Why does bad stuff always happen to me? What makes it difficult to move beyond our circumstances10/7/2016 “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” ― Wayne W. Dyer
There is no denying that some people are given extremely difficult circumstances in life. Some of the challenges that people face are excruciatingly painful just to hear about and I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to live in their shoes. So why is it that some people seem to get through difficult circumstances with strength and courage while others seem to crumble and get stuck? I remember watching news footage after a tornado went through a western town. The news reporter talked to a couple that was standing in front of where their house once stood and they were sobbing as they told the reporter that they lost everything. It was heart wrenching to watch. The reporter then went across the street where another couple stood looking at the debris that was once their house. That couple told the reporter that they were so grateful to be alive. They said they lost the material things, but their whole family was safe and they were just grateful that they had each other and could rebuild the house. Here were two couples looking at exactly the same circumstance, yet they both had very different experiences. The only thing that was different between these two couples was their perception of what happened. One couple was stuck in the negative, while the other was able to look at the positive. It seems so cliché to say that it is important to see life with the glass half full. We have all heard that advice a thousand times, yet what makes it so difficult for us to do it? There has been an abundance of brain research in the recent decades which has given us some clues to figuring out why it is easier to see the glass as half empty and harder to see it as half full. Rick Hanson wrote a book called Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. In this book he explains how evolutionarily our brains have gotten upgrades, but the reptilian brain, which is on the lookout for danger is still functioning well. He says that our brains are like Velcro for negative and Teflon for positive. In studies they have found that it takes significantly less time for the brain to register a negative event then it does a positive event. We have a built in negativity bias that we have to overcome. What Dr. Hanson suggests is that we have to consciously soak in positive events for the brain to register them. So, the next time you see a rainbow or a sunset or your child smile take a few seconds and allow the brain to soak it in. The more we take the time to form the neural pathways for happiness the easier it becomes. So, why does bad stuff always happen to some people? While I don’t want to deny the fact that some circumstances are extremely difficult, what separates the people who get stuck and those who rise strong has much more to do with their perception of the problem then with what actually happened. So take some time to build the brain wiring for positive and see if it shifts how you see the proverbial glass of water.
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“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” ― Lao Tzu
What does it mean to be content? According to Goggle, the definition is “in a state of peaceful happiness.” That sounds wonderful, but right now in America we are experiencing growing rates of addiction, debt and obesity. The trends are clear- we as a society are not content with what we have. We are looking for something to fill a void and we are finding that the drugs, material objects and food just aren’t enough to leave us feeling content. As I was working with a client the other week, he said to me that he needs to keep himself busy with things because he is afraid of what might happen when he doesn’t have anything to do and would have time to stop and think about his life. He used all kinds of distracting activities to avoid having time to be relaxed and quiet with himself. It became clear throughout our sessions that he had a real fear of facing some of the things that he did in his past. In contrast I have other clients that seem to completely check out to almost all feelings. They report sleeping all day and feeling like they are almost in a vegetative state to avoid having to face their past. When we are feeling anxiety we have patterned ways of responding. In Harriet Lerner’s book The Dance of Connection, she explains that we either go into over-functioning or under-functioning mode. We either become the rescuer and take over or we become irresponsible and fragile. Both are attempts to avoid looking within and dealing with the anxiety. While we tend to say that the over-functioners are coping better, in reality they are not. Neither are content with their lives and both are equally destructive if they continue those behaviors for the long term. So what does it take to become content- to reach that state of peaceful happiness? It takes the courage to go within. It takes self-compassion. It takes facing the truth about who we are as a person and not who we think we should be. We are human beings, yet very few of us take time to be. We are more often human doings or human avoidings. So take some time to just be. The more time we allow ourselves to be with ourselves the closer we get to becoming content. The key to contentment is that it doesn’t come from anything outside…we already have it within when we truly become a human BEing. “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”― Thomas Jefferson
As I was working with a client this week we were talking about being authentic and getting in touch with that spark within that is who we truly are. She looked at me intently and noted that she hasn’t been in touch with that part in so long that she doesn’t know what that means anymore. We were able to have a good discussion on what it means to be authentic and although it sounds simple, it is not. We are taught from early on in life that we need to conform and fit in with social norms. Many of us have been taught that it is better to put other’s needs before our own. We learn to live life from the outside in. We look into other people’s eyes for approval and feel disappointed or upset when others fail to give us what we feel we are deserving of. We live life trying to please others and feel happy when others return the favor and resentful when they don’t. When we are living this way we are not in touch with our authentic part. We are living from our ego, where we are judging, critical and comparing ourselves to everyone around us in order to know where we fit in. There is a different way to live and it is by being authentic. When we are authentic we are at peace with ourselves. We do things for other people because we have made a choice for ourselves that we are going to live by being kind, compassionate and caring to others. When we decide that we are going to practice living from a place of love instead of a place of fear and comparison, we decide that we are living for ourselves. Choosing to live life from a place of love is to choose to live authentically. Taking action looks different when it is from a place of love. We choose to do things for other people because it makes us feel good to do it, instead of thinking about what we will be able to get in return. We choose to give and act graciously towards others, because we understand that we are all doing our best in life and sometimes we will fall short of where we would like to be. Every action that we take is an opportunity to learn and grow. When we recognize that we didn’t act from a place of love we give ourselves loving compassion to know that we will do better next time and then practice that when we have the opportunity. Actually living and defining our lives by our actions is taking the steps needed for us to identify who we truly are. Walking the walk is the action that defines and creates our authentic self. So get up and take some action! “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
One of my favorite things to do each year is to look back through my children’s annual photos. It always amazes me to see how they have grown and changed from year to year. It brings back memories to look at them when they were younger and to see how they continue to grow and develop. It is easy to see the physical changes that occur, but the changes in who they are becoming is what is fascinating. We are not static creatures. Every day we grow and change. We are continually evolving and we have opportunities each day to expand and challenge ourselves. Mary Morrissey has said that some people truly live 99 years, while others live one year 99 times. As I work with my clients I often ask them how long they have been repeating the same patterns. Many of them are able to recognize that although the characters or the places may be different, they are in the same interactions over and over again, having the same arguments, having the same fights. When I ask about them, at first they often blame the people around them. It is all of their bosses who treat them unfairly or it is a string of significant others who just don’t do their share of the work in the relationship. As we go through their list of the other people who are all to blame, many of them are able to begin to recognize that they are the one who has the issue. I feel that we all have things we are meant to learn and experience during our short time on this planet. For some, we have to master patience, so life will give us ample opportunities to practice patience until we are able to develop that skill. For others it may be compassion, so we are given opportunities over and over again to work on our compassion skills. Whatever it is we are meant to develop, whether it be forgiveness, hope, self-discipline or positivity, we will be given people and experiences in order to hone and develop those skills that we most need to work on. When we are struggling to get along with someone, we can look at the other person as an angel in disguise. Instead of being here just to annoy us, they are here to help us grow and practice what we are meant to experience. Nelson Mandela has said that the person who was sent to prison would have never been able to be president of his country. He had to grow and change through his experiences in order to develop the gifts he was meant to share with the world. It is through our interactions with difficult people or going through challenging life events that we are able to stretch our comfort zone and grow into a new person. Buckle up, it is time to evolve! “There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.”― Maya Angelou
How many lies do we tell ourselves? Really think about it. That voice that is constantly chattering away has a way of spinning things around. It comes up with some incredible lies. It tells us things like, we aren’t good enough, someone else is better than we are, that there isn’t enough of something, that we will fail at what we are working on, that we caused something bad to happen, and on and on. Sometimes the thought train of lies carries us off and before we know it we are starting to believe that those thoughts are true. So how do we get off the train? Over the past few weeks I discussed the image of our ego being a cage and the authentic self as being within the cage. There is a big question that can open the door of the cage and help us stop the train of lies. When we ask ourselves if those thoughts are actually true we begin to crack the door open. This is not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes we get thoughts stuck in our head and we have all the evidence to prove that the thought is correct, so we don’t even question it. There are facts that tell us that we don’t have enough money, the time isn’t right, we don’t have the education or we just aren’t able to do it. Our brains pull up all kinds of evidence to prove that it is right. It will remind you of the time in second grade when you tried something new and then everyone laughed when you failed. It will bring up every time that someone was better. It will tell you to look at your bank account to prove that you will never be able to have or do what you dream of. But here is the big question. Just because those facts are there, does it mean that what you are envisioning can’t happen? Just because you failed in the past does it mean that you are destined to always fail? Instead of allowing the past experiences to become the cage that keeps us stuck, asking ‘what have I learned from these experiences?’ pushes us to the truth that we can have and do something different in the future. When we feel as if we have failed and the thought that ‘I can’t do this’ comes up, continuing to ask the question, ‘is that true’ digs down deeper and deeper into the actual truth. The actual truth is that we are limitless. The actual truth is that we are more then we realize. As Marianne Williamson says in her book, A Return to Love, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” “Honestly, I’m not a big person in terms of religion, but I really believe in nature. I feel like anytime you see anything beautiful in nature that’s the closest I’m ever going to get to God or a sense of a higher power.” -Sara Rue
Working in the addictions field leads to many discussions about spirituality with my clients. The Twelve Step model is based on opening up to a higher power and while there are some clients that this resonates well with, others struggle to understand what a higher power means to them. They often note that even though a broad definition of higher power is encouraged and that definition can include anything outside of themselves, they struggle to see how something like a tree or someone they admire or even the group itself can be a higher power for them. To understand this is to go back to the cage example I discussed last week. We have an authentic self that sometimes gets locked in a cage by our ego. When the cage door is open and the authentic self is able to connect, that to me is spirituality. Moments of deep connection, whether it be in nature, when looking into a baby’s eyes, during quiet meditation or a moment of deep intimacy with another person are among the most spiritual experiences we can have. We can interact with nature or a baby, but if the cage door is closed we lose our ability to truly connect. This is a significant point. When I come home from a busy day at work and my son is talking to me there are times when I hear the words he is saying and I respond, yet my mind is still busy thinking about the comment a co-worker made or something that happened. Although we are talking and communicating, there is minimal connection. When I become fully present and listen openly to what he is sharing there is a significant difference in the interaction. There is a deepening in the moment and the connection can be felt. This is a spiritual moment. Sometimes we aren’t able to recognize that our cage is shut, we think it is open, but yet become frustrated, feeling isolated and misunderstood. That is a good indication that we are in the cage of the ego. Opening the door of connection between our authentic self and anything else is a spiritual experience. We can feel the difference in the quality of the connection when we touch in to the authentic level. This is sometimes defined as a spark or a deep knowing or even a sense of peace and calm. Although it is hard to describe in words, it is a connection that is felt and sensed. Due to prior experiences, the ego may not open the cage door very wide or even to other people, so for some people developing a sense of connection with nature or pets can feel safer. When someone finds that they can be calm and peaceful when sitting in nature, that becomes their higher power. They have found a place where they are able to connect with their authentic self. The more we are able to experience deep connection and go into the authentic self, the more we are able to expand that connection to include other places, people and the world around us. As our connection with our higher power opens the door to our authentic self, we become healthier. We all have a higher power, so take some time to connect with yours today! “Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.” -Martha Beck
Last week’s post was about the self-inflicted cage of isolation that people sometimes find themselves in. This is the isolation that is felt because although they may be physically surrounded by people, they do not feel emotionally connected to them. What is blocking the emotional connection and how do people develop the courage to open the door to their cage and reconnect with life? I believe we need to explore the role of the ego. I envision us as people as having two distinct aspects. We have our authentic self and we have the ego. The authentic self is the aspect of us that is genuine and true. Religions call it our soul. When we are acting from our authentic self we feel good about the decisions we make and our actions are in alignment with our core values and beliefs. When we are in our ego we are usually justifying, defending and protecting ourselves from embarrassment or harm of any kind. The ego is fear based thoughts, the authentic self is love based. I envision it as two separate layers with the ego on the outer layer, just like a cage, and the authentic self on the inner. To get beyond the ego layer, the cage door must open which allows us to reach into our authentic self. True connection can only happen at the authentic level. When we interact with someone who is in ego state with their cage door shut, they come across as phony. They are either saying ‘look how great I am’ or the flip side of the ego, ‘look how terrible I am.’ They either boast about what they do, or they are the victim of everything that happens to them. It is difficult to connect with someone who is in an ego state and unfortunately for the person stuck in ego state, they have lost connection with their own authentic self which makes it difficult for them to connect with others. It is almost as if the door to their cage is shut and they have forgotten that they have the key to open it up. When we get stuck in ego, the voice of doubt broadcasts so loud that it drowns out the voice of our authentic self. The ego has no awareness of the authentic self, so once we are completely in the ego state it is like we forgot that we can choose to open the door to connect authentically. It takes a lot of courage for the ego to open that cage door when it is screaming for you to keep it locked tight, but once we open it up it gives us the freedom to authentically connect once again. So, the secret to getting out of the self-inflicted cage of isolation? Recognizing that we are in the cage in the first place and remembering that we can choose to open it up the moment we are ready to truly connect. “It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.” -Albert Einstein
In all counseling theories there is discussion of the importance of connection and healthy relationships with other people. Attachment theory focuses deeply on the innate need humans have for connection and how not having a safe attachment figure leads to various difficulties and even mental illnesses. One of the things that I hear over and over again from many of my clients is how alone and isolated they feel. In this world of billions of people how is it that so many people feel so alone? In his book and Ted Talk, Johann Hari discusses how he believes that a lack of connection is a root cause of addiction. He uses as evidence the famous Rat Park study. In the early research of addiction they put a rat in a cage and presented two bottles of water, one laced with heroin or cocaine and the other one plain. In those experiments all of the rats kept going back to the drug water and eventually overdosed and died. Then an experimenter in the late 1970’s thought about the fact that rats are social creatures and he wanted to see what happens when rats are placed in a social environment. They called it Rat Park and provided a large cage filled with about 20 rats. They had all kinds of things for the rats to play with and explore. When the rats of Rat Park were presented with the same two bottles of water none of them overdosed, none of them died. When I share this study with my clients many of them discuss how they always felt like the ‘black sheep’ of the family or they talk about how they never felt like they truly fit in or belonged with their family or friends. Through their addiction they hurt others, which then lead to even more isolation and stigma. In effect, they describe what living in the cage of isolation feels like. What is going on that so many people, not just people dealing with drug addiction, feel alone even when they are surrounded by people that care about them? I believe that it comes down to how we see ourselves and what we say about ourselves when we look in the mirror. I had one client say to me that he felt that he should have a warning label when he is around others because he believed that if others got too close to him, he would eventually hurt them in some way. For him, he felt it was better to stay isolated then to hurt others, but what he didn’t see was how his choice to stay isolated was also hurting those who cared about him. While we all have an internal critic, for some that voice is so loud and so persistent it is becomes hard for them to believe that they are worthy of love and connection. It is the fear that others will see their unworthiness that creates a separation which cuts them off from connection. That internal programing of self-doubt, insecurity and fear is like a self-inflicted cage. So how do we develop the courage to step out of the cage and into life? I’ll talk more about that next week. “Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” -Marianne Williamson
With everything going on in the world right now we have a lot to be fearful of. Are we safe to gather in the streets to celebrate? Are we safe to share our opinions? Are we safe to do our jobs? There are always going to be things to worry about, but for many people the recent events have increased their level of anxiety and worry and have had them questioning what the world is coming to. One of the biggest things that I took away from the first Conversations with God book by Neale Donald Walsch is that there are only two emotions- Love and Fear. He discusses how all of the actions and behaviors of people in the world are stemming from one of these two emotions. Why do people become angry, hateful or vengeful? At the heart of it, it is because they are fearful. They are filled with fear that they are not good enough, strong enough, powerful enough or influential enough. They don’t want anyone to see the fear so they use their power and control to put other people down or to scare them into doing what they want them to do. Fear is defined in Alcoholics Anonymous as False Evidence Appearing Real. Well, right now in the world we have a lot of real evidence. There is no denying that there are some tragic events happening. We have a choice in how we respond to them though. If we allow the events to put us into a place of fear we react in a way to protect ourselves. We see building a wall as a good thing. We believe we are safer if we are carrying a weapon. We stockpile food and build impenetrable shelters. We separate ourselves from ‘those’ people. Is this what we truly want? Most people say they want to have peace and freedom, yet these fears stop us from living in a way that looks even remotely peaceful or free. While these events are real, the truth is that how we view these events can change the way we respond to them. If we choose fear, the events can separate and divide us even farther, but what would love do? From a place of love we can begin to see that the people involved in these events are simply acting out of fear. When we become curious about what they may be fearful of, we begin to see them differently. We become willing to listen instead of isolating and separating from them. I often share with my clients that change only happens when things get so bad we are pushed to do something different or when we become so clear on our vision we are pulled to do something different. These events have the opportunity to do both. Either we will realize that what is happening is so bad, what we are currently doing isn’t working, or we will become so clear that peace is what we want we will begin to open up to love. This is an exciting time in the world- this is our time to be the change! “I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.” -Martha Washington
If nothing else, working with people addicted to heroin has given me the opportunity to hear first-hand some of the most difficult life circumstances imaginable. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t listen to their life stories and wonder how I would have handled the situations they found themselves in. They have experienced trauma, abuse, isolation, abandonment, betrayal, homelessness, illness and much more, yet have found ways to cope with these circumstances. They have all survived physically, but many seem to struggle emotionally. Working on their recovery and starting to imagine what life can be like without the very substance that got them through, is sometimes a daunting task. To talk about what would make them happy is often not received well, as they argue that they can’t be happy because of the circumstances they are living in. When I offer an alternative that they can choose to be happy despite their circumstances, I am often met with resistance and told that I just don’t understand how bad their situation is, which justifies to them why they can’t be happy. Realizing that we have the power to choose our emotional state despite our circumstances is a big jump for many people and it took me a long time to truly believe this for myself. We are taught early on that we need things to be happy and we need approval to be happy and we need to be good to be happy. We have been taught that happiness is contingent on getting what we want and we will be happy when we get the house, car, promotion, bills paid off… fill in the blank. We have learned to future-ize our happiness and honestly when we get what we said we wanted we may be happy for a moment until we have the next goal to work towards. Life becomes a big game of getting things, avoiding things and forcing events to happen just as we planned in order to make us happy. We can only be happy when the outer things are in alignment with what we say we want. When things are out of alignment we are frustrated, angry or depressed. The big question I ask my clients is ‘Is it true that you need that to make you happy?’ While most people’s initial reaction is a resounding ‘YES!,’ we talk about it some more and dig deeper into what the truth is. While it is true they may prefer to have different circumstances we discuss how the circumstances themselves do not create their emotion. It is their thinking about the circumstances that creates the emotion. We are free in this moment to choose our thoughts. We can choose to think about things that have made us happy, to be grateful for what we have been able to experience, to give thanks for the life we currently have. We give thanks to the body that is breathing without a machine, to the legs that walk without devices to the hands that are able to grasp objects, to the mind that is able to think, for the family members who have supported them, for the shelter that provides protection, for the food that nourishes them. Once they truly begin to feel happy and grateful for what they have, there is a moment where they do realize that it is within their power to choose to be happy right now, despite their circumstances. If they can do it for a minute in the office, what is stopping them from doing it at home? Once they truly get that the outer circumstances don’t have the power to determine their happiness, they are free to be happy despite their circumstances. This is a liberating realization! |
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