Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real: When Our Thoughts Scare Us

Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real

When our thoughts scare us.

Posted Dec 03, 2018

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I took a deep dive into fear this month.  Over this past year, someone I love dearly, a close family member, has been experiencing a physical symptom. We’ve been unable to get to the bottom of it; the doctors have not been particularly concerned and so we’ve resorted to just managing the symptom best we can. I haven't been particularly worried, assuming it was just one of the umpteen physical symptoms that come for seemingly no reason and then go for seemingly no reason, without our ever really knowing why or what it was all about. 

On a recent Friday afternoon, I was having a conversation with this person and she casually mentioned another symptom that she experiences. She had never brought this to my attention because she just assumed everybody felt the same thing. 

In that moment, I was slightly alarmed by the symptom she mentioned as it was definitely not a sensation most people have and certainly not one that people get on a regular basis.  It was also, I knew, a symptom associated with some pretty terrible things.  I said nothing about my concern but calmly inquired more into her experience, When does she get this sensation and what if anything brings it on and other questions.  On the outside, I probably appeared quite nonchalant, but on the inside, a small tsunami was forming in my chest.

Immediately following our conversation, I made a beeline to hell, otherwise known as Google.  I feverishly punched in her symptoms.  What I found was, not surprisingly, both horrifying and terrifying.  Her symptoms happened to be the first two on every list for one particularly dreadful and life-destroying condition.  And, as luck would have it, the third most common symptom listed as evidence of this particular disease turned out to be another symptom that my loved one had in fact mentioned experiencing over the last couple years, but which I had also dismissed and assumed would disappear on its own.

Within three hours of our initial conversation, I was disabled with enough information to be utterly consumed with fear.  I had three symptoms to work with now, and three symptoms which were the first three on every list describing the early signs of one particular horrifying fate.  Fear had not only arrived at my front door but had broken the door down and taken me hostage. 

The more afraid I became, the more frantically I researched the internet, reading everything available on the condition I had diagnosed, looking for anything that would give me a different list of symptoms or at least a list where her symptoms were further down from the top.  I read about treatments, now and future, trial studies, ways that people self-care once diagnosed, the psychological effects of the disease, how early one should start taking the medication, and what the final stages look like. I read testimonials from people living with the disease, everything I could get my hands on.  By Sunday night I had five Ph.D.'s in this condition.

I was in a state of panic, heartbroken, and truly unable to get okay.  If a moment of serenity appeared, I would remember the shock of what I knew, that this person I love beyond anything, beyond everything, had no future.  I would remember that I could never be happy again.  Each moment I spent with my family member that weekend felt like the last, weighted with melancholy and finality.

I was living a narrative of fear and despair, a narrative I had written in less than 48 hours.  I was sure that the worst thing I could ever imagine happening was happening. I wondered, how was it possible that I had spent my whole life working on getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, okay with the not okay of life, accepting reality as it is, and yet here I was screaming, No, this reality is the one reality that’s not okay!  This reality I cannot bear.  I was in a thought-constructed hell, which felt real, inarguable, and true. 

I was the only one who knew that she had all three symptoms.  Other family members knew of one or another, but I was the keeper of the full truth, the only one who knew the whole of it.  When I did finally break and tell another family member, he dismissed my fears as ridiculous, irritating, a case of bad hypochondria. I was to blame for my fear.  His impatience felt like an abandonment of sorts. I felt not only terrified but also deeply alone in my fear.  I couldn’t share my fears with the person whom they were about because I did want to frighten her; I couldn’t speak with anyone else in the family because they were angered by my fear; I couldn’t speak with her doctor about it because I didn’t want to set off further testing and thus speed the road to the eventual diagnosis. I was totally isolated; my thoughts had built a bubble of terror in which I was trapped and alone.    

Source: robert zunicoff/unsplash

And then something miraculous happened, perhaps because I couldn’t bear another moment of being so afraid, or perhaps just because. Grace appeared and I heard the following: Your mind is inflicting violence on you!  And what followed from there was simply, Stop! Stop! Stop! Something in me stood up for me.  I knew that probability was still on my side and the fear I was living might well be false evidence appearing as real.  

As a result of this realization, I was able to halt my mind’s projections into the future, to stop re-inventing and re-experiencing a reality that didn’t and might never exist.  I recognized that I knew nothing other than three facts and didn’t need to go one day or even five minutes into the future. I could decide to live right here, now, and construct no storyline at all.  Discomfort remained, a mild anxiety, but without the narrative connecting the dots, I was remarkably okay. With the sudden awareness of how I was torturing myself, believing my thoughts, I was able to disembark from my mind’s terror train.  I refused to participate in terrifying myself; I chose the freedom and self-compassion that comes with saying, and believing, I simply don’t know. That’s the truth.

For organizing and generating ideas, there’s no match for the human mind.  And simultaneously, for whipping up fear and creating frightening storylines that appear indisputable, there’s also no match for the human mind.  The tragic part is that by creating its narratives of terror, the mind is at some level trying to calm us down, to make sense of and know the unknown, solidify the impermanent.  The mind tries to protect us from the fear of what could happen by creating a certainty of what will happen, which paradoxically can feel less frightening.

In this recent episode, my mind was desperately searching to find proof for its wrongness, evidence that showed its thoughts were mistaken. And yet, the more my imagined storyline was confirmed, the more frantically I searched to find something else to explain the unknown. 

Our mind is often the perpetrator of unimaginable violence—on ourselves.  Our thoughts are the great instigator of terror, yelling fire over and over again when a hint of smoke is detected.  At some point, the suffering that we self-inflict can become too much and an act of grace or self-compassion occurs, when we say, Stop, stop torturing me.  Stop creating stories of terror… The truth is I don’t know, that’s all.  Life is challenging enough without adding any of our own terrifying storyline to it.  We can in fact choose to live in the questions, to not know, and not fill in the blanks.  When we leave the dots not-connected and sit with the fear that may or may not exist with what is, we feel a great relief.  Not only a relief from the self-inflicted violence of the terrifying storyline, but also from the need to close up reality and know—everything—even if it’s nothing we want to know.     

Just Because Thoughts Make Sense Doesn't Mean They're True

Trying to find peace with the mind is like trying to open a lock with a banana...

Carol came to see me with a serious agenda.  She and her husband had had a disagreement the evening before our session and Carol wanted to explain to me why her husband had said what upset her, and specifically, what in his personal psychology and history had made him decide to hurt her. She also wanted to lay out her theories on what was wrong with her husband in a more general sense and how she was going to explain it to him so that he would understand and be different.  Knowing what she knew about him, she was sure that once she laid out her case and helped him understand what was wrong with him, he would become different—and as a result, she would be okay once again.    

My client had come up with an intricate, psychologically sophisticated and comprehensive narrative about her husband’s intentions, resentments, methodology, and shortcomings, and tying in his familial history, present psychology, and relational style.  Carol’s presentation was a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, and multi-generational storyline. Most developed in her narrative, interestingly, was her theory about her husband’s strategy and intention to hurt her. 

Carol was suffering and I listened empathically as she constructed her clear case for why the experience with her husband had happened. And simultaneously, what she needed to do about it or explain to her husband so that he would understand why he was wrong, and would never do this kind of thing again.  I felt her pain and frustration; I also felt how her words and ideas were trying to keep her from feeling her pain, give her some protection from her heart’s hurt, make her pain manageable. And, I felt how desperately those words were failing her.    

Everything Carol said made perfect sense. In court, she would have won her case.  At the same time, I have been listening to her theories on her husband for many years, and also keeping her company in her suffering, as none of her well-crafted theories and/or action plans have changed how he behaves or how she feels about it.  I’ve watched as none of her theories and action plans have brought her happiness or peace. 

On this day, I felt we were ready and so I asked Carol to consider a few new questions in relation to her story and her experience. “What if none of the thoughts and intentions you’ve assigned to your husband are actually true—for him?” I asked.  And, “What if your thoughts only exist in your own mind but don’t really exist anywhere else?”  And furthermore, “What if your narrative, no matter how true and real for you, is of no value whatsoever in making you feel better?”

It was a risk to pull Carol out of her story.  At the same time, she had been telling me her theories on her husband for a long time and I trusted that she knew my re-direct was coming from a desire to help, and also that we’d given enough space and attention to the storyline of the moment, enough so that she would be willing to pull the lens back and examine the story-making itself.  I have learned from experience that asking someone to move out of their story before it’s received its due process is not useful or kind, but Carol and I were in a place to take a new turn in our journey. 

In this moment, as sometimes happens, grace graced us and Carol had an awakening moment.  Her paradigm shifted and it suddenly dawned on her that what she had considered to be the truth, not just for her, but for her partner too, might not be the truth.  She saw that her narrative could make utter sense to her, could be un-challengeable, and yet could have absolutely nothing to do with what her husband was experiencing. 

Her mind opened to the possibility that her idea (and certainty) as to why her husband was intentionally hurting her might be false, for him, or just an idea in her head.  In an instant, Carol literally unstuck from her most tightly held thoughts, she surrendered to the freedom of not knowing what’s true for anyone else.  Carol realized that just because she had a thought didn’t mean she had to believe it, even if it made perfect sense in her own head. 

It’s revolutionary and profoundly liberating when we grasp that our version of the truth, which not coincidentally always places us at the epicenter of what’s motivating everyone else’s behavior, may not and probably is not the truth for anyone else.  Tragically, in an effort to help ourselves feel better and make sense of our pain, to know and be able to control what hurts, we construct elaborate stories on why others are doing what they’re doing to us.  We lock in a truth, one that applies to everyone and everything, and no matter how painful that truth might be, we hold onto it, believing that knowing is far safer than not knowing. 

The narrative we are living and suffering however, is unreal and unnecessary.  It’s made up by our particular mind, with its particular wounds, conditioning, experiences, thoughts, and everything else we’ve ever lived.  In the end, we suffer alone, trapped in the certainty of our story, the story of what’s inside everyone else’s head—inside a pseudo-reality of our own damaging design. 

It’s also remarkable to discover that our theories on why what’s happened to us has happened, and what we need to do about it, that none of them, none of our beautiful, logical works of mental art, will ultimately lead us to peace.  If peace is what we want, our mind and its theories will not take us there.  Trying to find peace with our mind is like trying to open a lock with a banana.  The mind is simply the wrong instrument if peace is what we desire. 

That said, the next time you find yourself convinced of and grasping onto a storyline about how you’ve been wronged or any such thing, ask yourself, What if all my ideas on what’s true for this other person, the world, or whatever else is the protagonist of my narrative of the moment, what if they’re not actually true—for the other, not true outside my own mind?  What if my truths are only true for me?”  See if it’s possible to loosen your grip on the "big T" Truth. 

Paradoxically, when we give ourselves permission to not know what’s true, to turn in our badge as master-interpreter of everyone else’s behavior, surrender our throne as judge and jury of universal truth, blessedly, we discover the very peace we believed we could only find through our storylines and certainty. 

We get there when we get there, but usually, with enough mental fatigue and smart storylines under our belt; when we’ve tried long and hard enough to find peace through the mind’s gymnastics and found ourselves again and again at pain’s door, suffering within our brilliance and certainty, knowing so much but not how to be happy, we start to recognize our banana without having to shove it in the lock for too long. 

Do You Feel Alone When You're Together? How to Deepen Your Connection With Your Partner

A lot of couples show up in my office because they don't feel deeply connected.  Often, one member of the couple feels like she can't connect with her partner and is lonely in the relationship.  Couples describe intimate relationships that contain a paltry supply of real intimacy.  In light of this, I wanted to offer something I witnessed recently, which was truly beautiful, and which reminded me of the divine ingredients of connection and how simple (but not easy) it can be to get there. 

John is a highly educated man and was vigorously expressing a lengthy and well-defended case against the validity of the whole phenomenon that is the Me too movement.  His argument extended to issues of race and gender as well, specifically, how all of the now-prevalent identity politics is overblown, unnecessary, negative and destructive. 

When he did pause, just for a moment, I snuck in an observation, namely, that the identity movement seemed to make him feel defensive and angry.  He denied feeling defensive but shared that as a teacher, the new politic did force him to be hyper-vigilant about the words he uses with students, to have to watch everything he does so as not to be wrongly accused.  I empathized with his experience and how hard it must be to be a teacher these days.  He then went back to his well-constructed case for what was faulty about the movement. 

As this conversation was going on, I was also keeping an eye on his partner, Nel.  As John went on with his narrative, Nel’s expression glossed over; she had checked out, lost interest in even trying to stay present.  I understood her experience as there was nobody there, really, for her to be present with.  The possibility for connection was gone, lost behind the steel walls of intellectual content.  

But I was hopeful as I had seen an opening; a little piece of John had emerged as he talked about the difficulty for teachers just now.  And so I inquired, hoping that I could get a little further than John’s teacherexperience. 

“What does it trigger in you personally, having to be in the thick of it, required to participate in this dialogue and all the forms and training sessions you probably have to be part of?”  And for some reason, with that very simple invitation, within the safety of our relationship, John showed up.  In an instant, his entire facial expression shifted as if he had also not been present and now, suddenly, he was there.

John then expressed how toxic the whole thing felt for him, that he was not interested in any of it and yet was being forced to be in a conversation that was not his life, not valuable to him.  He felt terribly put upon and trapped by the whole environment of identity politics, in a constant fight about issues that he didn't resonate with, having to prove he wasn't guilty of something that didn't in any way belong to him. The specifics of what he felt are less important than what happened in the couple as a result of this fresh truth that John was able to share.

Suddenly Nel was there in the room.  It literally felt like a wave of energy had wafted through the space; it was palpable.  Nel had returned, literally reentered the space behind her eyes.  In that moment, for the first time, I could see real empathy for her husband spread across her brow.   They were sharing the same space, perhaps for the first time in a decade.  Nel was looking at John with an entirely different expression, really looking at John.  Tears welled up in Nel's eyes; connection was happening.  At last, what had been separating them all these years, all her husband’s ideas, were out of the way and she could feel him, be with him, be truly together, in real company.  

John had been honing his ideas and intellect his entire life, using his arguments to validate what he was experiencing, but sadly, because of his own psychology, not even knowing or inquiring into what he was experiencing.  He had gotten quite skilled at proving his rightness, but all his ideas came at the cost of connection.  John didn’t get to feel connected to anyone or, for that matter, allow anyone else to feel connected with him.  He was an island in every way, surrounded by an ocean of mind.

Many people remain stuck in the land of contents—with the context underneath the contents rarely (if ever) reached.  Men particularly seem to get locked in their thoughts, information, and ideas, which shuts them out from their own hearts and shuts everyone else out in the process.  The feeling of being with such individuals is that of not being able to touch them, of being trapped in a corridor with no door, no way to be together, held at bay by the thoughts, opinions, and arguments, the armor that protects their hearts from ever being visible, or vulnerable. 

As the partner, you are not able to connect deeply, not below the neck, beyond the layer of intellect. Since it’s not possible to join them in their experience, empathy has to happen from a distance, via an idea of what they’re experiencing but without getting to feel it with them.  For the partner of such individuals, being together is an experience of loneliness, separation, hearts that can’t actually touch, a life that can’t actually be profoundly shared.

When John expressed his personal experience, not his narrative around it, not his justification for it, not all that he knew about it, just his truth in its raw, real, and alive form, simply what he was living on the inside, as it was coming freshly in the moment, Nel felt connected to her husband, like she was at last with him.  They were together in the same now.  His intellectual defenses had stepped out of the way for a brief and blessed moment. Nel could then experience the sensation of being in true company—not being alone together. (She later confirmed this to me in an individual session.) 

Couples spend decades trapped, like flies in spider webs, inside the arguments of content, and particularly who’s right, who’s justified in feeling the way they feel about the contents. They get caught, sometimes for good, in the ongoing battle for whose experience is deserving of empathy. This happens for many reasons, one of which is that we mistakenly believe that we are our thoughts and opinions.  Proving our rightness is thus a life and death struggle to ensure survival.  But such is a topic for another day.  In the interests of word count here, it’s my intention to simply point out that ideas and opinions, the stuff of mind, the generalized narrative and intellectual defense system, can serve as a non-navigate-able obstacle to connection. 

If you’re feeling that you can’t reach your partner, like you’re alone when you’re together, as if you can’t find the key to being truly with each other, notice, is your couple trapped in the land of contents—of mind—with no access to each other’s hearts.  Is your communication stuck in the land of opinions, ideas, and whether what’s happening is right or wrong, good or bad?  Notice if your relationship is waylaid in the purgatory of commentary, the airless box that it is to always be commenting on life to each other, but never in it with each other, forever a step away from your felt experience, and from each other.

If what I describe resonates, consider offering questions to your partner that contain an intention to reach the heart and uncover the real felt experience--not the story of it.  And, offer yourself the same invitation, to deepen your connection with yourself as well.

Questions that invite feelings:

-What is the experience like, for you, in that situation?

-What does that situation trigger in you?

-What does it feel like when you’re in that situation?

-What’s the worst thing, for you, when you’re in that situation? 

What makes it so hard, for you, when you’re in that situation?

And, when describing your own experience, try modeling the communication style you want to receive from your partner.  For example, “For me, when that happens, I feel (such and such)” “What makes it so hard for me is…” Actively model talking about your feelings, your personal experience, rather than your narrative about the situation, maybe even naming that distinction so that your partner can hear the difference, regardless of whether he knows how to do it.  Furthermore, remember that when your partner is able to express his direct and personal experience or a fresh perhaps newly discovered feeling, be sure to offer him (or her) a safe space and supportive response. Don’t correct or dismiss his truth, no matter what it contains.  Each time he moves from the known storyline to the unknown felt experience, he is growing, taking a baby step forward.  When you respond lovingly and with acceptance, you are encouraging more steps in this direction and thus inviting a deeper connection.  True connection happens when we can communicate from our vulnerability, our hearts--not our stories and protective mental layers.  It happens when we dive into life together rather than standing on the shore, safely commenting on it. The most important journey we take in relationship, and life, is from our head to our heart.     

What Does it Mean to Be a Spiritual Grown Up?

For many (dare I say most) people, spending time with parents can unleash some pretty strong emotions. No matter how grown up we are, our original family can put us in touch with deep hurts, primal longings, unmet needs… a tsunami of feelings. If we want to challenge every ounce of peace, wellbeing, compassion, wisdom and strength we’ve earned over a lifetime, we need only spend a weekend, day, evening, hour, few minutes, or maybe just say hello with the person who is our parent. 

Jane, a woman in her 40s, recently had an experience with a parent that set off a strong and somewhat unexpected reaction in her. She met her father for a meal and he behaved the way he always behaved, asking her no questions, acknowledging nothing about her, completely invisibilizing her, while simultaneously demanding that she act as a mirror to reflect his own grandiosity. It was an experience Jane knew intimately and one she had been living for decades. But on this particular day, sitting across a table from this man she called her father, a man who had never shown Jane the kindness of acknowledgment or curiosity, it all broke—the dam that had protected her from her actual experience was gone. Without warning, Jane discovered that she could not keep pretending this kind of interaction was okay. Even if she had wanted to continue the same relationship with her father, her body had decided otherwise: being unseen and unknown, receiving nothing, inauthentically playing the role of the loving validator, was no longer possible. 

Midway through the meeting, Jane took off the hat she had been wearing her whole life; she stopped confirming her father’s importance, and also stopped playing the role of the grateful daughter, who would happily enjoy the glow of his greatness while remaining forever invisible. She even went so far as to suggest that something he had said about himself might not be true, a first. The encounter ended abruptly and with obvious prickliness. While no words were spoken about the tectonic plates that had just shifted between them, it was clear to both father and daughter that their usual way of interacting was suspended, if not finished for good...  

Read full article... http://nancycolier.com/when-we-shame-ourselves/

Can a Relationship Recover From Resentment?

As a relationship therapist, I am often asked: “What's the biggest problem couples face?” The easy answers are money and sex, but neither would be exactly true or at least not what has walked into my office or my life. The most common problem I see in intimate partnerships is what I call, the battle for empathy. 

Paula tells Jon that she’s upset and hurt by something he said, a way he responded to her opinion on a family matter. She asks if, in the future, he could say that same thing with an attitude of kindness and/or curiosity and not be so critical, simply because her opinion differed from his. Jon reacts to Paula’s feelings and the request by aggressively inquiring why he should offer her kindness and curiosity when last month she had shut down his experience over a different family matter and treated him unkindly. Paula then attacks back, explaining why she deserved to behave the way she did in the interaction last month, and why her response last month was a reaction to what he did two months ago, which she believes was unkind and aggressive. Jon then barks that he was entitled to his behavior two months ago because of the unkind and critical thing she did three months ago…and back and back in time it goes, to a seemingly un-findable place before the hurting began.

Couples do this all the time. They fight for who’s deserving of empathy, whose experience should get to matter, whose hurt should be taken care of, and whose experience should be validated. Often, partners refuse to offer empathy to each other because they feel that, to do so, would mean admitting that they are to blame and thus giving up the chance to receive empathy and validation for their own experience. Boiled down, if I care about how my words hurt you then I’m admitting that I'm to blame for causing you that pain. And perhaps even more importantly, the truth of why I said those words or more accurately, why I was entitled to say those words, will never be validated or receive its own empathy. Empathy for you effectively cancels out empathy for me...

Read full article: http://nancycolier.com/blog/

How to Quiet the Little Voice Inside Your Head

Did you ever notice the little voice inside your head that’s constantly running the play by play of your life—to you, the one who’s living it.  Did you ever listen in to your inner narrator, the one who’s unceasingly packaging your life, verbally preparing your experience for transmission to another unidentified listener?  I just went on an eight-day silent retreat and apparently my inner narrator didn’t get the memo that it was to be silent.  For the first five days, the little voice in my head didn’t stop talking, not even to catch its imaginary breath. With obsessive precision, it explained to me what I was doing, how I had transformed, and what spiritual lessons I had learned. Over and over my inner narrator repeated my experience to me, prepared it for sharing, and made sure I had everything wrapped up as clearly and understandably as possible. 

It’s an odd thing really: as we're having an experience, the little voice in our head is simultaneously describing, explaining, and commentating on the experience, providing a summary of it before, during and after its unfolding. 

Often, the narration of our experience is so integral to the experience itself, so uninterrupted and merged with it as to make us wonder if there could even be an experience without the accompanying report. If an experience happens without simultaneous inner acknowledgment, thinking about, and commentary, does it actually happen? 

It’s also interesting to notice that the little voice in our head is not without its own characteristics.  It has a certain language, style, and tone; it does its storytelling and commentary with a certain thematic and textural consistency. Like a Hollywood screenwriter, our inner voice tends to write in a particular genre, for example, tragedy, comedy, drama, film noir etc. Our commentator is a character with an identity of its own.

Did you ever wonder why our mind is telling us what we’re doing while we’re doing it, as if we didn’t already know? And, why our mind is so adamant about getting the story of our life figured out, written and packaged?  And finally, why we need to rehearse the tale of our life before we actually need or want to convey it to another person?

The mind believes that we are made of mind and mind alone, and that without its felt presence, we and all else would cease to be. If the narration were to stop and the mind was not experiencing itself through the act of thinking, then there would be nothing—oblivion.  A mind off duty, experience without the thinking about it, is tantamount to non-existence. The mind creates the story of an I; it creates an I as an object in our consciousness.  In so doing, it maintains both the experience of a self and the experiencer of a self, which it believes are needed to ensure survival.

In relentlessly narrating the story of ourselves (to ourselves), the mind is also attempting to make life, and us, into something solid, knowable, and constant.  By creating a main character called me (played by mind) who’s living something called my life, the mind attempts to transform the ephemeral, groundless, ever-changing nature of being into something that can be understood, managed, and in theory, controlled.  It takes what is really one unified process, life, from which we are inseparable, and splits it into two different things, a me and a life.  We then become the liver of this thing called life, and in the process, seemingly distinct and real.  We literally think our self into existence. 

And so, the questions beg: first, is there a downside to living with this inner narrator, and second, do we have to live this way, is it part and parcel of the human condition? Is there no alternative to a second-hand version of life, knowing experience only through the mind's description and commentary? The answer is a resounding yes, and no. 

Yes, there is a downside and no, we are not condemned to live this way forever.

The small downside to living with the play by play of your life ceaselessly running in your ear is that it can be intensely agitating and distracting. There exists constant noise in the background and foreground of your life, no silence to be heard, like having a mosquito (or buzz saw) resounding in your ear, one that you can’t silence and can’t ignore. 

But on a more profound level, the downside to the inner narrator is that it stands in the way of your actually getting to experience life first hand, in all its richness. You're relegated to living through your narrator’s description, which is really just a mental representation of the real thing, like getting a postcard of the Grand Canyon in place of being there, or a description of chocolate instead of a taste. The little voice goes on then to offer commentary on the narration, which is a representation of a representation, and you are now two layers away from the direct experience of living.

You might also notice that the voice in your head presents its version of your life as a truth. It reports your life story as if it were the actual reality existing in the objective world. It’s liberating, however, to realize that the narrator’s account of what’s happening is all going on inside your own mind and only in your mind. It’s not real in some objective sense, but rather another story about a story which begins and ends inside your own consciousness.

The good news is that you don’t have to live this way, with your inner narrator acting as a middle manager between you and life. If you’ve ever been deeply involved in an activity, you might have experienced what’s referred to as flow state.  In flow, we're so engaged in what we’re doing that we cease to be aware of our self. We're no longer the one doing the activity, but literally absorbed into the experience itself. We become the experience; we become life rather than the one who’s living it, and all notion of time and a separate Idisappears. And, while the mind has convinced us otherwise, what we discover is that when the mind is not there self-referencing, reminding us of our self, we still exist. We do not in fact disappear; the mind might temporarily, but we do not, which suggests that we are indeed more than mind. Awareness remains even when we lose the felt sense of our self as the one doing our life. And, interestingly, such experiences, the ones in which awareness of our self disappears, when there is only experience but no I doing it, are the ones that we later describe as wholly satisfying, blissful, and even divine.  The experiences in which we are gone are the ones that we most crave. 

The remedy for the little voice in our head is three-fold. First, we have to exhaust of it and become so fed up with the play by play as to decide that we’re not willing to listen or live by it anymore. Once that’s happened, we must start noticing our narrator and become aware of its voice as an object appearing in our awareness. And finally, we set a clear and fierce intention and desire to experience life directly, through our senses, now, and not just receive a report on it. We commit to diving deeply and directly into the ocean of life. 

Listening to the little voice in your head is a habit, granted a habit with deep roots, survival instincts, and lots of practice time, but nonetheless, a habit. With desire, willingness and intention, a habit, any habit, can be changed. Each time you catch the voice in your head describing or commentating on your life, practice a new habit, the habit of directly experiencing your actual experience. Each time you hear your little voice, first pause and celebrate a moment of awareness; the fact that you’re hearing it means that there’s another part of you, which is not merged with the narrator, who’s awakening—the you whom the narrator is narrating to. Next, intentionally shift your attention from your head (which is where our energy is usually focused) down into your body.  Invite your body to consciously relax. Take and feel a deep breath. From there, run a sense loop: see what you’re seeing, hear what you’re hearing, feel what you’re feeling, smell what you’re smelling, and taste what you’re tasting. Experience each, one at a time. And finally, sense your own physical presence, the feeling of aliveness in your body (not your mind). With this practice, the little voice in your head will grow quieter and less relentless, and the living will become more vivid, satisfying, immediate, and ultimately, real. 

When You're Lonely Inside Your Relationship

The Buddha taught that life includes suffering. The same is true for relationships. We think of loneliness as a condition that exists outside of relationship but sometimes we feel the loneliest inside an intimate relationship. That said, it is essential that we learn how to take care of ourselves, connect with our own heart, regardless of what’s happening within our partnership. It is our intimate relationship with ourselves, ultimately, that determines our wellbeing, and our compassion for our own experience that allows us to weather, with equanimity, the suffering that is... 

Read full article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inviting-monkey-tea/201709/when-youre-lonely-inside-your-relationship

IDO Podcast: Is your partner cheating on you with their phone?
http://idopodcast.com/nancy-colier/

How to Love Yourself When Those Around You Can't

I had been working with Mary (not her real name) as a client for several years. It was the loneliness in her marriage that initially brought her to see me. She was struggling in the relationship, but didn't want to leave. She described how sharing anything with her husband about her real experience took enormous effort and involved intense strategizing and emotional stress. She worried about how to present her truth so that it would be understood and received by her partner — not rejected, attacked, or minimized. As a result, she was starting to keep important experiences out of their relationship, only presenting what was factual or impersonal, which was then creating more isolation and intensifying her loneliness.

In my first session with Mary and her husband, it became clear to me why she felt so isolated and disconnected from him. I saw within a few minutes how her husband’s way of responding to her was entirely out of sync with what she needed to feel understood, supported, and loved. Regardless of what Mary shared, he began his response with the word "but," telling her why she was mistaken and what she was doing wrong that made her feel the way she did. He then frequently followed up his criticisms with what he knew to be true about her experience, based on his greater wisdom. I watched as he trampled on her truth again and again, and demonstrated his unwillingness to allow her to have the experience she was having, to just hear how it was for her without any "but." What I witnessed is not uncommon, however, and most of us have experienced Mary’s loneliness, frustration, and stress in trying to get what we need in similar kinds of relationships.

There are people who listen with and from the word “but,” with “but” always in between their ears and your heart. No matter what you present, they seem intent on proving you wrong or pointing out the holes in what you're sharing. Perpetually in search of the fly in the ointment, they invalidate your experience and simultaneously demonstrate that they know more or better.

Like Mary’s husband, this kind of person relates from their head and their intellect, but not their heart. Their responses protect them from taking in or feeling your experience — feeling you — or, as it can sometimes seem, allowing you to even exist. Knowing more, being the expert, keeps them from having to try to understand or empathize with what you’re expressing. Their "but'" keeps them from having to venture outside their comfort zone, to be vulnerable, or to really listen or learn. They are quick to shut down your experience with dismissive phrases like “that’s just such and such” or “I get it already,” which are further attempts to stuff your experience into a box that they can control and dismiss.

When someone relates to you in this style, you may feel that you are not being listened to — not being loved. It feels as if the other person is not on your side, not curious about or interested to know you, not offering your experience the care and nourishment that it (and you) need to grow. The other’s mission is not to understand you or help you know yourself more deeply, but rather to win the case against you and keep you under control.

There is no place for Mary’s experience with her husband, and so, understandably, relating feels like a fight, with her on the defensive, trying to force a space in which her experience will be allowed to land.

Expressing yourself in this kind of environment takes enormous effort, fending off the other’s intellect and resistance, and fighting to be heard and acknowledged, to not have your experience butchered, reduced, boxed, or denied. At the end of a conversation, you feel exhausted, or as one woman expressed it, "nailed into a coffin." Communication is an experience of loneliness and frustration — sadness and anger. Connection cannot happen, because your experience is fundamentally not allowed into the dialogue.

The tendency, when in relationships with such people, is to shut down and stop sharing, and sometimes to stop feeling altogether, to go numb. And sometimes to fight back and try harder, constructing new strategies to get your experience heard properly. But none of these options offers much lasting relief. So how can you be with the “but” heads in your life, some of whom are family or others you can’t avoid, in a way that keeps you feeling alive and well? How can you be in their company in a way that leaves you feeling good about yourself? 

The best way to stay well and on your own side in a such a relationship is by employing the skill of fierce awareness. While it is painful to have your experience constricted and rejected, you can stay grounded and feel good about yourself by staying vigilant as a witness, watching your own experience as the relational event unfolds. You can relate with such a person carefully, mindfully, with great self-compassion. First, by simply noticing what’s happening inside you as you even approach a topic that matters to you. And then, paying fierce attention physically, mentally, and emotionally to what is arising as the other responds. You may notice a feeling of desperation or franticness rising up, a tightness in the belly or throat, a feeling of rage, dizziness, tears, numbness, or who knows what else. But regardless of what appears, you keep noticing that which is happening inside you, staying vigilant in your awareness — and most importantly, staying kind and compassionate with your own experience. 

You may also become aware of a blaming or shaming, a criticism you inflict on yourself, that you should be able to express yourself in a way that’s understandable, should be able to get the other to reflect you properly, to want to know you, that you are somehow failing because you can’t get your truth across in a way that feels satisfying. Whatever arises, you keep listening and loving inside, telling your self-judging super ego to step outside, as it is not helpful and not accurate. Awareness and self-compassion are your protection from getting swallowed up and identified with your instinctive reactions. Awareness can also guide you as to when it's time to exit the conversation and/or shift it somewhere else, which is another way that you can be self-loving and take care of yourself within such a relationship. 

You cannot control another’s responses or the experiences that arise within you, but you can stay awake to what's happening within you, you can offer unwavering kindness towards yourself, and you can determine for how long you will continue watching and working with an experience that doesn’t work for you. Indeed you can love yourself in any kind of company.

Epilogue:

The response I received from the above blog was enormous. In reading the responses however, it became clear to me that I left out an important step in the process of loving yourself. I had mistakenly assumed that, like my client Mary, by the time you were reading my article, you had tried everything else to get yourself heard properly, and thus were ready for the practice of fierce awareness, on its own. While vigilantly and lovingly staying with your own internal experience is always useful when in the company of others who are not supportive, there is also a relational strategy that may be useful and empowering in such situations.

The strategy is this: ask for what you need, specifically and clearly. When your partner dismisses your truth, argues against your experience, or consistently responds to you with the word "but," ask him if he would be willing to simply listen to what you are saying without responding at all, to say nothing and just absorb what you are expressing. Or, ask him if he would be willing to repeat back to you what you had shared. Or, ask him if he would be willing to respond by rephrasing what you had said in his own words. Ask yourself what you would really need from your partner's response and ask him, gently, if he would be willing to provide just that. You might also let him know, if it feels right, what the kind of response you are requesting would offer you, what it would provide in your own process. The key here is to ask your partner with kindness, a kindness that is for both you and him, with the words "Would you be willing..." leading the way.

This strategy can always be used, no matter where you are in the relationship. It can be used again and again, regardless of whether it has been successful in the past or not. It makes a perfect handshake with fierce self-awareness and in fact, the knowing and asking for what you need arises precisely out of fierce awareness.

Asking for what you need may in fact get you what you need from your partner, and make you feel more understood and loved. And, staying with your own experience with awareness and self-compassion, before, during and after you ask, will undoubtedly get you what you need from yourself.

"Do I Look Hot?" Building Self Confidence With Selfies

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon at the swimming pool. I was happily ensconced in a good book on a chaise. Just in front of me, waist deep in water, stood four young teenage girls, 14 or 15 years-old. When I first noticed them it was noon and they were busily taking photos of each other, feverishly trading smartphones back and forth, posing in very obviously sexy positions. They flipped their hair from side to side, scrunched their shoulders to create cleavage, pouted their lips, assumed contemplative expressions with their eyes drifting off to nowhere, constricted their upper bodies to accentuate clavicles, splashed water  onto their bodies, and positioned their legs into various seductive shapes. Each time a photograph was taken, the subject would anxiously reach for her smartphone, stealing it from her friend’s hands to determine what she looked like in the most recent rendering. The girls would giggle or ooh and ah or consult on a possibly improved image. 

I watched them for a while, marveling at their ability to sustain interest and focus in the activity of photographing themselves. Eventually I went back to my book, but every now and again I would look up to see what they were up to. For two solid hours, until I left for lunch, the self-capturing went on, uninterrupted. It was interesting to notice as well that during those two hours, not one of the girls did any swimming or anything else other than posing, photographing, and evaluating. When I returned to the pool after 4, the same girls were still taking photos of themselves, but now out of the water and in new alluring poses as they reclined on their chaise lounges.

The scene that I witnessed at the pool is nothing out of the ordinary and my observations are in no way criticisms. I see the constant self-recording everywhere I look including my own home with my daughters and their friends. It seems that photographing oneself has become the primary leisure activity for girls these days. Recording and examining one’s own image serving as the most engaging, exciting and rewarding way to spend time.

While teenagers have always been concerned about their appearance, there’s never been a time when so much attention and energy has been spent on the creation and dissemination of a “hot” image or that a sexy identity was deemed so drastically necessary. (I say “hot” because it’s the word the girls most frequently use to describe the look they’re going for.) Now more than ever, with the explosion of technology that’s never turned off, young girls are saturated with media (including social media), literally living from inside it and becoming part of it. This media then shows them how they’re supposed to look, talk, think… be, and usually the message is "hot." The devices are being used, through the unceasing self-documentation, to show the world that they have successfully achieved the media-designed version of who they’re supposed to be. Know thyself has become show thyself. 

While my memories of 15 are definitely faded, I am not so far from that time of life that I can’t remember what it was like to be a teenage girl. What I know for sure is that when I was young and holding a camera, it made sense to turn the lens away from me, outward, and take pictures of the world. It would not have occurred to me nor would I have been particularly interested in taking photographs of myself. What I also know is that I didn’t spend one thousandth the amount of time that young women do now focused on my image as it appeared on camera. When I was a young girl, being perceived as “hot” was not a goal that we aspired to, and not a primary characteristic upon which we built our self-worth.    

When I ask girls and young women today (which I often do) why they spend so much time taking pictures of themselves and posting or sharing them, they usually tell me some version of this: They want other people to think they’re “hot” (both boys and girls) because if other people think they’re “hot” then they will be important and the world will like them, which will then make them like themselves.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the experiences our girls are missing out on as a result of spending so much time posing for their smartphones—what else they might be doing that could build their self-esteem in more meaningful ways. What will be the consequences in terms of who these young women become if their experiences are more and more limited to selfie-taking? What skills and strengths are they not going to develop, what self-awareness are they going to be deprived of, as a result of all these hours devoted to creating the perfect image?

As a mother of two daughters I am deeply troubled by this selfie phenomenon. We are allowing technology to be used in a way that disempowers young women, keeps them busy staring at themselves, pursuing “hotness” as designed by the modern media, at the expense of living their lives fully, being curious about the world on the other side of the camera, engaging in life beyond their image.

Not surprisingly, we are seeing an epidemic in low self-esteem in young women as they devote less of their time and energy to activities that could build a true sense of reliable self-worth and instead, attempt to build a self out of “hot” selfies.  Unfortunately, however, the selfie-created self is wobbly and ephemeral, and can be obliterated by not enough “likes” on a single post.

As the mother of two daughters, I am concerned, and not just for my own, but for all the young women who are coming up in the age of selfie consciousness. Staring into their smartphones at themselves, being driven by the desire to create a “hot” pose—none of this is a wise use of young female energy and intelligence, nor does it create a garden in which to grow empowered and confident women. 

I write this today with many questions and few answers. But the questions are important and we need to start raising them more often, more vigorously, and on a societal level. What kind of women are we growing in this digital age, in this "Am I hot?" world? And, what can we do as the grown-ups, both men and women, to redirect our girls towards a life that will provide them with what they need to feel empowered, capable, confident and ultimately, happy?