Use Your Damn Skills

If you want to change a habit, you’re going to have to figure out a way to “sell” that habit change to your brain in such a way that there is a recognizable upside. 

The unfortunate truth is, many habits that are ultimately self-destructive— smoking, eating unhealthy foods in unhealthy amounts, unrestrained substance use— are pleasurable. 

We are not wired to give up pleasure easily. 

This is ESPECIALLY true if we struggle with mood or anxiety disorders, or have had a traumatic past.

If we don’t have a lot of pleasure in our lives in the first place, and if we have brain chemistry that doesn’t make it easy to feel good, our brains are DEFINITELY going to fight to hang on to the pleasure we DO have in our lives. 

For many of us, that means self-defeating behaviors. 

It’s true that, in the long term, if we want to crawl OUT of that hole of usually-feeing-bad, we need to give up those self-defeating behaviors…but our brains don’t often want to hear about the long term. 

They’re preoccupied with the here-and-now, specifically the balance of feeling good or bad in the here-and-now. 

Why, our brains will quite reasonably ask us, should we give up this behavior pattern that actually gives us SOME pleasure in a world in which pleasure is hard to come by…all so we can MAYBE experience some pleasure eventually, in the long term? 

Nah, our brains will usually say. We’re going to stick with the behavior we KNOW will give us pleasure in the here-and-now. The long term can take care of itself. 

This is what we’re up against when we’re trying to change a behavior pattern. 

So we need to think in terms of salesmanship. 

We need to think in terms of the VERY REAL upside to whatever NEW behavior pattern we’re trying to adopt. 

We can’t just get obsessed with the pleasure we’re giving up. 

If all we think about is how much of a bummer it is that we won’t be able to smoke anymore, or we won’t be able to eat what we want when we want, or we won’t be able to get high anymore— if we don’t then transition into thinking about a new, replacement behavior that will lead to positive, potentially pleasurable experience that we WANT to feel…well, the behavior change just isn’t going to stick. 

We need to get very clear on the benefits we’re chasing. 

We need to get very clear on the UPSIDE of change. 

If that upside is in the distant future, we need to use the tools of visualization and self-talk to bring that upside into the present moment, so we can viscerally experience a “preview of coming attractions.” 

I get so dismayed by people who try to diet, and count on “willpower” to get them through. 

People who try to quit smoking, counting on “willpower.” 

People who try to swear off bad relationships or quit using drugs, and their only plan is “willpower.” 

“Willpower,” if it even exists, is vastly overrated. 

What you NEED is a vivid, realistic picture in your head of the GOOD STUFF that can and will come from this behavior change. 

What you need is LISTS of the BENEFITS of the new behavior pattern, that you can review and review and review and memorize. 

What you need to do, in short, is sell yourself on how AWESOME this change is going to be. 

Then you need to get used to using those feelings of deprivation and loss that are attached to the behavior you’re giving up as the trigger to review the benefits of the new behavior. 

If all you’re focused on in changing a behavior is deprivation and loss, it’s just not going to stick. 

Focus on upsides. Focus on benefits. Focus on what you eventual victory over this behavior pattern will look and feel like. 

Focus on these again, and again, and again, and again. 

 

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How do we know who we are, and what we’re all about? 

After all, it may not be obvious. 

Some of us have been through a LOT on this journey. 

We’ve been through storms. We’ve survived attacks. 

We’ve been betrayed. We’ve been momentarily silenced. 

After all that…it’s not weird that some of us have forgotten who we are and what we’re all about. 

The struggle to meaningfully develop your personal identity can be at the core of basic psychological struggles, such as depression or anxiety. 

Trauma, in particular, has a way of making us forget who we are and what we’re all about— or burying it under a hurricane of OTHER things to pay attention to, for the sake of survival. 

So who are you, really? 

Part of you knows. 

Part of you hasn’t forgotten. 

Part of you has hung on to what makes you tick. What’s important to you. 

What you have to do now is rediscover it. 

That involves a lot of listening— which, itself, involves a lot of patience. 

Rediscovering who you are and what you’re all about requires paying attention— and refusing to judge. 

Remembering who you are requires you to approach who you MIGHT be with compassion and curiosity…as opposed to scorn and impatience. 

Many of us have spent years trying to be who someone ELSE wants us to be. 

We’ve spent years trying to be someone we think won’t get made fun of. Someone who won’t get bullied. 

We’ve spent years trying to be someone who is acceptable to “them.” 

But what makes YOU smile? Like, really smile? 

What makes you laugh? Really laugh? 

What makes you cry? Authentically, spontaneously cry? 

The project of developing and affirming your personal identity begins with you sitting down and writing about who you MIGHT be. 

Your emotional life has clues. 

Your fantasy life has clues. 

What turns you on, what excites you, even what repulses and repeals and enrages you. 

These are all clues about who you are. 

Sit down and write out a list of people you admire. People you respect. 

People you like, people you are attracted to, people you love, even people you hate. 

Sit down and write out the music that moves you. The movies that captivate you. 

Then, step back, and look at what you’ve written. 

Themes will start to emerge. 

Who you are will start to take shape. 

What kind of person is into those things? Who loves those people? Who hates those other people and things? 

Form some hypotheses. 

Imagine who you could be, who you might be. 

Develop that picture slowly, consciously, patiently. 

This is your life’s work. Take your time with it. 

 

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How do we deal with the fact that the world around us is going to be not so great sometimes? 

How do we deal with the fact that people are going to betray us— even people who we should be able to trust?

How do we deal with the fact that many times, we just don’t get what we want or need? 

Even if we do everything we can to achieve our goals, to nurture good relationships, to get our needs met…there are going to be times when we lack, we hurt, when we’re disappointed. 

It’s GOING to happen. If you’re reading this, I don’t need to tell you that much of life is figuring out how to cope with disappointment and pain. 

The truth is, there are lots of things we can do to feel and function better, even when we’re in situations that aren’t ideal, situations that hurt, situations that remind us of how little control we have over our external world…but all of these things begin and end with influencing our internal world. 

I call it the Kingdom Within, or the Interior Castle, or the Memory Palace. 

We shape our interior world…though many of us grow up assuming that we do not shape it. 

The fact is, growing up, we’re not really taught that we are in control of what happens in our minds and hearts. 

We kind of grow up assuming that the things we think and the things we feel are the result of the things we experience…and, to a certain extent, that’s true. 

The things we experience strongly influence what happens in our interior world— what we think and what we feel. 

But the real truth is that the things we experience don’t have to completely determine what happens inside our minds and hearts. 

We can change the patterns of what we think and what we feel through conscious, intentional, disciplined effort. 

It is not a process that is easy— and I would never imply that it is. 

But it is doable. And it’s really, really important to figure out how to do. 

It’s kind of the most important skill any of us have to learn in our lifetimes. 

If someone struggles to do this, I would never blame that person for this struggle. Changing what we think and feel is hard— and we don’t get a lot of support or guidance from the world around us. 

(In fact, the world around us very often tells us the opposite— that we need to purchase products or services in order to change what we think and feel. Advertisers would strongly prefer we forget that we’re in charge of our internal worlds…even without their products and services.) 

It’s a fine line between acknowledging that we are in control of our internal worlds, that we rule our hearts and minds, that with the right guidance and practice we can shape and define what we think and feel…and blaming ourselves for struggling, for not consistently feeling great, for not seeming to have a firm grasp on what we think and feel and do. 

Don’t blame yourself for not feeling great. Don’t be harsh with yourself for struggling to shape and influence your interior world. You weren’t taught how, and you weren’t programmed with the belief that you could. 

Self-blame isn’t helpful. You can’t bully yourself into empowerment. 

Instead…get curious. 

Start asking yourself what it might feel like to really believe that you are in control of your internal world. 

Start visualizing what that would look like. 

Start wondering what you would choose to feel, and think about, and do, if you had absolute control over what you think, feel, and do. 

All change starts with belief and visualization. 

And those activities cost you literally nothing. 

 

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Internal communication— fostering dialogue and cooperation between the various “parts” of yourself— isn’t terribly complicated. But it does take some specific steps, in a specific order, for it to work well. 

First thing’s first: the reason why your internal “parts” don’t want or like to talk to you— or to each other— is because they are used to you either denying their existence, or trivializing their needs. 

In our culture, we are really, really good at pretending that we are all of one mind about things. 

It’s seen as a mark of maturity or intelligence to be “consistent” in our thinking and feeling. 

We think that if we confide to someone that we are of very mixed feelings or of multiple different minds about something, we’ll be considered flaky and immature. 

So we get into the habit of denying and disowning the “parts” of ourselves. 

And we DEFINITELY aren’t comfortable talking to them, or encouraging them to talk to each other. 

That’s the first ting we need to get past if you want internal communication to work 

So you sit down with a sheet of paper, and you write out a statement that is addressed to the various parts of you, a statement that I call the “Statement of Solidarity.” It goes something like: “Right now I’m talking to the various parts of myself, those parts I know about and those parts I don’t really know about. I want you to know that what you think and feel and want are important to me. I want you to know that we’re all in this together. I want you to know I’m willing to listen to you, if you’re wiling to talk to me.” 

That might all sound like a mouthful. It might sound awkward. It might sound scripted. 

Doesn’t matter. Write it word for word. 

(If you get into the swing of internal communication— if you get good at it after awhile— you can start to tailor the Solidarity Statement with your own language. But until you get to that point, I really do recommend you write it out word for word as I recommend. It hits all the bases— and I can assure you that I’ve included all of those distinct bases in that statement for specific reasons.) 

Then you write out what I call a Statement of Support. It goes something like: “I want you to know that I am willing to do everything I can to get your needs met, if you tell me about them in a way I can understand and that is not harmful to me or someone else.” 

Again, might sound awkward, but it’s important that the Support Statement hit those specific bases. It’s different from the Solidarity Statement, but an equally important part of the formula. 

You start out with the Solidarity Statement and the Support Statement every single time you attempt internal communication. 

And, yes: you do it in writing. Every single time. 

I know, I know. Doing things in this structured a way— and especially doing them in WRITING— makes the whole thing a hassle. 

Do it anyway. 

Some things we just have to do in writing. Even if it SEEMS like you should be able to do it all in your head— write it down. 

It’s important that some processes take place somewhere OTHER than in your head. 

The Statements of Solidarity and Support are only the first two steps to effective internal communication— but they are the steps that are most often overlooked and underutilized when people attempt the process. 

Time and time again I’ve seen people wonder why they’re not getting results from their attempts at internal communication. They’re either not getting responses from their “parts;” or their “parts” are being oppositional and uncooperative; or the entire process is feeling like it’s going nowhere. 

It’s usually because they’ve neglected to set the stage for productive give and take with their “parts”— after years of trying to deny and disown their very existence. 

We have to keep in mind that communication with ourselves has many similarities to communication with others. 

You wouldn’t be open to talking or compromising with someone who denied your existence or belittled your needs. 

Neither are your “parts.” 

So start where you need to start: Get really good, word for word, at the Statements of Solidarity and Support.  

 

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If you want to get good at something, you have to study it. 

You have to get familiar with whatever you’re trying to get good at. 

You have to get to know it. You have to develop a relationship with it. 

Professional athletes study their sport. They learn all its ins and outs. They create a relationship between them and their sport. 

Good writers study writing. They get very familiar with all kinds of writing. They establish a relationship between themselves and the written word. 

Pick any area— you’ll find that those who are most successful in that area devote themselves to constantly learning about it. 

For me, the domain I chose to get familiar with was personal development. Or, as it’s otherwise known, self-help. 

When I was a teenager and younger man, I was depressed out of my mind. But I believed there were answers out there — things I could learn, skills I could acquire, tools I could gather to change how I felt and put me back in control of my mental, emotional, and behavioral life. 

I started my journey in self-help assuming that if I stumbled on to the right book, read just the right words, uncovered just the right philosophy or approach, then I could immediately change my life and never look back. 

I started out assuming that my job was to uncover The Answer. 

So I read self help books. Lots of them. Way more than I expected to read, honestly. 

After awhile, I started to grow kind of confused. I’d become kind of disillusioned— because, even though I kept LOOKING for that revolutionary technique or philosophy, I’d read dozens of self help books by this time…and I still hadn’t found The Answer. 

That said: even though I’d not found that “silver bullet” philosophy, skill, or tool yet, what I DID find was that I was using the philosophies, tools, and skills to which I’d been exposed in my reading…but not really implementing this in overarching, systemic ways. 

It was more a little bit here, a little bit there. I’d pull out the the right tool or skill at the right time— and thus ended up using a variety of different tools and skills, which made my life better in bits and pieces. 

Looking back on how my life realistically improved over time, I’m not quite sure when exactly I realized the REAL deal. 

The real deal is this: it is not any specific skill, tool, or philosophy that will make the difference in your recovery or personal development. 

It is your willingness to SEEK effective tools and skills and philosophies— your willingness to be a lifelong student; your willingness to be curious and relentless in consuming and devouring books and videos and other media; to identify mentors and teachers and read and apply their work— that will make ALL the difference. 

I got better not because I came across exactly the right approach or teacher. I got better because I made it my business to be proactively, obsessively curious about what makes people tick. 

I became obsessively curious about what made ME tick. 

I began experimenting with ALL KINDS of techniques and tools I was reading about and learning about on videos and hearing about in lectures. A lot of them were pretty dumb; some of them worked, eh, sorta; and some of them were simple but mind-blowing. 

The point is, however, that if you want to feel and function better, you need to make feeling and functioning better a proactive interest. 

You need to read and seek out things that are relevant to your life and problems. 

If you have a psychiatric diagnosis, you have to get super interested in the research around your condition. Become an “expert” on it, to the extent that you can with the resources you have. 

If we become obsessively interested in something, if we consistently pour mental and physical energy into it, if we make it a serious priority in our ives…we almost always get better at it. 

It’s hard to NOT become an expert at something you dive into and swim around in for hours at a time. 

I want you to get really, really curious about what creates mental, emotional, and behavioral change. 

I want you to become an expert in what makes YOU tick. 

I want you to make feeling and functioning better a heathy obsession, such that you WANT to go out and get familiar with what techniques work and what the research says. 

I want you to be so well-informed about mental and behavioral health that you are supremely unimpressed by the pseudoscience tossed around by a not-small chunk of the self help industry. 

If you really want to get better, I encourage you to dive deep. Get to know the subject matter. Get to know the industry. 

And eventually, you’ll get to the point where I arrived: where you’re so familiar with the ins and outs of emotional and behavioral change, that you’re applying bits and pieces of various philosophies here and there and everywhere…and even though you’ve not found the overarching Answer, what you DO find is that your life really is improving. 

Focus makes all the difference. 

 

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The biggest challenge in responding to anger— either yours or someone else’s— is that anger is an emotion that puts people in a volatile, unpredictable state. 

When we are angry, we are, by definition, in touch with impulses and behaviors that are more primal and energy intensive than our “normal,” everyday behaviors. 

It’s helpful to remember why anger exists at all: anger is an evolutionarily-driven response to one’s territory or resources being threatened. 

The reason why anger, as an emotional reaction, was selected FOR in our evolutionary history— and thus the reason why it still exists in our emotional and behavioral repertoire— is because anger has survival value (or it did, at one point). 

When the primitive humans were hunting and gathering their primitive way through their primitive world, they would sometimes come into conflict. 

Primitive humans ran across resources, such as nourishment and mates, that were scarce— and they would fight over them. 

The primitive humans who were able to defend their territory— i.e., their resources and their mates— were selected FOR. That is to say, they would win these competitions with the other primitive humans. 

What helped those victorious primitive humans win? 

Under certain circumstances, anger helped them win. 

The primitive humans who responded to threats by getting angry had an edge. 

When we look at what actually happens when we get angry, we can sort of begin to understand what’s going on. 

Anger has a way of sharpening our focus. It “spikes” our physical reflexes and responses. It provides a temporary rush of adrenaline and energy for the sake of engaging in conflict. 

It’s not hard to see why the primitive humans who were able to get angry when threatened may have had a leg up on those primitive humans who were mellow, forgiving, or passive in response to threat. 

Is all that to say that anger is a “good” thing? 

Eh, not necessarily. We’re talking about the survival of the species here. We’re not talking about what modern humans experience and what modern humans do when they get angry. 

What we need to remember about anger is that it is the kind of emotional response that has the tendency to become consuming. 

There is a reason why anger is so frequently described as or compared to fire. 

Fire is an element that consumes what is burning. Anger is an emotion that threatens to consume whoever is angry— precisely because it is so grounded in our evolutionary history as a species that needed to fight or flee (both of which took tremendous energy) in order to survive. 

What does all this imply for us modern humans, who are trying to manage our own anger— even while being hyper-aware of how seemingly dangerous anger an be? 

First thing’s first: we need to remember that even though anger is evolutionarily hard-wired into our nervous systems, anger is STILL responsive to the tools and skills that are effective in managing all of our emotional states. 

Anger responds to the pace and intensity of our breathing. 

Anger response to what we visualize. 

Anger responds to what we tell ourselves. 

It is true that, because anger is a reaction that had its origin in moments of extreme stress and threat, that managing in the moment FEELS like a much different task than managing, say, anxiety…but substantively, it really isn’t all THAT different. 

It is our EXPERIENCE of anger that is different. 

When we see the “red” of anger, it is sometimes terrifying to us, because that sensation often feels like the warning siren that control is about to be lost. 

It’s also the case that, because anger is so closely associated in our nervous system with existential threats (after all, as cavemen, we most often felt angry right when the options seemed to be “kill or be killed”), seeing the “red” of anger is often linked to literal for one’s life— which, of course, consumes its OWN significant cognitive and energetic resources. 

The biggest thing to remember about anger is that, even though it FEELS much different from other emotions, the basics of managing it remain the same. 

Anger needs certain thoughts, visualizations, and physiology to feed it. 

By interrupting the pattern of those thoughts, visualizations, you can deny anger the “air” it needs to breathe. 

By closely observing how we experience anger— what reactions happen in what order, what thoughts trigger anger and what thoughts maintain it— we can learn not only  the nuts and bolts of how anger happens “to” us…but we can learn how to derail that train before it gains so much momentum that we really lose control. 

It’s not an easy process. No response that has its roots so deep in our evolutionary history is likely to be “easy” to change. 

Just like any emotional and behavioral pattern we experience, the fundamentals remain observation, self-experimentation, and responsiveness to the data that we generate from our own lived experience. 

Self-programming and self-brainwashing, in other words. 

Hmm. Wonder where we’ve heard THAT before?  

 

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It’s really important to remember that, just because you are heavily involved and invested in this  project of improving your life and getting happier and healthier, that doesn’t mean you’re living in denial about the difficult or unfair things in the world. 

If you follow my work, you know that I write and talk a LOT about the things we can do to make our lives better. 

Whereas a lot of people spend a lot of energy fuming about the things that are wrong with the world— often on an institutional or societal level— I tend not to put my focus there. 

That’s not because I believe the world is problem-free. 

I don’t believe the world is even fundamentally fair. 

I absolutely believe that there are issues of power, inequality, and privilege that result in a LOT of people having to contend with an appallingly unfair playing field. 

I am not naive’ or in denial about ANY of that. 

There are ABSOLUTELY things that I would prefer be different about society, the economy, and the world— and I have an overwhelming amount of respect and admiration for those who have dedicated their personal and professional lives to changing things in the big picture. 

The reason I don’t write so much about social justice or injustice ISN’T because I believe it’s futile to do so (though I will say, writing about social justice with nuance and perspective seems to be one of the most difficult tasks in modern media). 

The reason I don’t really write and talk about social justice and injustice is because it’s not really what I’m trained and qualified to write and talk about. 

What I AM trained and qualified to talk about is how people can create change in their individual lives. How people can take greater control over their own thoughts, feelings, and behavior. 

To broaden the content that I publicly put out there would be me veering way out of my lane— and as someone who cares about my audience and my reputation, that kind of thing really matters. 

For example: we’re in the middle of a public health crisis, and many people seem to have very divergent opinions on what governments and other institutions can and should do in response to that crisis. 

I have my own opinions and impressions on that subject— but am I an authority on epidemiology, infectious disease, or economics? I am very much NOT not. 

Thus, it would be unreasonable for me to go on my page and pretend to my 55,000 social media followers that I had anything other than half-baked impressions and opinions on the subject. 

You might have noticed, however— not all self-help figures seem to share my reluctance to stick to what we know when making public statements. 

In the last two months, we’ve seen, over and over again, self-help figures from Dr. Phil McGraw, to Dr. Oz, to Dr. Drew, to even my personal favorite (said with a great deal of sarcasm) James Arthur Ray, using their heavily-traffcked public platforms to make public pronouncements about the public health situation…many of which seem to diverge from the opinions and recommendations of the most visible public health authorities and officials in our culture. 

Why is this important to point this out? Am I saying that no one who has a public platform SHOULD be out there challenging the “official” narrative surrounding the public health situation? Am I saying that people shouldn’t think for themselves, and instead swallow everything the government feeds us, hook, line, and sinker? 

I’m not saying that at all. 

What I AM saying is, it’s very important, when you’re following popular self-help personalities, to keep track of their areas of expertise…and to have a feeling for when they’re veering out of their lanes for the sake of attracting clicks. 

I’m writing about this specifically because I know— I don’t think, I KNOW— that my audience is smart. 

I know self-help seekers are generally smart, and optimistic, and hungry for knowledge and new perspectives. 

I also know that the self-help paradigm is such that we tend to get kind of attached to those figures to whom we gravitate…and we can sometimes lose perspective on when they might be talking out of school. 

Back when I was overwhelmingly depressed as a teenager and young adult, one of the things that literally saved my life was cramming my head full of good stuff whenever I could. I devoured self help books, articles, and programs— anything and everything that I thought could give me some perspective on why I felt the way I did, and how I might change it. 

Saturating your brain with good, constructive, proactive content is something I highly recommend— but in this environment where everyone is writing and publishing things with the goal of attracting as many clicks and eyeballs as possible…we have to be smart and selective about who we let into our heads. 

Not every “expert” out there will be straightforward about their limitations or blind spots. 

If an “expert” seems allergic to saying “I don’t know” or “That’s not really my field”…pay attention. 

There are lots of people out there, in the self-help field and elsewhere, who have a lot of interesting, helpful things to say…but it’s still up to us to be mindful and intelligent about the content we consume and the personalities we embrace. 

I do my best to do right by my audience, and I’m profoundly grateful for those who follow my work. 

But I’m not different from anybody else in the field. I have my blind spots, and I have my limitations. 

Take what I say with as many grains of salt as you would when reading anybody else. 

But if you’re reading this…you probably know that already and you’re probably doing that already. 

Good job!

 

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We have to brainwash ourselves. 

I’m not even remotely kidding. 

We have been brainwashed. All of us. For years. 

What I mean when I say that is, we have been influenced. Programmed. 

Sometime this has happened straightforwardly; sometimes surreptitiously. 

Many, many institutions exist in the world explicitly for the purpose of influencing how we think, feel, and behave. 

Many of these influence-wielding organizations and individuals operate with the best of intentions. They THINK they’re doing good in the world through their attempts to influence people. 

Political parties fit this description. Many religions fit this description. Activist organizations fit this description. 

The desire to influence how others think, feel, and behave is not, in itself, bad. Almost everybody wants to do this— many with perfectly good intentions. 

The problem is when we grow up thinking we have fully, freely “chosen” our thoughts, feelings, and behavior…when the truth is that we have been programmed, almost since birth, with other peoples’ messaging and beliefs. 

Why am I telling you any of this? 

It’s not because I want you to be paranoid. 

It’s because many of us are saddled with beliefs, feelings, and behaviors that don’t work for us. They work against us. 

And we think we have freely “chosen” those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors…when in reality, they have been chosen for us by advertisers, politicians, journalists, and other wielders of influence in our environments. 

Why do we believe the things we believe about ourselves? 

Why do we believe the things we do about behavior? 

Why do we believe that certain feelings or impulses are “right” or “better” than others? 

Many people, for example, think it is morally dubious to struggle with addiction— that only certain “types” of people become addicts. 

Many people believe that to struggle with certain facets of their sexuality is evidence of moral shortcomings. 

Many people believe that people who struggle to stay on task or complete assignments lack character or work ethic— that they are “lazy.” 

And many people believe that people who get involved with exploitative cults are somehow “stupid” or “weak.” 

None of these conclusions is supported by psychological research…yet, you’ll find these beliefs fairly widespread. 

Why? 

Programming. 

We have certain messages pounded into our brains, again and again, from the time we are young. 

“You’re not enough.” “Good people don’t struggle with addiction.” “If you think about sex, you’re bad.” “Depression is a sign that you’re doing something wrong.” “If you trusted God enough, you wouldn’t be anxious.” 

We get those messages on repeat— and they sink in. 

Programming is inescapable in our culture— and many times, it is destructive. 

That’s why we need to take charge of our own programming. 

We need to “brainwash” ourselves. 

We need to decide what WE really think and believe…and then put that on a loop for OURSELVES. 

It’s not an easy process. The easy thing to do is to kind of go with the cultural flow. 

But if we’re going to live a conscious, purposeful life, it’s a process that we cannot escape or avoid. 

Don’t let anyone else brainwash you. 

Brainwash yourself first.

 

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There are going to be times when we’re tested by life…and found wanting. 

There are going to be times when we fail. 

When we make the wrong call. 

When we make a poor decision. 

There are going to be times when we don’t handle stress well. 

When we do things that actively work against our goals or contradict our values. 

It’s GOING to happen. It’s not a matter of “maybe” it will happen; it WILL, sooner or later. 

The question is, what do we do AFTER we stumble? 

We need to remember that our lives happen in long arcs. 

Yes, sometimes there are major choice points that can seem to make or break our destinies; but more often than not, our life results are the accumulation of lots and lots of little choice points. 

The temptation is to get really down on ourselves for whiffing on some of those smaller choice points. 

For example, I have the tendency to get absolutely vicious with myself when I make poor eating choices. 

When you’re in a certain headspace, it can seem like one day of going off-diet can seem like you’ve made the decision to absolutely ruin, absolutely negate, months and years of working hard to make responsible food choices and remain dedicated to your physical fitness routine. 

It’s at these moments that it is imperative we keep the long game in mind. 

Yes, you might have made a choice right here and now that isn’t the most aligned with your goals and values. 

But we need to remember that one choice is one choice. 

Back up and look at the pattern. 

Ask yourself: what can I do to make sure this choice doesn’t blossom into a PATTERN of behavior that undermines my goals and values? 

Ask yourself: what can I LEARN from this particular “failure?” 

Ask yourself: what factors contributed to my struggle to make a positive, congruent choice today? 

Nobody LIKES to make a “poor” choice…but our supposed “poor” choices can come with lots of useful data for us. 

The truth is, if we constantly made “good” choices, we’d essentially learn nothing. 

We’d learn nothing about how we handle stress. 

We’d learn nothing about what we need to cope more effectively. 

We’d learn nothing about what we need to feel good. 

The goal of all of this is always to cultivate experiences that feel good and make it easy for us to live our values. 

In order to effectively do that, we need to keep our eyes and ears (and minds) open to how stress operates on us. 

Making “poor” choices may not be ideal…but we don’t have to let those moments be a complete loss. 

Accept your momentary “defeat.” 

Refuse to get vicious with yourself. 

Figure out what this momentary “defeat” has to teach you. 

Then…get back up and brush yourself off. 

This has just been a bad moment. It’s not your entire life, or the entirety of who you are as a person. 

 

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Something I wish more people knew and accepted about abuse survivors is that they— we— often have complicated relationships with our abusers. 

Very often, abusers are friends, family, or otherwise entwined in a survivor’s social or familial system. 

Some people like to think that, if someone was abusing you, you’d whistle a halt to it right then, tell everybody about it, cut the abuser off, and then keep the abuser cut off. 

It very often doesn’t work like that. 

Survivors are often afraid to come forward. 

Sometimes they’re afraid of their abuser; sometimes they’re afraid they won’t be believed; sometimes they’re afraid of the fallout if they WERE believed. 

I know that I didn’t come forward because I assumed I would be blamed. 

I was a weird kid, and I was very often told I was a weird kid. 

I assumed that if I told anybody about the fact that I was being abused by my babysitter,  everyone would assume that this is just the sort of weird thing that Glenn says, who knows if it’s true. 

But then on the other hand, I had no idea what to expect even if I WAS then seriously. This guy’s family lived across the street. His parents (or his caretakers, anyway, I have no idea if they were his parents or his grandparents or what) were elderly. What was going to happen, would he be arrested? Would he have to move? Would we have to move? 

It all seemed overwhelming— a hassle and a headache for everyone involved. 

And I didn’t want to be the cause of MORE hassles and headaches for the adults around me than I already caused. 

It seems that I often see the accounts of abuse survivors questioned because they didn’t
“behave” like we assume victims “should” behave. 

Sometimes they continue to have associations with and relationships with their abusers, for a variety of reasons. 

One of the reasons why a subset of people disbelieve the men who accused Michael Jackson of sexually abusing them as kids was because those men continued to have friendships and professional connections to Michael Jackson for years after they say the abuse happened. 

As if that means anything. 

Any more than my reluctance to cause the adults around me hassles and headaches means I wasn’t abused. 

There is no playbook for how abuse victims “should” act in the aftermath of their abuse. 

You cannot tell, by looking at a relationship from the outside, what happens between two people behind closed doors. 

When I eventually DID tell my parents what had happened to me, several years had gone by. The guy had moved away from our neighborhood (I think he moved away from home, either for school or a military career). 

The fact that people don’t reveal their abuse within a certain time frame doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

There are lots and lots of reasons why people don’t disclose they’re being abused. 

Abuse happens in all types of families, all types of systems, and all types of cultures, and to people of all genders. 

The most compassionate thing any of us can do when we’re told of abuse is to set aside our preconceived notions about what it does or doesn’t mean to have been abused. 

Survivors are not looking for your judgment or your pity. 

Whether you think an abuse narrative is “credible” or not, literally doesn’t matter. 

Whether someone fits your personal notion of someone who “probably was” or “probably wasn’t” abused, literally doesn’t matter. 

No one is interested in your thoughts about how “likely” it was that abuse did or did not occur. 

Anyone’s judgment about the “likelihood” of an abuse narrative being “true” has literally no bearing on whether that abuse did, in fact, happen. 

There are lots of supposedly “unlikely” abuse victims out there. 

And there are lots of abusers who don’t fit into many peoples’ idea of what an “abuser” looks like. 

 

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