So Much Happier Blog
Walking the High Wire
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
With an estimated 7.4 billion people on the planet in 2016, it can seem as though there can be nothing new under the sun, and yet new discoveries are made every day. New songs are written, paintings made, books completed, gizmos prototyped, with every passing day. Humans are a busy lot! This is possible because genetically, there has never been anyone identical to you in history. We’re all intrinsically unique, and with so many moving parts, both concrete and intangible—hopes and desires, likes and dislikes, talents and challenges; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual progress and happenings. Every day is a kaleidoscope of your interacting elements, which never cease to run through their individual cycles; yet those cycles are all timed differently, and rarely align in the same way because of the complexity of the model. To a certain extent, in trying to maintain our balance with all of our parts, we’re all trying to slog our way across a high wire bucking in a high wind.
One of the great challenges in life is that, because of our uniqueness, no one can create a formula for living that is perfect for more than one person. We can share our wins and losses with each other, and we can offer the wisdom we feel we’ve acquired, but sometimes others won’t even be able to hear the messages we’re sending let alone duplicate our successes and failures. We must all tinker with the models that have been passed down to us if our greatest possible success and happiness is what we’re after. And there’s a sort of catch-22 at play, in that we have to be in a reasonably balanced state in order to make good decisions for ourselves, but without making “good” decisions that suit our needs, it’s hard to find balance. We start by making decisions that others have told us are good, but whether they will suit our uniqueness and get us where we want to go is always the question.
When how we operate, or what we want, is sufficiently different from those around us, whether in one way or in many, we may feel particularly bewildered about what to do. Maintaining some semblance of balance is a lifelong endeavor, and there is no “done,” but it’s even harder when you’re young or when you’re striking out in new directions. Luckily, in this age of information, we have access to guidance from sources well outside our own communities, and that can be incredibly helpful in broadening our horizons. You still have to put advice into practice and try it out for yourself, and you need the patience to do this over time, as every day is different. For instance, sometimes your first attempt at something will be disastrous, but with practice you realize its merit. I once watched a fellow participant in a meditation class, a first-timer, have a full-on meltdown because she was so frightened by the prospect of confronting her internal world in silence. As soon as she tried to do it, she panicked and essentially ran screaming from the exercise. In this case, I don’t know whether she ever tried again, but I do know that many people who initially find meditation to be extremely challenging learn to love some form of it with experimentation and practice. And when I first tried EFT/Tapping, I was not even sure that I felt anything at all, but after several practice sessions, I became more and more astonished with its efficacy and usefulness. I just had to put it into practice and experiment with it for myself.
I wish I had all the answers and could make everything easier for everyone, but that’s a tall order! I’ll just have to offer some ideas here for constructing your own tool kit for navigating your own personal high wire:
· Start simply. Address your physical needs first: Eat the highest-quality food you can get your hands on, including plenty of vegetables and fruits grown with the fewest and least possible pesticides (poison to you and me); avoid refined sugars and other empty calories, in other words those foods lacking in nutrition; aim for 7+ hours of sleep per night, and try adjusting up and down to see what works best for you; get some form of exercise on a regular basis—find a way to move your body and sweat at least a little. These items form the basis of any life lived in some semblance of balance. You can’t skip them, nor can anyone who wants to remain alive in a physical body, so when you’re out of sorts, come back to these first, always.
· Ask yourself what your mental and emotional states are generally like, and spend some time noticing. Find daily practices that support healthy attitudes and emotional expression. I’ve written other blogs on these issues that you may want to check out, but in short, meditate, do affirmations about your values and your intentions, talk to supportive friends and family, write in a journal, read books about people who inspire you, use EFT or hypnosis recordings, attend meetings of like-minded others; adding a spiritual component to any of these is even better, whatever your tradition of choice might be.
· Take a look at the overall shape of your life. Are you doing work you like, are you making enough money to meet your needs, are your relationships supportive and satisfying, are there activities you look forward to experiencing when you wake up in the morning? When you answer no, think about baby steps you could take to move toward situations you’d like better. If you’re stuck, ask for help or find it in a library or online. Choose a small step to make and put your plan in motion. It’s ok if you can’t see the whole path to your destination. Just do something. Every time you make an attempt, you learn and grow.
· Do you feel a sense of purpose in life? If not, it will be hard to stay engaged in life, let alone feel inspired; look for clues in the things you loved to do as a child, in the achievements you feel best about as you think back over your life, and in the kinds of things that move you deeply in movies and books. If you suddenly had all the money in the world, and you had a year off to rest and travel and regroup, what do you think you could do all day and not get tired of? (This can take some serious imagination if you’re someone who has lived with a lot of obligations or who is chronically exhausted, but it can also be a lot of fun, and is worth trying.) You can start with a very basic idea like wanting to “help people,” “motivate others,” or “clean up messes,” and then think about your favorite skills to use to see what might be up your alley. If you love to cook, you might find that helping others could combine with that so that you envision starting a catering company that donates a percentage of meals to those in need. If you feel satisfied by cleaning up messes, and your favorite skills are in information technology, you might be able to work as a consultant to people and companies who need to get organized in the digital space. This can take effort to think through, but having a purpose that feels important and expressive of who you are is an essential component in maintaining your energy levels and your commitment to persisting in the face of difficulty, which we all face every day!
Creating and maintaining good functional balance is never going to be easy, especially in today’s fast-paced world, but if you yearn for a better life, this is unavoidable work. If you can become fascinated with the process of learning about what you need and what is key for you, that is the best solution. If you make some noticeable progress in your overall balance, your success stories will likely drive you as you continue learning and experimenting with new ideas. No one knows you as well as you know you, so trust your hunches, and try not to freak out if something you try goes badly. After all, every day is different. If you try the same thing on a different day, you might find that you get a different result. Keep reminding yourself that this is work that feeds everything you’re able to do and become, and it’s worth a great deal of effort. Over time, your ability to maintain balance will build naturally if you keep at it. Confused? Go back to basics, and as you do this repeatedly, you’ll build helpful habits that make greater flexibility and creativity possible. Celebrate your successes, learn from both success and failure, and just keep inching along that wire.
Mr./Ms. Independence
“Independence is happiness.”
Following Maslowe’s breadcrumbs, we’ve now arrived at the area of needs related to esteem. Now that we’ve taken care of basic physiological needs, safety, and love and belongingness needs, he postulates that we will become interested in seeing our sense of self-worth reflected back to us from the world around us. One of the achievements we long to feel that we’ve earned is independence, which allows us to know our own strength and our ability to stand alone. While few of us prefer to feel that we must remain alone, being confident that we can handle what comes up in life is an important part of feeling like a competent, whole adult. If it seems that we must always be relying on the support of others to make our lives run, the human spirit within has a tendency to resent the lack of freedom—even if it is we ourselves who refuse to do what is necessary to move toward independence.
When we have done the work to feel self-reliant, the confidence that results can form the basis of endless avenues of growth. Being reasonably sure that we can produce results that consistently avoid complete disaster, we become willing to take some risks, learn by doing, take on adventures that challenge our limits. People who have fulfilling lives have usually acclimated themselves to stretching beyond their comfort zones to some extent in following their desires and goals; this helps to keep life interesting by refreshing our perspective and encouraging creativity. Desire and creativity are natural hallmarks of humanity. If harnessed toward worthy goals, they are the most potent fuels we have behind our journey toward self-actualization, the highest level in Maslowe’s concept of personal evolution.
If we lack the confidence in our own competence and ability to rely on ourselves, we will find it very difficult to get anything done. Nothing kills enthusiasm like the conviction that our efforts are doomed before we’ve even started! The enjoyable journey toward something we’d really love to create becomes incredibly arduous, if not impossible, if we think it’s impossible to arrive. If procrastination is something you struggle with, you’ve likely skipped some steps in the process of building your sense of independence. If you take a look at what’s missing, you may find that filling in the gaps is just a matter of giving yourself a break from blame and worst-case scenarios, realizing that you just need some practice, and devising a simple plan to get it. If your confidence in yourself is very low, you may need to start very small and work up incrementally, which is fine. Whatever works to move you forward is worth doing; since it’s natural for us to have desires and use our creativity, feeling stuck in a rut is never going to be enjoyable.
The growth of independence is a natural part of human development, and most of us do gain some before adulthood. Children who are loved, supported, and encouraged by their parents to challenge themselves appropriately throughout childhood will naturally build confidence in their abilities. However, there are some obvious things that can go wrong, for instance: If a parent is overprotective, the child may not be allowed to be challenged enough; if too dominant, the child may not be allowed the space to develop her own judgment and opinions; if not loving and supportive enough, the child may never feel safe enough to accept a challenge and try it on, as the idea of failure can seem disastrous if you don’t have anywhere to land; if too demanding, the child may feel that they have far too much to do already without adding elective risk in pursuit of a personal goal.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, then you may need to imagine a parent for yourself that you didn’t have. What would the most skilled, loving parent advise you to do in order to build your own skills and confidence? When you look back, what do you wish your parents had done (and not done) in helping you to gain independence? Most of us can come up with some answers here without too much difficulty. Chances are, you’ve thought many times in your life when considering your family, “Why couldn’t they have just…” Once you have some ideas, you can use that imaginary parent as inspiration, brainstorm yourself about what you think would help you, or ask a friend you trust to help you come up with a few small steps you could take to get used to taking manageable risks toward something you want.
If you had the overprotective variety of parent, you may need to just practice taking risks at all, of any kind, like asking a stranger for the time, or taking a slightly different route to a familiar destination. If you had the dominant parent, you might want to start writing in a journal about what you think, and what went well each day, as well as what didn’t and what you might do better next time so that you can develop your own voice. If your parent wasn’t loving and supportive enough, then you need to build the habit of being more loving and supportive of yourself, and gather kind and caring people around you so that you can feel that it’s safe to fail here and there, and ok to take time to recover when necessary. If you had a demanding parent, you may need to practice scaling back on busy-ness in order to create space to try some new things, and find ways to combat your judgmental inner voice.
You may also need to find a coach or a cheerleader who will take an interest in your process and share the journey the way the best possible parent for you would have done. It’s also a great idea to get advice from an expert in your area of interest, whether in person or in book or recorded format. This can help shorten your learning curve, which can make this process seem more likely to end in success, and thus, more fun. As you gain experience and understanding, you can become more bold. Keep in mind that most of us grow more quickly and easily by leveraging positive reinforcement—some kind of healthy reward for small victories, whether it’s a bubble bath or a celebratory dinner with those you love. It also helps to share our ups and downs with others in some way. And for many, thinking about ways in which this learning process might help others in the future can make the process more fulfilling.
No matter what childhood you had, chances are you emerged from it feeling like you missed something or other that everyone else seems to have mastered. We often tell ourselves that we’re hopeless, even broken, because of these missing pieces. This is clearly not an approach likely to lead to growth and happiness. If you can isolate an area or two in which your natural development may have been arrested, even small movements forward in those areas can yield significant returns in confidence, because these movements remind us that reaching a distant goal may be possible after all. We need to know that change and growth is possible to feel like we’re really alive. Do yourself the honor of spending just a little time on considering what you need in order to feel more confident and independent, and I think you’ll find that your horizons broaden such that life’s prospect is suddenly much more appealing.