Author: drglenndoyle

Ever notice how quickly, and emphatically, other people are to chime in about how we “should” relate to people who have hurt us?

“You should forgive them.” “You should cut them out.” “You should understand their side of the story.” “You should report them to the police.”

When people offer us advice, of course, they usually have our best interests in mind, or at least they think they do. The people who tell us how to handle it when we’ve been hurt range from family members, to friends, to professional colleagues, to strangers on the Internet.

Make no mistake: I’m personally extremely grateful that so many of us have people in our lives who care about our well-being. The fact that people care about us enough to offer us recommendations on how to manage our lives in such a way that minimizes the chances of future pain? That’s extraordinary. Many of these peoples’ hearts are in the right places.

But the fact remains, however: none of those people is you.

None of those people have to live with the decisions you make every day in quite the same way you have to live with them. (They may have to live with some of the attendant consequences, but only you have to wake up with and go to sleep with yourself every morning and night.)

For that matter, many of the people who are offering us advice on how to respond when someone has hurt us, are responding to their own history, their own truths, and their own fears.

I, personally, don’t know how you should relate to the specific people in your unique life who have hurt you. Because I’m not you.

I pretty much know one thing when it comes to this: whatever you choose to do, your health and protection have to be your top priority.

The only decision that is “wrong” when it comes to relating to people who have hurt you, is a decision that invites and allows that hurt to continue.

Beyond that, the issue of what “should” you do in relationships that have a pattern of having been hurtful in the past is complicated. Don’t let anyone try to tell you differently, either— while we wish things were easily sorted into black and white categories for easy decision-making, as we’ve discussed many times on this blog, reality tends to be a little more complex than that.

Should you “forgive” someone who has hurt you?

That’s not a question that has a blanket answer. Not many people can even agree on what “forgiveness” entails. Many people associate religious overtones and teachings with the concept of “forgiveness.” Many people reject the concept altogether as giving a “free pass” to people who have behave unacceptably.

The thing is: if you’re committed to building healthy self-esteem, it’s up to you to thoughtfully, deliberately determine what YOUR best choice is when it comes to forgiveness.

Your self-esteem absolutely notices when you forfeit the obligation to think, and substitute other peoples’ views and values in place of your own.

Your self-esteem also notices when you stay in the fight, and continue to take on the burden of thinking and making decisions, even when the subject matter is hard, uncomfortable, or awkward.

Your self-esteem definitely notices when you’re making decisions that either allow you to continue to get hurt, as part of a predictable pattern; or when you make decisions that protect you.

It’s hard to “esteem” yourself when you’re not protecting yourself.

It’s hard to “esteem” yourself when you turn a blind eye to the reality of relationships.

Many people feel very strongly about “forgiveness.” So much so that they’ll go out of their way to convince you that their view is not only correct, but essential to you living a good life.

Their view of “forgiveness” may or may not be consistent with your own view; and “forgiving” someone may or may not be the thing to do in any given situation. But the point is, whatever you end up doing, it’s incredibly important to your emotional well-being that the decision be one that YOU made— not one you were pressured into, even with the best intentions.

Some questions I find useful include: what does “forgiveness” mean to me, specifically?

What would it be like if I chose to “forgive” this person?

Can I, personally, move on without “forgiving” this person?

Does “forgiving” this person feel right?

Does “forgiving” this person feel safe?

Does “forgiving” this person create any kind of “loophole” that might allow them to hurt me again?

Those aren’t easy questions. For anyone, really.

But it’s by asking the tough questions that we build self-esteem in the real world.

 

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It may be true that, as the expression goes, “hurt people hurt people.” That often when someone behaves in a malicious manner, it’s because they, themselves, are suffering.

The psychological research is kind of mixed on this question, actually. There is support for the hypothesis that many people in pain “pay it forward” in the form of hurting others. Many perpetrators of violence and abuse, for example, report having experienced violence and abuse in their own lives. Likewise, many people who have harmed others report impoverished backgrounds and attachments.

There certainly is support for the “hurt people, hurt people” hypothesis.

However, it’s also the case that the vast majority of people who have experienced pain in their lives do not go on to hurt others.

In fact, many victims of abuse and violence report that the experienced shaped them to the extent that they’ve made it a fundamental part of their values system to AVOID causing pain to others.

This happens so frequently, in fact, that it is a frequently observed phenomenon that people who have had pain in their lives are often victimized repeatedly, possibly because they are averse to setting boundaries and fighting back (because they associate such behaviors with the “aggressive” tactics of their abusers).

That is to say: experiencing pain is NOT a reliable precursor to inflicting pain on others.

Adding to the confusion around this question is the fact that there is a subset of humans who inflict pain on others, not in response to any particular pain on their part, but for gratification. Various terms applied to these people are “psychopaths,” “sociopaths,” and “narcissists.”

The argument could be made that these individuals are, in fact, experiencing and acting out of their own pain. The problem in supporting this argument, however, is that people who hurt others for sport are notoriously difficult to study; and most of the time when they ARE studied, it’s in a forensic context.

That is to say, it’s virtually impossible to study these individuals unless they get arrested (and even then, it’s not particularly easy to study them— an observation I made firsthand doing psychology internships in the state forensic system).

All of this is interesting, but it all begs a very serious question: when we’re being hurt by someone’s behavior, what are our responsibilities?

Should we understand the person hurting us is likely coming from a place of pain themselves, and take it on ourselves to understand, empathize, or change them?

Should we cut ourselves off from them entirely, assuming they are unlikely to change?

If a central part of our values system is being kind, generous, and compassionate to other people, especially people in pain, how do we square our values system with the fact that the behavior of other people is sometimes hurtful, destructive…and consistent?

Unfortunately, there are no easy or straightforward answers to these questions. I wish there were. I’d be the first to give you the perfect way to deal with those in your life whose behavior is hurtful, whatever the reason behind it.

One thing I do know, however, is: no responsibility we have toward anyone else negates your primary responsibility to take care of yourself.

Sometimes taking care of yourself does mean limiting contact with a person— regardless of the consequences. (And believe me, when someone wants to keep you tangled in their web, they will do their best to inflict dire consequences when you attempt to free yourself.)

Sometimes taking care of yourself means recruiting support in dealing with a person, in the form of  friends, a therapist, or legal authorities. (And believe me, hurtful people will go to great lengths to keep you isolated if they suspect you getting support will interfere with their ability to do their thing.)

Sometimes taking care of yourself begins with getting brutally honest with the impact a person’s behavior is having on you— even if every fiber of you wants to stay in denial about it. (And believe me, many hurtful people use our own denial as a primary weapon of choice to keep us locked into their vicious games.)

Many times, we’re drawn toward the impulse to “help” the person who is hurting us, for a variety of reasons. They may be a family member, who we feel attached to and obligated toward. They may be someone who we know to be in great pain. They may be someone for whom this hurtful behavior is new or aberrant, someone who we think might “snap out of it” if only we could find the right responses to them.

Your mileage may vary when it comes to “helping” someone who is hurting you, but I can absolutely assure you: nobody is “helped” by allowing the hurtful behavior to continue.

Nobody is “helped” by failing to hold people accountable for hurtful behavior.

Nobody is “helped” by you staying isolated, just to “protect” the person who is hurting you.

It is sometimes observed that “helping” the person who is being hurtful, and protecting yourself, doesn’t need to be a black and white issue— that it is perhaps possible to do both. I think every situation is different in this regard, and I’m not near presumptuous enough to opine what the best course of action is for your specific situation and your individual values system.

All I know is, I’ve often seen the desire to “help” hurtful people be used as an excuse to stay in situations where the pain is guaranteed to continue.

Self-esteem cannot be built upon a sacrificial altar.

Secure your oxygen mask first. Get safe. Get support. Take the risks necessary to be safe and supported.

Yes, easier said than done.

But protecting yourself is not a luxury. It’s not optional.

It’s your first, and most important, responsibility.

 

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We live in a world of limits.

We live in a world of opportunities, too, don’t get me wrong. But it’s virtually impossible to access those opportunities unless we commit to being brutally realistic with ourselves about our limitations.

It’s true that we’re often mistaken about our limits. We often have far more energy, far more resilience, far more creativity, and far more determination than we think we do. Our culture has a way of conditioning us into thinking we’re more limited than we are, usually as a means of selling us things we then think we need.

(And make no mistake: anyone who tries to convince you that “there are no limits” in this world is big time selling something.)

But the fact that we’re often mistaken about our limits, that we frequently underestimate and deprecate our true resources, doesn’t mean that limits don’t exist. The straightforward fact of the matter is that, at any one time, we have a finite amount of energy; a finite amount of focus; a finite amount of money; a finite amount of knowledge; and a finite amount of time.

For all practical purposes, we don’t have the universe at our disposal every time we feel like embarking upon a project.

We must pick and choose which opportunities will make the most of the resources we DO have available at any one time.

Instead of pretending like “there are no limits,” it’s far more useful to focus on coming to terms with the fact that we do have limits— and to learn how to intelligently allocate our resources so we don’t overextend ourselves.

Why is it so important to be real with ourselves and others about our limitations?

Because the most productive thing you can do with ten dollars is very different from the most productive thing you can do with a hundred dollars.

The most productive thing you can do with five minutes is very different from the most productive thing you can do with five hours.

The most productive thing you can do at the beginning of the day, when you’re well-rested and have a reserve of physical energy to draw upon, is very different from the most productive thing you can do at the end of the day, when you’re tired and your body is yearning for sleep.

Being realistic about limits is not “pessimistic” or “defeatist.” It’s not denying that the universe is abundant and that we can come much closer to our goals and dreams than we may have ever thought possible.

Being realistic about limits, in fact, is about being fundamentally optimistic, albeit from a reality-based perspective: it’s trusting that there will be more time, energy, and money available in the future, so I can use this limited chunk of time/energy/money available to me now in the most intelligent way possible.

A lot of people don’t like to think about limits. It bums them out. Acknowledging limits means we can’t do everything we want to do, when we want to do it. A subset of people deal with this fact by, essentially, throwing a temper tantrum, and demanding that reality conform to their preference that they be allowed to do what they want, when they want.

There is a subset of people who really will try to convince you that all limits are an “illusion.” That your “scarcity mindset” is fooling you into thinking there is only a certain level of abundance available to you. That if you’re anxious about overextending your resources, that’s proof that your limited worldview and past programming is holding you back.

Again, to be clear: it’s my view that we can do, have and be far more than we think we can. Some of the limitations imposed upon us by past programming are definitely illusory. But we don’t do ourselves, or anyone else, any favors by pretending that we can have everything we want at the moment we want it, despite our present level of resources.

Our resources are limited. We can deny this fact; we can rail against this fact; we can behave as if this fact is not true.

But believe me when I say: reality doesn’t particularly care about how we respond to the fact that limits exist. It will still continue to impose limits on us, whether or not we like it.

Fortunately, all of us have magnificent minds that allow us to make intelligent decisions with our resources— to the extent that we’re being realistic with ourselves about our present limitations.

If you ask your brain, “What is the best use of the limits I DO have right now?”, instead of fervently wishing you had no limits, your brain WILL provide you an answer.

If you ask your brain, “How can I augment my resources, so they stretch a little further, so I’m not as constrained by these limits as I have been in the past?”, your brain WILL provide you an answer. (That’s actually a great question to ask— it’s far better to think about how to expand your resources a little at a time so you’re less smothered by your limits, than simply pretending those limits don’t exist.)

I know I sound like a broken record on this point, but it’s a point that bears repeating again and again: self-esteem cannot be built upon a foundation of self-deception. Denial of reality is fundamentally incompatible with health self-esteem.

Self-esteem can flourish only in an environment in which the real world is seen, acknowledged, and dealt with to the best of our ability.

Don’t get freaked out by the fact that limits exist. They don’t exist to intimidate you. Rather, think of limits as a useful guide to how you can allot your resources intelligently.

Thank goodness limits exist.

Thank goodness we don’t have to pretend otherwise.

 

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I recently heard someone in the personal growth industry opine that “balance was bogus.”

His argument was that if things are in perfect balance, there’s no dynamism. There’s no movement. There’s no flow. Whereas people think they want “balance,” but the truth is that if a system is in perfect balance, it’s a dead system. On top of all that, this person observed, of the people who preach about “balance,” not one of them themselves seems to practice what they preach.

I suppose there’s something to be said for “balance,” as an end in itself, being perhaps overrated. I don’t know if shooting for “balance” just for the sake of being balanced is all that productive.

I do know, however, that if you emphasize one thing over and over and over again, at the expense of developing other things, that’s a surefire recipe for burnout.

If, in attempting to improve your level of fitness, you emphasize weightlifting to the complete exclusion of cardio, you’re going to find yourself completely exhausted when your endurance is tested. Conversely, if you emphasize cardio at the expense of strength training, you’re going to wind up injured and slow.

If, in attempting to improve your intellectual development, you read nothing but self-help, psychology, and how-to books, you’re going to underdevelop your emotional and social intelligence. Conversely, if you only read fiction and poetry, you’re liable to drift away from the real world and underapprecaite the mechanics of reality.

If, in attempting to improve your romantic relationship, you only emphasize making your sex life hotter, you’re likely going to miss important attachment undertones to the bond between you and your partner. Conversely, if you only attempt to improve communication, you’ll likely miss the huge role sensuality and physicality plays in romantic bonds.

The examples are plentiful, but the lesson is clear: as we attempt to improve and develop our lives, it is necessary to look at the whole picture. Striving to make one, or a few, areas awesome, while neglecting their complementary poles, is simply an ineffective strategy.

This is what I interpret people to mean when they say they want or need more “balance” in their lives. It’s certainly what I have in mind when I encourage my patients and readers to pay attention to “balance.”

Notice, however, how I’m presenting the concept of balance: balance is a tool. It’s not an end in itself. It’s a concept that is useful in evaluating our plans and goals when we’re strategizing how to create the lives we want.

In other words, balance is something to be paid attention to— but it’s not exactly a governing principle in itself. It’s entirely possible to be perfectly balanced, but no closer to your goals. Paying attention to balance is a useful thing when we’re deep in the creative process; but setting out to create “balance” just because, well, it seems like the kind of thing most people “should” want, doesn’t make much sense to me.

Paying attention to balance has a lot of benefits. One of the main benefits is that attending to balance forces us to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes that we might otherwise underappreciate, because they don’t come natural to us.

A straightforward example of this is my experience with strength training: I like to run. I do not like to lift weights. I think lifting weights is boring, painful, and often frustrating. Given my druthers, I’d run every day, and keep my distance from the part of the gym that has all those scary, complicated looking weight training machines in it.

However, as I began to get interested in longer and more competitive races, I came to the inescapable conclusion that if all I did was run, I was eventually going to pull and strain muscles because I’d not paid attention to strengthening and stretching them. You simply can’t run a marathon without adopting a reasonable strength training regimen alongside your cardio conditioning. It took me a strained piriformis muscle and chronic plantar fasciitis to finally accept this.

Had I been paying attention to balance in my training routine, it would have saved me some— well, a lot— of physical pain.

By the same token, if my main or only concern in training was balance, I wouldn’t have been able to run a marathon, either. There are plenty of people who are plenty balanced in their training, but who can’t run a marathon. The main goal of training to run a marathon is, you know, running a marathon— not achieving balance.

Balance is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used or neglected, but paying attention to it is useful.

Keep balance in mind as you design your new life.

Balance intellectual development with emotional development.

Balance hard work with rest and recovery.

Balance trust and hope with skepticism.

Balance appreciating the forest with paying attention to the trees.

Balance isn’t everything— but it’s an important thing.

 

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Do you want to accomplish big things? Then get really good at focusing on accomplishing small things.

It’d be lovely if all we had to do to accomplish big things was to make up our minds to accomplish big things. To hear some people talk, that’s really all there is to it anyway. Just get your mindset right, we’re told, think positively, think BIG, and viola— our dreams are ours.

Isn’t THAT spoken like someone who has never achieved a real world goal in their life.

The fact is, a big reason most people run out of steam on their big goals is, they didn’t count on the fact that big goals are really just the cumulative sum of small goals. And while our big goal may be motivating and exciting to think about, those smaller stepping stone goals are often boring, painful, and frustrating.

The idea of achieving a decade sober is motivating. The idea of getting through one day, one hour, one minute without a drink, when literally ask you want to do is drink, is excruciating.

The idea of losing twenty pounds is motivating. The idea of abstaining from ice cream when all your friends are pressuring you to go with them to Baskin Robbins is no fun.

The idea of earning a degree is motivating. The idea of writing research papers, sitting through class, and dealing with academic politics is mind numbing.

You can think big all you want, and believe me, I’m a fan of thinking big. But when it comes down to it, “thinking big” isn’t going to be the deciding factor in who wins versus who doesn’t. The decisive set of skills is going to be who can figure out ways to embrace the grind that comes with pursuing goals.

A huge look part of successfully embracing and overcoming that grind is learning to break goals down into their smallest, most easily achievable components, then giving ourselves credit when we cross those components off of our to do lists.

To accomplish big things, think small.

I’ll bet on a small, step by step, one day at a time thinker over a bombastic, “think exponential” dreamer any day of the week.

I run races. Five and ten K’s, half marathons, and at least one marathon a year. And what running has taught me, far more effectively than anything I’ve experienced as a psychologist, is that the key to finishing is no more or less than figuring out some way to take the next step.

Not to take three or four steps at a time. Not to try to run whole miles at a time. But to figure out what is necessary to take one. More. Step.

Sometimes the key to taking that next step is distraction. Figuring out some way to take your mind off of the soreness in your legs and the burning in your lungs, long enough to take another step.

Sometimes the key to taking that next step is remembering why I took the first step. Thinking about this example I’m striving to set. Thinking about what my experience in completing this race can help me explain to my patients and readers.

Sometimes the key to taking that next step is to visualize my own role models, the people and characters who taught me who I am, who I can be, and what’s important.

The important lesson, however, remains: focus on that next step. If you focus on the miles ahead, you’re going to start to get queasy. The like aches and pains in your body are going to start aching and burning worse. Your brain is going to start working overtime, finding reasons why you can’t possibly complete all the miles ahead.

If you want to run 26.1 miles, don’t even focus on running one mile. Focus on the step that’s right in front of you.

After all, you’re going to have to take that step anyway, right?

If you want to get ten years sober, don’t think about ten years. Think about getting through this day sober. And to get through this day sober? Think about getting through this hour sober. And to get through this hour sober?

You got it. Only focus on this minute. (You’ll have the opportunity to focus on the next minute soon enough, I promise you.)

Dream big, by all means. We’re capable of so much more than our cultural and historical conditioning has allowed us to believe. Set goals that inspire you, goals that motivate you and turn you on, goals that will put to rest the ghosts of your past.

But one you’ve decided where you’re committed to ending up? Start thinking small. Way small. One day at a time, one minute at a time, one step at a time small.

I’ll see you at the finish line.

 

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If you have the tendency to put things off, you’re probably frustrated by it. Most people who have this tendency become enormously frustrated, even angry at themselves, over time.

It’s definitely the case that procrastination often comes with a high price tag. Putting things off, particularly things that are time sensitive like paying bills, beginning projects, or returning calls, can very easily lead to consequences that range from hurt feelings, damaged careers, all the way to legal problems or aggressive creditors.

What’s even more frustrating about procrastination is that many people who do it seem to have no idea why. Even if they acknowledge the practical harm that procrastination inflicts upon their lives, they’re frequently at a loss to explain the pattern in any rational way.

From a behavioral science point of view, procrastination isn’t rocket science. Behavioral psychology asserts that most behavior choices can be understood by tallying the perceived reinforcement associated with one behavior versus another.

That is, the things we choose to do, we associate with relatively more pleasure; the things we avoid doing, we associate with more pain.

If you’re putting something off, it’s because you associate more pain with it than the alternatives.

How can that be, though, insofar as we know for a stone cold fact that procrastination leads, over time, to an enormous amount of pain?

Our brains are magnificent creations. They’re wired to avoid pain and cultivate pleasure. For that matter, the fact that we’ve evolved to avoid pain and cultivate pleasure gives us a clue about our fundamental human needs: pleasure has survival value.

(That bears repeating: pleasure has survival value. We’ll return to this subject in a later blog.)

The thing is, though, our brains didn’t evolve to think particularly long term.

When our brains, as we know them today, were in the process of evolving, long term planning wasn’t a particular survival priority. Our caveman and cavewoman ancestors were getting chased around by wild prehistoric animals and aggressive competitive cave people, who threatened their physical survival on a day to day, hour to hour basis.

The cave person who sat around attempting to plan out the next six months was at serious risk of getting literally eaten.

So, our brains evolved with a bias for the moment. They are naturally responsive to what is happing in the here and now. They respond, in other words, to the pleasure-or-pain choice that is right in front of our face— not the potential pleasure or pain that is weeks, months, or even days down the road.

What does any of this have to do with you, the modern day procrastinator?

Something we need to understand about our brains is that they’re not evolutionarily all that removed from our caveman and cavewoman ancestors. Like our prehistoric ancestors, our brains tend to respond to the pleasure-or-pain response right in front of our faces.

Long term goals are most often comprised of daily, component, steppingstone goals along the way— many of which aren’t particularly sexy. Steppingstone goals don’t carry with them the gratification associated with achieving the end goal. They’re often boring. They’re often decontextualized from the larger task. They’re often frustrating.

Whereas everyone likes the idea of achieving a long term goal, few people get fired up about intermediate goals. So those goals are easy to put off. They represent more pain than pleasure to our brains, so our brains have little problem shunting them off until later.

Immediate gratification is perceived by our brains to be a “sure thing.” It is, after all, immediate. Delayed gratification, by definition, is less sure— after all, if we take the chance in putting off gratification, many things could happen between now and then to keep that gratification from happening.

Neuropsychological research strongly suggests our brains prefer sure things to uncertain things, in much the same way they prefer pleasure to pain.

All of which is to say: procrastination may seem irrational, given the pain that chronic procrastination inflicts upon us. But, when viewed through the lens of evolutionary psychology, behavioral psychology, and neuropsychology, it’s actually a fairly straightforward equation.

In other words, you’re not lazy if you procrastinate.

You’re not a bad person if you procrastinate.

You’re not “broken” if you procrastinate.

What do we do about procrastination?

Luckily, understanding the evolutionary and behavioral roots of this behavior also suggest some straightforward ways to short-circuit it. Specifically, if procrastination is essentially our brain balking at uninteresting, unrewarding tasks, the logical solution is to find some way to make steppingstone goals less aversive.

We can do that by chopping steppingstone goals into little, doable chunks.

We can do that by rewarding little steps toward our goals, not just the final goal.

We can do that by soliciting support of others to keep reminding us of our eventual long-term goals, so we don’t lose the forest for the trees.

As usual, no matter how frustrated we get with ourselves over a seemingly irrational behavior, the key to overcoming that behavior turns out to be in patiently understanding that behavior.

Compassion and patience with ourselves will win every time.

Some people will try to beat you over the head with their life experience. As if “what they’ve been through” somehow makes them an expert on what you need, want, or deserve.

What someone has been through qualifies them to speak about THEIR experience. Their experience may have clarified for them what THEY need. Their experience may have helped them understand what motivates THEM. They may have learned lessons for THEIR journey.

Make no mistake, it’s certainly possible to learn lessons from other peoples’ journeys. The question is not whether other peoples’ experiences have relevance to our own. Insofar as we are all human beings who are faced, broadly, with similar challenges in the course of our journeys, it’d be silly to disregard the lessons other peoples’ lives, triumphs, and tragedies may have to teach us.

That said: you are still the expert on you.

Because someone has “life experience” does not suddenly make them more of an expert on you than you.

It’s kind of amazing to watch how marketing, especially in the field of personal growth and self-help, seems to hinge upon undermining your confidence that you know what you need. In a field bursting with people who have various levels of credentials, insight, and experience, a common practice seems to be to construct a pedestal from which the “expert” can look down upon the “novice” and impart some sort of esoteric wisdom. It’s kind of an extension of the old-fashioned, one up/one down power dynamic that some forms of traditional psychotherapy enshrine.

It seems to me that there are two ways, generally, to approach the task of empowering people.

One way is to assume that the “learner” lacks something, is somehow incomplete, and that the “teacher” (therapist, coach, guru, guide, sponsor, mentor) is there to provide them with that missing piece. This approach implies that without the wisdom and insight of the teacher, the learner will wander aimlessly, lost without their missing puzzle piece.

It’s kind of a “top down” model of moving people from where they are.

The other approach is to assume that the learner or student already has the keys to their own empowerment within them— that they are not incomplete or defective. That maybe, because of life experiences, traumas, lack of support, or some other intrusive variable along the way, they’ve been cut off from the resources that already exist within them.

This “bottom up” approach implies it is the task of the mentor or guide to reconnect the seeker with the wisdom and healing capacity already lying dormant within them.

You only need to know a little bit about me or my writing to guess which approach I take.

Personal growth isn’t the same as learning a specific skill. With many types of skill building, there are objective levels of expertise, and the more skilled can help along the less skilled. A skill building approach is very helpful when you’re learning how to play a sport, learning how to use a piece of equipment, learning how to use language, learning how to play an instrument.

However, personal growth is different from straightforward skill building because everybody is different. No two people have the same set of needs. No two people have the same internal resources, strengths, and weaknesses. No two people have the same history, or are presented with the same challenges. Literally everybody’s journey to personal growth— what psychologists call “self actualization”— is quite the same.

It is the height of arrogance to suggest that because someone has mastered a particular challenge in their lives, they know what you need to tackle the challenges in yours.

It is the height of arrogance to suggest that because someone has overcome obstacles in their lives, that you should be able to conquer yours in exactly the same way.

Human beings do not roll off an assembly line, with uniform specifications and an instruction booklet for what to do when they break. Figuring out to do when a human life isn’t working well is a highly individualized task— because each human being is an individual, with dignity, worth, and their own unique circuitry that “experience” may or may not have taught anyone else how to rewire.

It’s tempting to buy into the claims of some people that they know, based on their life experiences, what you need. It kind of absolves us of this scary, in some ways overwhelming, responsibility to figure out what it is we need, and places that onus somewhere other than on our shoulders.

Some people have this fantasy of surrendering to government; some people fantasize about surrendering to an ideology; some people have the fantasy of surrendering to another human being.

But that impulse, to let someone else take the wheel, is ultimately counterproductive— because, again, you are the expert on you.

We can’t fix this broken life without the input, and active participation, of the expert.

What’s more: you are up to this task of fixing this broken life.

You may have forgotten or lost touch with the part of you that knows how to do it, but believe me, that part exists within you.

It’s waiting for you to find it again.

 

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Creating healthy self-esteem demands that we give up our addiction to denial. Healthy self-esteem cannot be created as we overlook important aspects of reality.

Denial, understand, is not a function of “character.” It’s not the case that “good” people have an inherently easier time acknowledging and accepting reality, and “bad” people tend to fall back on willful ignorance.

The fact of the matter is that denial is seductive to everyone, and it’s not hard to understand why: life can be painful.

Life involves loss.

Life involves stress.

Life involves fear, at least for psychologically normal and healthy people. (Anyone who says they don’t experience fear is either lying, or has sustained some sort of brain damage.)

Our brains have evolved to help us continue functioning day to day, to survive and flourish. As part of this function, our brains do have mechanisms in place to limit our awareness, particularly of painful things. After all, it wouldn’t be terribly adaptive if we went through every day acutely aware of every little ache and pain, physical and emotional.

(As a marathon runner, I can tell you that this ability to limit awareness of pain is the main thing that allows people as crazy as I am to run 26.2 miles at a time.)

Most of the time, this cognitive ability to limit awareness of pain functions automatically, subconsciously. Our brains are enormously adaptable, and they’re wicked smart. They learn, day to day, how to mold our perception and awareness so that we’re not going down in agony every time we stub our toe. The ability to limit awareness of pain is an example of the miraculous ingenuity of our magnificent minds.

However, there’s a difference between taking advantage of our brain’s ability to limit awareness of pain as a survival mechanism that helps us achieve goals; and engaging our brain’s ability to selectively pay attention as a means to stay in the dark from unpleasant realities that we need to face.

We cannot change unpleasant realities until we face them.

This is particularly true of unpleasant emotional realities, which frequently intrude upon our consciousness in the form of anxiety and depression until we make the decision to face them with eyes wide open.

The cognitive ability to be selective about our attention, to choose our focus, is like pretty much any other tool we humans have: it can be used, and it can be abused.

Why is it so important to self-esteem that we not use our brain’s capacity for selective attention to aid and abet denial?

Self-esteem is an odd duck, psychologically speaking. Many people seem to think the self-esteem equation is pretty straightforward: that if they do things that garner them approval, they’ll approve of themselves. If they do things like they were taught by their parents, they’ll approve of themselves. If they achieve thus and so, meeting or exceeding such and such a standard, they’ll like and respect themselves.

As it turns out, self-esteem can’t be “earned” by outside accomplishments, conforming to our parents’ wishes, or meeting some sort of external standard. Self-esteem is actually always and only an “inside job”— it is generated when we consciously make decisions that enhance our feelings of authenticity, efficacy, and worthiness.

The battle for lasting, stable self-esteem can only be waged within— it literally can’t be generated any other way.

If we are to effectively wage this battle within, if we are to make decisions and lead lives that are consistent with our perception of reality and our values, it is essential that we’re not copping out by selectively attending to the facts of reality as we understand them. We can try to lead lives of high authenticity, courage, and meaning, but if we’re shutting out important facts, our brains are going to register that…and the padlock on the self-esteem box will remain intact.

Refusing to live in denial doesn’t mean facing reality is always easy or comfortable.

It doesn’t mean that we can’t be tired or discouraged— in fact, if we are tired and discouraged, it’s important to our self-esteem to acknowledge that. The failure to pay attention to the signals our body and our minds send us indicates a lack of self-respect, and our self-esteem simply will not put up with that.

Refusing to live in denial doesn’t mean you have to always feel confident or secure. Even high self-esteem individuals experience times of doubt and frustration.

What refusing to live in denial does mean is that if we see an issue in our lives that needs to be addressed, we do not minimize, hide from, or dodge it. We confront it— even if our knees tremble.

Refusing to live in denial means that life may not always be pretty or comfortable— but it will always, always be authentic. It means developing the self-trust that comes with knowing that you will never lie to yourself— and that any solutions to problems you generate will be authentic and real, because they’re based in an unvarnished approach to living life.

We don’t have to be super heroes to give up our addiction to denial.

We just have to take it one day at a time.

 

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Our brains are wired to create meaning out of chaos.

They’ve evolved to help us navigate the world, and survive— and one of their primary tasks is to figure out why things happen. Especially things that are violent, ugly, and scary.

We can’t help ourselves from asking “why?” It’s hardwired into our neuropsychology.

It’s important to remember, however, even as we ask “why” in the wake of tragedy, loss, and trauma, that the answers our brains come up with are going to be biased. The fact is, we don’t always, or even often, really know “why” bad things happen. But our brains will furnish answers to us that have less to do with facts, than they have to do with helping us survive, cope, and go on functioning in the world.

The fact is, we can’t read anybody else’s mind.

The fact is, no human institution in history has come up with perfect answers to the problem of awful things happening— whether those awful things happen behind closed doors, in public venues packed with hundreds of people, or in the skies.

It’d be much easier if we could read others’ minds. If we could pinpoint the factors that went into people making decisions that led to trauma, suffering, and death. My field has devoted a great deal of its resources to developing valid “profiles” of people likely to harm other people, and psychologists have differing opinions on how well those profiles predict anything.

The real truth is: we have to learn to live in a world that, no matter what laws are passed, no matter what psychological assessment tools are developed, no matter what religious or moral movements are prevalent, is volatile and unpredictable.

Often grotesquely volatile and unpredictable.

We have to learn what it means to accept the world that we live in.

“Acceptance,” understand, does not mean “like.”

“Acceptance” does not mean “approve of.”

“Acceptance” does not mean “stop trying to change.”

What “acceptance” truly means is to deal, unflinchingly, with the facts of reality as we understand them. To acknowledge in a meaningful way that things exist— even things we hate, things that are unfair, things that are heartbreaking, things that should be otherwise.

You cannot change a situation you refuse to accept exists.

The unpredictability and uncontrollability of the world exists.

So much pain goes unattended to, because people refuse to accept that it exists in the first place.

People refuse to get treatment for addiction, because they are overwhelmed and terrified to admit they’re an addict.

People refuse to get treatment for depression, because they’ve been told to be depressed is some kind of “character flaw” that they should be able to simply “rise above.”

People refuse to admit they’re wrong, or they were wrong, or that there’s a different perspective that may be valid, because they’ve come to believe that they need to dig in and defend their positions to the death.

The 12 step traditions often discuss the differences between “pain” and “suffering.” The well-worn slogan goes, “pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” The idea being that every life involves a certain amount of pain, just because pain comes with the package of being alive; but how we approach pain, how we deal with it, can prolong that pain into true “suffering.”

It’s a lesson that is reinforced by the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The first step to dealing with the pain and fear provoked by this unpredictable, uncontrollable world of ours is to accept that all those things— pain, fear, unpredictability, uncontrollability— they all exist. No amount of wishful thinking, legislation, good intentions, or denial will change that.

The upside of radically accepting that these things exist is that, if you make acceptance your starting point, your brain knows you’re being honest. Trust me, your brain’s not dumb. It knows when you’re trying to sugar coat things in order to feel better. It won’t let you get away with that, not over the long term.

I believe there are answers to the kind of suffering that the world is experiencing right now.

I believe there is tremendous reason to hope.

I believe we are greater, more ambitious, more beautiful, have more potential than anyone believes, especially after tragedies like Las Vegas.

But I believe our greatest challenge is accepting that the world is exactly as it is.

A is A.

Let us start the healing with our eyes wide open.

 

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Don’t negotiate with emotional blackmailers.

There is a sizable subset of people out there who wish to control what you think, feel, and do.

Sometimes they have the best intentions— they might be family, or friends, or professionals who honestly think they have a better way for you to exist than the way you would otherwise live, left to  your own devices.

Sometimes they have self-interested intentions— they’re selling a product or service that purports to increase the pleasant feeling states and decrease the painful feeling states in your life.

And, yes, there is a subset of people who will seek to control you simply because that’s what they do. They like controlling people.

Whatever other peoples’ reasons for wanting to control what you think, feel, and do, there tend to be some consistencies about their methodology. The most striking feature of how they do what they do is, they rarely offer their path to you as an option for you to freely choose, based upon your own perception of reality and values system. And it’s not hard to see why they don’t go about it this way: that would require them to respect your autonomy, intelligence, and dignity.

Pesky little obstacles— autonomy, intelligence, and dignity— when you’re trying to control someone.

Far easier, and more effective, when it comes to controlling people is to appeal to their sense of guilt.

Far easier still is to prey upon peoples’ instinctive reluctance to set and enforce boundaries.

Even easier yet is to exploit peoples’ feelings of inadequacy or incompleteness to get them to think, feel, and behave as they’d prefer.

This is what I call “emotional blackmail.” And it’s a behavior change lever that’s used by advertisers, politicians, family members, and even therapists, guides, sponsors, and gurus, every single day.

The thing about emotional blackmailers is, whether they are well-intentioned or not, their “means to an end” is always and only harmful to our self-esteem. Nobody has ever made the “best choices of their life” because of the tactics of emotional blackmailers.

How do we recognize when emotional blackmailers are up to their tricks?

There are a few telltale signs.

One of the most glaring signs is that the appeals of emotional blackmailers are almost never rooted in respect for thoughtful, considered reality testing. Almost always, their appeals are based on getting you to make gut-level, reflexive decisions, without doing any of that pesky THINKING that sometimes gets in the way.

I’m not talking about respecting your instincts. I’m talking about people who encourage you to just “go with” a gut feeling, without asking reasonable questions about what that feeling may or may not be all about. Emotional blackmailers LOVE to tell people that their “hearts” are superior to their “heads” when making decisions— because they know that when people start integrating their intelligence with their instincts, they have a tendency to make better, more autonomous decisions. This is contrary to the agenda of emotional blackmailers.

Another telltale sign of the emotional blackmailer is that their appeals are almost never designed to take you to another, higher level in your life. Almost always, their appeals encourage you to avoid being “one of THOSE people”— i.e., some out-group that the emotional blackmailer knows you want to avoid being part of. They may imply that if you don’t’ think, feel, and do what they’d prefer, you might be unintelligent, or uncompassionate, or otherwise a “bad person.”

The key to the kingdom of controlling people, as far as the emotional blackmailer is concerned, is figuring out a way to make someone feel like a “bad person” if they don’t do what the blackmailer would prefer. Many people will go to great lengths to not feel like “bad people.”

This is why it’s so important that we don’t just rely on our instincts when it comes to decision making. While it’s true that our guts have invaluable information for us that come from primal emotional perceptions and cues, our instincts are designed to work in concert with our magnificent minds in order to make good choices.

We need to decide what it means to be a “good” or a “bad” person based upon our own values system, derived from a purposeful integration of our instinctive and intellectual capacities. Only WE can do this for ourselves.

Understand, emotional blackmailers don’t like it when people catch on to their tricks. Usually what happens when they get a wife that someone is on to them is to double down on their manipulative tactics. Exasperated sighs, eye rolling, head shaking, tsk-tsking. The “shaming” machine gets thrown into high gear.

But ask yourself this question: if someone has your best interests in mind, would they really be encouraging you to NOT to think, to just accept their judgments and carry out their wishes?

Would anyone who wants to ENHANCE your feelings of personal power, autonomy, and dignity be frustrated that you want to think something through for YOURSELF?

Would anyone who really respects you be ANGRY that you want to take the time to think for yourself, especially about what constitutes a “good” or a “bad” person?

Don’t take my word for it— think it through.

You deserve the time and space to think it through.

 

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