Fear and Opposite Action

Fear is a natural feeling that we all have at one time or another.  Evolutionarily speaking it was completely essential to the survival of our species.  It is primal and seeks our survival.  It kept us from being eaten by Saber Toothed Tigers.  In the present its message still is, "If you do that, you will die."  When I tell this to clients they often laugh because the extremity of the message is radically disproportionate to the situation they are dealing with.  Fortunately, most of us are not in a position on a daily basis of making decisions that will imminently lead to our death or that of another.   When we learn to separate the feeling of fear from the message of extinction, which leads us to tell ourselves "I can't (ride the subway, have a healthy relationship, stop drinking, change careers, etc.)," we are in a position to take our power and agency back.  It's not about not having the feeling of fear, it is about keeping fear as a feeling and not allowing it to direct our lives.  We can have the feeling of fear and take opposite action in the face of it.  Every time we take action even though we are afraid and do not die we change our brain by providing experience that is different from its assumption.  Thus, the assumption changes little by little and we become less fearful.   I recommend we be gentle, brave, and firm with ourselves.  If you suffer claustrophobia it is not a good idea to go to Time Square on New Year's Eve.  Choose an action that is out of your comfort zone and not extreme.  The point is to take action and live.  The more our actions are based in the choice to live fully and not be confined by fear, the freer we become.  Take the action.  Your brain will catch up.

Healthy Fantasy and Acceptance

Often I hear my clients judging themselves for wanting healthy relationships with people (parents, children, partners, friends, coworkers),  because the other person is not providing evidence that they are interested in participating in such a relationship.  This is where I encourage clients to distinguish between their healthy fantasies and how the actual person is currently able to show up for the relationship.  It is healthy and reasonable to want the people in our lives to be loving, understanding, supportive, respectful, decent, patient and kind.  I see these wants as a sign of health and sanity.  Unfortunately, not everyone in our lives is capable of participating in a healthy relationship.  Some people do not respect boundaries even when they are explicitly stated.  Some people are too narcissistic to be empathetic.  Some people are not ready to deal with their patterns of avoidance or addiction.  Don’t get me wrong, I would not be in the field of mental health if I did not believe that people can and do change.  It usually comes back to the old joke, “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? None…the light bulb has to want to change.”  The point is that it is healthy and sane to want healthy and sane relationships.  It is also important to understand that while we can set boundaries and invite people to have better relationships, it is also important to acknowledge and accept what other people are capable of.

The Power of Differentiation and the Value of Awareness

I looked up the meaning of "differentiation" and found it to be "the act of differentiating."  "Differentiating" was defined as "to form or mark differently from other such things; distinguish."  In the work I do with my clients differentiation refers to knowing what's one's stuff (emotionally) and what is another person's.  The more aware we are of our own internal processes, the more we are able to make conscious decisions and respect the essential humanity of others.  When we know how and why we are emotionally triggered, differentiation is happening on two levels:  First, we able to distinguish our feeling in the present from our feelings in the past from growing up in our family of origin.  This is our stuff.  Second, in seeing and owning our stuff we are able to see other people as real people, not as projections from our past.  This is liberating for everybody.  If we seek to have healthy relationships, differentiation is essential.  Without it we are playing out our stuff unconsciously on others.  We need not do this.  We can through therapy, recovery, and spiritual paths come to understand our inner workings.  This understanding allows us to see our emotional needs and take care of them in a healing, healthy and growthful manner.  Additionally, it creates a space to invite others to do the same

The Meaning and Importance of Pain

Gandhi stated something to the effect of, "I do not pray to stop my suffering. I pray to be worthy of it."  This may seem strange and masochistic.  My interpretation is that the meaning of pain and suffering is that something needs to change, something is out of balance.  We are creatures of habit who generally continue in our routines of thoughts and actions until they cause us so much grief that change is essential.  This is the gift of desperation that can lead to new awareness and healthier, more constructive thoughts and actions.  It seems pains and suffering is essential to the human learning process.  For this reason it makes sense to honor our pain and suffering as an invaluable teacher and not to simply seek to be rid ourselves of it or avoid it.  If pain leads to awareness and awareness leads to change, growth, and healing, it makes sense that Gandhi would pray to be worthy of participating is such a process.  In listening to our pain we can learn to understand what our needs are and how to take care of them in a way that leads to healing and growth.