The Reality Slap

by Russ Harris

  Sometimes I have clients who react quite negatively to these ideas; they were clinging to the idea that fulfilment means no more painful feelings. If only! Fulfilment does not mean our difficult emotions disappear; it means we change our relationship with them. We find a new way of responding to them, so that when they arise, they can’t hold us back from being present, living with purpose and experiencing life as a privilege. We learn how to access a state of peacefulness and stillness in the midst of our pain; how to ‘create a space’ within ourselves through which our feelings can freely flow without pushing us around or bringing us down. I call this ability ‘expansion’: one of the three core skills involved in presence.

  Now before we go any further, time for a confession. When I first heard that dreadful word ‘autism’ applied to my son, I forgot just about everything I’ve written in this chapter. I tried desperately to run away from my pain. I tried frantically to distract myself with books, music, DVDs, television and the Internet. But it didn’t work. Thoughts about my son would continually creep up and drag me away; dark stories full of stark, gloomy images: my little boy impaired, disabled, rejected — an outcast of society.

  I also tried to escape through my favourite comfort food: double-coated chocolate Tim Tams. But this didn’t work either. I’d get a few moments of relief while the food was in my mouth, but as soon as it was gone, the pain would be back with a vengeance (and I gained several kilograms in the process!).

  I tried to escape through being proactive. I hit the Internet with a vengeance, reading everything I could find about autism and its treatment, trying to sort the science from the nonsense. But that didn’t help either. Nor did talking about it with friends, or drinking alcohol, or bawling my eyes out, or going for long walks, or having a massage, or thinking positively, or repeating inspiring quotes.

  At times like these, when the reality gap is enormous, there is no way to control our pain to make it go away (unless you turn to something so drastic, like the heavy use of drugs and alcohol, that it will seriously impair your life in the long term and open lots of other reality gaps). If we allow our pain to control us it will only make everything so much harder. So our only sensible choice is to practise expansion.

  Expansion

  ‘Expansion’ is radically different to the first two approaches: ‘control’ and ‘be controlled’. However, because it is so radically different, it often takes a while to understand it. So, to get a sense of what the ‘third way’ involves, carry out the following experiment.

  A Four-step Experiment

  There are four steps to this experiment, and you will get much more out of it if you actually do it, rather than simply reading about it.

  STEP 1: Imagine that the book in your hands is made up of all the emotions that you find most difficult to handle. (Take a few moments to name them.)

  STEP 2: When you reach the end of this paragraph, hold this book around the edges, while keeping it open at the centre. Gripping the edges tightly, lift the open book up in front of your face, then bring it in so close that it’s almost touching your nose — the book should be virtually wrapped around your face, completely obscuring your view of your surroundings. Hold it like that for about twenty seconds and notice what the experience is like.

  What did you discover? While you were totally ‘caught up in your emotions’, did you feel a bit lost, disoriented or cut off from the world around you? Did it seem as if your emotions dominated everything? Did your view of the room disappear? Were you ‘consumed’ by the experience?

  This is what it is like when we are controlled by our emotions: we get caught up in them, lost in them and overwhelmed by them. They dominate our experience. We wallow in them, get ‘held back’, or let them push us around. It is hard to be present, or respond effectively to the many difficult challenges of life, when we react to our emotions in this way.

  STEP 3: Once again, imagine that this book contains all your most difficult emotions. When you reach the end of this paragraph, take the book in both hands, grip it tightly around the edges, and hold it as far away from you as you possibly can. Push your arms out as far as you possibly can (without actually dislocating your shoulders!), straighten them fully at the elbows, and keep the book at arm’s length. Hold it like that for about one minute and notice what the experience is like.

  Did you find that uncomfortable or tiring? Imagine doing this all day long; how exhausting would it be? And imagine watching your favourite movie or TV show, or having a conversation, or eating a meal, or making love at the same time as doing this exercise. How much would it distract you or interfere with your enjoyment? This is what it is like when we try to control our emotions: we exert a huge amount of energy into pushing them away. Not only is this draining and distracting; it also pulls us out of the here-and-now and into an internal struggle. When we are trying hard to control our emotions, it is very difficult to be present and respond effectively to life’s challenges.

  STEP 4: When you reach the end of this paragraph (again pretending this book holds all your most painful feelings), place the book gently on your lap and let it sit there for twenty seconds. And as you let it sit there, stretch your arms, breathe deeply, and with childlike curiosity scan your surroundings, and notice what you can see, hear and smell.

  This is the third way of responding to painful emotions: making room for them or ‘expansion’. (Note: the official term in ACT is not ‘expansion’ but ‘acceptance’. I tend to avoid the word ‘acceptance’ because most people misunderstand it: they either think it means liking, wanting, or approving of your emotions; or tolerating, putting up with, or resigning yourself to them.) ‘Expansion’ means opening up and creating space for our emotions; letting them come and stay and go in their own good time, as and when they choose, without investing any energy in struggling with them or hiding from them. Did you notice how letting the book sit on your lap was so much easier, so much less distracting and so much less effort, than getting caught up in it or keeping it at arm’s length? Did you notice that when you disentangled yourself from it, stopped struggling with it and made space for it, you could be fully present with the world around you?

  Sometimes when I take my clients through this exercise they say, ‘Yes, but that’s just a book. It’s not that easy with real emotions.’

  I reply, ‘You are absolutely right. This is merely an exercise.’

  And the point of this exercise is to prepare you for where we go next: doing expansion for real.

  Chapter 9

  A CURIOUS LOOK

  A wave of nausea washes over you. Your eyesight becomes blurry and foggy, and within a few seconds, it completely dis -appears. Your throat is paralysed almost instantly, preventing you from speaking or swallowing. And over the next two to three minutes, this paralysis spreads throughout your body, until you can no longer breathe. This is how your life would end if you were bitten by the tiny bird-like beak of the deadly blue-ringed octopus, an organism no bigger than a tennis ball.

  A good friend of mine, Paddy Spruce, likes to ask the question, ‘If you were swimming near a blue-ringed octopus, would you pick it up, chase it away, ignore it or simply observe it?’ Clearly all these options are available to us, but the first two are deadly, and while this octopus is not naturally aggressive, if you try to pick it up or threaten it in any way, it will bite. (Just before it attacks, you will see the blue rings on its tentacles suddenly light up.) As for the third option — ignoring it — that would be pretty hard to do, knowing how deadly it is. Plus, if you don’t pay attention to where it is, you might accidentally swim into it.

  So the last option, observing it, is clearly the best. ‘Hang on a minute,’ you might be thinking, ‘there’s another option you didn’t mention. I could swim away from it.’ Yes, you could. However, the blue-ringed octopus prefers to hide under rocks rather than swim in the open, so if you stay still and observe, it will soon pass on by and leave you alone. And even if you choose to swim away, wouldn’t you fi
rst want to get a good look at it, knowing that as long as you don’t try to pick it up or threaten it, you are perfectly safe?

  This tiny sea creature provides a good analogy for a painful emotion; if you hold on to it, chase it away, or try to ignore it, the results are usually bad. Unfortunately, many of us treat our emotions as if they are as dangerous as that octopus. We want to get rid of them or avoid them. We can’t be at ease when they’re around. We try to figure out how to make them go away. And this attitude, unfortunately, absorbs a lot of our energy and drains our vitality. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Why? Because unlike the octopus, our feelings are not dangerous. If we stay still and observe our emotions with curiosity, then they cannot hurt us or harm us in any way; and like that blue-ringed octopus, sooner or later they will pass.

  Now suppose you were a marine biologist and you had paid a small fortune for the opportunity to observe the blue-ringed octopus in its natural environment. Under those circumstances, knowing you were safe, you’d observe that creature with absolute fascination. You’d be curious about its every move. You’d notice the rhythmic movements of its tentacles; you’d notice the beautiful patterns and colours on its body; and you’d respect it as a magnificent work of nature. In other words, you’d be fully present. And it’s this type of open, curious attention that comprises the basis of expansion.

  And if that sounds at all familiar to you, it should, because expansion is an aspect of presence. In other words, when a painful feeling arises, you don’t have to get sucked into it and you don’t need to try to get away from it; instead, you can be fully present with it. And if your mind has something unhelpful to say about that prospect — a protest, threat, worry, judgement, or some other form of resistance — then please let it have its say and carry on reading.

  Thoughts, Feelings, Emotions and Sensations

  As many people get confused about the differences between thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations, it’s worth taking a moment to clarify them. However, this task is slightly tricky because most ‘experts’ can’t completely agree on what an emotion actually is. But there are some things they do agree on. For example, there’s no doubt that emotions prepare us for action. Sadness, anger, fear, guilt, love and joy all predispose us to behave in particular ways. Also, on a physical level, an emotion includes neurological changes (i.e. involving the brain and nervous system), cardiovascular changes (i.e. involving the heart and circulatory system), and hormonal changes (i.e. involving the ‘chemical messengers’ of the blood).

  However, while we can measure these changes on scientific instruments, this is not how we experience our own emotions.

  When we look at our emotions with open, curious attention, all we will ever encounter are thoughts and sensations. By ‘thoughts’, I mean words and pictures inside our head; by ‘sensations’, I mean what we feel inside our body. As for ‘feelings’, some people use this word interchangeably with ‘emotions’ (as I do throughout this book), but others use it to mean the physical sensations that arise as part of an emotion (as opposed to the thoughts that are also part of the emotion).

  The best way to make sense of this is to check it out for yourself: observe your emotions with curiosity. As you do this, you will either notice something comprised of sensations or something comprised of words and pictures. Or rather, you will notice complex, interweaving, multilayered tapestries of pictures, words and sensations. And you can zoom in on specific thoughts or sensations, or you can zoom out and take in the whole spectacle.

  Often emotions give rise to a sense of meaning, but that ‘meaning’ itself is a thought, made of words and pictures. Urges also often show up as part of a strong emotion; but pay close attention to any urge, and what you will discover are sensations in your body, and words and pictures in your head. The same also holds true for any memories: look at the memory closely and again you will discover sensations in your body, and words and pictures in your head. (And if your memory involves smell or taste, well, those are also sensations.)

  To make this clearer, consider your favourite movie. If you were to watch a one-second segment of that film, all you would encounter are sounds and pictures. We wouldn’t call any one of those sounds or pictures a movie in itself; and we wouldn’t say a movie is nothing but ‘sounds and pictures’. But, experientially, when you look at any second of any movie, all you will encounter are sounds and pictures. You can think of an emotion similarly: a rich, compelling, multilayered creation comprised of many, many interweaving sensations and thoughts.

  Recently I discussed this concept in an email exchange. My correspondent wrote back, ‘I see what you’re saying . . . and yet . . . there’s something else in an emotion that can perhaps only be described as like a flavour or a colour . . . amorphous, but at the same time sharp! Perhaps it’s a spiky, colourful, amorphous blob!’

  I replied, ‘The thing is, a flavour is a sensation — a sensation of taste. It may seem amorphous (i.e. it has no clear shape) but you can sense where it is located in your body through noticing the sensations of pressure, temperature, pulsation, etc. If you experience a colour, then you must be ‘seeing’ a picture of some sort (even if it is an abstract picture — pure colour with no obvious shape). If you experience it as ‘sharp’ or ‘spiky’, you either have encountered a sensation of sharpness or you have imagined a picture of something sharp. So when you zoom in and observe any aspect of that ‘spiky, colourful, amorphous blob’ you will find sensations, words and pictures. And then the question is, can you open up and make room for whatever you encounter?’

  When we pay attention to the threatening, unpleasant or painful stuff inside us — to all those thoughts and feelings that we normally turn away from — and when we are willing to take a good honest look at it all and really examine it with openness and curiosity, then we are likely to discover something useful. We learn that it is not as big as it seems; that we can make room for it. We learn that it cannot harm us, even though it feels unpleasant. We learn that it cannot control our arms and legs, even though it may make us shiver and shake. We learn that there is no need to run and hide from it, nor to fight and struggle with it. This frees us up to invest time and energy in improving our life, rather than in trying to control the way we feel. Without genuine curiosity, it is unlikely we will ever discover this.

  Normally, when painful feelings arise, we are not curious about them. We have no desire to get up close and study them and see what they are comprised of. We have no particular interest in learning from them. Generally speaking, we don’t want to know about them at all. We want to forget about them, distract ourselves from them, or get rid of them as fast as possible. Rather than take a close look at them, we instinctively turn away. It is much the same as the way we automatically recoil or avert our gaze from the sight of a diseased or deformed body. And yet, as automatic as it is, this is a response that we can change with practice.

  Working as a doctor, I have had the opportunity to see many different ways in which the human body can become deformed: through blistering skin diseases, the terrible scarring of burns, the merciless rampages of cancer and AIDS, the distorted swollen joints of immune disorders, the missing limbs that result from surgical amputations, the misshapen heads and twisted spines of rare genetic disorders, the bloated abdomens and yellowing flesh of liver disease, and the myriad forms of physical deterioration associated with old age, illness and death.

  Before I entered the medical profession, I felt a sense of shock, fear, aversion or disgust whenever I saw people with these conditions. But over the years, I gradually learned to see past the unpleasant exterior and connect with the human being inside. I learned to pay attention with warmth, curiosity and openness and, over time, my aversion and fear disappeared and in its place came kindness and compassion. However, this only happened through my willingness to be present and open up; to make room for my automatic emotional reactions, without letting them control me. If we are willing, we are all capable of making this tr
ansition.

  At this point, let’s note that there are two very different types of curiosity. There is a cold, detached, uncaring curiosity, such as that of a lab scientist doing experiments on a rat or monkey. And then there is a warm, caring curiosity, such as that of a kindly vet trying to work out how to heal a sick animal. You’ve probably met some doctors who are cold and detached, curious only about the illness, interested only in the diagnosis and treatment. They seem to care very little about the human being inside that afflicted body. And you’ve probably met other doctors who are the opposite: warm, kind and caring in their curiosity. They care first and foremost about the human being; they treat the whole person, not just the condition. Which kind of doctor would you prefer to have treating you?

  The word ‘curiosity’ originates from the Latin term curiosus, which means ‘careful’ or ‘diligent’. This, in turn, comes from the Latin word cura, which means ‘care’. I find this very interesting. When practising mindfulness, we are caring for ourselves; we care about what we feel and we care about how we respond to our feelings. Avoidance of our feelings is, in contrast, very often an uncaring act. We get so focused on trying any way possible to get rid of them that we end up harming ourselves or shrinking our lives in the process. The word cura also gives us the word ‘cure’ and this seems appropriate because curiosity plays such an essential role in emotional healing; instead of trying to escape from our pain, we turn towards it, investigate it, explore it and, ultimately, make room for it. This is a true act of caring and healing.

  So next time loneliness, resentment, anxiety, guilt, sadness, regret or fear shows up, what if you could become really curious about those experiences? What if you could shine a light on them, study them as if they were the prize exhibit in a show?