Red-Letter Days

“The way to stay inspired and motivated is by doing what you like, doing what you love.”

— Raphael Saadiq

Sometimes, you just have a naturally amazing day.  You wake up feeling rested and enthusiastic, the skies are sunny and blue, you make all the green lights without driving like a maniac, people return your smiles, and you have time to get everything done.  Everything seems to hum along easily.  It’s so lovely when this happens.  But for all the days when it doesn’t, how to stay sane?  In a crowded world, we cross paths with so many others, all on their own private missions, all the time.  Sometimes there are crashes, whether physical or philosophical.  We have to deal with numerous institutions, from governments to schools to businesses, that bring order to our world, but which we didn’t create and may not agree with.  There are important people whose happiness we’re trying to contribute to every day.  And there are just so many distractions competing for our attention!

I’ve come to think of the happy phenomenon described above as the result of the alignment of numerous factors, some of which are hard or impossible to predict.  While you can’t force this experience of ease into being, there are certainly things you can do to make this experience more common.  If you’re serious about creating more instances of it, here are some areas to check in on:

·      With what foods and liquids are you fueling your body?  If your nutrition is not good, and if you’re not properly hydrated, you will start to crumble, both physically and mentally.  You can’t be productive if you’re crashing throughout the day because your body is missing essential elements that it needs to function.  You need high-quality protein, healthy fats, and lots of fruits and vegetables.  You also need more water than you think you do.

·      How much sleep are you getting, and is it deep and restful?  So many important things are meant to happen when you sleep.  If you’re consistently getting less than seven hours per night of high-quality sleep, you’re running on empty.  You will have a much harder time with mental focus, and you’re far more likely to be emotionally volatile; your body will feel less coordinated and heavier.  Some people need more than seven hours, so if you feel the need to sleep late on days off, try bumping up your sleep time routinely and see how many hours it takes per night before you stop needing that “catch up” time.  In addition to sleep, we also need some rest time when we’re not running, doing, or worrying.  Hobbies and creative pursuits, reading, time with friends, and other fun, relaxing activities can fall into this category.  If you don’t allow yourself any of this kind of time, you’ll have a hard time enjoying your life at all.

·      How much exercise are you getting?  Moving your physical body both strengthens your fitness and creates happiness chemicals known as endorphins (which can enhance mood for many people just as well as the most powerful pharmaceuticals tailored for this purpose).  Exercise has so many benefits for your body and your outlook that it must be considered an essential element in your daily routine.  Be smart and check with your medical professional before you make any substantial changes in your health regimen, but do find an activity you can do and work it into your life.  Not immediately, but with continued application, you will create more energy than you use this way.

·      What gives your life meaning and purpose?  Are there things that get you out of bed in the morning because you genuinely want to do them on a deep level?  These can be anything really as long as you feel like you’ve chosen to give them an important place in your life and they’re important to you—learning to play an instrument whose sound you’ve always loved, caring for an aging relative, writing a book, climbing a mountain, solving a problem in your community—just something that fires you up when you think about it or makes you feel satisfied when you do it.  If you don’t have anything like this drawing you forward, you’re leaving a major source of energy and joy on the table.

·      What really inspires you?  A particular style of music or a particular composer or recording artist?  Movies with heroic themes, well-written novels, beautifully performed theatre, Olympic or other professional sports, the beauty of the natural world, your pet, etc.?  When you figure out answers to this, do your best to bring these things into your experience on a regular basis.  These things will also create more energy and enthusiasm for you.

·      What just annoys the heck out of you?  And how can you minimize the impact of these things on your life?  Maybe you need to be careful not to spend too much time around the more negative people you know.  Maybe you need to wear earplugs when you have to be somewhere really loud.  Maybe you can brainstorm about how to spend less time commuting.  You get my drift.  Sometimes small adjustments can yield a lot of relief.

·      What are you doing as a calming daily practice for your mind, emotions and spirit?  If you want to have more days when you sail through life with joy and ease, you can’t skip this one, even though it can be hard to carve out the time for it.  Find one thing or several things that can occupy this function for you, and prioritize doing one of them every day.  Write in a journal, meditate, pray, use EFT/Tapping, spend a few minutes every day thinking about what you’re grateful for, walk mindfully, breathe deeply, or do something else that is calming, relaxing, and that helps you to feel centered and reassured.  When you’re attending to your own needs, it’s far easier to be generous and understanding with others.

If some of these suggestions seem annoyingly familiar, as though they’ve come directly from the desk of Captain Obvious, that is most likely because these are some of the most important things we can do as humans to increase the likelihood that we will function well and happily as we go about the business of being alive, and they don’t change over time.  When you’re handling these basics, you’re helping yourself to have a far better daily experience, and you’re also far more able to contribute positively to the world around you.  It’s a life’s work to become a pro at balancing all this, but you’re probably already good at some of them.  Pick one where you know you could do better and start trying new things, and then rinse and repeat!

A Time for Everything

“Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”

— Robert Fulghum

Here in the U.S., we’ve just celebrated Independence Day.  It’s a fun, social holiday when it’s customary to gather for backyard barbeque, swimming, lawn games, and festive libations, and then we finish big by blowing things up.  Hopefully, only fireworks.  The whole thing is an excellent expression of the exuberance of summer, as well as the freewheeling attitude that begs to prevail during the hottest weather.  In some ways it feels like the high point of summer, a day that epitomizes everything this season stands for.  So it can seem like something of a letdown to get back to normal life the day after.  How does one go on working when it seems like it’s high time to drop everything and hit the beach for a month, responsibility be damned?

It’s a fine thing to partake of the customs and spirit of each season, and yet there will always be things that need doing.  There are also things you probably want to be advancing for yourself during this time—goals that reflect true desires you’d like to see fulfilled.  How can you stay motivated in the midst of distraction in the form of good times to be had all around?  Some thoughts:

• First of all, don’t fight the fun!  Find ways to let yourself enjoy the opportunities that present themselves.  If you don’t do this enough, you’re likely to get fed up at some point and bolt from the things you actually want to be doing because all that self-denial has made you want to rebel.  What this balance between work and play should be is unique to each person, and takes trial and error to discover.  It’s also not a constant, so you’ll need to be honest with yourself about what you’re craving on a daily basis and do your best to find sensible ways to feed any craving that you know is healthy.
• Next, look at the list of what you’re working on and see if you can streamline it to make a little more room than usual to breathe.  Do you have to make progress on all of those items?  Could you work on only one thing per week, even if you’re really charging forward on that thing, in order to create a little more head space and know when you’re done each day?  Could you pencil in a little more free time here and there to do with as you like?  What would go undone if you did that?  Maybe you can live with the answer to this. 
• Where could you lighten up on others, who are also probably experiencing a similar draw toward a little more down time?  Can you see ways to lower your expectations of others a little so they feel more freedom to enjoy extra relaxation without guilt?  It’s not very nice to do less if you’re just going to burden others with more.
• Once you have made a little room for yourself, consider why you want to make the progress you do.  Reminding ourselves of the purpose behind actions that may not immediately pay off is crucial to generating the energy necessary to getting things done.  For example, cleaning the bathroom is not an inspiring prospect, but keeping germs and dust under control means you get to experience health and the pleasure of living in a clean, uncluttered environment.  Focus on the happy result you’re working toward, and it gets a lot easier to get up and go.
• Finally, you can take all the fun you’ve experienced at recent social events, or other pleasant experiences, and play the memories like music in the background when you’re working.  Whenever you think of it, remember the laughs, the play, and the good times with people (or animals) you feel close to; you can even think about the ways in which the work you’re doing is likely to impact them for the better, no matter if the benefits are indirect.  For example, if you’re cleaning the house, you can think about how nice it will be for them to visit a clean space next time, and imagine the fun you’ll have when they do—or even just how your clean house supports your health, which helps you feel good enough to join in whenever there’s an invitation.

It’s natural to feel some connection to the character of the seasons.  If you acknowledge what’s on offer at any particular time and find ways to adapt and enjoy it, you’ll be serving your overall happiness and continued effectiveness.  None of us is a machine, nor should we be.  Choose to be a human and take part!

Le Pant, Le Wheeze...

“Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn’t formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them.”

— Lee Haney

In last week’s blog, we looked at why getting back to exercise after a hiatus (or getting to it for the first time ever) is often so difficult.  Muscle aches, nutrition, demoralization, naysayers, injuries, and fickle inspiration were discussed, and should be considered part of the experience to be planned for. I don’t suggest this because dreading them will help in any way, but because it’s best to go into a new exercise routine with eyes open about the beasts you will encounter in the wild and to set out armed for bear! Another important challenge I want to mention this week is subtle, but I've found it to be a very real factor in the first few weeks of a new exercise regime, so I’m adding it here as part two of last week’s discussion. It's the tendency for people to encounter strange emotional mood patterns during this time.  I’m talking about moods that don’t seem to track to anything that’s going on in your life on a concrete level, that don’t make sense, and that can blindside and confuse you.  

I’ve encountered this several times myself personally, and others I know have as well.  I'm not going to pretend that I have all the answers about why this happens, but for many people, it really does. I'll venture a guess here about a few factors that may be involved in this:

·      First, working out changes your body chemistry. In many ways this is for the better in the long run, but immediately, it can be disorienting. As soon as the body starts doing things we don't recognize, it's easy to panic. One of the first things that's on the menu is likely some level of detox. As soon as you start moving and burning fat, you’re getting rid of old stuff, including toxins. You may feel nauseated, dizzy, notice that your sweat seems very acidic, or have other physical reactions. It's essential to drink plenty of water at this time, which will help your body to clean itself out as you increase the level of toxins being processed.  It's also important to consult a doctor before getting started so you know what you’re working with, and a nutritionist if you have any questions about supporting new levels of activity, both before and throughout your process of change.  If you’re going to be making greater demands on your body, even if you have fat to burn, it’s going to be impossible to maintain good habits of physical movement, and eventually fitness, if you’re chronically malnourished.  And make no mistake, if your eating patterns include more chips and soda than healthy proteins and fruits and vegetables, you are not providing your body with the substances necessary to carry on its basic functions successfully, so you’ll definitely have trouble maintaining the energy to work toward fitness.

·      Another thing to note is that more sleep may be necessary at this time to help your body recover, especially if you’re someone who tends to sleep less than seven hours per night. It may seem like exercise is making your life worse if this need is intense, but I find this general drowsiness to be pretty normal when you start working out, and usually this passes after about a month (this will, of course, vary depending on your starting level of fitness, your nutrition, and other factors unique to you).  Again, as you initiate a process of change and challenge your body to adjust, it may display some discomfort.  Just as when you’re sick, you need to give it the time it needs to handle extra internal activity, and sleep is important to the healing process.  Sleep deprivation also affects mood and your ability to think clearly, so if you’re creating more of a need for rest and healing by increasing your activity levels, but just trying to power through it all without adding any extra sleep time, you’re going to be fighting the inevitable—a rising tide of pessimism and annoyance at every little thing.  And guess how useful all that is for staying in the game?

·      If you’re trying to change your diet at the same time as beginning to increase your physical activity, you’ll also be dealing with the emotional irritation that can result from exerting willpower over your desires.  Most of us have a complicated relationship with food that includes the use of food for self-medicating our emotions to some degree or another.  This need not be extreme to provoke a reaction—you might just be someone who looks forward to a delicious dinner each night after a long day—but if you take away some of the enjoyment factor, you might find that the loss of some creature comfort leaves you downright angry.  With a self-help tool like EFT/Tapping to help manage cravings and calm emotions that pop up, you’ll be far more likely to be able to keep your perspective about the changes you’re making to reach your goals.

·      Finally, I want to mention something of a wild card that you may or may not encounter, and it may sound improbable if you haven’t experienced it.  I include it because my own experiences started me thinking about it, and I went looking for corroboration.  I’ve found some, but nothing scientifically proven or even specifically explained—mostly just other people’s stories and hints.  Even so, I’m going to mention it, so here we go.  India’s time-tested Ayurvedic medicine puts forth a concept that emotions are stored in the body's fat and muscle.  That actually tracks perfectly with an experience I and many others have had while moving toward fitness, in which we encounter old emotions or even memories as we clear out the old by burning fat and building muscle.  In Molecules of Emotion, Candace Pert (a respected neuroscientist who later branched out into other scientific areas) writes that the chemicals that make up the physical aspects of emotion are stored in each cell’s receptors; it would make more sense to me if we had evidence that emotions were stored inside the cell, which is where the material that is actually burned as fuel is stored.  However, there has been comparatively little scientific research done, from what I can find, on the subject of how our emotions correlate with chemical processes in the body, or even how our emotions function from the standpoint of outside observation.  I suspect that there’s an undiscovered world to be found in this quarter whenever we get around to seriously looking.  My point is that when we burn fat, I think we end up faced with some mood changes that seem random, but that are due to emotion-carrying chemicals in the old fat cells we're emptying being stirred up and added back into the mix.  I'll write more about such things in future blogs if I can find better information going forward, but I think this factor is worth considering if you find those first weeks of exercise to be an emotional rollercoaster for reasons you just can't seem to identify.  If it does seem to be happening, know that you’re not alone.

As you strike out into new territory with your levels of physical activity, you’re going to confront most or all of these challenges.  Defending yourself and your goals against them will depend on the strength of your planning and your ability to adjust on the fly.  Flexibility and creativity are essential tools as you navigate the obstacle course that is daily life while you continue to work on your fitness and nutrition.  You will run up against tough times when you feel like you’re just not going to make it.  You will fall off the wagon here and there and have to find ways to jump back on.  Just keep moving and look for ways to outwit your obstacles.  This is essential to your health and quality of life, and you can do it with resolve and practice.  I believe in you!

Ready, Set, Groan!

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”

— John F. Kennedy

“Number one, like yourself. Number two, you have to eat healthy. And number three, you’ve got to squeeze your buns. That’s my formula.”

— Richard Simmons

There's something that I don't think people talk about nearly enough about the first two weeks to a month of starting a new exercise regime: It's going to suck.

How 'bout them apples? I bet you didn't expect me to write a statement like that! But I find that this uncomfortable early period derails a lot of people who get started on renewing fitness goals with the best of intentions, and even great feelings of commitment. We're told that exercise boosts endorphins, which produce euphoria, and can reduce stress and even clinical depression. And yet I know from personal experience as well as from the experiences of my friends and clients that those first few weeks are a challenge like no other. You'll be tired, you'll be grumpy, you'll resent the loss of time you're used to having for other things, you'll have sore muscles, and you may come up against a whole host of body-related beliefs and issues that have the potential to derail you until you've built up some momentum.

Several important things can go wrong during this period:

1.     If you don't know your body really well, it's very likely that in your initial enthusiasm, you will overestimate what you can and should do to get started.  You have probably taken on, on some level, the "no pain, no gain" mentality, and the belief that you need to buckle down and "just do it." You have been made to feel that your lack of fitness is the result of your being too soft and wussing out on a disciplined approach throughout your life.  You think that forcing yourself to power through pain and discomfort through sheer will power is the answer, so you ignore your body's signals and plough ahead with a plan that is perhaps overambitious.  You then spend days or weeks hobbling around in agony until you decide that this exercise thing is for the birds.

·      In the first few weeks of activity, you are likely to have some muscle soreness or stiffness.  Starting slowly helps keep this manageable, but many of us shy away from anything that feels like pain, and will start finding reasons to discontinue the effort.  Epsom salt baths can be helpful here, and it’s also important to make sure you’re stretching appropriately for your chosen exercise.  Keep in mind that your body will get used to moving if you stick with it.  A life that includes a rewarding level of fitness need not include a lot of pain, but you may need to move through some in the beginning.  Give yourself credit for being willing to go through this adjustment phase for your long-term good.

·      Seriously addressing your nutritional needs is a great idea, particularly when you’re about to make greater demands on your body’s energy output and general functioning.  There’s a lot of great information available out there for free from your local library and online, and I encourage you to use it to educate yourself.  Sorting through it can be overwhelming, though, so don’t be afraid to consult an expert.  A nutritionist can help you figure out what your body needs in order to function at high levels.

2.     If you do know your body well and make (or work with a professional to make) a plan that is more realistic and sustainable/scaleable, you're still going to be dealing with the ups and downs that accompany the process for building and solidifying a new habit.

·      For some of us, the problem is going to be that it's hard to stay inspired when we're at the beginning of a new road, and all we can see is a daunting upward climb ahead. The ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other when the goal seems so far away can be a huge challenge. Planning ahead by putting some support structures in place to help you get through this time is an excellent.  You might want to find an exercise buddy to at least check in with on a daily basis so you know someone else is by your side having a similar experience. You could also tell a few positive people what you're doing so that they will be rooting for you, and can offer you encouragement and pep talks when you need them.  It might be helpful to make sure you have something fun to look forward to every week that will help buoy your mood if things feel difficult, something that you really enjoy.  In short, plan to support yourself now in any way that you know works for you.  You’re taking on a worthy challenge.  When you succeed in establishing a habit of healthy movement, it supports your entire life in ways that are more than the sum of the apparent parts.

·      For others, the opinions of others may be a danger zone. If you have naysayers around you, you're going to have to find ways to escort the voice of their negativity out of the building, whether figuratively or literally, in order to stay focused. You may also need to do your own internal work to replace that voice with a more positive one, and to create a strong vision of the new self you're becoming to whom this new fitness habit is natural. You may find yourself asking, who will I be if I create a habit of fitness?  Here you may encounter some beliefs about who you are that need to change.  There are many gentle modalities that can assist you here, from journaling and affirmations to hypnosis and EFT.

·      If exercise has never been fun for you, you’ll need to find ways to choose activities that you’ll will dread doing the least, and add elements that boost your enjoyment of time spent moving. Maybe working out in a group will change your dynamic for the better. Groups also offer an immediate support network that can offer encouragement and solidarity, and for many, this is a game changer. Maybe listening to upbeat music you love will really get you going, or watching a T.V. program that really engages you (only do this if you're doing activities that don't demand your focus to avoid injury, though). And make sure the program is positive—you don't want to start associating your active time with sad, frightening, or otherwise upsetting experiences, even if they're imaginative. This will likely sabotage your enthusiasm over time, which is the last thing you want.  I will acknowledge that we’re all different, though, and it's important to know what works for you; for instance, I do have one friend who, along with her family, thinks that horror movies are hilarious, and they get together and laugh themselves silly watching them.  For most people, that probably isn't the case, so watching horror while exercising is probably not a winning strategy for the rest of us!  For some, the idea of doing something repetitive like walking or stair climbing seems way too boring.  It's important to start with something gentle like walking or swimming if your current fitness level is low, but as you gain experience with exercise, you can try new things and see if there are other activities you enjoy more, or as part of a rotation of several choices that keeps things interesting for you over time.

Next week we’ll look at another, more subtle category of challenge you may need to address.  For now, keep in mind that despite the difficulties inherent in starting something new, exercise is an essential ingredient in the recipe for creating a balanced, happy, healthy life.  Celebrate the ways in which you’ve already built it into your life, and remember that it’s supposed to be fun to move your body.  Physical activity is a pathway to a great deal of the joy of being alive.  If you’re currently working on creating this habit, hang in there!  I’ve been where you are, and I know that your work will pay off for you if you stick with it and remain responsive to your body’s changing needs.

Yes to Summer

“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.”

— Herodotus

Temperatures are rising in this northern hemisphere that I call home as we near the official beginning of summer.  A sun so insistently hot calls us to take things a little more slowly, hang loose a little more often, enjoy the simple pleasures of wearing bathing suits and sandals and eating outdoors.  For many of us, this wakes up the awareness of our physicality and brings us further into the immediacy of the moment.  We find it easier to remember to play, maybe because of the associations with summer vacations past, or maybe just because there’s so much to enjoy in this season of lazy, easy sociability.  It’s harder to be in a bad mood when there’s so much sunlight and your neighbors are kicking up their heels.

All throughout the cooler, darker months we’ve been working hard and likely resting more.  When nights are long, there’s a pull to go inward, hibernate and rest up in anticipation of higher-energy months.  Now it’s finally time to balance work with enjoyment and celebrate what we’ve created in the dark.  It may now feel more like time to share what we’ve been working on as we continue to move it forward.  Sometimes it’s hard to strike the right balance here—there’s still a lot to do (isn’t there always?) and we want to get to the goal.  It can be hard to allow what’s going on around us to pull us away from responsibility and discipline.  But if we don’t take the time to be a part of the rites of summer, we’ll be disappointed later that we missed out on this sensual season.

If you’re the type who has trouble getting motivated, know that even those who have cracked the code on productivity need to balance out effort with social events and activities that recharge their enthusiasm for life.  I’m not suggesting that you use summer as an excuse to get nothing done for months at a time, but staying in the game over time and living your passion require taking breaks.  The willingness to partake of the joys on offer in every season will connect you with the life that is unfolding all around you.  It helps you to participate zestfully in the passage of time rather than resist it and bemoan time’s scarcity.  It helps you to share unique moments with others that you could never have predicted.

I encourage you to let in the sun during these months.  You know that feeling of baking for hours on the beach, and how the sun’s rays warm you deep into your skin?  How that plus the timeless rhythm of the surf drowns out some of the thoughts and concerns you might have on a routine day?  Go out there and find ways to revel in some summer lounging, indulgence in a guilty pleasure of a novel, or other indolence as long as it’s relaxing.  Feel free to also enjoy outdoor activities as long as there’s playfulness involved.  Splurge on summer fruits that have a short season.  Drink lemonade.  Nap in hammocks with the sound of wind chimes tinkling in your ears.  And give yourself credit for all that you do for yourself and your family and the world on all the days when you’re not indulging like this.  Motivation is wonderful.  Contentment is good for us too.

The Emotional Gym

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”

— Brian Tracy

In discussions on happiness, much is made of caring for and balancing the triumvirate of body, mind, and spirit, and rightly so.  But I find it astonishing that comparatively little is said of dealing with the emotions, which are such a huge part of the experience of being human.  They are the landscape of our inner world.  What happens in our lives is colored by and interpreted through the lens of our emotional states; these states are dominant in determining how we feel about the overall quality of our lives, far more so than the list of happenings in our personal history. 

There’s a massive amount of information available on caring for the health of the body; it will come as a surprise to no one reading this, I suspect, that generally accepted wisdom on this topic suggests that a healthy diet and exercise are important (though what these look like specifically is a matter of great contention).  A tremendous amount of energy is spent the world over on educating the mind, challenging it to remember acquired knowledge and synthesize new thought, as well as on teaching it to calm and quiet through a wide variety of meditation techniques in order to unleash some of its more mysterious abilities.  Every world religion has a mountain of lore behind it on fulfilling the spiritual side of human nature, and non-religious spiritual guidance also fills libraries.  But where do emotions even fit into this picture?  

Are they merely chemical reactions produced by the physical body?  Some would say so.  This school of thought tends to brush them off as meaningless byproducts of the mash-up of air breathed, food eaten, and the normal functioning of the body’s systems.  In the opposite camp, Esther Hicks pioneered a concept of emotions as spiritual guidance system; according to her writings, they indicate whether you’re on track to simultaneously enjoy your life and move toward all of your deeply held desires.  Others would say that emotion is a byproduct of thought, so if we want to achieve our goals, we need to learn how to manufacture supportive thoughts through discipline so that we can be efficient in life.  I think that there is utility to be found in all of these viewpoints, but I suspect that this is a conversation that is far less familiar to you than the conversations around the big three of mind, body, spirit.  Having done a lot of work, in recent years, that includes a strong focus on dealing with emotions constructively, I hold a conviction that this conversation needs to come out into the open.  I think the rising tide of news stories depicting violent acts perpetrated by seemingly functional, but obviously massively unhappy people demonstrates the degree to which we have been ignoring this essential element in our overall health and balance.

Let’s take a look at the three viewpoints mentioned above and what they have to offer us. 

• Emotions as meaningless chemical byproducts.  What if they are, to quote Shakespeare out of context, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”?  Well, if this is true, and they have nothing of value to offer us, what should we do?  This viewpoint doesn’t attempt to argue that they have no effect on us.  However, it also doesn’t offer guidance in dealing with this very loud aspect of daily life.  I think it’s the root of the habit of denial of our emotions that has become so trendy since the dawn of organized scientific inquiry.  And the denial of something so basic to our experience of and interpretation of life seems to me to present a glaring lack of utility, and even a long-term danger to our mental health.  To put the merit of this viewpoint to work, I think we need to pay attention to the chemical reactions that have been studied, such as the production of endorphins through physical activity.  This is powerful, and something that almost every person can use to manufacture euphoria, not to mention physical fitness, which is a joy of its own, and a feeling of increased enthusiasm for life.  For example, according to www.health.harvard.edu, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 1999 showed that when three groups of people with depression either took Zoloft or took part in an aerobic exercise program, or did both, the results of all groups were roughly the same—60–70% percent of all three groups could no longer be classified as having major depression.  Regarding diet, we also have choices to make that impact our body’s ability to function mentally and emotionally as well as physically.  According to an article by Drew Ramsey, MD, “One study found that adolescents with low-quality junk food diets are 79 percent more likely to suffer from depression. Another found that diets high in trans fats found in processed foods raised the risk of depression by 42 percent among adults over the course of approximately six years. And a huge study of women’s diets by the Harvard School of Public health concluded that those whose diets contained the greatest number of healthy omega-3 fats (and the lowest levels of unhealthy omega-6s) were significantly less likely to suffer from depression.”  The information available about diet can be confusing, but I think it’s obvious that it has an impact on the body’s chemical state.
• Emotions as byproducts of our thoughts.  If emotions are a direct result of the thoughts we think, how can we go about improving this feedback loop?  Some say that when we have an uncomfortable emotion, we should learn to become aware of the thought train we’ve been on and give ourselves a chance to arrest a thought pattern that is causing us to spiral downward.  There are many flavors of meditation through which we can gain insight into calming an overactive, hyper mind and practice a state that brings relaxation to the body and emotions.  We can learn, through practice, to substitute a neutral mental state at this point, and even to then direct our thoughts toward more positive patterns.
• Emotions as spiritual guidance system.  Esther Hicks, as previously mentioned, sees the above and raises it by suggesting that 1. it is helpful to reach for a slightly better thought over and over throughout one’s day in order to keep moving back into alignment and happiness; 2. noticing when we’re feeling bad and learning to coach ourselves into better states allows us to accept the spiritual and physical gifts that are always available to us; 3. when we’re spending time in negative emotion, we’re resisting the best that life has to offer, and the emotions we feel are there to point us in the right direction.  This viewpoint suggests that emotions are best interpreted as a signpost that can lead to progress if we take the time to stop and read it.

Again, I think all of these viewpoints have something excellent to offer us in our understanding of emotions and their place in balanced functioning.  And yet, they generally address ways to improve emotional states without much thought as to how understanding the very personal meaning emotions have added to our lives can be instructive.  This is yet another element that I now consider to be absolutely crucial in my understanding on this topic, and that is only beginning to be granted the attention I think it deserves.  Psychological professionals have been working on this for over a hundred years, but in many ways this pursuit has been branded as the realm of people with serious mental and emotional health issues, people who aren’t able to function normally.  Others who exhibit interest in emotional introspection are sometimes made fun of as far-out hippies who want to spend a ridiculous amount of time navel gazing.  Yet in my experience, it’s helpful and healthy to take time every day to contemplate and address one’s emotional states—what’s been your dominant state, when have you felt out of control or stressed emotionally, and what can be done about that?  Your mind can help you trace what’s bothering you and give you ideas about how to create solutions.  It can also help you to imagine better ways of functioning, and rehearse those mentally so it’s easier to remember a new option next time the same kind of situation arises.

Even more important than the mental consideration of one’s emotions, however, is the act of honestly expressing what feels true and valid.  Most of us are so conditioned not to do this with any regularity that it feels frightening and often seems overly negative and whiney.  Even so, I have found that in expression are the seeds of all manner of healing, inspiration, and peace.  I generally find that each form of expression will be more effective or less so for each person, but the act of expression itself is key to creating harmony and happiness.  It’s just as essential to overall balance as physical activity, which is why I titled this blog post the way I did.  The challenge is in finding a mode of expression that is both honest and fun for you without being destructive to others so that you can use it on a daily basis.  Unexpressed emotion builds up over time and becomes long-term stress, and can even contribute directly to physical pain and discomfort.

Music, writing, visual art, storytelling, and other art forms can be enjoyable and constructive avenues for this emotional expression.  While I absolutely love the arts, currently my favorite way to get this need for expression satisfied is through EFT/Tapping, because it’s so flexible and highly personalized and offers many efficient techniques for working through uncomfortable emotions.  It can seem like a pretty odd thing to do at first, but for many people it quickly becomes a very welcome way to express constructively and lighten an emotional load that was standing in the way of forward motion and a positive outlook.  As EFT proliferates, I think we’re going to see an increased awareness about the usefulness of venting emotion and stimulating positive emotional change for everyone, not just the people with serious concerns and traumas who end up working with psychological professionals.

Finally, I find that there’s a layer of meaning that can be extracted from getting clear on what we really feel.  Emotions can be a powerful indicator of where you are out of alignment with your own values, whatever those may be.  As just one example, if you act in a way that is out of keeping with what you consider to be right and appropriate behavior, you will likely end up feeling embarrassment or shame.  Allowing yourself to admit how you feel and trace it back to your behavior allows you to become aware of how you wish you had acted, and work toward doing so next time.  Going through this process is empowering if you are willing to take the time and deal with a bit of discomfort as you find your way to clarity.  I think everyone deserves to feel empowered in this way, so I encourage you to try out some modes of emotional expression and see what helps you to feel greater clarity and freedom, and what you can enjoy so that you’ll be able to create this experience often.  I have come to feel that the importance of having tools that work in this area cannot be overstated.  There is so much joy to be had when you’re not using so much of your energy to deny how you really feel, or that you have emotions at all for that matter!  And there is such a better life to be lived when we feel that something so influential as our emotions can empower as a rule rather than overwhelm and hinder.  So find some emotional gym equipment and start trying it out.  I think you’ll find that it really does improve your everyday experience in being you.

Free to Be

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today we round out the preconditions Maslow cited as important for protecting our use of our cognitive abilities and meeting our basic needs.  The remaining two that we haven’t already examined are the freedom to express oneself, and the freedom to do as one wishes as long as no harm is done to others.  I see these as closely related.  The second could even be said to be just an extension of and limitation to the first—doing as one wishes is the expression of the self in action.  Drawing the line at the place where others would be harmed by one’s actions is a commonly held ideal in many cultures.  Considering the consequences of our actions to others is a common-sense way to evaluate the wisdom of our plans.  We’ve previously covered the topic of freedom of speech, which allows the public revelation of one’s truth.  These last two preconditions go to the individual’s ability to be who he feels himself to be at the core, and to act in accordance with his authentic characteristics within reasonable parameters. 

Being and doing are the yin and the yang of self-expression.  Let’s first look at doing, since the importance of action is emphasized in most developed countries around the world in which you’re likely to be reading these words.  The ability to take action is, clearly, a hugely important part of life; we must eat, keep ourselves clean and healthy, and learn to make a living somehow if we are to live at all.  But in many places, taking action is held out as the only thing that really matters.  Right from the beginning, our parents and teachers tend to emphasize that what we produce makes us who we are.  They want us to complete all of our assignments and earn high marks.  They want us to try extracurricular activities, particularly competitive ones, and be good at them, make friends, and maybe even be known to be popular.  They hope we’ll have ambitions and work toward them consistently.  We’re pressured to remain good looking and committed to physical fitness.  As we get older, we’re told that we need to get into a good college, study important subjects, get a good job that pays well.  We’re often expected to get married and have children, and take on leadership positions in society.  If we can find a way to become well known or even famous, so much the better.  We’re expected to stay busy, active, social, and productive by external measures.  But how much of this is really expressive of who we are and want to be internally?  We may figure out that we have choices in how to accomplish all of this, but may not feel able to buck all the pressure to do these things at all if they don’t seem like good expressions of who we are.  Action moves us toward the things we want and need in life, but I suggest that unconsidered action is no virtue.  In fact, it’s the root of a lot of destructive behavior that exhausts us at best and causes irreparable harm at worst.  Effective action is that which proceeds from consideration and planning in a focused, conscious manner.

On to the yin of being.  We may be taught that who we are on the inside is important, and that we should strive to be loving, or charitable, or tolerant, or accepting of others for the sake of being a good person.  Many religions and other systems of thought set out the qualities of an ideal human being.  But many of them also de-emphasize our individuality and ask us to put aside our desires and ideas in order to align with that ideal.  Maslow’s thinking tells us that it’s natural for us to have a desire to express ourselves.  Once the basic needs are attained, we move on to a drive toward self-actualization—toward bringing more of what we are and more of our potential out into the world.  As far as how to bring balance to a life of high activity, though, we often don’t receive much instruction.  Yin activities like resting, thinking, calmly cooperating with or visiting with others, playing non-competitive games, spending time alone reflecting on one’s life, meditating or praying, are often somewhat discouraged in our busy world.  People who prefer these to more active pursuits may be branded as anti-social, lazy, or ineffective.  But constant action that is not balanced by healthy doses of yin-building activity causes people to overextend themselves, lose effectiveness, act out destructively, stress out, and flame out.  Achievement is a great joy, but so is relaxation.  When we have managed to create clarity in our yin time about who we think we are and how we want to present ourselves to the world, we can take action in ways that are more accurate, more constructive in sharing our message.  We are more likely to be able to maintain a sense of peace with our current reality, even as we move toward a future reality we desire.  Weaving this sense of peace throughout our activities helps us to make sane decisions that would be impossible from a sense of overwhelm, exhaustion and pressure.  Yin time may not be glamorous, but our greatest ideas come to us when we’re relaxed.  If you’re always running, you’re not making space for your brilliance to emerge.

Free countries engage in making it safe for us all to be and do as we wish as long as we’re not harming others.  On such a populous planet, this can be endlessly complicated, to be sure!  With so many of us running around with free will and unique ideas, there are bound to be crashes of all types, and so there are.  Even how to define harm is hard to agree on because of the multitude of viewpoints so many humans represent.  I don’t think there can ever be a perfect, finished culture that has it all figured out, because humans are always striving to evolve in new ways.  The challenge of living a conscious life filled with satisfying meaning is in finding ways to balance all the factors in front of you; doing it well means to eke out the best expression of yourself and your desires that you can muster while endeavoring to cause the least harm possible to others.  In my experience, it’s far more fun to both create and compete in a world that’s rigged for everyone to have a path to winning.

So how do you balance it all?  Some ideas for thinking this through:

·      Do you often feel that you’re functioning at the end of your rope?  If so, how could you add some more yin activity/inactivity into your life?

·      Do you feel uninspired?  Maybe you haven’t thought about what you’re doing and why for a while.  Write in a journal, talk to a close friend, or just take some time to think through how you can make your life a better expression of you.

·      Do you have trouble taking action?  If so, consider what you’re afraid of.  If you can find ways to deal with these fears, you’ll have a better chance of staying motivated to act.

·      If you lack energy, but are not overscheduled, take a look at your diet and exercise regimens and see if you can try improving something here that might produce more physical vitality.

·      No matter what your situation, remember the importance of play.  Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you’ve outgrown this.  Find a way to be silly, goofy, or just do something that’s just illogically fun.  We forget how much this can restore healthy perspective.

·      Do you resent having to think about how your actions will affect others?  You may need to find some time in which you can act freely or express yourself freely in a place where no one else will be affected by what you do.  Go hiking or camping by yourself.  Yell at the sky.  No one likes to feel restricted unnecessarily, but others have a right not to be harmed by us.  Find some way to siphon off some of those extra emotions. EFT/Tapping is also great for this!

Being able to be who we are and act in authentic ways is extremely important to our happiness.  Keep taking small steps toward both of these and your life will continue to feel better.  If you hit a snag, don’t be afraid to get help!  You deserve to be able to meet your basic needs and strive for your deepest desires.  

Fairness and Justice: Moving Targets

“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.”

— Aristotle

Another logical pairing of Maslowe’s preconditions to the pursuit of our human needs is that of fairness and justice.  As with the other preconditions, if these are lacking in your world, it’s hard to focus on being your best self, so we’ll think through them a bit this week.  They're similar concepts that I think are often differentiated by the question of degree; many people think of fairness as a nice idea that is rarely realized; you’ve probably heard someone tell a child at some point, “Life isn’t fair, so stop whining and walk it off,” or something similar.   This imperative acknowledges the difficulties of achieving fairness, as well as, arguably, an insensitivity on the part of the speaker to the child’s feelings and an unwillingness to explain the matter further! 

In the ideal, fairness would be an expression of equality in which two human beings are treated identically no matter what their various qualities and differences might be.  In reality, it’s easy to see how it would be nearly impossible to treat every person in exactly the same manner, and not even appropriate to do so.  For instance, should we allow a five-year-old to drive a car because older people are allowed to?  Well, no—that’s an obviously terrible idea, but then the question becomes, which qualities create equality between human beings such that they should be treated identically, and that’s a complex question.  The response to this difficulty is met with a variety of approaches across cultures, as the determination of who can be considered similar to whom will be based on local values.  Fairness is a word that we often use around subjects that are not fraught with the kind of danger and importance to which we apply the word justice.  The word brings to mind two people attempting to decide on what kind of fence to build between their properties, or the way a middle school teacher grades papers, rather than decisions that affect the course of history.  We seem to apply it to situations that are not gross violations, but debatable conundrums.  It’s a concept that any given group probably decides and polices in a less structured way because of its lower stakes, and the more a group shares similar values, the easier it will be for its members to negotiate solutions that seem fair across the board in any given instance.

Justice, on the other hand, is a term generally used for the formal rule system communicated through a region’s laws and judicial system.  Those rules apply across all people who live within the borders of that region, no matter what their cultural influences.  Laws are common agreements that sum up the group’s best thinking about how its members should behave.  There will always be rules that individual members disagree with, but they govern anyway so that there can be certainty about expectations. There are many wonderful novels that explore visions of utopian living, and the more interesting ones show us the impossibility of creating conditions that will be perfect for everyone.  The most we can expect is that our region’s rules will leave us mostly free to act as we prefer.  Justice can also refer to the perceived “rightness” of an action or outcome.  A region’s laws will take ideals of rightness into account, but they are, again, subjective.  Today’s justice is tomorrow’s injustice.  In today’s world, where so much information is easily shared, the best practices of many regions of the world are out there to be utilized and to inform local choices.  A wider range of options can be considered for the best fit in a local system.  New ideas spur more rapid change and more detailed refinements.  

The justice meted out by a region’s judicial system, guided by clear written rules of law, lets us know that the culture will not stand for lack of equity on a grander scale, and makes it worthwhile for all to pay attention.  Unlike fairness, this should make justice, at least in theory, harder than fairness to ignore or interpret.  Of course, enormous amounts of time and money are still spent each year in the arguing of cases and how the written laws apply to each one!  The proliferation of legal dramas on television attests to the spellbinding variety of ways in which many laws can be understood and argued.  While a societal group holds sway over the rules of justice in that in can contribute to the process of changing laws over time, there are times when it does not seem that justice (as in the right result from a moral perspective) has been served in the moment because an antiquated law is still on the books, or a situation arises with new factors that haven’t been considered before.  Not to mention a loophole having been exploited or a judge or jury proving to have an obvious bias.  And yet, despite inevitable ambiguities, developed nations still make strong efforts to define legal rules so that clear lines of consequence can be obvious to citizens.  When everyone knows what’s allowable and what isn’t, each can make his own choice about his actions, and understand the likely outcomes.  Each can also understand her agreement or disharmony with the larger group, which can help her to understand her place in this region and whether she is willing to stay there.  The alternative to having set rules would be chaos, which is not conducive to the health and happiness of most people; if chaos reigns, safety concerns draw us away from anything more rewarding that could be achieved in an environment of general stability.

Having a well-defined and well-communicated set of rules also accomplishes a few other things, including helping to map out ways to address what has happened in a given incident (and its aftermath), and how best to move forward following that incident for the safety of all:

·      It helps people to decide whether those rules are effectively creating what they think of as justice from a moral perspective.  It’s normal for values to shift over time.  As they do, those people governed by a particular set of laws can decide separately or as a group that the rules should change to reflect new values, and band together in order to create the change they see as necessary

·      Those who run afoul of the rules are punished in some way, which may deter others from risking taking the same kinds of actions.  Without consequences, more individuals might dare to flout the rules and cause havoc in a previously orderly system

·      The feelings of outrage of victims or other observers at the lawbreaker’s behavior may be satisfied by recompense of some sort being required.  This may restore a sense of fairness being upheld in the group; this is an emotional and moral consideration regarding balancing out the scales regarding a former incident

·      The public may be kept safer from those who are imprisoned or lose privileges because of unlawful behavior.  This is a functional, purely mechanical consideration about doing the best thing going forward from a problematic incident

As for the interplay between the two concepts, if fairness is not a common concept or value in a particular region, it’s also less likely that this region’s judicial system will treat all citizens equitably.  For instance, if racial or religious biases are rampant, there may be an unwritten agreement by the majority that all people deserve equal treatment except those in one of the groups that is out of favor, which implies that fairness is not a strong principle here; if women are considered to be less valuable than men, say, there may be entirely different laws in place covering their actions and rights.  Even in the United States right now, which likes to pride itself on being a free and modern nation, we still see vestiges of old ideas about women’s place in society played out in the fact that on average, women still earn about 21% less than men who do the same exact job.  There’s currently a lot of work being done in the corporate world on changing this stubborn fact, but old ways of thinking and behaving die hard, and for centuries it was completely in vogue to think of women as separate and unequal to men—a completely different commodity with much different value in dollars and cents.  “Fairness” that applied among men didn’t apply to women, and that was considered to be obvious and only right.  The idea of fairness that many cultures are striving toward now includes similar rules applying to both men and women, though some may vary based on obvious differences.  But, of course, there will always be room for confusion as our understanding of differences changes; for example, women are now allowed to serve in the U.S. military, but their progress in having opportunities for career advancement has been slow, and in the event of a draft, women are not included because they are still considered to be fundamentally less suited to combat, and positions that support it, than men.  I imagine that, to some modern men in the military, that might be seen as unfair!  So even if fairness is a common value, the complexities of life and the progress of ideas mean that it still may not be applied equitably. 

Both fairness and justice are imprecise, complicated concepts that will always be imperfectly expressed, but an attempt at them supports societal agreement, conflict resolution, and safety.  They help to create a framework in which we can expect to operate as we go about our pursuit of happiness, hopefully with something of a sense of clarity.  They support order in the group, another precondition that we looked at last week, and lay out a code of conduct to which we must adhere if we want to remain at liberty.  They also give us recourse if someone else is violating our stated rights, which can also contribute to our feelings of safety and stability.  Anyone who has been on the wrong side of unfairness knows that it’s not an enjoyable experience.  It’s confusing and frustrating, and it can be hard to understand how to avoid it in the future, which can be a real blow to confidence.  Anyone who has experienced injustice knows that it can be heartbreaking and incredibly disruptive to one’s life.  Structures and customs that help us to avoid these results help to create an environment in which people can thrive.  Feeling that you have choices regarding how you relate to issues of fairness and justice is empowering.  Consider, then:

·      Do you make an effort to treat others fairly?

·      Do you include what you know to be local understandings of fairness or moral justice in your consideration of possible actions, or only your own preferences?

·      Do you respond thoughtfully to feedback you receive from others about their perceptions of your fairness?

·      Do you explain why you make choices to others who will be affected by those decisions, or better yet, involve them in the decision-making process?

·      If there are laws where you live that you don’t agree with, do you comply with them?  Do you make an effort to change them?

·      How do you regard those in a position of trying to uphold your region’s laws?

·      Do you ever advocate for fewer or no rules?  If so, have you thought through how it would feel to have no recourse against others in those areas?

Are there issues in how you relate to these concepts that you could benefit from thinking through further?  Feel free to comment below about anything you realized as you read this post.  

The Safe, Happy Place

“The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two more of Maslowe’s noted preconditions for the effective satisfaction of all our basic needs, which seem to be the most clearly associated with safety, are “the freedom to defend oneself” and “orderliness in the group.” Both of these particular preconditions are of such immediate importance to our ability to meet our safety needs that they are very difficult to ignore.  If they are not in a favorable state in a culture, we will likely find it difficult to attend to anything else but our concerns about safety.  And a life lived around safety concerns will not be a satisfying one for the vast majority of people.  Hopefully you don’t live in a place where you lack the ability to defend yourself and experience basic societal orderliness, but even so it’s worth understanding the ways in which people will react when these preconditions are not in place.

Many countries have laws that allow the use of force for purposes of self-defense.  Since the drive for self-preservation is so basic, we aren’t expected to override it even though violence in other situations is generally not condoned; we often automatically consider that the aggressor was likely at fault, as he most likely had other options for addressing the situation, but chose to attack.  If for some reason the use of force in self-defense is not considered allowable by a culture, citizens will tend to live in fear and either disempowerment (which denies both the person himself and the culture access to the best he can be and produce) or rebellion (which turns all the power the individual can muster against the culture itself).  Neither is very conducive to the happiness of the individual or of the whole in the long run.  As an acknowledgment of the individual’s right to defend themselves, in the United States, for instance, there is a constitutional right to bear arms.  The founding fathers of this nation were adamant that citizens must be able to protect themselves from both each other and any other threatening force, including their own government’s forces, and the forces of other nations.  In today’s far more populous world, and with advances in technology, we now have problems with violence that they could not have foreseen, but the fact remains that the freedom to defend ourselves is very important to both our physical and psychological well-being.

Because our needs for safety are intense, some of the most impassioned debates in any culture will center on the methodologies that are used, allowed, and disallowed in creating and maintaining safety.  Even when it’s not immediately clear how, the loudest arguments usually point back to participants’ fears about safety issues.  It can be helpful to remember this when you run across strangers acting out.  It can help you in taking others’ actions less personally and remaining centered in the face of others’ drama, which allows you full access to all of your resources to keep yourself safe.  Similarly, when you notice someone in your life arguing adamantly or disproportionately about something that seems less important to you, chances are that he is connecting the discussion to an immediate or future loss of safety.  If you’re interested in aiding in resolutions, and you care about this person, it can be helpful to focus on finding out what he’s really afraid of and addressing it more directly.  This may not be an easy task, which is often part of why we don’t take the time to do it.  In today’s world, where many of us are almost constantly dealing with an overactive fight-or-flight response for a variety of reasons, finding the root causes of fears and stress can be a complicated process.  This is where professional help may be in order, as well as the use of tools that can help dial down stress, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques.  Another reason we may not be willing to invest the time and energy necessary to this kind of process is that it may be uncomfortable to be in the presence of this person’s heightened emotions, and those that may be triggered in us as a result.

Unfortunately, most cultures are profoundly uncomfortable with emotional expression and inquiry.  So often, we are given the message from the time we’re children that it’s unacceptable to display or even feel emotions.  We learn to ignore and repress our feelings, and as a result, we learn little to no facility with handling our own and others’ emotions.  We fear anything that looks like emotions or emotional expression as potentially overwhelming.  And we remain stunted and confused about a huge, and totally valid and useful, component of human life.  This is not serving us. 

Moving on to orderliness in a group:  This precondition is created through agreement on the ground rules that members of a society will follow, whether formal or unwritten.  These rules may be created all at once, or evolve over time, but they must be upheld through stable structures like judicial systems in order to govern.  They also need to be able to be updated in response to cultural changes, which are inevitable.  If there is no mechanism for changing them, they are doomed, as humans naturally evolve over time.  When a sufficient number of members does not agree and follow those rules, and they cannot be changed effectively, chaos in some degree is in store.  And when chaos rules, again, the highest potential of members and of the whole group will go out the window.  All will feel unsafe.  Some members of the group will most likely react to the lack of order by hiding and others by resorting to violence.  Smaller groups will band together and may fight each other.  Safety will need to be an individual focus until some semblance of order is re-established.  No matter how creative and adaptable someone is, when a no-rules culture is in play, that person will likely long for some societal structure and agreement, particularly if he has experienced it before.  Humans are inherently social, and most of us desire some semblance of peaceful, constuctive interaction.

Since all of the preconditions are created or challenged in the culture in which an individual finds herself, she cannot likely single-handedly change them; she must therefore find ways to work with them as they are, become part of a movement to shift the current conditions, or physically move to another place with different conditions.  If you find yourself in conditions where these preconditions are not stable, you have a difficult choice to make.  Will you do your best to pursue happiness from within these challenges?  Will you commit yourself to the difficulties of trying to change them from within the system?  Or will you make an effort to transplant yourself into entirely new place?  If you’re lucky, and you live in a place where the governing rules are clear, universally applied, and mostly reasonable, you may find that you take this for granted, as well as the right to defend yourself physically from threats.  It’s easy to forget just how much such conditions support us in moving up the hierarchy of needs into areas more satisfying than safety needs. You may also forget that even when these preconditions around you are mostly favorable, it’s still possible to run up against a circumstance, whether real or imagined, that will snap you back to fear—and that experience can pack a wallop when you’ve become accustomed to safety. 

The next time you do find yourself reacting fearfully, try asking yourself what you’re really afraid of, and do your best to address what you find.  After all, the quality of your life depends on your ability to handle your safety needs and move on to more fulfilling subjects.  Your emotions often have important messages for you about changes you need to consider making.  Keep an eye out for the ways in which you may overreact when you feel (not always consciously or correctly) that your safety is on the line, look for root issues, and look for ways to change your tendency in the direction of calmer responses. Be open to noticing the ways in which those close to you may overreact similarly, and consider how you can help them to feel more safe and attended to, as well as to understand their own fears.  Get help with all of this if and when you need it.  Of course there are times when you’ll need to take real action on real safety issues, but much of the time you may find that focusing on getting specific about what’s bothering you and working on being a better communicator can help to calm your fears.  Becoming more comfortable with admitting that you have emotions, and owning up to what they are, is also well worth the effort, as it can release a lot of internal pressure and conflict. 

It’s natural for us all to crave physical safety and feel that there’s order to our world.  Becoming aware of what’s lacking in these areas and addressing those things can make a huge difference in our enjoyment of life and our ability to spend time in fulfilling ways.

A Wild Ride Through the Infosphere

“As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

In this week’s blog, we look at two more of the preconditions that Maslowe called out as important, even necessary, in supporting the pursuit of our basic needs; without these in place, he suggests, we will find ourselves feeling threatened, and spending more time working to satisfy safety needs rather than ascending beyond them into territory that’s more exciting and enjoyable.  These preconditions are the freedom to investigate and seek for information, and honesty, which I see as associated.  The other side of the freedom of speech (the topic of last week’s blog) is the freedom to listen and consume information produced by others—an obvious byproduct of the availability of information.  Maslowe takes this one step further by pointing out that it’s important to be able to actively seek for information as we attempt to meet our own needs.  And while he doesn’t explain further his mention of honesty, in the context of preconditions, I take this to mean honesty as a societal value as well as a personal one.  If the culture around an honest person is habitually dishonest, he is likely to have a hard time finding the information he is looking for, whatever that may be.  If the importance of honesty is not generally acknowledged in a culture, then the information produced in that culture will not be of the highest quality in the truth department.  It might be hard to even find others who value honesty, as societies generally incentivize conformity to the accepted values of the group.  It’s hard to feel safe when you can’t trust the people around you to be open and honest, and trust that the information available is truthful.  And information is most worth consuming when its expression is free of censorship, whether internally or externally motivated.  If citizens can’t produce their best work without fear of retribution or judgment, then their best work will not be realized as it would have been in a more open environment. 

In a culture that supports the freedom to investigate and seek information, here’s where it can be found:

·      Schools.  While information is often introduced in a highly structured way, leaving less room for each student to follow the threads of their individual interests, there is usually at least some opportunity for choices to be made throughout based on preference, whether in choosing classes or just topics for certain assignments.   A student’s understanding of research techniques often begins here.

·      Libraries.  Many collections of books, periodicals, and other materials are offered for free to the public, or at a very low cost.  Often librarians, who are experts in retrieving information, can assist with specific requests.

·      The Internet.  An incredible online library of content to which almost anyone can contribute.  Those who have access to this have a majority of the information that currently exists in the world at their fingertips!  Sites like YouTube and Ted are notable hotbeds of creativity and the presentation of educational material.

·      Social media.  We can find and learn about others all across the globe who share our interests and values.

·      Bookstores.  Both in person and online, people busily exchange information through a large volume of commercial transactions every day.

·      Films and T.V.  Formats from fictional films and sit-coms to documentaries, news programs  and reality shows offer us glimpses into many corners of the human experience.

·      Governments.  Some countries have laws about the availability of information about governmental activities.  It has become clear that without such laws, secrecy may take hold such that the character of the government’s culture will devolve toward repressive tendencies, which can make it impossible for citizens to find out what’s actually happening.

No matter what the format of the information, when freely exchanged, it all contributes to the richness of the human experience.  Facts and fact-based narratives like documentaries or dramatizations of historical events help us to understand what has happened in the past or is happening now.  Both engender a literal understanding of the world, which is instructive in making the best possible choices we can in daily life.  Fictional formats transmit imagination, which stimulates inspiration and the formation of new ideas, which lead to a metaphorical understanding of what it is to be human now and how the experience might evolve in the future.

If you live in an environment that does support the freedom to seek for information and includes a recognition of the importance of honesty, I recommend that you spare a moment every now and then to really take in the gift that this provides you—one that truly just keeps giving.  Even if the amount of information available in today’s world is sometimes overwhelming, the access we have to an extraordinary amount of knowledge means that fantastic opportunities are there for the taking if you’re only willing to follow your interests with dedication.  We can learn about anything under the sun.  We can share, virtually, other people’s experiences of life to an extent never seen before.  We can find others with similar desires with just a few clicks rather than feeling isolated if we’re out of synch with local social groups.  We’re able to support both our pursuit of our own needs as well as our hopes and passions with this abundance of information in a way that’s extraordinary in the whole of human history.  That’s worth appreciating.

I also suggest that you think about how you’re using this information to further what’s really important to you.  Are you getting bogged down in random tangents (so easy to do in this environment)?  Are you leveraging the information available to learn about what you need to move forward toward your goals?  Are you enjoying your own favorite types of information, or are you paying attention to only what’s loudest?  Do you consume both facts and fiction?  Could you be striking a better balance with your consumption of information?  Are you taking advantage of the opportunity to tell your story and share information openly and honestly?  If you’re not feeling the awesome power of the information available to you and your ability to add to it authentically, consider how you could.  Don’t leave this brilliant gift on the table.  It’s there to help you live a rich and satisfying life, and make life better for others at the same time!  The possibilities are endless. 

Say What You Need to Say

“Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful.”

— Charles Bradlaugh

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?

I Gotta Be Me!

“Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be.”

— Abraham Maslowe

We’ve now reached the final need in Abraham Maslowe’s hierarchy:  Self-actualization, and this is where things really get fun.  When all one’s other needs are met well enough, he observed, only then is one freed to take on “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”  This isn’t about merely remaining functional and motivated to get up in the morning.  This is about living out your own passionate quest for being the very best possible version of yourself.  He acknowledges that there are some rare individuals who have such a need for achievement in this area that they can and will ignore many of the other basic needs in order to focus on it (think of the artist who will live in squalor because all she or he cares about is creating), but these people are very much in the minority.  In fact, it’s far more common for people to feel sufficiently beaten down and exhausted by the constant effort it takes to maintain a stable daily routine that they never really make it to the finish line of the hierarchy—which is probably why the whole structure is so often represented by a pyramid in which the self-actualization sector is the relatively small area at the top.  If you’re someone who cares about happiness and the art of creating more of it, then spending more time in this sector is your ultimate goal; you’ll need to think about setting up your life to support you in continually refocusing on getting back into this zone.

Maslowe was also clear about the idea that the pursuits to which each person will be drawn when they’re spending time in this sector will be unique.  Only he or she knows where the desire for self-actualization must lead.  I’m reminded of how my mother always said that when you have more than one child, you see that they just come out different, right from the start!  Everyone I know who has raised children has experienced phases of their development when they just get a wild idea and lobby hard for it, whether it’s eating nothing but grilled cheese for weeks at a time, or an insistence that they wear layers and layers of clothing rather than just one outfit at a time, because that’s just how they want to roll.  One could argue that this is early evidence of the self-actualization drive.  People like teachers who spend time around lots of children often remark on how they don’t have to try to be unique.  They just are.  And yet, many of us feel, later in life, that we have nothing unique to offer.  We feel deflated, dispassionate, bored, or uninspired.  Sometimes this happens because we’ve suffered disappointments and don’t know how to deal with them constructively.  But often, it happens because others’ opinions and attempts at control have drowned out the inner adventurer.  We learned to tone it down because it wasn’t going over well.  Partly, this stems from parenting conventions that we’re only slowly learning to move beyond that involve a focus on maintaining authority at all costs lest we lose control of the little beasts altogether.  However, it also stems, I think, from the tendency of parents of young children to be sleep deprived, overwhelmed, and to find it easier to try to shut down a child’s annoyingly endless energy and creativity in favor of a little peace and quiet in many single moments throughout the child’s early life.  This is not necessarily bad, as long as that energy and creativity are encouraged at other times.  After all, we all need to be taught basic manners in order to get along well in society with others, and learning that our rampant self-expression can be trying to others is valuable feedback.  But if a child is not encouraged toward her own uniqueness enough, she will learn to bury it.  If that happens, the way toward happiness must involve excavating and bringing it back.

It’s also true that others can feel threatened by the extent of our differentness.  They may feel unable to cope with the challenge to their own thinking and habits; they may have trouble seeing the beauty in something they’ve never before valued; they may genuinely worry that we will not be treated well in the world because of our unique characteristics; they may worry that they will not be treated well because of their association with us; they may even be jealous of our creativity or sense of self.  For whatever reason, there will always be those who will try to train us out of our uniqueness, which is an essential component of our brilliance.

Even if we’ve been encouraged toward self-expression while in school, many of us find that the transition to life as an adult is a shock to the system.  Often we’re terribly unprepared for the rigors of earning an income, setting up a life that works, and generally fending for ourselves.  In many cultures, there are no longer meaningful rites of passage to help us make the transition.  A sense of true community and mutual support can be hard to come by in this age of individualization.  No matter how brilliant we have the capacity to be, at this point we learn, often in very unpleasant ways, that there are some things we’re entirely clueless about.  There are things we didn’t even realize our family or community members were handling for us.  Life is harder and more painful than we expected, at least in some ways, and this can seriously erode our confidence.  If we don’t quickly find ways to adapt effectively, we can easily fall back into the realm of the lower basic needs and get stuck there.

If this has happened to you (and if it has, you’ll know it by the dissatisfaction you feel with your life and your conviction that there’s never time to just do what you want), here are some suggestions:

·      If you don’t know anything that really gets you feeling excited to be alive, think back to your childhood and remember things you loved to do when you were small.  Let’s say you could happily make mud pies outside for hours.  What was it that you enjoyed about this?  Was it being out in the sunshine?  Was it the texture of the dirt in your hands and working on the recipe?  Was it having time to yourself to think?  There are clues in these memories, so take the time to revisit them.  Don’t worry about what anyone else thought about what you were doing.  Just remember the bliss and what made that time fun.

·      When you start to have a better idea of the things you enjoyed in a pure, self-expressive way, think about how you could recreate some of that joy in your life now.  What can you do, even if only every once in a while, that helps you to bring that enjoyment back?  Maybe it’s just something simple, like being more aware of the textures of the objects you come into contact with daily.  You don’t have to reorder your entire schedule in order to start moving in the right direction.

·      Once you have some ideas of a few things you’d love to have back in your life, you will likely feel some excitement about your ideas.  Do not, however, expect others in your life to buy in whole hog and want to do all of those things alongside you.  Some may, but some won’t.  That’s fine!  Go find others who love those things as well and join up with them if your activities are better enjoyed in a group.  You may need to ask for support in making the time available to take action on some of your ideas.  You can volunteer to help others in your life to do something similar if they'll help you.  Everyone in your life deserves to follow his/her own unique passions.  Your loved ones will be far happier if you allow and encourage them to do that.  

·      Look for friends who support your expression of your inner adventurer, whether they’re personally interested in the same things or not.  Some people will appreciate hearing your stories because they get to sample things they don’t really want to do by living vicariously.  Learn to support others in this way as well.

Some schools of thought teach that in order to experience bliss, we should let go of all attachment to earthly pleasures and to outcomes, and give no time to desires for anything but spiritual focus.  There are many fine books and other works that espouse this view, and if you look into it, you’ll see that this path encourages a specific kind of brilliance.  While I’m interested in all kinds of adventures and I love to read about what others find meaningful, I’ve never wanted to live a solitary life on a mountaintop.  I want to live a meaningful life in the midst of all the craziness of daily life around others, and to see where my innermost desires will lead; I think our most deeply held desires can be key to living out lives that elevate those around us and the wider world in which we move and breathe.  Personally, I want to experience that world and experiment with it.  And it could be said that those who turn their focus habitually inward are also following a kind of desire of their own.  After all, who could keep that up if it didn’t somehow excite them?

It need not be selfish to be who you are, to focus on becoming more and more of yourself.  Maslowe defined this as a basic and natural human need.  I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, you haven’t chosen a life of solitary meditation on a mountaintop either.  I recommend spending some time in thinking about how you can follow your inner adventurer and still participate generously in the lives of others. This is your mission, if you choose to accept it.  Where will your adventure lead, and what will you choose to express and give?

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

“It’s easy to not feel misplaced if this tidal wave of appreciation is coming your way.”

— Christoph Waltz

Last week we looked at the importance of gaining significant skills in some area of your choice as a way to bolster self-worth.  The second part of Maslowe’s posited esteem needs is, in his own words, “the desire for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or esteem from other people), recognition, attention, importance, or appreciation.”  He found that, even if we feel great about our accomplishments, abilities, and our value from within, it’s important that the reactions of others align with our assessment.  If they don’t, if we haven’t clearly earned the respect and commendation of others for having produced something valuable, we will likely feel unsatisfied until the respect of others does show up. 

Humans exist within an evolutionary dynamic in which we tend to be always reaching for new ideas, better solutions, and more progress—not just biologically, but with our hearts, minds, and spirits as well.   This all makes sense, as thriving in a constantly changing world like ours requires the ability to adapt just as constantly.  We wouldn’t have survived for long as a species without this drive to adapt and grow.  Since we’re social beings, it also makes sense that to be considered valuable within a group, it helps for an individual to be good at contributing to the progress of the group, rather than just his own.  In the harsh climates of centuries past, it was extremely difficult to survive alone; if one was not important to a societal group, one’s very survival could be on the line.  Perhaps the reason we long for the adulation of others for our contributions is that, without it, we still feel vulnerable and afraid of being banished as the weakest link.  In the modern world, even though most of don’t live in tribal cultures anymore, it can still be horrifying to contemplate being deemed unimportant or unworthy by family, colleagues, friends or other communities. 

Even if we’re not as afraid as all that, it can also be frustrating to have given our all to something only to find that others don’t value it as we do, or as we thought they would.  Such miscalculations may tempt us to doubt the very abilities and results that we were proud of, and to doubt our worth.  I’m sure you’ve been through something like this, and it does not feel good!  Being out of synch with others can make you feel alone even if you're not.  It’s hard to hold onto your sense of self-worth if you continually receive the message from others that your contributions are not valued, and you're profoundly different from others. 

On the other hand, the perks of adulation, of succeeding in earning the respect of others and enjoying a good reputation, have always been worth having.  In the distant past, if you had the best reputation for valuable skills and abilities, you might have become a tribal leader with access to all the best resources.  You might have lived in the best location, had your choice of a mate, and had a disproportionate say in the decisions affecting the group.  Today, it’s not so different.  You might achieve your share of all of the above (house, spouse, platform from which to influence others), plus a lot more autonomy in directing your future separate from any group.  The prevalent cultures today favoring individualism, the universal nature of money in today’s world, and the relative ease of travel mean more personal freedom for those who now succeed in gaining respect and reputation.  You might even earn some degree of fame (the extreme version of recognition), which can open even more doors for you.  These are the very things for which people have vied across centuries.  Wars are still waged for these things by those who see no way to gain them except through force.  We humans cannot seem to help wanting the privileges that come with the respect of others across time and cultures.

In fact, in a study done by the Harvard Business Review and Tony Schwartz that surveyed nearly 20,000 people, referenced here, workers who responded that they were treated with respect by higher-ups “reported 56% better health and well-being” than those who didn’t!  So not only do we crave the respect of others, but when we don’t think we’re getting it, our very health is likely to suffer, in many cases significantly.  Plenty of other research corroborates this story.  If that’s not an argument for thinking deeply about how you can earn a more satisfactory level of appreciation from others, I don’t know what is—going without it is bad for you!

How, then, can we address a perceived lack of respect and appreciation from others?  Some ideas:

• While it’s a lot of fun to spend our time doing and creating things we enjoy ourselves, if you want appreciation from others, you’ll need to think about how your contributions benefit or please others.  Be willing to try on the way others think, even if it’s foreign to you.  You might find that doing so is a lot more fun than missing out on some of the perks discussed above.
• Once you’ve thought that through, you’ll need to work on adapting in order to provide experiences or results that others will respect and enjoy.  I am not saying that in working in this area you need to leave behind the pursuits that please you, not at all, but you may need to be receptive to the idea of branching out.
• If those from whom you most want respect are significantly different from you in values and preferences, there may come a time when you need to admit to yourself that what it would take to earn respect from them is unacceptable to you.  While this kind of impasse can be quite disappointing, there is also power in accepting that you need to find your respect and appreciation elsewhere, and let go of any fruitless power struggles; those can waste a lot of your energy, and people only really change of their own accord.  If you’re trying to make them change, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
• From a perspective shared by most of the world’s major religions, compassion for others expressed by helping someone in need for no personal gain at all is its own reward.  Yet, because this is a widely held perspective, and because receiving appropriate help and love from someone who expects no return often feels good to the receiver, this too can lead to the respect of others and a favorable reputation.  This is a different route toward these than mastery of a particular skill set.  If you lack confidence in your own ability to shine in other ways, or you are someone who is more inspired by the idea of gaining respect for having and sharing personal qualities such as kindness and generosity, then you can bolster this area of your life by focusing on giving more while still maintaining your own health and balance.

Earning the respect of others is a collaborative process.  It requires listening and responding to feedback.  You have to be willing to find ways to surprise, delight, and benefit others, and to enjoy the process of co-creation.  The good news is that in many ways we are hard-wired to cooperate for mutual benefit, and when we do receive the approbation of others, it tends to be a pretty darned enjoyable experience.  It won’t do to ignore your own opinion of yourself; that must be maintained through meaningful accomplishments and the expression of personal qualities that you yourself can decide are valuable.  But the innate desire we have to be considered worthy by others is important to our happiness and health.  If this area of your life feels a bit empty, you may make big gains in your overall satisfaction by spending some time in consideration of how to improve it followed by some tailored action.  I wish you great success in your efforts to value yourself and to be appreciated for your work and your fine qualities. 

The Upward Path

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

— Michelangelo

Among the needs that humans have in the esteem category is the need to feel our own capacity, in other words our ability to handle life as its events wash over us.  We all long to feel that we are enough.  In fact, in my work with clients, I often find that most of us have a deep-seated horror of not being enough that keeps us in a lack mentality, which in turn continually stimulates the body’s stress response.  Numerous factors can feed this vicious cycle, including the amped-up messages we receive daily in many modern cultures that no one is ever enough, that we must all be striving to be the best at all things all the time—which of course is a losing battle, because no one person ever could be.  In the end, no one else can decide for you that you are enough.  You must simply decide yourself that you are.  Maslowe identified several ways in which we seek satisfaction in the process of making this decision, some of which we’ve already covered, some of which we address this week, and some of which we’ll look at next week.  Since the highest rung on the ladder of capacity that can be achieved through learning and practice is generally known as mastery, that is where we will set our sights today.  This is within the reach of most of us, and a worthy goal to strive for.

One can be a master of information, or of practice, or of both.  Someone can have expert-level understanding of a subject matter area, yet be unable to produce results in that area.  That person is still a master of intellectual knowledge, and that can be incredibly useful if applied in some way or passed on to others who can apply it.  Someone else can be a master of doing something with a high degree of excellence, but be unable to explain it, and lack the benefits that come with studying widely on the subject.  He may have focused on results only, and sought only the coaching and information that was absolutely necessary to keep moving forward.  This too can be extremely useful, as this kind of mastery leaves a trail that others can analyze and duplicate, and again pass on to others.  The master who is most revered, though, is often the one who both understands a subject deeply and can demonstrate that knowledge through action and the creation of exceptional outcomes.  This person is often widely influential.  She is likely to receive feedback from others to that effect, which helps her to feel significant—but that’s next week’s topic!  I’m getting ahead of myself.

Thoreau famously claimed, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” and I think most of us know all too well what he was getting at.  Many people fail to find ways to live with purpose, verve, and the feelings of self-esteem we’re addressing here.  So if we all desire feelings of competence, and building mastery in any area is helpful in producing those feelings, why don’t more of us commit to striving for mastery?  Well, how about:  Life is not easy, first of all.  Second, if we are not stubbornly purposeful about setting a course and continually working to stay on it, it’s so darned easy to be distracted by what others want for us, by the demands of others, by pain, by pleasure, by loud noises, and heck, by shiny objects!  You name it, we’re curious about it.  And that’s fine.  That’s all part of life.  But if we don’t allow ourselves to apply our innate abilities to the pursuit of mastery, we miss out on one of the grander adventures it’s possible to have on this planet.

The process of blossoming into mastery is one filled with drama.  I remember years ago hearing Marianne Williamson make the distinction between the “cheap drama” that prevails when you’re living a petty, childish, self-absorbed life, and the worthy drama that remains part of your experience when you’ve grown into a more authentic, mature person.  (I’m paraphrasing from memory here, so apologies to Ms. Williamson if something is lost in my translation.)  I loved this concept, and I think this applies to growing into mastery as well.  Truly mastering nearly anything requires treading a long road that includes difficulty and constant effort and change.  It includes learning from others who are available to you, even when you know they’re not the best teachers or you don’t love their personalities.  It also includes the necessity of eventually throwing off the strictures of what has been done before, just as a teenager must assert personal independence through acts of rebellion (on whatever scale) in order to become an adult.  There will be times when you have support and help, and others when you don’t; portions of the road will inevitably be lonely and dark.  At times your prospects will seem hopeless as you hit barriers that seem final.  You will lose things along the way, which is part of the price of the journey.  You will gain many others, including successes and personal strengths that can’t be taken from you.  The empowerment that results from reaching the mountaintop at the end of the road is one of life’s peak experiences (another concept originated by Maslowe, by the way—what a guy).  If you ask anyone who you consider to be a master of a subject or a skill set, I think you’ll find that his or her story of the path that lead to mastery was full of ups and downs, and expressed the truly meaningful drama inherent in striving for excellence through exhilarating highs and frightening lows.

While some of this may sound pretty good, the hard parts are no joke.  Most of us are never taught the skills that make up the strength known as discipline.  Most of us are petrified of discomfort, for instance, and are never given strategies for dealing with it in a healthy manner so that we can keep moving toward our mountaintop.  Most of us lack basic knowledge about maintaining the health and balance of the body, mind, emotions and spirit.  Many of us were never shown the basics of organization, which is necessary for keeping everything together through a long and taxing effort.  Many of us were not instructed in the development of focus and techniques on restoring it when it has evaporated.  You can expect more on these topics in blogs up ahead.  But those who are keenly aware that they are missing essential pieces in these areas will lack the confidence to take on a process that can be as grueling as the effort toward mastery.

For those who do venture out onto the path, and who persevere through all the strangeness they encounter, life becomes far fuller and richer.  Whatever they are able to achieve is far more than they had before, and more than those who never try will ever have.  Now, I believe all human life has value, and that we need not be on a path toward mastery in order to be worthy.  We still have the power to decide for ourselves that we are worthy for any reason or no reason at all, and in fact I recommend it!  Doing so tends to immediately make life feel better, and that tends to enliven our energy and creativity, which in my world is pretty much always a good thing.  But if we are able, why not try to wring the most juice out of life that we can?  Feeling that we are competent, that we have done good things, and that we can do more is a major component of building self-esteem.  Why not reach for something grand and see how far we can climb?

It’s worthy of mention that yet higher than mastery is the realm of genius, but that is reached only when mastery is combined with natural talent to yield the astonishing feats of someone at the pinnacle of his or her area of endeavor.  Therefore, as you consider what to master, I highly recommend choosing something that ignites your curiosity with the flame of passion.  When you love a subject, learning is a joy, even a happy compulsion.  It will be a lot easier to keep going if you always have that flame keeping you lit from within.  It will also attract others with its brilliance and power, which can open up opportunities as you reach milestones and require new resources.  Now, off you go!  If you’re not yet on the path to mastery, dig deep for ideas about where you can place your target.  The pace and the goal are entirely up to you, and your business only.  What mountain do you want to scale?  What's a tiny step you can take to begin?

*I was influenced in this post by some of the resources listed here, including a great book called Mastery.

Ever a New Summit

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Another among the esteem needs that Maslowe wrote about is a sense of achievement.  This is an important factor in our conviction of self-worth, both because human beings are built with a natural drive toward creativity they long to satisfy, and because most cultures revere those who have achieved unique and groundbreaking results.  It’s worth periodically looking at how you’re feeling about what you’ve achieved in the course of your life so that you can address your innate desire for a sense of achievement; doing this helps to show the way toward keeping your self-esteem at healthy levels.

So what is achievement?  Dictionary.com defines it as, “Something accomplished, especially by superior ability, special effort, great courage, etc.; a great or heroic deed.”  So this is no walk in the park—it needs to be an accomplishment that required unusual innate qualities, or strife, or both.  And who decides what it should be and when the criteria for accomplishment have been met?  In the context of a discussion about self-esteem, only you decide what an achievement is and when you’ve attained it.  Others will have opinions about what you’ve done, and that will most likely impact your self-assessment to some degree, which we’ll discuss in later blogs in this category.  But no one can ultimately decide for you when to be satisfied with your own performance.  That is your responsibility, and the process of deciding shapes both your life and your opinion of yourself.  This is where clearly defined goals can be useful.  If you have taken some time to think through what you want to the best of your current abilities, it’s far easier to direct yourself along the path to the finish, and to be certain about when you’ve arrived.  If you haven’t clarified your goals, you are far more likely to encounter confusion about where to go, what to do, and when you’ve accomplished something about which you can feel satisfied.

Here are a few other factors that will impact how you feel about your accomplishments:

·      Was the goal something you really wanted to pursue?

Most likely you’ve had the experience of having put considerable time and effort behind something that didn’t bring you the satisfaction you originally expected when you finally achieved it.  This can happen for numerous reasons, such as:

o   It was never really expressive of you.  Someone else wanted this for you, and you went along, either to make them happy, or because you thought it was a good idea, but you never noticed that your own passion was never truly engaged.

o   Somewhere along the way it would have been appropriate to adjust the goal, but you refused to do so for whatever reason.  People do and must grow and change.  It’s normal to realize once you’re in the middle of an effort that your expectations or process need to adjust in order to keep pace with what’s true for you.  A goal is meant to draw you forward, not lock you rigidly in place.

o   Your goal was not worthy of all the time and effort you poured into it.  If you spent years on a complicated revenge scheme, you might eventually achieve it.  However, if you felt satisfaction at the result, there would also be shame mixed in; you would know that your achievement spoke of your own unresolved pain and pettiness.  If you had, instead, taken steps to express your pain, forgive over time, and protect others from injustice, you would likely have felt satisfaction that was clean and clear of internal conflict.

·      Was the process enjoyable?

o   If the process of getting to your goal was not enjoyable, you may have forgotten to build fun into your process.  Sometimes we think that only through suffering can we create results that are glorious.  While it’s true that the application of discipline required to achieve things that fit the dictionary definition of achievement will probably result in some discomfort, it’s also important to be able to enjoy your life during the times that you’re waiting for the gratification at the end of your road.  All of it is your life, not just the occasional end point of an extended effort.

o   If you hated every minute of working toward the goal, once you achieve it you are most likely exhausted, depleted, and in the habit of being in a bad mood.  You may also have convinced yourself that this is the only way anyone gets anything done, and that life is grim and difficult (if you didn’t already believe these things before).

o   Was someone else trying to control you throughout the process?  If so, you’ll end up with a strong flavor of resentment about the whole experience, even if you like the end result.

·      Does your goal result in a satisfactory change in your life?

o   If you thought that your achievement would result in a harvest that didn’t appear, you’re likely to feel frustrated even if you feel great about what you did.  Sometimes we follow in others’ footsteps and expect to have the same experiences, which doesn’t always happen.  Sometimes we pin our fantasies to our goals, such as fame and unreasonable fortune, and are surprised when the fantasy elements aren’t a part of the achievement.

o  If your goal did result in the expected harvest, it’s still possible that you didn’t end up feeling the way you thought you would about it.  We have a tendency to expect external achievements alone to change how we feel about life and about ourselves, but this discounts the inner game that we must also play in order to feel good about life.  As the saying goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.”  You can’t outrun your own negative emotional and thought patterns.  No achievement will absolve you of the need to do the inner work that is uniquely yours. 

No matter how satisfied you are with an achievement, you will find that, as soon as it’s yours, you want something else!  This is a normal part of life as a human being.  We are creative, evolution-oriented beings who crave experience.  This is why it’s best to avoid seeing any goal as the solution to all things in your life and focus on more on a sense of enjoyment of the process—otherwise you’re missing out on the vast collection of moments that make up the majority of your existence.  People who look back at their lives in old age often regret that they were not more engaged in all the small and less significant moments of life, and that they did not take every opportunity to be present to the love and enjoyment that was available in every one of them.  It’s all important.  But if you feel unhappy about what you’ve achieved in life when you take all of it into consideration, I hope you’ll take the time to consider deeply what it is that you most want, and begin to chart a course toward it.  Working toward goals that feel great and significant is a basic human desire; if you want to live a life that feels whole, you must not neglect this.  And try to do it with zest for maximum enjoyment!