Brave New Kitty

When I was in a group therapy, we talked a lot about the concept of “getting little.” It happens in reaction to stress or fear, and it means that, emotionally, you’ve just regressed to a very young age. Sometimes just being around certain people, or even people who remind you of certain people, or events, can trigger it. It’s related to, perhaps even a version of, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and is almost always accompanied by intense shame. It’s a common stress reaction for people, particularly women, who grew up in invalidating or abusive environments. In fact, it’s so common, it’s surprising how many people don’t know what it is, much less when they’re experiencing it.

All of us in the group were familiar with “getting little,” although none of us had a name for it before we got there. Giving it a name made it easier to talk about and went a long way toward eliminating the shame that accompanied it. In fact, I think learning to deal with “getting little” was one of the most useful concepts I took away from therapy.

When you “get little,” you are literally unable to think or reason as your adult self. Your fear, anger, or shame—or some combination of all three—becomes so overwhelming that you can’t see past it. You’ve switched into survival mode, fight or flight; your logic and reason are not accessible. On some level, you feel your life is in danger, however irrational that may be. For example, if when you were small your father’s anger usually led to physical abuse, you may become irrationally afraid when someone you’re close to in the present gets angry. Intellectually you know that it doesn’t make sense, you know that your emotional reaction is “too big” for the situation, but every time it happens, you feel that familiar, overpowering sense of panic taking over, and you feel absolutely powerless to stop it.

It’s a terrible feeling. But that’s not even the worst part. When it happens, you can say or do things that you would not normally say or do. Afterwards, the shame from being out of control can be crippling, and it can be incredibly difficult to forgive yourself and get on with your life, much less connect with the people you’re closest to. This can be true even if your overreaction is to shut down rather than lash out; either way, the shame kicks in. Getting little can be a vicious cycle of impulsivity, shame, and remorse that can take a long, long time to break free of.

Recognizing it when it happens is the first step. When you find yourself feeling terrified, panicked, rageful, shut down, unable to think clearly, or otherwise powerless over your emotions, you have “gotten little.” Here are some suggestions for dealing with it:

1. Have a plan ahead of time. You won’t be able to think rationally when you are in the throes of “littleness.” This is why understanding what it is and why it’s happening is so important. During a time of calmness, make a plan to recognize it and know what to do when it happens. The following steps are what a plan might look like.
2. Honor the feelings. We have a tendency to be hard on ourselves when we get into this dark place, to dismiss the feelings because they’re irrational, and chastise ourselves for having them. This is not helpful. Instead, you have to understand that the feelings are there for a reason. Something very old and primitive inside you needs to heal, and it’s trying to get your attention. When it takes over, you must address it. The more you try to shove it aside and minimize its importance, the more demands it will make of you. This cycle of repression/denial is physically and emotionally draining, and takes its toll in all sorts of seemingly unrelated ways: anxiety, irritation, and physical symptoms of stress such as stomach problems, rashes, and getting sick a lot. So remember that above all, the feelings are real and you have to take them seriously if you want to get past them.
3. Immediately stop engaging in whatever is going on. Attempts to carry on a rational, adult conversation when you’re in this place are futile, and you know from experience that they rarely go well. Instead, you must step back and address what’s going on internally: What is the feeling? Why does it feel so big? What does it remind you of? What do you think triggered it? If the person you are with is safe, then tell him what’s happening—if you’ve included him in your plan, then he will be able to help you with your process. If the person is not safe, then simply excuse yourself and say you’ll finish the conversation later: do not allow yourself to be sucked back in. You could do some journaling at this point, or call someone who can help you work through your big feelings. Only when you’re calm and rational should you continue with what triggered the regression in the first place.
4. Deal with the shame. Shame makes us feel less-than; like we don’t matter and aren’t lovable or worth much of anything to anyone. This feeling is a lie, and the quickest way to get past it is to connect with a person who understands that. So connect with someone as quickly as you can and talk about what happened. But make sure it is a safe person. Don’t go to someone who will require an explanation or worse, a justification, of what’s going on. You should have two or three people on your call list who can fulfill this purpose (and you for them). This is in addition to the person you’re in conflict with, even if he is safe.

I stress “safe” people because when we have issues like this, it’s usually because we were raised in unsafe environments and never learned how to take care of ourselves very well emotionally. If we don’t consciously address the issue of unsafe people in our lives, we will often go to the very people who created the problem in the first place for comfort. It sounds crazy, but unless we teach ourselves not to, we often keep going back to the source hoping it will be different. Maybe someday it will be, but that is not helpful in dealing with your shame in the present. Being “unsafe” doesn’t necessarily mean our parents and siblings are bad people. It merely means that they are not able to understand our issues in a helpful way. So it’s generally a good idea to make a rule not to go to a family member for help. Find support people who understand the issues and speak the language of shame; that’s what I mean by “safe” people.

We all get little sometimes; nobody is immune to it, and it doesn’t mean everybody automatically needs therapy. But if it happens often, and if the accompanying shame makes it hard to forgive yourself, then you might want to get some help dealing with it. Having an intellectual understanding of getting little is essential to taking care of yourself when it’s happening, and perhaps more importantly, dealing with the accompanying shame.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. – Ayn Rand

A couple of years ago, I was talking to a friend about motorcycling. He and his wife both ride, as do my partner and I, and he was telling me about a conversation his wife had had with one of her co-workers. Her co-worker asked her, “What do you like best about riding?” She replied, “I love those big, sweeping curves that last forever on mountain roads…what do you like best about it?”

The guy replied, “I like dressing up.”

It’s springtime here in Minnesota, and the cyclists are out in droves. Seeing the guys in their leather gear, with their be-leathered women hanging on for dear life (neither of them wearing helmets) got me thinking again about the guy who likes to play dress-up with his $25,000 motorcycle. It got me thinking about the whole idea of costumes. Why do people wear costumes, and why is it an interesting topic?

To answer the last question first, it’s interesting because it speaks to a phenomenon that I call “the illusion of non-conformity,” which basically means activities or outfits that allow people to see themselves as being unique, or wild, or naughty, or however it is they want to see themselves, without taking the risk of actually being any of those things. It isn’t exclusive to Harley-Davidson posers, but they are a stellar illustration of it because the dress-up factor is so over the top. What used to be an occasional sighting is now pathetically common: middle-aged, middle class people covered from head to toe in orange and black leather gear. Have you ever seen a pudgy middle-aged woman decked out in heavy leather boots, her fat behind squeezing out of squeaky-clean leather chaps (which are completely unnecessary for the casual level of riding she engages in); a too-snug T-shirt (or worse, a halter top) emblazoned with an out-of-state cycle shop name and some colorful combination of lightning, a motorcycle, an eagle, and an American flag; a leather vest; an orange-and-black headband tied neatly around her bleached hair, the H-D logo carefully displayed in the center of her forehead; and last but not least, huge H-D earrings flopping along as she humps her way through a roadside bar to the restroom, grinning vacantly from ear to ear and displaying her logo-ized gear like it’s a trophy she won? If you have, then you’ve probably done what I’ve done, which is to turn and look for her male counterpart, and you are not disappointed: he has all the same trappings, sans the earrings (although he may have a stylish gold stud protruding from one lobe). It’s obvious they think they’re the coolest suburbanites in the world, but what they really look like are walking advertisements for Missing the Point Entirely.

(Here’s a simple test to determine whether you’re a poser or a “real” rider: if your riding gear would be ruined by rain, then you’re a poser.)

There’s nothing wrong, of course, with wanting to ride motorcycles around on weekends, or even with wanting to dress up. People are free to do what they want, and I understand the allure of the motorcycle better than most. But people should not make the mistake of thinking there’s anything non-conformist about it, or that there is any expression of individuality going on here. The Harley-Davidson “lifestyle” is the result of a sophisticated marketing strategy, successful because it packages and sells the illusion of non-conformity to the middle class, perhaps better than any company ever has. Because of its historical association with antisocial nonconformists like Easy Rider and the Hell’s Angels, whose reputations are now mellowed with age, the gurgling V-twin cruiser bike has become symbolic of individuality, of the strong silent type who does his own thing and lives by his own sense of right and wrong; sort of a modern day cowboy. That is certainly who Easy Rider was.

But dressing up like him does not make it so.

Wearing a costume does not make you something you’re not. In fact, wearing a costume, professional uniforms notwithstanding, is indicative of a desire to conform, and not of individuality, as costume wearers tend to believe. This is true whatever your costume may be. From leather motorcycle gear to tattoos and piercings, to pants belted at the knee and sideways caps, to high heels and skin-tight skirts, to T-shirts with Bible verses on them, and any and all other outfits people wear for the sole purpose of declaring their affiliations to the world, a costume says, “I care what people think.” Ironically, the more outlandish the costume, the more the wearer is concerned what people think. More ironic still is that the desired perception the costume wearer wants to evoke is uniqueness.

Everybody wants to believe they are unique. But we all already are, so there is no reason to make the effort to be. Making such an effort belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what individuality really is; it has almost nothing to do with how we look on the outside.

The costume is powerful because it’s safe, while true nonconformity is scary. A true nonconformist risks misunderstanding, ridicule, ostracism, demonization, accusations of heresy, and worse (depending on the rigidity of the culture one is not conforming to). True nonconformity disturbs people; true nonconformists are the people others politely refer to as “different.” And while not all nonconformists are geniuses—some are mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or simply uninterested in things most people are interested in—all creative endeavors down through the ages have been undertaken by people willing to risk nonconformity for the sake of their ideas. And this is a guess, but I think that all true nonconformists down through the ages cared not a whit about how they appeared to other people, beyond the norms of common dress. They were too absorbed in pursuing their own creativity.

People who succumb to the illusion of nonconformity are missing that point about individuality, that it is about pursuing their own unique creativity. They have found a safe, non-threatening way to express their impulse to be unique without actually being so. The sad thing is, the illusion hinders them from finding their true individuality. It’s just a comfortable diversion. True nonconformity is hard and scary, but I submit that if something—you fill in the blank—isn’t hard and scary, it probably isn’t going to get you where you really want to be.

Not even on the back of a motorcycle.

Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. – Swami Sivananda

I could give a list of things to do—or not do—to make better use of your time. Things like:

• Make daily task lists and check off activities when you complete them.
• Be disciplined about watching television, surfing the Internet, playing video games, and other time wasters: if you must indulge, allow yourself a set amount of time, and adhere to it.
• Cut out all non-essential meetings and obligations wherever possible and use that time to complete tasks.
• Avoid interruptions and procrastination.
• When you know you’ll have time to kill, such as waiting for a doctor appointment, bring productive material to work on.

All of these are good guidelines, but they’re not really anything new. You can find them, and many more, in any book or article about using your time more efficiently. And while all such pointers are helpful, and the use of specific behaviors and tools can indeed improve your use of time, none of them get at the underlying issue, which is this:

The secret to not wasting time is not so much to stop doing frivolous things, but to stop doing things frivolously.

In other words, be mindful about everything you do. Everything. From meetings with co-workers to washing dishes, to going for a walk, to driving, immerse yourself deeply in all of your activities. When you’re able to do this, everything has meaning, because the things that don’t just kind of naturally fall out of your life. For example, you won’t have to go through an internal struggle anymore about not turning on the television or indulging in other activities you don’t feel good about; they won’t even register on your radar screen. When you develop the quality of mindfulness, the problem of wasting time evaporates as if into thin air.

Furthermore, mindfulness can make the dullest of tasks a path to wisdom, self-awareness, and inner peace (really!). The Buddhists have a saying, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” That is to say, it’s not so much what you do, it’s how you do it; we will always have mundane chores in our lives, but it’s possible to find joy and satisfaction—and maybe even enlightenment—in doing them. If mindfulness can do that for mundane chores, imagine what it can do for everything else!

All mindfulness means is paying attention. As simple as that sounds, it can be a difficult thing to practice. In fact, no one is 100% mindful all the time. But those who have good powers of concentration tend to be the most productive. Think of something you’ve done that you were fully immersed in, for example, reading a good book, watching a good movie, making love, or doing something creative. Now think of applying that level of attention, or close to it, to every moment of your life. Sounds a little intimidating, doesn’t it?

Certainly, mindfulness is a lifetime task. But the alternative is to miss all the moments that don’t stand up and grab your full attention. In other words, the vast majority of moments.

How do you develop mindfulness? One of the best ways is through meditation. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of meditation techniques. You can buy books about it, or find a class on beginning meditation (sometimes even called “Mindfulness Meditation” or the like), or look it up on the Internet for more options. Some methods have religious affiliations, but many don’t.

Perhaps the easiest way to get started is with a guided meditation tape or CD. All these require is setting aside the time to listen; you don’t need to buy any special equipment or clothing, you just need to find a comfortable couch or bed to relax on and let the guide do the rest. One program I recommend is Holosync, which has proven results (check out their website for more information).

If none of these appeal to you, just set aside some time as often as you can to be still and go inside yourself.  Because really, that’s all meditation is.

Whatever you choose, it should be something you can enjoy; and I guarantee, you will never have had this much fun becoming more productive!

Once you’ve established a mindfulness practice that you enjoy, and you’ve noticed improvements in your levels of concentration, relaxation, and sense of well-being (all of which and more come almost instantaneously from any meditation practice) then perhaps you will want to revisit your to-do lists and time strategy tools. You are likely to see them with new eyes, and you are also likely to be amazed at how easy it is to make good decisions and follow through on them.

Using your time well is about more than developing a strategy, or even self-discipline. It’s about having a deep, solid understanding of what you value and why you value it. If you really want to change—and this is true for anything, not just time use—it is essential to address underlying belief systems. True change is not possible without doing so.

Mindfulness creates meaning in everything you do. In so doing, it circumvents the whole problem of wasting time by bringing your focus to a higher level of thought and action. Once you understand what’s important and why, wasting time becomes a moot point.

If you believe in God, I don’t. If you don’t, I do. – Alan Watts

In Spirituality and the Mythical God, I talked about how spirituality and literal belief in sacred myths, such as those in the Bible, are far from the same thing; that, in fact, belief in the literalness of myth is actually contrary to spiritual growth. In this article, I’d like to discuss how atheism typically relates to the mythical god and why it, too, is an incomplete view of spirituality.

Atheism literally means “against theism” or “anti-theism.” [Correction: a-theism means, literally, without theism.] Theism is the belief in a god who created and is intimately associated with every occurrence in the Universe, most importantly, with the lives of all human beings. An atheist rejects this view as irrational and therefore wrong. While some atheists believe in non-theistic supreme beings, such as gods who created the Universe but do not participate in its workings (this is called Deism) most do not believe in any beings that can’t be proven to exist. In this article, I’ll be using the latter definition of atheism: disbelief in any beings who can’t be proven to exist.

Atheists usually arrive at their beliefs (or lack thereof, as some might see it) in reaction to mythical religion. At some point, usually during adolescence or young adulthood (when people are willing to invest the time it takes to ponder such weighty issues), they say to themselves, “I don’t believe that really happened.” And they reject the stories as fairy tales, for that is the closest analogy they can find in the secular world. Quite often, this rejection is an emotional experience for the young atheist, who feels his parents have wronged him by trying to make him believe things so glaringly not true. The result is a person with a profound distaste for all things religious. He marvels at people’s plausible denial of the obvious and wonders “How have these myths managed to hang on as long as they have and exert so much power over mankind?”

If you are a critical thinker, it’s not hard to empathize. And yet, ironically, the atheist is stuck in the same myth as the believer; he is merely on the other side of it. His beliefs are rational, but they are also reactionary, defined largely by the system he’s rebelled against, thus tying him to it. If he is to put a solid foundation under them, he must think the issue through more thoroughly.

Let’s try to do that now.

Rejecting sacred myths as literal truth is a forward step in thinking. It is a more rational, more reasonable, more logical worldview. Therefore, it is a more sophisticated worldview. This cognitive advancement, in fact, was at the root of the Enlightenment, summarized by Immanuel Kant as “simply the freedom to use one’s own intelligence.” This had not been the case prior to this period. Prior to the Enlightenment, the Church was the arbiter of science; in other words, people looked to the Church for answers. This makes sense, if the Church is the organization with the best answers to life’s difficult questions, which it was. Who are we, why are we here, where did we come from, what is the meaning of life, what happens after we die: all the realm of the Church until the Enlightenment. In one sense, the Enlightenment can be seen as the separation of Church and science. The Church was still the authority on moral issues, but science was now and henceforth the authority on knowledge. And no matter how steeped one may be in Church dogma, he cannot easily dispute the superiority of science in the realm of knowledge. The Church could never have increased life span, invented dentistry, written a Declaration of Independence, pursued flight, or any of the other miracles of critical thought made possible by the Enlightenment. They just would not have happened.

Technology, knowledge, and critical thinking have forged ahead and will continue to forge ahead. Why? Because knowledge gathering is an integral part of who we are, and mankind’s history and even prehistory follow a clear path in this quest for knowledge. First, tribal leaders invented stories to explain the Universe. Then the Church came along and became the authority on this knowledge. Then the Church was replaced by a more rational system, which separated and refined the pursuit of knowledge into a scientific method. As we continue to develop, it’s likely that the scientific method will be enhanced, or maybe even replaced, by even more advanced systems; some say this has already happened with postmodernism. The point is that, if you value rationality and critical thinking—which you can’t not value, as they are by all evidence man’s most powerful survival tools and an integral part of our most basic nature—then you must recognize the more logical view as the more sophisticated one.

Thus, atheism is a rational response to a dogmatic belief system; literal belief in myth is just silly, and really requires no further refutation. But it is important not to confuse dogma with spirituality, which it is not. If you’ve rejected the entire spiritual realm along with the dogma of organized religion, you have rejected a basic part of who you are, and this needs to be addressed.

Spirituality, which I define as that which is of ultimate concern, is as much a part of our makeup as is the pursuit of knowledge. And science can’t answer questions of ultimate concern. From Integral Spirituality, by Ken Wilber:

…Science cannot say whether God exists or not; whether there is an Absolute or not; why we are here, what our ultimate nature is, and so on. Science can find no evidence for the Absolute; nor can it find evidence disproving an Absolute. When science is honest, it is thoroughly agnostic and thoroughly quiet on those ultimate questions.

But the human heart is not. And spiritual intelligence, meant to answer or at least address those issues, is not so easily quieted, either. Men and women need an Ultimate because in truth they intuit an Ultimate, and simple honesty requests acknowledging the yearning in your own heart.

This sense of ultimate concern is, I believe, undeniable. When you look upon a great work of art, or hear a piece of beautiful music, or feel a sudden sense of connectedness while you’re walking in the woods, or look upon a starlit night and wonder at the immensity of the Universe, or feel a sense of your own greatness, or the flow of thought and feeling and order down through time, you know—you just know—that there is something miraculous in being alive, and something even more miraculous in the conscious awareness of being alive. This is difficult to put into words, and way beyond the dogma of organized religion to define or explain. But you know it’s important to, if not fully understand, revere.

That is a recognition of your spiritual nature.

When you acknowledge this Great Mystery, you have begun to move beyond atheism and toward a mature spirituality. You have discovered mysticism, the belief in consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality (from Dictionary.com). At first glance, mysticism may look like another irrational belief system, but it isn’t. Rather, it is transrational. That is, it acknowledges the reality of our sense of the inexplicable divine and seeks, through contemplation and meditation, to create a personal experience of it.

Big difference.

Once you understand the basic premise of mysticism, you can start to make sense of the myths you once rejected. You can start to answer the question, “How have these myths managed to hang on as long as they have and exert so much power over mankind?” You begin to see the crucial difference between a myth and a fairy tale, and you begin to understand that the myths serve a valid and vital service to mankind, uniting us and guiding us in our human struggle to make sense of the world and understand our place in it. When we see the sacred myths as metaphors for the human struggle, then we can accept them on a new—more sophisticated—level and integrate them into our lives in their proper place. (Sadly, literal interpretation misses this point entirely. For example, if you were to tell a fundamentalist Christian that you understood the crucifixion story to be about your own struggle for wholeness, you would be instantly denounced as a heretic. If Christ could see what became of his teachings, he would be truly heartbroken.)

We need myth. It describes our human struggle and unites us in it. It ensures us that we are never alone. It transcends all man-made divisions and guides us down the path of enlightenment. Myth gives existence meaning, which is what we all crave, in our most human of ways, whether we are aware of it or not.

Science is important, but it cannot give life meaning. Thus, myth stands in tandem with science, no more important, but no less, either. Both serve man in uniquely necessary ways, separate but equal, and both must be acknowledged as basic requirements to fully develop our human potential.

The revival in recent years of fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity is, in my opinion, evidence of the lack of avenues open to rational people compelled to fulfill their spiritual quest. In fact, I believe re-integration of spirituality with the secular rationality of modern life is one of the most relevant crises of modern times. We must find a way to incorporate spirituality at levels beyond conventional religion if we are to understand and solve the moral dilemmas we face today.

Further reading:
The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell (also a PBS miniseries)
The Cry for Myth, by Rollo May
Integral Spirituality, by Ken Wilber

There’s a million ways to laugh, and every one’s a path. – Pete Townshend

I’ve noticed that on this blog I often say, “this is one of the most important things you can learn in your quest for personal growth” or something along similar lines. I said it about mindfulness, about meditation, about living in the present moment, about forgiving yourself, about loving yourself, about understanding ego, and many other things as well. I was feeling self-conscious about it, thinking that maybe I was too adamant, or too maudlin, or too preachy, about the topics I write about. And while it may be true that at times I can get preachy or obnoxious (although I hope not too often) when I feel strongly about something, when I reread what I’ve written, it always makes sense to me. I’m very proud of most of it.

But I was puzzled about how so many things could be equally important to personal growth. At first I thought, how can this be? How can all these different things be of “vital importance” to personal growth? Am I just blowing smoke? Am I trying to make something sound more important than it actually is to make a point, so I have a topic to write about? I really didn’t think so, but I didn’t know for sure; after all, not all good writing is honest writing.

After taking some time to think it through, I realized that if I said something was vital to personal growth, I meant it. And I had an awareness about why I make this claim of vital importance about so many different topics. What I’m really talking about most of the time—maybe all of the time—is one thing: spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is anything that enlarges us, makes us more aware of who we really are and of our place in the Universe. That’s what Brave New Kitty is about. And anything can lead us to this enlargement of personhood. Absolutely anything.

Everything can be a path to spirituality, to learning what is of utmost importance in life. No matter where you start or what thread you pull to start unraveling the Great Mystery, you will become enlarged if you are open to becoming enlarged. Period.
Of course, some things are more useful than others. Meditation, living in the present, learning unflagging self-love; these are all truly vital to wholeness no matter how you choose to define it. But that’s the beauty: it doesn’t matter how you define wholeness, because if you are open to becoming whole, you will get there, no matter what. Your mental picture of wholeness may change over time, in fact, it’s almost certain to, but that only means you’re growing. It’s all good.

So I try to write about the things I’ve figured out, and what these realizations have meant to me personally, and what I think they mean to personal growth in general. And perhaps the overarching theme of this blog is that you can start anywhere, and everything is a path to spiritual growth.

If you want to grow, you will. That’s how the Universe works. You can’t desire growth and not grow. So no matter where you are in life, or what you’re going through, no matter what pain or grief you’re enduring or no matter how great things are, everything going on is an opportunity. You can immerse yourself in it, or you can fight it; these choices, too, are an opportunity. Everything, absolutely everything we think and do and feel, is an opportunity, a doorway to personal growth and, ultimately, enlightenment. I think remembering that is half the battle, because it’s easy to forget. But then, forgetting, too, is an opportunity. Because everything is. All the time.

This doesn’t mean we must always be on alert, constantly working on ourselves and trying to wring all the juice we can out of our life experiences. It means that, once we understand this fundamental fact of life, maybe the wisest thing we can do is relax. Just kind of relax into it and let opportunity carry us, like a metaphysical river, downstream, not fighting the flow of what life has in store for us. Alan Watts always talked about the playful nature of life. I think I understand what he meant. Since everything is a path, and all paths lead to the same outcome, there is no need to worry too much about anything. The object is to enjoy the scenery along the way.

Personal growth—a term I now see I use interchangeably with spiritual growth—takes effort, but the effort should be fun. Life will take us there without us forcing it; all we have to be is willing. Everything else will fall into place.

Related to challenging yourself is the idea of doing the hard thing. By this, I mean that sometimes, you have to push yourself to take on the things that intimidate you the most.

Human nature naturally seeks out the path of least resistance. “Getting by” is kind of how nature works: animals expend the energy they must to eat, and save what’s left for survival. In many areas of life, there’s nothing wrong with this. But not when we’re talking about personal development. If you want to become really expert at something, or overcome a fear, or move into uncharted personal territory, you must be willing to do the hard thing.

Here’s another example from the world of poker. Poker, Texas Holdem specifically, has become a big hobby of mine. It is perhaps the world’s most sophisticated game. I realize how silly that might sound to the uninitiated, but it’s true. It draws on skills of logic, strategy, psychology, patience, observation, aggression, courage, and salesmanship. It is deceptively simple, taking just a few minutes to learn but a lifetime to master. In the words of one professional player, “Poker has a lot to offer a person.” I have found this to be true. If you’re a serious student of the game, you can really find out what you’re made of at a poker table. (The inverse is that if you’re not a serious student, you can still have immense fun playing. That’s what makes the game so multi-layered, complex, and fascinating.)

Texas Holdem strategy is divided into two main categories: pre-flop and post-flop. Pre-flop (also called “starting hand” play) decisions are fairly mechanical: you get dealt two cards, and you have to do decide how you want to play them. Certain hands have certain values, and you can memorize tables and statistics so you know how you should play a hand in a given situation. Sometimes you deviate from this, but you do so for a logical reason. For example, if you want to be in hand with a maniac bluffer, or are trying to steal the antes, or are advertising that you’re a “bad” player so you can get more action when you get dealt a big hand (if you’re in a game where that sort of thing works). You get the general idea.

The “flop” is three community cards, dealt after the initial betting round and shared by all players in the hand. This is the meat of the game. You may have “flopped” two pair, which is a big hand, but somebody else may have flopped three of a kind, a straight, or a strong draw to a powerhouse hand like this. It’s your job to figure out whether your two pair is the best hand or not and if it isn’t, what your next move should be; this is where the aforementioned skills come into play.

Among serious Holdem students, there is a tendency to get stuck on pre-flop strategy. I’ve seen this over and over. People analyze starting hands to death and avoid developing their post-flop strategy. Pre-flop strategy is necessary to know, but insufficient if you want to become a world-class player. It’s the easy part of the game. Why do people do this? To avoid the hard thing. But it’s more complicated than that, and the complexity of this problem, like that of Texas Holdem, is what makes it interesting.

There is a means/end dichotomy that happens when a person wants to see herself as a serious student, but isn’t doing the work required to actually be a serious student. When we value knowledge, it’s easy—and important—to see ourselves as people who strive for it. But there can be a world of difference between seeing yourself as someone who seeks knowledge, and someone who actually does. Obtaining real knowledge is hard work. You have to separate yourself from the herd, delve into the deep end of the pool, and empower yourself with the willingness to look stupid and to fail.

If you truly want to learn, you must ask yourself: Am I putting in the effort required? Then you must strive to answer this question as honestly as you can, and this is harder than you might think. Start by asking yourself questions such as these:

• When I read how-to or self-help books, do I go through them once, or do I study the material until I understand it? Do I do the exercises? Do I follow up with suggested reading?
• Am I willing to forego other, less challenging things I enjoy doing for the sake of learning?
• Do I have a sense of satisfaction, or do I feel a nagging discomfort about how I’m approaching a topic? And if I do have a nagging discomfort, what is the source of it?
• Am I caught up in the excitement of learning something new, or am I more likely to distract myself from the learning by focusing on superficial aspects of the topic? (What are the superficial aspects? What are the deeper aspects?)
• What am I satisfied with? What do I want to do differently?

Be ruthless about uncovering the truth. This is how you will get what you really want, whatever that may be.

It’s okay not to push yourself, too; you don’t have to become an expert at everything you do. But it’s not okay to lie to yourself about your motivations and desires. Be clear about what you want to accomplish, and you’ll have a much better chance of getting there. More importantly, because you’ve aligned your conscious awareness with your true desires, you will be at peace with yourself, even if those true desires are difficult to swallow at first, which they can sometimes be.

If you want to grow, you must be willing to do the hard thing, and you must be willing to see yourself as you really are, which is sometimes the most difficult task of all. At the poker table, and in life.

We chose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our skills and talents, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win, and the others, too. – John F. Kennedy

Getting an easy ride through life isn’t necessarily a gift. If anything, it’s a detriment.

If you’re smart, you probably made it through high school without having to work too hard. Then, when you got to college and found yourself in a class where you actually had to apply yourself, you didn’t know how. You may have given up, or settled for a lower grade than you were used to getting. Certainly, it shook your self-identity on some level: “Could it be I’m not as smart as I think I am?” Perhaps.

If you’re beautiful, people have probably been nice to you your whole life. Attractive people typically have more friends, better jobs, and make more money than average-looking people. But it’s likely that you’re insecure about your competency, and that you want to be taken seriously: “Was I hired for my looks, or am I actually capable of doing this job?” “Does my partner love me for who I am, or is he with me because of my looks?” How to find out?

If you were born rich, you’ve probably gotten everything you wanted all your life. But what about when what you want goes beyond material things? If you have any depth at all, at some point you’re going to wonder if people love you for you or for your wealth, and if you’re good at anything; since you’ve never had to apply yourself, you don’t know.

I’m not, by any stretch, saying it’s a curse to be born with a gift. Being naturally blessed with higher than average ability is something a person ought appreciate (and if she’s lucky, she’ll have parents who teach her that early on). It’s just that, in the real world, natural gifts don’t mean very much. It’s what you do with them that matters. All natural talent means is that if you work really hard, you can become world class at something; nobody becomes world class at anything without effort.

Less gifted people seem to have an easier time learning this lesson. Maybe that’s what Harry Truman meant by “The C students run the world.” Meaning, the more average among us learn early on that if they want to succeed, they have to apply themselves.

I think it’s a tough would-you-rather: gifted but insecure, or average and tenacious. That’s kind of a straw man argument, though, because it’s not an either/or. We all have natural talent, and we all have tenacity, either developed or potential. That’s the point of this post.

In the realm of personal development, the only race you run is with yourself. So whatever your starting position, you have to work if you want to blossom into your full potential.

There is no other way.

If you find yourself dissatisfied or unfulfilled, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough. Pushing yourself to become better, more knowledgeable, more whole, more honest, wiser, more compassionate, to have more depth and more understanding and more ability, is what makes life worth living. There are few satisfactions in life equal to accomplishment, to knowing that, by your own effort, you made yourself better than you were before.

Yet many of us struggle with this process. We have dark thoughts like, what if I work hard and fail anyway? What if I don’t have the talent to be successful in my chosen field? What if I get what I want and find out it wasn’t what I really wanted? Look at all the time I’ll have wasted!

But it’s these thoughts that are the true waste, a mental quagmire that serves only to keep you stuck and stagnant. Effort is never a waste of time, and applying yourself is always beneficial. Even if the outcome isn’t what you wanted, or you discover you didn’t really want it. You always learn something, and learning is a form of accomplishment. Therefore, even if you consider the outcome a failure, you’ve accomplished something. In fact, failure might be the most valuable teacher of all.

All successful people have come to terms with failure. Most entrepreneurs fail several times before they finally create a successful business. Most writers endure hundreds of rejections before they get a story or book published. Many great artists aren’t appreciated until after their death. And we all know the story of Thomas Edison’s tenacity with the light bulb: it took ten thousand-some tries before he got it right.

Perhaps the main difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is how they look at failure. While unsuccessful people see it as a reason to give up, successful people see it as a learning opportunity. Successful people have learned to not take failure as an assault to their character. Instead, they take it in stride and wring all the knowledge they can out of it. They see it as part of the natural learning process. Failure means nothing more than that they’re making progress. Failure means they’re trying.

Somewhere along the way, successful people figured out that, regardless of natural ability, hard work is the secret to success. Work is how we define ourselves, how we blossom, how we become whole. In one sense, it doesn’t really matter what you choose to work at, or even what the outcome is, because it’s the effort itself that matters. The effort is where you’ll find the gold: it’s impossible to put in a good day’s work and not feel good about yourself.

Now, if you can just learn to feel that positively about failure, there’ll be no stopping you.

One of the first things you learn in Alcoholics Anonymous is to ask for help. Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA, stumbled upon this remedy for alcoholism in what was, in my opinion, one of the greatest moments of serendipity of the 20th century. He was traveling on business and had been sober for a short time. He felt a powerful urge to drink, and instead of going to the hotel bar, he went to the hotel lobby phone and looked up hospitals, which he called to ask about other alcoholics. One hospital gave him the number of a person who’d been admitted numerous times for alcohol treatment, and Bill called him. He was Dr. Bob Smith, the other co-founder of AA. From the moment of that phone call, both men remained sober for the rest of their lives.

Bill had inadvertently discovered the healing power of connecting with another person who shares your burden. He spent the rest of his life teaching people how to do this. The concept of asking for help is at the core of AA’s philosophy, permeating almost every aspect of the organization: the sponsor, the phone list, the sense of community, the lack of judgment and criticism, the encouragement to get involved from your very first day. Although AA never requires an alcoholic to do anything he doesn’t want to do, we all learn from the first moment we walk through the door that connecting with other sober alcoholics is imperative. If we want to stay sober, we’ll have to do it.

I can’t tell you how hard this was for me. It went against everything in my nature to ask someone I barely knew for help (excluding therapists, who, I reasoned, got paid to listen). But I wanted to stay sober, so I forced myself, at my sponsor’s advice, to get into the habit of connecting regularly with her and two or three other people from my meeting. That way, she said, when you really need help, you’ll be accustomed to asking for it.

It was some of the best advice I ever got. When I was about four months sober, my boyfriend broke up with me. I was distraught, and I was going to drink if I didn’t do something drastic. That something was to call a sober person. My sponsor was out of town on an extended vacation, but she’d left the number of a friend with me, and without even thinking about it, I called this woman and unloaded on her. She came right over, and we talked for hours. She shared her experiences with getting dumped, and I felt better. Then she brought me to a meeting, where I connected with some other people. Instead of feeling dark, desperate, and alone, I felt transformed. I was still hurting, but the hurt had become a way of connecting with people. After a lifetime of putting up a glossy front, being able to be my broken self and not have people turn away was an incredible feeling. In a way, getting dumped at this crucial point in my early sobriety—when it was still automatic to drown my sorrows—was a gift from the Universe. It taught me the lesson of reaching out like nothing else could have.

Often, when you need help most is when it’s hardest to ask for it. You can be so embarrassed about needing help that it feels like the telephone weighs 500 pounds. The last thing in the world you want to do is share how awful you feel with someone else. This reluctance can come from a number of sources. For some, it’s pride. They don’t want people to see them looking weak. For others, it’s about keeping up appearances. They grew up in a stoic family that did not discuss their problems outside or inside the home; to do so was unimaginable. For me, it was mostly shame that kept me from reaching out. I felt very alone in my pain, and believed that nobody could understand how I felt. I was also afraid it would make people uncomfortable, or that they would laugh at me and tell me to “buck up” or “quit whining.”

I suppose there’s an element of that fear for anyone feeling vulnerable, particularly if you grew up in a family that did not allow the free expression of feelings. That’s a hard thing to overcome. But it’s also very important. We all need a support system, one or two or, if we’re lucky, three people we can feel totally safe with, to call when we need to talk. This is why sponsorship is such an important concept in AA. You aren’t expected to stop feeling afraid, but if you want to stay sober, you are expected to pick up the phone anyway. After you do this a few hundred times and your sponsor never once laughs at or makes fun of you, you start to see the value of having a support system. No matter how awkward or scary it sometimes feels, you just know you’re going to feel better when you hang up that phone. Talk about positive reinforcement.

Getting into the habit of asking for counsel is healthy. All wise people do it. The President’s Cabinet, for example, is nothing more than a group of trusted advisors who help him make decisions. Although in the end we must make decisions for ourselves, we need to get input from people we trust. If we don’t, we miss out on tapping readily available sources of wisdom. No matter how smart or knowledgeable a person is, it’s impossible to consider every facet of a problem. The more wise counsel you have, the more likely you are to consider all the important factors; the more likely you are to see the problem from new and thought-provoking angles, and the more likely you are to make a sound decision.

The same goes for when you’re hurting, only more so. Talking about your pain eases it, helps you see it in different ways, assures you you’re not alone. And get over the idea that you are burdening the other person. If a person is trustworthy and kind, she will welcome the opportunity to connect with you. Also remember that you will someday be able to return the favor. Sharing pain is a two-way street.

Bill Wilson wasn’t the first person to grasp the significance of asking for help, but he may have been the first one to see it as a life-or-death proposition. Most situations aren’t so drastic, but if you’re ever in one that is, you’ll be glad you got into the habit of picking up that phone.

And if you’re lucky enough to never get into such a situation, well, at least you’ll have a good, strong arm.