The Reality Slap

by Russ Harris

  ***

  The life of Nelson Mandela gives an excellent example of the resilience formula in action. For twenty-seven years, he was imprisoned by the South African government. Why? Because he dared to fight for freedom and democracy; to oppose apartheid, the official government policy of racial discrimination. Now when you look at his reality gap during those years, option one was clearly out: he couldn’t leave prison. And option two was out for most of the time: there was very little he could do to improve his living conditions. So mostly, he chose option three. He accepted his painful thoughts and feelings, engaged in the present, and lived by his values: standing for freedom, equality and peace. For instance, during his first seventeen years in prison, on Robben Island, Mandela had to do hard labour in a lime quarry. But he turned the situation to his advantage. You see, Mandela knew that education was essential for equality and democracy, so he arranged illegal meetings in the tunnels of the quarry — educational sessions, where the more educated prisoners would teach and instruct the others. (Later this came to be known as ‘Mandela University’.)

  One of the most remarkable aspects of Mandela’s story is that in 1985, after twenty-two years in prison, the South African government offered to release him — but he turned them down! Why? Because the condition for release was that he would have to remain silent; that he would refrain from speaking out against apartheid. Naturally, for Mandela to do this, he would have had to go against his core values, so he chose to stay in prison instead. That meant another five years in prison before he finally received release without this condition! And yet, despite this huge reality gap, he was able to find fulfilment in standing for something: freedom, democracy and equality.

  Mandela’s case is extraordinary, but the formula applies to each and every one of us, no matter what our situation is. For instance, if your job or your marriage is ‘terrible’, consider leaving. If you choose to stay, do everything you can to improve it. If it’s still ‘terrible’, accept what can’t be changed — including all those unpleasant thoughts and feelings that are certain to arise — and live by your values: be the person you want to be and stand for something in the face of this reality gap.

  When I present these options to my clients, most of them feel empowered: it helps them to realise they have choices. However, from time to time, someone has a strong negative reaction: usually a mixture of anger and anxiety. Why should this be? Usually it’s because they find it too confronting. The resilience formula confronts us with the reality that we have choices and therefore we are responsible for how we act. There is short-term relief in option four: in buying the story that it’s all too hard, that we may as well give up, and we are powerless, but the relief this can bring doesn’t last. In the long term, this option drains the life from us. Our vitality lies only in taking a stand: in choosing options one, two or three. However, we will only experience this vitality if we take our stand with a quality known as ‘willingness’.

  What does ‘willingness’ mean? Well, psychologist Hank Robb explains it as follows. Suppose you hand over ten pounds for a ticket to the cinema. You can give the money resentfully or grudgingly, or you can give the money willingly, but either way, you still have to hand over the money. And when you pay it willingly, the experience is far more fulfilling than if you do so resentfully.

  So when we take a stand, let’s do so willingly. If we take this stand fused with ‘I have no choice’, or ‘I hate having to do this’, or ‘I shouldn’t have to do this’, or ‘This is my lot in life’, or ‘I have to do it; it’s my duty’, we will feel burdened, disempowered or drained. Remember, there is no ‘have to’, ‘must’, ‘ought’ or ‘should’ in a value; such words just turn our values into life-draining rules.

  So if you feel drained or burdened or resentful as you take a stand, then notice what unhelpful story has hooked you. Then unhook yourself from it and come back to your values and recognise that you do have a choice. You can choose to stand for something — or not. You certainly don’t have to. The big question is, are you willing to? Ask yourself: ‘Am I willing to take a stand in the face of this gap? Am I willing to act with purpose, even if painful thoughts and feelings arise?’

  You may wonder how I applied the resilience formula when my son was first diagnosed with autism. Well, I discounted option one immediately. I’d heard many sad stories of parents who abandoned their children; no way would I become one of them! And as for option four: well as you know, that was my initial response, but it just made things harder.

  So once I’d dropped anchor, I was left with options two and three: change what can be changed, accept what can’t be changed, and live by my values. And that’s exactly what I did. The values I chose to live by were love, patience, persistence, courage and compassion. And guided by these values, I set out to change whatever I could; to close the reality gap as much as possible.

  I scoured the Internet and contacted a variety of professionals to find out what could be done for this condition. The problem is, when it comes to autism (or any other disorder, for that matter!) so many people make so many claims about their treatments, it is overwhelming. Websites tout a vast number of approaches, and charismatic professionals not only swear by their methods, but provide all sorts of inspiring anecdotes of the many individuals who have benefited. So how can you possibly know what the best course of action should be? Well, the inconvenient truth is that you can’t know for sure. You have to make a choice.

  So what, then, do you base your choice on? My wife and I based our choice on the best available scientific evidence. We soon discovered that there is only one scientifically proven approach that creates significant, lasting, positive changes — without medication — in the majority of children who undertake it. This approach is called ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis), and it involves training the autistic child in all the skills they are lacking: thinking skills, language/communication skills, play skills, social skills and attention skills — basically ‘rewiring the brain’ to function more normally. (For more information on ABA, turn to Appendix 5.)

  We also discovered that the best-researched ABA programme available, the ‘Lovaas Programme’, involves a team of therapists working one-on-one with the child for thirty to forty hours a week, over a period of three to four years. This presented us with a dilemma. Imagine a two-year-old child working six hours a day, five days a week, having to painstakingly learn these essential skills. That’s a huge demand to place on a little child! Could we really impose this burden on our little boy? The programme also places huge demands on the parents because they have to do much of the work themselves, outside of ‘therapy hours’. So my wife and I struggled mightily with the decision. We had a huge amount of anxiety. What if it didn’t work? What if it was all too much for our son to handle? What if it was all too much for us to handle?

  However, ultimately we made room for our fear, and we enrolled our son in an excellent ABA programme in Melbourne (called Learning For Life) and within the very first day of his treatment, we noticed significant improvements. And thereafter, things moved very rapidly. Within the space of just a few weeks, our little boy’s vocabulary increased from ten words to over a hundred; he started to make good eye contact, he learned his own name, and he started to understand more of what we were saying.

  We were ecstatic.

  Of course, we were extremely lucky in many ways. For a start, in many parts of the world, ABA is not available. And even when it is available, many people can’t afford the full treatment; it is very expensive! And of course, not all children respond as well as my son did.

  However, even though we were fortunate, it wasn’t as if all our dreams had come true. The reality gap had certainly started to close a little, but it was still pretty huge. Our son had all sorts of problems, not just cognitively, but also physically: he had significant deficits in his balance, coordination, muscle strength, motor skills; and at this point, he still wasn’t even walking! And my wife and I also had plenty of problems: w
e had the financial stress of paying for the treatment, the emotional stress of the Lovaas Programme itself, our ongoing grief and fear and, last but not least, the enormous toll of all this stress upon our marriage. (I do not find it surprising that the divorce rates are sky-high for parents of children with disabilities.)

  And then we discovered something that ramped up our stress even higher. We found out that there was a new type of ABA programme, based on something called RFT (Relational Frame Theory). Now I was already familiar with RFT: it is the theory of behaviour and cognition that underlies ACT, but what I didn’t know back then is that RFT has profound implications for the treatment of autism. It would take too long to explain the how and why of it, so let’s just say that RFT dramatically speeds up ABA programmes and leads to better outcomes in much less time. (If you want to know more about it, turn to Appendix 5.)

  So why did this discovery stress us out? Because there was only one such programme in Australia and it was on the other side of the continent from where we lived: in the world’s most isolated city — Perth.

  So we dithered and fretted and debated: should we move or not? To pack up everything and relocate to a city where we knew absolutely no one: was it really worth it? After all, our son was making very good progress. His ABA programme in Melbourne was truly excellent. Did we really need to move?

  And yet . . . if RFT could really make a difference; if it could get better results than traditional ABA, then how could we deprive our son of that opportunity?

  So we did, eventually, pack up and move to Perth. And it proved to be extremely stressful in many ways. But no matter how hard it got, or how much it hurt, my wife and I knew we were standing for something important. We knew that whatever the outcome, we would be able to look back and say, ‘We didn’t quit. We didn’t lose hope. We did everything we possibly could to help him.’ And that, in itself, was deeply fulfilling.

  Luckily, that move to Perth turned out for the best. Our son excelled in the new programme under the care of psychologist Darin Cairns. His language skills, social skills and comprehension skills improved at a rate that astonished us. We had planned to be in Perth for three years, but after eighteen months the programme came to an end. Why? Because our son had improved so much he no longer met the diagnostic criteria for autism. To see that happy four-and-a-half-year-old boy running around the kindergarten, chatting with the other kids, and laughing and joining in their games: it seemed like a miracle. Hard to believe that at age two, this same little boy could not walk, could barely talk, and didn’t even know his own name. However, although it may have seemed like a miracle, it wasn’t. It was the result of lots of very hard work: a result of committed action, guided by values. And there is still a hard road ahead for us because although our son is no longer autistic — not by any stretch of the imagination — he still has ongoing issues, such as learning difficulties, high anxiety levels, and social difficulties. But whenever it all seems too much, I drop anchor and come back to my values. And I remember what I want to stand for as a father: love, patience, persistence, courage and compassion. And when I consciously choose to act on those values, the tiniest little action is loaded with purpose.

  Footnote: I do not want this book to be taken over by a discussion of treatments for autism, but as I write this, I can’t help thinking that some of my readers are undoubtedly parents of autistic children, and they may well have reactions of envy or resentment or other painful emotions upon reading about my son’s outcome. If this is the case for you, please keep in mind that it is completely natural to have such emotional reactions. So go gently on yourself. Make room for the pain, and hold yourself kindly. These emotions simply show how much you care for your own child.

  Chapter 18

  HOLDING HOT COALS

  Do you ever get caught up in resentment? Many of us do, especially after a major reality slap. We may resent others because they let us down, they treated us badly, they didn’t care about us, they achieved more than us, they’re ‘better off’ than us, or for dozens of other reasons. Resentment is a particularly sticky version of the ‘not good enough’ story; a version heavily infused with anger, righteousness and a strong sense of injustice.

  When we get hooked by resentment, it almost always pulls us into self-defeating struggles. In Buddhism they say: ‘Resentment is like grasping a red hot coal in order to throw it at someone else.’ At Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) they say: ‘Resentment is like swallowing poison and hoping the other person dies.’ What these sayings have in common is the idea that when we get hooked by resentment, all we do is hurt ourselves even more than we already are.

  Resentment comes from the French word resentir, which means ‘to feel again’. This makes sense: each time resentment hooks us we feel again our hurt, our anger, and our sense of unfairness or injustice. The events that happened are now in the past, but as we dwell on them in the present, we feel again all that pain. And as we stew in our anger and dissatisfaction, all our vitality seeps away.

  A somewhat similar story is self-blame, which we can think of as resentment turned on ourselves. Again and again our minds remind us of all the things we did wrong, then we get angry and judge or punish ourselves. We feel again all our pain, regret, angst, disappointment and anxiety. And, of course, this does not alter the past in any way, nor does it enable us to learn and grow from our mistakes. Again, all we achieve is to hurt ourselves more.

  So what is the antidote to resentment and self-blame? Forgiveness — but not forgiveness as we commonly think of it. In the ACT model, forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Nor does it mean that what happened was okay, or excusable, or trivial, or unimportant. And nor does it involve saying or doing anything to someone else.

  To understand the ACT notion of forgiveness, let’s consider the origin of the word. ‘Forgive’ is derived from two separate words: ‘give’ and ‘before’. So in ACT, forgiveness simply means this: giving yourself back what was there before the ‘bad stuff’ happened. At some point in the past — and it may have been recent, or it may have been a long time ago — something very painful happened. Either you did something that you now blame yourself for, or others did something that you now resent them for. And since that time, your mind has repeatedly pulled you back to those events, getting you to feel all the pain, again and again.

  So what was your life like before those events happened? Were you getting on with life and making the most of it? Were you living in the present? Even if your life wasn’t very good before all these events took place, at least you weren’t lost in the choking smog of resentment or self-blame. So how about giving yourself back the clarity and freedom of life without all that smog? You see, in the ACT model, forgiveness has nothing to do with anybody else; it is something you do purely for yourself. It’s giving yourself back what was there before: a life free from the burden of resentment or self-blame.

  How do we cultivate this type of forgiveness? You already have all the knowledge and skills you need. When our minds generate stories that tend to feed resentment or self-blame, our first steps are to notice them and name them. We could say to ourselves something like, ‘Here’s my mind beating up on me’ or ‘Here’s a painful memory from the past’ or ‘Here’s my mind judging other people’ or ‘Here’s my mind pulling me into a struggle’. At the same time, we hold ourselves kindly. Whether we believe that we are at fault, or others are at fault, the undeniable fact is we are hurting. So let’s be kind and com -passionate and hold ourselves gently, then make room for our feelings and get present.

  We will often need to drop anchor repeatedly. Our mind will carry us off to those old events and we will have to bring ourselves back and get present: to engage and re-engage in the here and now. Then once present, we can act in line with our values and infuse our ongoing action with a sense of purpose. We can then take a stand in the face of this reality gap.

  For example, if we genuinely did do something ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or ‘careless’ — and it’s not just the
mind being overly critical — then we could now take a stand to make amends. Michael, an alcoholic and Vietnam veteran, told me that in his case this was impossible: he had killed several people in the war and there was no way to make amends for that. Well, it’s hard to argue with that, so I didn’t even try. Instead I said, ‘Beating yourself up and drinking yourself into the grave isn’t going to alter the past. And yes, of course you can’t make amends to the dead; you can’t do anything for the dead. But you can do something in the present that can contribute in meaningful ways to the living. If you waste your life away, then nothing good has come from those horrors of the past. But if you use your life to contribute to others, to make a difference in the world, then something good has come out of those horrors.’

  For Michael, this was a revelation. It took him a lot of practice, but eventually he was able to unhook himself from those self-blaming stories and treat himself kindly. And over the space of nine months, he joined an AA group, quit drinking, and started volunteering for two charitable organisations: one for the homeless and the other for refugees. Now this wasn’t easy for him. It took a huge amount of hard work, and he had to make room for enormous amounts of pain. But it paid off handsomely. Although he couldn’t change the past, he found he could make a useful difference in the present — and as he did so, his life became far more fulfilling.

  While most of us get entangled in self-blame at times, our stories are probably not as dramatic as Michael’s; after all, most of us have never killed someone! However, that doesn’t make our stories any less of a burden. The key thing is to practise being kind to yourself (even if your mind says you don’t deserve it). It’s often useful to say some kind words to yourself, such as: ‘I’m a fallible human being. Like every other person on the planet, I make mistakes, I screw things up, and I get things wrong. This is part of being human.’ Then place a com -passionate hand upon your body, breathe into the pain, and acknowledge it hurts. And remind yourself that self-punishment achieves nothing useful; vitality lies only in taking a stand. If there is something you can do to make amends, or repair the damage, or turn the situation around, then it makes sense to go ahead and do it. If there’s nothing you can do along those lines (or if you’re not yet willing to do it), then you can invest your energy in building the relationships you have: connecting, caring and contributing. To do this is an act of self-forgiveness.