Responsibility in Emotional Regulation

Posted on April 10, 2024 by admin

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which I first talked about in this past post. It’s hard to tell whether more humans are living through their parasympathetic nervous systems or if that’s just what appears to be happening as I’m getting deeply in touch with mine once more. Here are some of my recent thoughts on this.

From my own experience, I can organize this into different levels. The lowest levels involve almost constant activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which results in feeling bad all the time or most of the time, regardless how many good things are happening. Significantly higher up is feeling good unless things happen that one dislikes. Still higher is feeling good unless majorly bad things happen. The highest level is feeling good all the time. That is when the parasympathetic nervous system is nearly always active. During my best times, I’ve been able to stay feeling good even when those around me were being loud, expressing anger, or even turning to violence. Unfortunately, thus far, I’ve only been able to stay at that highest level for about a month at the longest before slipping back to a level that remains fairly high up yet still has the possibility of feeling bad at times.

I often see this framed in terms of “masculine” and “feminine.” I think this is a big mistake, especially when it’s used alongside an implication or direct statement that it’s solely a man’s responsibility to hold space and help regulate the emotions of his girlfriend, fiancé, or wife, and that it’s either hardly ever or even never her responsibility to do that for him. One reason this confuses me is because the traits commonly ascribed to a man “in his masculine” or a woman “in her feminine” include peace, being grounded, present moment focus, lightness, and a sense of ease for what is and what will be. All of those are signs that the parasympathetic nervous system is active. Signs that the sympathetic nervous system is active include shallow breathing, rapid heartbeat, being lost in thought, jumpiness, and a short temper. Since everyone has both a sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, anyone can learn how to engage either one. That’s why I don’t see this in terms of “masculinity” or “femininity.” It’s about whether the sympathetic or parasympathetic is in control.

If someone is going to hold space for another who is having a hard time, it’s important that this not become that person’s full-time responsibility. This applies equally for romantic relationships, friendships, families, etc. Sometimes one particular person is in a good enough place to support another who is struggling. In other cases, that person may be struggling and need support from somebody else. Taking turns as needed keeps everyone on the same team and prevents any one person from getting burned out by always being the one who attempts to hold space for everyone else’s emotions. If everyone is dependent on one person to always be calm and keep things together, then who helps that person when he feels overwhelmed and can barely hang on for himself, let alone for everyone else? Further, if the one person who always keeps it together is struggling or unavailable, does everyone in that situation just fall apart? There must be a better way.

I much prefer taking turns supporting each other over the above approach, which is the way it was throughout my upbringing and even well into adulthood. At home, at various jobs, and in many close human relationships, I was expected to be the one who’d keep it together for the sake of everyone around me. The worst part was interacting with all kinds of adults who would go crazy if anything they even remotely disliked happened, especially if I as a little kid said or did something they hated. I’m sure that’s where the seed of responsibility for everyone else’s feelings was planted within me, the same seed that eventually grew into a huge, tangled mess that I’m still working every day to remove. That responsibility is exhausting and I’m so glad to finally be making real progress in releasing it.

My dog Sawyer helped ground me and engage my parasympathetic nervous system when I felt upset. Over time, I learned how to do the same for him when he needed it. This could involve giving him more attention when he appeared to feel sad, petting him and speaking in a calm voice to settle him down, and giving him space, especially when he felt tired enough to need extra naps. I loved how much we were there for each other, and my favorite human relationships have similar reciprocity. I wish that reciprocity were more common among humans.

The more I heal and release pain, the easier it is to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, and the less I depend on anyone else speaking or doing anything in particular to make me feel good. Although I’m not yet back to where I was during that wonderful month in which nothing bothered me, I still find myself feeling better in general than I have for much of my life. It takes more to really upset me and, when I do feel super upset, I can release it and feel better again much faster than I thought possible until the past few years when I really started working on this. While this is much easier for those who’ve never been traumatized, those who have been traumatized can still heal enough that they can regularly engage the parasympathetic nervous system themselves instead of being dependent on anyone else to attempt it for them. I’m sure I will feel even more relieved as I continue to heal and become increasingly freer from others being able to influence my emotional state. I hope the same occurs for all the humans I know as well as the ones I don’t know.

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The Value of Kids’ Books

Posted on April 3, 2024 by admin

Emotional work can be difficult at times. Sometimes it’s even exhausting. What makes it more challenging are works that are hard to understand and even harder to practice. Some writers on these subjects seem to think that including lots of challenging concepts and long words that are tough to pronounce (and which require constant looking up in the dictionary) makes their work more meaningful, effective, or valuable. It doesn’t. It makes it ineffective, confusing, and impractical.

There’s an idea about being able to explain something in such a way that a little kid can understand it. As much value as I’ve gotten out of practicing the central technique in David Hawkins’s Letting Go, the book has a lot in there that can be confusing at times. Some other books are much easier to follow. That’s where kids’ books come in. Kids’ books rarely have the problem of being difficult to understand. While many adults have trouble grasping metaphor, subtlety, and lessons hidden within a story, even more kids struggle with this, which is why so much content made for kids uses clear lessons that are spelled out so that almost everyone can understand them. They also almost always include practical steps to help anyone start moving toward where they want to be from wherever they are at the moment. That simplicity is valuable for anyone, whether kid or adult.

When I’m feeling incredibly upset and overwhelmed, I have even more trouble than usual understanding things. I need to keep things simple during those times. I’ve found a few kids’ books to be wonderful in those situations. The one I’ve used the longest is When A Pet Dies by Mister Rogers. I love all of Mister Rogers’s work and this is one of my favorites. It helped me so much with the pain of my dog Sawyer’s death when that pain was still incredibly fresh and it still helps me when I need it at times, such as this morning when it brought out some tears and made me feel a little more peaceful. The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld beautifully illustrates how much listening to someone can do to help them feel better. It’s right in line with my own approach to helping others, how I prefer others to comfort me when I feel upset, and what I’ve gotten good at doing for myself. The most recent finding I’ve used is a box set one of my best friends sent me from Diane Alber called A Little SPOT of Emotion. It contains a book, poster, mirror, and set of eight plus figures representing different emotions. The box set is all about helping kids identify and handle their emotions in healthy ways.

Even though I’ve only had that box set for a few days at this point, it’s already helping me recover a level of emotional acceptance that has been missing for years. It reminds me of the huge breakthrough I had in early 2021. That was around the time I was going through some powerful life coaching, doing a lot of work from John Bradshaw’s book Homecoming, and still benefiting from all the pain I released in the second half of 2020. I was feeling pretty good at the time and realized while listening to this song on YouTube that it was peace and friendship with myself that I had been missing for so long. The combination of all those things gave me this incredible sense of peace and oneness with myself. That has been a rare sensation over the past several years. Seeing those little emotion plush figures as my friends and loving all of them (including anger, sadness, and the other ones typically thought of as negative) has given me back that sensation. I feel a lot more at peace with myself now and a lot more hopeful. I’m so thankful to have that back.

The easier something is to do, the more likely I am to do it, especially when I feel overwhelmed. Many kids’ books and shows contain powerful lessons despite their simple appearances, and that makes those lessons far easier to put into practice than most works aimed at adults. There’s only so much that can be gained from learning and endlessly intellectualizing about certain concepts. The healing and growth come from finding what works and using it. I’m so thankful for all the great resources I’ve found, whether they guided me during my formative years as a kid or are currently helping me heal my inner little kid. I hope they help you as well.

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Boundaries vs Nonviolent Communication

Posted on March 27, 2024 by admin

I’ve thought a lot about boundaries lately. My interest in this started in 2019 after I read the book Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Despite seeming to understand it at the time, I struggled to apply what I’d learned, and later realized that I had misunderstood some key aspects. Mainly, I didn’t understand that setting and maintaining boundaries is about deciding what I will do, not trying to control what others do. This appears to be a common misunderstanding around boundaries. For example, if someone often gossips to me about others and I don’t want to be around gossip, I could either try to make them stop or I could leave whenever they start gossiping. The latter option is a boundary. Now that I finally understand this, I’ve been able to apply it successfully in a variety of situations.

However, as I’ve written about before, I wonder if I’m setting too many boundaries and depriving myself of meaningful interactions. In general, it takes much less than it used to for me to stop interacting with someone, whether temporarily or permanently. On my most difficult days, even the slightest bit of negativity from somebody else can make me disengage. Despite the fact that the more I heal, the easier it gets to avoid taking things personally, I still find it extremely difficult at times. It’s almost impossible for me to do this when I’m feeling exhausted, sad, afraid, angry, or otherwise overwhelmed.

This has got me thinking a lot about Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. I first read it years ago and have listened to many hours of Marshall talking about it this year. That renewed interest has made it easier for me to listen empathically and connect with the concerns, feelings, needs, and pains of others. It still amazes me how well Marshall could do this, even in some of the most intense confrontations around extremely painful issues.

When I hear audio of people saying things I disagree with, it’s fairly easy to listen for the emotions and pain underneath the words, which increases my understanding of their needs and reduces my chances of feeling upset over what they are saying. I still find it enormously difficult to do this in my interactions with others, though. Fear of how they’ll respond, the time it can take me to figure out how they’re feeling, pressure to respond quickly, and the fact that this isn’t yet a habit for me all prevent me from doing this more often than not.

I especially hate the lack of reciprocity that continues to plague most of my interactions. While there are some folks who will show interest in what I’m feeling, wanting, and needing after I’ve done that for them, many others never do. That makes me feel frustrated and sad and results in me severely limiting my exposure to anyone who takes but never gives. It’s incredibly hard, frustrating, and draining being one of the few humans I know who strives for effective communication. Since almost everyone else I know reacts instantly instead of pausing before responding mindfully, makes negative assumptions rather than asking for clarification, uses snark and sarcasm instead of civility, and focuses more on the words than the emotions, it’s hard for me to avoid feeling disappointed and lonely.

Having seen since 2020 how cruel humans can be toward each other, and having seen since my dog Sawyer’s death how bad even caring humans tend to be at comforting those who are hurting, I’ve quadrupled my boundaries efforts. All the negativity that’s happened over the last four years and all the humans who have hurt me, misled me, or used me for their own purposes without showing any concern for me have got me feeling scared of humans in general. I won’t let any of that happen again, and boundaries are my primary defense against it. This applies to those close to me, complete strangers, and everyone in between. Most of the pain I’ve experienced has come from former friends and close acquaintances, so I don’t feel fully comfortable around those presently close to me since I never know who is going to turn on me and when. There has been enough pain from strangers to make me distrust those I don’t know, which makes it take longer for me to fully warm up to new folks. As such, I find the most peace when I’m alone or around friendly animals, especially dogs and cats.

Much of my life has alternated between being a doormat and a bulldozer. Even now, I still wonder at times if I feel bad after certain interactions because I went too far or if that’s just lingering guilt and shame that haven’t yet been released. Sometimes it helps to remember that even Marshall Rosenberg had limits. When he felt sufficiently overwhelmed, he would use a “nonviolent scream” to let those around him know he couldn’t interact anymore until he settled down and felt better. It’s comforting to know that those I admire and who have had a profoundly positive impact on my life are still human and sometimes need time to themselves.

All this has got me thinking that the ideas behind nonviolent communication comprise the highest level of communication and boundaries are the second-highest level. Much as I’d like to be able to use the nonviolent communication ideas more often, I take some comfort in the notion that consistently setting and maintaining proper boundaries in a loving way is still pretty high on the list and a far better approach than the most common approaches to difficult human interactions. If I’m in too much pain to hear the wants, feelings, and needs beneath someone’s cruel words, I’d rather remove myself from the situation than respond with cruelty. I hope that continuing to heal old emotional wounds and practicing both nonviolent communication and boundaries (ideally with my more patient friends) will dramatically reduce all these issues and make life better for everyone.

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Social Confusion

Posted on March 20, 2024 by admin

I don’t understand most human socializing. I used to get it, or at least was closer to getting it than now, but those days are long gone. To put it simply, I don’t understand what most humans are seeking to get out of their interactions with others. Here are some of the things I’ve noticed.

So many kids spontaneously play and share with each other. They often use different toys, props, board games, playground equipment, and games they make up on the spot. Any talking that occurs is usually related to whatever type of play they’re doing in any given moment. This seems to very quickly break down any walls between any of the kids and bring them all closer to each other, even when one or more of those kids are meeting for the first time.

Adults, in contrast, will often have little to no physical play. Most adult socializing I see involves sitting down and talking, usually with those they already know well. This talking may be done over food, or alcohol, or, often, both. There’s little to no playing games, dancing, or sharing any other kind of physical activity. The talking is often about nothing in particular, involves lots of interruptions, comes with fast changes of subject and not responding to what someone has said, and usually contains lots of forced laughter. It can also easily turn hostile any second. Verbal fights can break out when the conversation turns toward a major disagreement between two or more participants. Discussions seem to grow shallower, faster, and more likely to devolve into fights as the number of participants increases.

Additionally, many humans I meet still engage heavily in direct eye contact when they talk to others. Much of human eye contact is uncomfortable for me, partly because humans always seem to want to take something from me (whether it’s money from my pocket, words from my mouth, thoughts from my head, or simply time from my life) without giving me something of equal value in return. It’s also often uncomfortable for me because of how much a few particular individuals would force me as a little kid to look at them right in the eyes while they yelled at me, put their faces inches away from mine, and hurt me in other ways. As such, when someone stares intently at me, I experience the lingering pain from those traumatic situations.

Whether with new acquaintances or old friends, I often end up saying little. Aside from my interest in mindfulness, this is largely due to fear and lack of interest. The fear is over the hostility I’ve seen and experienced firsthand from many folks over the course of my life who felt angry at something I said and hurt me in response. Since the world seems to be becoming a more hostile and less patient place, the less I say, the safer I’ll be. Lack of interest covers most of what goes on in casual social circles: small talk, inside jokes, endless teasing each other, references to events I didn’t attend, etc. None of that fascinates me or brings anything to my mind to say in response, and it often leaves me feeling confused, so I generally avoid it or say nothing when faced with any of it. I also find it incredibly difficult to keep up and give everyone my best self when interacting with more than a couple of folks at a time; this is why I prefer one-on-one interactions, a preference most I know don’t seem to share. I love when I get a social respite by interacting with someone who also enjoys quiet presence, slow speaking, or deeper discussions (or all of the above) during smaller gatherings. Like an oasis in the desert, these rare folks leave me feeling refreshed and uplifted.

For all of the above reasons, I feel most comfortable interacting with others around some sort of shared activity. Board games, card games, charades, and especially big physical activities such as soccer, ultimate frisbee, swing dancing, and juggling, are where I’m most at home. Focusing on an activity, particularly one that involves handling some kind of equipment, relieves the pressure of finding things to say and looking others in the eye. When I used to regularly play some kind of sport on Saturday mornings with a few folks I knew, I’d often meet new folks in the process. Whether or not the new person was on my team, we’d introduce ourselves and talk after playing for a while. The game served as a great ice breaker and expended lots of energy (leaving us with less energy to feel upset or start fighting if things took a turn), both of which made the later interaction much easier than if we had started talking right away after meeting in a restaurant, bar, or other low-activity situation.

If you’ve read this blog for a while now, you might have guessed that I generally feel much more comfortable around animals than humans. My dog Sawyer felt perfectly content to just hang out with no words, barking, howling, or anything else. While we often played together, it was also ok to just sit or lie down next to each other or look lovingly into each other’s eyes. Unlike with humans, I loved looking deeply into Sawyer’s eyes and always felt better after seeing the love he showed me in that way. He never judged, condemned, or hurt me for what I said, hurled cruel words at me, or made me feel like a stranger when we hung out. I miss him and I wish I knew more humans like him. The few who come close to his example live far away and don’t get to interact with me much. Fortunately, I get to regularly visit with a few different kinds of friendly animals, including dogs. Being around them always makes my day, especially when I get to visit with one or more Pomeranians as I did today (Sawyer was a Pomeranian and that breed holds a special place in my heart).

This would make me feel quite lonely if I hadn’t gotten good at being good company for myself. I’ve made lots of progress at being kind to myself, handling my emotions in healthy ways, and finding and meeting my own needs. Any one of those is a big ask for anybody else, and expecting anyone to be always available for all of them is a recipe for disappointment. I know that from experience as I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve used that recipe to bake a big disappointment cake and frosted it with frustrated icing. Since I’ve learned how to be my own friend, I’ve felt more at peace with others who interact differently than I like. I don’t attempt to change how they interact with each other, and they don’t attempt to change how I interact with them. Sometimes I’ll have a nice interaction with one or two of them at a time while they’re away from a larger group. Even a brief interaction of that sort is always welcome. I’m glad to have gotten to this place with regard to social interactions, and I look forward to interacting with more humans and animals who share my social preferences.

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Being Kind to Myself

Posted on March 13, 2024 by admin

So many humans are cruel to themselves. They might treat others well and be quick to lift the spirits of someone else who is struggling, yet it’s so hard for them to be kind to themselves. A common example is how they often talk about and respond to their own pain. “Others have it much worse than I do,” “I need to grow up and move on,” “There’s no reason for me to feel this way,” “I’ve gotta man up,” “I’m such a baby.” And so many other ways they belittle their own pain, bury their emotions, and try to convince themselves they’re not hurting when they know deep down that they are.

Interestingly, some react defensively if anyone else says anything along those lines to them. They’ll insist that their pain is real and that it’s ok for them to feel upset at something that upsets them. However, when it’s their voice saying those same things, their criticism can be relentless, and they believe every word of it. When someone else recognizes their pain, they might at first try to downplay it or deny it altogether, as if that’s what they’re “supposed” to do. If the other person brings enough understanding, safety, and compassion to the situation, though, the hurting person might eventually admit how much they’re hurting and release lots of pain through crying, yelling, venting, and so on.

I wonder how anyone who denies their own pain would react if they could meet themself as a little kid during a painful moment in their life. Would they say one or more of the above denials to their younger self? That’s essentially what they do now. Since nearly every human on Earth is still walking around with lots of emotional pain from their upbringing that never got healed, almost everyone is basically a hurting little kid cosplaying as an adult. Hearing those denials when they’re in pain presses on old, deep wounds, especially if any of the denials came from a friend, family member, or someone else they trusted at a young age. The pain is even greater if violence was also present at the time the denials were given. Unfortunately, many humans internalize those denials and say them to themselves for the rest of their lives. After all, since little kids depend on trusted individuals to keep them alive and safe, if one of those trusted individuals denies their pain and tells them they are a bad person, the kid tends to believe it and see themselves that way forever after. The resulting negative inner voices can override the positive inner voices and even the positive outer voices from those in their lives who care about them.

I know this from experience as I’ve spent most of my life denying my own pain and speaking cruelly toward myself. There’s almost no limit to how much I can guilt and shame myself over almost anything. It’s only since late 2020 that I started taking that pain seriously and working on being kinder to myself. Additionally, I believe the only reason I’m doing as well as I am almost two years after my dog Sawyer’s death is because I never denied my own pain around losing him, whether to myself or to anyone else. I embraced the pain in all of its many forms, especially sadness and depression. There were so many months after Sawyer died in which I spent almost all day, every day sobbing on the couch. Every one of those tears released a bit of pain, meaning that the total amount of pain gradually went down. At this point, the amount of remaining pain is low enough that I mostly recall the great times Sawyer and I shared, and I can talk about him, look at pictures and videos of him, and spend time with various things that remind me of him (including his paw prints and fur, my Spider-Man blanket he loved, his squeaky moon toy, and the pillow and socks with his face on them that others gave me as gifts) without breaking down, pretending that all the pain is gone, or acting as if the pain is greater than it actually is. So many who’ve lost a loved one find it difficult or even impossible to talk about them without breaking down even decades later, so it does seem like I’ve made unusually fast progress despite the extreme amount of pain I started with.

Thinking about myself as a little kid and giving that younger version of me what he needs whenever he feels upset has been hugely beneficial lately. I learned a lot of ways to do this from John Bradshaw’s wonderful book Homecoming. This way, whenever I notice lots of anger, sadness, fear, or any other strong negative emotion, I can speak to myself (usually silently but sometimes out loud, particularly when the feelings are extra intense) lovingly as a gentle parent would to acknowledge the pain, connect with my younger self, and work together to find and meet the needs underneath the pain. This, combined with my recently renewed interest in Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg and my daily emotional work inspired David Hawkins in Letting Go, has given me much greater peace by allowing me to better identify and heal painful emotions.

I used this approach this morning when reflecting on an experience from a job years ago that still makes me feel upset. That scenario involved the other person interrupting me, making assumptions and accusations, rambling on endlessly about irrelevant things, cursing, acting defensively, and saying I was wrong rather than connecting with me or my concerns. While letting the emotions run their course, I talked out loud through an outcome I would have much preferred. This involved roleplaying both as myself and the other person involved. After I said the same thing I actually said at the beginning of the real interaction, I had the other person use empathic listening, correctly identify the emotions I felt, and speak with a gentle voice to connect with me, acknowledge my concerns, put me at ease, and find out what I needed before agreeing to talk more about it on another occasion when we both had the time to meet in person and find a solution. That gave me a huge sense of relief, in addition to some frustration when thinking about how badly the actual situation went off the rails. I’m interested to see if using that approach with painful experiences from my upbringing brings similar relief and healing. I hope it does.

The more freely others talk about their inner worlds, the clearer it becomes how widespread an issue this is. I have no idea how it will change over time. I hope that, along with self-forgiveness, more folks will learn how to be consistently kind to themselves. Simultaneously, I fear that the general expectation to be “productive” and “disciplined” nearly nonstop to meet increasing demands at work, business, and social interactions will result in more folks pushing themselves well past their limits until they collapse from burnout, and then repeat that cycle endlessly until they die. I would love to be wrong about this. While there’s nothing I can do to change how others relate to themselves, there is a lot I can continue doing to change how I relate to myself. Showing myself more grace, forgiveness, kindness, and love will make things better for me and those who interact with me. As much as I’d love to see how the world would look if everyone did this, if all that happens is a better life for me and those close to me, then that’s ok with me.

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Self-Forgiveness

Posted on March 6, 2024 by admin

Forgiveness has always been a struggle for me. When someone apologizes for hurting me, makes amends, and improves their behavior moving forward, then it’s pretty easy to forgive and forget. However, that hardly ever happens. What almost always happens is somebody apologizes, I say it’s ok, and then they keep repeating that same behavior. In those cases, I often start feeling resentful once I notice that pattern. Rather than true forgiveness, my saying that it’s ok is intended to avoid conflict or an uncomfortable confrontation. Lingering resentment over chronic hurtful behavior alongside growing frustration over the fear of talking with the other person about it have ruined many relationships.

However, forgiving myself is even more difficult than forgiving others. After doing lots of emotional releasing this year, I’ve come to believe that self-forgiveness is the missing piece of the puzzle. I often feel resentment toward myself over ways I’ve hurt others throughout my life (both intentional and unintentional), times I let others walk all over me, and great opportunities I let pass me by. Almost every day, I react in horror to memories ranging anywhere from as recently as this week to as far back as several decades over things I wish I’d done differently. It’s hard to then avoid being exceptionally hard on myself, even when I’ve long been forgiven by those who got hurt.

That seems to be changing. Recently, I felt good enough in a cool bath after doing some cardio to delve into some old guilt and shame. That was when I remembered that MDMA works so well because it makes one feel safe enough to explore the pain and trauma and release it gently. The cool bath provided that for me. I found it much easier than usual to look at things I’d normally avoid and give myself grace. Even though that bath was only about 16 minutes long, I still felt much better afterward.

Forgiveness is also helping me heal the many regrets I have around how I interacted with my dog Sawyer. A recent realization is how many years I spent hoping to find a certain kind of love from other humans without realizing that Sawyer was already giving me that exact love. I spent years chasing others to no avail while missing out on a lot of quality time and love with Sawyer. If I could go back and do things differently, I’d avoid embarking on that fruitless search in favor of enjoying more Sawyer time instead. I’d take him on at least one walk every day we spent together, open the door to my room whenever he knocked on it, spend more time focused on him instead of messing around on my phone when we were next to each other, and feel grateful rather than resentful toward the less appealing things (taking him outside, cleaning him up when he got dirty, etc.) as they were still times we got to be together. There is a lot of pain from those failings, and even more from knowing that I can’t change any of them. Since I don’t want to carry this pain around for the rest of my life, the only other option is to release it through self-forgiveness.

I wonder if forgiving myself will make it easier to forgive others and make me feel less stressed over what they have done, are doing, and will do. The freer I am from pain, the less anyone can hurt me. I know that from experience during some extended periods of deep peace in which little to nothing bothered me, including what those around me did. Along with forgiving myself, giving myself permission to do things I enjoy that hurt nobody and that others may think are weird seems to make me care less when others do harmless things that I find weird. Along with that, if somebody questions me or tries to get me to change, I know that I can always decline and continue doing as I like without apology or defensiveness. That’s a nice option to have, and I hope I get better at using it.

Although I’ve felt much better since I started focusing more on forgiving myself, there’s still a lot left to forgive. This is such a struggle for me because of all the guilt and shame others forced on me throughout my upbringing. That gradually made me hate myself and think I’m an awful human. No amount of hearing others say nice things about me has ever improved how I see myself for more than a few minutes. If anything, it’s kept me dependent on receiving constant praise; when that’s absent, I can quickly get into some dark places. Only letting go of that negative self-image has ever brought me any kind of lasting peace. That’s why I’m having to do a lot of emotional releases and empathic listening for myself whenever the negative inner voices resurface, especially with my recent health issues. Those self-care practices have helped me feel a lot better lately.

I’m sure that the lingering guilt and shame over past mistakes in all kinds of relationships is a huge part of why I still can fall into people pleasing tendencies and want to spend so much time alone. I’ll be interested to see if I develop more courage to interact with others and shape those interactions in ways that take my interests into account as I continue forgiving myself and releasing that old guilt and shame. Every time I found a missing piece of the puzzle from previous healing journeys, everything clicked into place right away. I hope that’ll be the case with this lifelong healing journey as well.

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The Joy and Pain of Memories

Posted on February 28, 2024 by admin

I love memories of the good times in my life. Whether they’re pictures, videos, or flashbacks in my head, I can spend all day wandering around in them and reliving them. They make each day better and I can’t imagine my life without them.

As grateful as I feel for memories, I can also feel sad when they involve loved ones who are no longer in my life. If I’m looking at some kind of media outside myself or reminiscing in my mind, I can see, hear, and even feel them, but I can’t interact with them in new ways in the real world. It’s as if there is an invisible barrier that allows me to see them but also prevents us from being together like we once were.

I often think about this with regard to a friend of mine whom I haven’t gotten to visit in person since late 2019. Due to a lot of things that I don’t understand or care to explain here, I fear that the friendship is over. This is especially painful for me because she’s been kinder to me than most other humans I’ve known and helped me get through some incredibly hard times. Sometimes I reminisce about the times we spent together, whether it was eating, driving around, or just enjoying each other’s company. Those memories are so strong and vivid that it’s almost as if I’m back there. The painful part is that I’m stuck here now thinking about those great times instead of being there now making more wonderful memories.

There is even more pain with my memories of my dog Sawyer. So often, I wish I could reach through the memories and make my younger self take Sawyer on more walks, open my door whenever he knocked on it, do several other nice things with him, and avoid doing some things that hurt him. I hate that we won’t have any other opportunities to make Earthly memories together. My hope beyond hope is that we’ll someday get to make Heavenly memories together forever after I die. Forgiving myself for not doing better during our time together has been such a struggle, and I wish many of my memories with Sawyer were better.

The emotional pain around these and other memories can be downright debilitating at times. Because of this, I sometimes wonder how I’d feel if my memory were much weaker. Would I have less emotional pain over lovely times gone by if I didn’t remember as many of them in as great detail as I do? The case of Eugene Pauly comes to mind here. Known to the public only as “E.P.” until after his death, this man received such damage to his brain later in life that he could no longer form new long-term memories. While his long-term memory still worked, and he could remember many events from long before the brain damage, he almost immediately forgot anything new he learned in his final few decades of life. Despite regularly being visited by the same researchers for years, he always forgot their names, what they were there to do, and that he had ever met them at all. He didn’t even remember that he had such a huge memory issue. Those who met him noted that he seemed to be an easygoing man who had little to no stress in life. Without going to that extreme, I wonder if a more normal memory would result in less stress for me as well.

While the issues I’ve had with my memory and overall brain function since a head injury in November of 2021 haven’t been debilitating, they have made me rely more on calendars, pictures, videos, and other things outside myself to keep track of the important things in my life. My reliance on those things has been exacerbated by the occasional brain fog and absentmindedness from the emotional pain of 2020-2022 (especially Sawyer’s death and some bad health issues). Fortunately, the emotional work I’ve done has reduced the negative impact of the injury; I look forward to seeing how much more progress I can make as I continue to heal from both new and old pain. As I do, I’ll continue to fondly remember all the loved ones, enjoyable experiences, beautiful places, and other wonderful parts of my life that are no longer with me, in addition to striving to make many more lovely memories with however much time I have left.

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Shifts in Interactions

Posted on February 21, 2024 by admin

I’ve spent many years trying to change others in a variety of ways. At this point, while I’m no longer trying to change others, I still find myself hoping they’ll change in ways I want. This has caused nothing but problems, mainly for me but also for some close to me.

With everything I’ve learned and experienced over the past decade, there has been a particular type of human interaction that I’ve come to prefer. Among other things, it includes focusing more on listening than speaking, letting others finish what they’re saying instead of interrupting, being aware of any and all emotions present in an interaction, spending lots of time in the present moment, taking things slowly rather than racing through speech, and talking about deep, meaningful subjects as opposed to shallow, trivial topics. I feel at ease in those kinds of interactions, and it seems that those who give them a chance also feel similarly. Unfortunately, such interactions are rare, at least where I am. Hardly anyone I know checks all of those boxes, and most humans I interact with regularly check few to none of them.

At least some of this comes down to the company one keeps. Those I see fairly often in person typically see each other at least weekly if not multiple times a week. In contrast, I only see most of them a few times a month. Even when we’re all together, they usually get at least an extra hour with each other after I leave (and often an extra hour before I arrive as well). All that interaction reinforces the ways they already tend to think, speak, and act, which typically include speaking quickly, talking over one another, and sticking to simple topics instead of going deep. The amount of time they spend together makes their influence on each other much stronger than my influence on any of them. That may be why my efforts to make our interactions closer to how I’d like them to be have all failed.

If all of the humans I see regularly spent most of their social hours around other humans who practice presence, mindfulness, slow speaking, silence as the norm with occasional speech, low stimulation interactions, relaxed breathing, and other activities that keep the parasympathetic nervous system active and maintain a peaceful milieu, then that would be the norm for all of the primary social interactions that they and I experience. I sometimes can shift someone more toward those things just by practicing them myself when I’m out and about, even without intending to influence anyone. However, when the group is large enough, my impact is negligible. Even in one-on-one interactions, my impact seems to be limited to the time I visit with someone; lasting change appears to be nonexistent. That can still bring disappointment and discouragement at times. It also shows me, alongside the times in which I unintentionally end up acting like those around me, that I am much more likely to adjust to others than they are to adjust to me.

I still feel a lot of pain from my dog Sawyer’s death almost two years ago. The emptiness his death left within me and the increased hostility in the world over the past four years make me feel uneasy in many human interactions, even around those I’m close to. I also recently realized that that is why I’ve felt so lonely these past few years; it also explains why effective communication and not taking things personally have both been so hard for me over that same time. The more pain I feel at any given moment, the harder it is for me to listen empathically and show love to myself and those around me. Given enough inner healing work, I believe that both of those as well as everything else I do will become much easier, just as they all were during some of my high points in 2021. I have no idea when that will happen, though. Until then, I’ll keep working through the pain and hoping that that continues making things a little easier along the way.

This has been a startling realization. In addition to bringing some disappointment and frustration, it has also come with relief and a shift in my focus. I can’t control what anyone else does. I can only control what I do, and that will be my primary focus whenever I’m around other humans. This often means saying little to nothing around others, which comes out of fear that the interaction will turn out badly, a general preference for silence, and a desire to focus more on the present moment (something that is still difficult for me to do on my own and even more difficult to do around others). While I still want to spend lots of time alone, I’m finding the courage to interact more with others, even if I dislike how they act. I plan to work on releasing whatever trapped emotions (likely fear, anger, and guilt) keep alive in me the desire to control how others act. I’m interested to see where this goes, and I hope that it ends positively.

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Adventures, Progress, Growth, and Peace

Posted on February 14, 2024 by admin

Things getting better for me. Despite some bumps in the road, the road is gradually smoothing out. Here are some examples.

For years, my life has had a lot of areas for improvement. I started out where I could this year. That ended up being daily cardio after getting turned away from multiple plasma donations due to an excessively high pulse rate. Cardio is known to reduce heartrate over time, so that seemed like the natural place to begin. I felt pleasantly surprised that another benefit of cardio has been improved mental and emotional health, a greater ability to handle the daily ebbs and flows of life, and better sleep. Alongside the cardio, I also started consistently doing Wim Hof breathing for the first time in years. At the recommendation of a friend, I looked into the book Breathe by James Nestor. The recommendations in that book have vastly improved my normal breathing. I find it much easier to breathe through my nose than before I read the book, even when doing cardio. Add some cold showers to all of this, and I’m feeling better physically than I have in a long time.

As I’ve been looking for a steady job, I’ve been doing DoorDash deliveries and various short-term projects for some folks I know. Those have been great for my financial situation. What surprised me is that they’ve also helped my emotional and mental health. There’s been less stress from having money coming in regularly again. Doing lots of manual labor and having less idle time both seem to make me feel less frustrated and enhance my sleep. Even when I go to bed late, I’ve still found it much easier to fall asleep, stay asleep through the night, and feel refreshed upon waking up the next day. Those have all been wonderful to experience.

On top of all of that, some family matters have been improving. It’s still too early to tell how it’ll work out long-term and I don’t want to make any predictions at this point. I’ll keep pursuing this and hoping for the best. Several things inspired me to seek this out and I’m so glad I did. For the first time in ages, I have some hope that healthy family relationships will become possible for me.

I’ve lately been feeling similarly to how I felt during the best times of my adult life: peaceful, content, and at ease. Driving back home from a recent project shortly after sunset while wearing clothes from a job I left in 2019 (while in the same part of town as that job) took me right back to some good times. I got another hit of that earlier tonight when looking at the sunset after visiting with a bunch of puppies. The good old days are gone, and, sadly, they’re never coming back. Still, new good days are coming. It’s so nice to experience that after so many years of torment and setbacks.

Despite all of these positive changes, I still catch myself fearing that things will take a turn for the worse. The many past occasions in which my life situation alternated between flowing smoothly and falling apart has got me thinking that that will happen again. Thus, although I wish this weren’t the case, part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Since I no longer have my dog Sawyer to help me get through the hard times in life, I feel even more fearful that this will end badly. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we’re only halfway through the second month of 2024. In 2018, it took a few months before my financial situation and emotional life recovered after an incredibly difficult and painful 2017. I hope that similar recoveries will happen and that all the good progress I’ve made thus far this year snowballs throughout the remainder of 2024. I’ll keep you posted along the way.

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The Importance of Emotional Intelligence

Posted on February 7, 2024 by admin

Over the past few centuries, there has been an increasing shift toward focusing on intellect and away from emotions. I fear that this has been a giant mistake. Allow me to explain.

In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt compares the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind to a rider and an elephant. The elephant goes where it wishes, and the rider can’t control the elephant but can come up with possible explanations as to why the elephant went where it did. For the human mind, the unconscious controls what we do, and the conscious tries to rationalize the behavior, even when there’s no discernible reason for it. I’ve verified this through my own self-awareness and countless interactions I’ve seen or been in.

Additionally, despite how much emphasis is placed on thinking, humans are emotional creatures. Even those who struggle tremendously to notice or identify what emotions they’re feeling are still fundamentally driven by emotions. Humans seek things that make them feel good and seek to avoid things that make them feel bad. All human actions can be put into one of those categories. Because emotions are the primary drivers of human behavior, any successful attempt at influencing behavior must focus on the emotions. That’s why attempting to “reason” someone out of a highly emotional state is doomed to fail: thoughts come from emotions, so trying to change those thoughts without addressing the emotions starts at the end of the causal chain instead of at the beginning. It is akin to attempting to make it rain by pouring water onto the street.

It’s fairly common for someone to make a request based on emotion but want to have a “reason” for making that request other than their emotions, which causes them to choose something that sounds plausible even though it’s completely arbitrary. This can continue even if what the person said is revealed to be a mere rationalization rather than a primary reason. Person A might decline an invitation to a party he wants to avoid. When Person B asks why he’s not going, Person A might say because he doesn’t have a ride. If Person B then offers to give him a ride, Person A will still decline to go, which reveals that the lack of a ride wasn’t the true reason. While this is usually innocuous, sometimes fights can break out over disagreements on the stated “reason.” These fights tend to continue as long as the focus remains on the intellect instead of the emotions each person is experiencing. This results in the strange situation of two people speaking with huge amounts of hostility toward one another while totally ignoring their raging emotions, acting defensively, trying to disprove what is being said without even understanding it (usually with mockery, scorn, and insults, which are in no way logical or reasonable), and “listening” to respond. All with the goal of staying logical! Looking at it this way can bring a chuckle.

Another frequent occurrence is confusing emotions with thoughts. A great example of this occurred at one of my past jobs. I asked a customer how he felt after his experience and he replied, “It was pretty cool.” After a pause, I repeated the question, and he repeated his same answer. He didn’t say anything about feeling relaxed, calm, peaceful, happy, relieved, or any other kind of emotion. He focused instead on what he thought about the experience. Interestingly, this also applies in the other direction. How often do you hear someone say, “I feel” and then say something that is clearly a thought rather than a feeling (such as “I feel I should say something here.”)? This seems to have become incredibly common over the last few years and I don’t get it.

Aside from confusion and creating and exacerbating fights, ignoring emotions has other negative effects. I recently had a hard day before going out to dance. Before arriving, I felt more sadness than I had in a long time. That sadness had mostly turned into frustration and fear by the time the dance began. Two people I know asked how I was doing while I still felt upset. To one, I said “Frustrated, sad, and scared,” and to the other, I said that I wasn’t feeling as sad as earlier and was mostly feeling frustrated. The first one laughed before I said I was being serious and then didn’t follow up or say anything to me the rest of the night; the other didn’t respond at all. I felt upset at both of them after giving those responses and now want to spend less time around them both. Those interactions showed me that emotional intelligence is still a rare trait, especially in highly social settings that prioritize lighthearted emotions rather than heavy emotions. Fortunately, I felt much better as the dance went on. Later at the dance, a few other people I know showed compassion toward me after I said how bad I had felt earlier. I felt glad to receive their support.

My dog Sawyer never tried to hide his emotions. Whether he was feeling positive or negative emotions, he always shared them with anyone who was interacting with him. His love for me was always clearly on display. He inspired me to more freely share my emotions. That’s still a struggle for me, particularly when it comes to sharing negative emotions without hurting anybody in the process, but I’m gradually getting better at it. As with so many other areas, humans could learn so much from animals about emotions.

I fear that emotional intelligence will continue taking a backseat to intellect, logic, and reason. Despite increasing awareness of the importance of emotions and their impact on all of us, I’ve seen hardly any examples in real life that made effective use of that information. In fact, several folks I know (as well as myself) who have done deep dives into these subjects still tend to put emotions on the backburner when situations get tense. Although the results are not always hostile, they are almost always ineffective and are more prone to cause division instead of unity. My efforts to change this have almost always failed, and I have felt frustrated and sad enough times to give up any further efforts to cause widespread change. That has brought me a small degree of peace. I’ll continue increasing my own emotional intelligence and working on using it effectively in as many situations as possible. I feel content whenever I succeed at that, and that seems to produce better results than attempting to control how others manage their emotions. Much of my inspiration for this comes from Marshall Rosenberg, who valued finding and connecting with what is alive in the other person rather than taking offense to what they said when their emotions were running hot. That approach brings people closer together instead of pushing them farther apart. Whether it will bring world peace or just make some daily interactions smoother, I’ll feel good doing it.

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