Author: drglenndoyle

Why is focusing on our strengths so important?

After all, some people would tell us that we should focus on our weaknesses instead of our strengths, in order to improve those areas in which we’re comparatively not strong.

There’s no question that we should be realistic about our weaknesses and do what we can to shore them up. Nothing is gained by ignoring, denying or disowning our areas of weaknesses.

That said: what we focus on, with consistency and intensity, forms the core of our self-image.

And our self-image determines what we are and are not wiling to do in our lives; what we’re willing to tolerate in our lives; the goals we feel good about pursuing; the rewards we believe we deserve.

Our self-image is the fundamental lens through which we see reality.

If we are disproportionately focused on our weaknesses, we form a self-image that revolves around things we can’t do well.

See, our brains take their cue about what’s important, especially about us as human beings, from our focus. “If they’re focusing on THIS THING so much, it must be REALLY IMPORTANT to who and what we are,” the logic goes.

It’s really easy to develop a lopsided version of ourselves, in which those things we CAN’T do well are more important than those things we CAN.

It’s even easier to develop this lopsided version of ourselves when we already have a set of beliefs that revolves around our inadequacies and failures. Which, unfortunately, many of us do.

What we focus on expands, at last in our minds.

What we think becomes easier to think again.

What we tell ourselves becomes easier to tell ourselves again.

It’s really, really important to keep perspective when we consider our weaknesses…and to remind ourselves that our weaknesses are NOT more important than our strengths.

Our strengths are what define us.

Our strengths are often more reflective of our interests and values than our weaknesses— which is why, frankly, they’re often our strengths to begin with.

We truly have the choice whether to define ourselves by our strengths or our weaknesses. Only we can determine where to direct more of our focus. No one else can make that decision for us— where our mind’s eye most often goes.

Why not define ourselves by our strengths?

After all, even if we want to shore up our weaknesses— it’s by looking at our strengths that we’ll find a roadmap of how to turn weaknesses into strengths.

(And by focusing on weaknesses, what are we trying to learn? How to turn strengths into weaknesses? Come on.)

Learning to focus, first and most intently, on your strengths, is a skill. It can be learned and practiced. And learning and practicing these skills are the key to developing self-confidence and stable, genuine self-esteem.

You can practice that skill right now.

What are your strengths?

What do you do well?

Those are questions worth getting in the habit of asking.

 

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Too often, we get very up in our heads because what we can do, what we feel capable of doing, at any given time does not match up to how well we “should” be able to do something in our heads.

We know there are certain things that are important to us. We know there are certain things that we’d like to be able to do well.

We’d like to make a good impression on others.

We’d like to perform our job functions competently. We’d like to be acknowledged by others as performing our job functions competently.

We’d like to do physical exercise that is well-suited to our fitness goals.

Mind you, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to do things well. Of course we want to do things well. These are things we care about. We care about our relationships with others. We care about our job performance. We care about our appearance and fitness level.

There’s nothing wrong with caring about things.

But when our level of “caring” about something translates, on a practical level, to “I don’t want to even ATTEMPT to do this thing unless I FEEL like I’ll be able to do it well,” we’re stuck with a few very basic problems.

First of all, we never quite know if our FEELINGS about being able to do something are even accurate.

There are definitely days when we’ve FELT like we can do something very well, when it has turned out that, actually, it’s an off day for us.

I was just reminded of this on the running track. I’ve been working through a knee injury that’s kept me from my beloved hobby of long distance running for a few months now. The other day I woke up, FEELING like it might be a good day to try a long run again. I was CONVINCED that today I could try to run, and my knee wouldn’t hurt.

As it turned out? Womp womp— once I got on the track, my knee hurt more than ever.

So our FEELINGS about whether we can do something aren’t always accurate. We shouldn’t assume that because we FEEL like we can or can’t do something, that we’re right.

How we FEEL about our ability to do something can be taken into consideration, of course— feelings are sources of information that should be paid attention to. But, as I’ve said over and over and over again, feelings shouldn’t be our ONLY source of information.

Don’t over-rely on your subjective sense of whether you FEEL up to a task. You might be wrong.

Second, if we always waited until we FELT like we could do something perfectly or well…a lot of the time, we would never get around to trying anything, ever.

Whoever said that we have to FEEL like we can do something, in order to do it?

Whoever said that if we make an attempt to do something, and that attempt doesn’t go PERFECTLY, or even as well as we imagined it might go…then that attempt doesn’t have value?

When we live our lives imprisoned by this belief that we can only do something if and when we FEEL up to it, when we FEEL like we can do it perfectly or very well, we’re going to be doing a lot of waiting. We’re also going to be robbing ourselves of the experience of doing things IMPERFECTLY…which are exactly the experiences we often need in order to grow or get better at things.

A lot of people don’t like to hear this, but it’s the truth: much of life is all about doing things when we don’t FEEL like doing them, and adjusting to the discomfort that comes with that experience.

The people who are most valuable to their organizations and to their families, the people who end up succeeding most often at the projects they choose in life…they often wind up being valuable and successful precisely because they’ve learned to cope with doing things they don’t FEEL like doing in the moment.

How do you expect to develop effective coping skills if you never put yourself in the position of having to cope with things?

Understand: of course it’d be marvelous to only ever have to do things we FEEL like we can do perfectly or well at any given moment. I would LOVE to live in a world where I could walk around with a sense of effortless, guaranteed competence at life.

But if I was, in fact, effortlessly competent at life, I’d never have to cope with failure.

I’d never have to learn to overcome reluctance or fear.

I’d be of very limited value as a therapist. Or as a mentor. Or as a friend. Or as a partner.

We want and need people in our lives who have learned to do things even when they don’t FEEL like they can do them well. These people are the people who are reliable and durable.

We want and need to be those types of people ourselves.

Do you not FEEL like you can do something perfectly or well right now?

That’s your signal to go out and do it anyway.

 

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We don’t have the “right” to maliciously, purposefully harm other people in the course of fulfilling our wants and needs.

For as healthy and important it is to recognize and stand up for our wants and needs, it is equally healthy and important to do so in a way that recognizes the fundamental humanity and dignity of other people. It is enormously difficult to create and maintain healthy self-esteem for ourselves while degrading the humanity of others.

We deserve the same in return— acknowledgement of and respect for our basic humanity and dignity— but it is often the case that we simply won’t get it.

It is enormously important that we understand that our worth, our humanity, and our dignity is not derived from or dependent upon how other people perceive or treat us.

If we fall into the trap of believing that our wroth somehow has something important to do with how others perceive or treat us…then we’re at the mercy of people who don’t know us, who may not value the things we value, whose worldview may have nothing in common with our experience.

On an even more basic level: if we fall into the trap of believing that our worth, humanity, and/or dignity is tied up in how others perceive or treat us, then we’ve conceded that humans do not have inherent worth— that “worth” is a social construct, one that can change with the times, with cultural norms and attitudes, and with experiences.

That’s not how human worth works.

Humans have value because they exist.

Our modern brains sometimes reject this concept, because of how we are raised and socialized. We’re raised and socialized to believe that humans may or may not have worth based on the kind of value they provide; how attractive they are; how useful they can be.

Many of us perceive “worthy” as a synonym for “useful.” We interpret “value,” when it comes to human beings, as being tantamount to “value” as applies to machinery or farm animals: literally, “able to provide value.”

Moreover, many of us buy into this idea that our “worth” can be impacted by things that happen to us. Again, this notion has its roots in regarding humans as tantamount to beasts of burden. If  an ox that is used to plow a field has a trauma happen to it— say, it breaks its leg— it is less useful to a farmer. It has assumed less “worth.” It is less “worthy,” in the literal sense.

Hence, our belief that trauma can somehow make us less “worthy.”

Again, though: human worth doesn’t work like that.

Trauma does not make humans less worthy.

Trauma can, objectively, make humans less functional for a period of time. Trauma may induce symptoms in human beings that makes it difficult for us to fulfill our day to day obligations and take advantage of opportunities. It’s tough to live a full, active life when you’re being crippled with flashbacks and nightmares and wracked with anxiety.

But “less functional” does not imply “less worthy.”

Human beings should not be judged based on how much “value” they can provide for someone else. Their “worth” should not rise and fall based on circumstance.

Humans have dignity because they exist.

Humans have worth because they exist.

No amount of trauma or abuse can make a human being less “worthy,” regardless of how much that trauma or abuse may impact a human being’s functionality for a period of time.

This is a vitally important concept to grasp if you’re trying to recover from trauma. Because the fact is, for awhile, your functionality is probably going to be compromised. It’s just how trauma works.

It doesn’t mean you’re less worthy. It doesn’t mean you are not deserving of dignity. “Less functional” is NOT the same as “less human.”

Part of treatment for trauma is reminding people of this truth: that their basic humanity remains intact, regardless of what has happened to them.

Part of recovery from trauma is breaking apart the beliefs that are often formed in the aftermath of abuse: that a person is somehow “deserving” of pain and failure. Because it just isn’t true.

You are not what happened to you.

You have worth no matter what happened to you.

You have worth no matter what anybody thinks of you.

You have worth no matter how you happen to be functioning, or not functioning, at the moment.

Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now, I’m going to need to you play a game with me, called “act as if.” Addicts have to play this game in the early stages of their recovery all the time.

For a moment, for a little while, “act as if” you have worth and dignity, regardless of what has happened to you. Live in that world for awhile. Even if it feels foreign and wrong— try it out.

You can get through this. You deserve to get through this.

Want to know how I know?

Because you’re reading these words. You’re a human being. And that means YOU. HAVE. WORTH.

 

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How do you get through a tough night?

The same way you get through a tough day. One minute at a time.

You don’t, actually, have to get through the entire night at once.

A lot of people make that mistake— they see hour after hour after hour of misery in front of them, and they think they have to endure all of those hours right now.

You don’t. You have to endure the minute, the second, you’re enduring, right now.

You don’t know what the next second, the next minute, the next hour, is going to bring.

You have to find a way to get through this minute. These five minutes. These ten minutes. That’s doable.

There are lot of things that keep us up at night. Anxiety. Flashbacks. Memories. Sadness. Fear.

And the tough thing about the nighttime is, there is often not much we can do about things at night. We very frequently have to wait until the next day before we can even begin to address the cause of our worry— if we can address it at all.

So we’re kind of in a holding pattern until dawn, until the world catches up with us again.

And in the meantime, we’re often getting very, very antsy about the fact that we know we NEED to sleep…but with each minute that ticks on by, we know we’re losing precious time for rest. But we just…can’t…sleep.

Getting through a tough night requires a specific skillset, that goes beyond “big picture” thinking.

Getting through a tough night requires us to truly embrace the concept of radical acceptance— totally and completely accepting what is happening with us, right here, right now. Not trying to change it; not trying to deny or disown it; accepting what’s going on with us, the pain, the dread, the anxiety, whatever.

Because trust me: pushing back against it is going to get you exactly nowhere in the middle of a tough night.

Then we have to figure out how we’re going to make it through the next minute.

People sometimes discount the coping skills of distraction and containment, because they figure those skills are just ways to avoid problems. It’s true that if overused or inappropriately relied upon, distraction and containment can become maladaptive tools; but when they’re used appropriately, they are tools that are invaluable for the task of making it through a tough night.

Distraction and containment aren’t ways to wholly AVOID problems or pain. They’re ways to lessen pain for a discrete period of time, so we can, in effect, live to fight another day.

They’re tools that should be used when you’ve realized that you can’t do anything about what’s bothering you right now— so you need to conserve energy and pick your battles. That’s when you use distraction and containment— not as a default, go-to skill at all times.

“Distraction” is kind of self-explanatory. It’s the process of dangling a shiny object in front of your nervous system so that you get a surge of dopamine through your brain. It tells your senses, “Pay attention to THIS, instead of the pain you’re feeling.”

The best distraction tools are simple, not complicated to access, and rely on the five senses. Things you can see. Things you can smell. Things you can hear. Things you can feel. Things you can taste. Anything that can get your nervous system looking in the opposite direction of your pain— even just for a minute.

“Containment” is a skill by which you gather your thoughts, concerns, and needs around a problem, and gather them into one place— not to be locked away indefinitely, but to be held over until you’re in a position to act.

There are lots of things that can act as containment devices. Journals are containment devices. Some people have literal boxes they create, that they visualize putting their worries into. Some people keep files on their computer in which they contain their pain and worries. Anything that can send a clear signal to your mind that “WE ARE SETTING THIS ASIDE FOR NOW, BUT IT WILL BE ADDRESSED,” will work as a container.

How many times do you use the tools of distraction and containment?

As many times as it takes.

The thing is, actively using these tools, even if you have to use them over and over and OVER again, is better than just lying there, in the dark, hurting.

Actively using your skills in ANY situation beats passively taking the thumping that your pain is trying to give you.

How do you make it through a tough night?

One minute at a time.

And by using your damn skills.

 

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Why would we want a plan B?

Won’t having a backup plan rob us of the adrenaline rush and the high stakes necessary to truly succeed? Why would we want to give ourselves an “out?”

Because there is exactly one certainty in life: it often doesn’t go as planned.

If the only variable at work was your own effort, your own commitment, your own focus, then sure, it would make sense to completely commit yourself to your goal by not having a backup plan. If there was a direct, unerring, simplistic connection between your efforts and your results, then sure. Don’t have a Plan B.

But let me ask you: what kind of a fantasy world do you think you’re living in, if you truly believe that your level of commitment or your level of effort is the ONLY variable at work?

There are going to be monkey wrenches thrown into your plans that have nothing to do with you.

There are going to be monkey wrenches thrown into your plans that you will have absolutely no way of predicting.

There are going to be monkey wrenches thrown into your plans that will change your perspective and approach.

There will be monkey wrenches thrown into your plans that will change your goals themselves.

You really think we’re living in a world where you can simply succeed by “going all in?”

Be real. Live with me in the real world, not the candy-coated fantasy world created by some self-help authors in which anything is possible if you just believe hard enough and commit yourself to “moonshots.”

Children believe in magical thinking, in which the only variable that is operant in a project is their ability to fully commit. Children believe that their worlds are created wholly by their own thoughts and will.

There’s a reason why children are particularly susceptible to magical thinking of this type: because it is an enormously immature worldview.

Grown ups don’t have the luxury of believing in magical thinking.

Grown ups acknowledge that there are things that will impact their plans that they cannot control.

Grown ups do not live in a candy-coated world of denial, in which they can safely eschew backup plans because, gosh darn it, they’re going to think their way into a tangible result.

Understand: Plan B doesn’t have to suck.

Plan B, in fact, should have as much going for it as Plan A, in some respects. It should be a contingency plan that still reflects your values and goals.

Plan B should be a way for you to keep moving in a direction you decide, even if Plan A doesn’t work out for whatever reason.

Put another way, if you don’t have a Plan B, and Plan A doesn’t work out— you’re then at the mercy of others peoples’ goals and values. Your magical thinking has painted you into a corner.

The self-help “experts” who tell you to go “all in” don’t address the downside of that risk. They correctly point out that risk is often involved in generating meaningful results…but they let their followers down when it comes to managing that risk.

Oh, yeah, that’s another thing grown ups have to think about tin the real world: risk management.

By the way: if you need the adrenaline rush of having “no other choice” but to succeed at Plan A, simply because you’ve failed to come up with a Plan B in anticipation of succeeding at your “moonshot,” then you are being poorly advised about how goal achievement happens in the real world.

In the real world, “moonshots” are the end results of dozens of unsuccessful attempts.

“Moonshots” are most often borne out of not just Plan B, but plans W, X, and Y.

Be a grown up. Have a Plan B.

Then work like hell to make Plan A happen.

 

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Why is it so important to our self-esteem that we avoid going on autopilot in our lives?

After all, a lot of life is pain. A lot of life is inconvenience. A lot of life is hassle. Isn’t it better if we can go on autopilot and not feel as much of that pain, not experience much of that inconvenience, avoid a lot of that hassle?

It would be lovely if going on autopilot in our lives would spare us that pain. Ultimately, however, checking out of our lives, gong on autopilot, skating by on a minimal level of conscious engagement…doesn’t, actually, spare us that much pain.

In fact, going on autopilot tends to lead to a lot more pain, inconvenience, and hassle than we would have to deal with otherwise.

One of the central pillars to living a life of healthy self-esteem is living consciously. What that means is choosing to engage consciously in life.

In other other words, when we’re given the choice to either think or not think…making the choice to think.

I know, I know. A lot of the people who are reading these words associate a lot of pain with thinking and consciously engaging with life. There seem to be a lot of forces working against us, discouraging us from thinking and actively engaging in life.

I know, as well, that for many people “overthinking” to the point of anxiety or depression is also a serious problem. There is a difference between “thinking” and “ruminating”…but sometimes that difference can be hard to perceive.

Make no mistake: thinking is hard. I know.

Actively engaging in life is tiring. I get it.

The thing is…it’s really, really hard to cultivate high, healthy self-esteem without thinking and actively engaging. Without living consciously.

There is a lot about self-esteem that is misunderstood in our culture. A lot of people in our culture seem to think that self-esteem is more or less our own opinion of ourselves, and they often think it’s formed by what we do, what we achieve, or how we’re recognized by others in our lives.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to do good things, to achieve great things, and to be positively recognized by others. But those are only peripherally related to true self-esteem.

True self-esteem isn’t formed from the outside in. It is always, and only, an inside-out job.

True self-esteem is more than our own “opinion of ourselves.” Self-esteem is comprised primarily of two things: a sense of worthiness, and a sense of efficacy.

Worthiness is our sense that we deserve dignity; we deserve respect; we deserve good things to happen to us; and we don’t inherently deserve bad things to happen to us.

Efficacy is our sense that we can handle what life throws at us. We can get stuff done when stuff needs to be done.

When we consider those two factors— efficacy and worthiness— it becomes apparent that it’s really hard to cultivate either of them if we’re living life mostly on autopilot, refusing to consciously engage because we’re afraid of pain.

Living life on autopilot makes us passive. When we’re passive, we’re essentially leaving it up to other people and the world around us to decide whether we’re “worthy.” We haven’t made an intentional decision that we have inherent worth…we’re leaving it up to others.

Living life on autopilot leaves us unable to make informed, judicious decisions. And how are we ever to feel efficacious— like we can get done what we want and need to get done— if we’re not able to make good decisions?

Living life on autopilot leaves us, by definition, in a very reactive place. We’re not authoring our own narrative, we’re reacting to other peoples’ narratives. That means that the pain, the inconveniences, and the hassles that come our way may or may not have anything to do with what we want and value…and enduring them may or may not get us any closer to our goals.

If we’re going to experience pain, inconvenience, and hassle in our lives, isn’t it better that those things be in the service of getting us to where we want to go, or in furthering our own values?

Lots of people and organizations want to make us go on autopilot, and buy into their own values and priorities. Advertisers want us to go on autopilot. Political candidates want us to go on autopilot. Gurus want us to go on autopilot. All for the purposes of accepting their messages, without too much critical examination or fuss.

Worthiness and efficacy can’t be built on autopilot.

Living consciously can be painful— but it’s a far more productive pain than the alternative.

Pain, if it has to exist, should serve a purpose.

Use whatever pain that you must endure to build your TRUE self-esteem.

 

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A lot of the time, motivation doesn’t come naturally.

A lot of the time, what does come naturally is the impulse to quit.

Many of us have a lot of experience with having to grind on, day after day, with little or no reinforcement.

Our projects are long-term projects, which involve a lot of hurry up and wait.

Our long-term projects involve a lot of having to stay consistent, day after day after day, despite not seeing many visible, tangible results for awhile.

Our long-term projects involve a lot of mental and emotional backflips in order to stay focused and motivated— because that focus and motivation isn’t coming from the outside world while we patiently wait for our work to come to fruition.

It’s easy to quit— not because we lack character, passion, or intelligence.

No, the reason why it’s so easy to quit is because of good old behavioral psychology: we’re wired to persist in or repeat behaviors when they’re reinforced.

And sadly, the incremental goals and efforts that lead to success in the long term frequently go a long time without being externally reinforced.

It’s enormously discouraging when we go long periods without being reinforced for staying consistent and focused in our goals.

When we’re losing weight, it’s day after day after day of carefully monitoring calories or carbohydrates or macronutrients, often to just see incremental differences on the scale— that is, if we see any differences on the scale at all for awhile.

When we’re building muscle, it’s day after day after day of lifting incrementally larger amounts of weight, an exercise which is painful and boring in the moment, often to not see any discernible benefits at all in the short term.

When we’re making our way through a challenging book, it’s day after day after day of forcing ourselves through dense paragraphs that we may not find entertaining or edifying— all to make what appears to be minuscule progress, one page at a time.

When we’re in recovery, it’s day after day after day of not doing the one thing we actually want to do— just to add one more day onto our “days clean” total after another excruciating twenty four hours. It often begs the very legitimate question of why we gave up our substance of choice in the first place, if feeling like THIS is our reward.

The examples from everyday life are abundant and illustrative: persisting in long-term projects, pursuing long-term goals, day after day, with little to no outside reinforcement can be a serious drag.

Is it any wonder so many people give up on their long-term goals in favor of more immediate gratification or reinforcement?

Contrary to what many people believe, it’s not a crazy or unintelligent decision when one casts aside one’s frustrating long-term goals in favor of short-term gratification. In fact, most people have done this a lot in their lives. It’s not because those people are bad or weak people— it’s because sticking with a long-term goal sucks, when there’s no immediate, visceral reward to keep you plugging away.

That’s why how we manage our own minds is so important.

When reinforcement and encouragement is lacking from the outside, we need to take control of the situation internally.

We need to CREATE motivation from inside— and the only way we can do that is to use the magnificent mind we’re all equipped with in ways that are creative, and which serve our long-term goals.

We need to remember that playing make-believe isn’t just for children. Using our imaginations and our capacity to visualize is vital to our ability to stay focused and motivated when reinforcement isn’t plentiful in the environment around us…and, as it turns out, our magnificent minds are extremely potent tools when it comes to manufacturing motivation from within.

In our minds, we can fast-forward and experience the benefit from a long-term goal right now.

In our minds, we can experience what it’s like to be free of a habit we’re struggling every day to kick.

In our minds, we can enjoy the feeling of being one year sober, five years sober, twenty years sober— even if we’re struggling to achieve our first twenty-four hours substance free.

In our minds, we can imagine the look on the faces of our biggest critics when we actually achieve what we set out to achieve.

I’ll let you in on a little secret we psychologists know: MOST of the motivation we’ll ever experience is created as pictures and sounds and stories in our heads. It may sound silly when I tell you to “play make believe,” but the fact is, we’re already playing make believe ALL THE TIME.

Your ability to imagine and visualize is your secret weapon in a world where reinforcement for our long-term projects is often hard to come by.

Use your secret weapon.

Use it creatively.

Use it on purpose.

And most importantly: use it OFTEN.

 

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Others don’t need to agree that your experience is valid, for your experience to be valid.

A great deal of my social media feed today is preoccupied with a story that had been publicized about a celebrity’s behavior while on a date. I saw post after post opining on whether the celebrity’s behavior on the date was merely “boorish,” or whether his behavior rose to the standard of “sexual assault.”

More than a few of the posts passed judgment on “how bad” this celebrity’s behavior was, how “guilty” or “not guilty” he was (and of what “charge”), and whether the woman with whom he’d gone out on the date “should” have publicized her painful experience with this man.

We’re a culture that loves to judge how “valid” others’ experiences— particularly their painful experiences— are.

We love to apply our own standards of “how bad” an experience has to be before it’s considered to be “valid” as a painful, damaging thing.

If an experience doesn’t rise to our standard for “bad enough” to be considered painful or damaging, we often instinctively retreat into a position of, “they should just suck it up. They shouldn’t be THAT damaged by that experience.”

The thing is…nobody gets to tell us how damaged we “should” be by an experience.

Nobody gets to tell us whether an experience is or isn’t a legitimately “damaging” experience.

This is what drives me crazy when people mock others’ “triggers” (or even the word “trigger” itself); it drives me crazy when people are dismissive of others’ painful experiences as “not that bad;” it drives me crazy when people pass judgment on whether others’ experiences aren’t “bad enough” to be considered traumatizing or damaging.

Unless it’s your experience, you don’t get to decide that.

An experience is exactly as damaging as it is. The ex post facto judgment of the culture or other people doesn’t change how damaging an experience is.

I’m not talking about a legal standard, here. I’m not a lawyer. Matters of criminal charges and consequences are outside of my realm of expertise. I’m not making the argument that people should be held criminally or civilly accountable for behavior based solely on its impact— the truth is, I have no idea what those standards “should” be, and I’m glad I don’t have to think about it professionally,

I’m talking about acknowledging and healing the psychological and emotional impact of traumatic events.

When it comes to healing, we don’t do ourselves any favors by dismissing the impact of events simply because other people may or may not agree on how badly it “should” have impacted us.

We cannot heal something the impact of which we do not fully acknowledge.

It’d be like trying to repair a hole in your roof, but refusing to measure the size of the whole because the branch that fell on the roof couldn’t POSSIBLY have left a hole THAT big.

Do you have any idea how many people I’ve worked with who have been hampered in their recovery work because they can’t bring themselves to acknowledge the full magnitude of their woundedness…mostly because they’ve been convinced by the culture or the people around them that their experience “shouldn’t” be that bad?

Why do people feel it necessary to pass judgment on how profoundly experiences “should” impact people, or whether or not people’s behavior was “that bad” or not? Why did the story about the celebrity’s bad date consume so much mileage on my Facebook feed the other day?

Part of it is our old friend: denial.

There is an extent to which we truly believe we can avoid the impact of something if we just simply deny that it hurt us.

It’s well-known that the most reliable way to tell if you’ve hurt someone is if they instinctively respond, “THAT DIDN’T HURT!”

Denial is a tempting defense mechanism. I get it. It’s kind of the ultimate in magical thinking— as if we could affect tangible reality, change things that have already happened, merely by playing make believe.

The phenomenon whereby we gang up to collectively judge whether a particular event “should” or “shouldn’t” be considered “that bad” is kind of an exercise in collective denial. It’s as if, if we can get enough people to wish hard enough that certain events aren’t “that bad,” then those events will, in fact, be not “that bad” if and when they ever happen to us.

It’s a cute, fanciful theory.

But it’s not true.

Experiences are exactly as bad as they are.

They have exactly the impact they have.

Acknowledging this, with eyes wide open, is an absolutely necessary precondition to healing.

 

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What obscures your vision?

We’re all flying at least partially blind. Even me.

(ESPECIALLY me, sometimes.)

It’d be wonderful if we walked around at all times with a perfectly balanced, healthy perspective on everything that’s happening in our lives, in the world, in the universe. For that matter, our brains like to fool us into THINKING we have a perfectly clear, perfectly balanced perspective on things.

But we don’t.

Everyone is blinded by something.

Maybe we’re blinded a little when it comes to some things, or blinded a lot when it comes to other things. But we must come face to face with the reality that our vision is always at least somewhat obscured.

What blinds us?

Sometimes it’s our past.

Our brains are designed to keep track of experiences we have. Even though we don’t consciously, perfectly remember many of the moments of our lives, our brains are actually VERY good at keeping track of what are called “flashbulb” moments— i.e., moments of particular trauma or particular ecstasy.

Our brains keep track of these moments because the main job of our brains is to keep us alive. As it turns out, in order to keep us alive and healthy, it’s helpful to keep track of things that feel awful or feel great, so we can do what we can to avoid the former and repeat the latter.

Sometimes, this quirk of our brains serves us well. It triggers cautionary responses that help us avoid getting hurt, and it triggers beguiling responses that help draw us toward possible pleasure.

However, sometimes, those triggers, which are designed to be helpful and which often ARE helpful…can blind us.

Sometimes a trigger that was originally meant to warn us of danger sounds too loud and too long for it to be of practical use. Its warning siren sounds too loud and too long inside our brains for us to be able to think and act productively and responsively to problems.

In the cases of people who have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the warning sirens insider their heads have been sounding for so long, it’s become impossible to turn them off, so EVERYTHING feels like a threat.

Likewise, sometimes a trigger that was originally meant to draw us toward pleasure fires too often and indiscriminately in our brains, leading us to maladaptive comfort behaviors that might have been okay or survival-enhancing in moderation…but when indulged too often, becomes a threat to our health or well-being.

In the cases of people who have developed unhealthy relationships to food or behaviors like sex or gambling, triggers that were originally meant to highlight things that enhance survival (like eating and shagging) have come to the point where they’re firing too often, causing a person to become preoccupied. If a trigger is constantly firing, then it becomes impossible to respond to it in a reasonable way— it just becomes background noise, that is either attended to all the time…or never attended to at all.

Triggers can blind us.

And then, after awhile, even our FEAR of triggers can blind us.

Our pasts, and the triggers associated with our pasts, are only one category of things that can blind us.

We can also be blinded by our belief systems, which dictate to our conscious and unconscious minds what we consider possible.

We can be blinded by prejudice that we either do or don’t consciously know about. (Yes, even “good people” with the best of intentions struggle with prejudice.)

We can absolutely be blinded by overwhelming emotion, which is excellent at narrowing our perspective and limiting our options when it comes to realistically problem-solving in the moment.

Understand: the point isn’t to do away with our blind spots.

The truth is, we can only do so much to clear our vision. Triggers, beliefs, attitudes, emotions…those things are going to happen, and they’re going to put blinders on us.

We CAN’T do away with our blind spots.

Part of being human, is being partially blind.

The point is to get ourselves out of denial that we are flying at least partially blind, at least some—if not most— of the time.

The point is to understand the sources of our obscured vision…and accept that we have to compensate for our blind spots.

The point is to give up the illusion that we are, can be, or should be perfect. If we’re going to make real progress in building better lives, job number one is to accept the glorious messiness and imperfections of the project in front of us.

To make a start on any of it, we have to stop being defensive about the fact that we’re partially blind, and embrace it. Get curious about it. Dedicate yourself to learning about your particular blind spots.

I’m still learning about mine.

 

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It’s not often that our problem is our goals aren’t “big enough.”

I realize it’s the “in” thing in the personal development field to encourage people to set big, audacious goals. A good friend recently told me he thinks people should set “goals that scare them.” I see in my social media feeds every day posts from personal development and self-help teachers encouraging people to shoot for the moon, telling them nothing is impossible, telling them to think and live BIG!

“Thinking big” is great in theory.

But it’s my experience that most of the time, in the real world, people who are struggling with their goals have usually thought too big, too fast.

I understand the idea behind “setting goals that scare you” is that the breathtaking audaciousness of those goals is supposed to inspire people, get them back in touch with what they REALLY want, goose them into action by posing a motivating challenge.

But, in the real world, do you know what more often happens when we’re scared of something?

That’s right— we avoid it.

For example: a lot of people are scared by the idea of quitting smoking.

Mind you, quitting smoking is a huge, audacious, inspiring goal for a lot of people. There are few behavior patterns that cause as much pain for as many people as smoking.

But the goal of quitting smoking scares a lot of people, because they’re very aware of how dependent they are on the habit of smoking. They’re aware of the physiological unpleasantness of nicotine withdrawal. They’re aware of how smoking provides a behavioral crutch in social situations. They’re aware of all the reinforcing feelings and experiences they associate with smoking, and a lot of the time they’re also aware of how unpleasant it’s often been when they’ve tried to quit smoking in the past.

True fear rarely inspires people.

More often it paralyzes them.

That’s why I’m not so hot on “goals that scare us.” I’m far fonder of “goals that seem too easy.”

For example: instead of the grandiose goal of “GIVING UP SMOKING FOR GOOD,” I prefer the goal of “smoke a third fewer cigarettes today than you did yesterday.”

Instead of the grandiose goal of “RESTRICTING MY CALORIES DRAMATICALLY AND LOSING TWENTY POUNDS OF BODY FAT,” I prefer the goal of, “just this week, eat one hundred fewer calories a day than you have been eating.”

Instead of the grandiose goal of “NEVER DRINKING ALCOHOL AGAIN,” I prefer the starting point of “Just this week, pick three days when you won’t drink at all, come hell or high water. And if you can’t do that? Pick ONE day this week when you won’t drink at all, come hell or high water.”

Of course, all of these example goals are starting points. But that’s the point: someone who manages to successfully achieve these “starting point” goals will start to build confidence. They will have real-world, impossible-to-deny, first hand experience with ACTUALLY achieving goals…which not only provides them with a squirt of the reward neurotransmitter serotonin in their brains, but also gives them the confidence to adjust their goals just little bit upward.

Which is more motivating for a beginning runner: the goal to run a marathon, or the goal to run three minutes without stopping?

Which is more motivating for someone who is trying like hell to quit a habit: NEVER DO THE HABIT AGAIN, or figure out a way to keep from doing the habit for the next hour?

Which is more motivating for someone who is trying to clean their house and feels overwhelmed by it: CLEAN THE WHOLE HOUSE, or spend ten minutes doing the dishes?

I understand that some people ONLY want to think about moonshots. Moonshots are sexier. They’re more interesting to think about. They’re the stuff of movies and TV dramas. Self-help gurus routinely make money hand over fist encouraging people to shoot for the moon instead of setting small, incremental, doable goals.

But I want you to make actual change in your actual, everyday life.

I want you to build confidence in your ability to set goals and achieve them.

I want you to build your habit-changing muscles.

I want to help people AVOID getting freaked out by their goals, not encourage them to set goals that will make them feel inadequate and silly when they struggle with achieving their grandiose vision.

If you really want to realistically reach for the stars…keep your feet on the ground.

 

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