical space of tidy drawers.  Or happiness in a well-padded bank account.  Or happiness in a perfect vacation.

There are places that make me happy, even when unhappy things happen there.  And there are places that don’t make me happy, even when happy things happen there.

If you were to stumble upon a map, one that led you on a long journey from place to place but promised happiness in the end, would you take it?  And why would be believe that map anyway when you know that life itself is a long journey from place to place and happiness can never be promised?

I am known for annoying my family by asking them to rank things on a 1 to 10 scale.  What do you think of this new stuffing recipe on a scale from 1 to 10?  How excited are you for the next Dirk Gently episode on a scale from 1 to 10?  How much do you think these shoes are a bad idea?  1 to 10?

So imagine my excitement when Jane McGonigal proposed in her SuperBetter book using that 1 to 10 scale to get people to actually connect rather than give the rote answer of “fine” when asked about their state of being.

How it works: Instead of asking someone, “How are you?” say, “How is your day going on a scale from 1 to 10?”  And then when the person gives you the number, ask them the reason as well as what you can do to bump it up one digit.

For instance, I ask, “How is your day going on a scale from 1 to 10?”

And maybe you answer, “Um… a 2.  I found a $10 bill in my coat pocket this morning, but, you know, Trump is still president-elect.  So maybe not even a 2?”

“What can I do to make it a 3?”

Perhaps there is nothing I can do to bump up life to a 3, but you get the point.  Instead of answering with a quick (and usually fake) “fine,” the person is forced to not only think for a moment about the number, but they usually volunteer their reasoning behind giving the number.  Since putting this into effect, I’ve only run into a few 10s, which unless something really exciting or relaxing or happy has happened that day doesn’t seem entirely truthful, and have mostly heard a range of interesting answers from 1 to 9.

I’ve also had everyone snicker when I ask what I can do to bump it up a notch, and it makes us both realize in the moment how little we can do to remove someone else’s emotional burden beyond holding it for a few seconds at a time.  That moment of recognition isn’t depressing; it’s actually refreshing to simply have the things you’re grappling with acknowledged.  Plus every once in a while, I’ve actually been able to jump in and do something for another person that has made a small difference including connecting them with someone who really can help or retweeting a message they want to get out there.

So… how is your day going from 1 to 10?  And what can I do to bump it up one digit?

I’m writing about SuperBetter the app as well as SuperBetter the book because… well… I learned about them via a podcast and now I want to talk about everything I’m learning on them.  If you want to talk about them, too, join along.  If not, skip the posts marked SuperBetter.

So I’ve really gotten into SuperBetter and have expanded to reading the book while I fiddle around with the app.  I’ve put a link to both the book and app at the bottom of the post in case anything I write resonates with you and you want to join along.

Anyway, I’ve been sailing through the information, nodding nodding nodding until I hit a thought that triggered an internal question that will probably be familiar for many of you.  I should preface this with a fact: Jane McGonigal talks about her own infertility in the book, so it’s a familiar topic for the author.

Somewhere near the beginning of the book, she writes about how games get us comfortable with the concept of losing.  Think about the games you play: The vast majority of the time, you don’t win, right?  I mean, yes, you ultimately clear the board in Candy Crush or get all the cards to line up in Solitaire, but there’s a reason most games come with multiple lives or chances.  She even states later in the book: “Gamers, after all, spend on average 80% of the time failing when they play their favourite games” (p. 86).

I am completely fine with losing games.  I am about as competitive as a slug.  In fact, the slug may care more about the outcome of games that I do.  I’m not competitive in the real world, either.  I don’t run races or care what the neighbours are doing… I just don’t feel particularly moved over whether I “win” or “lose,” even in everyday life.

Except in one place.

Losing during a cycle triggered the deepest grief, and I still can’t explain the reaction to this day.  Was it because I saw the stakes higher?  That doesn’t sound quite right, since the stakes are pretty damn high when it comes to other facets of life such as career, marriage, or health.  Was it the time factor — both the idea that time mattered when it came to fertility AND the length of time between tries?  It’s very different when you have to wait a month or two for another chance to play vs. being able to drop in a quarter and hit start to play again.  The effort expended with no “win”?  But it didn’t matter if it was a medicated or unmedicated cycle: I reacted the same way every single time.

I ultimately never found a way to be comfortable with losing when it came to trying to conceive.  I cried and raged and internally begged my way through every cycle.  Would it have been different if I had used the concrete exercises in this book back then?  Or do we all have places in life that are untouchable; that are therapy-proof?

I don’t have an answer: It’s just an observation about myself.  That while I can be okay losing at lots of things, the baby making game isn’t one of them.

I’m writing about SuperBetter the app as well as SuperBetter the book because… well… I learned about them via a podcast and now I want to talk about everything I’m learning on them.  If you want to talk about them, too, join along.  If not, skip the posts marked SuperBetter.

One of my SuperBetter tasks told me to toast myself.  Not to wait until I had done something fantastic, but to toast myself… just for being me.

Mind blown.

You see, every week or so, I walk by this fancy bottle of lemonade at the food store.  I’ve always wanted to try it, but I told myself that I would get it the next time I had something to celebrate.  I didn’t think I deserved bubbly blood orange-flavoured lemonade any more than I deserve a trophy or a ribbon or an award.  Fancy drinks are for celebrations, and I have nothing to celebrate.

And it felt sort of… I don’t know… like I was tempting fate to just buy myself this product I had been saving for a special occasion.  But what was I waiting for?  What if I died tomorrow and never knew what blood orange-flavoured lemonade tasted like?  I drove to the store and bought myself a handful of Kind bars and a fancy drink.

At dinner, I poured a bit for each of us, and I asked everyone to raise their glass and toast something about themselves.  Something they accomplished, even if it was a small thing.  And then I told everyone that we were awesome just the way we are, and we drank to that.  In fact, we drank the whole bottle.  And Josh removed the sticker for me and washed it out so we now have a fancy water bottle for the dinner table so people don’t have to get up to refill their cup.

How you like them apples?  (By which I mean blood oranges.)

Go buy yourself a fun drink today and toast yourself.  What small thing are you celebrating?