Social Physics

I'm pretty sure that when you are a grown-up you don't get to automatically have everything your way. I'm not talking about what you like on your hamburger or whether you even eat hamburger. I'm talking about socially. Yes, we all have needs, and some needs are non-negotiable, like needing a tissue after you sneeze or insulin if you're diabetic, and, lest you argue that these are not social needs, I will remind you that family, friends, and conversation partners appreciate neither a snot-covered upper lip nor having to take someone to the hospital who has gone into a coma. But very few emotional/social needs really are non-negotiable. The truth is, in order to live in the world, a person can't have every single need met all the time. Life is a series of compromises, because we don't live in a vacuum. We live with and need other people. Unless you are a hermit who lives on the side of a mountain who sews his own clothes from cloth he has woven from crops he has grown from seed he has harvested from wild-growing plants, you must live in a world with other human beings, and you must, to some degree, get along with them and their needs.

For instance, say you are crabby when you are sick. You don't want to talk to anyone, you want the food that comforts you, and you want the TV tuned to the channel you prefer while you suffer on the sofa in your most comfortable position. On the surface, these are your "needs." You "need" to be in a bad mood and you "need" your comfort food, your shows, and your favorite fuzzy blanket. Because you are sick, your loved ones will generally allow you these things, because they love you and they feel bad that you feel so terrible. They will probably leave you alone, not eat your food, and not insist that they be allowed to watch their shows instead. But you don't "need" any of these things. You want them. And because you are sick, which, in our culture, often confers upon one a somewhat special status, usually the people around you will humor you in these things for a reasonable amount of time. If you snap at someone, you are cut some slack. If you demand that no one eat your cookies, probably no one will ( I am keeping teenagers out of the equation here. Please.). No one will turn the channel. No one will swipe your fuzzy throw. Even if it technically belongs to someone else. We generally respect others' "needs" when they are the subject of a pitiable situation, like illness. Or tragedy, or great stress. But when you are well again, back to 50/50 you go, if you have a life like most of us. Unless you are royalty or hold some other kind of exalted position, most of the time, you have to give a little to get a little. You may give a bit less than 50% sometimes, or even much of the time, and still not be ostracized if you are lucky enough to be surrounded by people of more-than-average generosity (or less-than-average security or backbone). But if you are someone who routinely walks on others (meaning, does a lot more taking than giving, or who, as a rule, accepts kindnesses without reciprocation), there are consequences eventually. Someday you may look around and find yourself alone, literally or metaphorically. We all understand these rules. We may live up to them in varying degrees, but, in general, we accept them.

But I am here to go one further. Here's the thing. Whether you have lost your job, or your mother has died, or you have been diagnosed with cancer, you are still not allowed to walk on people. You may be given some extra leeway for a little while, because good people understand that stress and grief often cause us to lose our self-awareness briefly (or even not so briefly). We may behave badly for a bit because we are simply unable to attend to anything other than our interior survival, and people understand this. But this period, notwithstanding onset of true mental illness, ends. We cannot treat others badly - ignore their needs - indefinitely. At some point, we are expected to come back to level. That is, we must eventually return to a 50/50 approach. That means, no matter how much internal (or external) pain we are experiencing, at some point not years down the road we must be treating people kindly, respectfully, and as if their needs matter, yes, as much as ours do.

Ask a nurse. If he is allowed to be frank, he will tell you that because someone has lost her leg in a war, she is not interminably "allowed" to abuse her caregivers, to demand certain treatment, or  to speak to others as if their feelings aren't important. Head injury or major depressive disorder aside (because we would never reach the end of this article), she must eventually grease others' wheels in order to be part of any social equation. Yes, I mean it. Even when her stump is excruciating and she is still having nightmares, to the extent that she can, she is still expected to speak kindly and respectfully to those around her, and to not assume that others live to deliver her every wish. In other words, pain does not entitle one to selfishness. If you live on this earth, no matter what your situation, you must live as if other people's needs are as important as yours. Because they are. A nurse of an injured veteran deserves to be treated just as well as the veteran. We think we should give people - and ourselves - space to be horrible if they are suffering. But, really, this does no one any favors. Because here's another thing. It doesn't alleviate our suffering to be horrible to someone. We like to tell ourselves that it is using all our energy to suffer; we have no energy left to give to anyone else. Balderdash. It takes no energy at all to be kind. It is our natural set point to be kind. The point at which we have convinced ourselves that someone else doesn't deserve to be treated the way we would wish to be treated, because we have decided we have the corner on suffering, and that corner has somehow elevated us above the need to consider others, is the point at which we have actually lost some humanity. Occasionally there needs to be a period of sympathetic understanding. But ultimately we must expect everyone - even those in pain - to behave well. It doesn't serve someone to refuse to ask them to be compassionate and kind, as if asking this of them asks too much. In fact, it dehumanizes them. It says, "it's okay, we don't expect you to be part of the human equation." That is harmful, not helpful. Expecting them to return to a give-and-take place is doing them a favor. It is an invitation to be part of the community, to be connected to others, which, as I said above, we are, whether we like it or not, because we have no right to get our needs met if others can't.

There is no one right way to be, and no wrong way. Whoever we are is okay. You can be as awful or selfish a person as you want. But you aren't allowed to act that way. You can be shy. But you still need to be polite. You can be an introvert. But you aren't allowed to ignore people. If you are an extrovert, fine. But you can't go around talking everyone's ears off and never letting them get a word in. I mean, you could do all these things. But not without consequences. If you don't mind ending up alone, or disliked, or in jail, then go ahead. But if you want to live in the world and be part of it, you need to behave in a way that takes others' needs into account. For a selfish person, that means sometimes giving someone something you want to keep. For a shy person, that means swallowing some fear and reaching out to someone because they need something. An introvert need not be ashamed that he is one.  Some people just are introverted. But he cannot lean on it, either, or nurse it, if it means acting as if others don't exist, because that could really hurt someone's feelings. It's not okay to hurt someone and excuse it because you feel you have "needs" (in this example, to be turned inward). Introversion is not a "need." It is a reality like any other. It requires examination, not rationalizing. Similarly, an extrovert loves the energy she gets from interacting with others. Fine. But that doesn't mean she can talk to the exclusion of anyone else. She must be aware that others need to feel significant, too, which means giving them space to share as well. We must look at our preferences, even if we call them "needs" or "programming," and make sure we are not putting ourselves first in every situation. We don't need to apologize for who we are, either. We just have to behave in a way that views others ' needs as important as our own.  It's not okay if it's just a habit, either, and you behave inconsiderately or arrogantly because it is an habitual trait to which you pay little mind. As grown-up, decent people, it is our moral duty to do unto others in pretty much all ways.

The point is this: we are all connected. The world changes for all of us whenever each of us is born or dies. You cannot just cherry-pick and say "I'll take this part and this part of living with others, but I'll leave these other parts to someone else." That's a recipe for bitterness and resentment. It is likely that no one else wants those onerous things, either. So, then, who's going to pick up those hard jobs - the ones that require giving when we'd rather receive? You can go around saying "that's just not who I am," but if what that really means is, "I don't feel like meeting your needs; I only want to meet mine," then you aren't being strong or self-sufficient. You are just being selfish.

We all have things we are not good at or would prefer not to have to do. But when we are talking about living in a world with other people, it is likely those are the things we really need most to do. It will be better for others. But it will likely be great for us. Giving to someone else is only a sacrifice if you believe that your needs necessarily come before theirs. Once you have figured out that giving someone else what he needs, even at some inconvenience to yourself, feels at least as good as when he does the same for you, you are on the path to some of the greatest riches you could ever ask for. 

Here's the main thing. If we all gave rather than took, none of us would ever lack anything. I'm not asking you to be the one who always gives and never receives. I'm saying that you should never need to be in that position. When everyone is always tending to someone else's needs, everyone's needs are always being met. Those are just the rules. It's just the physics of being social creatures. If all any of us ever did was look inward at our own needs, we would all be bumping into each other all the time, and we would never get anywhere. Look up! And see what you can do for someone else.

Wrong Paddock

Some children are born into families where they are expected to be appendages. Extensions of individuals, like parents, or of a family name. Ambassadors, if you will. A first name may be all that identifies such a child as her own person, and it is muddled if the child is named after someone who preceded her, especially if that namesake is still alive. Children in any family learn early on how things are done in their family - how to make a sibling mad, how you keep Mom from yelling, what not to say if Dad comes home from work grumpy - and that there is an at-home way to be as well as a way to behave in public. Some children are more astute about these matters or more or less compliant, willing to conduct themselves according to family custom or not. Sometimes it's a matter of self-preservation to do or say certain things in a certain way, if, say, one's parent is a violent alcoholic or one's uncle has abusive proclivities. Fear is a potent motivator. But survival is no less a matter when it is psychological. "We must agree with Mom at least most of the time or she will get mad" is a theory when one is five, but by fifteen it may have become a more sophisticated "We must agree with Mom because she feels threatened if you imply she's wrong." And ten years is a long time to always agree with Mom, if you think she is not always right (no matter what she thinks). It wears you down. It makes you, over time, question your own opinions or your right to express them. And maybe you realized this early on, and you had enough courage to occasionally disagree, gasp, out loud, with Mom. By doing this, you were breaking protocol. Because, like doting on Dad when he was upset, or being polite in public, or not calling Aunt Ethel on her tasteless jokes at the Thanksgiving table, families have rules, spoken or unspoken, that are not similar to the ones about not leaving shoes in the hallway or clearing your own dinner plate. Some rules are all about maintaining the status quo, so that the people with power can keep it. Most families are not democracies. And woe to the person who questions the authority of the ones who presume to have it. That person has now entered anathema-land. That person is now a member of that world-wide club called The Black Sheep.

I had a self-described black sheep come into my mediation practice a while ago. Rachel* came by herself because her family, from whom she described herself as somewhat estranged, were not agreeable to negotiation, which is something I can help facilitate, or to therapy, which is what I felt they sorely needed, if Rachel's perceptions were accurate. She came in alone to do what in mediation we call a "caucus," which is theoretically one side of the mediation equation. It is less than an ideal situation for coming to an agreement, but sometimes it is the only solution available. If one party can learn to articulate her feelings and needs, and to frame the issues in a cogent, concise manner, she is nearer to a solution than she was before she could do these things. While the absence of the other party makes for a less-than-complete approach to problem-solving, sometimes just talking out one side of the problem can actually lead to a greater understanding of the other side, even when the other side is not there to present it in person. In this case, my client felt she was on the other side of the fence from her entire family of origin - both parents and two siblings - in regards to the disposition of her late grandmother's estate. Her literal estate. As in, an estate with a house on it and a working farm.

According to Rachel, she had been very close to her grandmother and had spent many summers and school vacations on the farm when she was growing up. As she grew older, she felt less and less as if she belonged in her family and more and more at home on the farm, where her grandfather taught her to tend livestock, build fences, and run farm equipment. When he died, much of the farm was leased to tenant farmers, but Rachel and her grandmother monitored production, ran the business end of things, and forged relationships with the tenants. Meanwhile, for years, Rachel's nuclear family, she said, became increasingly resentful of the relationship she had with her grandmother - Rachel's mother's mother - and her expanding role on the farm. Her siblings felt she was neglecting her own duties at home and leaving chores to them, and her parents accused her of preferring her grandparents' company to theirs, a dynamic complicated by the fact that her mother had always had a strained relationship with her parents. Rachel had to admit that much of the time she actually did prefer the company of her grandparents. She claimed they just seemed to like her more than her parents did, and to treat her better, like she was valuable the way she was. Also, she felt more in tune with life on a farm than in a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia. When it became clear to her parents and siblings that she was more suited to a life that was not theirs, she said, they accused her of criticizing and rejecting them because they lived the life that they did. Rachel demurred repeatedly, she said, over years, assuring them that it wasn't them she was rejecting, and she found no fault in their choice of lifestyle. It was just that it wasn't for her. Moreover, life with her nuclear family felt increasingly strained as she got older, because she found over time that her opinions on many things - religion, politics, social issues - differed from theirs, and she was never given any space to have these opinions. She was teased, taunted, and harassed continuously into adulthood for not carrying the family flag on these issues, and for not embracing a lifestyle that included certain social and intellectual customs. She tried, she claimed, to bridge this gap that she felt had not been any of her making, by making concessions now and then of various sorts. But, according to Rachel, these concessions were met with as much derision as if she had never made them, because she never could quite bring herself to go all the way with them.

For instance, she recalled being made to attend cotillion with her sister, a tradition in the suburb where her family lived, whereby middle-school-age children take several weeks of ballroom dancing and etiquette, learning skills their families felt were de rigeur in certain socio-economic circles.  She felt, at thirteen, that she would be better off to accede to her mother's wishes than to outright refuse the lessons, although she found the idea unpalatable and unnecessary, as, at thirteen, she already had a vague idea that the life that included cotillion manners was not necessarily going to be the one for which she was destined. But, although she acquiesced to enduring the lessons, she refused to wear a dress. At that age, she preferred her dungarees and work boots, and considered dress pants and a blazer to be about as fancy as she needed to get. This, she said, caused almost as much consternation at home as if she had refused to attend the lessons at all. She was told she was uncooperative, masculine (which, apparently, was an insult), unattractive, and graceless, both because dancing was not her choice activity (riding a tractor was) and because she was arguing with her mother. This opinion of her had formed earlier, she said, but she cemented it during this period. Her family considered her not only to be a misfit, but her behavior unbecoming.

At this point in her life, Rachel told me, the judgment of her family really stung. She had not yet learned that their opinions were their opinions and not fact. So as the years went by, their continued disapproval - of her as person, she insisted, not just of her behavior - accumulated and not only contributed to her eventual distancing herself from them but her difficulty liking herself. After all, if your own parents and siblings don't like you, you must be pretty bad.

Rachel named several more examples of ways she tried to fit in with her family so that they wouldn't see her as some sort of rebel, because it caused her pain to be at odds with them and to feel like an outsider. She agreed to go on family vacations when she would have rather been at the farm. She allowed her mother to choose clothes for her occasionally. She spent holidays at home rather than at the farm, where, in truth, her heart was, and where she was never scolded, told she was in the way, or chided for expressing her opinion at the dinner table. "My grandmother never told me to keep my voice down when I was excited or laughing," she said. "My dad was always telling me to be quiet." Apparently  having a happy daughter was not important. Having a demure, pretty one was.

She had never thought she would go to college, but had always planned on going to trade school, to study animal husbandry. Her parents were so aghast that they refused to pay for anything other than a four-year college. Unwilling  to cause a permanent rift but also unhappy about refusing a perfectly good offer of money, Rachel went to a state university. But she chose agriculture as a major, as a nod to her own vision for her own life. Fortunately, her parents did not pull the tuition plug. But Rachel knew a barrier had been crossed in the timeline of resistance, and that she would probably never quite be forgiven.

In fact, Rachel said, even into her adult years she remained somewhat anathema to her family. Her sister and brother eventually drifted away from contact, although she saw them at holidays, and was stung by the fact that they seemed to have a close relationship to which she was not invited. Even so, her siblings were never outright cruel to her. They just seemed indifferent. To a woman who had never known how to be close to her own siblings, she wanted it very much for her own three children. When they got old enough to ask for their cousins, Rachel felt helpless to initiate a relationship for them.

Things with her parents remained frosty. They loved their grandchildren, and Rachel discovered one thing they had in common; at least she could discuss her children's activities and interests with them. But her parents' interest, she felt, did not extend to her. One resentment she nursed was that her mother had been present at the births of her siblings' kids, but had not shown up to see Rachel's children until they were each over a month old. This, she decided, was emblematic of their feelings for her. She was not really their child. She was their offspring, yes. But she did not feel like she was theirs. She felt unwanted, and as if her feelings did not matter to them. It was her grandparents who really had given her the love and regard she had needed while growing up. This was how she even knew in the first place that things did not have to be the way they were in her nuclear family. You could be loved and valued just because you existed. There was someone who thought everything you did was wonderful because you were the one doing it. Rachel was sad that this was not her mother or her father. But she wondered who she would have become if it had not been her grandparents.

When Rachel's grandfather had died at Thanksgiving during her third year of college, her grief had been overwhelming. She ended up having to take an extended Christmas break, because, she said, she could not get through a day without crying. Her mother, she said, was upset, and lamented to some degree the fact that she had never really healed the relationship with him. But Rachel perceived that her mother somewhat resented the degree of grief Rachel felt. "It was as if she was worried that I would maybe not be that sad if it had been she who died," she said. Rachel and her mother never discussed this, so she never could confirm it. But it went along with the picture she had already painted of her cold, self-centered mother who had never quite learned to love her daughter the way she needed to be loved, that is, unconditionally.

Now Rachel's grandmother had died. Rachel came to me in the fourth week of her mourning, and she looked like a ghost herself. She said she had barely slept in a month and that there hadn't been a tear-free day since. After all, she said, the woman who loved her most in the world was gone. The person who had made her feel wanted and valuable and necessary, the things her nuclear family - with whom she was left - did not. And there was a problem beyond that. Rachel's grandmother had left the farm to her daughter's family, to use or dispose of as they might agree. Clearly Grandma had not tended to the terms of her will, foreseeing that this would not be a tenable situation. The reasons for this were several and not of use to this writing. Suffice it to say that on top of the already contentious nature of the relationship between Rachel and her family, they now wanted to sell the farm and she, of course, wanted to keep it. This dilemma was what had brought Rachel to my doorstep, and it was what we ultimately discussed. But it was the background story - Rachel's status as a black sheep in her family, or, as she called it, the Whipping Post - that haunted my sleep for the next few days. Although we devised a plan for her to take to the table with her family, it was not the ultimate disposition of the farm that I really got stuck on. It was the fact that this woman, who clearly loved her family, but never felt loved by them in return, was now being asked to get rid of the homestead of the relationships that had taught her love in the first place. Her pain at the idea of jettisoning the farm, the only place where she had ever felt at home, the place where she wanted to move her family and live her life, was actually less than that caused by the fact that her own family would actually demand this of her. It was a relentless refusal to see her as her own person, with needs and dreams of her own, just as valuable as anybody's, even if different from those of everyone around her. It was a rejection of her, judged a failure as standard-bearer for her family. She was not like them, so she was not of them, they seemed to be saying. Therefore, what was important to her was of no importance to them. Such is the fate of the Black Sheep.

A mediator cannot take sides as I have done here, and in a professional capacity I had to consider the possibility that Rachel's family might have a very different view of events and personalities. There might be information she does not have, secrets she is not privy to, and feelings and reasons that have not been made clear to her. One side of a disagreement is not, in a practical way, sufficient basis upon which to form a contract. But aside from my purposes as a problem-solver, I couldn't help feeling for her. At thirty-seven, she was valiantly trying not to be a bitter and resentful person, while understanding that sometimes, while people are usually doing the best they can with what they have, what they have might be very little. Those of us who have more, feel more. Often it is the black sheep who has been born with the sensitivity that the white sheep around him do not seem to have. Which may explain how, as a lamb, he ventured into the wrong paddock to begin with.

It seems to me that the job of a Black Sheep, or a Whipping Post, or a Scapegoat (which is what the one who gets blamed for everything might call himself) is to not fall into the habits of the white sheep around him. That is, if someone hurts you, try not to do the same hurtful thing to him. Feelings are not necessarily justification for behavior. Bad behavior is bad behavior. Lashing out is a poor show no matter who is doing it, whether it's the father who feels his child has disappointed him or the child who feels eternally criticized. Behavior may be understandable. But if you, as the Black Sheep, can behave in a way you will be proud of tomorrow, and not in a way you will have to rationalize later, you will already be ahead. That black wool will keep you warmer in winter when the sun shines on it. Maybe the challenge for a black sheep is remembering that the sun shines on all of us, whether we recognize it or not.




*name changed to protect privacy. Permission was given to tell Rachel's story.

24 After 92

My father died yesterday. Not much of a way to start an essay, is it? But it's the thought that sits at the top of my heap of thoughts, shouting the loudest, with the most irreducible voice. My emotions, in 24 hours, have run the gamut from unfathomable wretchedness to warmth like sunshine to a stillness that is somewhere between nothing and everything. I feel like I have been hit by a train when I've done little more than sit. Sobbing takes a physical toll, and so does emptiness.

My father was 92 when he died, although my feeling was that he had really left us close to a year ago when he stopped recognizing the world and withdrew his personhood from it. Over a period of months he became someone we had to get acquainted with. From time to time I wondered if the person we were getting to know wasn't really, at its nucleus, who he really was, without any of the traits we invent to obscure who we are inside. There came a day when we understood that pretenses, ambitions, habits, and agendas were clothing that he had shed, and all that was left was the essence of him. Maybe the Who he had been born being. No one can answer those sorts of questions. You have to just sit with possibility and wondering. And wandering. That's all he was doing at the end. Wandering into dark corners to see where he might go next. Once in a while, if he let us, we wandered in with him. For a while he allowed us to try to pull him back out.

My dad wasn't a toucher, or a hugger, or even a hand-holder, but the last few months of his life he seemed to forget that about himself. My belief is that as he got closer to that light-filled doorway he lost his apprehensions about closeness and instead was glad to connect with us here, as if he would be able to hold onto us while he gingerly placed a toe, then a foot, then his body past the threshold.  Dad was a strong, brave, dedicated human being, but, like most of us, he was fearful of the unknown, and that last walk is definitely one we all take alone without a shred of a picture of where we are going. In his last few months he didn't mind a kiss or a hug, and, in fact, seemed glad of them. He liked having his hand held. Maybe he felt a little more safely tethered that way. You couldn't have asked him; he barely knew the word "spoon," plus, even in his articulate days, his engineer mind didn't work that way, and he wouldn't have known what the heck you were talking about. But as his brain became muddled, somehow I think his instincts became clearer, and he felt more than ever who the people were who loved him.

Dad really left months ago, but remained lightly in his body a little while longer, I think, to console us until we were ready for him to go. This introverted, often silent man had a heart that had sometimes beat too strongly for his own comfort when he was younger, but in the end it was always his family that came first. When my sister and I were young, he normally found ways to remind us that he was the boss. My mother's counsel was usually along the lines of "it's best to let him think so." But when it came right down to it, he was a softie for his girls, although he would have denied the "softie" part and made it into a speech about doing what's practical or correct.  The number of times he came to the rescue, or got on the phone, or wrote a letter to say "Come on home" can get miscounted in the higher count of curmudgeonly, grumpy grumblings that were the persona he was comfortable projecting. Heaven forfend anyone should think he was a pushover. But he never fooled those who loved him for long. We were the ones who loved him, after all.

Grief is a dark wash that can drown all five of your senses. No forethought, no anticipation, no planning can make you ready for its eventual tide.  It squeezes your brain and shrouds your heart until all you feel is numb. Grief has no rational counterpart the way that love can counteract fear or anger or the way patience can heal anxiety. You cannot slow it down or make it run its course faster. You ignore it at your peril; it will only build up behind the dam and ultimately flood your village. It must and will be heard, and no matter where you turn, there it is, before your eyes, even when you close them. It is a relentless roller coaster without a seatbelt that mercilessly yanks you around until you're so whiplashed that you can't even hold up your head. It will leave claw marks on your heart, and each one of those scars has the potential to tear open at a moment's notice, without any warning, bleeding hot, stinging tears.

Grief is a blessing, though, in the end, because it means we have loved. At this moment, I can't feel the blessing part yet -- I am still caught in the briar thicket of pain it has dragged me into. But, from afar, for sure, I am admiring all those deep, scarlet scratches because each one is a testament to how much I loved my father, and I know that how much I loved him is, now, exactly equavelent to the shards that grief is gouging me with. I will lie still and feel it for a while. Then one day I will hear his voice in my ear, his wings brushing my neck when he lands on my shoulder, and I will shed a tear of joy instead.

The Cascade of a Habit

Habits can be so entrenched that they stand in for beliefs. When we look at them square on, though, we may be able to see the difference.

If you have developed a pattern of behavior or of thought in response to an event or situation, it may be that it is your behavior or thinking that causes the response. Responses to events can not only change how we perceive the event but what we believe about the event. If you believe, for instance, that illness is stressful, then it will be. Think of it this way: you may have a lifelong habit of reacting to illness in a certain way, and it may be that reaction which is causing the stress. If you can change your reaction, maybe from an "oh, no, ohmygod, I'm getting sick, not again!" to "well, time for some rest and vitamin C, guess that's just what happens sometimes," you can change your belief from "being sick is stressful" to "being sick is an inconvenience and a signal that I need to take care of myself." You may think it is the situation itself that dictates your response, but it's not. It is your belief about it. Nothing - no event, situation, person, or object - has any value for us other than what we give it. The value we assign something is our belief about it.

A belief isn't a fact. That is why we call it a belief. It is more likely a habit that is so entrenched and convincing  that we can't imagine having a different one. Therefore we believe it. And a belief is always open to question, examination, and change. Isn't that good news?

Why Do We Fight?

We believe that the world we see is the real world. From moment to moment, we believe that what our eyes (and ears and hands and noses) tell us is reality. It doesn't, from moment to moment, occur to us that the world we see is one of perception: what we choose to see, or what we allow ourselves to see. We think that the world we see with our eyes is objective reality. We believe that there is a "me" and then there is an "everyone else." And we draw that world into divisions: the bad guys and the good guys. I am, of course, a good guy. It's the other person who has the problem. It's the other guy who's wrong. It's the other guy who needs to be put in his place or taught a lesson or punished or who "needs killin'". If I can overlook his deeds -- the ones that cause what I call harm -- then I am being forgiving. And I am letting him get away with something, even though he "deserves" some comeuppance. But I am generous and kind, so I forgive him. Which just goes to show you how good I am. And you know what, I am still good if I decide not to be so charitable. Because if I get mad at him, and, moreover, if I take some action against him, it's understandable, because he "had it coming." Because he's the bad guy, I am still the good guy whether or not I decide to forgive him or not. As the good guy, it's my right to bestow or withhold forgiveness. Because that's reality.

The problem here -- quotation marks aside, because we've all felt this way, admittedly or not -- is the assumption beneath all of it, that attack is justified. (Well, mine is. Because it's an answer to what was clearly a wrongdoing, and wrongdoings need answering.) Attack, we think, is justified, because my view about what that guy did is justified. That is, if my view is based on perception. Which, if I attempt to justify attack, it is. Perception is what keeps us seeing and living in a world based on fear and separation, which doesn't reflect the reality - the actual one - that we are all one. As The Course in Miracles says, if we see a world where attack of any sort is justified, it is because we are using our perception -- the view of a world full of attackers and victims -- to justify our own attack, or even our instinct to attack. In other words, if I see you as attacking me, it is only to justify my attack against you. The attack may be with weapons or even words. It might just be about feelings. If I feel anger at you, that is a form of attack, if a quiet one. It is all the same in content if not in form. It all points to my perception that you and I are separate, and that we are vulnerable, and that if one of us is right it means that one of us is wrong.

To be clear, no one is advocating a free-for-all on crime. No one is saying that a murderer shouldn't be removed from society or that a thief be made to repay his debts. What is being said, however, is that once you have moved from assessment of the deed to assessment of the person, you have put yourself in the position of the divine arbiter -- God, the Universe, whatever you prefer to call it -- who places a value on the person. In reality, I am pretty sure none of us has enough knowledge of another human being to decide whether they are a valuable person or not. A man is not merely the sum total of his actions. So, in reality, where we are talking about the value of a person, each one of us is love, each one of us is part of the whole, and no one else has the right or the capability to bestow a mantle of relative value to the rest of us. And if we're seeing through those eyes -- the ones that tell us that, in reality, every person deserves to be loved -- we can address the action, surely. But we can't address the value of the person. Keeping that in mind, we are more likely to come up with compassionate answers to form (in the present case, the murder or the theft).

If you believe that someone has sinned against you (and I'm using the term "sin" colloquially rather than Biblically), it is because you have decided that you live in a world where sin is possible. In reality, attacks aren't possible, because in reality we are love, we are reflections of the divine which made us. But we don't see that world -- that real world. We see the world we want to see: one where attack is real, where hate is real, where anything that isn't love is real. Why would we want to see this awful world, instead of actual reality, where none of these things are real? Because to see a world full of hatred, resentment, jealousy, and fear justifies our hatred, resentment, jealousy, and fear. The choice to see this illusory, terrible world is what lets us see it. It isn't real. We just think it is, because we still think hate is real, because we need to justify our own hate. We need to justify our own hate because we need to keep ourselves safe. We need to attack. We need to defend. This is why we fight.

No one is saying that you should not defend your body when it is attacked. The difference is this: you do not need to defend yourself.  Your self is fine. It cannot be attacked. It cannot be harmed. It needs no defense. If you need to fend off an attack,  it is because a body is attacking you. A person isn't. A person can't, whether they think they can or intend to or not. Only a person's body can attack your body. And you have every right to fend off or discourage a bodily assault, just as you have every right to ask that justice be served if someone steals from you. But there is no reason to perpetrate punishment -- attack -- on a person. In reality, a person's self cannot be attacked, because in reality, a person is love, just as you are, and love neither attacks nor suffers it. But if you and your enemy -- so-called, because there are no enemies in love -- believe in attack, then refrain from attacking the person. Defend an action, but don't attack a person. That is the first step toward undoing the perception of reality and toward the knowledge of reality, which is love. In other words, decry and take action about a deed. But remind yourself that a person is not capable of evil. Only of a mistake. It is your perception that makes it evil. Nothing is anything without the label you give it.

The reason we fight is to justify our impulse to fight, because we want to believe that we are separate from each other. We don't want to deny our impulse -- we think it is inevitable, because this is just the way the world works. That's just reality, we think. It's not, though. It is the reality we have made in our resistance to actual reality. If we continue to perceive the world as a place of attack, and some people as worthy of attack, then there will always be attack. But if we can move our perception to knowledge, view others' attacks as mistakes or need for healing, then we will begin to see reality, which is love. And we won't even feel the need to attack back, much less attack first.

Narcissism...The (New) Scourge

You read a lot these days about the rise of narcissism in our culture, as if it's a new phenomenon. It's not, of course; narcissism has been around since people have been around. The difference is, these days, it's a trend to apply the label to the aspects of our culture that are alarming to many who have grown up seeing them change. Somehow we used to be a warmer, more cohesive, community-oriented society, whose emphasis was on connections between and among people and not on the individual. Apparently, in the era before Facebook, reality TV and the immediate gratification that internet- and cellphone-based links to others deliver, we were naturally more predetermined to search out others to meet our need for community. Now that we have these easy vehicles for self-promotion and proclamation, we are becoming more and more self-centered. Walk by the self-help shelf (shelves) in the bookstore and increasingly you see space taken up by volumes short and long, scientific and not so, all warning the world of its impending Narcissism Crisis. Because before two or more generations of children were brought up latch-key, before helicopter parents were named as such, and before self-esteem became more popular than achievement (oh, an entire article, that last one, but sooo overdone), we were a smaller village. Before kids came home to online games and chat rooms after school, they played street ball and Barbies at each other's houses, which taught them how to get along and interact with actual other children, as opposed to now, when all kids know how to do is say what they want, communicate their own needs, and expect everyone to understand. Before all this new-fangled tech stuff that encourages isolation and chest-beating, before kids had to fend for themselves because nobody was at home to nurture them, and before we all had access to communication vehicles like instant and text messaging, we were a better people. A tighter-knit people. A kinder, less selfish, more altruistic people.

Mmkay.

In a speech in July of 2015, Pope Francis called the individualism that he sees everywhere a form of "bondage." He spoke of the brand of individual consciousness that he sees in these times as a precursor to "despondency," meaning that when people focus on themselves more than they do on others, they lose something of their humanity. Compassion and care for others besides the self become secondary to gains in individual material wealth, power, and status. The Pope has frequently emphasized what he sees as a loss of communal care and of morally necessary and enriching traits such as service to the poor and ensuring social and economic justice. He has bemoaned what he sees as a decrease in care for others as a result of an increase in greed, focus on personal achievement, and immediate, relatively grand-scale gratification.

In his book The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed-in Your World, author Jeffrey Kruger points at modern politics, celebrity, business, and athletics to showcase the narcissism we see in our present world. He doesn't claim that narcissism is a new phenomenon. He does, however, maintain that the heights to which it can reach are magnified -- and thus, worsened -- by the spotlight that current trends in broadcasting shine on it. His popular culture targets include Donald Trump, Chris Christie, Bernie Madoff, and LeBron James -- all figures who have made an art form out of the word "I" -- and he admits that they are extreme examples meant to serve as either icons or warnings, depending on your bent. Your bent, he further opines, is likelier than ever to be on the narcissistic side itself, simply because you live in and are subjected to the showmanship of our current culture. He does differentiate between the "everyday, self-obsessed, pay-attention-to-me narcissist" - the narcissist you or I, as current occupants of the culture, are in danger of being -- and the larger-than-life examples of the "love-me-ism" on view in the personages of Trump, Madoff, et al. But his tone of objective social observation is belied by the very terms he uses -- love-me-ism being one -- as an actual criticism. If he is right, we have got a bad situation on our hands. A state, as Pope Francis might say, of individualism at the expense of the common good.

The Pope's speech in July, given at a meeting of World Popular Movements in conjunction with the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Academy of Social Sciences, was actually an entreaty to the world's governments and business leaders, at whose feet Francis has laid much of the entrenched poverty and social injustice he sees globally. His view is that the people with the most power have made keeping that power their prime objective, rather than what he sees as their real obligation, that is, the raising of all boats with their own tides. He claims that those whose tides have risen in recent decades have not only left other boats in drydock, but have also, in some calamitous instances, intentionally capsized or drowned them. This particular speech -- and many before and since -- have focused on the egregious and purposeful disenfranchisement perpetrated on those who have less by those who have more. Rather than communism, Francis calls consistently for collectivism, a system in which every person is valuable and by which great power, be it financial or political, demands great responsibility. But his finger remains indirectly pointed toward each of us individually, too, even if we are not CEOs or Congresspeople. He implies as often as he can that too much emphasis on personal, individual goals can mean trampled neighbors.

The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM), now in its 5th edition, is the standard manual for diagnosis of psychiatric and mental disorders. "Narcissism," as such, is not a diagnosis according to the DSM; rather it categorizes Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) as one of several personality disorders, which generally account for a broad range of traits that cause people difficulty socially, impacting their ability to work, make meaningful connections, and behave in socially acceptable ways. The list of traits that manifest in a person with NPD are recognized as:

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
• Requiring constant admiration
• Having a sense of entitlement
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner


(source: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20025568)

People with NPD are characterized as having the appearance of being arrogant, conceited, or with the tendency to behave with hubris. They tend to treat others as inferior, especially if others don't agree with their ideas or opinions. They are often entitled and feel that they deserve better treatment than anyone else, usually demanding the spotlight in any social situation. They are truly afraid that attention will fall on anyone but them for any length of time, and while they may be trying to appear to give others a chance to shine, they will do so in a way that actually monopolizes the conversation or situation. Their conversation tends to have a tone of one-upsmanship -- whenever you tell a story, they've got a better one. They will become angry, or, at best, pouty, when they are not first, best, or most. In fact, they are deeply uncomfortable with criticism or anything that makes them appear smaller than someone else in any way. They are grown-up bullies, feeling simultaneously insecure and jealous and superior and more-deserving. Often their sense of self-righteousness is so great that depression is common as they find that the world does not deliver them what they want and feel they are owed.

We all know people who fall into this range of traits and resulting behaviors. We have certainly seen the extreme examples like Mr. Trump or Mr. James. Most of us have a co-worker or family member or friend or two to whom we feel a connection, perhaps because of a history of relationship or loyalty, that we can place in the narcissist category. Often these people are charismatic, clever, and magnetic, and draw us in because, in the short term, they are good company -- funny, sparkly, and even kind when it suits them (often their gestures of kindness are grand, which may impress us at first). But most of us have also experienced the let-down that comes from spending more and longer periods of time with the narcissist (a term the DSM V does not necessarily condone, as it is colloquial) when they eventually show their true colors. When they lose their temper or become nasty when someone doesn't agree with them. When they hog the conversation at dinner or in a meeting where they have nothing of more value to say than anyone else. The point is, they believe they do. They think their idea is the best one just because it is their idea. We come to know these things after knowing someone for a period of time and over a variety of situations. Often by then we are in a relationship -- work, romantic, friendly -- and we begin to wish, sometimes at first with only a small voice, that we weren't. The things that used to be funny or endearing or merely peculiar now become redder and redder flags. And we wonder why we didn't see it earlier. And we start asking ourselves, "How did I ever let this behavior slide before? Why didn't I see it for what it was? This person doesn't care about me. They only appear to, so they can get something from me." And so on. Then you are left with a decision about how to get out, or, at least, minimize contact. Or minimize damage. Because the grossest thing a narcissist does to another person is take. They take without giving. Or they take a lot and only give a little, to preserve at least the appearance of giving. The ways in which this may manifest are myriad, but most of us know what this feels like. It is damaging, especially if you have no tools to undo it. You can choose, or not, to be hurt by what someone says. But if they have used your money or your resources for their own needs and have no thought of repayment, your loss is tangible. How you feel about it may be a choice. But building back a sense of reliance on your own instincts, like repairing an injured credit rating, can be difficult if that reliance is scarred. You are now doubting your own judgment. Such is the insidious effect of the narcissist's emotional reach.

According to the Pope, and to writers like Jeffrey Kruger, we are seeing an overabundance of narcissism the likes of which we have never experienced in Western society. I am not sure this is true -- there have always been narcissists. See Alexander the Great. Napoleon. The robber barons of the American nineteenth century. Ghandi. FDR. Hitler. Their actions, for good or bad, do not negate their grandiose sense of self-worth. Whether or not Mahatmas brought a revolution of peaceful thought to millions probably did not make it easier to sit at the breakfast table with him. But what both the Pontiff and other thinkers of our time may be onto is the overwhelming sense of insecurity of our time, at least partly driven by the constant assault of images and headlines. We live in a world that is increasingly smaller and increasingly less personal. We equate time online with gaming buddies with time outside playing hide-and-seek. Families are more often broken than they used to be, and more children are being raised by one parent rather than two, much less a village, because we have things like suburban subdivisions (not to mention triple-locked apartment doors) rather than neighborhoods. A mother who calls another mother to let her know her concern for her child whom she just saw in a precarious situation is likelier than ever to be told to mind her own business. We see our business as ours and yours as yours. We seem to have forgotten that we need to have some sense of shared business if we are to call ourselves a community.

We are able to put a conversation on hold - perhaps eternally -- if we suddenly feel bored by it or uncomfortable, or distracted by something else, because instant messaging and texting isn't the same as speaking in person. We can cut people off without immediate consequence simply by switching screens. Then we are bewildered when we see them on the street and they avoid us. Or confront us. Perhaps it is valid to view the electronic and the in-person portions parts of the same conversation. But talking without speaking cannot possibly be as whole a conversation as one across a table or a pillow. In fact, in a sense, the latter is the conversation, while the former is merely two parties taking turns talking. Each in their own little world.

All of these things are open to interpretation and expansion, of course, and there are positive aspects, too, like privacy and self-preservation. But some privacy is just insularity and some self-preservation is just a reaction to regular old discomfort. We used to have to learn to get through these parts of life. Now we merely dismiss them. This is a conversation in itself. What I am getting at here is the perhaps valid concern that our pendulum, as a reaction to perceived danger and possible over-sharing (see: nightly pics of "what I made for dinner" or weekly updates on "what I think about Election 2016," not to mention oops-pics of ex-spouses or celebrities) has swung us to a more and more closed culture. There is nothing wrong with a little quiet time or introvertedness. But we all lose, I think, when we become individual physical bodies with fewer and fewer cords to link us together. We become fearful and self-protective. And sometimes that little interior pendulum swings too far in response and self-protection becomes self-aggrandizement, or, at the very least, self-centeredness.

I am thinking, as a simile, of the difference between assertiveness and aggression. Similarly, there is a difference between self-esteem and selfishness. Between confidence and arrogance. Between concern for others and concern that others be your handmaidens or whipping boys.

I don't think we are at a crisis level yet (except insofar as the Pope does, when he refers to the financial and social economies of the world these days). And I do think there is a way to balance the scales between a frightened, insular society and a free-for-all on morality and inhibition. That pendulum has a way of swinging back into place. Rarely does it slow down and remain in the middle, though, and, essentially, that is what most of us are seeking most of the time.

Maybe a little self-examination is what is in order, then. From the lessons a parent teaches his child to the way a CEO handles her company, maybe some questions need to be asked. Do you think you deserve more than someone else? Do you think you are more valuable? What does the word 'special' mean to you? And...What can you do for someone else? What is an acceptable cost to yourself? Why do you view it as a cost? Do you understand that it is not necessarily a sacrifice to give to someone else, even if it means you go without? It will, after all, benefit you somehow, in the end.

I guess that last statement is the last question. When do we stop thinking, consciously or unconsciously, of the benefit to ourselves? And when does the answer to that question mean we have left self-esteem and entered self-centeredness? When do we use the label Narcissism when we are talking about ourselves?

How Did I Get Here?

I was brought across a chasm from a place where there was no 'I.' When I got here I couldn't remember any more than that - no sounds or sights or feelings from that place before. If it even was a place. All I can remember is that yawning, gaping chasm that fell beneath me like an eternal, black well.  Silence. Fear. Flesh. I felt them as I took them on, as they flew toward me from the nothingness, that black silence, that impenetrable darkness that was separating me from my earlier home. All at once I had these constraints, these limbs, these eyes, these hands, and it was only because I now had them that I knew I hadn't had them before. Now I knew there was an I, although I didn't know what that meant. 

As I flew, or drifted, for I had no gauge for the speed at which I traveled, all I knew was grief, for a time, although time, too, was indistinguishable from a singular point. It washed over me like a tide, drowning me in despair and loss, and as I reached out I could feel nothing else. Where and what and who I had been, when I hadn't been self-aware, was gone, like a drop of water vanquished by sunlight. My bereavement was thick, like a scar covering my entire soul. It was only in turning toward that conceit, that there was a self, that there was a soul, and they were me, that the depthless dark hole of abandonment and wholeness rent asunder began to retreat. If I turned toward this new knowledge, this new way, I could begin to slide that solid, black pain first to the corner of my vision, then, gradually, to shun it to the most distant recesses of what I was coming to know as my mind. I found that if I didn't see it, I didn't have to look at it. And if I didn't look at it, I didn't have to see it. And I began to breathe. In this new way of being, this was relief.

I looked around and soon could see the others who had not been others when they had been with me in that place before. They had not been anything. And now they were here. With me. We were here. The chasm was gone, as was the hard, smashing pain of leaving behind what I could no longer remember. For a moment I could still feel them inside me, us all together, when we were one. But then I remembered that I was. I was. And so they were too. And were each an I. And soon I forgot that there was anything but I. And there was a world. A world full of beings called 'I.' And I grew happy to be lost in it, and to be left to my own devices.

It Is Perfect

If everything were already perfect and there was nothing left to strive for, then what would you do? Does it ever feel like the life you want is visible, but just out of reach, and that you are at some convergence of getting close to it and not getting it at all?

Most of us exist in a state of being where we believe everything we see, touch, feel, hear, and taste is real, and we wonder why it is that we can't get to the thing or place or experience that we want. We have somehow convinced ourselves that the way to fix things is to...well, fix them.  But we never will. That isn't possible. That isn't what's real. It's like seeing a photograph of a broken toy and trying to fix the toy by fixing the photograph.

When did we lose the knowledge that the only thing that is real is love and the only means to it peace and joy? How did we let that wisdom wither?

The Course in Miracles says that this world we experience with our physical senses is an illusion.  It is a construct we've created out of our misplaced alignment with fear. It is what we have made so that we can keep our selves contained inside physical bodies that seem to be real and seem to be separate from each other, me over here and you over there, because somewhere along the way we forgot that there is really only one of us here. That sounds preposterous if you believe with your physical eyes.  But at some level - where we can see through other eyes -  we know it's true. We tell ourselves that the joy and elation we feel in dreaming, laughing, dancing, and loving is an illusion. In the end, "reality" will set back in, we say. But the Course tells us that we have it backwards. It is peace and joy that are real. What we call reality is the illusion we have made because we are more comfortable with fear and separation than with love and oneness.

Buried deep there is something in you that knows it's true. Like most of us who aren't enlightened masters, you go through each day with a vague sense of knowing you just don't have it quite right, that you somehow aren't who or where you're supposed to be, but you're not sure even what that would look like. But there is something in you that knows that you're supposed to be more connected.  Still you find it easier to criticize than to sympathize. It's more comfortable to keep your distance than to draw close. It seems more natural to point out differences than to find similarities with those who are "other." You know what it means when I use the term "other." And you wonder why you still ever feel lonely. Or afraid of anything. Or directionless. Or not good enough.

The truth is, we are perfect. Not the "we" we have made for ourselves, but the "we" that we were made to be- in reality.  The truth is, we are nothing but love. The truth is, we are one, because there is only one of us, and what you do for another you do for yourself - because there is no difference. The two are the same. The two are one.

So, you see, there is nothing left to strive for. We are perfect already. The only reason for this physical existence is to learn what it is we aren't, so that we can begin to reassemble - to
re-member - who we are. I am you, and you are me, and we are one. That's what love is for, and it is what love becomes. And every time you feel, show, or give love, you have reassembled one more piece. You know how it feels. How could that feeling ever be the illusion? The illusion is made clear whenever what we feel is NOT love. And that is just another chance to shine the light of reality - love - into the darkness that is fear, separateness, and desolation. You don't have to throw your arms around everyone you see. You don't even have to like them. But you can see them for who they are - a reflection of you, because you are the same - and love them, just like someone, somewhere, loves you.

WORK of HEART

Work of Heart Why mental and spiritual health seems like hard work

"Just give me one thing that I can hold on to

           To believe in this living is just a hard way to go..."

        (Bonnie Raitt, "Angel from Montgomery")

First, let's define some terms. 

         For the purposes of this article, let's agree that mental health is a state of mind/brain, that is, the convergence of biological structures and chemical processes that results in emotions, like joy and sadness, and states of mind, like love and despair. Included here are the effects of nature and nurture - genetics and environment - on how we think, feel, process events and situations, and lean in any given moment toward love or fear.  Attraction, revulsion, elation, and fight-or-flight responses can be included here, with the caveat that these are changeable depending on where one is in time and circumstance. 

         Spiritual health, on the other hand, is less defined, and less definable.  In my mind, it is where and who you are once you have passed thinking and feeling and are instead in a region where words are irrelevant, or are, at least, merely conveniences. Your spirit is what connects you to the divine, no matter what your definition of that is. It is what leads you beyond yourself. It's that space where knowing and feeling merge and where interconnectedness is tangible. It's what's in your (non-physical) heart.

           We could conceivably argue about these definitions, but we are constrained by time and space, and for the sake of getting on with it, let's just start with the above. 

           Mental work is something with which we are all familiar. We sit at our desk all day and do it. We deliver lectures, keep files straight, remember which wire connects to which circuit, and keep children's schedules organized. We know how a long day of work, even if it involved very little physical activity, can wear us out. Mental health is what we achieve when we attend to our mental needs. We see a psychotherapist when we are depressed, or have been traumatized, or are just confused (and, of course, when there is clinical mental illness, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, which are beyond the scope of this article. See Postscript below.). Even when we don't pursue therapy in a formal setting, we work on ourselves. Every time you ask yourself "Why do I do this?' or "Why do I feel this way?" you are in therapy with yourself. Some people do it naturally and without hesitation. Others set things aside, compartmentalize, or put things off until they become too large to ignore. Did you understand all the things I said in those last few sentences? Then you have done some measure of mental health work. In fact, if we were to sit down and discuss all those concepts, THAT would be mental health work.  

           Spiritual work isn't all that different, but because it is so ethereal, we have fewer defined terms to rely upon. When we are speaking in terms of faith, of "knowing" things without knowing them, or when we are tuned into something as subjective as inner peace, discussion points become a little less at-hand. To be clear, for the sake of this article, I am not referring to religious dogma, doctrine, or practice here, but rather the things that religion may (or may not) point to, such as relationship to the divine, or to the universe, when one is not only talking about planets and stars. As an example, if you have ever been in a group of people and been moved because you feel connected and close to them, as if your souls (or inner children, or higher selves, or whatever term you prefer) are in concert and joined at some level, then you have experienced spiritual connection. Definitions like this are perhaps a bit hazy.

          People who "work" on themselves, or on their relationships with others, are "working" toward mental and, usually, spiritual health. When a person is well-adjusted, has relatively few bouts of anxiety or depression, and is able to function successfully throughout each day with a minimum of anguish or emotional struggle, we usually agree that he is mentally healthy. If someone is at peace with herself, sees her relationships as mostly harmonious, and feels as if she belongs to and is at home in her smaller world and the greater interconnected web of all things, we may call her spiritually healthy. Great. But most of us have something here or there - whether it's an illness, a relationship, a financial or power situation, or just about any other kind of circumstance, finite or existential - that keeps us from considering ourselves 100% healthy on either front. And here is where the work comes in. Those questions we ask. The self-examination we do (or put aside). The help we find in experts and counselors.

        I once had a couple in my mediation practice who were having trouble in their marriage. They had grown apart and were finding that they were just very different as people, with different ways of seeing things. They both wanted to save their relationship and they agreed that a marriage counselor might help them find the solutions. The trouble was, they couldn't even begin the counseling from the same viewpoint. The wife wanted the counselor to delve deep into the issues and help explain why each saw things so differently from the other so that they could arrive at some kind of compromise. The husband, on the other hand, wanted the counselor to decide who was right and who was wrong. He wanted her to tell the wrong one what was needed to fix the problem, then help fix it. He wanted a quick solution. In his misery over his marriage, he just wanted a solution, like an antibiotic for an infection. He was dismayed when the counselor told him that the wife's idea - not to find fault but to explore each spouse's viewpoint so that each could better understand the other and endeavor to maximize the other's comfort level - was more what the therapist had in mind. The husband was immediately downcast and said "that's so much work. It will take too long."

        Why did the husband consider it work? Why do we think exploring our feelings and habits and points-of-view - and those of others - is work? And why is it so hard?

        I think that anytime you challenge yourself mentally or spiritually, it feels like work. You are asking yourself to consider something new. Perhaps the hardest part of this is the eventually possible conclusion that you may have been wrong about something. If you've thought or felt something for a long time and you then have to consider the possibility that you have been wrong all along, or that one solution does not fit all problems, the conclusion that you have been incorrect, or merely missing the mark, can be a hard pill to swallow. Why? Because of fear.

        Fear is what keeps us stuck anywhere, it is what leads to and causes most of our anguish and upset, and it is the hardest habit to extinguish. Most of the time, fear about being wrong is unjustified. In the end, it is not so terrifying to realize that you have been wrong; you just hit reset and go on with emboldening new knowledge. Admit you have been wrong one time, and you will find it is not the end of the world. Anyone with any integrity will commend you for the strength to admit it. Yes, strength. Heaven forfend we admit we are wrong: politicians will tell you that that puts you in a weakened position. Let's not align ourselves with (most) politicians; we can guess how that will work out for us! In the end, remaining adamant that you are right in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary just makes you look impudent and stubborn, and, perhaps, self-indulgent and in denial. (Note to some politicians. You know who you are.) The overarching theme here is change. It is hard to change. It is hard to discipline your mind and remain calm and focused when it wants to ruminate over the personnel issues at work, the balance in the checking account, or the grocery list. It is hard to change habits and take the time to listen to someone else's ideas when for years you have relied on your own ingenuity to solve problems. It is hard to countenance the idea that one person is just as objectively valuable as another if you've been raised to think that some people deserve more. It is hard to admit you've been or are now wrong. Why? Again, fear. Fear that we have not done all that we could have. Fear that we have let someone else or ourselves down. Fear that we are not as wonderful as we have always thought we were. Or fear that we have not been as deserving of criticism. Yes, it can be scary to realize that you are pretty darn great when you have long had a habit of self-reproach. Habits serve a purpose: they allow us to be lazy and not do the work it would take to change.

        Just because you've always done something a certain way does not mean it is the best way. Or even correct at all.

        Think of this: if you have always eaten basically the same way and always gotten around the same amount of daily exercise, then you have probably always had more or less the same level of fitness and physical health, barring accidents or catastrophic illness. Then one day, at age 45 or so, you begin to see that those habits aren't cutting it. You've gained some weight. You ache here and there now and then. Some things have diminished, and others have sagged. "But," you protest, "I have always eaten properly and gotten enough exercise! What the heck is this?!" And your doctor says," Well, looks like it's time to change things up. A little more protein, a little less bread, some vitamins, and two hours more cardio every week, if you want to have something like what you've had."
        " But," you protest further, "I've never had to do that before!"
         " I know," soothes your doc. "But you need to do it now."
         And you know your doctor is right. But you hate it. You've gotten used to the old routine. You've gotten used to it working. You don't want to change. To change means to admit the old way isn't working anymore. It means admitting the old way is...yep...wrong. At least if you want anything close to the results you're used to.

        Same thing for mental and spiritual health. Like physical health, there is some discipline involved. Some reordering of habits when they become obsolete. Some examination of motives, needs met and unmet, and preferences. The most fundamental of whys and wherefores. Some insight into the excuses we make for ourselves. Is it your habit to feel guilty rather than to do the right thing? What is going to enable you to look yourself in the mirror at the end of your life?  How is doing it this way serving you? How is it serving others? Which do you emphasize? Why? Is it tiresome to even ask yourself these questions? Is that why you're not doing it? Is it self-indulgence? Are you really that worried about what you might see if you clean that smoke from the mirror? Are you just so satisfied with who you are that you feel no need to examine it?

         We all know someone who "is never wrong." You know, they are the people you can't tell anything because they already know everything. Usually these are people whose habit is to deny themselves the possibility of being wrong because they are worried about the person they might actually be. To them, the idea of being wrong contravenes their constructed identity - someone who is wise, strong, smart, and, therefore, valuable. For these people, their habit of fear of being wrong can be so entrenched they can't even understand it when you ask them to look at it. Fear of the habit of fear of being wrong. Sheesh.

        It is hard work to confront the things in ourselves that cause us disquiet. It is hard work to admit where we have been wrong, whether due to misunderstanding or to self-delusion. At the deepest heart of it, we may be frightened that the very essence of who we've been has been, somehow, wrong. The answer to that is this: would you rather keep being wrong? Or would it serve you and everyone else more to stop now and do something better?

         Think of the person you love most in the world. If that person discovered an uncomfortable truth about himself, and vowed to change, would you celebrate that decision and do everything you could to support him in his efforts to do better? Or would you condemn him continuously until you and he thought so little of him that change became pointless? Think of what you would do for that person you love. Then do it for yourself. Someone who loves you would want that for you. Why can't that someone be you?

         Mental and spiritual work are hard because change is hard. Admitting you are or have been wrong is one of the scariest things we can do. But if you have ever encouraged - kindly or not - someone else to admit their wrongs, why not encourage yourself (let's stick to kindly)? And let's stop using the word "wrong." It's so judgmental, and who are we to judge anyone, even ourselves? Let's use "mistaken" instead. If you were at one time sure you were right, but you find out later that you weren't, you were mistaken. Being mistaken isn't the end of the world. It's just an opportunity to feel better from now on.





POSTSCRIPT/DISCLAIMER: I realize that the kind of therapy, formal or informal, that deals with painful memories or managing the effects of traumatic events is hard work because it can really hurt - in a real and definable way - to relive feelings when dredging up the past. Just the memory of a tragic or upsetting incident can be painful, and the process to inner peace is hard because pain is hard. I am not addressing that kind of deep, wrenching work here. That is a topic for another article. Or two. Or twelve.

     

         

The Coat

Do you ever feel as if you've taken off the coat that is who you really are and hung it up in the closet, and taken out a different coat and worn it so you can become someone else - just to get through a day? Or a week? Or a year? But you know the entire time that it's not you and that you are, at the moment, a fraud. It may look like your coat, but no one can tell but you that it doesn't fit quite right. Meanwhile your own coat is hanging, unused, and you're afraid you'll never go back to retrieve it. And that if you ever do, it may not even fit anymore.  Or you won't remember how to put it on. And you worry because you start getting used to the feel of this other coat. It might even be becoming comfortable. And you begin to forget about that other coat- it's just so much easier to keep wearing this one; everyone is used to seeing you in it. But every once in a while you have a flash of memory of the old coat, how it kept you warm and fit so well. And you wonder how much longer you will be able to convince everyone, including yourself, that this coat isn't stolen. That it's yours. That this is you. And the thing that terrifies you most, no matter how much you pine for that old coat, is what people will think if you go retrieve it and wear it again. Will they be angry that you stole the other coat? Will they feel foolish because they believed that it was yours? Or will the people who love you just be relieved  that you have put on the old coat, because they're starting to remember it now, and, really, they just want you to be comfortable. You know, because they love you, and they've been trying for the longest time to tell you nicely that that coat you've been wearing lately? Just doesn't suit you.  And they miss the old one. And what do you know, if you'd look in the mirror once in a while, so, in fact, do you.