Page 92 - Taming Your Gremlin A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way (Rick Carson)_Neat

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Be Wary of Grappling with Your Gremlin

Becoming involved in intellectual discussions and arguments with your
gremlin is to pay your gremlin far too much attention. This can be a
dangerous mistake.

Your gremlin is to you as the Tar Baby was to Br’er Rabbit. He wants
you to become involved with him, but every degree of involvement leads to

more involvement. Your gremlin is a sticky sort, and the more you fight
with him, the more enmeshed you will become in his depressive muck.

If you grapple with your gremlin, you will eventually become anxious,
frustrated, and tired of the whole business at hand (regardless of the issue).
You will want to drop the whole subject, but your gremlin won’t let you.

Your gremlin will lead you to believe that if you continue to analyze the
issue, you will eventually figure your way out of the whole entanglement.
Your gremlin is cruel. A quick and common example of how grappling with

your gremlin can get you into trouble is one having to do with jealousy.

In my experience counseling couples, I have encountered hundreds of
jealous husbands and wives. Jealousy, like any human process, is neither
innately good nor innately bad. If, however, the only payoff for jealousy is
misery for the people involved, it really doesn’t make much sense, now
does it? Especially if one’s goal is to feel good—to enjoy oneself. Many of
the jealous people I counsel are uncomfortable with their jealousy on one

hand, but stimulated by it on the other.