Archive for October, 2009
Well-behaved Women Rarely Make History…Sort Of
That bumper sticker is usually seen on the car of a twenty-something girl, and she usually looks like she’s on her way to or from a party. Which is all well and good; I don’t have a problem with twenty-something girls going to parties. That’s what they’re supposed to be doing. But that kind of naughty behavior isn’t exactly history-making, and putting the bumper sticker on the car won’t make it so.
Here is a very brief list of women who actually did make history: Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, Rachel Carson, Barbara Jordan, Marie Curie. While it’s true that each one of them defied norms to pursue their passions, and in their day may have been rebels of a sort, they can’t really be considered naughty, not in the way that the bumper sticker implies. This makes intuitive sense, but why? Why are certain types of deviation from conventional society heroic, while others are just naughty? The answer is that not all unconventional behavior is created equally. There’s a lot of confused thinking about this, as evidenced by the bumper sticker (as well as many other things). Gaining clarity on this issue can be helpful in defining values and making wise choices about when to conform and when not to conform to conventional norms.
First of all, what is conventional behavior? Conventional behavior, or conventional society, if you will, consists of the rule-followers and church-goers and bill-payers and speed-limit-drivers who submit to authority because, well, because it’s authority. They do what’s expected of them, they do what they were taught, they do what their parents did, and they strive to raise their children to behave this way, too. This might sound awful (it certainly does to me), but without the standards of conventional society, without norms and laws and rules, there would be no civilization. We must all submit to conventions to some degree in order for civilization to function. We have to obey laws, for example. And although we are mostly free to choose what they are, we have to meet our financial and social obligations. We have to treat other people with basic respect. Even if we don’t agree with all the values of conventional society (we don’t have to go to church, for example), it is still the gauge by which most behavior is measured.
Many people find conventionality unbearable. To them, too much convention sounds like suicide. And in a way, it can be. If people accept conventional beliefs–values, in particular–unconditionally, or simply because they’re the path of least resistance, thus ignoring their inner calling, then they commit a kind of psychological, or spiritual (by my definition), suicide. It means they’ve given up on themselves, and that’s a true tragedy. Even people who don’t fully understand the soul-flattening of blind conformity sense it, especially young adults, and rebel against it. And rightly so, in my opinion. But if that “rebellion” isn’t well-thought through, it can end up being detrimental to a person’s development, or at the very least, tangential to it.
There is a huge difference between rebellion for its own sake and rebellion rooted in values. Rebellion for its own sake has little to do with a person’s inner calling. While it serves the purpose of resisting conventional norms, it doesn’t do much more than that. Examples of such unconventional behavior includes tattoos, piercings, wild hair and clothes, and T-shirts and bumper stickers meant to shock and offend. It can also include more serious things like criminal behavior, homelessness, or an unwillingness to meet one’s obligations, such as child support or fidelity (when in a relationship where that is the agreement). In short, non-conformist behavior not tied to a person’s deeper values can be antisocial in many varying degrees, but to little purpose other than the rebellion itself.
When rebellion is rooted in one’s values, however, the result is radically different. This sort of rebellion is the rebellion of free-thinkers, of creative geniuses, of seekers of truth and seekers of justice. This rebellion is about having strong convictions about right and wrong and bucking a system that disagrees. Folks who take such principled stands aren’t always right, but their actions are always rooted in a strong value system.
This is the sort of rebellion that makes history. This rebellion takes a look at conventional norms and makes a rational decision that they are in some way lacking, and therefore need to be changed or ignored. All social justice has its beginnings in people who saw inequity and were brave enough to work for change. All intellectual progress has its beginnings in people who questioned the authority of the “truths” they were told. All free societies can thank the freethinkers who believed in the sanctity of the individual despite the powerful oppressive regimes that ruled in their time. This rebellion is heroic, even if sometimes misguided, because it requires courage, determination, and critical thinking.
Well-behaved women rarely make history. The bumper sticker isn’t wrong, but its sentiment is vastly incomplete. It seems like more of an excuse to be self-indulgent than to devote oneself to an unpopular principle or idea that may change the world. It’s fun to be naughty on occasion, but don’t mistake it for something more interesting–or meaningful. Because it isn’t the bad behavior, but the commitment to internal values, that makes history.
Play Keeps Us Vital and Alive
“The fundamental nature of the Universe is playful.” –Alan Watts, paraphrased
You know how some businesses display little sentiments on their signs to make drivers smile or think? I recently saw Play keeps us vital and alive on one of these. It surprised me, because the American culture is so identified with work. Rarely do you hear anyone express a subversive idea like this, and when you do, it’s usually done jestfully or with an air of naughtiness, as in “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” or “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” When you meet someone, the first thing they ask you (or you ask them) is “So what do you do?” This is how we size people up. If people don’t work, regardless of the reason, we tend to look down on them, to see them as “less-than.” And if they work ridiculously long hours, we tend to revere them as representatives of our highest cultural values. This is not necessarily wrong, but work, when viewed in a vacuum, is a very incomplete standard by which to judge people. Sometimes, when cultural values like this are so deeply ingrained, it’s hard to be aware of how they affect our thinking, and even harder to move past them.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with hard work–hard work keeps us vital and alive, too–particularly if it’s work that’s important to us. Little in life is more satisfying than a job well done, a task completed, a sense of accomplishment. It’s totally true that hard work will get you where you want to be in life, wherever that may be.
On the other hand, in such an environment as ours–that is, a materialistic society with far too superficial values in general–hard work can be a shortcut to self-esteem that isn’t very effective. Corporate America is full of people who work themselves raw for little more than their indifferent bosses’ approval (often in a subconscious attempt to re-create their relationship with their parents, but that’s another topic). And of those jobs that do reward hard work with raises and promotions, many people pursue them without ever thinking beyond that chase, without questioning whether or not the work is satisfying to them. These folks might look successful on the outside, but on the inside, they’re a mess. They self-medicate away their tension, have troubled relationships, and are the ones who wake up one morning with a mid-life crisis and no idea how they got there or what to do about it.
But play also, in and of itself, doesn’t necessarily keep us vital and alive. If your play means spending all day Sunday in front of the television watching professional sports, you’re probably nagged by guilt if there’s a family that wants your attention. Or, if you spend all your free time drinking or getting high, or chasing empty pleasures in general (we can never have enough of that which we really do not want), there’s probably a remorse underlying every free moment that you’re not doing something “more productive” (I have a lot of personal knowledge of this one, and it’s awful!). Or if you’re simply putting off creative projects because you’re secretly afraid you might not be any good at them, that doesn’t feel good, either. If your play involves distracting yourself from your passions rather than pursuing them, no amount of it will keep you vital or alive.
The point, I suppose, is that both work and play should be tied to deeper values if they’re going to keep you vital and alive. If you don’t have a good relationship with one, you won’t have a good relationship with the other, either. You’ll feel guilty about your play and you won’t enjoy your work. Without a connection to deeper values, both work and play become ways to distract yourself from what’s important to you rather than pursue (or enjoy) it.
This is not to say you must have a job you feel passionate about because, of course, that is not always possible. But if you don’t have such a job, you should be honest with yourself about it so you can preserve your emotional energy for more meaningful pursuits. I realize this goes against everything we’re taught about the great American work ethic, but it’s true nevertheless. Let’s be clear that I am not advocating shoddy work if you don’t like your job, because that doesn’t feel good. But I am advocating an emotional detachment from work if it isn’t terribly important to you.
This is also not to say we need to always be doing something with a higher goal in mind. It’s important to just have down time, doing nothing: appreciating art or nature or music or whatever you love for it’s own sake with no purpose other than simply enjoying it. Ironically, this is harder to do, not easier, when you do not have a clear knowledge of your values. For example, if you value music, you’ll make the time to listen to it because you understand that doing things you truly love is important to your sense of well-being–no guilt or remorse necessary!
In the longest run, there really are no higher goals other than existence for its own sake. And at the highest levels, there really is no distinction between work and play. Both work and play can, and where possible, should, be an expression of who we are, of our creative energy and our joy and zest for being alive. If we understand that, it doesn’t really matter what we do, because this attitude will shine through regardless.
Yes, this is an ideal that few people fully attain. But without the awareness that this is where all of us, each in our own unique way, are trying to get to, what chance do we have?
First, Forgive Yourself
To understand all is to forgive all.–French proverb
In The Healing is in the Doing, I wrote that it’s important to do hard things like forgive the people who’ve hurt you and let go of any bitterness you may be hanging onto. I neglected to mention one of the hardest–and most important–persons of all to forgive: yourself. I’ve written on this topic before, here and here, for example, but it’s so important, it doesn’t hurt to go over it again (and again and again!).
Forgiveness is a big topic in 12 Step meetings, and with good reason: it’s how we heal those deep, old, festering emotional wounds. One-sixth of the 12 Steps are devoted to forgiveness: Step Eight says Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Step Nine says Made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. Really important stuff. And also often misunderstood. Some of the most common things people say in meetings, when talking about making amends, are, “The most important person I had to forgive was myself,” and “My name was the first one on that list.” Such statements, while they show that a person’s heart is in the right place, do not show a good understanding of either self-forgiveness or making amends. They are very different processes.
The way we forgive ourselves is by healing. Self-forgiveness begins the instant you decide you want something better for yourself and go after it. That means getting sober and going to meetings, finding a therapist who can help with your emotional pain, or coming to terms with negative feelings in some other way that feels good. Loving yourself enough to get better is the greatest gift you can give yourself. And it is not until you’ve begun the self-forgiveness process that you can truly forgive other people. This is why the amends steps don’t come until Step Eight–all that other work must come first.
Learning to forgive yourself is exponentially more difficult than learning to forgive other people, particularly for those of us who grew up in an overly-critical environment. Children’s minds are like dry little sponges, soaking up the words and attitudes of the adults around them. When those words and attitudes are negative, a child internalizes that (not knowing anything else) and learns to be negative towards herself, to be hard on herself, and to not let herself off the hook as easily as people raised in a less harsh environment will. All that ugliness in our own heads is vivid and powerful, and we tend to believe we’re far more awful than any other human being walking the planet. (In this light, the blissful oblivion of addiction makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?) One reason it feels so good to share in support groups is that we find out we’re not alone in having dark thoughts about ourselves–what was once a shameful secret becomes a humorous anecdote. Who knew?
Anyway, the point is that before you start to mend relationships with other people, you’ll already have gone a long way toward mending your relationship with yourself; you’ll already have done much of the self-forgiveness even if you’re not aware of it, or called it something else, because it’s inherent in the healing process. It won’t be finished because this work never really is, but as long as you’re plugging away at it, everything else will fall into place eventually.
The healing is in the doing, and no healing is more essential than forgiving yourself. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably already doing that. Yay!
The Healing is in the Doing
Answer: Three. All he did was make a decision. That isn’t the same as doing it.
I hate to keep returning to the 12 Steps because I have many disagreements with them, but the truth is I learned a lot in those meeting rooms. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was that you can’t sit around and wait for sobriety to take hold. Taking action is how you get better. This means “working the steps,” having an active relationship with a sponsor, forming friendships with people at your stage of sobriety, and pitching in to help run your meeting. When you fill your life with activities that feel good, you don’t have a lot of time to think morbid thoughts that might pull you down into the old morass that can result in relapse. Keeping yourself otherwise-occupied is key to changing old habits. This is true for most things in life, not just trying to kick an addiction.
When it comes to healing from childhood pain, it’s easy to get caught up in intellectual aspects like going to therapy, reading self-help books, and sharing your stories with other people who have similar issues. All of these are fine activities, and essential to healing. Therapy and reading help you to understand what really happened–it can be extremely difficult to achieve a clear understanding without this kind of help–and sharing stories in a supportive environment brings the darkness into the light, where its power to hurt you just fizzles away. And while these are forms of action, they aren’t the kind of action I’m talking about. While releasing the pain, shame, and depression of a lifetime feels tremendous–because it is!–it’s easy to get stuck there for that same reason (I wrote about this here).
Because as good as it feels, it’s only a beginning. If you want to live your life to the fullest, there is so much more to do.
What, you ask? Well, such action tends to be very personal, but I’ve broken the activities down into three general categories: Do what’s hard, do what you’re afraid of, and do what you want. Kind of in that order, although as with all human endeavors, there can be a lot of messy overlap (which is rarely problematic).
Do what’s hard. Talking about your pain may seem brutally difficult at first, but it is infinitely easier than the next steps, which are forgiveness and letting go. At first you may be outraged at the idea of forgiving people who hurt you when you were small and powerless, but if you want to get past your pain, you must forgive and let go. Not for their sake, but for yours. If you define yourself by your pain, it controls you. The only way to move past that is to forgive and let go on a deep level.
This does not mean you look the other way, or tolerate disrespectful treatment, or pretend things that happened didn’t. You must get to a point of holding people accountable for their actions–but in a kind way. True forgiveness, the kind that moves the spirit and causes a person to see the whole world in a softer, sweeter way, requires willingness and work. It’s a complicated, messy, intensely personal process that can take years to complete. But feeling the bitterness fade away makes it well worth all the effort. Equally important, letting go frees up psychological and emotional energy for more productive pursuits.
Do what you’re afraid of. All humans are fearful, and this is as it should be because fear is a healthy emotion that keeps us from doing foolish things. But the kind of fear that holds you back from doing the things you want to do is poison. This fear should be confronted and ferreted out to the best of your ability. I’m not talking about skydiving or hang-gliding (unless those are true passions). I’m talking about doing something you’ve always wanted to do but have been afraid to try.
Often, this means doing something creative. People are afraid they might not have any “talent.” This is especially true for people who were raised with too much criticism. But “talent” isn’t the reason to be creative. Nourishing the spirit is the reason to be creative! There is no rule that says you need to be good at something to do it (with the exception of doing it professionally). You just need to enjoy it. Also, there is also no innate thing such as “talent.” Talent happens when you work hard to get good at something. And that is a choice you are completely free to make.
It’s fine to start small, but start. Take steps toward doing something you’ve always been afraid to try. Embrace your anxiety! Accept it as part of a life well-lived. Rarely can a person get at all her fears, but learning how to do what you want to despite them will practically guarantee an interesting, adventurous life.
Do what you want. Doing what you want and doing what you’re afraid of often mean the same thing. The differentiation, I think, is that you must consciously choose to take on your fears before you’re able to move fully into doing what you want; you have to get past your aversion to facing fear in order to build the confidence to pursue what you want.
People often have a lot of baggage around doing what they want. Merely uttering the phrase can feel selfish! We are conditioned to believe that it is much more praiseworthy to focus on obligations, duty, and work, and to sacrifice our heart’s desires to “practicality” and “making a living.” This is hog hooey. Doing what you want is the very essence of a life well-lived. Van Gogh didn’t paint out of obligation! Shakespeare didn’t write because somebody was making him! These three-sigma examples are extreme, but the principle is the same for everybody. If you’re fortunate enough that such high-end choices are an option, then it is wasteful and sad to not take advantage of that. True, not everybody can have their dream career. All the more reason to make the most of your free time and use it to follow your heart’s desire.
We should take on obligations–I prefer the word “responsibilities” for obvious reasons–freely, and because they’re what we want, values we hold: college, career, and family, for example. If any of these are drudgery, they probably need to be revisited. Something is amiss. Doing what you want is how to find happiness and how to help the people in your life be happy. Happiness is not something you can find at the point of a gun–or by any other means of coercion.
As good as it feels to discover the truth about your past and share your pain with other people, never, ever, ever identify yourself as a victim. Doing so will keep you stuck in a place from which you can never fully blossom. Rather, you must move into action, into doing the hard thing, the scary thing, and ultimately, the thing you really want. None of this work is ever finished, but that’s the adventure of life! It can only be taken on with partial knowledge and incomplete experience, and a zest for what might be waiting around the next corner.
Outraged
I caught part of a documentary on HBO the other day called Outrage, about closeted gay politicians. The film’s focus was on Michael Rogers, creator of blogactive.com, whose primary mission is to out these closeted politicians. I thought the title was highly appropriate because as I watched the film, it truly did inspire outrage in me, along with sadness and despair for the immense brokenness of our human race.
While I think I understand concepts like human rights and personal liberty better than many, I’m not very interested in politics for the reasons brought out in this film. The character of so many politicians is so dismal that I’m completely cynical about the whole topic. A handful of honorable men (and women) and the inherent robustness of our Constitution have protected this country from the self-serving greed and insincerity of most of the people who seek to run it; I find it rather astounding that the US has remained as free as it has for as long as it has, despite decades of decline into irrational partisanship, special interest groups clamoring for control, and an erosion of individual liberty so subtle that we barely notice when it happens anymore. The bulk of my political convictions consist of “throwing away” my vote on the Libertarian party as a matter of principle. So I’m not exactly qualified to make political pronouncements, but after watching this show about the closeted gay politicians–male Republicans, for the most part–I couldn’t help but share my opinions. At the most fundamental level, my opinions aren’t about politics, anyway; they’re about values.
Mostly, I’d like to talk about what I am and am not outraged about.
I’m not outraged that some people choose to keep their sexuality private. If certain personal choices, sexual or otherwise, would generate problems for someone in his professional capacity, well, then he has every right to keep them private. As long as these choices don’t cause harm, everybody deserves the freedom to disclose as much or as little information about them as they wish, even politicians, and even if one of those choices is homosexuality. Setting aside the harm it may do to the gay right’s movement (which might be substantial), a person’s sexuality is really nobody else’s business. I respect that, and I think it’s important to uphold the right to such privacy as a freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.
I’m also not particularly outraged that many of these closeted politicians kept their true sexual orientation from their families, although I do find it unspeakably sad. In one interview, Dina Matos, ex-wife of former New Jersey governor James McGreevey (who, much to his credit, outed himself and ended his own political career), said that if your husband leaves you for another woman, then at least you know that he once had feelings for you, but when he leaves you for a man, you realize that your whole marriage–your whole life, really–was a lie. Such deception is almost incomprehensible, but it doesn’t outrage me. It’s tragic! How difficult it must be to deny who you are on a routine basis! I can’t begin to imagine the cognitive dissonance such a charade would create, or the terrible effects such fundamental dishonesty would have on these men’s families. How does a spouse recover from such a blow? Worse yet, or at least I think so (because she has no chance to find an honest relationship), how does a spouse continue to deny her husband’s homosexuality in the face of blatant evidence to the contrary, as ex-Senator Larry Craig’s wife did? Or how does a wife participate in the charade voluntarily, as many of them appear to? Is any career worth such a hefty price? What kind of primitive values must a person have to believe that it is?
In the same vein, I wasn’t outraged by the lifestyle choices these men make, choices completely antithetical to who they really are. I was also not outraged by their clandestine sexual encounters in public bathrooms, bars, and rest stops, or by their soliciting staff members, or by the number of people who seem to collude in keeping their powerful friends’ secrets. Again, I find all of these things sad, and gravely missing the point about what’s important in life, but they do not inspire outrage. These are choices borne of self-hatred, out of a desperate struggle to not be who you are. To me, their attempts to deny their personal truths are far more heartbreaking then they are angering.
No, what outrages me is how these politicians consistently and vehemently fight against gay rights. Their voting records on gay rights, gay marriage, and AIDS funding are deplorable, and it is one of the most viciously hypocritical things I’ve ever seen. It’s one thing to deny who you are, to hurt yourself and your family. But to take this denial to such lengths that you actually hinder the social progress of the disenfranchised group to which you belong, lengths that, in this case, have likely caused thousands of deaths due to lack of AIDS research funding, I find angering beyond belief. If hell exists, there should be a special place in it for people who choose a life of public service and then ignore social justice for those closest to their heart. I can find no pity and no respect for such a mindset, and I applaud all the people, people like Michael Rogers, who’ve taken a public stand against this outrageous hypocrisy.
Since I was old enough to know what gay is, I’ve never understood homophobia. I have never been able to fathom why other people’s private choices concerned anybody at all. Who cares what people do, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone? Who cares if same sex couples want to be married or have children? Isn’t love the important thing? And if not, then what is? No god I could ever believe in would hate homosexuals. That’s like god is saying, “I made a mistake, now I’m going to make you suffer for it.” Not only is it hateful, it is also completely irrational. Why this isn’t obvious to everybody with a brain, I wish I knew. If we could figure it out, social justice would advance a few light years overnight.
I think I’ve finally gotten to what enrages me most of all: that for all of our technology, all of our prosperity, all of our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, this culture can still produce people–and in large quantities!–who are capable of such irrational demonization. While I hold the closeted politicians responsible for their choices, just as I do every other adult with the power of agency, there is a very real way that our irrationally hateful, irrationally fearful culture is to blame for people who are so willing to disown who they are if it’s too problematic to deal with. If homophobia wasn’t morally sanctioned as it still is in so many circles, there would be no reason for anyone to feel the need to hide or repress or deny this most fundamental part of who they are. And if people had no need to deny their truths, then they would be free to hold any political views that made sense to them. They could be gay and fiscally conservative, gay and religious, gay and liberal; the combinations would be endless, and nobody would care.
That’s the kind of world I’d like to live in. The United States should be the poster child for that kind of world.
I’m ashamed that it isn’t.
We Are All Unique
I think I found Bill’s “grain of sand” talk even more comforting than the “garden variety drunk” one. This was probably because even though it was helpful to hear that other people’s problems echoed my own, I often still felt alone with a lot of my angst. Finding a place to talk honestly about it saved my life, I haven’t a doubt, but it wasn’t enough to bring me totally out of my isolation. So it was really, really good to hear that as ordinary as my problems were, they were also unique. If not for that message, I don’t know that I could have gotten past my shame and continued reaching out for help. I felt so “different” so much of the time. To a large extent, I still do.
That’s because I am different–as is everybody. Even though we all have basically the same wants, needs, desires, and fears that impel us through life, we each have a unique personal history that causes us to see the world differently than everybody else on the planet. Because of this, we each chase our wants, quell our fears, and express ourselves in individual ways.
This may seem obvious, and I suppose it is, but it’s important to think about for a few reasons. One is that, no matter how strong the pull to belong is, we will always have unique attributes that make us feel at least somewhat different. There is no way to feel totally connected to a group or even to another individual. We must learn to be content with partial connections in every walk of life. Such partial connections can be very comprehensive and also very satisfying, but all the more so if we understand it to be the case and don’t expect otherwise. When people are confused about this, they can seek unrealistic, unhealthy bonds or delude themselves into thinking they have something they don’t. This has been labeled various things, including codependence, fusion, and true believerism. Each is a way people try to avoid the sense of isolation that comes with uniqueness. It’s a futile struggle, and a tragic one, too, because trying not to feel different is a distraction from coming to terms with our unavoidable human condition.
Also, embracing our uniqueness fosters tolerance. When we understand that we’re all looking for the same basic things but we’re all looking for them in unique ways–and some have more effective tools than others–it’s easier to be patient with the differences existing among people, particularly in this age of multiculturalism and plurality, where people of all ethnicities, religions, and political belief systems are together in one big melting pot (called a “city”). Without an appreciation for each other’s uniqueness, all sorts of violence can–and does–occur. This too, is the result of a tragic misunderstanding of the human condition: of our common sameness and our common uniqueness.
It’s good, in fact, it’s wonderful that we’re all unique! One way to define creativity is as a unique expression of a person’s individuality. Because of our uniqueness, everybody has a distinct voice, and creativity is the expression of that voice. All art arises from a person’s unique view of the world. And where would we be without art, which is the very celebration of our uniqueness? Thankfully, it’s impossible to imagine. But if we weren’t unique, each with a special way of seeing and a special creativity to contribute, there would be no art, no music, no literature–nothing that makes life transcendent and beautiful and sacred. So in a very real way, you could say that uniqueness is the innate human quality that makes life worth living.
I believe this to be true, as did the Founding Fathers. Our constitutional freedoms are based on the inalienable right to pursue life, liberty and happiness in the best ways we see fit. Such a view was revolutionary in human history, and resulted in the freest, most prosperous nation to ever exist. Individual freedom, creativity, and the precious nature of our uniqueness fit together to provide the basic components of human dignity. The evidence is all around us.
We are all much the same at our core, but we all pursue our similar wants and needs in unique ways. Being comfortable with our “differentness” is crucial to discovering and following our bliss. And really, what else is there? So embrace your uniqueness if you haven’t done so already, and discover what special and wonderful contribution you have to make. I promise you it’s there, waiting for you to find it.
We Are All the Same
In AA (12 Step) meetings, a lot of people like to say, “I’m just a garden variety drunk like everybody else.” It always felt good to hear somebody say this, I think because when you’re mired down in an addiction, it can feel like you’re utterly alone in a dark, scary world that no one can help you out of because no one could possibly understand what you’re going through. Then, when you get to AA, you hear people talking frankly and openly, without shame or embarrassment, about the exact things you thought no one could understand and would mortify you to speak of openly. In those meetings you find not just one person, but whole roomfuls of people, who understand exactly what you’re going through.
It’s a very powerful experience. Although 12 Step programs have some serious limitations (which I’ve written about extensively), they are unique in that you can walk into any meeting anywhere in the world and talk about your problems and your pain openly. And in doing so, you discover that other people struggle with the identical issues.
In a very real way, we are all the same. We share more than the same bilaterally symmetrical shape, the same evolutionary history, the same number of chromosomes, the same needs for food and water and air. We also share the same fears, the same anxieties, the same hopes, the same desires, the same dreams. Everybody wants to feel loved, appreciated, and respected. Everybody wants to find happiness. Everybody wants to be successful. We may each define these things differently, but at our core, our wants, desires and fears are the same.
There are two reasons why it’s important to remember this. The first is that when you feel separate, isolated and alone in your pain, you aren’t. Somewhere out there, somebody is having the same painful experience, the same painful feelings as you. Nobody is ever completely alone, although our pain, depression, and shame will often make us believe otherwise. When we’re feeling any of these (or all of them at once, as we inevitably will at some points in our lives), it can be extremely difficult to reach out or even to imagine there are people to reach out to, people who will understand, people who are going through similar trials, or have gone through such trials and come out the other side. When we’re in a dark spot, knowing that this is the case beforehand can mean the difference between reaching out for the help we need and staying stuck, isolated, and alone. Understanding the universality of the human condition will always, always help to lessen the pain, whether by enabling us to ask for help or just by assuring us we’re all in the same boat.
The second reason to remember that we are all, at our core, the same, is that this knowledge fosters tolerance. People might look different, sound different, smell different, and have a different cultural, social, or economic background, and these differences may cause them to see the world differently, but they still all want the same things. From the street-gang member to the member of Congress, everyone is looking for a sense of belonging, for respect, and for mutual understanding. Whatever walk of life people herald from, these basic wants and needs don’t change. Remembering this can keep our levels of impatience and judgment at a manageable threshold, and rein them in more easily when they rise above it.
The Buddhists and Hindus believe in non-duality, which says that all separateness is an illusion. Further, that this illusion is the source of suffering; if we can recognize the non-dual nature of everything, then our suffering ceases. I believe this is true, but it is a very difficult place to live on a regular basis. Until that happens for me, I try to remind myself regularly that we are all the same, at least as far as our humanity is concerned. Whether or not that thought is comforting for its own sake or because it speaks to a higher truth, I don’t know. But it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that we’re never alone, and remembering that has the power to transform our lives in a lot of different ways.
If You’re Feeling Down, Get Out of Yourself
A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.–Albert Einstein
If you’re feeling down, the quickest way to feel better is to get out of yourself. That is, to stop thinking about what’s going on with you and go do something kind for somebody else.
This is one of those thing that does not require analysis or understanding for it to be helpful. It simply requires action. If you want to understand it, however, that’s okay, too (it certainly can’t hurt). My personal theory as to why it’s so effective is that it brings us closer to our True Nature, to the god in ourselves. When we act with love and good intentions, we are tacitly acknowledging our connection to and basic harmony with the Universe. When we act beyond our own self-interest, we are expressing a most sophisticated form of self-love, even if we don’t know it.
Actually, in the truest sense, we aren’t connected to the Universe, we are the Universe. We are living, breathing cells in the universal body. It’s difficult to see this, though, because, to paraphrase Alan Watts, it’s like trying to see our own eyes or bite our own teeth. We are It and It is us, and we best experience this by action, feeling, and awareness (as opposed to thought).
I don’t want to get too much into this non-dual philosophy, as others have done a much more eloquent job of that than I ever could. I do believe it’s among the most important of things to be aware of, though, because such awareness is the basic component of enlightenment itself. Or at least, that is my understanding. I claim no personal experience of enlightenment, other than a few “peek” experiences, during which I was overcome with a sense of connectedness to all things and an intense joy and sense of well-being (and I was sober, by the way, every time).
Anyway, as I said, understanding the underlying significance of the action isn’t important to feeling better in the here and now (although I do believe it to be of much importance for other reasons). Taking the action is all that matters.
How do you do that? It isn’t too difficult. Here are some suggestions:
- If you’re mad at somebody, do something kind for him, even if you have to force yourself. You’ll be amazed at how quickly the anger will evaporate and lose all power over you.
- Send positive energy and good wishes to everybody you know–particularly people you don’t like, are angry at, or are envious of. This is a take-off of a formal Buddhist practice called metta, or loving-kindness, thought to be an antidote for all kinds of negative feelings.
- Do something kind or unselfish for a stranger and don’t tell anybody. If you do accidentally tell somebody, then do something else kind or unselfish. In fact, even if you don’t tell anybody, do as many kind and unselfish things you can think to do because the more of these you can fit into your day, the better you’ll feel.
- If you can afford to, donate to a charity and don’t tell anybody. Better yet, volunteer your time. Spending time helping strangers in any capacity takes you out of yourself and improves your mood like nothing else can.
Also, when you’re feeling down, if you’re like me, you may have a tendency to shut people out, keep them at bay, or snap, criticize and complain. Make an effort not to do this. If you know your first reaction tends toward the negative, make a conscious attempt not to act on this impulse. This is probably where the old adage to “count to ten” comes from: if you restrain yourself, you may save yourself from saying or doing something you’ll regret, something that will make you feel worse, not better.
None of this new information. Mostly it’s common sense. But if you’re in a dark place, it always helps to hear it again. My one interesting twist is that getting out of yourself feels good because it brings you closer to your True Nature, even if you don’t understand what that is yet.