The Wisdom To Know The Difference Part 8

Practice Letting Go of Prison Words

We often live inside word prisons. Go back over the stories you chose and notice how easy it is to put in the words "impossible," "but," "always," "never," "must," "have to," "can't," "should," "shouldn't," "everyone," "no one," "right," "wrong," "fair," and "unfair."

On a piece of scratch paper, try rewriting a couple of the stories that speak to you using as many of these words as possible. Next, try rewriting them without using any of these words. You don't have to do it with all the stories, but try it with a few. Notice how hard it is to write these stories without these words. These words are the bars of the word prisons. They bar us from freedom to move in our lives.

Stories give us advice for living our lives. They tell us what we get to do and what we can never do. The "I have always been bad in relationships" story tells us to stay out of relationships, or it tells us to be super sensitive to anything that is going wrong or that might go wrong. The "I'm a coward" story tells us not to try new things. The "I'm stupid" story tells us to keep our mouths shut or perhaps to pretend to know everything.

Our Strongest Old Stories and the Inclined Heart Take a look at each story that you feel attachment to, read it aloud slowly, and listen to the sound of your own voice as your read. Let yourself hear the sounds of the individual words. Let your eyes go closed and imagine what it would mean to you to let go of the story. By letting it go, we don't mean making it go away. We're not aware of any reliable way to make negative stories go away and stay away. Instead, practice inclining your heart toward the story, turning toward it in kindness. Let whatever needs to flow into and out from your inclined heart just happen. And breathe.

Persistence For the last decade, Kelly has been doing a little exercise at workshops he gives for psychologists who are learning ACT. He asks them a question about the thing that they like least about themselves-pretty much the same questions we just posed to you. He asks them to think of something that has been hanging around for a while, that has caused trouble at work, in relationships, in school, in their family, among friends, and anywhere else in their lives.

He has the attendees do a little meditation on that with their eyes closed for a moment, asking them to reflect on the places they see this thing cropping up in their lives. Next, he asks them how long that "problem" has been hanging around: One year? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? Twenty-five years? The hand-raising follows a very predictable pattern: If you take the average age of people in the group, you'll get a smattering of hands up when the number of years takes them back to their teenage years. After that, more hands go up when the number of years is enough to get them back to their earliest school age. But mostly, all the hands will fly up when the number is just about the average age of people in the room. In other words, the things that we don't like about ourselves don't just show up one day later in life. They've been around forever.

After he gets the idea of how long these "problems" have been around for people, he hands out 3 x 5 cards and gets people to anonymously write down what these issues are.

What do they write? What does this room full of generally successful, educated people write about that "something" wrong with them that has been hanging around, most commonly, for as long as they can remember? Far and away the most common thing they write on those cards is some version of "I'm not enough." Sometimes it is "not good enough" or "inadequate" or "worthless." The rest are a smattering of "stupid," "boring," "phony," "incompetent," "bad," or "weak." He sometimes gets one in a crowd of seventy or a hundred who will say, "There's nothing wrong with me." Whatever it might mean to hold this perspective, it seems to be very rare.

Many, if not most, of these individuals will rarely if ever say anything to anybody about this story, about this deep and lingering personal sense of being flawed. If you asked how they are, they'd say they are fine without missing a beat. And if you look at them as a group, almost all of these workshop attendees-remember, these are all graduate-educated professionals-have and have had many of the things in life that their stories deny are possible: meaningful work, relationships, friends, and family.

Somehow though, logic does not carry the day. For Kelly, this raises one question: What if trying to make that story go away reduces your quality of life? In other words, what if battling with your own story leaves you less time, energy, and presence for the life you would like to have if only you were not flawed?

We think there is another way, and this is the way we're suggesting to you. You've spent a decent amount of time in this chapter figuring out what the stories are that define your life, where you try to solve problems that might not be problems at all, and how these stories might be keeping you imprisoned. What would it be like if you could just let go-if you could just step out of the fight? By letting go, we mean something more like letting go of investing in the story-investing your time, your thinking, your effort, your life. Like some crazy never-ending boxing match. What if the only solution is to step out of the ring?

Looking into an Empty Hole, Waiting for a Train to Arrive

This is a letter to a friend who was struggling with a terrible sense of emptiness. It was a theme that I myself knew very well, and I knew the struggle against it. It is my hope that this letter is helpful to you. What if the "empty hole" you find "inside" (and hate) is held in place by the struggle to not have an "empty hole inside?"

You did not cause the hole. Life just delivered it.

Or maybe you did and if so, welcome, welcome from a fellow hole sculptor.

You are waiting for "feeling less empty" to arrive you are wondering if "feeling less empty" will "ever" arrive you are waiting for "wanting" to arrive (wanting to go to yoga, wanting to meet a friend for coffee or a walk, wanting to travel) you wonder if "wanting" will "ever" arrive (other than wanting to want) if that "different" "better" life will "ever" arrive and, you are "thinking" that the best you can do is "fake it"

and wonder if you will "ever" be able to do "better" than that ...or if anything will "ever" change "this does not bode well" you tell me maybe you go and do things, but still, you wait, you look inside for "wanting" and "feeling less empty" to arrive but they are not there (inside)?

Only emptiness and uncertainty on the "good" days, and killing cert.i.tude on the "worst."

You are looking and looking inside for things that are not inside (and never were, and never will be).

And are not outside (and never were, and never will be).

It is like waiting to catch a train in the kitchen.

You look and look and look, but no train arrives.

In fact, you can't even see the tracks!

How will a train "ever" arrive if there are not even tracks?

But the "inside" you are looking "into" is not inside inside you will find blood and bones and nerves...plumbing, beams, wiring.

What you are looking for is not inside And it is not outside.

It is in the dance.

The dance between you and the world, the dance between you and living.

Let go of waiting for a day, an hour, a minute, this moment.

Let go of things like "other" "ever" "better" "different" for a day, an hour, a minute, this moment.

Dance.

Dance and mean it.

Go to yoga, take a friend for a walk or for coffee, travel.

Be kind, be gentle, and allow wanting to arrive in its own time.

and allow a sense of fullness to arrive in its own time.

They will come to the party, but they never arrive first.

They come after the dancing is well-begun.

So dance, friend! Dance!

I need to work on this a bit more, but maybe it is done enough for you, for this day, for this hour, this minute, this moment.

For now, much love, my friend, my friends yes, you too yes you P.S. Your job is not to stop your attention from turning inside (which is not inside anyway) it is to gently return your attention to valued living when it wanders "inside."

Exercise: The Book of All Things

Pick a good big heavy book. Imagine your story is in this book. Imagine this is The Book of All Things. In this book is everything you have ever done. Every thought that you have ever thought. Every feeling you have ever had. Everything. Everything? Yes, that too. Everything. Spend the next hour doing whatever you need to do: brush your teeth, eat breakfast, comb your hair, but do not, under any circ.u.mstances, put the book down. Imagine holding it in your hands everywhere you went for a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. Imagine noticing how tightly you have held onto it. What would be hard to do? Also, you would need to keep people from noticing that you carried it. They might ask what is in it. They might ask to take a look. You would likely find a way to carry it that kept anyone from seeing it.

And, finally, imagine just setting it down. What might you do with those hands if they were not clutching that book? What might you see if you lifted your eyes from that story and looked out into your own life-into the possibilities that might be waiting there? What might you hear if you stopped repeating the words of that story over and over again? Might your life speak to you? If it could offer you some gentle guidance, where might it guide you? Adopt the inclined heart and sit with these questions. If you find your old pals worry and rumination showing up, imagine them as books and gently set them down-returning each time to your inclined heart.

In Appreciation of Crashing, Bliss Following, Hero's Journeying, and Practice

Sometimes I have been asked about my experience with crashing. Because I have a history of the darkest depression, people ask me if depression ever visits anymore. It does not look like it looked in 1985. Then it was a really gory train wreck and would last for months and months and sometimes years.

Let me give you an example from about 1981. I was unemployed. I did not work much before my thirtieth birthday, and what I did do was mostly off the grid, so unemployment was my usual occupation. But this was a time when I actually had had a little job working at a community center. I liked that little job, though I drank at lunch, as was typical for me in those days. Ronald Reagan got elected and the community center all but closed down with the immediate round of budget cuts. With the cuts, I was the first to go.

My baseline was dysfunctional in the extreme, but I had been doing well-for me. Anyhow, I got into this funk. My wife was working a couple of jobs to keep us afloat. Some days when I was home alone, I would literally crawl into the closet and sit at the back of it with the door closed.

I recall a day when my little brother came over. I was lying on the couch watching TV with a case of beer sitting beside the couch. He came in and sat down and said "What are you watching?" I had no idea. I hadn't bothered to figure out what was on-I was just lying there staring at whatever was on that channel. He asked, "Why are you watching this?" I shrugged. I asked Dave if he wanted a beer. He said "Sure" and I reached into the box by the couch and handed him one. He looked at me and said "This is warm!"-I shrugged. It just did not matter. Nothing mattered. Just lying there, smoking weed, drinking beer, counting the days, waiting for the end, but fearful it would just go on and on and on.

I have not been that funky in many years. I do still have times when I am down. Sometimes they stretch out a bit-maybe even weeks. But the funkiness is different-more permeable to things going on around me. I don't stop moving, and, even when I'm in a funk, there are times when I get engaged in things I care about and liven up. Richness can permeate-at least sometimes. The lows and stuck spots are somehow more flexible. There are some ups mixed in with the downs.

Before it was dead flat; life was a dull, draining monotone. There was no variation and nothing leaked in. The lows now are less sticky-everything that happens does not seem to get folded into the funk.

Why? Well, it all started the first day of June 1985. I said yes. I made a deal with the universe that whatever was on my plate on a given day, I would clean my plate and say thank you. So, if what was on my plate was depression? Okay. If it was fear? Okay. Or if it was doubt or guilt or anything else? I cleaned my plate.

Not entirely coincidentally, the last drink or drug I had (except medical) was the last day in May 1985. Drinking and getting high were my major strategies for saying "No" to what life put on my plate (definitely not my only strategies, but major strategies).

So the start was acceptance. And movement. I got up each day and to the best of my ability I did the next right thing. I went to work. I paid my bills. I paid my child support. I tried to do what a citizen would do-all new stuff for me.

Gradually my activity increased: first work, then school, work, more school, more school, more school, and life spread out before me. Engagement in life increased-broadened and deepened. I learned a little at a time to let go of what my head had to say to me about myself, my future, my possibilities, and the same for others.

Instead, I started using my values, not my thoughts, as a guide. In the Joseph Campbell series that I was watching, called The Power of Myth, Campbell was saying "follow your bliss." And he very clearly did not mean hedonism.

I spent a long, long time, and still do, inside questions generated by watching that show. What would it mean for me to follow my bliss? What would my life look like, over time, if I were to do that? What would I do in the next day, morning, or moment that would move me in that direction (even ever so slightly)? Will my next act move me in the direction of my values? Or away? If away, can I just let that go for another day?

Campbell also talked at length about the hero's journey. What might my own "hero's journey" look like? What if I let myself dare to have what Campbell called a "hero's journey?" (Even now, I shake a little with fear that it might sound pompous or presumptuous to call my own journey a hero's journey, or to even imagine one.) Why has this changed over the years?

1. I have practiced coming back to this moment, right now. Heaven knows I have had a lot of opportunities to practice, having strayed from it so often (present moment).

2. I have practiced staying more open to what I feel and think (acceptance) without attachment (defusion).

3. I have practiced being in a continual process of authoring the direction my life is taking (values), and practiced letting go of rigid attachment to particular outcomes (defusion and acceptance).

4. I have practiced doing the next right thing (values and committed action).

5. I have practiced noticing (perspective taking) that this practice has opened up possibilities that I would never in a million years have been able to dream of prior to that choice on June the first 1985.

And I have failed-and I mean failed hard, hard, a lot, a lot, over the years, and I keep coming back to the practice. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but so far, I have come back one more time than I have gone away and this morning, this very morning, this very moment, I am declaring that practice to be enough...without justification, without consultation, without approval (including my own). I declare this practice to be enough. I expect my practice to change over time. How? Can't say. Will it change? I would bet on that. But for this day....I am declaring International Enough Day. Here and now is enough. This practice, cracked and a bit leaky, is enough.

I invite you all to imagine your own personal hero's journey. I invite you to leave the end of the journey open to possibility. I invite you to let the tiniest act-this day, this morning, this moment-be enough.

Finding Value in It All On the trail of psychological flexibility, we've discussed: Learning to be still when it matters Learning to be flexible in your perceptions Learning to accept both the sweet and the sad Learning how to hold our thoughts lightly Up to this point, we've talked vaguely about "richness" and a "life well-lived." In the next chapter, we'll take up more seriously the issue of choosing what it is that you want all of this striving and struggle to be about. We'll be discussing the idea of values.

AA and the Gift of Defusion

Although defusion, or holding stories lightly, is not discussed in particular in the AA literature, the sensibilities are common. The basic idea behind fusion is that we become trapped in and by our stories. When we look through the lens of our stories, it causes a lot of seeing and not seeing. Remember our prison words: always, never, impossible, everyone, no one. People often come into AA with a dead certainty about the past and the future. One of the things that happens in AA is that people get a chance to listen to many, many stories that sound impossible to resolve-stories of ruin and degradation, stories involving tremendous losses. We also find people who have inexplicably risen from the ashes of an impossible situation and found lives that are rich in meaning and purpose.

The fourth-step inventory is a good way to loosen your grip on stories. In the inventory, 12-step members take multiple different approaches to stories of resentment that have haunted them for years. The very process of changing your relationship with these old stories of right and wrong can have a dramatic effect on your ability to live in the presence of those stories. You do not have to determine if the stories are correct or incorrect, you do not have to agree with them or like them, you do not have to resolve them. In that fourth step, you learn to change your relationship to them. In the end, you have your stories instead of your stories having you.

Consider the following often-quoted pa.s.sage from the AA Big Book, fondly referred to as "the promises." This segment follows discussion of the ninth step of AA, in which members are asked to set about a systematic course of mending situations in their lives in which they have broken with their own values and brought harm to others. Step nine is the amends step.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole att.i.tude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that G.o.d is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us-sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. (AA 8485) This pa.s.sage often gives members pause. Stuck inside stories, these do seem like extravagant promises. But hearing these words sincerely spoken in meetings, hearing members who had indeed slipped far down the scale and have found themselves in the midst of rich and meaningful lives, opens the door to that possibility for the person listening closely to the pa.s.sage. It creates just a bit of s.p.a.ce between the listener and imprisoning stories. We invite our own readers to bring up the promises as a topic at meetings and to listen carefully for these stories. Allow yourself to become curious about the real possibility that you too might be telling just such a story of liberation, some years down the line.

Another aspect of defusion is the idea of not taking ourselves and our stories so d.a.m.ned seriously-holding the stories lightly. These sensibilities are often evident in the humor one finds around AA meetings. For example, a common AA saying is "If you want to give G.o.d a good laugh, tell him your plans." This may sound dismissive, but it can also be understood as pointing to the very human tendency to be completely certain about things that just turn out to be false. For example, most people in AA meetings were absolutely certain that they would never become alcoholics, are divorcees who were absolutely certain that they would never divorce, are parents who were certain they would not make their parents' mistakes, and so on.

Life contains a lot of surprises. This does not mean we shouldn't make plans, but it does mean we should hold the stories we create about our future lightly. Living one day at a time does not mean "don't plan." No great house was ever built without a plan. One day at a time means that the plan needs to be lived one day at a time. It means that we need to hold our plans lightly, since the world is a dynamic and changing place and if we are living well we are growing and changing. A plan held too tightly can begin with good intentions but end badly.

In about 1940, some members of AA were considering some rules for conduct for the AA members, and different groups around the country were adopting different rules. One member sent forward a list of sixty-one rules. Bill Wilson reportedly warned that attempts to impose even less grand sets of rules had failed again and again; however, as is the tradition of AA, the making of rules was not forbidden, since AA has no means to forbid anything. There was simply a warning. As it turned out, the member wrote back some time later saying that the advice had been right and that the sixty-one rules had been a disaster. The member also sent along a card labeled "Rule #62" that he had mailed to AA groups all over the country. It read simply, "Rule #62: Don't take yourself too d.a.m.ned seriously" (Kurtz 1991). Thus was born the AA saying "Don't take yourself too d.a.m.ned seriously." From an ACT perspective, this seems like good advice.

There are many other 12-step sayings you might hear in meetings that contain this admonishment to hold what we think lightly. "You have a thinking problem, not a drinking problem" points to a tendency to get caught in worry and rumination and to lose direct contact with your own life. It is, of course, really a warning against overthinking, not thinking per se. The problem of fusion is a problem of letting thinking about life subst.i.tute for life. In keeping with the oftentimes self-deprecating humor found around AA, a favorite saying is, "Don't go into your mind alone; it's not a safe neighborhood," and there's this version from Narcotics Anonymous: "An addict alone is in bad company." These sayings can be interpreted as negative self-statements, but if they are held lightly, and in kindness, what they point toward is the human tendency to become so engaged in a.n.a.lysis and speculation that we lose contact with the directly experienced world. When you hear a recovering alcoholic, sitting in a church bas.e.m.e.nt at an AA meeting, say with a smile on his or her face, "My best thinking got me here," you are not looking at self-hatred, you are looking at someone who has learned through trial and error that sometimes their best thinking on a given day is a great source of amus.e.m.e.nt on another day. Sayings like "Don't intellectualize, utilize" are calls to action. Thinking about recovery is not the same as active recovery. AA is a program of action, not a program of thinking about action. Ponder, for example, the saying "The three most dangerous words for an alcoholic-'I've been thinking.'" As with the other 12-step sayings, even the saying ought to be held lightly. No one, and I mean no one, with an ounce of sense thinks that you should give up planning and thinking. But as the Serenity Prayer suggests, recognize the things you cannot change. And if you find yourself grinding through some thoughts over and over and over and over, and, yes, over-maybe, just maybe it is time to let go of thinking for a moment and choose some small act, or series of acts, that serves your values. As they say in AA, "Do the next right thing." This is not just AA folk wisdom; there is a substantial body of scientific evidence that shows that worry and rumination-a couple of very popular ways to get lost in thought-produce bad outcomes. And there is also a convincing body of evidence that suggests that moving your feet and actually doing things (sometimes called behavioral activation by psychologists) is very good medicine. In closing, on this little note, consider this AA adage: "In AA you live your way into a new way of thinking. You do not think your way into a new way of living."

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