by Donna Eden
Habits of Thought That Undermine Conscious Partnering
Habits of thought that keep our attention running along fixed pathways even if they limit or harm us are the antithesis of conscious partnering. Ron Siegel, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, describes five “neurobiological mechanisms that make us miserable.”6 These trace to the harsh lives our ancestors survived millions of years ago. Simply becoming aware of evolutionary tendencies that have become self-defeating is a step toward freeing yourself from their grip, so we list them here.
Focusing on What Is Bad
Our ancestors were attuned to danger. Anticipating what could go wrong was an effective survival strategy. Being alert for whether a hungry lion was in the vicinity had more survival value than finding the tastiest berries. We, as the distant offspring of the survivors, are still wired to give more weight and attention to problems than to pleasures. As Siegel quips, “We evolved minds that are like Velcro for bad thoughts and Teflon for good ones.”7 In short, we are programmed to obsessively and painfully focus on what is wrong.
Stress Arousal System Stuck in the “On” Position
To compound the tendency to focus on what is wrong, our highly developed cerebral cortex makes the fight/flight/freeze response to threat—which is so remarkably effective in the wild for mammals with less complex lives and brains than ours—problematic for us. Other creatures get past the danger when the danger has passed, but we get caught up thinking about it. Our arousal systems get stuck in the “on” position as we obsess about “what went wrong in the past and what might go wrong in the future, experiencing painful emotions each time.”8 We transform even problems we have handled effectively into worry about what will go wrong next.
• THE ENERGY DIMENSION •
When a Person Is in a State of Worry
The energy is highly internalized, cut off. There is no positive connection to anything. You might think the energy would go out to the object of the worry, but instead it spirals inward, as if drawn into a black hole in the aura. This blocks intuition and creative solutions.
When a Person Is in a State of Appreciation
The energy becomes buoyant, as if making a strong connection to life. It is the opposite of worry. In fact, and this is hard to explain, the energy looks like it is connected to and in rhythm with the earth and everything natural—the trees and flowers and soil and clouds. This energy also lifts the vibration of whoever is nearby.
Self-Comparisons
Another vestige of our evolution that makes the psychological equipment we have inherited challenging is our predisposition to compare ourselves with others. Higher-ranking ancestors got to mate with healthier partners with better genes, and this history fuels our compulsion to “constantly fill our minds with comparisons to others.”9 We can always find someone to whom we can compare ourselves negatively and are compelled to do so, though it undermines our personal sense of well-being.
Avoiding What Is Unpleasant
Much of our psychological suffering, according to some mental health experts, paradoxically involves our efforts to avoid unpleasant experiences at the expense of taking needed actions. From not confronting difficult tasks or relationship problems to the abuse of drugs and mind-numbing media, the problem, Siegel observes, “is that many things that make us feel better in the short run make us feel much worse in the long run.”10 One of our most instinctive strategies for avoiding suffering tends to backfire. Even physical pain, when met with mindful awareness and acceptance, changes in texture and becomes easier to bear.
A Future Framed by Awareness of What Can Go Wrong
We are wired to anticipate famines, wars, and other threats to our well-being and very existence. Making our propensity for worry and self-generated misery even worse, we, unlike other creatures, know we are going to die. We know that no matter how well we live we are headed toward either sickness and decline or a gruesome premature ending.
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These psychological predispositions, whose roots often trace more to the twists and turns of our jagged evolutionary heritage than to our upbringing, not only undermine our capacities for joy and fulfillment, they sabotage our ability to form secure, healthy relationships. An effective approach to interpersonal bliss does not include (1) emphasizing what is wrong rather than what is right about your partner and your relationship, (2) maintaining perceptions and expectations about your partner or your relationship that keep you in a threat alert mode, (3) comparing your partner or your relationship negatively with others, (4) not dealing with difficult issues within your relationship, and (5) expending your energies and good spirit worrying about that which neither of you can control.
Our Capacity to Change What Isn’t Working
The reason for the above cheery discussion about our inborn tendencies for making ourselves and our relationships miserable is that recognizing a predicament is the first step in finding ways to move beyond it, and we can also suggest steps beyond mere recognition. Recall from our discussion in the previous chapter about whether we are destined to act out the sexual proclivities of our ancestors. The answer was, “No, we are not.” And so it is for each of these inborn habits of thought. The keys to our success as a species are our flexibility and ability to learn—based on our logic, memory, and enormous neural network—rather than rigid biological programs that are hardwired into our brains. Brain researchers use the term “self-directed neuroplasticity” to describe your brain’s built-in ability to change itself based on what you do with your mind.11 It is an empowering concept. Even as the parts of our brain that cause us to act like reptiles battle it out with the parts that are “in apprehension how like a god” (Hamlet), evolution gave us the capacity to enter the fray and counteract dysfunctional remnants of our prehistoric past.
Mindfulness
Siegel advocates mindfulness as a way of overcoming self-defeating psychological predispositions, and we will add an energy psychology approach as an additional way of replacing self-defeating habits with more adaptive patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior. Research has demonstrated that mindfulness influences gene expression, providing direct health benefits as specific as the reduction of activity in pro-inflammatory genes.12 Psychologically, it brings about beneficial neurological changes leading to improved regulation of emotions, enhanced perspective, better memory, greater well-being, and a more fluid sense of self.13
While mindfulness is many things, it is also an energy technique, a highly sophisticated approach that establishes new energetic habits in the brain. Focusing your attention leads to shifts in your energies that lead to changes in your neurochemistry. The patterns by which your energies flow are the first process influenced by mindfulness. The practice aligns your energies in ways that correspond with the experience of inner peace, and it establishes energy habits that will be beneficial to you as well as to your relationship. From that energetic shift, stress is less likely to trigger a threat response, your partner’s behaviors are less likely to send you into fight/flight/freeze mode, and the rational part of your brain will have greater influence over your primitive brain centers.
At the core of mindfulness is awareness and acceptance of your inner experiences, moment by moment. Mindfulness is the art of recognizing and accepting what is. With this awareness, our responses to what life presents soften, naturally and organically. By noticing your thoughts and emotions with curiosity and acceptance, rather than clinging to or acting on them, you come to understand how they regularly appear and then fade. In mindfulness practice, Siegel explains, “we begin to see our thoughts as secretions of the mind, arising and passing like clouds moving across a vast sky. We stop believing in them as we once did. That, in turn, lessens their grip and reduces our emotional reactivity to them.”14 The T-shirt slogan “Don’t believe everything you think” nails it. Siegel discusses how mindfulness counters the self-defeating habits of thought that trace back to our ancestors
by helping us “see more clearly the habits of our minds that create unnecessary suffering—and offers a way to change them.”15 An introduction to mindfulness, along with free audio instructions for several practices, is generously provided on Siegel’s website, http://www.mindfulness-solution.com.16
Energy Psychology
Energy psychology also begins by recognizing what is (the SUD rating, here) and accepting it (the Acceptance Statement, here), but then goes on to use acupoint tapping to send signals to the brain that rapidly change our emotional response to difficult thoughts and memories. While changing your consciousness shifts your energies, shifting your energies changes your consciousness. Each of the five self-defeating psychological dispositions discussed above is stated next in terms relevant to both the individual and the relationship. Each is then followed by (1) a sentence summarizing the way that mindfulness might shift the pattern and (2) an energy psychology Acceptance Statement and Reminder Phrase that can be used, along with acupoint stimulation, for shifting deep habits of thought and emotion.
1. EMPHASIZING WHAT IS WRONG RATHER THAN WHAT IS RIGHT ABOUT YOURSELF, YOUR PARTNER, OR YOUR RELATIONSHIP
Mindfulness: Deeply recognizing how your psyche automatically produces thoughts that focus on what is wrong powerfully challenges the authority of those thoughts.
Acupoint Stimulation: Massage the points on the Central Meridian (here) while stating, “Even though I keep focusing on [name the thought] . . .” Then place your hands over your Heart Chakra as you say, “I deeply love and accept myself.” Then do a round of tapping (see Figure 6-3), stating the thought as you come to each acupoint. [For this and the four subsequent acupoint stimulation instructions, you can simply do them as written or, to address the issues involved more deeply, do them within the complete energy psychology protocol presented in Chapter 6, starting with a zero-to-ten SUD rating about the distress you feel when you bring the self-defeating thought or habit to mind.]
2. MAINTAINING PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS ABOUT YOURSELF, YOUR PARTNER, OR YOUR RELATIONSHIP THAT KEEP YOUR STRESS AROUSAL SYSTEM STUCK IN THE “ON” POSITION
Mindfulness: Accepting whatever thoughts or emotions your psyche produces without clinging to them defuses their power to endlessly evoke the stress response.
Acupoint Stimulation: Use the physical procedures described in #1 while stating, “Even though I become anxious when I think of [describe the situation], I deeply love and accept myself.” Then do a round of tapping, describing the situation in a few words as you come to each acupoint.
3. COMPARING YOURSELF, YOUR PARTNER, OR YOUR RELATIONSHIP NEGATIVELY WITH OTHERS
Mindfulness: Noticing our self-judgments without overidentifying with them is a way of offsetting our culturally reinforced preoccupation with our selves, our status, and the market value of our personal qualities.
Acupoint Stimulation: Use the physical procedures described in #1 while stating, “Even though I judge myself [or my partner or my relationship] for [describe], I deeply love and accept myself.” Then do a round of tapping, briefly naming the judgment as you come to each acupoint.
4. AVOIDING WHAT IS UNPLEASANT
Mindfulness: Being present with and experientially embracing every thought and emotion, whether pleasant or unpleasant, prepares your nervous system to meet whatever life presents with equanimity and to deal with it effectively.
Acupoint Stimulation: Use the physical procedures described in #1 while stating, “Even though I avoid [describe], I deeply love and accept myself.” Then do a round of tapping, briefly naming what you avoid as you come to each acupoint.
5. EXPENDING YOUR ENERGIES AND GOOD SPIRIT WORRYING ABOUT THAT WHICH NEITHER OF YOU CAN CONTROL
Mindfulness: Experiencing your thoughts and feelings as passing events while holding an open, curious attitude about how they, like your breath, rise and fall, is a potent way to prepare for transitions, large and small.17
Acupoint Stimulation: Use the physical procedures described in #1 while stating, “Even though I worry about [describe], I deeply love and accept myself.” Then do a round of tapping, briefly naming the worry as you come to each acupoint.
Both mindfulness and energy psychology techniques can help us break the trance that our reflexive thoughts and emotions are the only valid reality in town. This allows us to engage our lives, moment by moment, at more profound and genuine levels. While the energies in your body are to a large degree governed by habits, you can willfully affect their flow. When you do—in fact, when you do almost anything that is outside your habitual repertoire even once—it will be easier to do it again. That is how quickly your energies and your brain can begin to establish new habits and new neural pathways.
Conscious Partnering Means Telling the Microscopic Truth
Conscious partnering is both an inside job and a shared creation. Cultivating a relationship that can serve as a creative container for the conflicting and shifting feelings and perspectives that characterize everyone’s inner life is an ongoing adventure. Psychological development is all about one set of worldviews and related preferences and strategies making way for another. How has your vision of marriage changed since you were younger? Your senses of calling, destiny, and purpose and your methods for fulfilling them are in a process of continual evolution as you move from one phase of your life to the next (and as the culture changes around you). This process does not, however, unfold in a neat and orderly fashion, and you and your partner are one another’s closest witnesses in this messy piece of personal evolution. To fully embrace this dimension of conscious partnering requires profound acceptance as well as radical honesty.
Radical Honesty
A long-term relationship that can contain two people’s passions, beliefs, and desires freely expressed and fully respected is an evolutionary landmark. In their classic book, Conscious Loving, Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks describe an essential skill for a conscious relationship as the ability and commitment to tell one another the “microscopic truth.”18 They explain that most people learn to conceal or distort the truth of their inner experience during childhood. The job of a parent and a culture is to mold a child’s motivations and behavior toward certain preconceived ideals, and the job of a child is to pretend that it is working. Some feelings (and the behaviors that grow out of those feelings) are acceptable in the family, the school, and the society and can be freely expressed; other feelings lead to ridicule, shame, or punishment and are concealed. Was that the case for you? It is for most people, and it carries into our adult relationships. Donna got the message that she was not to cause trouble, and she learned to quickly dismiss or not even recognize feelings within herself that might cause problems for others. David learned to define himself by his achievements and to convert every impulse for play into this drive to achieve before it might divert him into actually having fun. These messages become so firmly embedded that many people, the Hendrickses explain, “simply do not know themselves deeply enough to tell the truth at a meaningful level.”19
While telling the truth would seem an obvious part of conscious partnering, telling the “microscopic truth” is a skill that requires practice not only in stating what your partner might not want to hear, but also in recognizing just what is your deeper truth. Rather than a broad philosophical position, this is a moment-by-moment endeavor. The Hendrickses define truth, in the sense of the microscopic truth, as “that which absolutely cannot be argued about.”20 And the only thing that absolutely cannot be argued about is your experience. David might notice that his beloved has become the center of extreme chaos when packing for a trip and helpfully observe, “Donna, after all these years, you are still totally disorganized.” This, however, is not the microscopic truth.
If he could see inside her head how many considerations she is balancing in trying to figure out what she needs for another month-long teaching tour with two dozen stage appearances, he might realize that even one as obsessively organized a
s himself might be challenged by the task. So his statement not only isn’t a truth that is informed by compassion, it isn’t even the truth at the surface level. The microscopic truth, on the other hand, reports only your experience, not your judgments or interpretations. So David might have said, “I get uncomfortable when I see your clothes and accessories and papers covering the bed and the kitchen table and every chair in the house.” Or, looking deeper, he might say, “When I see you struggling to get packed, the part of me that likes to keep everything neat and organized gets nervous.” Telling her that she is totally disorganized does not provide information Donna can use other than to feel bad about herself. On the other hand, the microscopic truth that David’s organized part is threatened amid the disorganization opens the way for Donna to say, “Well, don’t just sit there wallowing in your digital sense of superiority, you bastard! Help me pack!”