Hubris blowhards meaning etc.

Blowhards hubris social responsibilty


It occurred to me that hubris, derived from Greek tragedy meaning acting with arrogance and then heading for the fall could apply to people who write blogs.  I include me in this as I guess I like the sound of my own typing.  But I like writing and coming out with things that I think are amusing but of course this amusement is not always shared.   I do like the term 'blowhard' when its applied to loud obnoxious people who lack communication skills, another topic for another post that I as on-line blowhard will obviously do.

I do have a get out clause in that I can say my therapist suggested I do this as they said I can be funny and informative in the diary entries I keep for sessions.  But self-awareness and not being offensive is important for me to observe here.

Today's topic was going my perception of patronising people who you can encounter in the mental health services, therapy providers etc.  But something very important happened when I was writing this.  It was to remember to be positive, informative and light with it as going over old ground was not good for me, you or the dog. 

Viktor Frankl wrote something about finding meaning from an experience or something loosely based on that.  I believe that his take based on his experiences was that you can choose how to react to any given event, even if that event is the most dire you can imagine  (if you are not familiar with Frankl he was a Holocaust survivor).

If some blowhard is giving you plenty verbal, as happened to me recently, what you can do is to choose not to get alarmed, upset or angry.  You can do like Lisa Simpson in the Simpsons cartoon did when she wanted to escape from Homer's ramblings.  Her thoughts turned to  'and now for some music' and a piano concerto began.

Al Siebert very kindly replied to my email about handling crises like the above, perhaps inspired by Frankl, when he advised it was important how I reacted when people tried to project things at me.  I could control that part and for some very extreme examples of this read Al's books for inspiration.

It's not easy as I certainly didn't find it easy as I kept replaying the incident in my mind like a bad movie (like the one I saw yesterday).  But I had a choice although I found it difficult to do as I seemed compelled to replay the bad movie.  But moving away and concentrating or thinking about something else has worked for me. As suggested by my therapist women in bikinis. Whoops! I inadvertently missed the comma there (yeah, right) as it shouldn't be 'therapist women in bikinis' but 'as suggested by my therapist, women in bikinis'.  

My earlier point if I can now drag myself away from the last thought is also applicable to finding meaning from your therapy.  Any suggestions, techniques that I encountered or was advised of had to make sense with me if they were going to have any use at all.  Did I find it helped?

Also, I found inertia was the key factor for me in that I had to ask myself, did I actually try what was advised or recommended to see if it worked for me?
 
Plus realising that if it made sense or worked in some way did I actually persist with it?

Therapist women in bikinis is now an integral part of the revised plan for mental health services in my local area so I am now putting my name down for it.

Recommended reading 

Viktor Frankl 'Man's Search for Meaning'
Al Siebert 'The survivor personality'