In fact, those of us who routinely use anger as a “cover-up” to keep our more vulnerable feelings at bay, generally become so adept at doing so that we have little to no awareness of the dynamic driving our behavior. As I’ve discussed in earlier posts on the subject, anger is the emotion of invulnerability. Even though the self-empowerment (read, “adrenaline rush”) it immediately offers is bogus, it can yet be extremely tempting to get “attached”—or even “addicted”—to it if we frequently experience another as threatening the way we need to see ourselves (e.g., as important, trustworthy, lovable, etc.). After all, this is how all psychological defenses work. Simply put, they allow us to escape upsetting, shameful, or anxiety-laden feelings we may not have developed the emotional resources—or ego strength—to successfully cope with. So, for example, say your partner (whether intentionally or not) expresses something that leads you to feel demeaned. Rather than, assertively, sharing your hurt feelings, and risk making yourself more vulnerable to them, you may react instead by finding something to attack them for. It could be as petty as their forgetting to put something away, or not having gotten back to you on scheduling an event, or a past mistake that compromised the family budget—in short, anything! In such instances, what you’re basically doing (though it’s most likely unconscious) is endeavoring to make them feel demeaned, to hurt their feelings—or rather, hurt them back. It’s an undeclared, largely unrecognized, game of tit for tat. And while you’re engaged in such retaliatory pursuits, guess what? Presto! You’re no longer feeling demeaned—at least not in the moment. . . . Which, sadly, reinforces this essentially childish behavior (as in, “You’re the one who’s bad!”). Go to the source for more: Anger—How We Transfer Feelings of Guilt, Hurt, and Fear | Psychology Today
I used to joke with my wife that ‘if only you’d lower your expectations I could be the man of your dreams’. Cute right? Not that there aren’t character issues that I need to work on, but according to this article by F. Diane Barth, L.C.S.W., I may have been on to something:
A colleague sent me a copy of a recent study that addresses the question. In it, a group of psychologists from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago say the problem may not be in the relationship, but in our expectations. If you are in a relationship that, like Tony and Wendy’s, looks good from the outside but seems to be crumbling from the inside, your own expectations and your partner’s may be at least partly to blame. Instead of making you feel good about yourself, if your marriage is destroying your self-esteem, these authors suggest again that you look at your own and your partner’s goals for the partnership.
The authors of the study say that the major problem with most marriages today has to do with a shift in what we look for from the person we plan to live with till death do us part.
Whereas in the past marriage was primarily expected to provide for physical care and satisfaction, today couples look to their partners to provide much more. Contemporary spouses are expected to facilitate one another’s psychological, emotional, social, personal and professional growth. A happy marriage, this research tell us, is one in which a couple feel physically and emotionally safe and get their physical and social needs taken care of. But even more important, these authors say, is our need for our life partners to support our life goals. We want to be someone who understands and backs us as we develop into the person we want to be.
Here’s the problem. You and your spouse may genuinely love and respect one another. But whether one or both of you is working full time or whether one of you is home taking care of children, a modern life style does not provide a lot of spare time or energy for carefully making sure you are bot feeling good about yourselves. More likely, when you do see each other, the first thing you think to say is to complain about the things you each feel the other hasn’t gotten done, or hasn’t done right.
Your feelings get hurt and you hurt back in retaliation, when what you both really want is someone to say what a good job you’ve done and how hard you’ve been working. These are what the authors of the study call “high altitude needs” of contemporary relationships; and they say that because most relationships are operating on this higher emotional level while at the same time we are so busy and overwhelmed with all of our life tasks and goals, we feel deprived of the emotional “oxygen,” or support and nurturing, that they both need and expect from a partner.
There is good news, though! First of all, if this is how you are feeling, there is a good chance that your partner is feeling the same way. Hard as it may be to empathize with one another, if you can simply recognize that you both need more nurturing, admiration, and respect, you might find some oxygen spontaneously returning to your relationship.
Talking about your goals and your expectations, your hopes and aspirations – not just in your marriage, but in all aspects of your life—can help. Give each other legitimate (not phony) credit and praise. Be honest about things you admire about one another. Surprisingly, even expressing feelings of envy for something your spouse does better than you can have a positive effect, since that kind of envy is also an expression of admiration.
I must confess that many of the thought I post here come from reflecting on Tara Brach’s podcast to which I listen daily. In her most recent podcast [link below], she spoke about this image…
Tara Brach talked about this image in her recent podcast:
2014-02-19 – Part 2: Heart of Compassion – Most of us consciously value compassion, but move through much of life without access to the full capacity of our heart. This talk explores the self-compassion that is the very grounds of loving our world.
My superpower IS kindness, but I don’t ‘get into the phonebooth’ often enough, if you what I mean. I often don’t put on my ‘kindness costume’ when I need it most…
Does that make me a failure? No, I think it puts me on a path. It makes me human. HH the Dalai Lama says:
“I don’t know why people like me so much. It must be because I value bodhichitta [the awakened heart/mind]. I can’t claim to practice [it], but I value it.” We care about the awakened heart because, like a flower in full bloom, it is the full realization of our nature. Feeling loved and loving matters to us beyond all else. We feel most “who we are” when we feel connected to each other and the world around us, when our hearts are open, generous and filled with love. Even when our hearts feel tight or numb, we still care about caring.
Brach, Tara (2004-11-23). Radical Acceptance (p. 222). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
How can I, a fellow being who is much less awakened, condemn myself for not practicing?
My takeaway? Get into the phonebooth. Put on lovingkindness. Even when — ESPECIALLY WHEN — our hearts feel tight and numb…
When I was a boy…a long time ago, now, it seems—for these days I’m lost in the busy-ness and joys of my enveloping daily life—when I was a boy, I remember smiling. All the time. I’m sure I had rough days, and sad days, and mad days. But my mom and I had a simple, good, fulfilling life. We were poor—she worked one or two or three jobs, we didn’t have a TV, we didn’t eat the fancy expensive fast cheap food everyone else did, we didn’t have a car, and we lost our house because she couldn’t meet the dreaded, little-understood “Balloon Payment”—but we loved life. There’s a ton of stuff you can do for free, you know? Museums, hikes, planetarium, church (in our case Buddhist programs), movies at the library, reading…and we did it all, together.
One wintertime, we were so broke my mom didn’t have money for Christmas presents. For any kind of Christmas present. I’m not sure how much I cared, then—but I do remember feeling how sad she was about it. That winter we lived on a lot of popcorn and rice. Cheap.
Fast forward 30 years, and I’m finally doing well for myself, and even able to begin to pay back my endless debt to my mother, by helping her out a bit. I’m proud and happy about that. Last winter, locally, I organized a bunch of gift certificates from local generous restaurants (the Kitchen, Shine, and elephant sponsored a few) and we gave meals to single moms and their families. Dads, too, though no one applied. This year, I hope to do the same again.
The point is, I thought you might want to do so, too. All I did was put an announcement out on my Facebook wall, and you can do this too–just say “Hey, if you and your family (or if you know of a family) is a bit hard up, and would love a gift certificate to a restaurant, honor system, private message me.” And then email or call or pop by a restaurant or two and ask for a gift certificate, again on the honor system (it helps to ask restaurants where you’re known). Then, connect the dots.
Because the Holidays aren’t about plastic toys made in unsafe working conditions! They’re about generosity, and coziness, and slowing down, and appreciate this precious, human birth.
Let’s start an unbroken chain of Holiday season kindness!
I try to listen to one mediation from @tarabrach every day; in this mediation below, she talks about the concept of the brain as a ‘reducing valve’:
That is an interesting concept to me and I was able to read more about it here if you are interested in knowing more about to what she was referring:
Reflecting on my experience, I find myself agreeing with the eminent Cambridge philosopher, Dr. C. D. Broad, \”that we should do well to consider much more seriously than we have hitherto been inclined to do the type of theory which Bergson put forward in connection with memory and sense perception. The suggestion is that the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.\” Continue reading “The brain as a ‘reducing valve’…”→
…when I take care of me! I love to wake up in the morning, make a pot of coffee and sit down at the computer for an hour while listening to a meditation from Tara Brach. However, I find that if I don’t exercise first thing in the day the chances that I’ll do it later decrease rapidly throughout the day so lately I’ve been making a few changes that seem to work well for me…
Instead of sitting down at the computer I put on my walking clothes, spend 5 minutes stretching and walk for 30 minutes while listening to my meditation. Then when I return home, I have a big glass of water before drinking coffee and I seem to need less to do more. I like eggs for breakfast but instead of eating them with butter and cheese I’m finding that hard-boiled along with some vegetables is a good way to go!
These are relatively minor changes but they make a massive difference in how much energy I have the rest of the day. How about you? What one positive thing could you do that would make a major impact in your life if you started doing it now? What one negative thing could you drop that would have a positive impact in your life?
Take a moment. Examine whose should’s are running your life. Are the things you tell yourself you need to be doing true expressions of your legitimate goals, responsibilities, and commitments? Or have you wandered so far away from yourself that your life is no longer a genuine expression of who you are, and what you want, in your heart?
How many hours a week do you spend doing what you want to be doing or doing what you need to be doing to have what you want—whether that’s sobriety, a family, or the career that’s right for you? How many hours each week are spent doing what you think you should be doing, whether you need to or not?
Some of you in other parts of the country [or the world for that matter], who have school-aged children, may be shocked to know that this is the first day of school in Algoma, Wisconsin. To be honest, I don’t know if the first day of school is more difficult on parents or children. For me, the start of school means an end to my flexible summer routine and I must now live on a ‘school schedule’ for the foreseeable future so for me, I think it’s harder on me than the kids…
This is a period of shifting paradigms in my life; I am taking on new responsibilities and deciding which old ones that should hold onto. For example, next week I will teach my first class as an adjunct professor at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. It will be the first time since graduate school that I have taught a class of predominantly college-aged students and I’m willing to bet that some things have changed about teaching at that level in a generation. Even though I have taught on and off over the past 30 years and have been teaching at NWTC at the continuing education level I am looking forward to entering this new phase of my career. I think the dirty little secret about teaching is that if done correctly, the teacher is the one who learns the most. I look forward to teaching at this level; may I mindful. May I be at peace. May I be the best version of my Self so that I can give my students the things they need to draw from my class…
I came across a quote a few weeks ago reading Eckhart Tolle‘s book “The Power of Now”. He says:
“Instead of quoting the Buddha, be the Buddha, be “the awakened one,” which is what the word Buddha means.” 1
This quote will not let me alone! I think about it often throughout the day. Why do I settle for quoting other people’s thoughts on the Internet when I really should be sharing my own? Over the weekend I had a lovely exchange with a lovely blogger named Melanie about how she needed to write her own book and yet for the past two years, I have been threatening to write a book of my own. Why is it that I encourage other people to do what I do not have the courage or discipline to do myself? Is it the imposter syndrome? Perhaps, but most likely it is a failure to discipline myself to do the work that real writing requires…
The great philosopher Wally of the Dilbert cartoon strip shares this perspective:
I’m going to start by not being a ‘social media Wally’, transporting huge quantities of quotes from my RSS reader to my blog and social media. Instead, I need to document the things I am thinking and use the tools I have to get a share of voice, which may get me a share of mind and may result in a share of market. Henceforth, I’ll be focusing on what thought leader Nilofer Merchant calls my ‘onlyness‘ and work on documenting the insights the Uni-verse has shared with me before the Uni-verse decides to share them with someone more worthy.
I almost forgot to share this; I have a friend named Tim who sends me witty things via email. In the past, many of them ended up posted to my blog and I thank him for making the contribution. Last week I told him ‘you need a blog’. His response? “Blogs are for something you write not regurgitated other people materials.” Out of the mouths of babes! The Uni-verse can stop now with the not so subtle hints. I GET IT ALREADY!!!
I’m asking you to hold me accountable as I attempt to ‘be the Buddha’. I won’t be curating as much content as I have in the past that everything I share online will end up here and I encourage you to subscribe to my updates if you would like. In the meantime however I’ll be focusing on finishing my book “Zen and the Art of Thought Leadership” which is due by the end of September…
Bright, shiny objects! 
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