Stay Out of the Story

Posted on July 28, 2021 by admin

My mind is rarely content to sit with emotions. It loves to turn them into a story and run with it as a justification for those feelings. This prevents understanding of what actually happened and makes it much harder to heal from any pain that may have come up.

Stories are everywhere. They’re all over a variety of media, at home, in the workplace, on billboards, and almost anywhere else people gather. And they’re almost always wrong. This is especially the case when the stories stem from negative emotions. The worst way to respond to a story is to run with it instead of checking in with someone else to see whether or not the story is correct. Was that person actually a jerk to me, or is “jerk” just a label my mind is applying to them because I disliked what they did (or what I did)? If I run with the story that comes up as a result of feeling hurt, I may treat the person poorly in response. By pausing, noticing the emotions that are coming up, and observing the story without getting lost in it, I have an opportunity to ask for clarification. When they explain their intentions, relief comes in and the conversation is prevented from escalating into a conflict. It takes a lot more to make things right after acting badly on assumptions than it does to clarify the situation before acting.

Why get caught up in stories and all the drama they create? Why not instead process the underlying emotions and be free from it all? After all, as Kurt Vonnegut explains in this wonderful lecture, we don’t know enough to know what is good news and what is bad news. Stories don’t tell us which is which; all they do is explain why we think something is good or bad based on the positive or negative emotions we’re feeling. It’s much nicer to focus on how I’m feeling and enjoy feeling good when I like what’s happening. Stories only get in the way of that.

I realize that avoiding stories is much easier said than done. With some particularly painful emotions, it takes a huge amount of effort to notice the stories as they are being written and avoid blindly following them. On my best days, I can avoid trouble by acknowledging stories as they come up, observing what’s going on with my emotions, and checking in with my body. It also helps to talk with the other person instead of talking at them. As difficult as this all can be, it has gotten much easier over time. If I could learn to do this, anyone can, and I hope everyone does.

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Review of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed

Posted on July 21, 2021 by admin

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is an intriguing book by Jon Ronson. It covers a wide range of subjects related to public shaming. Here is a brief overview along with some of my thoughts on it.

Ronson includes several stories of people who were publicly shamed and interviews as many of them as possible. Most of them fared poorly from it, whether by losing their jobs or even going so far as to taking their own lives, but a few seemed largely unaffected by it. Those in the latter category make up the part of the book in which Ronson examines possible ways to avoid feeling shamed in the first place or to recover from a public shaming.

Additionally, Ronson discusses how public shaming used to be a common legal punishment in the US before it was mostly phased out. However, his interview with Ted Poe, who as a judge made extensive use of public shaming in his sentences, showed that it has still been used fairly recently in the modern legal system. As public shaming has become less common in that area, it has become more common elsewhere thanks to social media. Most of the stories Ronson covers originated on Twitter and, to him, seemed to mostly begin with people who had good intentions. Ronson also thinks that those who participated in the shaming (as he himself used to do) had good intentions: sticking up for people without a voice, speaking truth to power, attempting to stop bad behavior, etc. Although he described a few scenarios in which public shaming may be the best way to go, such as in stopping systemic violence or oppression, he seems opposed to using it for trivial incidents in which nobody is hurt.

The sense I got from the book is that public shaming may change someone’s behavior without changing who they are. If that’s the case, then an apology from someone who has been publicly shamed comes across more as an attempt to return to their normal life (such as finding a job if their shaming resulted in them getting fired) than a result of deep introspection and true remorse for what they did. Whether or not someone ought to show remorse depends on the situation as public shaming can be used in response to nearly anything even remotely controversial. That’s one reason I dislike public shaming. Another is the fact that it can shut down the potential for productive conversations. I’d rather people talk things out than attempt to destroy each other, whether through violence or through shame. One alternative idea I like is calling people in rather than calling them out, as Loretta Ross explains so well in this article. I’d like to see more of that.

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed didn’t change my mind as I went into it opposed to public shaming. If anything, it made me more convinced of the need to find an alternative. To do that effectively, it first has to be determined why people engage in public shaming. I suspect that there are a few primary reasons. By keeping the spotlight on other people, they hope to avoid becoming the target of anyone’s scrutiny or vitriol. Further, it’s much easier to become incensed by the behavior of others than it is to acknowledge the same behavior in ourselves and work through it. Lastly, it can act as a way for those who otherwise feel like they have no influence to have a temporary feeling of power. If any or all of those suspicions are correct, then it makes engaging in public shaming an extremely tempting offer which many people find incredibly difficult to refuse. Some people seem to be turned away from it only after they themselves are shamed. I’m certain that there are other, better ways to end public shaming once and for all. Over time, this book may prove to be one such way. I hope it does.

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Oh, That Explains It

Posted on July 14, 2021 by admin

I had a recent realization about positive and negative emotions. Long before I started doing any real emotional work, I could still feel happiness, excitement, joy, and peace. I often felt all of those emotions when I went out swing dancing. After the dance ended and I went home, the positive emotions gradually faded until I was left with the negativity that I hadn’t let go of yet. Looking back, I think I know why.

Brad Blanton, author of Radical Honesty, said the following in his TEDx Talk: “When you experience an experience, it comes and goes. And when you resist experiencing an experience, it persists.” I knew this to be the case for negative emotions but didn’t realize it also seems to apply to positive emotions as well. Even when I’m feeling a lot of negativity, I can still forget about that for a while if I go out for some dancing, juggling, or anything else that makes me feel alive and brings up a lot of positive emotions. By fully experiencing those emotions, they eventually fade. When there’s a lot of underlying negativity, that then comes back into focus and stays there until I fully experience it as well. I think that explains why I’d have that crash after feeling a lot of positive emotions.

This doesn’t mean that letting go of all emotions results in being left with nothing. In my experience, the best states I’ve felt have been ones of deep peace and contentment. That feels different to me than a highly charged emotion such as happiness or excitement. It feels deeper, more real, and lasts longer. These states can be difficult to enter due to the negative emotions I haven’t yet released. As I continue with my inner work, it becomes easier to get into those higher states and they also feel deeper and last longer. I think that this will accelerate the further along I go. For now, the work I’ve done makes it easier to come down gently from elevated emotions as there is rarely ever a big crash into negativity as there was before. I hope this was helpful for you and I look forward to seeing what happens as I keep working on this.

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Review of The Art of Racing in the Rain

Posted on July 7, 2021 by admin

Last week I finished reading The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. It’s one of the best books that I’ve read this year and it gave me many conflicting emotions as I went through it. The book contains a lot of great stuff about life so I wanted to share some of my thoughts on it.

I won’t attempt to recap the plot here as I’d rather keep it a surprise in case you’d like to read it. I will, however, give a brief overview of the main characters and some parts of the book. Enzo is a dog who narrates the whole story. He lives with his owner named Denny along with Denny’s wife Eve and their daughter Zoe. The story follows them through the different seasons of life. The book’s title comes from Denny’s career in auto racing. He is an exceptionally skilled driver, especially when it comes to driving in rain. This becomes important through the bulk of the book as he and his family navigate some incredibly difficult situations.

I experienced a lot of laughter, frustration, anger, and sadness throughout this book. Stein brilliantly captured what I’ve always thought to be the inner world of a dog. That’s where a lot of the humor originated. Sadness came from some musings on life, death, and unexpected hardships. Anger and frustration came from the injustices Denny experienced at the hands of people and institutions that make such injustices possible. On a more positive note, the book helped me release some remaining negative emotions around my dog Sawyer’s advancing age. I have done that before but hadn’t worked through everything. Even if there are still things left to release, I’m much closer to having released everything than I was before reading the book.

The Art of Racing in the Rain is a wonderful book for those who are ready for it. Due to the heavy subjects it covers and some things that may be triggering, I’d recommend making sure you’re in a fairly stable life situation before reading it. If you’re not in a good life situation, it may be too much for you or you may not get as much out of it as you otherwise could. That’s about all I can say without venturing into spoiler territory. I think everyone should read this book at some point, especially if they have had a pet or experienced a particularly trying time in life. If you’ve read it, please let me know your thoughts on it. Take care and I’ll see you in the next post.

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Recent Musings

Posted on June 30, 2021 by admin

Here are some things that have been on my mind lately. I hope this shows what it can be like to have so many conflicting, contradictory ideas (most of which I’ve picked up from sources other than myself) in my head while attempting to reconcile them. Maybe some are worth keeping while others can be released. We’ll see. For now, here’s what I’ve been thinking about recently.

  • People will only treat me as well as I let them so I have to speak up when they treat me differently than how I want to be treated.
  • Someone treating me poorly reveals more about them than me, although I don’t want to stay silent through poor treatment when speaking up might put a stop to it.
  • When someone else bothers me, it shows something else in my shadow to work through.
  • I do my best to treat people as I want to be treated, but should that include the people who treat me badly? Should I push back against bad behavior directed at me?
  • Holding my tongue to keep the peace creates drama; speaking up creates drama.
  • I dislike conflict and I want to avoid it at almost all costs.
  • I’m learning how to not be afraid of my emotions.
  • A lot of things are coming up even though I thought I was over them, so clearly there’s more work to do there.
  • Maybe my sleeping troubles are being exacerbated by attempting to force myself to sleep instead of relaxing and allowing sleep to come to me.
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Take It to the Limit

Posted on June 23, 2021 by admin

For most of my life, I’ve taken things as far as I can. It’s taken me a long time to find balance with anything and (almost) everything I do. While it can be frustrating at times, taking things to the limit is a great way to find out any problems they may have, especially problems that would easily be missed by only going part of the way.

Here’s an example. My ideas on the ownership of property have changed dramatically over the past few years. Once I saw some previously unforeseen implications of the views I once held and found them distasteful, in no small part because they conflicted with some of my other values, I started rethinking a lot of things. As a result, I now no longer attempt to follow an arbitrarily chosen idea to its limits in each situation regarding property. One solution can’t adequately resolve to my satisfaction every issue that arises. Sometimes such an approach turns out pleasantly but other times it turns out unpleasantly. My current approach is an attempt to find an answer that brings all of my values together without leaving any by the wayside. Much more difficult than what I did before but well worth the effort.

This process first requires having enough self-awareness to notice what you think. You can then examine why you think as you do about a particular subject and see if your thinking is consistent. If not, you can decide what to do about it. There are at least a few options here. One is to act as if there are no issues. Another is to make exceptions as often as needed, although this can become problematic if taken too far as having more exceptions to the rule than instances of the rule being followed means that the underlying rule is unnecessary. Still another option is to adopt a better, more holistic perspective. While there may be other options I haven’t considered, of the ones mentioned here, I think the third one is the best and it’s what I’ve done whenever possible.

Most people never seem to acquire enough self-awareness to do anything in the previous paragraph. That may be why it’s common to see someone hold completely contradictory views without appearing to realize it; if the inconsistency is pointed out, rather than acknowledging it and changing something, they may ignore it, become upset, or think up a rationalization that attempts to explain away the discrepancy. I’ve done all of those and still catch myself doing one or more of them at times. In a calm state of mind, it’s quite humbling to notice it and noticing it makes me strive to be more thorough in my thinking. Whether or not it’s possible to have total consistency in a way that I find acceptable, I work on getting as close as I can and make sure to have fun along the way.

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Who Are You?

Posted on June 16, 2021 by admin

Who are you? Not the role you play at your job, in your family, or in your community. Not the political, religious, or philosophical beliefs you hold. Not your nationality or ethnicity. Not what you enjoy doing in your free time. Not the image that others have of you. And not even your name or the image that you have of yourself. All of that is outside of you. Some of it may describe things close to you but none of it describes the real you. The you that existed before you became aware of everything else and the you that will still be there when it all goes away. Who is that?

Only you can say for sure who you are but anyone can say who you aren’t: a concept. Concepts are methods by which the mind organizes aspects of life in an attempt to understand it all; this means that concepts only “exist” in the mind. However, getting too caught up in concepts actually obscures understanding. If you’re convinced that your concept of a thing is the actual thing itself, then it becomes easy to think “Oh, I know all about this because I’m familiar with it.” That can make you see attributes that aren’t really there and miss ones that are. True understanding requires leaving concepts behind and observing what is with as open a mind as possible.

The same goes for understanding yourself. In addition to not being a concept, you are also not your views. This is so crucial and seemingly obvious yet is so often ignored. All the time I see people identifying with their views or a role they play in life. Weaving either of those into their sense of self makes it much harder to avoid feeling personally attacked when they are questioned or criticized. That’s why hostile exchange around sensitive matters are so common. Ceasing to identify with concepts and roles means no feeling of personal attack and few, if any, ego defenses.

You can practice this now if you like. Get into a still, quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Close your eyes and focus on your breath for a few minutes. As the inner activity settles, begin recalling some things with which you identify. Set each one to the side as it comes up; you can pick them up again later if you like. For now, focus on getting down to the core of who you are by allowing everything else to fall away. At that point, there’s nothing to defend that’s not you, and by then you know yourself so well that you’ll feel no need to defend yourself. All the concepts you have of yourself are gone and all that remains is the real you that’s been buried underneath everything else.

Don’t put yourself in a box and think that that box defines you from beginning to end. You deserve better than that. You’re so much more complex, intricate, wonderful, and amazing than any words or concepts could ever describe. Putting yourself in a box is a great way to ignore truths and believe lies about yourself. It also can prevent progress by making you think that how you are now is truly who you are and can’t be changed. So don’t do yourself a disservice by limiting yourself. Step out of all the boxes you’re in and learn the truth of who you really are. Be free.

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The Individual and the Group

Posted on June 9, 2021 by admin

There’s a big debate over the individual and the group. Whole philosophies have been developed in an attempt to explain why one is more important than the other. It wasn’t until earlier this year that a realization gave me a different take on this subject that I’d like to share.

Asking which should be valued more, the individual or the group, is the wrong question. It assumes that one can be more important than the other. If you remove all the individuals from a group, the group ceases to exist. This is why some people say that the individual is more important. Without group effort, however, individual living would be almost impossible. A great example of the interdependence of modern life is how many people it takes to make something as seemingly simple as a pencil. Plus humans are naturally social beings. Even shy, reserved, introverted, or otherwise selectively social people need others for both survival and well-being. This is why other people say that the group is more important than the individual.

So where does that leave us? Well, seeing the issue as a battle between the individual and the group assumes that the two are separate. That’s similar to asking whether the heads or tails side of a coin is the more important side; the fact is that without both sides, there would be no coin. This is why, when deciding what courses of action to take, it’s important to keep both the individual and the group in mind. Just as the individual shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of the group, neither should the group be cast aside for the sake of the individual. Looking for outcomes that prioritize the well-being of both is the best approach. That heals the imaginary divide between individual and group, reminds us all of our mutual interdependence, and gives the best chance for everybody to flourish.

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Encouragement and Celebration

Posted on June 2, 2021 by admin

When little kids attempt something, nearby adults often give them a great deal of encouragement and will celebrate even small accomplishments with them. As the kids age, that positive support tends to decrease despite the skill level increasing. That can result in difficulties for those who were celebrated as kids for small accomplishments but are later ignored for big accomplishments.

I don’t know why encouragement can be so common when we’re young and so scarce when we’re older. Whatever the reason, I think one of its effects is making people feel as if even their best efforts aren’t good enough. In turn, that can make them feel as if they themselves aren’t good enough, which can result in all kinds of emotional issues stemming from a sense of needing to be perfect. I’ve dealt with this for much of my life and have only fairly recently found freedom from it.

Not giving encouragement can be difficult to change once it’s become a habit. The upside is that once encouragement becomes a habit, it will tend to reinforce itself and become second nature. So keep up the encouragement. Notice when your loved ones accomplish something and celebrate with them. Also celebrate yourself by recognizing how far you’ve come and how what was once impossible for you is now easy. One way I do this is by keeping a list of my successes, victories, and accomplishments. Whether they’re big or small, old or new, if it made me feel good or showed some growth on my part, I add it to the list. I don’t check the list every day but simply having it and adding to it a few times a week has made my life much better. This is one way I keep myself in check. It’s fine to want progress and to work on continual improvement. However, avoid being hard on yourself when progress is slow. Instead, remind yourself how far you’ve come and how good it feels to do something you love.

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The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

Posted on May 26, 2021 by admin

My main focus in life is helping people heal from emotional wounds. I don’t see much talk about this outside of a handful of discussions I have fairly regularly with a few people close to me. Fortunately it seems to be an increasingly common subject for discussion. Since I’ve experienced a lot of healing in my own life, I believe I’m in a good position to help those who want help, especially if what has worked for me also works for them.

When I first began venturing into this territory several years ago, I was shocked to learn how many people I know struggle with anxiety, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, and other issues. I seem to meet new people every year who have some kind of internal struggle and that’s only counting those who are comfortable talking about it; I suspect many more people, especially elderly people, have lots of struggles that they never discuss. Talking about it shows that one is not alone and allows for reaching out, getting help, sharing useful information, etc. The easier it becomes to talk about this, the better off everyone will be.

I truly believe that most struggles stem from trauma and that most trauma originates during our formative years (that’s certainly where mine occurred). That’s why I believe that if all parents avoided traumatizing their kids, then most of the world’s present problems would go away. Everything from war to violence to poverty to hatred to self-esteem issues and almost everything else. This doesn’t mean that those who have been traumatized have no chance of the good life, however. Everyone can heal by working through their own trauma in any one of a number of effective ways. Of that I’m becoming increasingly more convinced. Everyone who does this move us all that much closer to a peaceful world. Avoiding trauma is the best way to go and working through trauma is the next best thing. This is why I’m interested in solving the problem at both ends: helping those who have been traumatized to recover from it and preventing anyone from being traumatized in the first place. This holistic approach leaves nobody behind and, I think, will make positive change occur much more quickly than would focusing on only the people in one situation while neglecting those in the other.

This really feels like the missing piece of the puzzle. No matter how well the economy is doing, how much medicine has advanced, or how much easier technology has made modern life, it seems that everyone is still discontent as long as they have an inner struggle. As if having the world at one’s fingers means nothing unless it’s accompanied by inner peace. How would the world look if everyone had inner peace on top of all their other needs satisfied? Everyone would move from surviving to thriving. From pain to peace. From fighting to loving. From more of the same to something incredible. I hope to see this and I believe we can all work together to make it happen. How about you?

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