Introduction to Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a simple, but profound concept. It comes from the thousands-year-old tradition of Buddhism and Taoism, but is not tied to any religion in any way. Mindfulness is simply focusing one’s attention on the current moment and what is coming in via the five senses. It is just as important for what it is not; it is letting go of our mind’s wandering into the past or future, evaluation, and categorization.
Mindfulness can certainly be practiced as meditation. Usually one begins with focusing on the breath, bringing the focus back as the mind wanders, without judgement. Practicing mindfulness in the form of meditation may have even greater benefits than other forms, but that does not diminish the huge benefits of any type of mindfulness practice.
Mindfulness can be practiced in the shower, while driving, while cleaning the house, etc. Once it is seen by the definition above, it becomes easy to find time to practice.
So what is gained by practicing mindfulness?
1. It is practice for controlling our attention.
2. It increases our awareness of inner processes.
A. Sensations
B. Emotions
C. Thinking
D. Action Tendencies
3. It is “letting go” practice.
4. It quiets our “mind clutter”, providing silence within which inner wisdom can arise.
5. Provides practice for non-judgement
6. Provides practice for living in the now.
7. Helps us learn about our “self”
8. Lets us experience the power of just being, versus doing.
9. Helps us learn to differentiate between what is real (what comes in via our senses) and what is mind generated (evaluations, judgements, stereotyping, predicting, mind-reading, etc).
10. It also helps us differentiate between what is real versus what our emotions are telling us.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
It’s that time of year, when gray skies can turn into gray moods. I’ve put together the latest research that I know of and created a handout that describes the problem, and more importantly, the solutions.
The Touch of the Master’s Hand
It was battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.
“What am I bid, good people”, he cried,
“Who starts the bidding for me?”
“One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?”
“Two dollars, who makes it three?”
“Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,”
But, No,
From the room far back a gray bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as the angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said “What now am I bid for this old violin?”
As he held it aloft with its’ bow.
“One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?”
“Two thousand, Who makes it three?”
“Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone”, said he.
The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
“We just don’t understand.”
“What changed its’ worth?”
Swift came the reply.
“The Touch of the Masters Hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune
All battered with bourbon and gin
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Masters’ Hand.
Myra Brooks Welch
What is our Worth – Part III
In a previous post, I mentioned the analogy of the teacup, which is made of porcelain (fact), and which I think is very beautiful (opinion). You may think it is ugly. Porcelain is an attribute of the teacup, but beauty is not. It is an attribute of my, and your, evaluative thinking. So it is with self-worth. You are worth what you decide you are worth.
It should be noted too that other’s evaluations of us are usually connected with what they want from us. As such, evaluations of our worth are used to manipulate us. Sometimes, this is to our benefit, and sometimes not, but it is usually for the benefit of the manipulator.
If self-actualization is the highest good of mental health, then it is critical that we observe and follow the path that our core self desires. We cannot do that by chasing the approval of others. We must instead, be quiet and listen to the voice within us that is truly our own. By doing so, concepts of “worth” disappear, as they are just an illusory measure from the outside world. I believe that this describes the reason that clients often describe feeling empty, worthless, and also not knowing who they are. We have been programmed to be what others want us to be and have lost touch with our self.
Another way of viewing the concept of worth is as the wrong measure for humans. Our society is so obsessed with attaching a value or other measure to everything that we do not stop to consider that it does not apply to humans. If you have a pet, what are they worth? Often clients will answer “priceless” to that question, while feeling “worthless” themselves. Perhaps it is like asking “how many quarts is that couch?” or “what sound is that beam of light making?” – we are trying to apply the wrong measure for the context.
At the end of the day, of course, all of these intellectualizations are for naught. That is because the problem is not a logical one, but a feeling one. As such, allowing the feeling in, exploring it in depth for its origins, describing its qualities, focusing on its position in the body, understanding what it is trying to motivate us to do – - may well do more good than logical discussion.
The Three Aspects of Self
“Self” is a word that we use pretty loosely day to day. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has a tripartite conceptualization of self. The one that fits best with the way we tend to use the word is “self-concept.” These are the labels that we put on ourselves, such as intelligent, an engineer, mother, lazy, bipolar, Democrat, Catholic, victim, middle-class, etc. They are the way we view ourselves, and perhaps as others view us. These become part of our identity. However, they constrain us unnecessarily, as they do not really describe who we are at our core.
Self-as-container implies that we have parts. Some of these parts are people with whom we have had close relationships, such as our parents, siblings, and close friends. They may also be partial representations of people who have abused us emotionally, physically, or sexually. We may even have parts from earlier times in our lives, such as a child part. We may have critical parts or fearful parts. Hopefully, our healthy adult part is in charge most of the time, but if we notice, some of these other parts come to the fore at certain times.
Most important for optimum mental health is our observer self. This is the aspect of self that lets us notice our own thoughts,emotions, sensations, and behavior and to make meaning. Development of this part increases our awareness or consciousness about our selves. This is the self that has been with us always, before we had the parts in our container self or the labels that make up our self-concept. Quiet attention to our observer self can accelerate our mental and spiritual growth. Some would say that this core self, which cannot be touched or described, also contains our connection to a higher power, shared consciousness, and so forth.
Understanding this view of the self helps us have a different perspective on our worth as well. More on this later.
Resentment
What is resentment?
Resentment is the:
* harboring of animosity against a person or group of people whom I feel has mistreated me.
* unresolved anger I have over a negative event which occurred in my past life.
* seething, aching emotional turmoil I feel whenever a certain person or event is discussed.
* lack of forgiving, the inability to let go and forget.
* root of distrust and suspicion I have when dealing with people or events that brought me pain in the past.
* unresolved grief I experience when I find it difficult to accept a loss.
* result of being heartbroken after exerting a great deal of effort and energy to achieve something that eventually was lost to me.
* result of feeling that I was unjustly victimized with no resolution to the problem.
* long-term suffering in silence when an open expression of hurt is unwanted and uninvited.
* cancer robbing me of contentment in life.
* grudge I hold against a person or group of people whom I feel has kept me from achieving.
* feeling offended but silent when I believe that a person or group of people have ignored or denied my rights.
* root of my depression.
How is my resentment manifested?
When I am filled with resentment toward a person or group of people I:
* pout or fume silently in their presence or at the mention of their name.
* get upset when music, a movie or a TV show reminds me of the unpleasant interactions I have had with them.
* speak in a derisive or demeaning way about them.
* have nightmares or distressing thoughts or daydreams about them.
* become stuck in my efforts for personal growth and I don’t even know why.
* get furious for no apparent reason.
* get depressed, despondent and find myself going in circles in my attempts to overcome these negative feelings.
* avoid mentioning or discussing anything that relates to my past anger or upset with them.
* grit my teeth and smile when I really want to scream and yell when these people are mentioned to me.
* fake enthusiasm and excitement about being with these people when I’d rather have nothing to do with them.
How does resentment develop?
Resentment can be the outcome of:
* accepting negative treatment from others passively, never expressing negative feelings about it.
* agreeing to do something for others yet feeling that I am being taken for granted or taken advantage of.
* trying to get others to see my point of view while they ignore or deny the truth or wisdom in what I have to say.
* seeing others succeed who have not worked as hard as I have. I feel they don’t deserve this measure of success.
* going unrecognized for my good work or competency while others who are more in favor are recognized.
* working hard and having others prevent me from realizing the bounty of my success.
* having someone whom I have tried hard to please reject my efforts of caring and concern.
* an impossible position in a relationship with someone where I am damned if I do and also damned if I don’t do what the person wants from me.
* being embarrassed by a person whose goal was to belittle me.
* being consistently rejected, unapproved, unaccepted and abandoned by another.
* being the object of discrimination or prejudice.
* being ignored, put down, scorned and rejected by a person or people for whom I made sacrifices.
* having someone I care about be treated unjustly with my requests to stop such action going ignored.
* trying my best to please someone but no matter how well I did, it was never good enough.
* recognizing that I am the one who always makes the effort in a relationship, and when I stop giving the relationship ceases.
* giving in a relationship hoping to sustain it, but the other person abruptly terminates it.
* never getting the chance to seek reparation for having been victimized.
What are the negative effects of my unresolved resentment?
When I have unresolved resentment I:
* am touchy or on edge when I am reminded of the person or persons I resent.
* usually deny any anger or hatred against those whom I resent.
* am provoked or angered when I see those whom I resent get recognized and reinforced for their achievements.
* am bothered by my hostile, cynical and sarcastic attitude; it becomes a barrier between me and the people with whom I want to establish a healthy relationship.
* get stuck in my efforts to grow as a person.
* reject all efforts to get me to work on forgiving and forgetting past offenses and hurts.
* resist all attempts to get me to get on with my life, including the suggestion that I have unfinished business with people from my past which needs to be addressed.
* find it difficult to open myself up to trust others, especially in new relationships.
* find it hard to believe that I’ll ever be recognized for my competency, worth and abilities.
* tend to overcompensate in my efforts to be successful.
What irrational thinking underlies my resentment?
* No matter what I do, it is never good enough, so why try?
* People are out to get me so, I’ll reject them before they reject me.
* There is no use in resolving unfinished business with people from my past who mistreated me.
* Everyone is out to get me.
* Hard work, a clean life and treating people fairly is a waste of time; it has never paid off for me.
* There is no way I can forgive or forget my negative past.
* I’ll never win at anything I try; I’ve always lost up until now.
* There are the “haves” and the “have nots,” and I’m a have not guaranteed to be a loser.
* My life should at least be fair.
* It is better to grin and bear it; I’ll never get anywhere with an open, honest approach.
* What’s done is done, so let it be.
* I’ve never been given a break in the past; why should I expect anything different now?
* It’s all a matter of politics: who you know and what you have to bow down to that determines your fate.
* It’s who you know rather than what you are that determines your success.
* Why is it that people with fewer talents, who work less and struggle little, always seem to get ahead while I remain stuck.
* The price of hard work and effort seems to be failure and disappointment for me.
* There’s always going to be someone who will guarantee that I’ll be unsuccessful.
* They are all alike; why try to win them over or be nice to them.
* It will never change; why try to alter the situation between me and them.
* There are always people more talented, prettier and more competent standing in the wings to take my place.
How can I overcome resentment?
Techniques I can use to rid myself of resentment include:
* admitting to myself that there is unresolved resentment behind my hostile, cynical and sarcastic attitude; and deciding to rid myself of it.
* doing private anger work-out toward the people I resent.
* writing a letter in which I detail all of the reasons for my resentment, but not mailing it.
* identifying the “hot buttons” that indicate the presence of resentment in me and working at defusing their impact.
* working at a rational outlook on my past life so that it isn’t a chain around my neck in the future.
* listing those for whom I’ve got resentment and systematically working at forgiving and forgetting their past offenses.
* improving my self-esteem and self-worth; looking only to myself for approval and recognition.
* working with my support network to identify when I slip back into resentment over my past.
* developing self-affirmations and positive self-visualizations to overcome my negative outlook on life.
* re-establishing myself in pursuits in which I excelled, but dropped due to lack of perceived success.
* working at being a winner in what I do best.
* believing in myself to be a winner in life.
Steps in overcoming resentment
Step 1: To overcome any resentment I have against a person or people in my life I first need to identify who they are and what they did to make me resentful. I need to answer the following questions in my journal:
A. Toward whom in my past or present do I hold any level of resentment?
B. What did each of these people do to hurt, offend or victimize me?
C. How real or imagined are these offenses?
D. What has the specific resentment against each of these people done to my attitude about me and my future?
E. How paralyzed am I in my efforts toward personal growth by the resentment I carry toward each of these people?
Step 2: Once I’ve identified each person I have resentment against and the extent to which this resentment has affected me, I need to develop a new way of looking at my past, present and future life. To do this I need to answer the following questions in my journal:
A. What irrational thinking am I locked into because of my resentment?
B. How will ridding myself of resentment help me to develop a positive belief system in my life?
C. How can I loosen the bonds and open myself in anger work-outs over those I resent?
D. What blocks my attempts to express my anger openly?
E. How hard am I working at overcoming my blocks to anger?
F. What new behavior do I need to develop to freely express my anger and rid myself of energy-draining resentment?
G. What new rational thinking do I need to develop to overcome the negative impact of my resentment?
H. How will my life be positively impacted by getting rid of my resentment?
I. What new behavior do I need to develop to ensure that new resentment doesn’t arise?
J. What new attitudes and approaches do I need to develop after ridding myself of resentment?
Step 3: Now that I’ve considered a change in attitude and belief system, I need to:
A. Write in my journal a letter (I will never mail these letters so I can be as brutally honest and straight forward in them) to each person I resent. In it list all real or imagined offenses.
B. Explain for myself why each person treated me badly. Was it real or imagined?
C. Forgive each person, let go and forget the offenses.
Step 4: Once I’ve let go of all of my resentment through forgiving and forgetting, I need to visualize my life, present and future, without the negative impact of resentment. I need to log this vision in my journal and affirm its reality daily.
Step 5: If I am still bogged down by the negative effects of resentment, then I need to go back to Step 1 and begin again.
This comes directly from http://www.livestrong.com/article/15076-handling-resentment/ downloaded 4-7-11, and is just reformatted for easier reading.
A Thought Experiment About Reality
Two women sit at a table in a restaurant. One begins telling a story about her 17-year-old granddaughter who has gotten pregnant. She concludes the tale by stating, “It’s just so sad.” Her lunch companion replies that it may be just what she needs in order to settle down and mature, and this may be the best thing that ever happened to her. The first lady responds, “How can you say that? It’s horrible that she has gotten pregnant and ruined her chances to go to college, have those years of freedom, get a good education, and start her career.” Her companion replies, “Lots of women have children and go on to have successful lives and be successful mothers, whether they later go to school or not.” Both participants drop the conversation as one falling into the realm of religion and politics, both a little distressed with the other for not being able to see such an obvious point.
What’s wrong with this picture?
It might be tempting to answer that question by picking a side in the argument, which would leave us in the same stalemate they find themselves in. More helpful would be to see that the first lady is treating her opinions as facts, and then arguing about them. The statement, “It is so sad”, would be more accurately stated, “I think it is so sad”, or even better, “I feel so sad when I think about what the repercussions might be.” By stating that “it is so sad”, the first woman confuses her thoughts and feelings with reality . . . a reality in this case which is in the future and unknowable. The second lady attempts to offer some alternative outcomes that might not be so distressful, but because the first has fused her thoughts/feelings with facts, she cannot, or will not, see the alternative interpretations.
Opinions come from our own experiences. It is probable that the first woman has had her own experiences relative to teen pregnancy or has absorbed beliefs about it from someone else. We have a clue that her experience is very personal though, because it is likely that her thought distortion is caused by the degree of her emotional upset. As we become upset, the emotional part of our brain actually reduces our ability to think rationally.
For people who have emotional regulation problems, as often happens to victims of long-lasting neglect or abuse, this fusion of thoughts/feelings with reality can become so extreme that their memory of facts does not match what actually happened. For example, two months from now if lady A becomes upset with lady B, she may blurt out, “that’s just like the time that you told me it was a good thing my granddaughter got pregnant!”
Saying “it’s so sad” is the kind of comment we all make. It is generally understood that we mean “I think it is sad”, just as when we say, “that was a good movie”, we’re really saying that we enjoyed the movie, not that it is a great piece of film-making by all objective standards. However, when we find ourselves defending our position, it is important to remember to do reality testing, and to separate opinion/thoughts/feelings from provable fact. This practice of noticing our thoughts and feelings and taking them for what they are, versus what they say they are (reality), can go a long way to decreasing our own stress, as well as stressful interactions in our relationships.
Emotion Regulation and Therapy
Problems with emotional regulation are at the core of problems associated with complex post traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD). This is the main symptom that differentiates these sufferers from those with PTSD. The former have typically suffered long-lasting or multiple traumas.
Another cause of emotional dysregulation is the combination of a sensitive temperament combined with an invalidating environment during childhood. The genetic part is just a predisposition. With caregivers that allow for the sensitivity of the child and who validate the child’s thoughts and feelings, emotional regulation will develop normally. Without this healthy environment, emotional dysregulation (the inability to regulate ones own emotions) can occur.
Often this unhealthy environment produces a great amount of shame in the child. Shame is defined as feeling bad about who we are, not what we have done (guilt). Overwhelming shame is at the core of much distress and mental illness.
Part of the healing of shame is to understand its origins and to reconsider the shaming messages that were given to us at a young age. This attacks the logical part, but is not nearly enough because the shame is a felt sense; an emotion that occurs well before conscious thought kicks in. Typically, the person will avoid situations that are likely to trigger the shameful feelings. At times, this may be a smart move, but a pattern of avoidance will result in the shame never healing and perhaps growing. The avoidance of shame constrains the sufferer’s life and can lead to an overall sense of worthlessness.
Shame and avoidance of it also results in what is known as a shame spiral. With alcoholics, the spiral starts with some trigger that causes the person to feel shame. So they drink to feel better. On sobering up, they feel ashamed for drinking again, and the spiral continues. This same spiral can be seen with other avoidance behaviors including overeating, blaming, aggressive behavior, etc.
Shame plays a particularly insidious role in preventing its own healing in therapy. Effective therapy involves confronting our painful past and our vulnerable present. Doing so often triggers shameful feelings originating in our past. To avoid these negative feelings, many people do not come to therapy and others drop out. Because the shameful feeling is so painful, the person cannot begin to address it with their therapist. If the person is courageous enough to come to therapy and stick it out, he will be asked to be willing to feel the shame, to explore it and learn that it is not as scary as it says it is. To break it down into its component sensations. To recognize its urge to action. The thoughts that go with it will be recognized as just thoughts, not facts. The client will often fall back on the defense (avoidant behavior) of choice, creating barriers to healing. The result can be frustrating for the client and the therapist. The therapist’s job is to continually bring the client back to having (vs. buying into) the thoughts and having the feelings (vs. buying into their scary message). The client will be asked to be willing to have these thoughts and feelings in order to remove the constraints from her life and to move her life in valued directions.
Emotion Regulation vs. Avoidance and Control
Emotions are a natural and critical bridge between our brains and our bodies. They begin their work before we are consciously aware of them, causing nerve signals and hormones to rapidly move through our body. It is only the sensation of these bodily reactions that makes us aware of the emotion. Emotions come with an action potential; to focus attention, to fight, to withdraw, to run, etc. Without adding thought to emotion, we are impulsive. By adding thought, we can use emotions and thought together to make wise decisions.
Sometimes, emotions are at the center of problems we have. An emotion may be so strong that it cuts off our ability to think. Our fight/flight response may be so sensitive that non-threatening things are sensed as threats. We may get stuck in one emotion.
When this happens, our response is often to try to avoid or control the emotion that seems to be the problem. This almost always makes the problem worse. Avoidance of thoughts and feelings is central to what causes a bad event to become a trauma and to stay that way for years. It is also central to many situations where we become stuck in an emotion. For example, fear of public speaking does not go away by avoiding public speaking, and in fact may become worse. By being willing to speak in public despite the fear; noticing the fear but not buying into it’s message, the person finds that the feared catastrophes do not occur and she may even get positive feedback. In any case, the person is choosing to do what she values, despite uncomfortable feelings and thoughts that she has which would otherwise constrain her life. Similar examples can be used to demonstrate that avoidance/control of thoughts and feelings prevents the healing of shame, grief, guilt, anxiety, phobias, etc.
Control of thoughts and feelings doesn’t work for another reason. In order to NOT think about something, we have to think about it, right? For example, a man who has been bitten by a snake gets a rush of adrenaline every time he sees a coil of rope. He can say, “I’m not going to think about the snake when I see the coil of rope.” But then he just thought about the snake, strengthening the association between the coil of rope and the coiled up snake. If, on the other hand, he goes to work in a rope factory it will not be long till that association no longer exists.
Regulation of emotion, on the other hand, is the ability to increase or decrease our level of emotional arousal. Emotions begin prior to our conscious recognition so cannot be stopped directly. However, once we notice them, we can choose to alter the effect the emotion is having on our body. The purpose of this is to allow the thinking part of our brain to work better so that our behavior is controlled by thought and emotion vs. just emotion (impulsivity). For instance, if we find ourselves angry, we might use any of the following to lower our level of emotion:
- Taking a few deep breaths
- Monitoring our breathing to breathe fully but not hyperventilate.
- Noticing our thoughts but only focusing on our present 5-senses experience.
- Meditation
- Soothing imagery
- Progressive muscle relaxation
- Looking upward at the ceiling, and/or moving our eyes back and forth between the corners of the ceiling and the walls. The former reduces our brains access to emotion and the latter helps processing of emotion.
Similarly, if we feel numb, detached, or depressed, we might:
- Make ourselves do something that we would ordinarily enjoy
- Pay particular attention to our senses; notice five things we can hear, five things we can feel, five things we can see, etc.
- Watch a funny television show or movie, even though we do not feel like doing so.
- Listen to uplifting music.
Feeling numb, detached, or depressed is often an indication that emotion is being repressed (being kept from awareness by the unconscious). This means that we are avoiding our emotions unconsciously, so we need to get at those emotions and feel them. Therapy can be helpful in this effort.
So what is the difference between distracting oneself by watching a movie (healthy) and avoiding emotions (unhealthy)? The former is a conscious activity. It also is a control of attention rather than trying to control the thought or emotion. One chooses to distract oneself for a period of time and can come back to the troubling thought or feeling at a more opportune time. Avoidance is often unconscious. Some examples of avoidant behavior include substance use/abuse, aggressive behavior, passive behavior, withdrawal, denial, cutting off relationships, rationalization, saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t care”, blaming others, staying at home, not meeting new people, pulling other people into our dramas, overeating, compulsive shopping, . . . the list is endless. Although we are conscious that we are doing these things, we are not conscious of why.
The key to healing of emotion-centered problems is being willing to move forward with life in spite of the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings; to notice and tolerate them and to not buy into their message. The goal is to learn from ongoing experience rather than from fears generated by our minds.
What is our Worth – Part II
I. Consideration of suicide – the ultimate defense against feelings of worthlessness.
- Humans are the only animals that kill themselves.
- Suicide usually occurs in response to negative states of mind (guilt, anxiety, loss, worthlessness, inadequacy, or blame)
- Animals change their behavior to avoid negative consequences and to have more positive consequences. They do this based on their PAST experience.
- In the case of suicide, humans have never experienced whether the consequences of death are positive or negative.
- Instead, suicide has a “verbal” purpose, “If I am dead, then X.” X may be anything from “no more pain”, “going to heaven”, “others being punished”, “insurance payments”, etc. It can be shown that all of this is a verbal formulation which animals are incapable of.
- Therefore, suicide is rule-governed behavior, where the rules exist as a combination of our ability to be verbal and the verbal rules (beliefs) taught to us by our culture (p. 48).
II. Having a belief “I am worthless” is the same as having a rule to that effect. However, normally, a rule can be compared to experience, and if the rule is not working for us, we can choose not to follow the rule. In this case, the truth of the rule is in the evaluations produced by the person with the rule; evaluations of events around them. Since they own the rule, it colors their evaluations, therefore artificially reinforcing the rule. This is called a strange loop. For example, praise from others will be interpreted as having been manipulated, as the other person not being very smart, as having once again fooled other people, etc. (P. 33).
III. A large part of our brain is made up of association networks, explaining why we remember parts of names, incidents, etc. and then manage to recall the whole thing by piecing together a few associations. Once something goes into the associational network, it does not come out. It may be harder to access, but it is still there. Subsequently, other things get associated to it and serve as reminders or triggers of that memory. For example, telling someone to remember the number 867 and then asking them to not think about it or forget it is giving them an impossible task. In order to not think about it, they have to think about it. Based on this, one can see how negative messages given to us by others stick in our minds, and get triggered by seemingly unrelated events. If we have been given the message that we have no worth (and that message is given to children in a myriad of ways) that sense of being worthless can be triggered by events many years later where the connection is no longer apparent. The trick is to understand that the message “I am worthless” is not different from the remembered number 867; it has no inherent meaning (P. 128).
IV. The idea that we call “self” in everyday language is really “self-concept”; all the ideas we have about ourselves and the labels we and others have put on ourselves. Our core self is not that conceptualized self. It is instead a core that is indescribable and ineffable; one could say in the same sense that God is indescribable and ineffable. There is no good or bad to it. The self simply IS. When we idenitfy ourselves with these labels, which can be positive or negative, we are mixing up who we are with a lot of language that has been used to explain our actions by others and ourselves. When these come from others, they are often in the service of getting us to continue or discontinue a behavior. They may or may not be true about our overall patterns of behavior, which were learned. Most of the time they are gross generalizations of how we behave. We often internalize these labels as being true, especially when they were given to us by powerful people (parents, older kids, teachers, etc.) when we were young.
In any case, they do not describe our SELF, but the describer’s perception or concept of who we are. Therefore, even our own evaluations are stories or concepts about who we are. They do not describe our SELF because that is indescribable. We can CHOOSE the stories we tell about ourselves, even to ourselves. We can examine the evidence to tell the most accurate and helpful story possible. But even then, we are giving a healthier conception of our self. It is like looking at a map. The map is a description of the territory and is accurate to a greater or lesser degree. But it is NOT the territory. And our self-concept is not our self. Regardless of our self-concept, our self IS what it IS. Worth is a concept that does not apply to it, just as the concept of smell does not apply to a symphony (P. 150)
This is the sense in which Buddhism refers to our life as “an illusion”. So much of what we believe as true is like this; learned rules, descriptions, evaluations, judgements that are not accurate and certainly not helpful. The Buddhist answer to this is awareness of the illusion, and letting go of these as we notice them. Even positive illusions are still illusions, and can melt away in the blink of an eye.
V. The story of the bad cup – If I have a ceramic cup and I think it is beautiful but you think it is ugly, and we are the only two people in the world, what is it really? What if I drop dead? What if you drop dead? What if we both do?
The cup is ceramic, no matter what. But it is beautiful only in my mind. Beauty is an attribute of my evaluation, not of the cup (P. 169).
VI. Values are beliefs that are strongly held by a person and that act as principles in helping them make decisions across a variety of settings. Values are choices, pure and simple. Another person may not agree with your values, but there is no argument that will stand against your values, because they are purely choices. No reasons are required. They are foundational and therefore they are flawless because they are raw material – your pure choices.
It can be helpful to identify your values and to see them as a positive, flawless part of your self-concept. If you find a flaw in your values, and only you can, you will automatically adapt your values, because your real value helped you find the flaw. Our understanding of our values may not completely match our true values until we do significant work. For example, I may choose a value because it is prized in society, but my behavior may not reflect that value. To be rigorously honest, I need to reassess that value and possibly replace it in my value list with one that is more accurately depicted by my actions. Regardless of that, we all have a solid bedrock of chosen values that we can look at as a positive foundation for our self-concept (P. 222).
VII. We analyze ourselves and find ourselves wanting. So we try harder, and then feel like that is not good enough. The cycle continues without end because we see the problem as behavior when it is really thinking and an internalized “felt sense” that was taught to us..
What if our acceptability is more like a choice, with no reasons given. Not a product of analysis. That you can choose to be OK without having to earn it. Then that critic inside our head talking about our worth is just that; not a fact, because the fact of our OK’ness has been decided by choice. What will you choose? (P. 263).
