Even if you don’t have a stack of books on your bedside table detailing the newest ways to fix yourself, you still might be. And it wouldn’t be your fault if you were. Our  conditioning from a very young age is to believe that we need to become better, new and improved versions of ourselves, even if at first we don’t know exactly how or why. But soon enough we have filled in the why’s with our shortcomings and failures, and self-help provides the how-to’s with unending methods for self-correction. Armed with our story of deficiencies firmly in place and a surplus of paths toward improvement, we set off on our life mission—namely, becoming someone else. And we are proud of, and celebrated for, this mission. Growing and evolving, becoming a better person—it all sounds so virtuous. Who would turn down such an opportunity?

And yet, growing and evolving are too often code words for what is really “fixing” or correcting our basic unworthiness. From the time we are young, we are infiltrated with the belief that the basic problem underlying all other problems is, put simply, us. We are what’s wrong. As adults, we search the globe for the right teacher; we attend seminars, buy books, hire coaches, consult shamans, and everything else under the sun—all in an effort to make ourselves into something good enough or maybe just enough.

But are we good enough for what or whom? Did you ever wonder?

If we boil it down, we keep fixing ourselves in the hopes that we can, finally, just be as we actually are. Once we’re fixed, enough, worthy—whether that means more compassionate, more disciplined, or whatever shape our more’s have formed into—then we’ll be entitled to feel what we feel. We can think what we think, experience what we experience—in essence, be who we are.

The fear that fuels our self-betterment mission is the belief that we are, at our core, notwhat we should be: We’re faulty, broken, unlovable, or some other version of not okay. To give ourselves permission to be who we are, to give up the mission for a better version of ourselves, would be tantamount to accepting our defectiveness and giving up all hope of fruition. And that, of course, would be unwise, naive, lazy, and a cop out. To suggest that we stop striving to be better than who we are is not just counterintuitive, but frightening and dangerous. Such a suggestion incites fear, scorn, anger, confusion, amusement, and an assumption of ignorance.

Self-help, while useful in certain ways, strengthens our core belief that we are inherently defective. Self-help starts with our defectiveness as its basic assumption, and then graciously offers to provide us with an unending stream of strategies by which to fix our defective core—which, once fixed, will award us the right to be who we are.

The problem is that the strategies keep us stuck in the cycle of fixing—and more important, in the belief that we are broken. If you notice, we never do become that person who is allowed to feel what we feel, and experience what we experience. We never do get permission to just be who and as we are.

This is where spirituality enters, and offers something radically different than self-help.

Most people think that spirituality and self-help are the same thing. They’re not. In fact, they are fundamentally different. We have tried to turn spirituality into self-help, another method for correcting ourselves, but to do so is to misunderstand and eradicate the most profound (and beneficial) teaching spirituality offers.

True spirituality is not about fixing ourselves spiritually or becoming spiritually better. Rather, it is about freedom from the belief of our unworthiness, and ultimately, about acceptance. Spirituality, practiced in its truest form, is about meeting who we really are, and allowing ourselves to experience life as we actually experience it.

In this way, it is more of an undoing than a doing.

In truth, we need to take the risk that it is to lean back into who we actually are. We need to do that before we even know that who we are will be enough, or even that there will be anything there to catch us. We need to relinquish our self-improvement plans before we believe that we have the right to stop improving. The whole thing—true spirituality—requires a kind of faith. It’s not faith in a system, story, or methodology, but a faith that trusts that we can’t think our way into what we truly want. No matter what path we practice, there comes a point where we have to let go of the reins; when we have to give up the quest to be good enough.

What happens when we stop trying to change ourselves into something better is nothing like what we imagine: We envision stepping off the self-help train and landing smack inside someone incomplete and unsatisfactory. And yet in truth, the simple (but not easy) act of inviting ourselves into our own life has the effect of placing us at the center of something beautiful and extraordinary. Giving ourselves permission to be as we are miraculously creates a kind of love for ourselves—not so much for our individual characteristics, but for our being. It’s not just for our being, but for the truth, whatever that is. It is as if whatever we find inside ourselves, whether we wish it were here or not, is okay and we are okay. Ultimately, we shift from trying to become lovable to being love itself. And amazingly, from this place, the not-enough person we thought we were has simply vanished, or more likely, never was.

Try it out for a moment—this moment. Just let yourself be. Give yourself permission to have the experience you are having, whatever it is, with no story about whether it is right or wrong, good or bad. Feel how you actually are. It’s that direct and that simple. No judgments allowed. It won’t make sense…it takes a leap…so leap.

The post When Is It Time to Stop Trying to Fix Ourselves? appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Let me say first that in some situations blaming is helpful and healthy, and not always a dysfunctional reaction. Assigning blame where it is appropriate can help empower and protect you, to stop harm in its tracks.  But the kind of blaming that I am addressing here is the unhealthy and chronic kind, the habitual and reactive sort that blocks personal growth, damages relationships and gets in the way of your own wellbeing.

To find out if you are a blamer, take the following test:

Blamer’s Test

1. Would it be normal for you to respond to someone with a problem by telling him why he is to blame for his problem?
2. In relationship with friends and family, do you often find yourself pointing the finger, telling others how and why they are wrong, using phrases like you did it, it’s your fault!
3. When confronted with life’s difficulties or inconveniences, is it common for you to identify and ruminate over who or what is to blame?
4. When you are upset or in a difficult situation, do you frequently blame someone for making you feel the way you do?

If you answered yes to one of these questions, you are a blamer.  If you answered yes to two or more questions, your blaming behavior is most probably compromising your relationships, wellbeing and personal evolution.  That said, keep reading; blaming is a habit and awareness is the first step towards breaking it.

First, I want to congratulate you on the willingness to look honestly at your blaming behavior, and address what is not working in your life.  It’s hard to investigate the parts of yourself that need improvement; awareness takes courage.  In addition, I congratulate you on the aspiration to grow and improve, which comes from your highest self.   The intention to evolve is already evolved.  That said, just by continuing to read, you are doing something remarkable.

Your blaming, when it began, was probably an innocent defense mechanism designed to protect you from harm.  If your sister was to blame for eating the cookies then she would be punished—not you.  But sometimes blaming takes a turn toward the dysfunctional, when blaming becomes your default reaction to life, which then causes harm to you and others.

Blaming, when dysfunctional, is a way to avoid and deny feeling what you are feeling.  While it may not be conscious, blaming is something you do to get away from the feelings you do not want to feel.  But I feel lots of things when I blame, you might argue.  And it is true that you do feel when immersed in blaming, but you feel something other than what you would if you could not blame.  In this way, blaming conceals and distorts your real truth; you replace your feelings about what you are experiencing with feelings about who caused it.   At its core, blaming is a form of self-abandonment and self-betrayal.

Case In Point

Jon (not his real name) is driving his teenage daughter to a gymnastics meet.  Traffic is dreadful and they are going to be late for this important event in her life.  Jon goes to his default response, blame, accusing his daughter of dilly-dallying before getting in the car and other such crimes.  He spends the entire trip angry; berating her, explaining why it’s her fault that she is not going to make her meet on time.  Later, as I unpacked the event with Jon, it became evident that underneath the blame, there were in fact many emotions happening inside him.  He felt sad and guilty about not being able to get her there on time, and powerless that as her dad, he couldn’t take care of her, which is what he really wanted to do.  He felt anxious because he thought there might be a better route to take, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.  He felt heartbroken because he knew what the meet meant to her, and how hard she had worked for it.

Under all of the blame was actually love and pride for his daughter.  As Jon and I re-scripted the event, re-lived it in a new way; we replaced Jon’s blaming script with an acknowledgment and expression of all the juicy feelings that had not been allowed a seat at the table with his daughter or even in Jon’s awareness.  Together, we invited in Jon’s actual truth, and re-framed the traffic jam as an opportunity not to determine blame or rightness, but rather to connect, create intimacy and empathy, and meet the truth of the moment.  With the need to assign blame set aside, there was an opportunity for Jon to touch into his actual experience and feel the depth of his vulnerability and love, which thankfully, he was later able to share with his daughter.

Furthermore, blaming is a way to uphold your self-image and protect your self-esteem.  Your partner is the cause of your relationship problems, your boss is why you are not successful, the government is to blame for your lot in life, and on it goes.  Someone/something else is to blame, which then allows you to avoid having to look at your own participation, and potentially, aspects of yourself that conflict with your self-image.  Blaming keeps you safe from having to look at the gap between who you believe yourself to be and who you are.  But in so doing, blaming also prevents you from being able to grow and change.  Pointing the finger is a way to avoid responsibility, which ultimately keeps you stuck at the place from which you point.

Blaming is also a strategy (albeit usually unconscious) to keep from having to make changes or address your actual reality.  As long as the problem is someone else’s fault, you can stay busy and focused on trying to correct the blame, that is, fix that person or situation that is at fault.  Your attention is poured into what you have determined to be the source of that fault.   As a result, you turn your back not only on your actual experience of the situation, but what you might need to do—given that the situation is the way it is.

Case in Point

Maggie (not her name) had been in a relationship with Phil for a dozen years and for ten of those years she had been talking about how and why he was to blame for what was not working in the marriage. Her attention was perpetually focused outward, on changing him; he was to blame so he needed be fixed (which was her job).  When he was fixed, then she would be happy in the marriage.  She believed that blaming and fixing would set her free but in fact, it was paralyzing her and keeping her stuck, with her life balanced on a potential future that didn’t exist.

After much suffering, Maggie became aware of how the blaming was prohibiting her not only from directly experiencing her unhappiness, but from honestly addressing what needed to happen because of it.   If this was the state of the marriage, what then?  Thankfully, when she was finally willing to stop the cycle of blame, turn her attention away from Phil and his faults, and focus it back on her own heart, she was able to see and take the next right step.

Recovery: how to break the blaming habit?

Step 1: Set an intention (make a decision) to stop your blaming behavior.  Identify what it is you want and hope to experience as a result of moving out of blaming (better relationships, more peace, freedom from anger, less time ruminating etc.).  Write down (or tell a friend) about this decision.    If possible, begin a journal dedicated to your evolution from blaming.

Step 2: Start paying attention!  Make a conscious effort to become more mindful of your blaming behavior.  When you are able to catch the impulse to blame (before it happens), create a pause, be silent and take 2 deep breaths.  Then, make a different choice.

Remember however, breaking the blaming habit is a process that takes time.  You will not be able to catch yourself before you blame on every occasion; it may be quite a while before you can catch yourself at all.  That’s ok.  It is a huge step just to notice your habitual reaction to blame, even if it is after the fact.  But the more you practice, the more you will be able to interrupt the process before it happens (and blessedly) respond in a new way and from a different place.

Step 3: At whatever stage you notice your blaming impulse (before or after), ask yourself the following questions (and journal on what you uncover):

1. If I couldn’t blame in this situation, what would I have to feel?
2. What about that feeling is hard to feel?

Step 4: Honor yourself for making the commitment and doing the work that emotionally and spiritually evolving requires.

A last note: be gentle with yourself.  This is not an opportunity to blame yourself for not getting yet another thing right.  Practice these steps and when you forget to practice them, remember and start again.  Practicing is the path to change.  If you commit to making this effort, you will grow in ways you can’t yet know, and so will your relationships and your life!

To read more on the topic, visit my Psychology Today Blog:

• What to DO About the People that Blame You for Everything
• When You’re in Relationship with a Blamer
• The #1 Most Important Relationship Skill and How to Learn It
• How to Heal Defensiveness in Close Relationships
• “And” Not “But”: The Secret to Healthy Relationships

Copyright 2016 Nancy Colier

The post Are You A Blamer? How to Break the Blaming Habit. appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Lesley (all names are changed here) wakes up in her apartment in the city every weekend to a raging “should” assault: I “should” be doing something fabulous this weekend, I “should” be traveling and experiencing new and interesting things. I “should” be living a different life than the one I’m living.

John suffers mostly with the “should” of the other. While his wife has been exhibiting the same insensitive behavior for the last decade, which is extremely frustrating and painful for him, his internal dialogue remains the same: She “should” be more sensitive to his needs, she “should” care about the fact that her behavior upsets him.

Just now, as I was putting the finishing touches on this blog, I slipped out to meet a friend. “I should have gotten a nice day,” she exclaimed as we dodged the puddles on the way to lunch. It was her first day off in weeks and she felt deprived of the sunny day she “should” have gotten. Her experience was not what it “should” be, and that felt bad.

The “should” thought arises (generally) when we don’t like or want what is happening.  While the energy and intention of “should” is to point us towards the thing that we want, and thus to alleviate suffering, the effect is actually to create more suffering than we already felt. When we add “should” to a reality we already don’t like, we end up with the same unwanted reality we started with, but on top of it, we have an emotional battle against what is actually happening.

Most of the time, the reality we think we don’t want would actually be bearable if we just stopped struggling against it. It might even contain elements that we could enjoy, if we were to let ourselves experience it. What is not bearable, however, is the belief that we are being cheated out of a reality that we were supposed to get. The greatest suffering comes from our fight against reality—not our reality itself.

Giving up our “should” narrative is very challenging, in part because we are conditioned to believe that if we give up the fight with a reality we don’t want, we will be surrendering and agreeing to that unwanted reality, and to it continuing forever. Shifting the focus from what “should” be to what is, otherwise known as acceptance or allowing, is, as we’ve come to understand it, code for giving up and giving in to a life we don’t want. Acceptance or allowing reality is seen as passivity. This, however, is a radical misunderstanding of what acceptance and allowing actually mean.

What we are giving up when we stop fixating on what “should” be is just one thing—the fight with the fact that what is, is. Accepting that what is, is, has nothing to do with our actions, our intention to change it, or our approval of it. Acceptance and allowing simply means relaxing our opposition to the fact that what is happening on the inside and outside of us is actually happening.

For my friend to accept that it is raining, and to stop imagining that it “should” be the way she wants it, would not be to agree to like the rain, nor would it mean she ought to leave her umbrella at home. To give up her “shoulds” would mean only dropping her anger and resentment against reality, the blaming of the sky for doing what it is doing, the insistence that she was supposed to get something else from her day off. It would leave her only with the rain itself to deal with, which is far more manageable and less painful than her feelings of being punished by a weather system utterly uninterested in her quarrel with it.

If Lesley were able to allow the fact that she is in the city in the summer, that this is her life right now, she would be giving herself the gift of the present moment. Her reality might be a little hot or loud, or a little lonely if she’s alone, but it would go on without the intense suffering that comes with the narrative of what her life “should” be. Instead of the absence of the weekend she’s missing out on, she would experience the presence of the weekend she’s living in, a presence out of which she might create something she actually wants. Further, from her apartment in the city, she could still book a trip to the beach or a visit to friends in the country. Anything is possible when we start from the place we actually are, while nothing can happen from the illusion of where we “should” be.

One client discovered that when she dropped her painful and overwhelming “I should have a more fabulous life” narrative, she in fact only had one micro-moment at a time to contend with. Without the “shoulds,” and with just this moment, now, to address, her life felt quite bearable and even potentially interesting. She realized that when she didn’t have to live the “story” of her life, she could enter her actual life — go to the movies or take a walk, listen to a piece of music or sit on a bench and feel the sunshine. Instead of trying to figure out what she “should” be doing in her fabulous imaginary life, she started to discover what she actually felt like doing right now — in her real life. She was like a teenager with her first set of car keys, realizing that from here, from the ground she was standing on, she could go anywhere or create anything she wanted.

When we stop obsessing over what “should” be and shift into acknowledging what is, we discover that, as opposed to becoming more passive, our solutions to a reality we don’t want actually become more creative and forward-moving. When we are willing to look at and feel what is actually true, solutions appear that are unexpected and fresh. Solutions that arise out of the direct experience of the truth, of what’s really happening, contain an energy and inarguable-ness that is far more powerful than anything that comes from an anxiety and urgency to get away from reality.

For years, I was in a relationship with someone whom I thought “should” be different. I remained in that relationship, unhappy but relentlessly engaged with my “shoulds.” At some point, however, having struggled and suffered with reality long enough (with no budge on reality’s part) I decided to drop my stories about the way it “should” be. I was bone tired and weary from my unhappiness and his “wrongness,” and, perhaps more to the point, from my fight against that unhappiness and that “wrongness.” Instead, I started looking at who he actually was instead of obsessing about who I wanted him to be. I started feeling the way I actually felt in the relationship instead of trying to feel a better way. When I did, instead of anger and frustration over what was, I sensed a deeper truth, and with it a calm clarity. As heartbreaking as the truth was, it was without any of the confusion and frustration that had plagued me throughout the years of “shoulds.” It was unavoidable: I didn’t want to and couldn’t be with this partner any longer.

This was the truth that my “shoulds” had kept me from having to face. And indeed, “shoulds” allow us to live in a state of denial, to avoid the pain of the truth, and what we might need to do about that truth. We believe that accepting reality creates passivity and inaction but in fact, allowing reality, as it is, actually creates the ground for powerful action and inarguable change.

What if we were to approach our life with the attitude that this IS our life: It’s not supposed to be another life. It might one day be different, but right now it’s this life.

The irony is that whether or not we “allow” reality to be as it is, reality is still the way it is. “Allowing” reality to be as it is is really just an idea cooked up in our heads. Reality doesn’t go away because we stop allowing it any more than it comes into being when we do allow it; our resistance has no effect on reality itself; it affects only our own well being. Reality always wins. We can make our lives a whole lot more peaceful by renouncing the delusion that fighting with the truth will make it any less true.

Each time you hear yourself saying or thinking what “should” be happening, flip it around and ask the question, What is happening? Drop your fight with reality, your narrative about what “should” be, and you’ll discover that reality, unburdened by your opposition, is a lot different than you think. The surest way to find peace is not to win the war, but to stop the fighting.

Copyright 2015 Nancy Colier

The post How to Live in the Real World (Minus One Troubling Word) appeared first on Nancy Colier.

When we think about loving ourselves, we often run up against the judgment of selfishness. To love ourselves is considered self-indulgent and more than we deserve. To love ourselves is viewed as something that will take love away from others, as if love were a zero sum entity that could shrink or run out if we used up some of it up on ourselves.

Furthermore, when we think about loving ourselves, we assume that it is in exchange for being loved by others. We don’t want to be responsible for giving ourselves love; love is something that others are supposed to give to us. And for many people, there is resentment around self-love—the fact that they have to take responsibility for loving themselves and have to do what others should do for them. Self-love is an effort that they are tired of having to expend. In any case, loving ourselves and being loved by others are seen as either/or scenarios.

But really, why are we so resistant to loving ourselves? Why do we see it as such a punishment and imposition? In part it is because we don’t know what it means to love ourselves or how to “do” it. We view self-love as another chore we have to accomplish, like taking out the trash. We imagine loving ourselves as something that takes time out of our day, like an exercise regime that will leave us less time to spend time with our kids or spouse. In truth, these are false beliefs.

Self-love is not an act of effort but rather a way of being. It means living in a way, moment to moment, that makes room for our own heart’s experience, being with ourselves with kindness and without judgment. Self-love means asking, “How am I in this moment?” and then really sticking around for the answer, with an attitude of curiosity and compassion. So too, self-love means bringing our own presence into the body and attending to the body’s life with mindful attention. Self-love means coming home inside our real experience and giving ourselves the permission to matter.

Love is not a finite entity, quite the contrary. When we spend time lovingly paying attention to ourselves, attending to the nourishment of our spirit, we generate more love and enrich ourselves to become greater vehicles of kindness. Self-love inspires love for others.

In order to open the gates of self-love, it can be helpful to see ourselves as an expression of the Divine, Buddha Nature, basic goodness, the universe, divine intelligence, or, for you, whatever represents something larger and deserving of being cherished. Knowing and loving ourselves as manifestations/incarnations of the Divine, spirit in human form, we are free to offer self-love without resistance and free to love the universe and its wisdom rather than just our personhood.

This Valentine’s week (and every week), add yourself to to your own love list. Attend to the nourishment of your own heart. Place your hand on your heart and ask, “What do I long for at this moment in my life?” “How can I take care of my heart, my body my spirit?” Give yourself the gift of your own presence and sense the exquisite life force, the sensorial profundity that is right here inside your own body. Ask, listen, and keep company with your being; make this a way of living, not just for the second week of February but for your entire love life.

The post Loving Yourself on Valentine’s Day appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Unfortunately for both of us, my friend had taken pieces of reality and, as the human mind is inclined and skilled at doing, woven those independent truths into a larger story, filling in the gaps and constructing a cohesive narrative, which could have made sense but was in fact not true. My friend was suffering intensely with his false beliefs about me, and the proceeding story, namely, what those beliefs meant for our friendship. At the same time, I was suffering at the hands of his mind, being punished for a crime that I had not committed, and a belief about my nature, which was radically out of alignment with my actual behavior. And yet, no matter what I offered, my friend chose to stick to his false assumptions and write the final act of our friendship. I realized, after great strife, that he was more committed to holding onto his pain-inducing and friendship-annihilating story than to opening to the truth, and possibly, the feelings that the actual truth might bring. I came to understand that the truth, what had actually happened, was irrelevant at this moment. His fictional reality was real in his mind and body. Real, but not true.

With so much at stake, fighting naturally erupted. He fought fiercely for me to concede to his mind’s version of reality, and I fought equally fiercely for him to know the actual reality, and with that, to stop punishing me for a fictional crime, and erasing the truth of our deep friendship.
While fighting for the truth did little to shift my relationship with my friend, it was profound in how it transformed my relationship with myself.

When we fight, our tendency is to want to correct the other person’s version of truth, essentially, to get them to agree with our version. We explain our truth over and over again, in newfangled words and styles, desperately trying to create some consistency between what we believe to be truth and what the other believes. The internal dissonance can feel unbearable when our version of truth is in contradiction to another’s with whom we are involved emotionally, particularly when the truth in question implies something about our character or who we think we are.

When all attempts at truth-correction with my friend had failed, I had nowhere to go, no way to be heard or known correctly. The desperate efforts that had been focused outward, on getting him to change his beliefs, to see the truth about me, had not given me what I needed. It was then that I woke up: I remembered to turn my attention inward, and bring myself the loving attention, listening presence and understanding that I had been so desperately trying to get from my friend. I realized that I could not stake my own okayness and wellbeing on his changing his beliefs. Not only was that not going to happen, but it put me in a perilous and helpless position. I needed to be able to get okay with just my own acknowledgment of my truth and goodness. I made the choice to stop chasing what I needed and open to how painful it was to be misunderstood and misperceived, and possibly to also lose the friendship for reasons that were false. I gave myself the right to know what was true, even if it would never be known by another. I honored my integrity and strength in having made the choices I had actually made. I gave myself precisely what I needed to receive from the outside world.

It’s normal to want those we care about to share our version of truth. And yet, our tendency is to need external acknowledgment and validation in order to make true what we already know ourselves. The time comes however, when we need to start taking care of our own knowing, to provide acknowledgment and kindness to our own truth. When I turned inward and honored the sadness and loss in being misperceived, the truth of what I know actually happened, and the integrity of my choices, I felt known, loved and comforted. The attunement that I desperately sought from my friend, I received from my own loving presence. While I will always wish for my friend to know the truth, and me correctly, I am nonetheless able to bring myself the love and understanding, the wellbeing that I thought only he could provide.

In our search for an other who will hear and understand our truth with compassion, we consistently overlook our own company; we forget our own presence as a source of deep comfort and kindness, and blessedly, one that is always available to us. We need only the willingness and wisdom (and sometimes the reminder) to turn our attention inward, listen with kindness, and care about our own suffering. Particularly when we are in pain, searching desperately for comfort and relief from the outside world, we need to remember to flip the process. That is, to turn towards our own heart, listen to what it is carrying, and offer ourselves the compassion and loving presence that we are searching for outside. The experience of being deeply seen and cared about is ours to give—and receive—here now, when we decide to truly be with our own heart.

Copyright 2014 Nancy Colier

The post Your Truest Friend Resides Within Your Own Heart appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Upon hearing his suggestion that we “sit” with our real feelings, the journalist immediately jumped in to ask the following: How realistic was it for most people to be able to “just sit around” and feel their feelings? Was this not an issue of class in that the higher socioeconomic classes could spend their time contemplating their sadness while the rest of us regular folks had to get to work? How possible was it, really, for the average person, to be with or in their sadness, “sitting still” when things needed to get done? After all, didn’t we all need to get out the door and earn a living?

The word “sit” had lit this moderator on fire, and in her response, morphed into “sitting still” and “just sitting around.” She was, seemingly, quite angered by the audacity of this author to suggest that we could feel our sad feelings in addition to our happy ones. As strange as it was to hear where the moderator went with his suggestion, her reaction is in fact common. In this culture we are afraid of feelings that are not happy, and conditioned to believe that feeling anything other than pleasure will prevent us from being able to go to work, live a normal life, or take care of ourselves. Allowing difficult feelings to be present will not only prevent us from basic functioning but will also endanger any positive feelings that might exist. Happiness is an all or nothing condition. The underlying belief is that feeling our feelings as they really are will lead us to be fixated on our navel (the much maligned body-part associated with sad feelings), crying and eating chips on a dirty couch. A real life, one that includes going to work, buying groceries and being normal, and a state in which we feel our real feelings are two entirely separate things—and cannot coexist. We hold the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) belief that anyone who has the luxury of feeling their feelings must be independently wealthy and able to devote their entire life to their own struggles. And, if we are not already self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and unemployed, the privilege to experience painful feelings will lead us to become this way.
This journalist’s line of questioning clearly exposed the degree of fear and helplessness that we experience when in the face of challenging emotions. Given that difficult feelings are a part of everyone’s life, it has always amazed me that courses on learning how to be with and soothe such feelings is not required curriculum in every formal education. It is a real life skill that everyone needs. The idea that we could actually feel difficult feelings and still be strong and content is not only not taught, but instead we are encouraged to believe the opposite, that if we do allow ourselves to feel what’s inside us, our dark feelings will overwhelm and swallow us, never go away, and take us out of commission for life. And so we spend enormous amounts of energy trying to stay away from the harder feelings, fending them off, papering them over, keeping ourselves from feeling anything that we believe could disable us.
In truth, feeling our true feelings is not contradictory to living a functioning life. Quite the opposite. The more we allow our true experience to be felt, the more energy and attention we have to devote to our functioning life. We are no longer using up our energy and focus trying to push away the feelings that we don’t want and are afraid to feel. In addition, when we actually feel a feeling, we discover that no matter how strong or hard the feeling is, it has a natural life span and can only remain with intensity for a short time, far shorter than we have been led to believe. Feelings, when felt, actually pass through awareness and then ease, on their own. They may return but they will pass again, in contrast with the thoughts that we generate about the negative feelings, which continue unceasingly. Furthermore, feeling our feelings takes no effort, other than the slight effort that it is to give ourselves permission to feel them. And yet, even with no effort expended, the simple act of allowing what we feel, what is already there to be felt, has a profoundly satisfying and relaxing effect. When we stop having to fend off what we are not supposed to or allowed to feel, running from our truth, we can then relax into the embrace of our own company, and settle into our own real life.
The belief that we stay strong by ignoring our difficult emotions is false. Thinking that we must ignore how we really feel in order to make a living, be productive, get off the couch, or just plain take care of ourselves, leaves us in a state of constant fear. Every life contains happy feelings and sad ones too; such is the human condition. If we are afraid of our sadness and don’t believe we can manage or live a life with it, then our life contains a constant presence that is a threat to our basic wellbeing. As a result, we are in a state of perpetual weakness.
We are at our strongest, most high functioning and confident when we have the ability to experience whatever is passing through our feeling sky, without having to run from it, pretend it’s not there or force it away. We are most warrior-like when we learn to co-habitate with the full range of feelings, contradictory as they often are. We find our deepest confidence when we know (from lived experience) that feelings come and go and we can survive them, and will become a little bit stronger with each passage. We discover our most profound caretaker, inside ourselves, when we stop defending a single-pointed happiness, which always excludes another part of our story. We are at our most content and healthy when we give ourselves the blessing that it is to relax into what we actually feel, and live in our truth. Allowing ourselves to sit with our feelings, the ones we like and the ones we don’t, does not only not conflict with taking care of ourselves and conducting a real life—it is, in truth, our best means for taking care of ourselves and the very essence of a real life.

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My 10-year-old was invited to a party this weekend, a camp reunion sleepover, given by one of her closest friends. Unfortunately, this same weekend, she has an event that she can’t and doesn’t want to miss, a competition for which she has trained diligently and for many months. The other little girl is very angry with my daughter and has accused her of being a bad friend and bad person because she won’t give up her event in order to attend the party. She wanted to know why my daughter was doing this to her and purposely spoiling her event.

While it is age-appropriate maybe for 10-year-olds to feel and behave this way, many “grown ups” behave in a similar fashion, which is not age appropriate. I was recently at a party with a friend. Knowing that I had to get up early for something important the next day, I left the gathering by midnight. My friend, a woman in her 40s, was furious that I could do that to her. She was having a good time, had met a man she was interested in, and didn’t want to stay there on her own. She felt that my leaving was unkind, and that I should have stayed longer as a form of support for her. In another example, some years ago, after sitting for a whole day with an ill friend, I decided to go for a drive, to spend some time with myself, which I desperately needed. To this day, my friend tells me that I left her in her time of need, and wasn’t willing to stay with her unconditionally. The fact that I also needed some self-care was and still is experienced as abandonment and an aggression against her. The 10 hours spent with her that day, as far as her internal world is concerned, never existed.

It is very difficult for some people to see anything as happening separate from and not in relation to them. People who suffer with this view of the world experience everything as a reflection and commentary on who they are, an abandonment or affirmation of themselves. Whatever it is you do, even those things that have nothing whatsoever to do with them, somehow, are either for or against them. Such people simply can’t see anything as not being tethered to them. Sometimes it can be quite baffling to even figure out how your action could possibly be related to them, for or against, but through this kind of lens, everything you do is indeed about them, even when it makes absolutely no logical sense. This form of narcissism is in fact quite prevalent in our culture, and very challenging to know how to handle in close relationships.

A painful aspect of being in relationship with this kind of person is that since nothing can be about you and your life, you end up feeling not seen and not known, invisible, except as an object that they use to make themselves feel better or worse. The experience is that you don’t really exist at all, and simultaneously, that you are continually invalidated, not permitted to be a separate being who might actually have her own experience. Why you might make a particular choice, for yourself, is viewed not only as untrue and absurd, but yet another aggression — against them — that you could dare to think that you have your own internal world, and separate life. Imagine! How could your choices possibly be about you when you don’t really exist?

It is nearly impossible to feel truly cared for when the other is not interested in knowing you in any way other than how you make them feel — about them. You might feel liked when your behavior is interpreted as favorable to their self-worth, but this is not the same thing as feeling genuine friendship or love. In relationship with this kind of narcissism, it can feel like your life and very self are kidnapped — dis-allowed by the other. In truth, your very existence separate from them, is the ultimate betrayal, and what they seek to obliterate. Related to as an object that needs to be either controlled or obliterated, love is a difficult and unlikely endeavor. As a result of all this, such relationships are fraught with profound loneliness, grief and raging frustration as you fight desperately to be visible and known for who you — genuinely — are.

Some time ago, I gave a memorial for a close family member. As I was shopping for cookies for the gathering, I reached for the vanillas because my kids enjoy them. Immediately, my mind shot back with the thought that I was choosing vanilla to punish this relative, the one who had died, since she would have chosen chocolate. I waved hello to my old thought tape and bought the vanillas.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of a relationship with this kind of narcissist is that you come to experience your own life as actually being about the other. You lose touch with your own intentions, as if their narcissistic lens, pointed at you, gradually corrupts even your knowing your own truth, and simultaneously, steals the dignity that comes with that knowing. You not only start changing your behavior, morphing yourself into a deformed system, refraining from doing things that (while not about them) they will experience as about them, but also, you stop believing in your own experience and intention. The fact that your actions are for and about you, not them, stops being completely clear. You begin to doubt what is really true for you, as you are no longer quite connected to your own truth. In this way, their narcissism acts as a toxin to your connection to self. You may defend that what you are doing is about you and not them, but some part of you stops believing this fully, and the strength behind this knowing is lost. While you may go on fighting to be seen accurately and truthfully, the other has taken away your ability to own and believe this accurate and truthful version of yourself. Your truth (being true) comes to depend on their believing it — being able to prove it to them. Even the struggle for you, they eventually own.

Most important in this sort of relationship is to stay in touch with your own intentions. Rather than defending yourself, proving your own truth (as if you should have to), be that separate entity that they refuse to acknowledge. A simple, “I am sorry that you are experiencing what is about me — to be about you,” can suffice. Chances are you are not going to get this other person to see you clearly, without an umbilical cord between you. Let the attempt to be seen accurately go, if at all possible. The more you try to be known, the more you threaten your own connection to self. We all have the right to be the keepers of our truth and no one has the right to determine or corrupt our intentions, to turn our being into an extension of them. With each moment that you are misunderstood and your truth distorted, spend two moments confirming and marinating in what is so for you, your actual truth, uncorrupted. And think too, carefully, about whether you want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to or have the capacity to genuinely know you, as a being unto yourself. Ask yourself if this kind of relationship strengthens your sense of dignity and self-worth, encourages your authentic nature, makes you feel known, understood, loved, or just plain good about yourself. If the answer is no, then what is the best choice for YOU, the choice that is in line with your wellbeing? Sometimes the only way to honor your separateness is to make the choice to separate.

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