The Reality Slap
Page 8
As we look more curiously into any intense stress or discomfort, we will find that it is comprised of two major components. One is the storyline: a bunch of words and pictures inside our head — beliefs, ideas, assumptions, reasons, rules, judgements, impressions, interpretations, images and memories. The other is our body sense: all the different feelings and sensations inside our body. And as we’ve already dealt with stories, we are now going to focus on the sensations.
Sensations
In order to understand the power of sensations, bring to mind a difficult emotion by thinking about your current reality gap. Once you’ve tapped into some pain, work step-by-step through the exercises that follow. (And if you want a voice to guide you through this process, you can purchase my MP3 The Reality Slap from www.thehappinesstrap.com, which contains recordings for all the exercises in this book.)
Notice Your Emotion
Pause for a moment.
You are about to embark on a voyage of discovery; to explore your painful emotion and see it with new eyes.
Take a slow, deep breath and focus your attention on your body.
Start at the top of your head and scan downwards. Notice where in your body this feeling is strongest: your forehead, eyes, jaw, mouth, throat, neck, shoulders, chest, abdomen, pelvis, buttocks, arms or legs? (If you have gone numb, continue with the exercise, but focus on the sensations of the numbness.)
Once you have located this feeling, observe it with wide-eyed curiosity, as if you are a marine biologist who has encountered some fascinating new denizen of the deep. See if you can discover something new about it — about where it is, what it feels like, or how it behaves.
Notice its energy, pulsation or vibration.
Notice the different ‘layers’ within it.
Notice where it starts and stops.
Is it deep or shallow? Moving or still? Light or heavy?
What is its temperature? Can you notice hot spots or cold spots within it?
Notice any resistance you may have to it. Is your body tensing up around it? Are you breathing more rapidly and shallowly? Is your mind protesting or fretting?
Name Your Emotion
As you notice your emotion, name it. Silently say to yourself, ‘Here’s fear’ or ‘Here’s anger’ or ‘Here’s guilt’. (If you can’t pinpoint the exact name of the emotion, then try: ‘Here’s pain’, or ‘Here’s stress’ or ‘Here’s numbness’.)
And continue to observe this emotion, as if it is some fascinating sea creature. The big difference now is this creature has a name; you know what you are dealing with.
Breathe Into Your Emotion
Breathe slowly and deeply, and imagine your breath flowing into and around the emotion.
And as your breath does this, it’s as if in some way you expand — as if a space opens up inside you.
This is the space of awareness.
And just as the ocean has room for all its inhabitants, your own spacious awareness can easily contain all your emotions.
So breathe into the feeling and open around it.
Loosen up around it. Give it space.
Breathe into any resistance within your body: the tension, the knots, the contraction; and make space for all of that too.
Breathe into any resistance from your mind: the smoky haze of ‘No’ or ‘Bad’ or ‘Go away’.
And as you release the breath, also release your thoughts. Instead of holding on to them, let them come and go like leaves in the breeze.
Allow Your Emotion
There is no need to like, want or approve of this emotion. Just see if you can allow it.
Allow it to be where it is. It’s already there, so why fight it?
Make peace with it.
Let it have its space.
Give it room to move.
Give it permission to do what it’s already doing; to be as it already is.
Expand Your Presence
The marine biologist may concentrate her attention on the octopus, but she can also broaden her focus, to notice the water around it and the rocks beneath it.
And we can all widen our focus in a similar way. Thus, once you’ve made space for your feeling, the aim is to expand your awareness. Continue to notice your feeling and, at the same time, recognise it is only one aspect of the here and now.
Around this feeling is your body, and with that body you can see, hear, touch, taste and smell.
So take a step back and admire the view; do not only notice what you are feeling, but also what you are hearing, seeing and touching.
Think of your awareness as the beam of a powerful torch, revealing what lies hidden in the darkness. Shine it in all directions, to get a clear sense of where you are.
As you do this, do not try to distract yourself from this feeling. And do not try to ignore it. Keep it in your awareness, while at the same time, connecting with the world around you.
Allow the feeling to be there, along with everything else that is also present.
Notice what you are feeling and thinking.
Notice what you are doing and how you are breathing.
Notice it all. Take it all in.
Straddle two worlds with your awareness: the one within you and the one outside you. Illuminate both with your consciousness.
And engage fully in life as it is in this moment.
***
As with all mindfulness exercises, the one above can be practised at any time and in any place for any duration. For example, if you want to develop your ability at expansion, you could stretch it into a long exercise, taking a good ten to fifteen minutes. On the other hand, you can practise a ten-to fifteen-second version just about anywhere: simply notice and name the emotion, breathe into it, allow it to be there, and expand your awareness to connect with the world around you.
Now perhaps you may be wondering, ‘What’s next? After I expand my awareness and engage with the world around me, then what do I do?’ The answer is, if you’re doing something purposeful and life-enhancing, keep doing it and engage in it fully; focus all your attention on the task at hand and become thoroughly absorbed in it. And if you’re not doing something purposeful and life-enhancing, then stop what you’re doing and switch to an activity that is more meaningful. (And if you can’t think of any meaningful activities, don’t worry, we’ll get to that in Part 4: Take A Stand.)
At this point, I need to give you an important reminder: you don’t have to stop using all your control strategies (i.e. the things you do to try to control your emotions). Control strategies are only problematic when you use them excessively, or over-rely on them, or when they give you relief from pain in the short term but impair your quality of life in the long term. The point is to enlarge your toolkit so you have more options than just ‘control or be controlled’.
So I encourage you to make the effort, at least several times a day, to take a good curious look at your feelings. And if you find this difficult to do, then take baby steps. No one expects a fire fighter to tackle a towering inferno without any training. The trainee fire fighter practises on small, safe fires, lit under carefully controlled conditions within specially designed training grounds. And it is much the same when it comes to mindfulness of our emotions. If you’ve never tried this approach before, don’t begin with your most overwhelming emotions. Start with those smaller, less challenging feelings: the hundred different forms of impatience, frustration, disappointment and anxiety that arise as part of everyday living.
Watch your emotions closely and discover their habits. When do they appear? What brings them out? Which parts of your body do they like to occupy? And how does your body react to them? Where do you notice the resistance, the tension and the struggle?
When watching a documentary, we can be thrilled at the sight of a shark or a crocodile or a stingray. These deadly, vicious creatures can fill us with awe and appreciation. Our challenge is to view our emotions in much the same way. For, although our feelings may appear to be dangerous, they are act
ually unable to harm us in any way. Unlike a shark or a crocodile, they cannot eat us. Unlike a stingray, they cannot poison us. Watching our feelings mindfully is no more dangerous than watching a wildlife documentary. So take a curious look, whenever you can. It doesn’t have to be a long look, just a curious one.
Chapter 10
TAKE OFF YOUR GOGGLES
There are three simple words that can instantly create a reality gap in any area of life in any moment. They are: not good enough. All our mind needs to do is judge someone or some -thing as not good enough and immediately we are dissatisfied. At times our minds slap these judgements upon ourselves: we are not smart enough, not attractive enough, not successful enough, not a good enough parent or partner or friend. At times our minds slap these judgements on someone we know: he or she is not honest enough, not kind enough, or not interesting enough. And at times our minds slap these judgements on just about anything: our thighs, our house, our achievements, our income, the weather, the neighbourhood, the in-laws, our kids’ behaviour, our dog’s behaviour, our own behaviour; in some way or other it’s just not good enough.
And if we buy into this story, as we readily do, it instantly pulls us into a struggle with whatever is on the other side of that judgement. To become dissatisfied with our job, or disappointed in our friends, or unhappy with our body, all we need do is hold on to those three words: not good enough. Of course, our mind may not use precisely those words; it might say that our job is ‘boring’, or our friends are ‘unreliable’, or our body is ‘fat’, or our progress is ‘too slow’, or we are an ‘underachiever’. But these judgements all boil down to the same three words: not good enough. And while we are lost in this story, fulfilment is impossible; as long as we hold tightly to these words, our discontentment is assured.
Even if our negative judgements are totally justified and we can back them up with all sorts of evidence, the fact is that labelling things as not good enough will rarely help us. Usually, all it does is create a reality gap, or enlarge one that is already there!
Now notice your mind’s reaction to what I’m saying here: is it with me or against me, sceptical or curious? I want to make something clear: I’m not suggesting that we should just put up with the difficult or painful things in life. Nor am I suggesting that we give up on pursuing our goals or getting our needs met, or stop working to improve things. You’ll see this when we reach the section on ‘taking a stand’. All I am saying is that not good enough is one of the mind’s favourite stories, and when it hooks us and reels us in, our life usually gets harder.
Your mind may now come up with something like: ‘How am I supposed to improve something if I don’t first judge it as not good enough?’ Naturally, we will all encounter many things that we wish to improve in our lives. When this happens, we can acknowledge that there’s a reality gap: a gap between what we want and what we’ve got. And after we’ve acknowledged it, we can get pro-active; we can figure out how to improve the situation and take effective action. This is very different to dwelling on the not good enough story: to replaying it all day long and stumbling around in a haze of discontentment. No matter how bad the situation, spending our days in a thick smog of not good enough will only make it worse than it already is.
When the not good enough story hooks us in, it’s as if we pull on a pair of shit-coloured goggles. And when we peer at our marriage, or our body, or our job through these goggles, then guess what it looks like? And these goggles are pretty special: they don’t just see things in the present, they can also see into the past and the future.
When we look through these goggles into the past, we replay old hurts and disappointments, we relive old losses and grievances, we reignite old resentments and ancient grudges, and we stew over painful events that can never be undone. Basically, our mind tells us that the past was not good enough.
Similarly, when we look at the future through those goggles, it isn’t appealing. We see all sorts of scary scenarios, things that might and could go horribly wrong. We get bogged down in fears, worries and anxieties: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of getting old or sick, fear of screwing up our kids, fear of loneliness or poverty or injury, or fear of the uncertain and the unknown. In other words, the future is not good enough.
This story also underlies envy and greed: ‘What I currently have is not good enough.’ It underpins insecurity and a fear of intimacy: ‘If you get to know me, you’ll find out that I’m not good enough.’ It feeds on resentment and anger: ‘The way you’re treating me is not good enough.’ And it paves the way to depression and suicide: ‘Life itself is not good enough.’
So what can we do about this story? Will positive thinking make it go away, counting our blessings and looking at the glass as half full? I doubt it. (You’re welcome to try if you want, but millions have tried and failed.) What about if we get tough and tell ourselves firmly to stop being so judgemental, to stop thinking so negatively? Lots of people try this, but the irony is that it’s just another way of judging yourself as not good enough. Luckily for us, there is a far more effective way of dealing with this story: notice it and name it.
When your mind is laying a trip on you about not achieving enough, or not earning enough, or not exercising enough, or accusing you of being fat, lazy, stupid, selfish, dumb, moody, anxious, pushy or wishy-washy, then the first step is simply to . . .
Pause.
Pause and breathe: a slow, deep, gentle inhalation.
Pause and breathe and notice. Notice what your mind is doing.
And as you notice your mind in action, be curious. Notice how your mind is telling you this story? Is it using words or pictures or a combination? Can you hear a voice inside your head? If so, where is it located: at the back of your head, or somewhere in the middle, or right at the top? And what does it sound like? Is it your voice or someone else’s? Is it loud or soft or slow or fast? What is the emotion in the voice?
Then pause, breathe, notice and name.
Name the story in a way that helps you to separate, to step back and see it for what it is: a chain of words and pictures. For example, you might say to yourself, ‘Aha! Here it is again. The old “I’m Not Smart Enough” story. I know this one!’ And in that moment, you will probably notice a sense of lightness, as if you have just taken off those shit-coloured goggles and are now seeing the world with greater clarity.
This simple exercise is very empowering because it reminds us where our true power lies: not in trying to stop these stories from arising — not in doing battle with them — but in stepping back, seeing them for what they are, and letting them come and go in their own good time.
Suppose your mind is busy pointing out all the flaws, failings, annoying habits and weaknesses of your partner, children, friends, relatives or boss. If so, you can use the very same strategy: pause, breathe and notice. Notice your mind in action; notice how skilful it is at drawing you in. Be curious about the words that it chooses and the pictures it selects; notice how it splices them together to upset or anger or worry you. Pause, breathe, notice . . . then name the story: ‘Aha! Here it is again. The “He is/She is/They are Not Good Enough” story.’
And if your mind is mouthing off about something non-human — your job, income, house, car or evening meal then pause, breathe, notice and name: ‘Aha! The “It’s Not Good Enough” story.’
Feel free to play around with this technique and bring some lightness and humour to it. For instance, you might playfully say to yourself, ‘Tut, tut, tut! It’s just nooooooooot good enough!’ or ‘Yippee! The Not Good Enough Show just started’. Or you might even name it with an abbreviation: ‘NGE!’
See if you can tap into your natural warmth and humour as you notice and name your mind doing its stuff. See if you can appreciate the great irony that this wonderful instrument we call ‘the human mind’, which is so creative and innovative and immensely useful to us, came with an inbuilt tendency to judge, compare and criticise; to find fault, to focus on deficiencie
s, to see problems everywhere it looks.
If you’re wondering why the human mind has this tendency, consider it in terms of evolution. The cavemen/women who lived long enough to have lots of children were those who could clearly see the current problems (e.g. dangerous animals, brutal weather and vicious rivals); those who could best anticipate future problems (e.g. more dangerous animals, brutal weather and vicious rivals); and those who could figure out how to solve these problems effectively. So if there ever was a caveman/woman who wandered around in a perpetual state of bliss, thinking that everything was good enough as it was, seeing no problems and anticipating no problems, then he or she wouldn’t have survived long enough to have children. Way before they reached puberty, they would have been wiped out by the dangerous animals, brutal weather or vicious rivals.
Thus, as a result of evolution, our mind has evolved to be a super-duper problem-solving machine. And everywhere it looks it sees problems: things that are not good enough the way they are. (So if anyone has ever told you that ‘negative thinking’ is a sign of a defective or weak mind, clearly they don’t know what they’re talking about; it’s a perfectly natural psychological process of a normal healthy human mind.)
Once we have noticed and named the not good enough story, we are generally able to separate from it, to put it down instead of holding on to it; to take off the goggles and look at the world with new eyes. Recall that mindfulness means paying attention with openness and curiosity. With the goggles off, we can bring our attention to what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. We can notice, with curiosity, what we are doing here and now and we can fully engage in it, instead of wallowing in all that NGE.
Notice, we’re not moving into the land of ‘positive thinking’ and trying to replace NGE with EW (everything’s wonderful). That would be like trying to convince ourselves that the glass is half full instead of half empty. ‘Half full’ and ‘half empty’ are nothing more than stories about the glass, and neither is ‘truer’ than the other. When we are truly present with the glass, paying attention with openness and curiosity, those judgements about ‘half full’ or ‘half empty’ fade into the background; what comes into the foreground is the shape of the glass, the way it reflects the light, the level of the water within it, and the change in luminosity where the water touches its sides.