On-time, on-time, on-time, . . .
San Francisco, scheduled for 9:00AM, now 10:05AM. I’m mad! An uncomplicated trip to the airport, pleasant drivers, helpful people checking me in and an easy rite of passage through security; all gone because I get to my concourse only to discover my flight is delayed. If they’d announced the delay before I left my house I would of stayed home longer, I pout to myself. My anger wipes out all of the good feelings generated by the relative pleasantness of the day until now. I know that anger and frustration are common responses to this type of situation but I have to ask myself, why? It’s not going to change anything and too much anger makes us sick.
There is a story I often tell clients about anger. The freeway onramp near my home is set up so that you can’t see the freeway until you’ve pulled part way down the ramp. Of course, by then you can’t back up or change direction. You have to keep going. I had an appointment to keep and had left the house in plenty of time to get there. As I pull onto the onramp I am greeted by a barely moving sea of automobiles. Anger arises in my awareness. I work my way into the sea of automobiles and now have plenty of time to ponder why I go to anger in this type of situation. I know it’s not helpful, that it won’t change the situation in any way, and that it is actually bad for my health. Yet, I am still mad. As I creep along the freeway thinking about this I ask myself “who am I angry at?” By now I’ve crested the hill and can see below me a bad car accident with fire trucks, ambulances and police cars everywhere. It gives me pause.
Am I mad at the people who wrecked their cars and may have died? No. Am I mad at the paramedics who are trying to save lives and block the road in their efforts? No. Am I mad at the police officers or the fireman who are on the scene? Again, no. The answer comes to me as if a voice spoke it out loud in the car. I am angry because I did not get my way! I am feeling victimized by the causes and conditions that led up to my being stuck in traffic and late for my pending appointment. I had a plan and my plan was thwarted. I felt helpless. I could do nothing about it except wait.
Each of us is the sum of all of our life experiences. This means that each of us has a 2 year old part of us that wants what it wants and wants it now! Emotions have a lot of energy attached to them and anger is one of the most energetic of the emotions. When anger arises with all of it’s power it often activates these otherwise quiet parts of our mind. My terrible-two persona wakes up when I am angry and wants to have a temper tantrum. I want what I want and I want it now! I also want everybody else to know that I am mad and it is my secret hope that someone will do something to fix the situation so that I can have my way. When you think about a two year old and how they behave when frustrated, isn’t this what the two year old wants? As children grow up, hopefully the lesson they learn during that two to four year stage is frustration tolerance, the ability to deal with disappointment in a constructive way. Sometimes we are still learning that lesson as adults.
Of course I am no longer two so this kind of behavior isn’t an effective strategy for getting along in the world. Luckily for all of us, as adults we can learn to channel the energy associated with anger into more skillful means in the world. Anger destroys our state of mind. When we are angry we can’t think straight. When we act out of anger someone gets hurt.
Anger is one of the five afflictive emotions in Buddhist psychology and it’s antidote is compassion and love. Back at the airport I stew for a few minutes and finally decide I need to take care of myself and get some breakfast. By being compassionate to myself, feeding my body and letting the anger subside I can think clearly again. I can see how to love myself in this situation. I decide to write this article while I enjoy a relaxing breakfast. It occurs to me while I’m sitting there how difficult it is to carve out uninterrupted time for myself and this extra hour at the airport is actually a gift to me. An hour to relax and use my time in a meaningful way. It took a delayed flight for me to receive that gift. The pleasant feelings I experienced earlier in the day return.
Soon enough I’m flight-bound.
Every day we get out of bed and assume that our day will mostly go according to plan; my job will be there, the people I care about will be there, my home my car. We don’t think “gee, today might be the day I get in a bad car accident on the way to work!” If we did think the worst, we might not get out of bed! Of course if you cut to the root of the matter, none of these things is guaranteed. These are assumptions we make all of the time yet in spite of our assumptions life seems to have a way of pointing the impermanent nature of everything. Often suddenly and very unexpectedly — we experience a significant loss.
The death of a loved one, sudden loss of a job, losing the house, loss of health and many other things are common experiences for all of us. Is there any one of us who doesn’t know someone who is going through loss? Perhaps you are going through loss yourself right now.
In my counseling work people come to see me because they don’t know how to deal with significant loss. They no longer know how to cope nor how to function on a daily basis. They are experiencing grief. Where do you find a life-philosophy that informs you on how to respond to the fact that everything we have we will eventually lose? What can you depend on? How do you stand on quicksand without sinking? While both western psychology and Buddhist science of the mind help us to work with our minds, neither one informs us on how to respond to grief and to live skillfully in the world in spite of loss. And for many people, western religious philosophy also tends to fail them when they are facing painful loss. So where do you turn?
One of my teachers, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche says that Buddhism
is both a science of how the mind works and a philosophy for life [living skillfully in the world.] It is not a religion in the conventional sense. . . Rather, it is a way of viewing our existence that brings meaning into our lives and benefit to the world. (Dzogchen Ponlop, Mind Beyond Death, Snow Lion Publications, Boulder CO 2006, p. 35)
Buddhist philosophy tells us how to deal with loss and how to respond to the uncertainties of life.
There is a Buddhist teaching story that takes place during the life of the Buddha, around 500 BC. Those familiar with Christianity could think of it as a parable. In this story a mother’s child dies suddenly. In her grief she is unable to admit to herself that the child is dead. She comes to the Buddha with the dead child in her arms and asks for medicine for her child. The Buddha tells her to go to the town and get some mustard seed from a family who has never experienced a death. She tried and of course could not find such a family. Through her efforts and the Buddha’s teaching she then realized that everybody experiences loss. Loss is painful but it does not need to be a bad thing! To live is to loose. The only other strategy is to try to hide from life, not experiencing life but protecting yourself by avoiding relationships and the other challenges we all need to face everyday. Some people try to do this and create even more suffering for themselves and those close to them.
Life is impermanent. If this is true, how do we find peace? What can support us when things go wrong? This is what Buddhist teachings provide the modern world, a way to understand that all things that appear also disappear The teachings include instructions on how to live in the world with joy and a sense of fulfillment even though there really are no people, places, events or things that are permanent, unchangeable and 100% reliable. Acknowledging this fact often leaves people feeling like there is nothing to depend on, no solid ground to stand on. They feel they are going to sink into the quicksand. But it is possible to stand on quicksand. This is the great gift for everyone! This is how to get out of bed in the morning in spite of loss and to be with our grief instead of trying to avoid our grief (which never works anyway). This is the key to true freedom and joy in life. Is it better to be prepared before a profound loss happens or to experience the loss and not know where to turn and what to do when the inevitable happens?
We all will experience loss and grieve that loss. With my training in western and Buddhist psychology combined with my training in Buddhist philosophy, I can help. If you or someone you know has experienced loss and could use some help learning to relate to the world again, please call or email me. Let’s talk and see if I can be helpful.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Perhaps this is one of the keys to happiness, especially if we think about how we can make another being’s quality of the day a little better — paying a small compliment, feeding the birds, holding the door, picking up trash that missed the can, walking your dog. The list of little things we can do for each other is endless. The bonus is that each random act of kindness to another improves the quality of our day as well. It’s an interesting paradox of life, when you help someone else you automatically help yourself by feeling better, which improves the quality of your day.
To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it. Confucius
The way to use mistakes skillfully is to learn what there is to learn from the mistake and then forget the mistake ever happened. Do remember the lesson or you’ll be doomed to repeat it later. I’ve often thought we’d all be better off if we had a memory-specific erase button somewhere on our head.
Olly olly, oxen free! In the children’s game Hide and Seek, the players stay hidden until found or called to come out of their hiding spots. As adults, if we stay hidden we pay a high price for our invisibility. After listening to a recent news story about California Proposition 8, the voter initiative limiting the rights of GLBT people to get married in that state. I realized that each of us, heterosexual and homosexual alike, is called upon regularly to “come out of the closet” in some way or another. Today I am “coming out” into the blogosphere. Welcome to my newsletter.
I’ve experienced fear about writing a newsletter. I’ve been afraid to come out of the closet of not writing. I’ve doubted that I have something worthwhile to say, especially on a regular basis. I short-changed myself, not giving myself credit for my education, training and life experience.
We all have self-limiting beliefs, self-secret beliefs we carry around in our minds that keep us from acting in our own and the world’s best interest. While wrestling with my self-doubt about having something to say in a newsletter, I remembered another event in my life that required me to “come out” wherever I was and stop hiding in my own self-imposed closet.
I grew up in a house where children were “seen but preferably not heard.” I liked to sing but didn’t believe I had any talent. I wasn’t supported or encouraged to sing let alone speak up as a child, so I believed I didn’t have the right to speak up, let alone sing. I was also very shy so I wasn’t inclined to stick my neck out and be noticed. As an adult I joined a church choir and had a good time. Somebody told me about a voice class. Timidly and with a lot of fear I signed up for it. The class was a real struggle, an emotional, spiritual and physical struggle. My self-imposed belief about not being able to sing was so strong that I could not shape my mouth and vocal chords the way the teacher showed me. I wasn’t able to make a good vocal sound and improve my singing.
This struggle brought up a strong emotional reaction in me and I took this struggle to my own therapist and worked hard on it. Over the course of the year I was able to change my self-limiting belief and eventually I found my voice! And when I found my voice I could no longer be kept quiet. I claimed a little more of my power thus coming a little farther out of my self-imposed closet.
What I learned from that experience was that I have a voice and I have the right to use it. Having a voice doesn’t mean that I yell at people or bully them with my words. It means that when I have something I believe is worth saying, I say it. I say it as skillfully and compassionately as possible. Sometimes I lack skillfulness in how I express myself and I apologize for my clumsiness. No longer do I sell my authenticity down the river of being quiet in order to not make waves.
As the gay community knows from so much painful experience, when you cannot or will not be the person you are born to be, and live life with pride and joy, the price you pay for your self-betrayal is your mental, spiritual and physical well-being. Each time we come out of another self-imposed closet it is the next step of our journey of awakening, the evolution of consciousness. It’s a deep ownership of authentic self and the beginning of the journey towards enlightenment.
Children say Olly olly, oxen free when their game of hide and seek is over, asking all of the children still hidden to come out and be seen. How often do you sacrifice your voice in order to not be noticed? Do you keep quiet so your partner, your parents, your friends, your co-workers and bosses don’t notice your individuality? Does keeping quiet leave you feeling “less than?” Where have you stayed in the closet of your own limiting beliefs, perhaps to not make waves and draw attention to yourself. It’s time. Give yourself an Olly olly, oxen free and to thine own self be true!
A teaching from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition asks “If you can change a situation, then why worry? If you cannot change a situation, then why worry?” This explains the reason for much of our stress in life. We worry too much and all of that worry changes nothing yet makes us physically and mentally sick. If the solution to all of this stress is to relax then why is it so hard to relax?
All of us have probably experienced being told “don’t worry about it” when we are upset about something and I think it is fair to say that being told not to worry never helps. If the solution to stress and anxiety is that simple then why can’t we do it?
The problem is that we’ve trained ourselves since childhood to have internal dialogs about all of the bad things that are going to happen because of the event that set off the worry. We are afraid and trying to think away the fear. These dialogs are like movie scripts that we write, direct and star in. Then we forget it’s a movie and respond to it believing it is reality. If we can step back and realize that it is just a movie, we can then do as the teaching suggests, stop worrying and relax. The outcome will be the same and we can be worry less. Yet I suspect that many of you may object to this idea saying that you have real problems that you need to find a solution for.
Life is complicated with many issues to grapple with. However it is useful to distinguish between problem solving and worrying. They are not the same thing. Actively searching out solutions to problems, dialoging, researching and trying things are constructive strategies that actually reduce stress by allowing you to feel like you have some power and can take charge of a situation. Worrying is a fantasy activity that constructs a dreaded future with no positive outcome. The energy behind worrying is fear and fear is a normal response to uncertainty. So how do we constructively deal with the fear and uncertainty that is a normal part of life?
Try this:
1.Acknowledge you are feeling fear.
2.Realize that making the leap from fear to anxious thinking is a voluntary conditioned act.
3.Find the gap between the feeling and the thinking. It really is there!
4.Rest in the gap and feel the fear. Notice how that feeling changes when you pay attention.
5.Just relax and slow down your mind.
6.Now engage in constructive problem solving. If no solution presents itself at this time, rest, knowing that either this is not yet the time to deal with the problem or that you don’t yet have enough information to make a decision.
Since laughter, joy and smiling are truly the best medicines, here is a delightful video that is helping raise funds for breast cancer awareness.
This video was directed and choreographed in Portland last week as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community.
Please check it out. It’s an easy and great way to donate to a wonderful cause, and who hasn’t been touched by breast cancer? Pink Glove Dance
People come to my office with symptoms of depression, anxiety, loneliness and relationship problems. Getting to know them I discover that in almost all cases they feel some level of disconnection from other people. They don’t feel like they belong. As I work to help them, creating community is a large part of their “cure.” Jean Vanier in his book Becoming Human says: “We do not discover who we are, we do not reach true humanness. in a solitary state; we discover it through mutual dependency, in weakness, in learning through belonging.”
Last week I went to a training at the Buddhist school I am affiliated with in California. While there I was asked what my participation in the school has meant to me. My response was that I cherish the sense of belonging to this group, of feeling like I am part of something and that the other members are a support to me. I realized that this belongingness manifests in the world as my teachers, my fellow classmates and the support I get from these relationships. I cherish this sense of refuge, a place in my mind where I can go when feeling lonely or distracted, to recharge my batteries, basking in the warmth of the group.
Belonging is an important part of our journey towards wholeness and true happiness in life. We are all tribal people. We each need a tribe to belong to, to support and to be supported by. In our modern fast-paced world where individualism is valued more then belonging and cooperation, becoming disconnected and isolated is becoming more common. Human beings thrive in cooperative groups. For the health of ourselves and our society we all need to find a way to feel like we belong.
Enjoying your life and avoiding or getting over depression is dependent on the “big 5 personality traits” according to UCLA researchers. These five traits are:
- a lack of excessive nervousness (neuroticism)
- the ability to be sociable and connect with other people (extroversion)
- the ability to cooperate with and get along with others pleasantly (agreeableness)
- the ability to be mindful and aware of others needs without care-taking them (conscientiousness)
- the ability to be open and speak about how you feel without shame or embarrassment (openness)
Depressed and anxious people typically have a deficit in one or more of the big 5. Until this study came out researchers believed that these personality traits got set fairly early in life and only changed slowly through working on yourself in psychotherapy and other self-improvement activities. People make definite progress in psychotherapy but the complaint has always been that it is a slow process. Good psychotherapy typically takes years to reverse the effects of depression and anxiety in adults caused by childhood issues.
What this study suggests is that antidepressants may also help alter the big 5 for the better. Prior to this study researchers believed that the drugs just altered mood but had no effect on the Big 5. This study suggests that by altering brain chemistry of the depressed or anxious person, they are able to make improvements in the “Big 5” areas that are permanent. This is good news for trauma survivors who have struggled with the depression and anxiety for much of their adult life in spite of their hard work in psychotherapy.
You can read more of about this study in the Denver Post at:
