Tag: Gentleness

How we speak to ourselves

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I tell mindfulness practitioners to listen to the tone their inner voice uses to comment on their experience. I ask them to consider whether, if they had a friend who spoke that way, they would keep that friend.

The moment in which people discover they are not holding themselves in compassion, not speaking kindly, is often startling and always sad. That awareness is sometimes enough to cause the critic’s voice to soften, and the soother’s voice to be heard.

Sylvia Boorstein, I’m Not ok, you’re not ok  – and thats ok

What I learnt from last year: Give up this year

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The main trend in the maturational process can be condensed into the different meanings of the word “integration” Winnicott

Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries. Jung

What am I looking for this year? One answer coming from modern society and from some  branches of psychology seems to indicate that I should continue to work on my self along a path toward greater development or some notion of perfection.

This drive toward change and perfection is everywhere today. Society suffers from a type of inner anorexia – continually,  unhappily,  looking at its shape in the mirror and seeing problems with it.  It is never where it wants to be.  Last evening, during a lovely celebration with friends, I listened as talk turned to the unrelenting pressure and push to reach deadlines at work. In my own work this last year I have seen the faces of people, drained, feeling cut off and empty, confused and alone  – sometimes even after they have met with the success that they have sought. I feel it myself in the unrelenting message of the media,  promoting,  as easily attainable,  a perfect body, the perfect job, the perfect friend,  perfect children, the perfect lover, a perfect life. On TV or in the cinema, I see people leading perfect lives every day, not having to struggle with the unattractive realities or ordinariness of everyday living as imperfect human beings, and I look at myself in the mirror and wonder as I see aspects of my life, “What is up with me….. I must be doing something wrong.”

Everyone has their own version of the  perfect image to which they cannot match up, linked to a fear of never being accepted. Often the striving for perfection is a defense against anxieties,  or against engagements with others that may disappoint us. For me,  it  is a struggle which drains and exhausts me, because it is linked to a self-image or concept of who I think I should be. I was well grounded in this fear and internalized,  while young,  that anything less than an ideal was not good enough. And over the years I have applied that mainly in my relationship with others. I have linked my feeling right about myself to the amount of giving I can do –  without asking for much in return   – while hoping that this will remove a sense of emptiness which I experience as residing in myself.  As time passes  I see that it is not so much that I have new experiences, but the same pattern,  over and over again. I run to take refuge in the  safe haven of my mind from the anxieties for perfection felt deep in the cells of the body. However, this just reinforces the dynamics that I mistakenly think it will overcome .

So this year, rather than demanding perfection of myself or of others, this year I intend to allow myself be the “relative failure” which Winnicott has said  is normal – human beings “fail and fail….in the course of ordinary care”. I do not have to be perfect in giving. I can see that we are never fully integrated,  and demanding continual improvement, despite what others may say, is wrong for us. Our path is towards wholeness rather than perfection, and wholeness includes being able to live with contrasts within ourselves, such as having needs while responding to others.  It also means that I can live with a fundamental emptiness without immediately thinking that it needs to be fixed. And this is the key insight of meditation practice: Opening a  non-judgmental holding space around our inner experience, without taking the feelings of imperfection personally. We need to rest with our experience of ourselves, without trying to feel more than we actually do. We can  live with the absence of perfection.

Tonight we’re going to party….

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The expectations which a new year creates can sometimes heighten the sense of  disappointment or insecurity which we feel regarding where our life actually is.

There are a number of ways in which we can respond to this insecurity. One is to say “Tonight we are going to party like it’s ….” In other words, focus on what needs to be added to your life and throw yourself into something different. Convince yourself that what is required is to go out and find a party or new friends and surround yourself with life and music, get a new look and start all over again. In this way you can leave behind the past year/ person/ relationship/ bad patch (insert your own version here……….) and break free, finally, once and for all.  Now,  this not the worst of ideas, and I too will celebrate the evening in a party with friends.  However, if the underlying causes are not faced most likely it just offers relief for a few hours. Most things started in haste or under pressure tend to pick up at the same level of development we are at when we jump into them, and thus can just prolong the same issues.

A different response is to turn on yourself, focus on what is lacking, feel bad about who you are, dissect the reasons as to why you have reached the end of another year and yet are no further on than last year, and push harder. This pushing can take the shape of finding the root causes for your problems, such as having too many unhealed problems since childhood. Or it can simply focus on now, demanding more, pushing harder, renewing your positive thoughts or ambitions for the next twelve months. This is the way to be more focused/ more balanced/have a better body/ find a new relationship (insert your own version here………..) However, pushing ourselves towards perfection is unrelenting, and, as hard as we try, we are unlikely to turn off the critical messages in our heads that say “this is never good enough” or “what will those looking at me say?” And any desire for change which is based on unrelenting standards towards ourselves tends to maintain the same division between the “I” that observes and the “I” that is not good enough and thus just perpetuates the same perspective into the future.

There are some strange contradictions inherent in change and happiness. Change comes from accepting ourselves – resting with our imperfections and recognizing that we are already enough – and seeing that we are worthy of love and belonging.  All moving forward needs to be based on our capacity to sit still, accepting what we have. Happiness comes when we do not make it the focus of our efforts, but accepting that it comes even when we are not completely satisfied with where we are at any given moment.

Give up on yourself. Begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect, or a procrastinator, or unhealthy, or lazy, or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself. Go ahead and be the best imperfect person you can be and get started on those things you want to accomplish before you die

Shoma Morita

Within the heart

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There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

Hafiz

Stillness and safety

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An old soothing lullaby, in Irish,  to calm the baby before sleep, sung here by Altan. The deepest rest comes when we know we are safe and we can let go. The progressive internalization of this safety from consistent parenting in our childhood is crucial for our capacity as adults to be alone.

Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí
A chuid den tsaol, ‘s a ghrá liom
Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí
Agus gheobhair feirín amárach

Close your eyes, love of my heart
My worldly joy, my treasure
Close your eyes, o love of my heart
And you will get a present tomorrow

Why we are afraid to show our true selves

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It is striking that the first words spoken by the angels in the Christmas story are “Do not be afraid”. It is as if one of the most important messages needed to be communicated to us is for us not to be limited by our fears. Everyday we see that the mind likes to dwell in fear. In fact, it is striking to notice how much of our day-to-day life is governed by an undercurrent of fear, which lurks behind a lot of our behaviours. This is why it is so hard to just sit still or stand still and just be ourselves — not doing anything to prove ourselves — without feeling anxious or fidgety. For these reason, we frequently develop a False Self when young, a mask which we think will be more acceptable to others. This False self is in response to failures encountered when we were growing, which led us to believe that we were not  acceptable just as we are. We feel we are not “good enough” and thus have to create a persona that we believe is better, maybe a “compulsive harder working self,” or an “always trying to please self”,  or an always” taking care of others while neglecting our own needs” self.

However, the different wisdom traditions teach that our True Self is worthwhile in and of itself.  Real freedom and joy is possible,  without hiding, and our exterior self can reflect our ture interior being, provided we know where to start. We need to begin with developing a kindness and warmth towards ourselves, by cultivating the eyes of these angels towards our inner self. Maybe these divine visitors see more clearly into our true nature, and remind us to look to that, and not to the fearful thoughts that discourage us. At times we find it easier to see ourselves in a limited and impoverished way, with our repeated patterns of thinking reminding us that we are weak or struggling. These texts remind us that there is a natural courage deep inside us. They encourage us to believe, to dare, to open up to possibilities. Fully becoming who we are begins with where we are, actually, at this point in our lives. If they can see goodness and courage in us, why can’t we?