Once again a continuation of a previous post, or at least an extension of a thought. A good percentage of the people I work with are chronological adults but emotional children. And sadly the more I look around the more I see this in the greater community, even our nation. People are devolving into emotional adolescence. The immediacy of the news cycle – whatever that is nowadays – leads to both intellectual and emotional confusion, and without an ingrained moral compass we lose our way. Social media, while being a boon for those isolated and alone, has evolved (devolved?) into a false reality and thus our pattern of interpreting and giving meaning to information grows distorted and the echo chamber of our mind resonates with this distortion.

One of my favorite websites is The Art of Manliness. It was started as a blog on manly virtues and skills but evolved (correct word!) into a treasure trove of skills and philosophical dissertations on virtues and ideas. It is very well written. So rather than paraphrase and even steal without proper attribution I present instead the actual article. Why gild the lily?

What our nations and communities need now more than ever are men and women with “chests.” And it is up to us, this current generation, to learn and pass this on. You can’t teach what you don’t know, so please take the time to read the article, consider your own pattern, and act accordingly.

Https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/men-without-chests

No one teaches this anymore. Why? Because they weren’t taught. And some things can’t be taught, they must be experienced. The “Greatest Generation” failed to teach their children the most important lesson of all, that of delayed gratification. They did great things, built greatness, but they were able to because they knew lack, they experienced deprivation and it made them strong. Tough. That toughness can’t be taught. It is gained through trial, and they wanted us to not know those trials and thus deprived their children of the lessons. Now, when the going gets tough there are few tough to get going. We are a society of whiners, of weaklings, of Wainrights. The cultural Childish Emotional Mind is ascendant and those few who are tough, who are actually adults are now vilified and labeled as “bad.” Terrorist or Freedom Fighter? Depends on your perspective. And the cultural narrative is turning towards the former, not knowing even what freedom is.

We have perpetuated and deepened the culture of Wainright by not allowing for failure, for inadequacy. We hand out participation trophies, and the competent, skilled and even brilliant do it themselves rather than teach and allow real learning through failure.

And once again, Brett McKay has posted more eloquently than I:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-anti-crisis-crisis/

As an extension to my last couple of posts, those words have been used more than once recently so I’m paying attention to them.

One of my former students, as her “graduation statement” said this: “I’ve learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable so I can be comfortable later.” And last night in class a student said, “Radical Openness is about learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.” And this morning in a meeting I found this to be true too. My friends and I are in positions of authority yet we are terribly uncomfortable with it; we aren’t natural leaders and are really struggling with the very present need to lead. So how can we become comfortable with this? It is necessary in order to be effective.

Once again Radical Acceptance is valuable; things cannot be any other way than how they are, and I (we) can struggle against what is or turn towards it and look for what is helpful and wanted (much like my birthday cake debacle.) What can be learned from the discomfort? If I can find value in being uncomfortable then I will be less so.

Checking the facts helps separate the fact from the fiction, the truth from the propaganda, and generally eases the discomfort to some degree. It’s a good start, seeing as best we can the B.S. that is feeding the discomfort. At the same time becoming more aware of what really is and those areas of opportunity for learning and growth. We have to turn down the volume of the noise of “uncomfortable” in order to see it for what it is: opportunity.

A couple of recent conversations prompted this post. Both revolved around, basically, overthinking. We tend to make things so complicated and difficult when in reality they aren’t – they’re quite simple. But there is a difference between simple and easy, just as there is a difference between attention and awareness.

Most people have not read Albert Einstein’s book on relativity. I have (duh, and here’s a link to it: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Realtivity_the_Special_and_General_Theor/HnpjKHdCJToC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) but don’t jump to the conclusion that I understood it. Of course not… But, I was able to see how Einstein created a remarkable understanding from something incredibly simple. E=mc2 is so utterly simple but it is the result of many many pages of complex mathematics. He starts with a simple separation of reference points (simplified for my purposes) of K and K prime (K’) and then goes into all the math to make his points, ending with E=mc2.

Knowing there is a simple solution to the problem, must we go through all the machinations to arrive at it? I don’t think so. Just accept it as it is, at face value.

Victor Frankl said “In between a stimulus and response there is a space. That space is the freedom to choose our response…” This space must be traversed, but I believe that it is not always necessary to go through it; oftentimes we can simply acknowledge it and the suck that lies there and simply jump over. There is no need to pass through the space!

Consider this: The Wise Mind is elevated and unconcerned. It is aware of the noise of worry but does not attend to it, recognizing that to do so adds no value to the peace of the present moment.

So, how to get there… Always the trick isn’t it. In DBT there is a skill called Building Mastery. It’s not just about learning to play the piano or become a chess master, it is about incrementally building awareness of what is and being able to recall this state of mind (also know as Radical Acceptance) at will. I had mentioned my experience at the top of Loveland Pass a couple of years ago, where I felt so incredibly good and paid attention to not just the feeling but what created it. And I can recall that state of mind whenever I want. You can do the same, but start slowly. Find a way to create enjoyment out of even a mundane task, learning to pay attention to only what you are doing in the moment (One Mindfully) and notice that the distractions of intrusive thoughts are set aside. This is building mastery. The noise diminishes and even quiets completely.

Once you have done this some recognize that the same can be applied in any situation or state of mind. There is no need to stay mired in the muck and noise of your childish emotional mind.

I have to admit though, this isn’t some magical panacea. In fact, today my angst and ennui are close to the surface. I don’t have a lot to do today, my energy levels are pretty low, and I didn’t do a very good job decorating my daughter’s birthday cake. I used to be expert but now my hands shake, I don’t have the ingredients or equipment to “do it up” and so I accurately judge it as inadequate. However, it will taste very very good! Both are true, but what do I want to pay attention to? Recognizing the validity of both allows for a choice. I focus on that which is wanted (and true!) and the emotional judgment has nothing to grab hold of. It works, however imperfectly.

This is not complicated. It is simple but of course not easy, although “easy” is a matter of degree and a function of our judgment of what ought to be (rather than an acceptance of what is.) It just takes practice and a willingness to allow the reality of unwanted and unhelpful thoughts and emotions to exist but not pay attention to them.

With practice of the simple easy is achieved.

Ah the words that prompt me lol. One of my students, when asked to confirm an appointment today replied “I’ll try.” Huh? What does that mean even?

I really dislike the word try. It’s so passive, utterly non-committal. It’s lazy. “Try? Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.” Yoda

Try is an abstraction. There is only do or do not. Look at all the ways we use it: “I’ll try to make it to the party” or “I don’t know, but I’ll try to get that done.” There are endless variations on the theme, but at their core they all have one thing in common: dishonesty, with corollaries disrespect, laziness, and fear.

Try is a throw-away word. It’s like wish; we all use it but it has no action attached to it. In fairness, there is an actionable try as in I will try to clear that high bar, but it’s still an abstraction. You run down the runway and leap at the bar with the intention of clearing it. You either do or you don’t. Try is like making the leap but with one foot anchored to the ground. “I tried” is vague; “I did not succeed in my attempt” is much more accurate.

Try only exists in the quantum world, where superposition creates both success and failure at the same time – the foot on the ground has not yet left the ground and so is in a state of “try.” It might or might not. But in our Newtonian existence there is no superposition there is only motion, the endless stream of probabilities leading to the point of wave function collapse and reality.

Erase the word try from your vocabulary, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Make a commitment one way or the other. Get off the fence. Pickets hurt when jammed up one’s arse.

“I think about a million different things!” A common response (or excuse) when people are challenged by the counting mindfulness practice. Their minds are too busy thinking about too many things. Too many distractions, too much anxiety or depression, not enough time or money. The thoughts are legion…

As I thought about this seemingly insurmountable problem it occurred to me that no, there are not a million things you think about, there are only a handful – the rest are details, facets of the jewel that is anxiety or whatever.

Try it: notice what you’re thinking about right now, the undercurrents of distraction or judgment that derail your capability to move forward. One of mine in the moment is this nagging discomfort of my neck not being quite right and the perceived need to schedule an appointment with my dear chiropractor Jill. Which I just did, after confirming a therapy session. Always something else to do other than what is right in front of us. Now that I made my appointment I notice where my thoughts go, or try to. There is that one place they are drawn to, an emotional gravitation source that nags the hell out of me and I can’t seem to shake.

So I get up to go smoke and ponder but get distracted by my yard and how the new grass is growing, then get a fresh cup of coffee and wipe down the kitchen island. Okay, now I’m back and no new information has been gained. Distracted and undisciplined. I don’t think this is uncommon but maybe it’s just me…

Back to the subject of the moment: what are those root thoughts that cause so much distraction? When I ask my students what they are thinking and feeling in the moment the usual response is “I don’t know.” Of course this is quite prompting so I don’t accept it and press a bit. More often than not some insight is gained when they work just a bit to be willing to let words out of their heads, to be willing to sound “stupid” or to be vulnerable, verbalizing maybe for the first time their thoughts and feelings. This is the beginning of real learning for them – it was for me anyway. And what they (and I) discover is that there are just a few things that command attention.

Fear is the primary driver of the multitude of thoughts: fear of inadequacy, fear of failure (or success), fear of not having enough money or time or the limitations of their current circumstances. Insecurity in the basics of life, or at least perceived insecurity. Ah, perceptions… the need for certainty when there is so little that is certain. Actually, nothing is certain until it happens of course, there are only probabilities, and our previous actions are by and large the primary determiners of those probabilities. The same holds true with our thoughts and emotions; they feed upon themselves and grow deep roots. It is those roots that I’m talking about, those deep recesses of our minds that are so subtly noisy. This is why Weaponized Mindfulness came into being and why it is difficult at first; we are going against the momentum of the energy of our pattern of thinking and feeling and acting (or not.)

As you learn to quiet your mind and control your attention you increase your ability to notice the nature of your thoughts and emotions and can either turn towards them for examination or turn away. “Nothing to see here folks, move along!” Literally. Those same old stories have nothing new to teach us but until some capability to control attention is developed the shouting distracts us. And it’s all the same stuff mostly. Time, money, relationships, judgments.

Recognize that you see things as you are not necessarily as they are. Consider a different point of view, even turning to gratitude for what you have, what you can do. Practice telling your mind what to think rather than the other way around. This is the root of freedom.

I have wanted to explore this idea for a long time. I keep talking about it in various ways but whenever I have tried to tackle the subject I hit a wall. Hard. But I’m feeling bold these days, having confronted many of my own stories, so what the heck, I’ll give it a go.

Any examination of our internal dialogue has to begin with understanding that a pattern exists. As I have said before this pattern begins even before birth; it’s in our genes and our unconscious memory. It is the pattern of interpreting and giving meaning to information that over time becomes a set of filters for further interpretation and meaning. We experience life as “we are”, having little or no awareness of the distortions that exist.

The following example is not terribly deep but it illustrates the “story”, the emotional response and judgment of information:

Last Sunday Saber and I went for a long ride on the motorcycle. It is an activity that we do together; I “drive” and Saber is my passenger. I love riding my motorcycle. I see it as a moving meditation – I have to pay full attention to what I’m doing, but that also includes being aware of the scenery around me. I noticed that Saber had her phone out; I can feel her hands in a certain way in the small of my back. I felt irritated, thinking that she is more interested in her stupid phone than what we were doing together. She’s always staring at her phone, she’s not even really “here” but connected to some bullshit that her device is feeding her – she’s such a slave to the device. She has no sense of awareness or presence in the moment. Why bother if she’s just going to stare at her phone all the time. All. The. Time. She doesn’t care, I don’t matter, it’s always like this.

Such judgment. And really helpful and wanted emotions, right? But what was the information, the facts? Yes, we were out on the motorcycle on a beautiful day. She was doing something on her phone while we were riding. She does this frequently, but not constantly. Saber likes playing Sudoku on her phone or iPad as it is relaxing. She does this frequently. All facts. It is the story that is the problem, my interpretation and meaning that my pattern colors the facts with, the judgment…

We talked about this the other day and had an actual conversation about it without any accusations or defensiveness and I learned something. So did she. Deeper understanding of each other was gained because we focused on the dialectic of the facts and the emotional responses to them. I also explained to her that I was aware of my emotions and judgments but didn’t pay attention to them as that attention would diminish my enjoyment of the ride, and the emotions quickly passed. I knew my judgments, no matter how “right” were only causing an unwanted and unhelpful state of mind, so I chose to ignore them.

Awareness of our emotions and the stories that inform them leads to understanding, and understanding brings authority. The authority is exercised by ignoring those emotions, those stories, and now we are free of the control of them. It doesn’t mean that the emotions are invalid, they just aren’t helpful and only serve to reinforce the judgments that create them.

Not a bad start to tackling the subject. What stories are your mind trying to sell you? What are the facts versus the fiction, the truth versus the propaganda? Follow the model and see if you too can’t gain some authority.

For most of my life I was very shut down emotionally and expressively. “I don’t know” was the standard response to any question regarding what I felt. And when I did say anything it was mostly thoughtless and even obnoxious. Such opposites. The reasons for my emotional avoidance were and are many – primarily a hyper-sensitivity to criticism, and a fear of rejection –  but they are nothing more than constructs and now have little authority.

Another of the DBT skills is Opposite Action, or Opposite to Emotion. I am living proof of this being effective.

A consequence of being emotionally shut down and overly sensitive was expressed one night in a small group setting. Someone asked a question and (seemingly) everyone looked to me to answer it. And I couldn’t. I could hardly form even a thought of how to answer it much less articulate anything. I though I had had a stroke. It was horrid. So I went and got a CT done and a nuclear stress test. All negative. I realized I had done this to myself; my sensitivity had blown up and I was operating under the control of fear – fear of being wrong no matter what I said or did and thus being criticized. Ironically the terrific test results did in fact prompt criticism. Since my lungs and heart were in such good shape the response was something like “Great, so now you’ll just keep smoking…”

The pattern of interpretation and meaning (not that I thought of it in those terms then) had created this shut down and fearful state of mind. So I decided to go completely opposite – if it popped into my head it was coming out my mouth. The full opposite meant that if I felt angry I would express it, and boy did I ever. The scene was our kitchen, and Saber had said something that made me mad. So I blew up, spewing language at full volume. I even threw something at her (that particular urge will be another topic) not with intention of hurting her but just as a physical expression of anger.

I realized that this behavior was just as unhelpful as the other, that I didn’t want to go from being a doormat to a person that others walked on eggshells around. So I had to back it off a bit. If the “stroke” event was a 2 (1 to 100) and the blow up was 99 (100 would have burnt the house down) some zone of openness, of authenticity had to be found.

Where I have landed is at about 85% “wide open.” Sometimes a bit more, sometimes less. That’s the hard part, trusting the sense to speak up or shut up. And it really is a function of trust; one of the hallmarks of the shut down Steve was that I didn’t trust myself. And I have had to learn how. It’s been messy and sometimes embarrassing, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning.

What I have really gained from being unfiltered is twofold: most importantly I no longer am afraid to express what I’m feeling. I’m better at knowing the emotions, so I’m less controlled by them and so can speak my mind. Of equal importance is how I do my work. I’m more of a “stream of consciousness” therapist. Those whose opinions I respect say this is my greatest gift. But I stay in my lane so to speak. I keep myself within the framework of always trying to keep the subject matter wrapped around the DBT skills and how to apply them.

Sometimes going fully opposite isn’t effective. It’s easy to go too far and thus create a vacuum of emotions and behavior; the opposite is too alien. So incremental movement needs to happen, small course corrections that increase perspective. Baby steps in the direction you want to go. Be patient! Learn to trust your intuition bit by bit. You will make mistakes and when you do, “well, sh*t” and learn from them. Apologize if it’s necessary, mean it, and learn. Over time not only does your general course change but your baseline too. Bit by bit you create the person you want to be.

One of my students uses that phrase to express a deep concept of DBT, that of Radical Acceptance. When confronted with an untenable situation his response became “Well, sh*t.” It is an acceptance of What Is, not a clinging to the judgment of should be or shouldn’t be.

Another student said she really didn’t like the idea of Radical Acceptance, feeling it implied approval. So I asked how she would rephrase it. “You have to first acknowledge whatever it is that you don’t like, see it for what it is. Then ask yourself if you approve of it or not…” What is does not require your approval or disapproval, it just is. It’s not personal, it’s just information (say that in your best Godfather voice.) The question is within us, and answering it creates options of response.

It is not the information but our response to it. You can’t change what is but you can choose your response. And maybe the best response is indifference. This may prompt many readers, and their disagreement is not invalid. However, there are some things that cannot be helped or changed. The activists would cry foul on this attitude and they might be right. As Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” This is true. So it begs the question, in light of Radical Acceptance, “What, if anything can I do? What am I willing to do?” Important questions! And sometimes the answer is “Nothing.”

So my student was right –  we must acknowledge What Is. Then it is up to us to choose our response. The choice is what’s radical. “Well, sh*t” is the acceptance, the acknowledgment of What Is. Then we are freed from our judgment (the “should” or “shouldn’t”); we can examine the facts as compared to our emotions and are thus free to choose our response.