So Much Happier Blog
Want To "Get Even"?
“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. ”
Last week we took a look at the process of letting go of things that no longer belong in your life. This week, I wanted to talk about one of the main reasons why we cling to painful events that are already gone. As I mentioned last week, it’s rare that we leave a highly charged situation feeling fully resolved, at peace, and free of it. Usually there’s some piece of it that seems unresolved, confusing, connected to other events in your past in a complicated web, or plain unjust. If you perceive that an injustice was done to you (or even someone else), it may be extra difficult to move on and let go of any lingering ill effects of that situation on your outlook, beliefs, happiness and health. You may obsess about what could or should have happened then, or what comeuppance an offending party should experience. If you’re stuck feeling unable to let go of a situation that is long gone, here are some thoughts on how to move in that direction.
Mentally, try to notice when you’re obsessing about a past event and what you wish could have happened. Just becoming aware of the habit will help point out which past events still drag at your daily existence. Knowing that you have a problem is the first step! See if you can isolate what really still gets your goat about it so you know what exactly you’ll need to work on. Practice remembering that revenge fantasies only keep you tied to this event and reinforce its power over you by stirring up your emotions every time you think of it. They’re also not helping anyone, because carrying them out is a bad choice unless you want to go to jail, and when they’re only in your mind, they only hurt you. Decide if it’s time to really commit to taking back your power over this by processing old emotions, learning lessons, and moving forward more positively. Take note of any beliefs you took on as a result of this event. Are you ready to let go of what you’ve decided this means and allow for the possibility that your perspective on it could change? Would you like to consistently feel better about it?
When you’ve decided that it’s time, you’ll now need to focus on what’s bothering you about this past event and zero in on the emotions that come up around it. I think Tapping is the best for this work, so let’s imagine that you’re going to use it as your method. Take those emotions one at a time and do some Tapping on each one until when you think of your past event, the emotion no longer spikes as much. If you want, Tap while you imagine that revenge fantasy playing itself out—sometimes this ends up feeling really fun and empowering, and once you get it out of your system, you may find it easier to move on to other emotions than anger. Keep Tapping on whatever feels most prominent when you think back to your event. Notice if any new ideas or realizations come to you as you do this. Also notice whether this event seems connected to any others in your past, which might mean that you’ll want to work on those as well. If you get stuck, it can be incredibly helpful to call upon any higher power that you believe in, or ancestors, or the best part of yourself, whatever makes sense for you. When you do this, you put yourself in a more receptive state, and I find that this often breaks up a logjam.
As the intensity of your emotion comes down, and it’s not bothering you so much anymore, it can be helpful to affirm that it’s not necessarily your job to fix everything, right every wrong you come across, teach misbehaving people a lesson, and generally police the universe. Yes, sometimes it’s appropriate for you to speak up and take action, but sometimes that’s for someone else to handle. The most important thing for building your inner calm is allowing yourself to let go of the old unpleasantness or trauma and get back to a sense of safety in the present moment. Once you’re there, it’s much easier to reclaim anything positive that may have come out of the event, including the knowledge of how to avoid a repeat in the future.
The idea of forgiveness is one that can be helpful here, but one we may resist because it has been presented as just the right thing to do, but without enough helpful explanation about how and why it’s actually good for you. I find that the best definition of forgiveness to use during Tapping is often just allowing yourself to let go of attachment to and judgments about a situation and let yourself float free of it with the knowledge that it’s best for everyone that you do so, and get back to a healthier state. After all, when you’re feeling calm, you’re going to be able to make better decisions. If there’s anything you still want to do about this situation, you’ll be better able to do it when you feel happier and freer. This may not make sense to you while you read this, but it’s experiential. If you try it, it just might help you.
In case you need help finding some of the stickiest thoughts people hold about past events, see if any of these statements resonates for you. If so, feel free to just repeat one as you Tap until you don’t feel as strongly about it, or it doesn’t feel as true.
I don’t like this story. I don’t want it to be the story I have to tell about my life.
Nothing is ever going to make this ok.
This always happens to me.
Life is always harder for me than it is for everyone else.
Everything is so unfair.
This was the worst thing that could have happened.
There’s nothing I can do about this.
When you Tap on a negative statement like these that feels true, you aren’t reinforcing it. You’re allowing your emotions around it come up and out so that the power of the thought dissipates. It may take some time. Don’t be discouraged if this is true for you. What’s more important than being able to calm yourself and free up energy that’s been stuck in the past? When you’re able to do this, your sense of confidence in your ability to handle your life will soar. It’s far more enjoyable to be able to sink into the present moment of your life and have all your wits about you because you’re not obsessing about the past or fearing the same kind of experience repeating itself in the future. Doing this work can help you do that, and live a simpler life in which you can focus on what’s most important to you.
Oh %&*#!
“We all wish to be brave and strong in the face of disaster. We all wish to be looked up to for our endurance and efforts to help others.”
When it seems like the world is falling apart around you, whether it's events in your personal life or in the world at large that are leading to this impression, what will you do? We all go through periods like this, and while they may never fully make sense to you, even in distant hindsight, we all want to get back to having a sense of balance, purpose and momentum. In my opinion, the worst thing we can do in this situation is retreat from thought and emotion and deny what's happening (except to the extent that we may be in shock and need some time to recover). The best things in life come from using our conscious awareness.
In most cultures, we are not taught to handle discomfort and stay functional while in periods of intense difficulty. We're definitely not taught to be open, even with ourselves, about our emotions, and techniques for handling them artfully. Both of these skills have an important place in dealing with particularly difficult, even tragic times.
I'll be honest, the first skill is not easy to build if you're an empathetic person, and if you are, it may never be your greatest strength. Focusing in on the moment at hand and allowing yourself to think only of what you can do to help yourself and others in this particular situation takes strong intention, concentration, courage, and a willingness to reach deep into your reserves of confidence for belief in your ability to serve yourself and others. This is more difficult to do if you feel deeply for others who are in pain. But working on finding these qualities in yourself makes you massively useful when the going gets tough or even horrible. One of the most important things you can do if you want to grow your capacity in this regard, perhaps counterintuitively, is to meditate regularly. There are many styles of meditation, so if you do some research, hopefully you'll find one that appeals to you. You cannot function well under duress if you don't have access to a quiet place within that feels familiar and clear when you need it most. On the outward, action-oriented side of things, it also helps to challenge yourself regularly to stay calm while outside of your comfort zone. Knowing that you can experience discomfort without sustaining long-term harm is an important foundation for getting through tough times. You gain confidence by proving this to yourself through experience. You also gain faith in your own creativity and resourcefulness as you figure out steps to succeed on the fly when you're not sure what to do. Even if you fail, at the very least, you'll gain data on how to do better next time. And that is priceless.
Knowing how to be open about your emotions and handle them, the second skill set, is more about picking up the pieces when you've made it through the worst of your challenge, because it's far easier to process emotion in the relative quiet and safety of the "after" picture. If you're dealing with severe trauma, it will be best to work with a professional who can guide you appropriately so that you can avoid being retraumatized as you work back toward a calmer baseline. If what you have work with is more manageable, you can work through it in small chunks using EFT's numerous techniques and often reach a truly gratifying level of insight and peace. There are many ways you can make progress in processing emotion—this is by no means the only way—but I have found it to be the most empowering because EFT is a self-help set of tools that you can use free of charge whenever you need them. Because EFT brings the body (which stores many aspects of difficult experiences until we find a way to release them) into the equation along with your private store of experiences and impressions, it brings about permanent change in ways that just talking about an experience, or turning it over to a practitioner of some sort, can't do.
As you become more accustomed to the process of admitting how you feel while taking simple steps to tap down the intensity of your stored emotions, you find that suddenly big emotions are not as frightening. Releasing them, and allowing in the perspective changes and resulting healing, starts to feel like a natural and even enjoyable sequence. The feeling of freedom that results in knowing that you can thoroughly let go of old "stuff" and feel lighter, as well as get back the energy it took for the body to hold onto that stuff, is a natural "high." Churning through the backlog of old emotion you've stored over the course of decades takes some doing, but as soon as you experience what it's like to get a taste of this freedom, I think you'll begin to understand its value.
Functioning well no matter how crazy life gets can be a pretty tall order. Building your ability to do this takes time and effort, true, but it also gives you powerful options for creating the life you want despite what's going on around and inside you. Using tools that support this goal but don't require you to pretend or ignore your real needs is a revolutionary act, and I highly recommend it! The best time to lay the foundation for sailing through challenge with the highest degree of functionality, and to repair damage you've sustained afterward, is always when you're not in the thick of it. Start now. As soon as things get hairy, you'll be grateful that you did.
Say What You Need to Say
“Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful.”
We’ve now examined each of Maslowe’s fundamental needs. Did you think we were done with him? Not so fast! In A Theory of Human Motivation, the paper in which he originally introduced his understanding of the basic needs in 1943, he mentions some related concepts that I’d like to tour in the next few blogs. One of these is the existence of preconditions for the continued satisfaction of those needs. He states that if certain cognitive functions are threatened, we are wired to react. That’s because, on some level, we understand that our survival is supported by our cognitive functions, that these must remain intact in order for us to protect ourselves. If we’re denied the ability to freely use those functions, we feel as though our very lives are in danger. Logically, this will cause us to be drawn back down into the realm of safety needs—which are some of the more dire needs, and less fun and rewarding to spend our time on than some of the “higher” needs. These preconditions (he mentions “freedom to speak, freedom to do as one wishes so long as no harm is done to others, freedom to express one’s self, freedom to investigate and seek for information, freedom to defend ones’ self, justice, fairness, honesty, and orderliness in the group”), as you will see, are both in the realm of the cognitive and fostered at a societal level. If they are not present, it will be a lot harder for us to live a satisfying life that includes progress toward the things we really want.
The first of the preconditions that he mentions is the freedom to speak, so we’ll start there. In “free” countries, there is recognition that allowing individuals to speak openly within society is important for the proper functioning of that society; the importance of free and independent news outlets is also acknowledged. In the United States, for instance, freedom of speech is named as a fundamental right of all citizens in the nation’s Constitution. While no one will enjoy hearing the opinions of all the voices that will be raised in such a culture, and conflicts and disagreements will result, the exchange of ideas makes more possible for all. It’s much easier for anyone to find other like-minded citizens, and to band together with others to explore specific viewpoints, experiments, and experiences, which is often what the pursuit of happiness is all about. It’s also far easier to stay abreast of what’s happening in the culture and the surrounding world; this supports better decision making across the board, from deciding where to live and work based on our preferences, to how to plan for our family’s safety and development, to figuring out what to do for fun.
Consider what we know of cultures that do not encourage or allow free speech. They are generally restrictive cultures in which a few make all the important decisions about what will be possible for the many. Often there are dire consequences to speaking out on any subject that is taboo. Selling out others who do wish to speak openly to authorities is often encouraged, which creates an environment of general fear and distrust. Yuck! In this scenario, the safest thing is to metaphorically and physically batten down the hatches, interact with only a very few people you feel you know and trust, and stay as invisible as possible in order to preserve the freedoms that remain. Uprisings and coups are inevitable in environments like this in the long run, because the human spirit rebels against such smothering influences.
News organizations, those that publish facts about the happenings of the world and local concerns in any location in real time, assist us in quickly becoming aware of any threat to the preconditions we need in place in order to tend to our basic needs. When you live outside of a small tribe or close enough to others to interact, this becomes important. No individual can keep track of everything that happens around him unless his world is very small. When we can benefit from the efforts of people who work full time on understanding and sharing information about the world, we ourselves can spend less time on this and more on our own interests and personal needs. That’s helpful in fueling personal progress. Of course, we have to keep in mind that any writer or organization may have an agenda beyond sharing facts, so it’s best to educate and use our critical thinking skills. Completely outsourcing our thinking to others has also proven historically to be a bad idea!
On the other hand, there are some obvious annoyances that come with the territory in today’s free countries, such as:
- With the advent of the Internet, the world has rapidly become much smaller in that we have access to a mind-boggling amount of information and shared experience at the touch of a button. It’s interesting and hard to ignore, and may distract us from clarity about and from spending time on the things we truly want.
- A significant portion of the available content is created by people who are not particularly good at or mindful about what they do. They are merely excited about doing it, and often desperate for attention. This tends to mean a lot of fun for the creator, but an amplification of worldwide cacophony for everyone else.
- It can be hard to sort in information relevant to one’s life and sort out everything less relevant in an efficient way. Most of us end up feeling like our time and focus are being eroded at every turn.
And yet most free citizens prefer these annoyances to the alternative. It’s hard to go backward once you’ve had a taste of some basic freedoms, like that of free speech, and the free flow of information. That is, unless you find it overwhelming. Some do, and may long for simplicity. That can be created through various approaches, such as moving to a remote area, narrowing one’s field of movement or social interaction, or even narrowing one’s mindset to include only a few restrictive ideas or beliefs. The first two are examples of actions that can empower you as you find a balance with the modern world, though of course your balance may need to change over time. This last choice may help some to feel more calm and confident, but sadly, it often encourages its proponents to advocate for the similar restriction of others around them as well. Insisting that you have all the answers that anyone else should ever need is the height of hubris is this world of variety. Over and over, history has taught us that adherence to this viewpoint, and the attempt to force it on others, never goes well. Humans have a natural desire to learn, and ponder, and create that will not allow endless restriction.
The preconditions for satisfying our basic needs need not be perfect in order for us to thrive. The world’s most successful free countries acknowledge that some limits to free speech may be helpful; for example, there are generally laws against disclosure of state secrets designed to protect the security of citizens (whether or not those laws are sometimes abused, governments are responsible for attempting to keep their people safe from invasion and other harm). There are often laws against the manufacture and publishing of untrue information that may cause harm to individuals or groups, as obviously these behaviors can cause a lot of havoc and loss. While some individuals will find these limits upsetting, part of maturity is realizing that no culture or its set of rules is ever perfect. It’s all in flux all the time as we learn and grow as a race, and that’s also part of what makes life exciting. We get to participate in that constant change and progress. What’s important as far as speech is not complete lack of limitation, but that we are allowed to speak and write as we choose as long as we are not maliciously or falsely attacking others.
If you live in a place where this is a protected right, congratulations! One of the preconditions for the pursuit of what you need and want out of life is firmly in place. This allows you to formulate and share a message with others that you feel is important. Self-expression (what you do with your freedom of speech) will be the subject of next week’s blog. In the meantime, try to take a moment or two to appreciate the freedom of speech that you currently have access to, and think about how you interact with it. Is the balance you’re striking within it satisfying to you? If not, why not? What can you do to move toward a more constructive balance for your personality and your goals?