A couple of Sundays ago it was Mothers' Day in Australia. There were families everywhere down at the beachfront and in the cafes, some with flowers, presents, some just sitting together eating. As I watched people I noticed the variety of emotional tones. Some engaged and present, others seemed there in body only, dispatching their obligation to take mum somewhere on her day lest they be seen as a 'bad son' or 'bad daughter'.
Like all occupations, people vary in how well they perform the job of parenting. It strikes me as a great gloss-over in our society that family relationships are spoken of as wonderful close bonds. There are some lucky people for whom that's true, but many people have some shade of strained or pained relationship with their parents. To expect that everyone feels gratitude to their parents is like expecting that every gambler is rich. I personally know people whose mothers all but abandoned them as children yet now expect veneration for being their mother. In reality our relationships with our parents depend on our experience of being parented, who our parents are now, and in what ways we've grown in our adult life.
This got me thinking about motives and intentions. What are the intentions driving attendance at the obligatory Mothers' Day outing and are they different to the intentions of those actively participating in and valuing it? For some time now I've been testing the theory that all motivations come down to one of two sources: fear or joy. In some ways we could call the latter love but because love has so many different definitions I'm going to stick with joy. The fact that I haven't thrown out this theory yet shows that it has stood up pretty well so far.
One of the key elements of the Buddha's teaching is the focus on intention. Intention and motivation are closely intertwined. Motivation comes from the same latin root as emotion, 'motere' meaning 'to move'. So what I'm really exploring here is 'what moves us?', 'are we honest with ourselves about this?' and assuming we are then 'what do we do with the honest answers?'.
I suspect the vast majority of movement or action comes from a mixture of motives and intents. So perhaps some of these obligatory Mothers' Day attendees are motivated both by fear (being seen as a bad son/daughter; giving Mum something to guilt trip us with for the next year; getting in trouble with Dad; feeling sad at the thought of Mum spending the day alone) and at the same time by joy (wanting Mum to feel loved, wanting harmony in the family).
In my experience, the words 'should', 'have to' and 'supposed to' are often a red flag for some kind of obligation. "I have to go to lunch with Mum". It's an interesting exercise to list the things you feel you 'should' do or 'have to' do and then re-write them starting with 'because I want.......' and fill in the blanks. Then have a look at what you've written and examine the extent to which it's based on fear and the extent to which it's based on joy.
I've found that many 'shoulds' come straight from the imaginary mouth of some authority figure from the past, often parents, sometimes teachers, spiritual leaders or other people with some kind of power over us. We 'should' eat with our mouths closed, we 'shouldn't' take the Lord's name in vain, we 'should' offer a seat on the bus to an adult etc. I'm not suggesting that these are all bad ideas but I do think it's useful to look at what 'moves us' to abide by these obligations. What I've observed is that most obligations come from the fear flavoured motivations. Fear of shame for not being a 'good' daughter/ son/ friend/ sister etc. and the possible judgment and possibly rejection that can flow from this.
In a sense obligation is a form of manipulation. Behave in this way otherwise you'll suffer judgment or worse. From a young age I never liked it and sensed that it was rarely in my own interests and almost always in other people's. It's a way of getting what you want from someone without taking into account their needs or wishes. Take the example of a school kid being obliged to offer a seat to an adult on a crowded bus. What if we explained to the kid that the adults on the bus are the ones who are working hard to pay for the running of the bus and that as a school kid, they are essentially being supported by the adults on the bus. There's a chance the kid might be motivated to offer the spare seat willingly out of gratitude rather than fear of shame.
A friend of mine recently asked how often I speak to my mother on the phone. I told her it was once every 3-4 weeks. She speaks to her mother every week but doesn't enjoy it. On hearing the frequency of my maternal contact she is revising the necessity of calling her mum that often. I suspect if she calls her as often as she wants to rather than as often as she feels she needs to in order to be a 'good daughter', the quality of conversation might improve.
Another good friend of mine admitted to me that the only reason he stays in contact with his mother was because he felt obliged to. She is a source of much stress for him and very little joy. The good son/ bad son manipulation is alive and well in this relationship and the quality of the relationship, even when he does call or visit like a 'good son', is not great. If the truth is that his genuine motivations would have him lose contact with his mother, then perhaps that prospect might precipitate a conversation about their relationship. This may improve it. If not, perhaps compassion for himself might suggest he let it go.
Is there a 'shouldn't' coming up there for you at that suggestion? If so, where did that come from? Does it serve you? If you're a parent yourself, then maybe you'd like to preserve that 'should' to keep your own children in line? Does thinking of that as a manipulative attitude change how you feel about it? What is the fear of letting go of this 'should'? What comes up for you if you imagine that parents get no special treatment; that they reap the relationship they sow with their children just like everyone else and are honoured or not accordingly? Are there any parental-sounding voices coming up at this suggestion? Shoulds can be wonderful doors into some of the unquestioned corners of our psychological landscapes.
I had an interesting experience of this on a meditation retreat a few years ago. The wife of the meditation teacher would sit at the dinner table with her elbows on the table and lower her head down to the fork to get her food. I was surprised to find that disdain and condescension arose for me - quickly and strongly. Then I heard the parental voice instructing her in an admonishing tone to lift her fork to her mouth, not the other way around. I found it so curious that I could have such an instant and strong reaction to such a trivial thing. This tends to be what happens when we see one of the 'shoulds' we adopted early in life contravened. The reaction is strong, fast, negative, often contains fear (often of shame) and is mostly unexamined.
It is possible to have joy based 'shoulds' but from what people tell me they are few and far between (I personally don't have many 'shoulds' these days). I sometimes think I should do some work on my blog but that's driven from the knowledge that it's often difficult to get a big enough block of clear time to write. So I need to make myself do something I don't naturally do (structure my time) so that I can do something I want to do. The truth is, I love to write! And the instruction is coming from me, no-one else real or imaginary.
So the suggestion for action from this post is to identify the 'shoulds' in your life and how you feel about them. Is there aversion, fear or angst in there, and/or is there positive energy in the 'should'? If you're complying with 'shoulds' get clear on why you are doing so and whether that motivation is springing from fear or from joy. If it's fear, there's an opportunity for insight there, an opportunity to look closely at your beliefs and motivations and to question them.
I remember a participant on my leadership program realising that he did lots of things for his mother in law out of fear of her judgment. She had all sorts of 'shoulds' regarding what sons-in-law were 'supposed' to do (whom do you think they served?). When this fellow realised how he was being manipulated with fear, and how his mother-in-law's behaviour was at odds with his values of acceptance and love of family, he decided to respond differently. When we look closely at these things, that possibility arises.
Blog Introduction
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Too much happiness
First of all my apologies for a long break between posts. I've recently launched a new venture - the Australian arm of a new movement called Secular Buddhism (see the link at the bottom of this post). It's taken some of my 'dharma time' and has its own blog that I'm writing too. Still, I have a number of ideas that have been brewing for this broader ranging blog, so I hope to be posting more often.
I was sitting on the toilet in one of my favourite cafes recently. Someone had left a pretty decorated piece of paper on the toilet roll holder, presumably as a message for subsequent sitters. Here's what it said:
Stephen Batchelor speaks of the Buddha's teachings as an opportunity for confrontation (with reality) as opposed to what religions offer which is consolation (from reality). (Religious Buddhism is no different to other religions in this way, offering the consolations of an ancient Indian religious world view.) Instead of warmth, everlasting love and the promise of something better once this life is over, the dhamma is about looking honestly and unflinchingly at reality - the here and now experience of this fathom-long body - the good, the bad and the ugly bits - the whole catastrophe. It's about dealing better with the inevitable difficulties of being a human being, removing the optional difficulties - the dramas we create for ourselves, and experiencing the incredible joy that comes quite naturally when we do these things.
This piece of toilet-time reading got me thinking about why people choose to practice the dhamma. From my experience, like religious seekers, most people come to it out of the desire to relieve some acute or chronic pain (including existential angst) and/or the desire to be happier. What I've found both confronting and liberating is that while these are definitely results that flow from practising the dhamma, they are only part of the story. Unfortunately for those who like quick fixes, the means of achieving these outcomes involves living life more honestly and fully which means experiencing the pain more directly (rather than trying to avoid it) and more deeply (sitting with it long enough to really get to know it).
A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald described research showing that happier people tend to be promoted less and earn less. While I know a lot of people in the corporate world who could do with less cash and more happiness, there were some other more worrying correlates. One was that 'very high levels of positive feelings predict risk-taking behaviours, excess alcohol and drug consumption, binge eating, and may lead us to neglect threats'. Not only this but people were more likely to use racist or sexist stereotypes when evaluating people and more likely to drop out of school early. It also described research showing that people who strive for happiness more, constantly measuring to see if they are getting it, tend to be less happy.
While we'd probably need to look more closely at how these studies measured 'happiness' before putting too much stock into the findings, it did coagulate some thoughts I've been having for a while now. They last arose when I received a brochure in the mail for the annual conference in Sydney called "Happiness and its Causes". While I'm a big advocate of Positive Psychology and of the need to overcome the negativity bias that our species has inherited, it has occurred to me that pursuing happiness too single mindedly can easily slip into self delusion territory.
One of the core teachings of the Buddha was that there is suffering/angst/ stress/unpleasantness in life (the Pali word that covers all of these strains of pain and more is 'dukkha'). The practical imperatives that flow from this are to accept that this is true (any human being can look at their life and know it for themselves), expect this from our own future (we're not so good at this bit), and when it comes, change our reaction to it. Rather than running away from it (e.g. distracting ourselves with work, drugs, alcohol, television, shopping, wishful thinking a la The Secret) or trying to forcibly destroy it (blame or attack the world in some way), we look at it closely, understand it and see how it works.
The next core teaching is that on top of the inevitable pain that comes along with being human, we create more drama for ourselves by then proceeding to desperately try and make the good bits of life continue unabated forever, and try and avoid the unpleasant bits at all costs. It is this very desperate 'clinging' to the good (and absence of bad) that creates the optional dukkha in life. While the dhamma doesn't suggest inaction to improve our circumstances, it suggests we first accept what's happened, then respond out of calm clarity rather than resist what's happened and react out of this desperation. It's when we let go of this desperation, says the Buddha, that a very natural joy and peacefulness arises of its own accord.
So while the dhamma is definitely about the good stuff, it's about a realistic path to it. There's no short cut or easy route; no all-powerful God who's going to take care of it all for you, but rather, the hard work of looking closely at your own reality, understanding it deeply, accepting it, and then living in a way that allows the good stuff to happen.
Endnote: If you find this topic interesting there's a book I've been meaning to read for ages: Ending the Pursuit of Happiness by Barry Magid - a Zen teacher and psychoanalyst.
Link: The Secular Buddhism web site's URL will be: http://www.secularbuddhism.org.au/ but it's in transit at the moment, so if you'd like a look at it now go to http://dharmadaptation.wordpress.com/)
I was sitting on the toilet in one of my favourite cafes recently. Someone had left a pretty decorated piece of paper on the toilet roll holder, presumably as a message for subsequent sitters. Here's what it said:
Like a mother
cares for her children,
so does the Lord
care for His.
He keeps them warm
when night turns cold
and gives them
everlasting love.
I felt incredulity arise - how could anyone but a child swallow such a story? Empathy was there too - I could feel the seduction of safety - someone all-powerful who will care for me and keep me safe and warm. Who wouldn't like that? But I have to admit there was also condescension - not a feeling I like because there's an arrogance in it and I've never been able to find anything good about arrogance. On reflection the thoughts that led to this feeling were that for an adult to choose to believe this, they must be unwilling or unable to deal with reality. Instead of learning how to live with life as it is, there is an adoption of a belief to make them feel happier and less scared by it.Stephen Batchelor speaks of the Buddha's teachings as an opportunity for confrontation (with reality) as opposed to what religions offer which is consolation (from reality). (Religious Buddhism is no different to other religions in this way, offering the consolations of an ancient Indian religious world view.) Instead of warmth, everlasting love and the promise of something better once this life is over, the dhamma is about looking honestly and unflinchingly at reality - the here and now experience of this fathom-long body - the good, the bad and the ugly bits - the whole catastrophe. It's about dealing better with the inevitable difficulties of being a human being, removing the optional difficulties - the dramas we create for ourselves, and experiencing the incredible joy that comes quite naturally when we do these things.
This piece of toilet-time reading got me thinking about why people choose to practice the dhamma. From my experience, like religious seekers, most people come to it out of the desire to relieve some acute or chronic pain (including existential angst) and/or the desire to be happier. What I've found both confronting and liberating is that while these are definitely results that flow from practising the dhamma, they are only part of the story. Unfortunately for those who like quick fixes, the means of achieving these outcomes involves living life more honestly and fully which means experiencing the pain more directly (rather than trying to avoid it) and more deeply (sitting with it long enough to really get to know it).
A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald described research showing that happier people tend to be promoted less and earn less. While I know a lot of people in the corporate world who could do with less cash and more happiness, there were some other more worrying correlates. One was that 'very high levels of positive feelings predict risk-taking behaviours, excess alcohol and drug consumption, binge eating, and may lead us to neglect threats'. Not only this but people were more likely to use racist or sexist stereotypes when evaluating people and more likely to drop out of school early. It also described research showing that people who strive for happiness more, constantly measuring to see if they are getting it, tend to be less happy.
While we'd probably need to look more closely at how these studies measured 'happiness' before putting too much stock into the findings, it did coagulate some thoughts I've been having for a while now. They last arose when I received a brochure in the mail for the annual conference in Sydney called "Happiness and its Causes". While I'm a big advocate of Positive Psychology and of the need to overcome the negativity bias that our species has inherited, it has occurred to me that pursuing happiness too single mindedly can easily slip into self delusion territory.
One of the core teachings of the Buddha was that there is suffering/angst/ stress/unpleasantness in life (the Pali word that covers all of these strains of pain and more is 'dukkha'). The practical imperatives that flow from this are to accept that this is true (any human being can look at their life and know it for themselves), expect this from our own future (we're not so good at this bit), and when it comes, change our reaction to it. Rather than running away from it (e.g. distracting ourselves with work, drugs, alcohol, television, shopping, wishful thinking a la The Secret) or trying to forcibly destroy it (blame or attack the world in some way), we look at it closely, understand it and see how it works.
The next core teaching is that on top of the inevitable pain that comes along with being human, we create more drama for ourselves by then proceeding to desperately try and make the good bits of life continue unabated forever, and try and avoid the unpleasant bits at all costs. It is this very desperate 'clinging' to the good (and absence of bad) that creates the optional dukkha in life. While the dhamma doesn't suggest inaction to improve our circumstances, it suggests we first accept what's happened, then respond out of calm clarity rather than resist what's happened and react out of this desperation. It's when we let go of this desperation, says the Buddha, that a very natural joy and peacefulness arises of its own accord.
So while the dhamma is definitely about the good stuff, it's about a realistic path to it. There's no short cut or easy route; no all-powerful God who's going to take care of it all for you, but rather, the hard work of looking closely at your own reality, understanding it deeply, accepting it, and then living in a way that allows the good stuff to happen.
Endnote: If you find this topic interesting there's a book I've been meaning to read for ages: Ending the Pursuit of Happiness by Barry Magid - a Zen teacher and psychoanalyst.
Link: The Secular Buddhism web site's URL will be: http://www.secularbuddhism.org.au/ but it's in transit at the moment, so if you'd like a look at it now go to http://dharmadaptation.wordpress.com/)
Monday, January 16, 2012
Everyday theft
I think it's fair to say that most people in modern affluent societies don't often steal posessions from others. However there is a theft that I observe frequently in this kind of society - one that's less obvious and yet a theft no less - headspace theft.
A few years ago my husband and I went on a holiday to Spain. We spent a couple of weeks on an organised back packing tour initially, to get our bearings, before going it alone for the rest of the month. On this tour was an incredibly irritating woman - let's call her Gillian. Gillian seemed to subscribe to the belief that 'I speak, therefore I am'. She seemed to think that unless she was talking she didn't exist. At first I thought it might have been nerves at meeting the new group of people with whom she was about to spend a couple of weeks travelling. She was in her 50s and travelling alone - she might have been trying to fit in. It continued relentlessly for the whole two weeks.
Over the time we travelled with this group I felt very conflicted. On one hand I could see that she was desperately lonely and hungry to belong. On the other she was exhausting, dull as dog poo and entirely self absorbed. On one 5 hour bus trip we were unlucky enough to be seated in front of her. She was sitting next to a young woman who was a vet and we could hear their conversation. Before a half hour was up we knew the name and breed of every dog she and every one of her family members had ever had, what they were like, what they would and wouldn't eat, every ailment that had ever befallen them, what they died of and where they were buried. Finally the young vet managed to get in one (interesting) story and not two minutes into it we could hear Gillian's camera clicking - she'd finished talking so was taking photos out the bus window.
It didn't take long before even our most patient, 'nice', accommodating fellow travellers perfected the art of avoiding her as we left our accommodations on our 'free' days. There was strategic positioning on buses, trains and dinner tables to get away from her. I found myself starting to be rude to her to try and get the message through as it was almost a physical pain to me to be unable to let my brain rest. (The photo below is me and my fellow travellers being talked at...'Gillian' is out of view.)
It was like Gillian had an invisible one way mirror all around her - everything was a means of seeing her own reflection and no information or feedback from outside got in. I don't know if it was that she didn't know how to have real dialogue or she was just so desperate for attention, to feel seen. Either way the net result was she had few relationships and those that were patient enough to be with her did so out of charity, not out of a desire to be with her. She talked herself into a lonely bubble.
While this is an extreme example of a headspace thief, they are not a rare breed. I can think of several of them on the periphery of my life. They are generally partners of friends as, like most people, left to my own devices I give headspace thieves a wide berth. But what has this to do with the dharma?
One of the principles for living that the Buddha suggested (in the noble eightfold path) was to take from others only what is freely given. That probably sounds a bit like 'thou shalt not steal' but the Buddha wasn't into shoulds and shouldn'ts, much less trying to control people with shalls and shan'ts. He was into observing closely and seeing what leads to happiness and peace and what leads to less good stuff, then choosing your actions accordingly. So this principle is an insight he shared about what helps a person towards peace and happiness and what doesn't.
If we take my Spain story as a case in point and observe closely the cause and effect at play, we can see that Gillian was definitely taking from all of the people around her, a resource (headspace) that was not being freely given after the first 10 minutes of her acquaintance. This might have relieved Gillian of the confronting possibility of facing her own demons should silence fall. Having listened to many hours of her stories my perception was that her primary demon was loneliness and she was very scared of it. So she gorged herself constantly on others' time and attention, regardless of whether they were offering it, and the net result was a state of disconnection from others which ironically fed her demon.
Teenagers steal headspace from each other all the time as they try to build a sense of belonging by bouncing their self-images off of each other and having them accepted. I remember doing it myself - listening to my friend talk about herself and communicating a sufficient amount of interest to earn the right for her to listen to me... talk about me. If she listens and sounds interested or approving then that's a sign that I'm accepted......aaah.....safe.
However we expect that maturity brings less neediness on this front and an interest in and ability to truly attend to the humanity experience of others. Where this progression has stalled, as in the case of Gillian, it speaks of a demon that is ripe for facing. I have loads of patience and compassion for people who are practicing the courageous act of demon-facing, but much less for headspace thieves who are robbing from me to feed their demons.
If you're interested, here are a few questions to do a self-check on the extent to which you might be a headspace thief. As an interesting exercise, you could answer these for yourself, then ask a good friend who is likely to be honest with you (your partner if you have one?), what their answers are regarding your behaviour. If you find you are frequently thieving, try deliberately not doing this (the questions below also serve as some ideas on how) and then see what comes up for you - what feelings, fears, experiences - this will help point you in the vicinity of your hungry demon:
A few years ago my husband and I went on a holiday to Spain. We spent a couple of weeks on an organised back packing tour initially, to get our bearings, before going it alone for the rest of the month. On this tour was an incredibly irritating woman - let's call her Gillian. Gillian seemed to subscribe to the belief that 'I speak, therefore I am'. She seemed to think that unless she was talking she didn't exist. At first I thought it might have been nerves at meeting the new group of people with whom she was about to spend a couple of weeks travelling. She was in her 50s and travelling alone - she might have been trying to fit in. It continued relentlessly for the whole two weeks.
Over the time we travelled with this group I felt very conflicted. On one hand I could see that she was desperately lonely and hungry to belong. On the other she was exhausting, dull as dog poo and entirely self absorbed. On one 5 hour bus trip we were unlucky enough to be seated in front of her. She was sitting next to a young woman who was a vet and we could hear their conversation. Before a half hour was up we knew the name and breed of every dog she and every one of her family members had ever had, what they were like, what they would and wouldn't eat, every ailment that had ever befallen them, what they died of and where they were buried. Finally the young vet managed to get in one (interesting) story and not two minutes into it we could hear Gillian's camera clicking - she'd finished talking so was taking photos out the bus window.
It didn't take long before even our most patient, 'nice', accommodating fellow travellers perfected the art of avoiding her as we left our accommodations on our 'free' days. There was strategic positioning on buses, trains and dinner tables to get away from her. I found myself starting to be rude to her to try and get the message through as it was almost a physical pain to me to be unable to let my brain rest. (The photo below is me and my fellow travellers being talked at...'Gillian' is out of view.)
It was like Gillian had an invisible one way mirror all around her - everything was a means of seeing her own reflection and no information or feedback from outside got in. I don't know if it was that she didn't know how to have real dialogue or she was just so desperate for attention, to feel seen. Either way the net result was she had few relationships and those that were patient enough to be with her did so out of charity, not out of a desire to be with her. She talked herself into a lonely bubble.
While this is an extreme example of a headspace thief, they are not a rare breed. I can think of several of them on the periphery of my life. They are generally partners of friends as, like most people, left to my own devices I give headspace thieves a wide berth. But what has this to do with the dharma?
One of the principles for living that the Buddha suggested (in the noble eightfold path) was to take from others only what is freely given. That probably sounds a bit like 'thou shalt not steal' but the Buddha wasn't into shoulds and shouldn'ts, much less trying to control people with shalls and shan'ts. He was into observing closely and seeing what leads to happiness and peace and what leads to less good stuff, then choosing your actions accordingly. So this principle is an insight he shared about what helps a person towards peace and happiness and what doesn't.
If we take my Spain story as a case in point and observe closely the cause and effect at play, we can see that Gillian was definitely taking from all of the people around her, a resource (headspace) that was not being freely given after the first 10 minutes of her acquaintance. This might have relieved Gillian of the confronting possibility of facing her own demons should silence fall. Having listened to many hours of her stories my perception was that her primary demon was loneliness and she was very scared of it. So she gorged herself constantly on others' time and attention, regardless of whether they were offering it, and the net result was a state of disconnection from others which ironically fed her demon.
Teenagers steal headspace from each other all the time as they try to build a sense of belonging by bouncing their self-images off of each other and having them accepted. I remember doing it myself - listening to my friend talk about herself and communicating a sufficient amount of interest to earn the right for her to listen to me... talk about me. If she listens and sounds interested or approving then that's a sign that I'm accepted......aaah.....safe.
However we expect that maturity brings less neediness on this front and an interest in and ability to truly attend to the humanity experience of others. Where this progression has stalled, as in the case of Gillian, it speaks of a demon that is ripe for facing. I have loads of patience and compassion for people who are practicing the courageous act of demon-facing, but much less for headspace thieves who are robbing from me to feed their demons.
If you're interested, here are a few questions to do a self-check on the extent to which you might be a headspace thief. As an interesting exercise, you could answer these for yourself, then ask a good friend who is likely to be honest with you (your partner if you have one?), what their answers are regarding your behaviour. If you find you are frequently thieving, try deliberately not doing this (the questions below also serve as some ideas on how) and then see what comes up for you - what feelings, fears, experiences - this will help point you in the vicinity of your hungry demon:
- When you ring someone do you first ask if it's a good time to speak, or do you just start talking?
- When in conversation, what's your ratio of speaking to listening? Is it less than or more than 50:50? Experiment with 40:60 or 30:70 next time you're with a friend. How difficult is this for you?
- When you're listening to someone, how much of your own headspace is taken up with preparing what you're going to say next?
- Do you respond to the signs that your conversation partner isn't interested or has had enough, or do you ignore them and keep talking? Signs include: they break eye contact, increase the speed of their speech, use a matter of fact tone that suggests 'let's wrap it up', try to change the topic.
- How many questions do you ask when in conversation?
- Do you listen fully to the answers to your questions or are they only a means of introducing your next topic?
- For how long can you happily participate in a conversation about someone or something unrelated to yourself?
- Do you talk over the top of others or cut them off mid sentence?
- Do you race people out of the talking blocks...i.e. if you both start talking at once do you steam ahead and hope the other person stops? Do you quickly start your sentence as soon as the last person's finished to make sure you get in first?
- If you have something difficult to talk about with someone, do you ask first if they are willing to talk about it? When they answer, do you abide by that? (If not talking about it has negative effects on you, you can communicate this.)
- When in company, are you okay with silence between topics or do you feel compelled to fill it in?
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Dealing with the involuntary stuff – lessons from a broody chook
The Buddha’s teachings are about understanding how stress/angst/unhappiness works in this human experience and using that knowledge to let go of the bits that are optional – the bits we create for ourselves. I’ve been pondering lately on the bits that are not optional – the bits that are an inevitable, unavoidable part of being a human. He listed the key unavoidable painful experiences as:
· birth
· sickness
· old age
· death
· not getting what we want
· getting what we don’t want and
· being parted from things we love
As I write this I’m watching one of my chickens Goldilocks, who is broody at the moment (this means she just wants to sit on the nest for weeks on end in order to hatch some eggs....which isn’t going to happen because we don’t have a rooster). I’ve closed the coop so she can’t get in, so she’s not getting want she wants. She walks around and around it trying in vain. She does this several times a day and is clearly unhappy about it. When she’s broody she also gets irritable, makes distinct cranky noises, flaps her wings and is generally unsettled.
I feel sorry for my chooks when they go through this. It’s a very natural chook experience and there’s no easy way out – if I let her sit on the nest she is likely to not eat or drink much for weeks. If I toss her off the nest as I’m doing, she walks around feeling anxious and cranky and gets picked on by my other chook. So I just try to soothe her with pats, make sure she’s eating, drinking and not being picked on too much and generally try to ease her angst until this biological phase is over.
It occurred to me recently that the way I deal with my chooks’ unavoidable angst is more helpful than the way I deal with my own. I’ve been getting a bit of what I don’t want lately – let me share another sprinting-as-practice story (see ‘The Need to Win’ from July 2011 for my first instalment).
Since February this year I’ve been training with a masters sprinting squad. At first my goals were to simply enjoy sprinting (without the angst of having self esteem tied to winning which I did as a child) and to get fit. Those two goals are well and truly under way – I’m loving training and I’m getting fitter and faster with each month that goes by. A couple of months ago I decided to face my old demon and have a go at competing. This is what has given me the experience of ‘getting what I don’t want’.
In the lead up to a competition, there arises in this body/mind a bunch of anxiety. I’m not consciously thinking this anxiety into existence, it just comes up of its own accord when I think about racing or when I’m preparing to race. It’s an old thought-feeling pattern that was worn in during my childhood and has not yet been re-wired. As I’ve inspected this experience more closely I’ve become aware that there are some very subtle and fleeting thoughts that arise along the lines of ‘you’re not as good as you think you are’ and as a result, ‘I don’t know if I can do it’. It registers in the body as tightness and restlessness, in the mind as constriction of thought and in the emotions as nervousness, stuckness, frustration and fear of disappointment. None of this is helpful to my 100m time!
The Buddha talked about five different causes of things (in Pali, 'niyamas') of which karma (intentional action) is only one (Nagapriya, Exploring Karma and Rebirth 2004; canonical source - the Moliyasīvaka sutta) . They are:
1. physical/inorganic (e.g. a boulder falls on top of you)
2. biological (the characteristics of the body/mind we are born with)
3. non-volitional mental (e.g. the effects of trauma, mental illness, or the good luck of a Buddha moving in next door to you)
4. ethical (karma)
5. spiritual (e.g. you meditate and increase your awareness, your life changes)
What I’m experiencing is a dose of cause #3. While this example is not as extreme as trauma or mental illness, we all have automatic thought--> feeling patterns that have been worn in over our lives, especially during our formative years. Psychologists often call this our character structure. It’s different to our personality (e.g. how extraverted we are) because it’s not hard wired, the patterns can be changed. It’s the patterns of:
stimulus --> thought --> feeling --> response
(through our senses) (conscious and otherwise)
(through our senses) (conscious and otherwise)
On closer inspection I found that the stimuli in this situation are:
1. being on a track with other women, lined up next to each other
2. having the ‘take your marks, set...bang’ in the air.
Even the thought of these sights and sounds is enough to trigger the pattern - the self doubting thoughts which would lead to the feelings which would cause me to tense up (physically as well as mentally).
So I started to observe my own response to this pattern arising: I’d resist the experience with thoughts about how much I disliked the feelings coming up, I’d feel frustration because I couldn’t get rid of them, and sometimes a feeling of hopelessness – springing from thoughts that I’m stuck with it and that it will hamper my running efforts forever. Very different to my response to Goldilocks’ involuntary mental state.
This kind of pattern and the response to it led to my first race being quite abysmal. My time for the 100m was way slower than what I do at training. Of course I felt really disappointed, and the old ‘you’re not as good as you think you are’ demon left for the day feeling smug.
So now I ask myself: what if I could be as gentle and accepting with the involuntary habits of my own body/mind as I am with Goldilocks’ broodiness? What if I could accept that this old pattern of stimulus--> response does still exist, let go of the ‘I wish I could get rid of this’ reactions, and replace them with acceptance and care?
One of the most helpful phrases I’ve invented for bringing the dharma into my life is:
Accept and respond, don’t resist and react.
Essentially, I’ve been resisting this unavoidable (for the moment anyway) angst and in doing so creating more angst around it. What if I could accept that this ‘stuff’ comes up and see it like Goldie’s broodiness – something that is part of being a chook or human and be kind to myself in the way I am to Goldie? Do what I can to make the experience less unpleasant – to soothe myself and exercise kindness and compassion to myself.
My coach’s reaction was great – he pointed out the positives – I started well out of the blocks and did well over the first 30m but then tightened up and lost my form. Good for my first run in 25 years he said. He wasn’t disappointed he said. So I’ve identified that listening to and taking in the encouragement from my coach is one thing that can help soothe the angst in the same way that I soothe Goldie with a pat. For me, this is part of the kindness to self thing. It can help ease the pain while I work on changing the old pattern.
Once I’ve accepted the existence of this pattern and been kind to myself with it, I could then respond in a way that helps it change rather than react with struggle out of the tension and unpleasant feelings. I know how to change these ‘non-volitional mental’ happenings but that has to happen over time. In the present, it would seem that acceptance, kindness and other forms of self soothing are the keys.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Expectations - have you set your dial for angst or equanimity?
One of the most wonderful experiences of my life was a weekend away with half a dozen of my dearest friends for my 40th birthday. As part of this I had asked them to bring along their 'wisdoms' - I figured with a good few decades under our belts we should have gathered a few - and we shared them. One of mine was: 'disappointment is always preceded by expectation'. Have a look at your own experience of disappointment - is it true? The implication of this 'wisdom' is to check your expectations to make sure the dial is set on 'reality'.
This is easier said than done.
An expectation I've been discussing recently with some friends is that of 'life should be fair'. A member of my meditation group observed this week how the systems we are a part of in developed countries tend to set us up for that expectation: school, university, some families. In Australia we have a great deal of social mobility and almost no social class system, so it's easy to grow up thinking that if you work hard you will be offered the relevant rewards. Indeed we have legal systems that attempt to bring fairness to our society. Then you enter the big wide world and realise that our own behaviour is but one small factor in the soup of forces at play in any given situation.
I had my dial firmly planted on this one in my early years and it caused me all sorts of angst. As I entered the work force I found out pretty quickly that there is not a direct correlation between contribution and reward. There are all sorts of forces at play in determining who receives promotions, pay rises and opportunities in an organisation. My own effort and skill was just one factor. I persisted with many 'shoulds' in my world view for a good decade or so until I realised just how academic they were - how little impact they had on reality other than making me appear rigid and probably a bit negative at times.
I suspect the 'life should be fair' expectation is less pervasive in developing countries. I think about India and the caste system. I remember a story my husband told me from his travels there about a man who ran a business burning bodies in the Ganges. He was a very wealthy man from this trade but he was of the lowest caste in India so most businesses would not accept him as a customer. The good schools would not accept his children despite the fact that he could afford their fees. (He ended up sending his kids to school in America.) I would imagine if he had an expectation that life is fair, he'd be one bitter and twisted individual. The same could be said for many people in developing countries (and possibly even the 1 in 7 people in the U.S. currently living on food stamps).
The Buddha's teachings highlight three key beliefs that lead to particularly problematic expectations that cause us lots of unhappiness. I've also heard them called the 'three tragic mis-understandings'. They are:
Intellectually most of us would probably say that we don't believe things are permanent, reliable and stable. We know living things die, relationships and people change and the best singer doesn't always win Australian Idol. However all we need to do is observe the shock experienced when someone we know dies, or the sense of grief and loss at a relationship or circle of friends changing over time, or the righteous indignation of someone else getting a promotion that we felt we had earned and we feel directly the gap between what we were expecting (this person to live - at least to a ripe old age, relationships to always be a certain way, rewards to be allocated reliably according to contribution) and what actually happened. This can even be felt on a small scale with small things, for example when loved toys break or when someone who we look to for support is not there for us when we want them to be.
I read a quote from some Buddhist monk which said 'anything can happen any time' which is probably an expectation much closer to the 'reality' end of the dial. Sure, it's often reasonable to expect a bit of a pattern based on the past (e.g. a reliable employee continuing to be so) but do we expect 'a bit of a pattern that shows up a fair bit of the time given certain conditions' or do we expect reliability? When we feel really disappointed I suspect we've been expecting reliability. We say we feel 'let down'....from what? From our expectations. I think most of us expect that the way we've arranged our lives will be the same tomorrow as it was today. We don't turn the knowledge of impermanence/ unreliability/instability into expectations of what might happen...in our life....today.....or at any time. This causes us great shock and angst when the truth of impermanence/unreliability/instability shows up in our lives.
Accepting that things aren't reliable or stable doesn't mean we don't try and build better legal systems that protect justice or better organisations that more transparently reward valuable contributions. It means that our starting point is an acceptance that what is, is.....at the moment.... and working from there. As opposed to resisting the truth of the situation you're in and wasting a whole bunch of energy reacting and being outraged that things aren't fair, stable, reliable or lasting. If we integrate these truths into our expectations of life, it's a whole lot easier to 'accept and respond' rather than 'resist and react'.
Believing happiness is intrinsic to stuff and relationships
We don't have to look too hard to see the truth of this one. Think about your life right now: is there anything you are really wanting? If so, what is the vision of how happy life will be when you get it? Try an experiment: write down a vivid description of how happy you think you'll be when you get this thing you want so much. Then when you get it (which of course you may or may not do apropos the previous point) once you've experienced it for a while, go back and assess the truth of that claim. You'll probably find it's somewhere between partly true and false.
Sometimes it's the case that things we want do make us a bit happier in some way. For example, earning enough money to not be worried about paying the bills will probably remove certain stresses in life and probably lead to a bit more happiness. However in thinking about what it will be like when we get that better paying job, do we think: 'I'll not have the stress of scarcity which will be nice but it will also mean there'll be more room for my other stressors to get a look-in', or 'my brother will start asking me for money'? No, we tend to think 'it'll be SO good when I'm earning more' and build up a picture of happiness and joy that will envelop our life when this thing happens. Accordingly, we can get very stressey and intense about getting this 'thing'.
So it's not that the things we want don't bring us joy or happiness. It's that they bring us joy and happiness........ sometimes........and they also bring us lots of other things, other challenges, frustrations and difficulties. The problem is that our mental movie (that sets our expectations), only includes the good bits. So we spend the whole time thinking about the good bits of the promotion we are desperate for: the nicer office, the ability to do things the way we think they should be done, the pay packet, the respect that will come when you hand out your business card or meet people at a social outing and they ask what you do for a living and how you'll feel at the school reunion. What sits on the editing suite floor is the bit where you have little time for your family and friends, you are having to spend much more time playing politics and dealing with 'people-issues', and the bits of the weekend where you don't have to work you spend sleeping and recuperating in time for Monday. Seeing this more accurately would lead to less disappointment when we do or don't get that promotion, and less desperation and angst in the lead up to it.
I remember a chap I used to work with. He was a pretty senior guy in the company and had earned a lot of money through being a great salesman. One day he bought himself a 5 series BMW (these cost a little short of $100,000). Knowing him I think his mental movie had the BMW bringing him respect and admiration from the people around him. In reality, he was so desperate for these things that not a day went by where he neglected to drop in to conversation something about his new 5 series BMW. It didn't take too long before it became a running joke among his staff who were scoffing at him behind his back. That wasn't part of the movie, nor was his own desperation to be seen as a success - that too was left on the editing suite floor. Clearly happiness is not intrinsic to 5 series BMWs.
This is also very true with relationships. We might think that if we get ourselves some good friends that we'll be happy. The movie might have us always doing things together, laughing, supporting each other when we are going through difficulties and generally feeling warm and connected. The reality of relationships of any depth is that there are usually these things.....and usually some tensions too. Wherever there is intimacy there is also usually at least some tension. Close friends aren't always there for you when you want their support - they have their own lives and their own stuff to deal with. Really good friends will often challenge you and give you feedback that isn't always flattering - that's not often part of the movie. They might occasionally react badly to things you say and do, even when you didn't intend anything bad - that's doesn't often make it to the 'good friends will make me happy' movie. We know from research in social psychology that social connectedness does improve happiness overall. But it also brings us all sorts of challenges - they just don't ask that question in happiness surveys.
Setting the dial to reality
So what if we were to start seeing things more accurately and setting our expectations dial accordingly? What if we were to see friends as a source of enjoyment, intimacy, learning and difficulty? What if were to see marriage as a great classroom for learning about ourselves and developing as a person rather than as the 'happily ever after' that we often start with? How about we see expensive cars as sources of pleasure as well as sources of division from others (as all status symbols are) and burdens that require protecting and expensive maintenance? How about we see next week, next month, next year as probably including my family in tact but maybe not? How about we think of our future with our employer as maybe including that promotion and maybe not. And can we see that promotion as making us happier in some ways and also bringing us difficulty? Can we stop leaving the unpleasant bits on the editing suite floor and make our movies, which set our expectations, a closer match to reality?
So is long lasting, deep happiness possible?
While it's only a small portion of the population who seem to achieve this, they show that the answer is yes. The Buddha essentially said that this happiness arises naturally when we get acquainted with the way experience really works, we become very present to it, and we stop desperately trying to craft our life to bring us happiness through craving for things to be a certain way (due to the three tragic misunderstandings). I'm certainly no Buddha but one thing I've noticed is that when I'm not striving, needing, wanting, and when I'm really present in my current experience, there is an inexplicable joy that arises for no good reason. It's not dependent on stuff out there in the world - only on my inner world - and this is what the Buddha's teachings are all about.
This is easier said than done.
An expectation I've been discussing recently with some friends is that of 'life should be fair'. A member of my meditation group observed this week how the systems we are a part of in developed countries tend to set us up for that expectation: school, university, some families. In Australia we have a great deal of social mobility and almost no social class system, so it's easy to grow up thinking that if you work hard you will be offered the relevant rewards. Indeed we have legal systems that attempt to bring fairness to our society. Then you enter the big wide world and realise that our own behaviour is but one small factor in the soup of forces at play in any given situation.
I had my dial firmly planted on this one in my early years and it caused me all sorts of angst. As I entered the work force I found out pretty quickly that there is not a direct correlation between contribution and reward. There are all sorts of forces at play in determining who receives promotions, pay rises and opportunities in an organisation. My own effort and skill was just one factor. I persisted with many 'shoulds' in my world view for a good decade or so until I realised just how academic they were - how little impact they had on reality other than making me appear rigid and probably a bit negative at times.
I suspect the 'life should be fair' expectation is less pervasive in developing countries. I think about India and the caste system. I remember a story my husband told me from his travels there about a man who ran a business burning bodies in the Ganges. He was a very wealthy man from this trade but he was of the lowest caste in India so most businesses would not accept him as a customer. The good schools would not accept his children despite the fact that he could afford their fees. (He ended up sending his kids to school in America.) I would imagine if he had an expectation that life is fair, he'd be one bitter and twisted individual. The same could be said for many people in developing countries (and possibly even the 1 in 7 people in the U.S. currently living on food stamps).
The Buddha's teachings highlight three key beliefs that lead to particularly problematic expectations that cause us lots of unhappiness. I've also heard them called the 'three tragic mis-understandings'. They are:
- The belief that things are permanent, reliable and stable (causing us to expect that things will last and can be relied upon)
- The belief that material stuff and relationships can bring us complete and constant happiness causing us to expect that this, and only this, is what we'll get (e.g. if only I had this car or job or boyfriend or holiday or award or wealth or notoriety etc. etc., THEN I'd be SO happy).
- The belief that there is a singular, stable, enduring, independent 'me' that exists somewhere. This one causes us to expect that we will only feel and behave in certain ways no matter what and that people will always see us the way we want them to and respond to us accordingly. For more detail on this one, see the post 'Bloody Not-Self'.
Intellectually most of us would probably say that we don't believe things are permanent, reliable and stable. We know living things die, relationships and people change and the best singer doesn't always win Australian Idol. However all we need to do is observe the shock experienced when someone we know dies, or the sense of grief and loss at a relationship or circle of friends changing over time, or the righteous indignation of someone else getting a promotion that we felt we had earned and we feel directly the gap between what we were expecting (this person to live - at least to a ripe old age, relationships to always be a certain way, rewards to be allocated reliably according to contribution) and what actually happened. This can even be felt on a small scale with small things, for example when loved toys break or when someone who we look to for support is not there for us when we want them to be.
I read a quote from some Buddhist monk which said 'anything can happen any time' which is probably an expectation much closer to the 'reality' end of the dial. Sure, it's often reasonable to expect a bit of a pattern based on the past (e.g. a reliable employee continuing to be so) but do we expect 'a bit of a pattern that shows up a fair bit of the time given certain conditions' or do we expect reliability? When we feel really disappointed I suspect we've been expecting reliability. We say we feel 'let down'....from what? From our expectations. I think most of us expect that the way we've arranged our lives will be the same tomorrow as it was today. We don't turn the knowledge of impermanence/ unreliability/instability into expectations of what might happen...in our life....today.....or at any time. This causes us great shock and angst when the truth of impermanence/unreliability/instability shows up in our lives.
Accepting that things aren't reliable or stable doesn't mean we don't try and build better legal systems that protect justice or better organisations that more transparently reward valuable contributions. It means that our starting point is an acceptance that what is, is.....at the moment.... and working from there. As opposed to resisting the truth of the situation you're in and wasting a whole bunch of energy reacting and being outraged that things aren't fair, stable, reliable or lasting. If we integrate these truths into our expectations of life, it's a whole lot easier to 'accept and respond' rather than 'resist and react'.
Believing happiness is intrinsic to stuff and relationships
We don't have to look too hard to see the truth of this one. Think about your life right now: is there anything you are really wanting? If so, what is the vision of how happy life will be when you get it? Try an experiment: write down a vivid description of how happy you think you'll be when you get this thing you want so much. Then when you get it (which of course you may or may not do apropos the previous point) once you've experienced it for a while, go back and assess the truth of that claim. You'll probably find it's somewhere between partly true and false.
Sometimes it's the case that things we want do make us a bit happier in some way. For example, earning enough money to not be worried about paying the bills will probably remove certain stresses in life and probably lead to a bit more happiness. However in thinking about what it will be like when we get that better paying job, do we think: 'I'll not have the stress of scarcity which will be nice but it will also mean there'll be more room for my other stressors to get a look-in', or 'my brother will start asking me for money'? No, we tend to think 'it'll be SO good when I'm earning more' and build up a picture of happiness and joy that will envelop our life when this thing happens. Accordingly, we can get very stressey and intense about getting this 'thing'.
So it's not that the things we want don't bring us joy or happiness. It's that they bring us joy and happiness........ sometimes........and they also bring us lots of other things, other challenges, frustrations and difficulties. The problem is that our mental movie (that sets our expectations), only includes the good bits. So we spend the whole time thinking about the good bits of the promotion we are desperate for: the nicer office, the ability to do things the way we think they should be done, the pay packet, the respect that will come when you hand out your business card or meet people at a social outing and they ask what you do for a living and how you'll feel at the school reunion. What sits on the editing suite floor is the bit where you have little time for your family and friends, you are having to spend much more time playing politics and dealing with 'people-issues', and the bits of the weekend where you don't have to work you spend sleeping and recuperating in time for Monday. Seeing this more accurately would lead to less disappointment when we do or don't get that promotion, and less desperation and angst in the lead up to it.
I remember a chap I used to work with. He was a pretty senior guy in the company and had earned a lot of money through being a great salesman. One day he bought himself a 5 series BMW (these cost a little short of $100,000). Knowing him I think his mental movie had the BMW bringing him respect and admiration from the people around him. In reality, he was so desperate for these things that not a day went by where he neglected to drop in to conversation something about his new 5 series BMW. It didn't take too long before it became a running joke among his staff who were scoffing at him behind his back. That wasn't part of the movie, nor was his own desperation to be seen as a success - that too was left on the editing suite floor. Clearly happiness is not intrinsic to 5 series BMWs.
This is also very true with relationships. We might think that if we get ourselves some good friends that we'll be happy. The movie might have us always doing things together, laughing, supporting each other when we are going through difficulties and generally feeling warm and connected. The reality of relationships of any depth is that there are usually these things.....and usually some tensions too. Wherever there is intimacy there is also usually at least some tension. Close friends aren't always there for you when you want their support - they have their own lives and their own stuff to deal with. Really good friends will often challenge you and give you feedback that isn't always flattering - that's not often part of the movie. They might occasionally react badly to things you say and do, even when you didn't intend anything bad - that's doesn't often make it to the 'good friends will make me happy' movie. We know from research in social psychology that social connectedness does improve happiness overall. But it also brings us all sorts of challenges - they just don't ask that question in happiness surveys.
Setting the dial to reality
So what if we were to start seeing things more accurately and setting our expectations dial accordingly? What if we were to see friends as a source of enjoyment, intimacy, learning and difficulty? What if were to see marriage as a great classroom for learning about ourselves and developing as a person rather than as the 'happily ever after' that we often start with? How about we see expensive cars as sources of pleasure as well as sources of division from others (as all status symbols are) and burdens that require protecting and expensive maintenance? How about we see next week, next month, next year as probably including my family in tact but maybe not? How about we think of our future with our employer as maybe including that promotion and maybe not. And can we see that promotion as making us happier in some ways and also bringing us difficulty? Can we stop leaving the unpleasant bits on the editing suite floor and make our movies, which set our expectations, a closer match to reality?
So is long lasting, deep happiness possible?
While it's only a small portion of the population who seem to achieve this, they show that the answer is yes. The Buddha essentially said that this happiness arises naturally when we get acquainted with the way experience really works, we become very present to it, and we stop desperately trying to craft our life to bring us happiness through craving for things to be a certain way (due to the three tragic misunderstandings). I'm certainly no Buddha but one thing I've noticed is that when I'm not striving, needing, wanting, and when I'm really present in my current experience, there is an inexplicable joy that arises for no good reason. It's not dependent on stuff out there in the world - only on my inner world - and this is what the Buddha's teachings are all about.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tough love, warm love and their imposters
One of the positive trends I've noticed in modern society is the increasing focus on doing a good job of parenting. The old 'children are to be seen, not heard' days seem to be well behind us which is a good thing. My husband and I have chosen not to have children but almost all of our friends chose differently. So I get to observe the many different attitudes and approaches that people take and I've paid attention to the same in people I meet through business, sport and other endeavours.
An issue that has arisen for me as I've done this, is whether there is any place for 'tough love'. I want to be very clear what I mean by that because I think it can be understood in different ways. What I mean is letting people we care about deal with difficulty as a source of learning. I don't mean the following non-loving routines - let's call these tough love imposters:
However my upbringing also included the tough love imposters. These taught me to believe that when the chips are down no-one will want to help me (so I felt unsupported and un-cared for), to have a scarcity mindset that included the belief that I didn't deserve and would never have enough, and it caused me to be a very slow learner on some of life's important lessons because I often felt under threat and so was in ego-protection mode.
One of the things about tough love is that it doesn't have to be done coldly or impersonally. Indeed if we communicate about why we are doing it, we stay connected with them during the challenge, we offer ourselves as a sounding board, coach or advisor, and let the person know we believe they are up to the challenge, it can be a confidence building experience and a true form of love. If we think of love as the genuine care for one's wellbeing, this helps prepare the person for the challenges of life ahead, so it is indeed love. The net result is an increase in confidence and competence - what a gift!
I started this post talking about parents I've observed. One of the concerns I've had as I've done this observing is that many parents seem to be pushing the pendulum down the other end of the chamber where they do everything for their kids, pay for everything, let them live at home until they are in their 30s and get in and 'help' by solving their kids' problems. I imagine that seeing your kids suffer must be difficult; painful. Yet I can't help but think that this kind of behaviour is not love - it's not caring for their wellbeing because it is fostering an inability to deal with life themselves and a set of beliefs and expectations that are destined for a collision with the world outside the home.
At a business conference a few months ago I was talking to a fellow who would have been in his 50s. He has three 'children' all in their 20s. All of them live at home. None of them have driver's licences or cars of their own because their parents drive them where they want to go, none of them have jobs (one was studying a second degree, another was an 'artist', another was unemployed), and two of them had been on overseas holidays - paid for by Mum and Dad. If Mum and Dad were hit by a bus, these adults would be lost. They would need to learn how to take care of themselves in an awful hurry, under great stress, with little confidence in their own competence and having probably learnt some unhelpful expectations from life which would make that learning more difficult.
While this example might be an extreme, I see smaller examples of it everywhere. From letting children interrupt adult conversations at whim to allowing them to have everything their hearts desire, to giving a teenager money without ever having to earn it, to always letting kids win games, to removing or chasing away a child's conflicts to prevent them from being upset. I'm not suggesting for a minute that we don't try and help; I'm suggesting that the way of helping that is truly loving is to let them feel the heat and help them learn to deal with it, rather than shielding them from the heat so that when they do eventually venture into the big wide world, they are not shocked and overwhelmed.
At some point, almost all of us have to learn that we need to take responsibility for our lives if we also want freedom. We have to learn that self esteem is largely earned, we have to learn to be competent, that acting aggressively and avoiding conflicts have negative effects that usually come back to bight us, and that we are not the centre of the universe. There are many other things too, but parents who are unwilling to let their children suffer are shielding them from these important lessons - which means they will learn them later in life, when they are surrounded by a world that is much less likely to take care with how it teaches them. Or they won't learn them and they will suffer even more.
And why? Because the parent doesn't want to suffer the pain of seeing the child suffer. While that's understandable and worthy of compassion, it's not love, it's aversion to pain. In a way it's saying 'let's avoid both of us suffering now, so that you can do it alone when I'm gone'. Another motivation I've seen is from parents who seem to need the approval of their children. So they try to make them feel good (never saying no, never insisting that they do things they don't want to do) in order to be liked and to avoid dealing with the pain of their own insecurity. Either way, it doesn't seem to me that it's all that loving as it's not directed at the wellbeing of the child - their momentary happiness perhaps, but not their wellbeing past this moment. It's passing up an opportunity to support them through a lesson and leaving them to learn it themselves in what will likely be a much more difficult and less loving circumstance. Perhaps we could call these 'warm love imposters' (I've often heard of such things referred to as the 'near enemy' - e.g. it looks/sounds a bit like the real thing but is in fact something inimical to it).
So I guess I'm making the case for the importance of tough love amidst plenty of warm love, and to be wary of tough love imposters and warm love imposters which are two different means of avoiding some fear by dressing it up as love. The Buddha's first noble truth is that there is dukkah (suffering, angst, stress, unease etc.) and the imperative is to get to know it. Tough love can actually help us prepare our kids for this truth and its implications. The imposters are forms of clinging and aversion that cause more dukkah (second noble truth). Some possible questions to help ascertain if it's an imposter:
For warm love imposters:
An issue that has arisen for me as I've done this, is whether there is any place for 'tough love'. I want to be very clear what I mean by that because I think it can be understood in different ways. What I mean is letting people we care about deal with difficulty as a source of learning. I don't mean the following non-loving routines - let's call these tough love imposters:
- being tough with people as the norm, or because we are too uncomfortable with being softer or kinder
- being tough with people because 'that's the way we were treated and so why should anyone else (e.g. the next generation) have it easy?'
- the 'sink or swim' strategy where we give the learner no assistance with the learning process, they are just left to either make it or not, and if they don't, well, they're left to deal with the consequences because 'that's life!'
However my upbringing also included the tough love imposters. These taught me to believe that when the chips are down no-one will want to help me (so I felt unsupported and un-cared for), to have a scarcity mindset that included the belief that I didn't deserve and would never have enough, and it caused me to be a very slow learner on some of life's important lessons because I often felt under threat and so was in ego-protection mode.
One of the things about tough love is that it doesn't have to be done coldly or impersonally. Indeed if we communicate about why we are doing it, we stay connected with them during the challenge, we offer ourselves as a sounding board, coach or advisor, and let the person know we believe they are up to the challenge, it can be a confidence building experience and a true form of love. If we think of love as the genuine care for one's wellbeing, this helps prepare the person for the challenges of life ahead, so it is indeed love. The net result is an increase in confidence and competence - what a gift!
I started this post talking about parents I've observed. One of the concerns I've had as I've done this observing is that many parents seem to be pushing the pendulum down the other end of the chamber where they do everything for their kids, pay for everything, let them live at home until they are in their 30s and get in and 'help' by solving their kids' problems. I imagine that seeing your kids suffer must be difficult; painful. Yet I can't help but think that this kind of behaviour is not love - it's not caring for their wellbeing because it is fostering an inability to deal with life themselves and a set of beliefs and expectations that are destined for a collision with the world outside the home.
At a business conference a few months ago I was talking to a fellow who would have been in his 50s. He has three 'children' all in their 20s. All of them live at home. None of them have driver's licences or cars of their own because their parents drive them where they want to go, none of them have jobs (one was studying a second degree, another was an 'artist', another was unemployed), and two of them had been on overseas holidays - paid for by Mum and Dad. If Mum and Dad were hit by a bus, these adults would be lost. They would need to learn how to take care of themselves in an awful hurry, under great stress, with little confidence in their own competence and having probably learnt some unhelpful expectations from life which would make that learning more difficult.
While this example might be an extreme, I see smaller examples of it everywhere. From letting children interrupt adult conversations at whim to allowing them to have everything their hearts desire, to giving a teenager money without ever having to earn it, to always letting kids win games, to removing or chasing away a child's conflicts to prevent them from being upset. I'm not suggesting for a minute that we don't try and help; I'm suggesting that the way of helping that is truly loving is to let them feel the heat and help them learn to deal with it, rather than shielding them from the heat so that when they do eventually venture into the big wide world, they are not shocked and overwhelmed.
At some point, almost all of us have to learn that we need to take responsibility for our lives if we also want freedom. We have to learn that self esteem is largely earned, we have to learn to be competent, that acting aggressively and avoiding conflicts have negative effects that usually come back to bight us, and that we are not the centre of the universe. There are many other things too, but parents who are unwilling to let their children suffer are shielding them from these important lessons - which means they will learn them later in life, when they are surrounded by a world that is much less likely to take care with how it teaches them. Or they won't learn them and they will suffer even more.
And why? Because the parent doesn't want to suffer the pain of seeing the child suffer. While that's understandable and worthy of compassion, it's not love, it's aversion to pain. In a way it's saying 'let's avoid both of us suffering now, so that you can do it alone when I'm gone'. Another motivation I've seen is from parents who seem to need the approval of their children. So they try to make them feel good (never saying no, never insisting that they do things they don't want to do) in order to be liked and to avoid dealing with the pain of their own insecurity. Either way, it doesn't seem to me that it's all that loving as it's not directed at the wellbeing of the child - their momentary happiness perhaps, but not their wellbeing past this moment. It's passing up an opportunity to support them through a lesson and leaving them to learn it themselves in what will likely be a much more difficult and less loving circumstance. Perhaps we could call these 'warm love imposters' (I've often heard of such things referred to as the 'near enemy' - e.g. it looks/sounds a bit like the real thing but is in fact something inimical to it).
So I guess I'm making the case for the importance of tough love amidst plenty of warm love, and to be wary of tough love imposters and warm love imposters which are two different means of avoiding some fear by dressing it up as love. The Buddha's first noble truth is that there is dukkah (suffering, angst, stress, unease etc.) and the imperative is to get to know it. Tough love can actually help us prepare our kids for this truth and its implications. The imposters are forms of clinging and aversion that cause more dukkah (second noble truth). Some possible questions to help ascertain if it's an imposter:
For warm love imposters:
- is this course of action preventing them from learning something important about cause and effect?
- if I said no to what they are asking of me, how would I feel? Why? Have I got some fear around saying no or refusing to rescue them?
- if I let them take the painful option, could I be with them during the experience to help them learn? If not, why not?
- if this person/child was angry at me for a period of time, could I handle that? If not, why not?
- is it important for me to be seen to be helping/rescuing my child? If so, who is it that I think is watching/ noticing? And why do I want them to see?
- is there any room for this person to possibly doubt that I am supporting them through this difficulty, or that I support and care about them generally? If so, what can I do to reassure them?
- do I give this person plenty of genuine warm love too? If not, how do I feel when I imagine doing that?
- do they really need this lesson (e.g. do I already give it in many other ways) and could I let them off the hook sometimes (to teach them that life isn't ALWAYS hard)?
- how can I deliver the message in a way that communicates my care for them?
- What can I do along the way to show that I care for them?
- How can I help them learn from this? (Remember, if they feel too unsafe, they are unlikely to learn well.)
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The need to win - a disguise for the hunger to be seen
You don't have to look too far in our society to see people competing with each other. Whether we are trying to out-do someone at work, playing team sport, or even cooking and house renovating these days, there is a pervasive milieu of competition. (Currently in Australia our television networks all seem to have some version of a cooking show that pits people against each other in some kind of 'cook-off' or teams of renovators, back-packers, dancers, singers, business entrepreneurs - you name it there's a competition revolving around it.) You even hear of parents being banned from children's sporting matches due to their unruly behaviour when their kid's team starts to lose.
So what's wrong with that? Where do I start? Perhaps with the underlying principle that is the culprit. I call it the 'see-saw principle' and it is essentially that, for me to be up, you need to be down...and vice versa. Where there can be only one winner, I have a vested interested in you failing, so if there's anything I can do to bring that about I will do it. From a dharmic point of view that sounds like harmful intention and harmful action.
A slightly less extreme version of this principle is the 'keeping up with the Joneses' tendency. Here I might not be trying to beat you but at least I need to show you aren't beating me. Psychologists call this 'social comparison' and there is abundant evidence that it generally makes us unhappy.
Apart from the see-saw principle it also undermines my own achievement because instead of focusing on the possibilities of what I might be able to do, I let you set the bar - as long as I beat you then I'm happy. I may have achieved nowhere near a personal best, but if I beat you, my work here is done. Rather than striving for a goal, or even better, striving to enjoy what I'm doing or the experience of doing it well, I strive to come out superior to you.
Let me showcase this in a few different settings starting with leadership and the corporate world. For decades now, there's been research to show that competitive behaviour among employees diminishes performance. One of the ways I earn a living is to run leadership programs and as part of this I put groups of leaders through a simulated problem solving challenge. Those groups that engage in competitive behaviours (among others) routinely do worse than those who focus all of their attention on finding the best solution, regardless of who contributes the 'best' ideas. More broadly, competitive behaviour encourages employees to withhold information from each other, encourages the diversion of energy into keeping up appearances and diminishes cooperation. When people lose, they are motivated to make excuses rather than to learn from their failure.
Another example comes from my soccer team. We are currently half way through our third season as a reasonably stable team with the same coach. For the first two years our coach was terrific. He focused us on a small number of key things to do, gave us loads of encouragement and very rarely criticised us. He excited us towards being better and the enjoyment of being on and contributing to the team also grew. In the first year we were nowhere on the ladder. Last year we were one point away from the finals. This year he has decided that not only are we going to win the season but we are going to do it from the top of the ladder.
You may think, well, yes, it's a competitive sport, isn't that a legitimate place to be competitive? Well, let me share with you my observations of the behaviour that is now emerging as a result of our coach's need to win. From the very first training session this year he has been grumpy and very easily frustrated. Whenever we do anything wrong, he criticises us and expresses his frustration emotionally. He gives almost no encouragement any more. On the sideline at games he moans and growls and sighs and criticises. Last weekend we faced a team that was short a couple of players. By half time we were up 3-1 and he yelled and screamed at us. Instead of scoring another 3 or 4 goals in the second half, we scored only one. I believe we could indeed win the season this year but the biggest obstacle to that is our coach's desperation to win which has diminished his focus on how to get the best from us.
If we look closely at the desperate need to win, we can see that it has lots to do with the dharma. An easy way to access this is to ask the question: if I lose, what is the problem? For our coach, I think his ego has become interwoven with the triumph of our team. For us to go from nowhere on the ladder to champions in three seasons would show just how good he is - probably in the eyes of the other club members (he is the Secretary of the club and very enmeshed in it as his social world). I think for many people (putting aside professional athletes whose income can rely on it), the main pay-off for winning is that we get to be a 'somebody' in other people's eyes. The pay-off is the perception that we will be elevated in others' esteem - that we will matter and be admired. This is smack-bang in the middle of ego/selfing territory (spun-identity - see the post Bloody Not-Self for more on this).
I am currently engaging in dharma practice on the athletics track. This year I have joined a masters sprinting team and have set myself the initial goals of 1) enjoying sprinting; and 2) getting fit. If I can achieve goal #1 soundly then I might think about competing.
When I was a child I was very good at athletics. In my first season of Little Athletics I won everything and was either Age Champion or runner up in every year of high school. However I never really enjoyed it. I had, and still feel the echoes of, a great deal of anxiety around competing on the track. Because I was so successful so early in my life, I spent my whole (short) athletics career in fear that I wouldn't win. As the second of six children (sandwiched in between two brothers) with a father who was pretty disinterested in kids unless they were good at something, to win meant to 'be seen'; to be a somebody. As I entered my teen years, of course being a 'somebody' in the eyes of my peers was also pretty important to my sense of self esteem.
According to the dharma, the hunger or thirst to 'exist' is one of the three core 'cravings' that leads to the clinging that causes our (optional) suffering. In an interpersonal sense, to 'exist', is to be seen, recognised, admired, appreciated, desired etc. So for me, sprinting on the track was associated with the ever-present possibility of a slide into the unpleasantness of being a nobody. I craved to be seen (was often criticised by my brothers for being an attention seeker) and I clung to winning athletics as a means of feeding this hunger. Having now walked a good way on my own personal journey, and having proved myself to myself over the past couple of decades, I can honestly say that feeling competitive with others is now a rare experience for me. However to resume sprinting will bring me face to face with the shadows of that old demon.
So with my intentions planted firmly in mindfulness and getting to know (and therefore disempower) that old demon, I've returned to sprinting now - 25 years after I last sprinted on a track. I'm learning to know my mind's habits in this setting and I'm quite enjoying being able to observe and get to know this terrain from a place of emotional safety. I'm observing what kinds of things cause me to switch into 'competitive mode' and how that feels in the body. I'm also observing what it's like when I'm present to the body's motion and I'm focusing on building my joy habit. In fact I've found myself a little motto - 'the joy of flight' - to help keep me focused on being present to and enjoying the act of sprinting. When I'm up on my toes and balanced, it really does feel like flying, and there is definitely a joy in that.
An interesting feature of this adventure for me is that the masters squad I've joined is coached by the current world #1 male masters athlete, Peter Crombie. The reason I tell you this is that Peter has spent most of the current athletics season recovering from injury. As I write this he is probably checking in to his hotel in Sacramento for the World Masters Games as the top masters athlete in the world, knowing that he probably won't win and may not even get a medal. Over the past 5 months I've had the privilege of not just training under his guidance but discussing with him my dharmic goal of looking this demon in the eye and knowing it well so that it no longer scares me. Peter is not a Buddhist nor has he explored the dharma as far as I know - yet his own trajectory to World No. 1 has led him to the same place - a focus on the process - on the journey - and a realisation that an attachment to the outcome/destination is a recipe for suffering.
I remember going to a seminar on outstanding achievers a few years ago. One of the common features of these people, whether they were piano virtuosos or Olympic athletes was that they didn't focus on the prize. They focused on the process. Indeed I remember an interview with Cathy Freeman (Australia's female Olympic gold medallist in sprints at the 2000 Olympics) after she had run her 100m heat. The journalist asked her whether she thought it was a good enough time to make the final. Her response was, something like 'oh, I don't know, but I'm really happy with how I ran, it felt really good'. She later won the Olympic gold medal. Apparently on her mirror in the change room, she had written the letters 'PB' (Personal Best) and her target time. So not only is focusing on the process the best way to avoid the creation of uneccesary doses of suffering, it's also the best way to achieve excellence.
While I do think this need to win has gotten a bit out of control in our modern society, it's not like it's a new thing. Indeed Chuang Tzu, the influential and respected Taoist sage wrote of its drain on us in around 250BCE:
Not working for personal gain
When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets --
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him.
He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting--
And the need to win drains him of power.
(19:4, p. 158)
So a few (hopefully helpful) questions to help apply this thinking to daily life:
1) in what circumstances or compared to whom do I feel the need to win (or whom do I need to feel better than)?
2) if I lost or looked like I wasn't better than them, how would I feel? If the answer is some form of anger (e.g. frustration, annoyance), what softer emotion lies beneath that? What am I afraid of if I don't win?
3) whose opinion of me does winning/losing affect?
4) why does their opinion have such an impact on me?
5) what aspect of my self concept (identity) does this threaten? (For more on this see the post Bloody Not-Self).
6) what evidence is there from my life that I am loveable, worthy, credible and respectable even if I'm not consistent with this bit of my self concept all the time?
Another suggestion for anyone who finds this topic interesting: Peter Crombie recommended a fabulous movie to me - The Peaceful Warrior.
So what's wrong with that? Where do I start? Perhaps with the underlying principle that is the culprit. I call it the 'see-saw principle' and it is essentially that, for me to be up, you need to be down...and vice versa. Where there can be only one winner, I have a vested interested in you failing, so if there's anything I can do to bring that about I will do it. From a dharmic point of view that sounds like harmful intention and harmful action.
A slightly less extreme version of this principle is the 'keeping up with the Joneses' tendency. Here I might not be trying to beat you but at least I need to show you aren't beating me. Psychologists call this 'social comparison' and there is abundant evidence that it generally makes us unhappy.
Apart from the see-saw principle it also undermines my own achievement because instead of focusing on the possibilities of what I might be able to do, I let you set the bar - as long as I beat you then I'm happy. I may have achieved nowhere near a personal best, but if I beat you, my work here is done. Rather than striving for a goal, or even better, striving to enjoy what I'm doing or the experience of doing it well, I strive to come out superior to you.
Let me showcase this in a few different settings starting with leadership and the corporate world. For decades now, there's been research to show that competitive behaviour among employees diminishes performance. One of the ways I earn a living is to run leadership programs and as part of this I put groups of leaders through a simulated problem solving challenge. Those groups that engage in competitive behaviours (among others) routinely do worse than those who focus all of their attention on finding the best solution, regardless of who contributes the 'best' ideas. More broadly, competitive behaviour encourages employees to withhold information from each other, encourages the diversion of energy into keeping up appearances and diminishes cooperation. When people lose, they are motivated to make excuses rather than to learn from their failure.
Another example comes from my soccer team. We are currently half way through our third season as a reasonably stable team with the same coach. For the first two years our coach was terrific. He focused us on a small number of key things to do, gave us loads of encouragement and very rarely criticised us. He excited us towards being better and the enjoyment of being on and contributing to the team also grew. In the first year we were nowhere on the ladder. Last year we were one point away from the finals. This year he has decided that not only are we going to win the season but we are going to do it from the top of the ladder.
You may think, well, yes, it's a competitive sport, isn't that a legitimate place to be competitive? Well, let me share with you my observations of the behaviour that is now emerging as a result of our coach's need to win. From the very first training session this year he has been grumpy and very easily frustrated. Whenever we do anything wrong, he criticises us and expresses his frustration emotionally. He gives almost no encouragement any more. On the sideline at games he moans and growls and sighs and criticises. Last weekend we faced a team that was short a couple of players. By half time we were up 3-1 and he yelled and screamed at us. Instead of scoring another 3 or 4 goals in the second half, we scored only one. I believe we could indeed win the season this year but the biggest obstacle to that is our coach's desperation to win which has diminished his focus on how to get the best from us.
If we look closely at the desperate need to win, we can see that it has lots to do with the dharma. An easy way to access this is to ask the question: if I lose, what is the problem? For our coach, I think his ego has become interwoven with the triumph of our team. For us to go from nowhere on the ladder to champions in three seasons would show just how good he is - probably in the eyes of the other club members (he is the Secretary of the club and very enmeshed in it as his social world). I think for many people (putting aside professional athletes whose income can rely on it), the main pay-off for winning is that we get to be a 'somebody' in other people's eyes. The pay-off is the perception that we will be elevated in others' esteem - that we will matter and be admired. This is smack-bang in the middle of ego/selfing territory (spun-identity - see the post Bloody Not-Self for more on this).
I am currently engaging in dharma practice on the athletics track. This year I have joined a masters sprinting team and have set myself the initial goals of 1) enjoying sprinting; and 2) getting fit. If I can achieve goal #1 soundly then I might think about competing.
When I was a child I was very good at athletics. In my first season of Little Athletics I won everything and was either Age Champion or runner up in every year of high school. However I never really enjoyed it. I had, and still feel the echoes of, a great deal of anxiety around competing on the track. Because I was so successful so early in my life, I spent my whole (short) athletics career in fear that I wouldn't win. As the second of six children (sandwiched in between two brothers) with a father who was pretty disinterested in kids unless they were good at something, to win meant to 'be seen'; to be a somebody. As I entered my teen years, of course being a 'somebody' in the eyes of my peers was also pretty important to my sense of self esteem.
According to the dharma, the hunger or thirst to 'exist' is one of the three core 'cravings' that leads to the clinging that causes our (optional) suffering. In an interpersonal sense, to 'exist', is to be seen, recognised, admired, appreciated, desired etc. So for me, sprinting on the track was associated with the ever-present possibility of a slide into the unpleasantness of being a nobody. I craved to be seen (was often criticised by my brothers for being an attention seeker) and I clung to winning athletics as a means of feeding this hunger. Having now walked a good way on my own personal journey, and having proved myself to myself over the past couple of decades, I can honestly say that feeling competitive with others is now a rare experience for me. However to resume sprinting will bring me face to face with the shadows of that old demon.
So with my intentions planted firmly in mindfulness and getting to know (and therefore disempower) that old demon, I've returned to sprinting now - 25 years after I last sprinted on a track. I'm learning to know my mind's habits in this setting and I'm quite enjoying being able to observe and get to know this terrain from a place of emotional safety. I'm observing what kinds of things cause me to switch into 'competitive mode' and how that feels in the body. I'm also observing what it's like when I'm present to the body's motion and I'm focusing on building my joy habit. In fact I've found myself a little motto - 'the joy of flight' - to help keep me focused on being present to and enjoying the act of sprinting. When I'm up on my toes and balanced, it really does feel like flying, and there is definitely a joy in that.
An interesting feature of this adventure for me is that the masters squad I've joined is coached by the current world #1 male masters athlete, Peter Crombie. The reason I tell you this is that Peter has spent most of the current athletics season recovering from injury. As I write this he is probably checking in to his hotel in Sacramento for the World Masters Games as the top masters athlete in the world, knowing that he probably won't win and may not even get a medal. Over the past 5 months I've had the privilege of not just training under his guidance but discussing with him my dharmic goal of looking this demon in the eye and knowing it well so that it no longer scares me. Peter is not a Buddhist nor has he explored the dharma as far as I know - yet his own trajectory to World No. 1 has led him to the same place - a focus on the process - on the journey - and a realisation that an attachment to the outcome/destination is a recipe for suffering.
I remember going to a seminar on outstanding achievers a few years ago. One of the common features of these people, whether they were piano virtuosos or Olympic athletes was that they didn't focus on the prize. They focused on the process. Indeed I remember an interview with Cathy Freeman (Australia's female Olympic gold medallist in sprints at the 2000 Olympics) after she had run her 100m heat. The journalist asked her whether she thought it was a good enough time to make the final. Her response was, something like 'oh, I don't know, but I'm really happy with how I ran, it felt really good'. She later won the Olympic gold medal. Apparently on her mirror in the change room, she had written the letters 'PB' (Personal Best) and her target time. So not only is focusing on the process the best way to avoid the creation of uneccesary doses of suffering, it's also the best way to achieve excellence.
While I do think this need to win has gotten a bit out of control in our modern society, it's not like it's a new thing. Indeed Chuang Tzu, the influential and respected Taoist sage wrote of its drain on us in around 250BCE:
Not working for personal gain
When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets --
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him.
He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting--
And the need to win drains him of power.
(19:4, p. 158)
So a few (hopefully helpful) questions to help apply this thinking to daily life:
1) in what circumstances or compared to whom do I feel the need to win (or whom do I need to feel better than)?
2) if I lost or looked like I wasn't better than them, how would I feel? If the answer is some form of anger (e.g. frustration, annoyance), what softer emotion lies beneath that? What am I afraid of if I don't win?
3) whose opinion of me does winning/losing affect?
4) why does their opinion have such an impact on me?
5) what aspect of my self concept (identity) does this threaten? (For more on this see the post Bloody Not-Self).
6) what evidence is there from my life that I am loveable, worthy, credible and respectable even if I'm not consistent with this bit of my self concept all the time?
Another suggestion for anyone who finds this topic interesting: Peter Crombie recommended a fabulous movie to me - The Peaceful Warrior.
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