Use Your Damn Skills

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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What if it’s not about discovering something new?

So many people seem to be on quests for something new, different, profound, life-changing. And there is certainly no dearth of gurus, teachers, or experts who are happy to offer it to them.

But what if…what if the quest for something “new” that will change your life is kind of a myth?

What if there’s nothing truly “new” out there that will change your life?

What if the real secret is about remembering who you are, and what you already know, in the first place?

What if you already have the knowledge and skills you need in order to completely transform your life and the lives of the people around you…but you just haven’t, for whatever reason, figured out a way to organize and use that knowledge and those skills in just the right ways?

I realize it’d be the easier “sell” to claim that I have some sort of profound knowledge that you lack. That the “doctor” in front of my name gives me access to a vault of esoteric wisdom that is being kept from all you mere mortals, and you must pay me for access to that vault.

I could probably make a lot more money if I pretended that there was something, anything, they taught me in graduate school that isn’t freely available in dozens of places on the internet, at the library, or in twelve-step meetings in very city and town in the country.

In fact, there are many gurus who do make a giant profit making just such these claims.

Well, in fairness, they do more than claim they are privy to some esoteric knowledge that the common seeker lacks. First they usually spend a fair amount of time and effort making you feel stupid and vulnerable for your up-until-then futile attempts to discover truth for yourself.

Their marketing strategy, see, is heavily dependent upon you believing that you fundamentally know less than they do, particularly about Big Picture things— life, love, relationships, how the mind and brain work, how to make a life work.

Their theory is, if they can stir up feelings of inadequacy in you about your basic ability to handle life, you’ll be more likely to hand over your credit card number to them so they can fix it with their more evolved, more connected, more incisive philosophies and techniques.

By the time you get to the seminar, or you buy the book, or you finish the tape series (anybody remember tapes? They were these clunky things on which you listened to audio content before the advent of MP3’s), you were already invested in believing the guru’s claims, because, well, you’d literally invested money in it. There’s a phenomenon we psychologists call “cognitive dissonance” that refers to our ability to convince ourselves that something has merit when we’ve already bought into it, so as to avoid feeling foolish.

There is a subset of personal development gurus who have built their entire EMPIRES on peoples’ desire to reduce their cognitive dissonance once they’ve invested money in their products.

Let me dissipate the suspense: I do not have “new” knowledge for you.

I do not have esoteric wisdom that was handed to me by a shaman on a Peruvian mountaintop.

(There is one self-help guru out there who lured clients into a Native American-themed sweat lodge ceremony, claiming he had been trained and credentialed by, among others, Peruvian shamans. As it turned out, these claims were fraudulent…a fact only publicized AFTER three clients had died and multiple others had been injured when he conducted the sweat lodge incorrectly.)

Maybe the fact that I don’t have new, novel knowledge or spiritually-revealed wisdom is a letdown.

But for what it’s worth: I have seen people make real, substantive changes in their lives. I’ve seen people get happier and more satisfied with their lives. I’ve seen people change the level at which they were living in profound ways. And it didn’t take profound, esoteric knowledge.

In most cases, it took reminding them of things they already knew.

It took reminding them of who they are.

It took figuring out ways in which they were already survivors and thrivers…and making that knowledge and wisdom, which they already had and had already used, more easily accessible to them.

I don’t know everyone who is reading these words personally. I don’t know your challenges, I don’t know your strengths, I don’t know your weaknesses. It may be the case that you, you reading right now, you are the exception to what I’m saying here. Maybe you’re the ONE person who truly needs “new” knowledge to really change your life.

But I doubt it.

If you’re reading these words, if you’ve somehow stumbled upon this page on the Internet, I’m betting it’s because you actually are a survivor.

I’ll bet it’s because you are a seeker.

I’ll bet it’s because you have already been through some things…and you’ve survived so far. You did that somehow. You have resilience and knowledge and skills in there somewhere.

I recommend that you don’t take advice or seek guidance from any guru, teacher, or guide who doesn’t enter into their relationship with you with profound respect for these facts.

First and foremost: remember who you are.

 

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I’ll spare you the suspense: someone probably disapproves of you right now.

In fact, I guarantee someone disapproves of you right now.

It might be someone you know, or someone you don’t know. It might be someone who is actually important to you, or someone who isn’t. It might be someone whose opinion impacts your professional or personal life in an important way, or it might not be.

But there’s no escaping it: it’s a sure bet someone out there disapproves of you.

If you’re like most people— including me— that probably bugs you. It probably bugs you more than it “should,” objectively.

But this isn’t news.

We’re very often told that we “shouldn’t” get as upset as we do about other peoples’ negative opinions of and reactions to us.

In fact, it’s one of the most well-worn tropes of personal development literature that we place too much stock in other peoples’ opinions, and we’d be much happier if we gave up our desire and need to be liked by other people.

As if it were that simple.

Believe me, if there was a quick, reliable way for us to shed our addiction to other peoples’ approval, I’d be the first person out there embracing it (and marketing the hell out of it, for that matter). I’d like nothing more than for it to be easy and simple to leave our craving for other people to like us behind us.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with well-worn tropes of the personal development industry…it’s not that simple.

I do think our reliance on the approval of others is a form of addiction.

And, as any recovering addict will tell ya…there’s nothing “easy” about surrendering an addictive “fix” that has become central to someone’s existence.

Addictions are addictions precisely because they scratch an itch for us.

Addictions are addictions because they solve, or appear to solve, a problem for us, at least in the short term. (The fact that most addictive “solutions” to problems usually end up creating bigger and worse problems isn’t something that occurs to us in the moment we’re pursuing our fix.)

Addictions are addictions because they are self-perpetuating— that is, indulging in an addictive “fix” makes it more likely that we’ll return to that fix in the future.

And, perhaps most importantly…addictions are addictions because they reduce negative feelings. That is to say: if we give up our addiction, we are still saddled with the problem of how to cope with certain negative feelings. And as any addict will tell you, one of the reasons addicts tend to BECOME addicts in the first place is, we’re not great at handling negative feelings all the time.

All of which is to say: if you find giving up your reliance on, preoccupation with, or addiction to the approval of others, there’s no reason to be hard on yourself.

EVERYBODY finds it hard to wean themselves from the approval and acceptance of others to some extent.

Almost NOBODY finds it easy to just “stop caring what others think,” no matter what the self-help experts recommend.

Treat it like the addiction that it is, and acknowledge that you’re hooked. Acknowledge that giving up that addiction, much liking giving up any addiction, is going to require you to face some hard truths about your life, and it’s probably going to require you to endure some significant discomfort.

What role does seeking others’ approval play in your life?

If significant others disapproved of you…what would that mean for you? What would that feel like?

If you refused to scramble for the approval of others…what would be different in your life? How would you feel different? What kinds of new thoughts would go through your head?

What would the voices in your head from your PAST say?

What could you say back to them?

Something most addicts understand, at least intuitively, is that part of the reason we are addicts is because it truly seems like the “easy” route. If we just give in to our addiction to others’ approval, we don’t have to think about all that messy, unpleasant, anxiety-provoking questions I just asked.

It sometimes seems easier just to go on autopilot.

There’s no doubt that it SEEMS easier. And to people who have often not had an easy time of life…the easy path sometimes seems to make a lot of sense.

The good news, however…is that the more practice you get asking the hard questions, taking the tougher path, choosing to sit with the anxiety and endure the discomfort…the easier those things get.

You’ve survived tough times. You know how to make hard decisions.

Start asking questions of your addiction.

And watch how your addiction starts squirming.

 

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There are lots of ways that we freak ourselves out, or let ourselves get freaked out by either situations we’re facing or the people around us.

It’s rarely our fault or intention. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “You know what? I think I’ll just totally freak myself out about this situation, and make it so that I’m unable to function. That sounds like fun.”

But the truth is that we do, often, find ourselves intimidated, overwhelmed, stressed, or exhausted by situations that we might otherwise have the knowledge and skills to handle…if only that knowledge and those skills weren’t being shrouded by a fog of panic and anxiety at the moment.

First thing’s first: if you are feeling freaked out, you don’t need to apologize for or hide your feelings.

A lot of people, when they start to feel freaked out, immediately move to hide their freak-out from the people around them. These attempts, in turn, usually add yet another layer of stress and anxiety to the situation— and often don’t even work.

(Have you ever been around someone who is clearly freaking out, but working hard to keep the people around them from knowing they’re freaking out? It makes for an awkward situation.)

If you’re feeling freaked out, just acknowledge it.

Acknowledge it to yourself, and maybe even acknowledge it to the people around you, depending on the situation. Very rarely does any good come from trying to conceal a freak out once it’s underway.

There’s no shame in getting freaked out. Everybody gets freaked out. To be freaked out is to be human.

Then, once you’ve come face to face with the fact that you’re freaking out…it becomes possible to figure out whether you’re needlessly getting freaked out.

That is to say, whether your feelings of being freaked out at that moment may be the result of other peoples’ expectations; suddenly encountering a situation that is unfamiliar or unexpected; or having a situation you thought would go one way suddenly go another way, leaving you in the position of having to adapt in quick, uncomfortable ways.

The fact of the matter is, we are often more skilled, more poised, more experienced, and more capable in situations than we give ourselves credit for.

Often times, we forget how skilled, poised, experienced, and capable we can be, because our frontal lobe (the part of our brain that is really good at decision making, critical thinking, and problem solving) is being momentarily short circuited by our limbic system (that part of our brain that responds to crises with options of fight, flight, or freeze— the part of our brain that is lit up like a Christmas tree whenever we’re freaked out, in other words).

If you’re reading these words, trust me: you have intellect, experience, and toughness that I do not have, and that few other people have.

It’s not a contest, but it is a fact: there are times and places when you know exactly what you’re doing, and you do well it well.

Unfortunately, when our limbic system gets activated in moments of panic, it becomes tough to call to mind those times and places when we feel perfectly at ease, perfectly competent, perfectly able and adequate…which leaves us feeling awkward, incompetent, and inadequate.

Sometimes we get freaked out because other people have gone out of their way to get us freaked out.

It can be an interpersonal strategy on the part of insecure people to try to arouse feelings of confusion, inadequacy, and insecurity in other people, so they might achieve an effortless leg up in social situations. It’s to their advantage that we don’t experience ourselves as confident and competent…because if we did, we’d be giving them “competition.”

When we’re getting freaked out, we’re usually thinking in black and white terms.

If something doesn’t go perfectly, we immediately rush to the conclusion it was a complete failure. If an interaction doesn’t go entirely smoothly, we rush to the conclusion it has gone so painfully awry that everyone now hates us.

The limbic system isn’t good at nuance (and for good reason: when we were cave-people trying to avoid getting eaten by sabertooth tigers, probably the last thing we needed was to contemplate the nuances of whether we should RUN LIKE HELL or not).

The good news is: we don’t have to freak ourselves out.

We can learn to recognize when we’re getting freaked out, and to use the skills and tools we already have to help us calm down.

Right now, ask yourself: how would I know when I’m starting to freak out?

What happens in my body? What happens in my mind? What thoughts go through my head?

It may sound like an absurdly obvious question, but a lot of us don’t stop to ask it very often. If we needed a reliable set of warning signs for when we’re on the slippery slope to getting freaked out…what would those signs be?

Then, we can do simple, step by step things to arrest our slide down that slope.

We can breathe, slow and easy— five counts in, hold for three, five counts out.

Fun fact: the neuropsychological research suggests that it’s really, really hard for the limbic system to dominate our functioning when we’re breathing slow and easy (why do you think this is the first lesson every novice meditator learns?).

In the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at the issue of how to avoid freaking ourselves out in far more depth, including specific tips and tricks to remember who we are in those scary moments when we’re drawn into thinking we’re someone far less capable and smart.

But in the meantime, repeat as necessary: you don’t have to let yourself get freaked out.

You are enough. You have skills. You’ve handled things far tougher than the situation in front of you right now.

Now…breathe for me.

 

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