It's in the Way that you view it

Paramedics Harold and Anne received an urgent call one dark rainy night.  A
popular teenager who lived in an unfamiliar section of the country was
having difficulty breather after he returned from playing in a basketball
game.  Reacting quickly, they drove toward the house but found that the
bridge en route had washed away.  Quickly looking at his map, Anne directed
Harold to an alternate route. In their haste, however, they sped past the
turn and lost several precious minutes.  When they arrived at the house, the
teenager had stopped breathing and could not be resuscitated.  Harold
thought angrily, “Why did such a fine young man have to die?  Life is so
unfair!” Then sadly, “If only I had heeded my instincts and turned sooner.
I could kick myself for being so dumb.”  Later he worries, “What if
something like that happens to my kids?” Harold begins to have trouble
sleeping and can’t get the thought of the young teenager out of his mind.
He starts to notice his heart pounding and wondering if he is having a heart
attack.  He can’t seem to unwind and eventually takes a leave of absence.
 
Jean however, processes the event differently, she thought, “It is so sad
that that fine young man died.  He had such a bright future.  I’ll always
wonder if we might have saved him had we arrived sooner.  But we were in
unfamiliar territory with such poor visibility. We did the best we could.
Jean grieved at the loss, but returned to her job with a renewed commitment
to serving others.  Both Harold and Jean are capable and dedicated
professionals.  Their responses to the traumatic event, however, were
largely determined by their thoughts.
 
 
As you can see each experienced the same event but each took at different
view of what happened. The result is that one is on extended absence and is
having symptoms of anxiety over the incident.  The other is back to work,
eager to go to the next call.
 
Harold isn’t weaker than Jean, nor Jean any wiser or stronger than Harold.
Harold’s thinking of the event is at issue ­ not his professional
competence.
 
BACK TO THE ABC’S
 
Two people with two ways of thinking about the same event.
 
The Structural Organization of Thinking, or, A-B-C’s can show us in this
event what happened with Harold and Anne.  We have talked about this before,
but for review:
 
A stands for the Actuating event.  B is the belief or automatic thought you
tell yourself about the event, and C refers to the consequence (emotional
and physical) that come from the event.
 
C comes from B and B from A.  What you tell yourself and believe about an
event will determine your emotional and physical consequences on you.
 
Harold’s first thought “life is unfair”, is what is called a “cognitive
distortion”.  It is a subjective statement.  Is life unfair?  Can that be
proved?  Probably not.  Life is life and people are born and people die for
a lot of different reasons.
 
But in Harold’s thinking “life is unfair” began a chain of thinking which
eventually led him to spiral downward.  It affected his physical and
emotional well-being.   In Anne’s case she acknowledges the fact and even
remorse over the death of the young man. However she also does something
very key.
 
Both Anne and Harold thought about how the bridge being out and the rotten
weather hampered their response.  However Anne accepted it as the
contributing factor for which she had NO CONTROL over. While Harold lamented
that he “should have” “could have” done something different.
 
Truth is that nothing either could have done could have changed the outcome.
There is no fault here (ambulances can’t fly!).
 
The consequence though is that Anne was able to process the event and go
about her business. Harold could not.
 
Many of us have been in circumstances like these at the console.  “I should
have done better.”  Or “If I would have done this or that then that officer
wouldn’t have got hurt”.
 
True we can make mistakes that have dire consequences.  But most times
circumstances transpired through differing events for which we have no
control over.  Yet even so, if we are thinking as Harold did we may be apt
to blame ourselves even when we could have done nothing to change the
outcome.
 
Guilt is an emotion we all have.  When we do something wrong we feel guilty.
It may be a little or a lot.  Yet there is good guilt and bad guilt.  If I
treat a friend shamelessly and insult them, then I will feel guilty and I
will have to make amends.  That is good guilt.
 
If I feel guilty over something that I don’t have control over I can drive
myself crazy with thoughts about how to make it all right.  If I didn’t have
anything to do with it then I realistically can’t do anything about it.
That is bad guilt.
 
What it gets down to is how you and I think about a event.  Harold practiced
“Catastrophic” thinking about the event and Anne did not.  Catastrophic
thinking is taking everything at “worst-case-scenario”. Harold’s thought,
“What if something like that happens to my kids?”  shows the escalation he
experienced after those first thoughts of “If” and “Should have”.
 
Harold was thinking subjectively and Anne objectively.  The consequence of
each approach is obvious.
 

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