from: http://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/currentissue/item/2643-point-of-view/2643-point-of-view
"...We Americans believe profoundly not only in the pursuit of happiness, but in our unalienable right to obtain it. Despite roughly 5,000 years of written evidence to the contrary, we believe it isn’t normal to be unhappy. That’s why we have so many approaches to therapy and so many therapists. In general, we don’t want to stick around with psychological pain a second longer than necessary to get it excised from our life.
The problem is, according to Steven Hayes, professor at the University of Nevada, former Haight-Ashbury hippie turned behaviorist, and the developer of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), we’ve got it backwards. In fact, it’s suffering and struggle that are normal—and not the reverse. Furthermore, dealing with our inevitable psychic struggles by trying to get rid of them doesn’t work and may actually make them worse.
Instead of countering and correcting our negative thoughts, as classic cognitive therapy argues we should do, Hayes believes we should acknowledge those thoughts, accept them rather than challenge them, and then get on with living as full and worthwhile a life as we can. That’s the commitment part of ACT, and the tough-minded part as well. Hayes has stated elsewhere, “When we learn how to just notice our depressive thoughts and feel our feelings as feelings, deliberately and fully, it turns out that we can begin to live again, right now, even with depressed feelings or depressogenic thoughts. And when we do that, we start to move. We’re able to contribute to others and to make a difference.”
Versus this that I took from Elizabeth Gilbert's recent FaceBook status update:
Dear Ones -
Climb, climb, CLIMB out of that rut!
Do whatever you have to do to get yourself free.
Cut off your hair and braid it into a rope and pull yourself out of that rut by hand if you must...but do not make yourself at home down there in the dark, narrow, trench of sorrow and numbness.
My friend Pastor Rob Bell says that the definition of despair is "the belief that tomorrow is going to be exactly the same as today."
Don't fall for that belief.
It doesn't have to be the case.
Three years into my own dark season of depression, I remember thinking, "Maybe this is just my new reality now. Maybe this isn't a 'bad phase' that I'm going through; maybe this is just how it is now, and how it will always be. Maybe this is who I am now — a perpetually sad and aching person, who has no hope. Maybe I need to just accept that realty."
Because nothing seemed to be working I almost went furniture-shopping, in other words, to decorate my rut.
I almost made that rut my permanent address.
But some other, more stubborn, part of me, was like: "NO. We're getting the hell out of here."
The thing that's tricky about saving your own life is that it doesn't generally happen overnight, and it doesn't happen in one straight line. It's not like you get a little better every single day, in terms that you can measure on a graph. It's more like: two steps forward, one step back, three steps sideways, no steps at all for a month or so, and then finally one more step forward.
Recovery and ascension are a frustratingly slow and jerky process.
But if you keep doing the things that take care of you, the general direction will be upward. It may be slow and twisted, but it will be mostly upward. You will rise. No matter how long it takes.
In my case, the things that took care of me were: therapy, prayer, meditation, exercise, antidepressants, the solace of good friends, the comfort of reading good books, the practice of forgiveness and atonement, exposure to nature, looooooong walks, heart-opening acts of generosity, sometimes awkward attempts at self-compassion, listening to non-sad beautiful music, trying to get perspective on the human condition through philosophical study, trying to distract myself by learning Italian, getting rid of objects that held bad memories, setting boundaries with people who hurt or shamed me, moving to a new place...etc, etc.
It was not one thing that saved me, in the end — but all these many things combined.
That was the complex rope I braided, to pull myself out of the rut.
It was not always easy to do those good things for myself. It is easier to stay numb on the couch, or to cry in bed with the covers over your head, than it is to drag yourself outside for a walk on a sunny day — or to ask a friend or a doctor for help.
But I would make myself do these beneficial things, because somewhere deep inside, I knew that I WAS THE ONLY STEWARD OF THIS TROUBLED SOUL, and that I had to save myself.
Nobody could pull me out of that rut but me.
People could help — and they did help — but I ultimately had to get out of there myself.
Slowly, month by month, year by year — imperceptibly at times — it worked.
Do not make yourself at home in despair, Dear Ones.
Do not give up on loving stewardship of your troubled soul.
Climb, climb, climb."
And also this part that I copied from a status update on Mike Rowe's FB page:
"Of Assholes and Authenticity
Mystic Meaning writes:
Dear Mike
I'm amazed by what you've created here. It's an inspiration to see how a guy who is really just being himself can generate this tsunami of love and admiration. But being yourself, as odd as it sounds, takes practice. It takes knowing who you are, as Socrates says. This seems to be what you have done. Do you have any thoughts on what it takes to be yourself, the practice of it, the work of it? As paradoxical as it sounds, do you think people need to spend more time "working out" their "true self muscles?”
Hi Mystic,
Thanks for the kind words. It’s been fun to watch this place grow, and while I’m flattered by your suggestion that “being myself” is the sole reason, I’m afraid you may have overestimated my natural charms. Like most people on Planet Earth, I was born lazy, helpless, greedy, and selfish, and I’m pretty sure I’d still be that way if my parents hadn’t insisted I become something less obnoxious. The degree to which they succeeded is debatable, but with respect to the whole nature/nurture conversation, one thing has become obvious to me over the years - being myself is easy. Being someone better is not.
There’s an old comedy bit that goes like this:
First Guy: What is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful?
Second Guy: Well, it intensifies your personality.
Third Guy: Yeah, but what if you're an asshole?
Existentially speaking, the Third Guy makes a point worth pondering. Why do we assume that all personalities will benefit from being intensified? Moreover, what happens when a genuine asshole is encouraged to be himself?
Millions of people are convinced that something good and virtuous resides in each of us, just waiting to be discovered and explored. They spend billions of dollars searching for their “true self,” secure in the knowledge that finding it will put them on the path to becoming the best person they can possibly be. But remember what Socrates actually said - “the unexamined life is not worth living.” He didn’t say, “examining your life will automatically make you less of an asshole.”
I suspect Hitler knew exactly who he was, and acted accordingly. Likewise, I think Castro and Stalin were probably just “being themselves.” So too were Jim Jones, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Lizzie Borden, Osama Bin Laden, and millions of lesser known creeps and villains currently serving time in prison for “working out their true self muscles.” Last I checked, our entire planet was bursting with billions of regular Jane’s and Joe’s who lie, cheat, gossip, steal, and then reflect on their bad behavior as anomalous or “out of character.” My philosophy is this:
If you want to be less of an asshole, stop acting like one. If you want more people to like you, do more likable things. Regardless of all the personal enlightenment, we’re not judged in this life by what we discover within ourselves or what we come to believe - we’re only judged on what we do."
Versus this from Pema Chodron:
"We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth.
They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake."
"A professor from grad school used to remind us that the measure of maturity was the extent to which one could live with ambiguity. Why do I still find myself stuck marveling in adulthood how often I have to hold paradox in trembling tension? It grates at me not to resolve the unresolvable.
Maturity means growing into the space where the world does not make sense and yet we agree to live there. Because it can still be good. Because there is no other option."
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