The same can be true of you and your mistakes, even if you’re not dealing with life-and-death situations. So if your passengers are telling you that self-compassion might be okay if you’re dealing with some small issue, like eating a whole pizza, but it won’t help with the really big mistakes, then thank them for sharing. And then give yourself a hug for all your mistakes and failings, big and small.
Choice Point
Having read this chapter, you can now add “self-criticism” under “passengers that get in the way,” and “self-compassion” under “skills,” on the choice point worksheet. My self-criticism passenger often tells me how out of shape or fat I am or how going to the gym won’t do any good anyway. In these moments I often put my hands over my heart and remind myself to be kind to myself so I can get to the gym. Going forward, remember that self-compassion is a skill you can practice. Pick one of the self-compassion exercises to try practicing this week. Don’t forget to notice how your passengers try to take you off your route when you try to practice this new skill.
Part 3:
Living a Healthy Life
Chapter 7:
Get Yourself out of Solitary Confinement
In the United States, what do we do with the worst, most difficult prisoners? We put them in solitary confinement. It’s hardly surprising that solitary confinement is a form of punishment, since evolutionarily we are hardwired to seek connection with other humans. Let’s explore the reasons why this is the case.
A foal typically stands within thirty minutes of being born, and within a few hours it can run with the herd. Human babies, however, are incredibly reliant on caregivers for survival. The first three months after birth are often referred to as the “fourth trimester,” meaning that babies really should still be in the womb. The reason they don’t stay there longer is that at around forty weeks (nine months) the human skull is still small enough to pass through the birth canal. If we spend any more time in the womb, our mothers wouldn’t be able to give birth to us. So being born “too soon” has been a necessary trade-off in human evolution: we get to have a large, adaptive brain, but we’re born before we can survive on our own. As a result, humans take care of their young for longer than almost any other mammal (Tirch, Schoendorff, and Silberstein 2014).
Evolution needed a way to motivate caregivers to take care of these rather helpless newborns, and it came in the form of attachment (Cozolino 2010; Mikulincer and Shaver 2007b; Siegel 2012), which is the bond that develops between a baby and a caregiver (Bowlby 1969, 1973; Mikulincer and Shaver 2007a). Attachment is the reason we feel soothed and calm in the presence of safe and caring loved ones and distressed when we’re separated from them (Porges 2007). These feelings go both ways for infants and caregivers. In fact, the sound of a crying baby motivates parents to care for infants, so much so that listening to a crying baby is sometimes used as a form of torture. Attachment also explains why solitary confinement (being separated from other humans) is a form of punishment. The effects of attachment don’t end with the baby-parent relationship, as we carry these forward into our relationships with spouses and other important people in our life.
Western culture is fixated on the notions of individualism and independence. We receive messages that we need to “love ourselves” and to be able to “be on our own,” and that it’s dysfunctional to be dependent on others. The problem with these notions is that we’re hardwired to function better when we have close, safe, and secure relationships with others. When we feel securely connected to others, we’re better able to explore the world, handle challenges, and be resilient (Bowlby 1969, 1973; Mikulincer and Shaver 2007b). In fact, the Western world is in the minority with its focus on individualism. Most of the world focuses on collectivism, which prioritizes group cohesiveness and interdependence. Collectivistic cultures assume that close relationships are necessary for well-being.
Personally, I hate to be alone. I’m an extrovert, and I feel uneasy when I’m by myself for long periods of time. I used to think this made me weak or dysfunctional, and that I needed to learn to be more independent. But now that I understand human evolution better, I realize that my anxiousness about being alone is hardwired! It’s not dysfunctional. That said, there clearly is a balance. It may not be healthy to be around people who are unsupportive or unkind just to avoid being alone.
So why am I talking about relationships in a book about health behaviors? Studies show that close relationships make us healthier. People’s wounds heal faster if they have secure, close relationships, and they recover from illness faster, have a longer life, and are mentally healthier (for example, Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton 2010). When we’re younger, having more people in our social network predicts better health, but as we mature the quality of relationships rather than the quantity matters more (Carmichael, Reis, and Duberstein 2015). So if you’re reading this thinking I don’t have many good friends, don’t worry; having just one close relationship is enough for you to gain these health benefits. There’s also evidence that how healthy your friends are predicts how healthy you are. For example, studies have shown that if your social network includes a lot of people living with obesity, there is a greater chance that you’ll also be living with obesity (Christakis and Fowler 2007). There are multiple different reasons why the healthy habits of our family and friends might influence ours, including genetics, such as the propensity to put on weight or a preference for sugary foods; living in similar environments, such as those with access to parks and walking paths; and shared social norms, such as having social events that revolve around food (Hruschka et al. 2011; Bartle 2012). Thus, having a social network that focuses on healthy habits can be key to keeping your own healthy habits going.
No human is an island—at least the healthy ones aren’t. Just as you don’t live alone in a vacuum, your healthy habits don’t happen in a vacuum either. People in your life can be both allies and foes (usually unintentionally) when it comes to how you live, so your social network plays a big role in your ability to engage in healthy habits and to live a healthy and vibrant life. In this chapter we’re going to explore our close relationships and how to have your social environment support your healthy habits.
What to Do with Other People…
When I worked at the obesity clinic, I regularly heard stories from participants about how they worked hard to keep snacks like potato chips or chocolate out of their home only to have a spouse or children or a parent bring them back in. “How can I possibly be healthy when my husband keeps bringing potato chips into the house!? I’ve asked him a hundred times to stop, and he still does it.” Dealing with other people is not a simple task. I could probably write a whole book on this topic alone. Here are a few ways you can deal with other people in your life (Harris 2009), each of which I’ll go over in more detail:
Change the things you can change.
Accept the things you cannot change.
Do nothing.
Leave.
Change the Things You Can Change
If others in your social network are not supporting your healthy habits, the first step is to ask directly for their support. Assertiveness is a skill you can use to better communicate your needs and increase the likelihood that others in your life will support your healthy habits. There are lots of ways to define assertiveness. I have found it easiest to describe assertiveness (and the alternative ways to communicate) in political terms:
Assertive communication is like a democracy: You get to have your vote, but your candidate doesn’t always win. In other words, you get to state your needs but you don’t always get your way.
Aggressive communication is like a dictatorship: you say what you need and always get your way.
Passive communication means you don’t even vote (or state a need), which often results in your needs not being met.
Passive-aggressive communication means you don’t state your needs clearly but make s
ure you get your way. You don’t vote (you don’t state a need), but you still make sure you get the outcome you want. This communication style is like using espionage to throw a coup and put your own dictator in power.
Assertive communication involves clearly and directly expressing your feelings, opinions, and needs while respecting the feelings and rights of others. It’s about you stating your needs, not about whether they get met or not. How you behave is within your control; how the other person responds is outside of your control. The only way you’ll find out if people in your life can meet your needs is if you ask specifically for what you need. For example, there’s a difference between saying, “I need to focus on my healthy habits, so I can’t go to Ribfest with you,” versus “I can’t believe you’re asking me to go to Ribfest!”
It’s good to keep in mind that what you’re asking of others may involve a difficult healthy habit for them too. When practicing assertive communication, it can help to apply all the things you’ve learned about changing healthy habits so far. For example, ask for a “do instead” goal rather than a “don’t do” goal (“I’m trying to eat healthier these days. Can we go to a place that has a salad bar instead of a place that only serves fried food?”). Or perhaps you can use the 90 percent rule: “At least once this week can we eat at home instead of having fast food?”
What gets in the way. Changing your interpersonal style (the ways you relate to others) to be more assertive is a big task, because interpersonal styles are learned from a young age and for very important reasons. Because children can’t choose their family or their environment, they have to adapt. Perhaps as a child you learned to put on a smile even when you were upset, or you were a people pleaser or learned that yelling was the only way to be heard. We all learned such adaptation strategies, and we can be grateful to our mind for figuring out ways for us to survive our childhood environments, some of which were probably pretty difficult.
But as adults we have more choice. We usually get to choose our partners, our friends, and our careers, so this method for survival may no longer be adaptive. It may not help you be healthier or live a life that matters to you. Unfortunately, once the mind finds a survival strategy that works, it wants to keep using it no matter what. So changing your interpersonal style probably goes against a well-learned and well-practiced survival strategy. Your passengers may yell at you, and you may need to drive over many rumble strips and feel all kinds of discomfort.
The good news is that you now have all kinds of skills to handle these passengers. (Just review the last few chapters!) Remember, if you find communicating more assertively to be difficult, please start by being compassionate with yourself. When you consider everything you know about yourself, your personality, your temperament, your family, and your childhood, your communication style probably makes complete sense. Remind yourself that you didn’t choose how your mind adapted to past circumstances, and you didn’t choose your parents or your childhood (Tirch, Silberstein, and Kolts 2018). It’s not your fault you’re struggling to change your communication style, but it is your responsibility, because no one else but you can choose to change.
Accept the Things You Cannot Change
Remember, being assertive means that you state your needs, not that your needs get met all the time. If your needs are getting met all the time, you’re actually being aggressive, not assertive. There will be people in your life who, no matter how assertive you are, are not able to meet your needs. Many (but not all) of us experience this dynamic with the family we were born with. If you’ve struggled with your parents or siblings, assertiveness may do little to change the dynamics of these relationships.
Typically, if somebody is going to be able to meet your need, they will do so on your first or second request. If you’re on your 147th request, it’s unlikely this person will be able to meet your need. Now if you’re a well-functioning human, your problem-solving mind is going to go to work on changing this person. Why is he behaving this way? What do I need to say to get her to stop? Maybe if I say it at the right time… Maybe if I say it with the right words… Maybe if I explain it again so she gets it… Here’s the thing: we can’t control other people, but your mind will still do its problem-solving thing and try to figure out how to “solve” the other person’s behavior, but this strategy does not work. We can’t “fix” or “solve” other people.
So then what? The best strategy is to accept that your need will not be met by this person, whom you can’t control. Again, “accept” doesn’t mean giving in or giving up. It doesn’t mean liking or enjoying it. Accepting means taking what is given, moving from “How do I get this person to change” to “Given that this person is not going to change, what do I want to do?” Thus, rather than figuring out how to get your partner to stop bringing potato chips into the house, you move to, Given that my partner won’t stop bringing potato chips into the house, how am I going to deal with it? You may notice that at this point your mind very helpfully suggests some other problem-solving fix to get your partner to change. Just thank your mind and redirect the problem-solving energy toward things you can control, such as your behavior. For example, if potato chips in the house is a problem, be sure to have a bag of kale chips in the house to snack on when the urge to eat the potato chips arises. And honor your own feelings of being disappointed that this person in your life cannot meet your needs: this means acknowledging and taking care of your feelings even if other people are not considering your feelings. (Remember checking in on your puppy—that is, your feelings?)
How to cope. Problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping are the two main forms of coping we engage in (Carver, Scheier, Weintraub 1989). Problem-focused coping is often effective when the stressor or problem can be fixed or eliminated, and many of us use it in our day-to-day lives. For example, when you have a deadline at work you focus harder on the tasks at hand to complete the project on time, and the problem is fixed. Emotion-focused coping is often effective when the stressor or problem can’t be fixed or eliminated. It involves managing the feelings that arise from the stressor rather than getting rid of the stressor itself. This form of coping is more effective when we need to deal with people who cannot meet our needs.
One emotion-focused coping strategy is to “refuel.” A refueling activity is one that makes you feel more energetic once you’ve done it. Sometimes we do things that we think are relaxing (for example, watching TV) but are actually just a form of zoning out. These activities can actually make us feel more tired. Here are some common refueling activities:
Spending time with friends and family
Playing sports
Meditation
Going to church
Getting a massage
Doing yoga
Listening to music
Taking a hot shower
Walking the dog
Doing a hobby or crafts
Different things refuel different people, so you get to choose activities that match your preferences and values. If you’re not sure what does or will work, try some out and notice what shows up. Do you feel energized after playing a board game with your kid, going for a hike, or having coffee with a friend? If so, then these are refueling activities for you. And, as always, notice how your passengers may try to dissuade you from engaging in refueling activities. If a passenger says, “You don’t have time for that,” thank her and do it anyway!
Do Nothing
Sometimes we do nothing because our passengers are in charge of our bus and they have convinced us that it doesn’t matter what we do. We can’t change things, so why bother. But sometimes we do nothing because we decide that some other value is more important than changing the situation we’re in.
For example, I worked with a nurse who felt the hospital unit she worked in was unhealthy and toxic. She felt stressed all the time and never had time to take care of herself. Yet she decided to stay because th
e position gave her health care benefits, and she had a sick child to care for. It is okay to make a decision like this if it is truly consistent with your values. She and I worked on redirecting the energy she put into changing her workplace toward the things that mattered to her, such as being with her sick child, and toward the things she had control over. For example, we made sure she was engaging in refueling activities, because the stressors in her workplace were going to remain and would likely deplete her energy. If, like this nurse, you decide to do nothing about a relationship or situation, I encourage you to review the section “Accept the Things You Cannot Change” so you can “do nothing” in the most effective way.
There may also be relationships you can’t leave. You will always be a daughter or son. One of my clients, Katie, had a very difficult relationship with her father, and spending time with him sapped her energy and resulted in her not taking care of herself. She chose to accept that she wasn’t going to have the kind of relationship she really wanted with her father, and to limit her contact with him. We spent a lot of time honoring her feelings of sadness and disappointment. That is, we worked on getting in touch with her feelings and taking care of them. Another client, Marie, couldn’t stop her parents from visiting despite the negative effect it had on her healthy habits. Her parents always brought cake when they visited, and she always ended up eating it to cope with her mother’s criticism. We developed ways that she could control her contact with them, rather than having it be the way they wanted it. She decided to visit them on a regular schedule (Sundays for two hours after church), and between this scheduled time she limited her contact with her parents, reminding them that she would see them on Sunday.
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