Therapy for a Better Life

This is by far the most popular tool in my therapy tool bag. Teens, trauma survivors, and couples all have benefited from this concept. I love metaphors and visualization and often make them up to better explain new ideas in counseling, but I didn't make this one up. I learned this technique from Jean McClendon during my post-graduate training at The Satir Institute of the Southeast, in Chapel Hill, NC.

Remember the hula hoop? The brightly colored, very simple, but hours of fun toy that we had when we were kids. I want you to imagine that you have one around you right now. It magically hovers around your waist area all the time. Now imagine that everyone else has one around them too.

So often, we spend an incredible amount of time and energy on things that we can't control. And then we get mad at ourselves for failing to do what was never possible to do in the first place because it was not within our control. This is the cause of much of the distress that people come to see me about.

Ok, you might say, but what has that got to do with a hula hoop? Well, I might answer, the hula hoop is your very own sorting tool for differentiating between what you can and cannot control. In other words, if it is in your hula hoop, you can probably control it. If it is out of your hula hoop, you cannot control it and all efforts to do so are wasted.

Are you starting to get the picture here? What is YOURS is in your hula hoop and those are really the only things you can control. Everything that is not yours belongs outside the hula hoop.

Now, this may sound pretty simple. But you would be amazed when you really start doing some sorting how often you find yourself in someone else's hula hoop. Imagine that for a minute. Picture yourself merrily hula-ing away with your own hoop. Then picture yourself hula-ing two hoops - ahh!! you may say, "I can hula two hoops" and you may be right. But can you hula two hoops WITH ANOTHER PERSON IN ONE OF THEM? Hmm? Can you? Picture yourself trying. And if you can picture yourself doing that, then I want you to go buy two hula hoops and actually do it. And if you are successful at that, then please email me with a photo because I would really like to see that *grins*.

What does this mean in real life terms? Being in someone else's hula hoop means taking responsibility for someone else's feelings.

Staying in your own hula hoop means being true to yourself, honoring your own values, wishes, wants, etc and also honoring the other person's right to feel what they feel and make their own choices about their actions and words. You can be right all day long, but if you are right about something that is not within your control, it really isn't going to do much good.

For example, Mary might think it is unfair that she has to do all the housework. She would probably be able to ask 100 random people and have at least 99 of them agree with her. So she is probably "right" about it being unfair. But that is not going to get her husband to do any housework. No matter how right she is, he is still in control of whether he does housework or not. It is squarely in his hula hoop.

What I would tell Mary to do is, take a close look at what IS in her hula hoop with regard to housework. She would probably list some of these: her actions (the doing of the housework), her feelings (the resentment of the situation, her perception (that he never does any housework), etc. Then I would ask Mary which of those things she is willing to change. She will probably look at me in a rather frustrated manner and tell me she wants him doing the housework. I will remind her that is not in her hula hoop and ask what she wants to change that is in her hula hoop.

If she says her actions, I might suggest figure out which of the tasks of housework she does not want to do or does not think is fair for her to do and not do them. I will remind her that she doesn't HAVE to do them any more than he does. Yes, she will have to live with the consequences, but so will he, if he continues not to do them. She needs to choose things she is willing to accept the consequences of not doing.

Suppose she is not willing to accept the consequences of having a messy house in any way. There is no housework task that she is willing to tolerate letting go undone. If she is willing to change her resentment, I will remind her that she has chosen to do the housework. She could have chosen otherwise, but does not want to. She prefers to do it herself than to let it go. Therefore, she is not powerless in this situation. It is often when we tell ourselves that we have no choice that we feel resentful. When we work at telling ourselves that we chose what is happening now, we feel more in control and often, not resentful.

Maybe Mary just can't see past changing either her actions or her resentment. If she chooses to work on changing her perception, I would suggest that she keep a journal of everything that gets done in the house and who did it. It is possible that her statement "He NEVER does ANYTHING" may be inaccurate. If she changes her perception, she will also change the feelings that she is having.

I would love to talk to you more about how you can use the hula hoop to improve your own life and relationships.

I did not include any examples of how this tool is used in trauma therapy, because I did not want to put anything that might be a trigger for discomfort in any of you. I do use it in trauma therapy, but it has to be taken into consideration that when you were a child and/or when someone else actually has power over you either through violence or intimidation or role or just plain size, you are not in control of or responsible for what happens inside your hula hoop. However, there is no one else in there NOW. And now is when the healing starts.