Learning to avoid having my suspicions block me from helping others

[Cat Dancer]

My dancing is popular among teenagers, and so I get a lot of phone calls. Many of them are silly, prank calls, so I've gotten into the habit of simply hanging up if someone is insulting me or making fun of me.

The problem I have is sometimes I get a call from someone who desperately needs help, but I start off by assuming that this is probably yet another prank call. Yesterday I got a call from a 14 year old girl, who was at her wits end because she was pregnant and had absolutely no idea what to do or who she could talk to. I didn't believe her at first and got her off the phone and went back to work; but then I thought "this could be real", called her back (fortunately I had caller id) and gave her the 800 number of a pregnancy hotline to call.

For me, the experience is I'm working away, somewhat grumpy, the phone rings, an interruption, I answer the phone "Hello?", my mind still on the work I need to do, and a girl I don't know says, "Cat Dancer, I'm pregnant". And I think, "yeah? what's the punchline? I'm going to have kittens! ha ha ha, very funny".

Now at this point, I have no way of knowing whether this is a sincere call from someone needing help, or a prank call from someone wanting to make fun of me. But I don't need to be imagining ways that my caller might be about to make fun of me.

From my point of view, if I get a call and I treat it as sincere but it turns out to be a prank, so what?

But instead, I'm moving immediately to the defensive, assuming the worst, and treating it as such.

Which, from a learned response point of view, makes a certain amount of sense. If I get nine prank calls followed by one sincere one, it's natural to think "oh, this probably is a prank call too". But that's not the response I want to make.

It's sad because helping others is often so easy. A word of comfort, or a mention of a resource available to them that they don't know about.

Maybe the answer is to simply visualize, ahead of time, the approach that I want myself to take.

After all, I actually did do a good job in this interaction. Despite being suspicious, I asked questions, found out what was going on, and provided a helpful resource. So that sounds like the right approach: to say, "this is what I did right, and this is what I want to continue doing in the future."

[mlbr23]

Hi Cat Dancer,

I saw your site and read that you're into the Singularity too. I'm looking forward to it too!

Perhaps what you can work on is your assumptions. There's nothing much you can do if a lot of people want to make prank calls to you, but I believe with a more trusting, forgiving and open mindset change, your reality will reflect your inner change as well.

If someone makes a prank call, don't be grumpy or anything, calmly deal with it and forgive the person.

And if someone comes with a genuine call for help, be grateful that it is not a prank call and serve her as best as you can.

I believe forgiveness and gratitude can go a long way..

[Cat Dancer]

mlbr23, thank you for your insight.

You know, I realize that in this interaction I did what I would have wanted myself to do: I listened, I asked questions, and when I saw a way that I could be helpful, and I offered that help.

So that is what I can focus on, to reinforce, to practice, and to have become easier: that I am in acting in the way that I want myself to act.

:-)

[Ilya]

Originally Posted by Cat Dancer

For me, the experience is I'm working away, somewhat grumpy, the phone rings, an interruption, I answer the phone "Hello?", my mind still on the work I need to do,

I'm sorry, but that may be a large part of the problem. I'd go insane if anyone could have called at any time of the day. I had a quick look at your site and I suppose you might be a person who can be on call 24/7 for other people. This is very noble actually.
But did you consider having an answering machine with a friendly message. It would allow you to switch the phone while you are working. Pranksters usually don't like to deal with the answering machines. Don't know about the genuine people.
I think by trying to work and to answer the phone at the same time you are not doing either of these things as good as you could.

[Cat Dancer]

Hi Ilya, I appreciate your concern that I might be keeping my boundaries too weak. I think that by now, I generally don't have a problem with keeping strong boundaries. I never leave my phone on when I go to bed, and I don't promise anyone that I'm going to be available or even that I'll return anyone's calls. I have no problem with saying at any particular time, "OK, I don't want to be interrupted right now", so I turn off my phone.

But, if I keep all my boundaries up all the time, I won't be learning anything

So I deliberately lower one or two of my boundaries, and that let's more stuff in, both good and bad. So then the challenge, the growth, comes from saying, "OK, so how do I now filter through all this stuff?" And if it becomes overwhelming, I can always raise my boundaries again...

You are right to say that by answering the phone I don't get my work done as well as I could, that's true, but so what? My purpose in life is to learn how to be Cat Dancer. In a sense that's hard, because I don't even know what that means. I don't have a vision of what "being Cat Dancer" would look like in five year. I grope my way through the dark towards my destination. But in other sense, it's easy. When I face a decision, I say, "which choice is more like being Cat Dancer?"

In his book The Millionaire Course, Marc Allen says of businesses and careers that they go through "the same stages that all living things go through: infancy, adolescence, and maturity:

"Infancy: When your business or career is in its infancy, you have to care for it constantly. You expect nothing of it, and have to support it completely. Care for your infant business or career as you would care for your infant child -- with loving attention, with no expectation of reward, being in the moment with it, accepting it as it is, watching it grow, enjoying every step of the way".

Right now "being Cat Dancer" is in its infancy. Some day "being Cat Dancer" will grow up and, pretty much as a side effect, make enough money. In the meantime my purpose in working is quite clear to me: to make enough money so that I can continue to learn how to be Cat Dancer.

If I chose not to talk to a 14 year girl who has a friend standing ready to push her down the stairs, because I was working, that would defeat the purpose of why I'm working in the first place.

[Cat Dancer]

I told this story to my sister, who is a nurse practitioner working at a health clinic at a high school, and when I got to the point where I said I gave my caller an 800 hotline number to call, my sister said, "Perfect!"

My sister also pointed out that if I get a prank call, it doesn't really matter. If someone makes a prank call, getting an 800 hotline number in response is... a pretty boring response!

I realize that when I got the call, I spent a lot of energy trying to discern whether it was a prank call or not. But if my response is the same -- if I think 90% that it is a genuine call and 10% that it is a prank call and give the 800 hotline number, or if I think 10% that it is genuine and 90% that it is a prank and give the 800 hotline number... it doesn't matter whether it is a prank call or not. I'm going to do the same thing either way, so there's no reason to worry about it.