"Alter-ing Your Ego" Published in Christian Musician

“Altar-ing” your ego    (Published in Christian Musician May issue 2009)

The mechanics of force feeding yourself a decent attitude

By Bryan Duncan

Losing a bad attitude is like trying to get the cat off the curtains.  And what with the information super highway boring a four lane straight through the middle of your skull, you know there’s gonna be a pile up in the tunnel. With every “purpose driven” pursuit, there comes a stagnant build up in the “pipeline”. Negative thoughts and emotions have a way of creating a sewer in front of the septic tank. Think of it as a hairball in the shower drain.

Motivational Breakdowns are a lot like Mondays. Suddenly the weight of routine seems unbearable. You find yourself annoyed pulling your socks on in the morning, spilling coffee on your shirt for good measure. You just can’t think in a forward direction. Now you’re snapping at the garbage man for making so much noise. You’re dreading the “supposed to be happy” phone conversations that get the steely bolder rolling for another round of pin ball. Loathing and resentments hang like Spanish moss in your head, thinking of all the irritating people you can’t seem to change..

Uncomfortable emotions tend to linger longer than the euphoric. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I don’t mind feeling good and it never seems to last long enough.

But what often goes unnoticed about my bad attitude is that it is never constructed from a single event! My tendency is to attempt to erase it however with a single thought. It’s like a Hail Mary prayer! Sometimes you have to dismantle the whole drain pipe to get the clog out.

Thinking about something else is what I usually start with in trying to change my dysfunctional position. But that doesn’t really take the sap out of the sycamore either. It’s like that Ginsu knives commercial, “wait there’s more”! Changing the subject is just a flanking maneuver. You still have to have a front line facing the enemy.

Here’s where I begin to think of my deeper strengths.  And then reconsider what I was born to do. (you have to know that first). It’s been a matter of returning to my original passion before the beehive hit the ceiling fan.

My first two attempts at redirection are often a knee jerk reaction and poorly managed by the way. But sitting with encouraging books on a regular basis has been the new Draino for the maintenance of my mental channels. Don’t roll your eyes at me here with your bad attitude. Even Draino takes 15 to thirty minutes to work and maybe a repeat. Discovery leads to insight which leads to better thought processes. But if you’re going to pan for gold you’ll be washing a lot of filth around before you find the flakes.

Sometimes you gotta remind yourself that you are a “prospector”! You just sometimes look like a posthole digger.

Best line of offense though is ironic. It’s other people! Yea, it is sometimes the very ones who put you in a piss poor attitude to begin with. You gotta be talking to more than one person! I’ve discovered the magic number might be six. You need that many to find one who’s objective on any given day. ”In the counsel of many there is safety” .. that’s in the Bible by the way. It moves on rather quickly from there but if we “pan” that for a second we might find that it works like this: If I’m gonna talk to a tax attorney today, I need  to call my investment broker too. O.k. that’s too dignified… I’ve I’m gonna talk to my ex.. I might want to drop in on my counselor later! That’s not to say that every counsel is gonna be fun. I’m just saying that balancing your perspectives through more sets of eyes than your own is priceless.

I make a point to call at least six people outside my daily universe over the week. I have the luxury of getting other writer’s on the phone occasionally, even as I’m reading their books. And I usually hang up euphoric about the possibilities afterward. Choose your six from a wide patch of cultural cloth too, not necessarily someone you always like or even who like you. I love talking to people who actually resent me on some level. They force me to look at myself in a different light. And afterward I’m just excited to see a friend!

Notice that so far I haven’t mentioned “prayer and meditation” specifically. That’s because all of the above is part of my prayer life and devotion to my Supreme Redeemer. Even the word “prayer” constitutes a narrow definition in most of our minds. You know you’d have glazed over if I started with that verbiage. Prayer is the conversation constantly going on with the almighty even when I’m having a conversation with someone else at the same time. Balaam’s donkey comes to mind on occasion. (God, speaking to me through an ass).

Finally, what is it that I can find the courage to change in this moment? Well today, I thought I’d write an article about a bad attitude! Now I can’t remember where I was emotionally when I started this piece. I got caught up in the word possibilities. Passion has returned and now I can put my shoes on.