My Inner Human by Craig Lewis
My Inner Human
I am a person who has learned many maladaptive ways to cope with the more challenging parts of life that I face. I know that countless times I have made poor decisions in how I have handled situations and often, as a result, I have suffered or my quality of life has suffered. These life lessons that are necessary to teach us how to live happy, stable and satisfying lives often are learned via hardship and struggle. In this my inaugural blog for Mental Health News Radio, I would like to share with you an amazing experience that I had yesterday. I think you are going to like it; I sure as heck am on cloud nine about it.
So, recently my partner and I moved into a new apartment. This is my first time ever moving in with a mate and I am happy to share that our home is one of harmony. As we live in the 21st century, it was necessary to have the local cable and internet provider come and install our service. This process of dealing with such a monstrous bureaucracy is quite unpleasant for me. I don’t particularly need or appreciate the massive degree of pleasantries that are forced on me by the customer service representatives. I prefer to get to the point or the issue, resolve it and get on with my day. Therefore, before I am even able to express the crux of whatever it is I have called about, I start to feel agitated. I have no doubt that some of you who are reading this know what I am talking about.
In the past, I have found myself yelling at them and being rude and this, in my experience, rarely produced the results I was looking for and often I was left even angrier and more set off than I was when I first called to address the issue. As would be expected, the issue then continued to remain unresolved. I have not had much success over the years achieving the results that I desired using this approach in order to get my needs met or my issue resolved. This again was the case when I called four days ago and was left angered and upset and again without any progress having been made, unless one considers that going from being aggravated and annoyed to fumingly mad and angry several minutes later is progress?
I do know that I cannot tolerate feeling the way I do during and after one of these ultimately unsuccessful conversations and that I needed to find a more effective way to have the issues at hand addressed. Perhaps for me, this was that precious moment in our lives when we experience that pristine clarity that allows us to transcend whatever struggles or obstacles that life has befallen us. I’ll tell you a secret; it was!
I was as pleasant and friendly as could be and can you believe that the person on the other end of the line wanted to help me resolve the issues I was calling about? I tapped into what I will call my inner human and I made a concerted choice to be as pleasant and friendly as possible and I achieved wonderfully successful results. I was both overjoyed and shocked at this remarkable turn of events. As a result, I will always be a happier, healthier and more satisfied person in this life that I live. Gratefully, this is due to allowing myself to transform into the person that I think most of us strive to be and to embrace a better way of getting my needs met; with my inner human shining bright.
Craig Lewis is a Certified Peer Specialist and author of the Better Days – A Mental Health Recovery Workbook. Craig based the Better Days workbook on his personal life and recovery, and every page has been used successfully in peer group settings. A Better Days support group facilitation guide is currently being developed as are Spanish and French language versions of the Better Days workbook.
Craig also has edited and published You’re Crazy Volume One which compiles first-hand accounts of people from the punk rock scene who live with mental health struggles, addiction and trauma. A second volume of You’re Crazy is currently in the works.
Craig can be contacted at: betterdaysrecovery@gmail.com
For more information about Craig’s work please visit WWW.BETTERDAYSRECOVERY.COM and WWW.PUNKSINRECOVERY.COM.
Craig is a featured guest on our show on Blog Talk Radio. His show will air on August 5th, 2014 and can be found here.