How to Deepen Your Relationship With Yourself

We all want to be happy which, at the simplest level, means that we want our life to be filled with experiences that we like and enjoy. There is nothing more inborn to the human being than the desire to want what is happening to indeed be happening. In service to this basic drive, we do everything we can to create lives that contain experiences that we want. The drive to create a life we like is a most healthy drive.

When we get what we want in our lives, there isn’t much that needs to be said or done. We might want to learn how to more fully enjoy the desired experiences or be more present or grateful, but such changes are fun and relatively stress-free. We are working with life’s good stuff, trying to figure out how to feel the good a little more intensely, or make the good stuff into great stuff.

But the question that every human being at some point in their lives needs to answer is not what to do with the experiences that they want, but rather what to do with the experiences that they don’t want.  No matter how hard we try to create a life that contains only what we want, life always includes the full menu. The fact that our life contains undesirable aspects simply means that we are human.

The question is not whether we can prevent unwanted experiences, we can’t, but rather how to live and relate to the experiences that we consider unwanted or painful. Can we live those experiences, in a new way such that they are not so painful, scary and derailing?

We have been conditioned to view unwanted experiences as personal failings. We believe that there is always something that we could have done differently to make that experience not happen, and if we could have done that thing, we would be a better person with a better life. But what if you were to choose to relate to your unwanted experiences as nothing out of the ordinary, simply a normal part of every human life? Could you throw out all ideas of the unwanted as representing some personal failure or success? What if the undesired aspects of life could just be what they are and not about your personal worthiness? What if you were to choose to relate to difficult experiences as opportunities to embrace yourself in compassion instead of assaulting yourself with blame?

In addition, we relate to unwanted experiences as dangerous to our wellbeing.  We believe that if we allow ourselves to accept or look into such experiences more deeply, we will be harmed. In truth, we have a choice as to what kind of relationship we want to conduct with our unwanted experiences, and ourselves when we are inside them. We can choose to turn towards the unwanted experiences, and get curious about the ways that our mind and body respond when in contact with the unwanted. As counterintuitive as it is to our conditioning, we can welcome unwanted experiences (when they have chosen to arrive despite our wishes) as fertile ground for discovery and enlightenment, a chance to get to know ourselves more deeply and truthfully, to honestly meet who we are. Could you get interested in whatever experience is arising in your awareness right now, to welcome the comfortable and the uncomfortable as equal opportunities for self-awareness and discovery?   Could you decide to turn your attention to the thoughts, feelings and sensations that are happening inside you even if they are not what you normally consider pleasurable?

We have a lot more choice than we believe in how we live our individual experiences. While we are conditioned to believe that negative experiences must be experienced negatively and positive ones, positively, we can shift this belief with a different attitude towards the purpose and meaning of experiences and what, ultimately, they are here to offer us. 

Try shifting your perspective for a day. You can always abandon the practice. Nothing will be lost. Imagine getting interested in whatever is arising inside you, whatever is happening in response to your present experience.  Choose to investigate your own experience, even when it is uncomfortable, and relate to it as an intimate doorway into your own mind and consciousness. You can opt to view all experience as just this. When all experiences are opportunities to deepen your relationship with your own being, to know your self, you can stop being so afraid of and rejecting of the experiences that you don’t want.

We will never stop trying to create experiences that we want. It is who we are as human beings. Until we are enlightened we will always prefer and wish for experiences that we like over those that we don’t. But when experiences do arrive at our doorstep (as they always will) that we have not invited, that we would never choose to bring into our house, it is best to find a way to relate to them without fear, and turn them into houseguests if we can. All experiences, welcomed, are opportunities to see and know the truth of ourselves more clearly. With this attitude, we can relate to our whole life, the sweet and the bitter, as enlightening, not necessarily wanted, but enlightening nonetheless, and in that light, meaningful.

The Beauty in Not Keeping Up With the Joneses

Everyone who has kids or who has ever been a kid knows that there is enormous pressure for young people to keep up with the latest toys and gadgets. It not only applies to kids, but also to grown ups. We call it ”Keeping up with the Joneses.” Sometimes, depending on whom our kids hang out with, the toys and gadgets can get pretty elaborate—and expensive.

Lately, I have been under fierce pressure from my daughter to keep up with her Joneses. Her "keeping up," however, involves my wallet, and at the moment, a little device called an iPhone 5C. Despite the fact that many other less expensive models can perform the same tricks, apparently only the 5C will do. When I presented this dilemma to a mother I know she told me that my daughter would never be able to pull out a flip phone with her friends, and that I shouldn’t make her do it! The deafening absurdity of this mom’s comment got me thinking about the topic, and mostly, about the great benefits and spiritual lessons in NOT keeping up with the Jones-s.

One of the most important things that we can teach our children is gratitude and appreciation. Gratitude as a concept is hard to teach however. It is not something that just talking about makes happen. Rather, it is more about providing a life that inspires a child to appreciate what she receives. If a child is always getting everything she wants, it is unreasonable to expect her to be genuinely grateful. She may not know any other way is even possible. Gratitude in children seems to arise from two main things. First, being exposed to circumstances that are different and less than their own (for example, when my daughter meets orphans from Uganda, whose Christmas wish is for a pencil so that they can go to school). Secondly, gratitude comes from sometimes NOT getting. The experience of NOT getting cannot be conceptual if it is going to truly teach appreciation. It is very basic: when we have to do without something that we want, we appreciate it more when we actually do get it.

NOT keeping up with the Joneses is also important for developing self-esteem. While my friend’s comment suggests that getting everything their friends have will give them self-esteem, it is really just a recipe for insecurity. Children begin to believe that if they don’t get that next EOS lip balm, Crazy Aaron’s silly putty, pair of Uggs, iPhone 5C, Xbox 1, etc., they will no longer be included in the group. Their membership is dependent upon having the same toys as their friends. Not getting helps children develop the confidencethat their value as a person is based on more than just owning what their friends own, and their friendships about sharing more than just products. Children who sometimes have to do without have to explain why they don’t have the thing that everyone else has, and that explaining builds character. Children realize, in this simple example, that they can be liked and wanted for more than just what they buy. There is no way for a child to learn this if the message reinforced is that in order to be liked, they must be able to get the same things as their friends. 

Finally, NOT keeping up with the Joneses, in the long run, helps children avoid depression. Each time we develop a craving for the next toy, the deep belief behind that craving, conscious or otherwise, is that that next toy will bring us happiness. We chase one thing after another, and each brings a few moments of pleasure. But soon, each fails us in terms of providing any kind of lasting happiness. With each failure, we shift our craving onto the next item, and with it, our hope for lasting happiness. Giving our children everything they want encourages the belief that happiness and satisfaction will be found externally—inside the next best thing. When we have to do without a bit, however, we are forced to develop internal aspects of ourselves, to develop the skills that create a true sense of wellbeing. In so doing, not getting allows us to avoid the despair and emptiness that result from chasing external objects in search of internal wholeness. NOT keeping up with the Joneses (even when it means having to pull out a flip phone) helps our children (and us adults) to grow, and, ultimately, to find what we really want. As it turns out, the best gift (sorry Santa) may not be under the tree.

Brave New "Auto-Corrected" World

Is the Smartphone auto-corrector the new Almighty? C’mon, so it changes a letter here and there, no big deal. Indeed it is a deal of epic proportions. The Smartphone auto-corrector is not only reconstructing the words we write, it is redesigning reality itself, engineering life. The ghost in the machine has been assigned the task of turning what we say into what we mean, an algorithm masterminded by people we don’t know and who don’t know us. I wonder, other than ourselves, who could ever know what we mean?

While the auto-corrector presents as the palace servant, it in fact holds the throne of the digital age; it is mission control through which all communication is processed. Once communication has been altered, it (and all that it impacts) can never return to an un-altered state, but can only continue inside its new reshaped form. Though seemingly harmless, the auto-corrector is a symbol for what is a more frightening and dangerous aspect of technology. When we “correct” our words, we “correct” our meaning, the reality that transpires from that meaning, and thus all of life. Are we really comfortable surrendering meaning, reality and life to an algorithm?

Consider the following examples:

Case 1: I am in a heated discussion with a friend. I write “NO Gail,” and hit send. Without my awareness, the auto-corrector texts my friend, “GO Girl.” The next communication I receive is chatty and without the rancor of the current disagreement. I look back and notice the Smartphone’s “correction” and subsequently burst into laughter. Ultimately I decide to go with the new, altered reality, dropping the rift altogether (and noticing how meaningless it really was!)

Case 2: I am setting up plans with an acquaintance and she asks if I can meet her downtown or do I need to stay on the upper west side. I write her back, “UWS” (upper west side). Unbeknownst to me, my Smartphone thinks that I should travel outside my neighborhood and so replaces “UWS” with “Yes.” My friend understandably takes this to mean that yes, I can indeed travel downtown and so sends me the address of a bar in Greenwich Village. I repeat that I need to stay on the upper west side in order to get back to work. The next text I receive is a Freudian analysis on why I was originally willing to go downtown, but now have changed my mind. Apparently, I was going to surrender, but then decided to control the experience. Despite explaining to her that my Smartphone’s auto-corrector had agreed to the downtown location while I, the person behind the Smartphone, needed to be back to work on the upper west side in less than an hour’s time, still, the interpretations had already been voiced. Feelings were expressed that otherwise would not have been expressed. Perhaps a good thing, perhaps not. Either way, our relationship had changed as a result of those three small letters being re-organized. To this day, I am not sure if she ever did believe that I had originally written UWS, but it is a moot point. Our relationship now journeys down a new and “corrected” path.

Case 3: A therapist receives a suicidal email from a patient. She responds and signs her name “Patty.” Her auto-corrector, perhaps in wanting to correct the situation by offering some encouragement to her patient, changes the salutation to “Party.” No (more) words needed.

Case 4: I text a friend to ask if she can babysit. Although my friend is obese, we don’t talk about her weight other than tales of her latest diet, and she doesn’t share her real struggles with me. Nonetheless, her weight is an unspoken presence in the room with us. When she responds to my request by saying that she can indeed babysit, I write back “That’s great!” My auto-corrector, (who is apparently also a personal trainer/fashionista) responds with, “Cover rear!” While we shared a good laugh (and she knew I didn’t write it), still, I sensed that it caused her pain and brought something shameful to the surface, in my presence. That “correction” introduced a new reality in our relationship, and spoke loudly to the unspoken. I don’t know if she wanted this new element in our relationship, but once again, a moot point. In re-organizing those few letters, the auto-corrector had re-organized our relational path.

Case 5: Jill goes to meet her boyfriend Jack’s father for the first time. An older man, Jack’s father has just purchased his first iPhone and is excited with the new toy. The next day, in deference to his technological delight, Jane decides to text instead of call. She writes, “Thanks so much for last night!” Unfortunately, her auto-corrector sends, “Thanks Douche for last night!” Not fully understanding the auto-corrector function, Jack’s father is not amused. As a result, Jack and Jill never did go up the hill and any future Jacks or Jills that might have been, never were.

Furthermore, in addition to designing and mutating reality, the auto-corrector is now contributing yet another mirror to the funhouse that is human communication. As a psychotherapist and one who studies human behavior, I have (lovingly) come to see the majority of human communication as some form of projection or transference. That is to say, when two people are speaking, for the most part, neither is hearing what the other person’s words mean to the other person. They are hearing what the other’s words mean to them personally, once run through (and distorted by) their complex system of memories, thoughts, experiences, history, and the biggest one, identity. It used to be that at least the words that were being distorted in communication were the original words intended by the other. Now, with the addition of the auto-corrector, even the original material is distorted, so we are left with a distortion of a distortion. Who knows, distorting the distorted, we may end up back at some form of heel… (!) real.

Uncovering Our Limitless Self

My young daughter is at the age where she is continually proclaiming, “I am Gretchen.” She has taken on her name to be who she is. Her being and the word “Gretchen” are now one, inseparable. Soon she will begin adding to her list of “I am-s.” Perhaps soon she will proclaim, “I am… a girl, a chocolate-lover, a sister, student, daughter, granddaughter, friend, a Colier.” After that, she may add, “I am… a blonde, an athlete, a Buddhist, a musician, an American, a New Yorker...” And then later, perhaps she will be her profession, her ethnicity, her sexual orientation, her political party, her relationship, her psychological history, memories, desires, opinions, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and personality. As we go on in life, the list of things we say we are, and consider ourselves to be one and the same with, grows infinitely long.

The problem with all of this identification is that whatever we consider ourselves to be then has to be defended. We are not okay if our identity checklist is not okay. We stop being able to really see or meet the world openly because we must be on guard, listening and watching with the purpose of protecting who we are. With each additional identity or hatthat we put on, and imagine our self to be, we get smaller and more constricted beneath it, more separate from our fundamental vastness.

Thus far my daughter, as she sees it, is primarily “Gretchen.” And yet, to be a name is not that much of a burden as a name is not that much to defend. If someone has a different one, we do not experience our self as in danger, in part because we did not choose our name to begin with. And yet, as time passes and we become more entrenched in and buried under our identities, we are more at risk, and have ever more to defend. If who we are is inseparable from a particular opinion, one who disagrees with that opinion is a threat to our very being. If we are a particular profession and lose that job, we lose our self. If we are a political party or sexual orientation and we encounter different values, our survival feels threatened. If we are our relationship and the relationship ends, we have lost not just our relationship, but also our self. If we are a great success story and we have a bad performance, who we are is no longer. If we define ourselves as our emotional trauma, then experiencing joy is a risk to our very being. In other words, if we believe ourselves to be what we think, feel, do, and are in relation to, then we are always in danger, and always living in a self-protective frame, making sure, first and foremost, that our identity survives. Such are the makings of a life of fear and suffering.

Freedom and happiness appear when we realize that we are not—fundamentally—made of any of the hats that we wear, beginning first with our name. We are born as life itself—the ocean that takes the particular shape of a individual wave—for a short time. Soon after we appear, a label is attached to us in the form of a name, and then soon after, we forget that we in fact were before this word appeared. So too, we were before we were taught to believe anything, learned anything, were in any kind of relationship to other things, before our body took a certain shape, or we experienced any particular history. We were before we were a story.

The question then is how to raise a child so that they can appreciate their individuality—the experiences, thoughts, feelings, talents, memories, and all the things that describe them, but at the same time, still retain their sense of self as that primary being that precedes all conditioning? When my daughter says to me, “I am Gretchen!” I tell her you are—and—the name we call you is “Gretchen.” While it means nothing to her, nonetheless, it is a start to this process. 

Do we need to be the sum of our hats before we can take them off and realize our self as that which is hat-less? Do we need to be the wave before we can realize our self as the ocean? Perhaps. It is important however to try and offer our children, from the very beginning, a sense of identity as life itself, free from all constraints, and all that needs defending. It is important to suggest that they are, which is not the same as being the sum of all the things they think, feel, and do. A connection to their ocean-ness, their pre-conditioned being, will ultimately protect them from the fragile identity defending that makes life appear and feel so threatening.

Pointing our children toward their fundamental I am-ness, the life force that they are before even their name, is like dropping them a path of breadcrumbs by which to come home to themselves. Chances are they will have to travel through and eventually shed an infinite number of I am that-s along the way. But nonetheless, no matter how young, it is wise to offer our children an invitation to the presence that is behind their original name, and all the names that will follow. In so doing, we are preparing them to remember—and know—their true self, their fundamental essence, as infinite, indestructible, and irrevocable, without the need for any defense, and so much larger than just a pile of hats!