HOW GOOD WAS I? COMPARING YOURSELF INTO A FUNK

             It’s been a hard few days, I must confess. Not sure why. I think it’s the economy. People are struggling. I feel under-utilized. My circuits jammed on me. I had a meltdown. Found myself very frustrated. Negative. Physically upset with a headache that wouldn’t respond to meditation or medication.

Who wants to hear about a helping professional and life coach having a trying few days? 

“I have enough of those, myself,” I can hear you saying, “I don’t need to hear about yours.”

I was worried. How could I write something that might help someone else when I can’t keep myself from feeling this way?

I felt like a bit of a sham.

I sometimes envy people who seem to glide through life, like the old James Bond, seemingly without a sensitive, self-reflective moment of doubt, worry, weakness, or a bit of despondency.

Do those people really exist? They might, and bully for them. Oh, I have my days, and even my weeks and months, when things are just going swimmingly and everything is great with the world, days when I could probably kick 007’s butt.

Then there are, what I call, the ‘drowning’ days, days when I have to work hard to keep from sinking. And though they’ve gotten fewer and further apart and less severe, I still have my drowning days. That’s how it is.

I know there are billions who have to struggle. Maybe everyone struggles, sometimes, and James Bond is a big fat liar. He leaves out the parts where he’s lonely, and worries about that arthritic shoulder and, well, sometimes, even with a beautiful woman, he just doesn’t seem, well, as solid down there as he once was.

Know what I mean?

Sure you do.

Anti-depressants, anxiety medication, joints, pints, and kegs are sold by the boatload each hour to help us get through the tough work of being a human being.

Maybe that’s what it’s all about: how you make it through the tough times, how you behave, how you show up, how you keep going.

Do you get your work done, the real work of living? Can you keep loving those around you, lending a helping hand and a listening heart? Can you forgive yourself when you fall so that you can get up stronger and more quickly?

The Prophet Mohammed said, “There will always be times tougher than these.”
The Buddha said suffering is part of the world.

So, it’s all about how you handle the tough times. How you learn from them. How you take responsibility and action. How you move on.

The tough times will always be with us.

But why do I compare myself to others, even James Bond, or to myself on better days?

It was the teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti who first showed me the damage we cause by comparing. I can hear his high distinctive voice with his British-Indian accent and I can see his raised finger as he admonished his listeners, “Never to compare.”

What would a mind be like if it were never to compare, but to simply be with itself just as it is from moment to moment?

There is a Buddhist practice of labeling our thoughts and feelings as they are happening. You experience a thought and you label it, “thinking,” for instance. You feel an emotion, and you label it, “fear”, and so on.

But that already has a separation between the part of you that is experiencing the emotion or thought, and the part that is labeling it.

It seems you have to compare your experience to something else to be able to know it is fear, or anger, or desire, or joy.

You have to compare it before you can label it.

But what if you could never compare?

Wow.

But what did I do just then? Did I compare my good-old comparing self to some amazing me who might someday never compare?

What a drag, because obviously you can’t use comparison as a way to get to a point in your life where you no longer compare, just like you can’t go north by going south.

            Never to compare, and to go on doing your work and living your life from moment to moment. What would that be like?

But if I don’t compare, you might ask, how will I know how I’m doing?

Why does it matter? Why do you need to know how you are doing? Who will tell you? How will you keep score? What will it mean?

Of course you might use a scale to see how your weight is doing, and things like that, but you would not use anything to tell you how you were doing. That’s the kind of comparison we’re talking about, not whether this box of cereal is a better deal than that box. Never to compare your self with anyone and anything, but to simply be yourself from moment to moment.

What would that be like?

I don’t know, but I do know the pain of comparison. That I know. Comparison has often made me miserable.

There’s an old eastern teaching that says, “You suffer because you spend 99% of your time thinking about your self, but there isn’t one.”

I think comparison gives rise to the self. When you are not comparing, but just being and doing in the moment, it’s like you, your self, are not there. You forget about yourself and simply drop into life. When you’re really happy, you don’t know about it in the moment, because you’re so in the thick of your happiness. It’s only afterwards, when it’s over a little bit, that you can compare and notice how happy you were. You have to come out of your happiness a bit to even know that you’re happy.
 It’s like a great orgasm. In the middle of it, you’re gone. That’s what we love about it. Great sex or lovemaking is one of the best ways to get out of your own head so that you’re not there for a while.

And then, of course, we return and say, “Wow, that was great. Can we do that again?” It's amazing how good it feels to have your doors blown off for awhile so that you're gone, even if only for a moment or two.

 Check it out for yourself. Observe how comparing serves you and hurts you. Let me know what you think.

So, there it is. I wrote it. My commitment is two articles per week and this is article number two. That’s all I can tell you. You put one foot in front of the other, eyes open, mind quiet or mind in turmoil, you do what you can to keep walking the walk. You walk through fear, confusion, doubt, worry, moodiness, and even depression. You walk like you’re on some great mission like Frodo, in Lord of the Rings, because you are. You are walking the path of your one and only life—at least till you get to heaven or you reincarnate.

             Namaste. 
             I can be reached at drjohnluca@gmail.com or 805/680-5572.

SEX, DRUGS, AND WORRYING

 

            Worrying, along with depression, anger, sex and substance abuse, and stress-related illness are some of our favorite, but oftentimes least helpful ways of coping with life’s challenges.

“If I didn’t worry, the bad thing I am worrying about would certainly happen.”

This is what we might call, ‘preventative worrying’, like brushing our teeth to keep cavities away.

Of course, worrying about cavities doesn’t decrease the likelihood of cavities as well as brushing our teeth does. But worry can serve a function. It can get us to act. Can we take action, and then let go of the worry? Can we brush our teeth, and then forget about the cavities?

For many of us, it seems not. And there are reasons why.

When we worry that X has happened, it makes the reality of X more certain to us and we can prepare for the worst. This gets rid of the uncertainty and gives us a sense of control. For some of us, it’s the uncertainty that’s unbearable.

My husband is late. He hasn’t called. He has probably gotten into an accident. I better call the highway patrol, and then the hospital. This can be less distressing than sitting with the uncertainty of not knowing why he is late.

Just knowing this can be helpful.

We are all biologically prone to worrying.  We are hard-wired to register negative or dangerous signals over positive ones. It’s adaptive from an evolutionary perspective. Worrying helps keep you alive in the jungle, where missing a danger signal can put a quick end to all your afternoons.

We had a cat once, named Alex the Black, sweet as could be, a real lover, always available for petting and making friends. Unfortunately, Alex was a bit too friendly, a bit too relaxed. He lived four months before the coyotes got him.

Turtle, our next cat, is as skittish and skeptical as a cat could be. Not much fun, in some ways, but she’s alive after 14 years. She’s lived long enough to mellow out a bit, but she’s as wily as any coyote.

So, don’t knock yourself if like Turtle you’re the worrying type. Worrying was invented way before you showed up.

Your worry is real. Accept it. With the energy freed up from fighting with your worry, you can pay attention to it. Oftentimes, excess worry comes from older brain regions like the amygdala, and though the amygdala is usually not impressed by a good argument, it can be soothed by watching your breathing, and how you are tightening your muscles, or clenching your teeth, or biting your nails.

You don’t have to change anything, just pay attention, and keep breathing. It’s a form of meditation or mindfulness that allows your emotional and reptilian brain centers to calm themselves.

            Now, after accepting your worry and watching your body, you can look at what you are worried about. Are those real coyotes out there, or imaginary ones? Remember, the fear and the worry are real, but the coyotes may not be. Is what you are worried about a ‘real’ probability? Of course it’s ‘possible’ that your partner was abducted by aliens, but is it probable?

Keep breathing. No one is trying to take your worry away from you. Pay attention to your body, and your thoughts.

            Pay attention especially to those thoughts that seem automatic, thoughts that have a life of their own, thoughts that seem to go off like a string of firecrackers, one inexorable thought after another until you’re left feeling exhausted and hopeless, certain that the worst has happened. It can help to write down these thoughts as they are happening. Keep a worry journal. This can help you gain some distance from your thoughts, and you can begin to see them objectively, as ‘objects’ separate from you.

You may have heard the saying, “Don’t believe everything you think.” This is what we’re working on here.  You can develop the space to see that what ‘you believe’ or ‘think’ is different from what ‘you know’ and who you ‘are’. A daily mindfulness or meditation practice helps immensely in this area.

Allow yourself to consider less distressing explanations as to why your partner is late. Maybe there’s traffic. Maybe his or her cell phone is dead or lost or left on the office desk. Maybe she has an appointment she forgot to tell you about.

Look at the evidence. Look at the alternatives. Look at that string of automatic thoughts, and take some time to question them.

It is true that your partner is late.

It is true that you are worried.

It is true that your breathing is strained.

Is it true that your partner is hurt?

You don’t know that.

Is it true that your partner is dead?

You don’t know that either.

Is it true that your life as you know it is over?

You don’t know that either, though you may feel like it.

Keep paying attention to the body. Keep breathing.  Push back at the automatic chain of thoughts. Find counter-arguments and possibilities. Remember other times like this when you worried, and things turned out all right.

Accept that we are hard-wired to worry. For each worrisome explanation, you may need to write down ten calming ones. You may need to stretch or exercise or call someone to help calm your body.

You may find that if you can really let yourself feel what is going on when you worry, that something from your past comes up. You may remember a difficult or even traumatic event from childhood when someone did get hurt, or died, or simply left, never to return.

Our cat, Turtle, was abused before we got her. She had a right to worry about being hurt.

Well, if that’s the case with you, be gentle with yourself and accept that you may worry more than someone with a different background and temperament. You may benefit from working with someone who can help you—or more precisely, help your emotional brain--to work through some of the old fear and worry locked up in your nervous system, fear and worry that is waiting to be re-stimulated whenever someone is late or some other taxing situation arises for you to deal with.

            And of course make sure you’re taking care of the basics. Get enough physical activity, sleep, and good nutrition. And throughout your worry, or your depression, or your anger, or your bout of binge eating or reckless sex, or whatever it is that you have done in your attempts to cope with your life, it may be helpful to remember the Buddhist prayer, “May my heart be filled with compassion for all beings, especially myself.”

JOEY PANTS SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE

He’s known as Joey Pants in the industry, as Ralphie on the Sopranos, as Joey Pantoliano on his driver's license. He's a husband, a dad, a recovering depress-a-holic, and he's got `em big, real big. Joey Pants has made a powerful movie where he shares the intimate details of his struggles with depression and the unhappiness and havoc it brought him and his family.

The term 'mental illness', no matter how you slice it, carries so much unnecessary baggage that you just wish we could come up with new labels, or somehow de-stigmatize the old ones.

Play with me for a minute. Let’s re-brand mental illness as mental diabetes. Watch what happens.

There are different kinds of diabetes, but in general the problem is regulating blood-sugar levels.

Mental diabetes comes in different forms, but in general has to do with problems regulating thoughts and emotions.

Some cases of diabetes can be controlled with medication. Some cases can be controlled by diet. Some can be controlled by a combination of both.

Same goes for mental diabetes. Some cases need medication. Some cases need therapy or coaching, which is a diet of healthy thoughts and behaviors. Some cases need both.

Which would you rather have, mental illness, or mental diabetes?

The challenge is we feel we are mentally ill, rather than we have a mental illness. It’s one thing to say, “My foot is broken.” It’s something radically different to say, “I am broken.”

The opportunity and the stigma of mental illness both stem in part from our astonishing ability to change and heal. The brain can change in ways the pancreas cannot. If we can't change, is it our fault?

We don’t ask this of someone with physical diabetes. 

That’s why it’s so hard and so brave to come forwards and tell your story and do what you need to do to make your life work. It’s not just about the heavy stuff like depression, anxiety and mental illness. It’s about joy, love, awe and gratitude. It’s about being a love machine and a light to those around you. It’s about telling the truth and setting yourself free, and helping those around you to do the same.

Check out Joey Pants and help yourself to a great day.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/health/an-actors-battle-with-mental-illness/3904/

The Agony, the Ecstasy, and Therapy

A husband and wife team of psychiatrists, Michael and Annie Mithoefer, have published a study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology showing that psychotherapy done with patients while they were high on Ecstasy, the drug MDMA, was quite effective in treating difficult cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Mithoefer proposes that Ecstasy increases the clients' abililty to handle the difficult and traumatic material that must be processed to successfully work through and resolve the issues associated with PTSD.

One of the most successful therapeutic approaches for working with PTSD, and a number of other trauma-related conditions, is known as somatic experiencing (SE). SE is part of the burgeoning field of somatic, or body-focused, psychology, that looks at how difficult psychological material is experienced in the body, and  then uses the body's resources to restore the client to better physical and emotional health.

A key practice of SE is to 'resource' the client, to give them a felt sense of integrity, possibility, groundedness, and a sense of their  own power and ability to heal and flourish. This is done before ever approaching difficult material. In a sense, you work to make sure the client is high enough before you take them low--if you get my meaning. Then you work slowly, so the client can process the challenging material without feeling overwhelmed.

You have a good bit of ecstatic circuitry built into your nervous system. If you didn't, Ecstasy wouldn't work. So, you don't need to be high on Ecstasy to process difficult and even traumatic material. You just need to be high enough, and you've been blessed with a nervous system that can do just that, though sometimes it may need a little help from a good friend, or a coach, or in very extreme situations, a white pill.

Men Don't Cry--They Die Instead

Manuel died day before yesterday. He was 39 years old. Stopped eating and started drinking a few months ago and didn't stop till his liver shut down. He was a decent man who could pick up rocks as big and heavy as a medium-sized safe, but he had a soft heart, and maybe no place to share it.

About a year and a half ago his relationship fell apart after twenty years. His step-son of twenty years wouldn't talk to him. His daughter was angry with him. He worked for me doing the gardening on two rental properties I own. I'd see him once a month when he came by to get paid. When I would ask him about how it was going, he would say, "It hurts, but I'll get through it." A few months ago his father died of cancer. He said that was really tough. He had worked with his dad since his dad had started the gardening business when Manuel was a kid.

Manuel told me that when he separated and moved to his new place, a young neighbor, a woman in her mid-twenties saw that he had been crying. "What's up with you? Men don't cry." He told her they did but they didn't show it, and walked away. I tried to get Manuel to come in to see me. I could have tried harder. Two months after his father's death, Manuel was dead.

There's a lot of pain out there--always has been. Do what you can to help. Of course, in the end we can only save ourselves, but we can make it easier for one another to get help, to find the right medication and people who can listen and support us and help us find our way back to life.

I wish that young woman had said something else, something that might have pushed Manuel to get some help rather than go deeper into the darkness inside. I wish I had reached out sooner and done more. I wish Manuel were still alive.