Tag: Embracing your best self

It’s not a super path

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Superman/woman syndrome is a sneaky snake in current culture. No matter how many times we’ve heard it, somewhere deep within we harbor the feeling that we can do it all, being all things to all people. This myth dies hard. In straight thinking moments–or days–we embrace the bunk that is superwoman/man, and free ourselves from those expectations. Hurray for a small dose of reality.

However, even when we readily admit that we can’t achieve superpowers, a sneaky leftover part of that drive to be super deserves the ‘who says’ challenge: beliefs about the path to change. We still expect to be like Superman himself, clearing buildings in a single bound. The one-click culture encourages us to expect change to happen just like that. Click off the old behavior, click on the new. Door open or door closed. Instant change and everything is now rosy–i.e. perfect.

Magic wand at the ready, I wish it were this way myself. (Though of course that would mean I was out of a job and I’m not quite ready to retire.) The reality is that it’s a path, often a twisting path at that. It’s two steps forward, then one back. Or it’s a spiral, my favorite illustration about moving toward change, cycling by the same issues again and again, reworking and fine-tuning as we make our way to the goal at the top.

Accepting this winding path as reality stops that old automatic “failure” thinking. When we stumble, or it seems that we are NOT achieving that goal in a single leap, we lose track of the big picture. We conclude that we’ve failed. Time to step back and see that you are on the path. It’s just not a single step, or even a song and dance two-step.

Have a little self-compassion. No single leaps aided by a ruby cape. Just steadily wind your way up the stairs, or along the path, and you’ll soon be where you wish to be. Enjoy the climb.

A strategy shift

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Chastise yourself much? Scold yourself for not doing the right/healthy/calm thing, hoping to move yourself into good behavior? This thinking runs through my head at times: “What were you thinking? You know better!” As a culture, we have a too-ready acceptance of this process, i.e. that the best way to bring misbehavior in line is through correction and scolding, especially when applied to ourselves versus children. It’s a time-honored tradition, as this quote suggests:

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.——-Pearl S. Buck

Recent research looked at the effectiveness of this type of negative thinking in motivating behavior. Participants were instructed to focus on one of two options when facing a decision about eating a piece of chocolate cake. The first group focused on how badly they would feel if they broke their diets and ate the cake, while another group zeroed in on how virtuous they would feel if they resisted temptation. The study participants who connected with pride over making the healthy choice actually could resist the unhealthy food choice, while those who scolded themselves dove right in. Perhaps the scolding made them feel badly, ramping up the craving for comfort food?

This seems like another case of adults adopting a strategy that we would not practice with children. We know to correct gently and focus on what children have achieved, rather than rant about mistakes.

(Though we’ve swung the pendulum perhaps too far with children, fearing scolding will warp their little psyches. I’m not advocating harsh treatment of children by any means. But I am reminded of a story from my family’s early parenting days. My toddler daughter scribbled a picture; Dad oohed and aahed. So she scribbled another one. He oohed and aahed again. This went on for twenty minutes, as the drawings regressed to just a pink line of crayon across a whole sheet of paper. Daughter was clearly testing out the fatherly admiration society, not producing art for her own sake. )

Let’s apply these rules about shaping behavior in our own heads. Next time you need to motivate yourself, focus on how you will feel better with triumph, rather than selecting shame as the motivator. I’d love to hear how this works for you.

No one was ever scolded out of their sins. ——William Cowper

The View

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Remember this?

For most of us, this common optical illusion was our first lesson in shifting viewpoint. Did you see a vase, or did you see two profiles? Lots of fun in elementary school–or intro psych class–to try to see both, and explore which friends saw things the way that you did.

I’ve been enjoying this series over at LiveScience called “What The Heck Is This?” It’s good brain-stretching to view their photos, playing the same little guessing game. I particularly like this recent one:

Simple: clouds, right? As to not steal any thunder from LiveScience, you’ll have to click over to their site to get the answer.

Here’s another one:

Others in our world are often the best source of valuable perspective, and this fountain reminds me of that lesson learned from my two year old, years ago. In my best mom-teaching voice, I called out to my daughter in her car seat to “look at the pretty fountain, with the water shooting up!” To which she replied, rather disdainfully, “and falling down again.” I simply hadn’t focused on both aspects. Silly me, in her eyes.

I’m reading a book called Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill

Imagine you are in a small boat in the midst of this:

Your experience? Likely to be tossed around, sick to your stomach, maybe even crash and hurt yourself?

But what happens if you back off?

Kind of pretty, I think. Certainly not threatening. Incredible shift in perspective.

Next time an emotional storm threatens to sweep you crashing into the rocks, remove yourself from it. Tap your fingers. Breathe deeply. Count to ten. Drink a glass of water. Meditate. Take a walk. Talk to a friend. Write. Pound up and down the steps. And find yourself rising above it, able to react in a much less damaging way.

Want to develop the skill to shift your perspective? Join me and a host of like-minded souls in my upcoming meditation training.

Family “vacation?”

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Practically everyone is looking forward to a vacation this time of year. Sit back, close your eyes, begin to let images drift into your mind about the perfect getaway. What do you see? Maybe you’re escaping the heat for a dose of mountain cool air or sinking into soft sand with the latest beach read. Maybe you’re sleeping until noon or bonding with your family, enjoying a beer and a raucous round of cards. Ahhh, each picture ramps up those expectations of your personal version of relief from summer and the hectic life you live, right?

Or maybe you have just returned and are devastated, or at least disappointed, about the discrepancy between what was imagined and what occurred. It rained, the kids screamed. You didn’t get to sleep in. Diapers, baths, meals continued to bombard you, if you’re a parent. Or maybe the magnetism of old family patterns launched you into autopilot. Within minutes during my last visit to my mother’s, I was bickering with my sister about who was right. Didn’t matter what the issue, the habitual way to relate seemed to grab us both and slam us into history.

There seems no better time to examine expectations than when facing holidays–and vacations count. I think we can start by dropping the word “vacation” in connection to visits to family, or trips to Disney World with preschoolers. Maybe we need to ban the word entirely when small children are in tow. Whether you are a parent or not, think back to your little reverie from the first paragraph–were there pictures of children in that? Be honest. Hmmm, I thought not.

Let’s change our ever-powerful wording again, and call these what they are: family trips. Excursions like this can be fun. But they are not relief from a parent’s regular life.

Just as with other celebrations, sit down and examine what you really want to get out of any trip. Make a list. Make concrete plans to have at least some of that happen. A psychologist friend, when his children were small, set up a schedule with his wife. When the family was out of town, he and his wife took turns being on kid duty: 8 am to 2 pm and 2 pm until 8 pm. Whichever parent was on duty fed, clothed, comforted, and amused the offspring. The next day the shifts switched. In this manner, each parent got to sleep in, go snorkeling, or lay on the beach and read. Takes two active parents and some discipline to enact this, but it’s well worth it.

So lay out your expectations, examine them, and develop a realistic plan. And when you’re stuffing those suitcases, make sure to pack your perspective and your sense of humor. Both are essential to a satisfying trip.

It’s all about the ratio

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We fallible human beings are inveterate black and white, all or nothing thinkers–especially when stressed. Either everything is good, wonderful, 110% perfect– your life, your parenting, your relationship, your job, your holiday, last night’s sleep, your weight, your food consumption–or everything is a mess and you are a dismal failure. One minor slip, and (fill in the blank) is all shot to h*)). One cookie wrecks the diet, so may as well have six more. One cranky moment where you snap at a child or loved one, and you are a wretched parent/partner. One hour–or even two–of restless tossing and turning at 3 a.m. ruins your whole night’s sleep. One traffic jam in an eight hour journey or one rainy day dooms the whole vacation. One missed deadline and you’re a terrible worker. If none of this rings true for you, sign off right now and go crack open a well-deserved bottle of champagne. You are perfect–or at least your thinking is!

If any of the above thoughts have ever crept into your embattled brain, consider one of my favorite phrases:

It’s all about the ratio.

Our lives aren’t judged by any single moment of success or failure, but by the ratio of wins to losses, grand slams compared to falling-flat-on-face-in- mud moments. Bad mommy moments to tender bedtime stories. Decisions that worked versus backfired with a vengeance. Judith Orloff says there are no wrong choices–some just lead to more painful paths than others.

When you are feeling badly about some completely human action you have blundered into, stop. Take a deep breathe. Do the math. There are 168 hours in the week. “Oh well” if you got sucked into sulking for one of them. You need to ingest 2000 extra calories to gain a pound. One cookie is only 1/10th of that. There are 365 days in the year, eight hours in a night of sleep, 100 assignments in a college career. Etcetera. You get the picture.

Self-compassion comes into play again. Forgive yourself, your errors; maybe even define what you can learn from them. Then refocus on your successes by calculating the ratio. Embrace the fact that we’re all doing the best we can, given our circumstances at any moment.

Standards to bear–or not?

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Last week, I wrote about the common human misperception that everyone around us shares our world view. When we believe that others think like we do, we stumble into dangerous territory, full of land mines of expectation.

You may recognize this thinking glitch in your own life. We expect others to hold themselves to the same standards that we enforce for our own behavior. “That idiot driver–he should use his turn signal.” “My mother should want the best for me–not be competitive and threatened.” “My friend should say thank you.” “My partner should put some thought into what would make me happy.” “The kids’ dad should play with them when he has them, not park them in front of a movie.” Who says?

Yes, in an ideal world, we would surround ourselves with people who acted just as we strive to act. What happens when reality hits, and many we encounter simply don’t behave in the way we would? It’s a certain recipe for frustration and anger.

In this situation, it’s helpful to take a deep breath and release that expectation. The standards are in your head. The target of your frustration can’t hear–or maybe does not adhere to–those rules in your head. Short of learning Jedi skills to instill the desired thoughts in that person’s head, you really have little control over them. But you do have control over your thoughts–that the party in question “should” (fill in the blank.) That’s all you can control–your expectation of others.

To release that expectation, try saying “huh–imagine thinking that way.” No time to judge; that judgement only fuels your anger. The situation just is. What other people expect of themselves is none of our business. Expect others to be who they are, to act according to the rules in their own heads. That’s what they’re going to do anyway. When you switch your own thinking, you can then either a) ask them to do it differently, in a very direct manner or b) realize that there can be any number of acceptable approaches to the problem at hand.

Control what you can: the thoughts in your head. Let go of the rest. That’s truly the full scope of your influence, after all.

But if you locate a Jedi mind training course, let me know. I’ll be right in line, signing up with you.

A Call to dads

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I know I said I’d address expectations for others’ behavior and how others may not have the same rules in their heads that we do in my next post. That will actually be next week. In the meantime, with Father’s Day this weekend, several bits of info popped up from the internet and I just couldn’t resist a comment.

So many couples get locked into the same roles they observed in their parents: mom was the kid and home maven, and dad earned the money. Over at CNN.com this week is a stellar message for stereotypical dads on what they are missing, inviting dads to “wake the hell up.” Even better, there are specific guidelines on how to step up. The benefits for kids of an active, involved father are huge, from increased vocabulary to healthier male-female relationships in adulthood. Read that column here, and please share it widely. And a heartfelt thanks to writer Jeff Pearlman for his honesty.

Not only do kids and moms need dads to be equal partners in the muck of day-to-day parenting, it seems that 65% of dads actually want that as well–while admitting that they don’t participate equally. Read a summary of that research here.

Who says dads have to stay stuck in these ancient patterns? Let’s challenge those assumptions this Father’s Day–and throughout the year. And moms, that might mean, when dad steps up, you have to let him do it his way–remembering the mantra “what matters is that it’s done–my way or not.”

Happy Father’s Day!

Kindness exercises

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As an addendum to the last post on being kinder to ourselves, here are two exercises to implement the goal of increased self-kindness.

1) Loving-kindness meditation is a classic strategy to open the heart and increase positive feelings toward self. While seemingly simple, this exercise can be incredibly powerful in releasing pent-up negativity toward self, allowing the love in your heart to rush in for YOU. And you only need three minutes.

Settle into a quiet, comfortable spot and close your eyes. Begin to focus on your breath, simply noticing the in and out process. Feel your lungs expand, feel your chest and abdomen rise and fall, notice the air moving past your nostrils. Once you feel the rhythm of your breath, repeat to yourself for several minutes:

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I feel love. May I live with ease.

On Thursday, when I posted the most recent post, I was upset about a decision I’d made, chastising myself for trusting someone else to do a job that I could’ve done. The perfectionist in me was running rampant with insults after the job was NOT done to my satisfaction: “How could you have been so stupid? You could’ve saved the money and done it yourself!” Suddenly, I remembered what I’d just posted about being kind to myself. I still seemed unable to turn it off. I closed my eyes, repeated the above phrases ten times, and was able to let the event go.

2) I’ve addressed bragging before, and how nice girls DON’T. So I thoroughly enjoyed this post over at Inviting Joy last week. Seems like a wonderful way to be nice to yourself, so take a few minutes to compose your own highlight reel today. This week, mine includes that ability to switch gears from perfection-driven harpy to calm self that I refer to above.

Redirect your kindness

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You pride yourself on being a really nice, kind person, right? You strive to treat others well–from your children to the overworked store clerk. You feel guilty if you snap at a loved one or overreact with the slightest harrumph after waiting unattended in the doctor’s office as the minutes tick to hours. Yet, in your own mind, you verbally assault yourself for perceived errors and experienced feelings, easily hurling aspersions of “stupid,” “weak,” “lazy.” Simply fill-in-the-blank with your favorite personal insults. Or maybe you deny your own needs, pushing yourself to the brink doing for others while neglecting your own sleep, exercise, nutrition, or fun.

Where’s your self-compassion? Your ability to treat yourself as well as you hope to treat others? Self-compassion is the new hot topic in wellness and happiness. Psychological research is building the case that self-compassion is the most important life skill. Children who learn to treat themselves kindly, withholding harsh judgments of self, become more resilient, brave, creative, and energetic than kids who learn to chastise themselves. If you’re a parent, chances are you agree that you want to teach your child(ren) to talk kindly towards self–even while you continue your internal self-bashing.

Kristen Neff, professor at University of Texas at Austin, is leading the charge against this current trend of beating ourselves up as a form of motivation, in our relentless pursuit to achieve. She found that being self-critical was perceived as a way to keep one’s self in line, supposedly protecting ourselves from sloth or failure. It backfires, leaving us depressed, discouraged, or anxious. Why wouldn’t this be true? We avoid chastising children in this negative way that we adopt so lightly in our own heads for just this reason. We accept that if we verbally berate others, they will feel badly.

But we can’t seem to adopt the same grace toward our own human failings. We have tempers. We make mistakes. We hate. We open our mouths at times when we’re tired, hungry, cranky, and $%*#!! escapes that we’d rather censor. Purposely and mindfully cutting yourself some slack is one place to start. Forgive yourself for being a regular imperfect person with powerful feelings. Talk as nicely to yourself as you would to a loved one or friend. You know how to do it–just aim it at yourself, rather than reserving the kindness for others. Accept your emotions, insecurities, and overreactions, withholding judgment.

Self-compassion is not all about words, though. It’s also about self-care: resting when you are tired, knowing when you need a break, asking for help, having a good cry, or scheduling in some fun. Grace toward yourself can be in the form of a massage or a night off, too.

To quote Judith Orloff, MD, on self-compassion: “we make progress when we beat ourselves up a little bit less each day.” It’s just baby steps: being honest about and accepting our human feelings and mistakes while avoiding the leap into overreaction and self-judgment.

Like quizzes? Here’s one on self-compassion developed by Kristin Neff. And the New York Times offers some of Neff’s tips for implementing self-compassion here.

Regroup on life’s winding path

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There’s an old story about the young bride and the ham. Cooking a ham for the first time, she lopped off both ends of the ham, threw them away, and put the ham in the pan to bake. Her husband questioned her–what was wrong with those pieces? They looked perfectly fine to him. The young woman answered “my mother always did it that way.” Humoring her husband, she called up her mom to ask the reason. Dear old mom gave the same reply–her mom had always cut and tossed the ends as well. Working up the chain of grandmothers in pursuit of the origin of this supposed necessary step in ham preparation, great-grandmother finally had the answer: to make the ham fit in her pan.

Even if you’ve never baked a ham, you may be a locked-in creature of habit. Two examples have jumped out lately. In infancy, parents strive to meet the baby’s needs ASAP, jumping at the least cry or whimper. It’s true that babies who are fed on demand and picked up promptly when they cry become securely attached to their caregivers and even cry less. And of course we don’t want our children to be unhappy–ever. As kids grow, however, this strategy needs to evolve. If parents don’t teach children that a) others have needs too and b) waiting is sometimes necessary, we risk raising self-centered brats with no capacity to soothe themselves or delay gratification.

An achievement-oriented, perfectionistic drive toward life is another strategy to revise over time. Working toward 120% throughout school, even into graduate/professional training and establishment of a career, is rewarded because it leads to accomplishments. At some point, however, the value of this over-the-top drive reaches the tipping point. Continually working for 120%–or even 100%—is exhausting. We feel never good enough; we’ve never “arrived.” We don’t allow ourselves to savor accomplishments, in favor of life balance. And when we try to back off, because of the human tendency toward all or nothing thinking, we feel like failures. Either it’s 120%, or nada. We don’t know how to find that middle ground of perfectly good–or even excellent–versus perfection.

When we forget to question the path, the tradition, the long-held strategy, misery and frustration can result. Needs and goals change; steps to achieve those shift. Who says the old way is still the best way? More of the same is counterproductive.

When feeling stressed or stuck, challenge your strategy. Do something different for a change. At the Chopra retreat that I attended recently, leader Davidji, challenged us to write down an expectation we had for the outcome to a usual interpersonal encounter. We then flipped the paper over and had to write five other possible scenarios–mind-bending, in a challenging and good way. The next time your strategic habit is not working, push yourself to generate five new alternatives. And then apply a new solution, for a possibly pleasant surprise–relief!