Archives for 2023

Why you continue to reach for an empty glass to quench your emotional thirst.

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When it comes to relationships, it’s all too easy to keep reaching for the same empty glass to quench one’s thirst—the primal thirst for relationships that offer understanding, connection, support, and comfort.

This manifests in continuing to seek, from those incapable of giving it to you, the emotional succor you crave. It’s a fool’s errand, unproductive at best, often incredibly painful, and like an addiction. So, why do it?

It’s human to keep returning to that emotional dry well because you have invested years into those relationships. Most often, they are with parents, siblings, children, and long-term friends. This is where the tyranny of hope becomes a problem. Habit and hope keep you returning when part of you knows you will be disappointed. It’s also easy to understand how with long-term relationships you can come to believe: If the very people who claim to love you the most can’t give it to you, there’s no hope of finding it elsewhere. Thankfully, nothing could be further from the truth.

Accepting loved ones as they are, even when the relationship is not as deep and supportive as you wish it were, takes a lot of practice. Deep down, there may be resentment. If you’re a highly sensitive person or an empath, you may feel that you’re giving them what you want and not getting it in return. The sooner you cease expecting water from a dry well, the sooner you will seek better connections elsewhere. They may be with a stranger, therapist, or with yourself. After all, can anyone ever know you as well as you know yourself? Probably not.

Letting go of unrealistic expectations is one of the hardest things in the world.

It’s easy to believe that with enough kindness and attention to close friends and relatives you can magically coax what you want from them. You can’t. In an article I wrote many years ago on this site called Scripting, I suggested actually telling people the words you want to hear. While that can be wonderful when you’re in a crisis, it doesn’t change the other person. They will, as we therapists say, revert to type. The minute you stop feeding them lines, they’ll return to their own narrative.

Having a long history with someone increases the desire for deep mutual support and understanding. So, despite your experience, it’s natural to keep coming back, but it doesn’t help. It only creates grief and resentment.

Remember: No one wakes up in the morning, gleefully rubs their hands together, and thinks: How can I disappoint the people I love the most? They, as you, are always doing the best they can.

What to do going forward?

Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Those relationships, even if they are less satisfactory, are still important and valuable. Get what you can from them and be grateful, because those people probably love you. If they could give you what you seek, they would.

Once you grieve the loss of what you wish you could have had with them, create new relationships with yourself and others. Actively seek people who satisfy your desires for a different kind of relationship, whatever that means to you. Develop inner resources, what almost every piece on this site teaches, to support you when you feel lonely, grief stricken, angry, frustrated, sad, anxious, or anything else unpleasant or scary.

As much as it’s wonderful to feel seen, heard, understood, and supported by another person, you will be with yourself every second of your life. Cultivating the best relationship you can with you is the ground you emotionally stand on.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

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A recurring theme in therapy is the Buddha’s second arrow. It refers to the fact that whatever is difficult or painful in life is exacerbated by the negative self-judgment we inflict on it.

This is a crucial concept for separating pain from suffering. As the Buddha supposedly said: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. There are many things in life that can cause emotional and physical pain, but we exacerbate it when we put ourselves down for how we react, when we think we shouldn’t feel what we feel.

Focusing on the Buddha’s second arrow is helpful because it reduces our suffering, but it’s also important to acknowledge that the first arrow, while not a mortal wound, hurts. Sometimes, it hurts a lot.

The whole point is that we can’t always control the first arrow. Most of the time, it’s simply life having its way with us. The second arrow is another story. When we put ourselves down for anger at feeling emotionally overwhelmed, or anxiety about a health issue, we don’t allow the natural flow of emotions to a truly difficult or painful situation. By acknowledging how we really feel about something, whether it’s anger, grief, or anxiety, we can process it more fully, and we can still deal with the challenge du jour (the first arrow).

The Buddha’s second arrow can be very sneaky. It hides in plain sight when we think things like:

Buck up!

Stop being a wimp!

Self-pity is emotional indulgence.

Plenty of other people have it worse than you do.

There’s no reason for you to feel this.

Stop being so negative.

You should be grateful for everything good in your life.

You can do better than this.

You have no reason to be depressed, anxious, angry, etc.

Get over it already.

It’s easy to see how putting oneself down for reacting to difficult life experiences only magnifies pain. Sleuthing out those deeply held, yet often hidden, self-critical beliefs can be incredibly challenging. One way is to ask yourself: 

Can I allow myself to experience this, whatever it is, without thinking that I should be experiencing it differently? 

If I am angry, let me allow myself to feel angry. 

Let me give myself permission to feel all my emotions, even if they seem unproductive; and, especially, if they seem disturbing. They won’t last. Nothing does.

Some might say what’s the point in feeling angry,? It won’t change the situation. The point is to feel the feeling.

Here’s an example:

A couple of months ago, I heard a very loud noise outside one of my windows. I took a look and noticed that somebody was chopping down a very old, beautiful pine tree on my property. They had started at the top, so there was no saving it as they were already halfway down the trunk. Unbeknownst to me, my neighbor noticed some of the branches were touching his house and he would get rid of the whole tree. This neighbor is not somebody with whom I want to engage. I know that nothing will bring the tree back and it’s unlikely anything good will come from confronting him. So, what to do? On a practical level, I hired somebody to dig out the stump and clear the land, and I’m in the process of trying to figure out what to plant there. But what about my anger? It’s clearly my property and he had no legal right to do that, but I can’t bring back the tree, and I can’t turn this person into someone who will think differently. It’s a done deal. Actually, when I looked at it, I realized anger was one of the ways my grief was showing up. Intellectually, I knew that expressing my anger to him, or expressing it in some other physical way, like hitting a pillow, would be a fool‘s errand, so I didn’t do either one. On numerous occasions I acknowledged I was angry and let myself feel sad. Yes, it’s only a tree, but I was bullied, and I didn’t like it. Allowing myself to feel anger and grief didn’t bring back my tree, nor did it change my neighbor, but being honest with myself helped move the experience along.

At no time do I recall thinking I shouldn’t feel my feelings, though I knew that no matter how much I felt them there was nothing I could do to remedy the situation.

In a case like that that, I could have easily suppressed my anger and grief, since expressing it wasn’t conventionally constructive. But that’s not the point. The point is to feel our feelings. They are there for a reason. They help us process life experiences. No one works to stuff their joyful, happy, or delighted emotions. Why not assume that the darker ones are equally important?

Getting back to the Buddha’s first and second arrows. If we allow ourselves to fully react to the first arrow without self-downing, we might be able to avoid the pain of the second arrow.

Giving ourselves permission to feel everything, even when those feelings challenge our sense of who we are, scare the hell out of us, or seem as if they will never end, is the path to less suffering. Reacting to the first arrow may feel unpleasant, but it’s honest and real. When we think we shouldn’t feel anger, for example, because it’s pointless, unproductive, and probably won’t change someone or something, we cut ourselves off from our feelings. This would be OK if they vanished, but they just go into hiding and accrue. Eventually they come out in physical symptoms, addictions, or self-defeating behaviors.

The Buddha said there were only three important things in life: kindness, kindness, kindness. He also said there is no one more deserving of compassion than you. Allowing yourself to feel your feelings is the kindest, most compassionate thing you can do for yourself in any situation. I know it’s hard, but you’re worth it.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

Surprised by joy

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How many times in life have you been surprised by joy?

What about the time you made a new friend? Had your first ice cream cone? 

Saw a sunset like no other? Unexpectedly fell in love?

Surely, there have been thousands of big and little moments when you were awestruck, shocked with delight.

One would think it easy to call up those moments of elation in times of stress, disappointment, or grief, but it isn’t. As neuroscientist Rick Hanson has said: “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. That shades “implicit memory” – your underlying expectations, beliefs, action strategies, and mood – in an increasingly negative direction. We all have this built-in negativity bias. If you had trauma in your childhood your unconscious mind, even though it seems unhelpful, has strengthened your negativity bias to keep you safe. The more aware you are of possible danger, and the more you remember negative experiences from the past, the more wary and watchful you will be in the present.

It turns out, biology cares more about staying safe than enhancing your joy. Luckily, your conscious mind can choose to focus on things, especially the tiny ones, that make life worth living. It’s your job to figure out what those are. The more the better.

The British writer, Iris Murdoch, has some great advice in this regard. She said: “One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better.” 

Anyone over the age of two has discovered, even if they can’t yet articulate it, that life is a series of joys and challenges. When we’re young, because we’re so egocentric, and we think the entire world revolves around us, we are prone to feel responsible for making joyful things happen as well as feeling responsible for negative experiences. This is why children, no matter how many times parents tell them otherwise, think it is their fault if the parents fight or divorce.

Clearly, once we are adults, we consciously realize that we’re not responsible for most things that happen in the universe or even our own microcosmic orbit.

Yet, for the unconscious mind forged in childhood, old habits die hard.

No one ever told us we have to work at being happy. This has never been truer than now when threats of environmental extinction hang like a sword of Damocles over everyone’s head. Of course, the Middle Ages and the bubonic plague were no picnic, but they didn’t have the Internet and second by second updates on every horrible thing that was happening.

So what’s a human to do? Seize the joy. Ferret out every little thing that makes you smile or brings delight. If your back hurts, focus on the 98% of your body that doesn’t. (You might even practice something called Pendulation, where you consciously move your attention and breathe back-and-forth between a part of your body that bothers you and a part that feels safe or neutral. It helps if you do this with alternating sides of the body.)

Savor things. Mindfulness practice, something you can do on and off all day long, enhances your experience by consciously focusing on it. When you’re eating something delicious use all five senses to slow down and fully experience it. When you’re listening to a favorite song, let it inhabit your body. You might even dance. If you’re doing yoga, qigong, walking, or swimming, embody the sensations and breath. 

Naturally, there are times in life where we have no choice but to be mindful. Some of these might include making love, riding a roller coaster, or getting caught up in a movie. They were memorable because we were fully present.

Yet, we’re still Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive. So, sometimes, when life feels less delightful, that old negativity bias will take over.

Though they may sound like opposites, I’m going to suggest a counterintuitive thing that you can do to support yourself when life is not going well or you’re upset about something. The first one comes from Buddhism and it’s peppered and throughout this website. Give yourself a cosmic permission slip to feel everything you feel. Furthermore, sit with it, name it, and allow it. As the Beatles said, Let it be. This is the hardest thing to do. Yet, it will set you free. Every cell in your body, mind, and spirit wants to push away pain. That’s natural. When we allow ourselves to fully feel the magnitude of our grief, for example, it can move through us. When we consciously or unconsciously suppress it, it lingers and festers.

Once you have allowed yourself to inhabit your current thoughts, feelings, and experiences, you can then remind yourself that:

This, too, shall pass. Everything in my life already has.

I can consciously remember good times and choose to believe they will come again. They will be different, and I can’t predict them, but life has shown me, through its kaleidoscope of joys and sorrows, they will appear when I least expect them.

It’s not easy being human. It’s up to each of us to curate our own life as best as we can. Though we wish it were otherwise, we can’t control most things that happen. So let’s control what we can, or at least try to.

Start today with this meditation from the free Insight Timer app and see if it doesn’t make a difference: https://insig.ht/HxCHZIjslBb.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

Me or thee practice for codependents, over-givers, perfectionists, and do-gooders.

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Lend yourself to others but give yourself to yourself.

Michel de Montaigne

 

Since the title of this piece was long enough already, I resisted adding how helpful this tactic is for people with TMS (tension myositis syndrome), neuroplastic pain, or mind-body issues.

The Me or Thee practice is, as the Chinese might say: Simple, not easy.

Whenever making a decision, no matter how small it is, ask yourself if it it serves you or someone else. By all means, help other people, but make sure that, at least, half the time you feather your own emotional, psychological, physical, fiscal, environmental, and social nests. 

If you have spent your life being overly responsible, perfectionistic, and bending over backwards to help other people, it’s time for you. The Me or Thee practice is a perfect way to remind yourself you matter just as much as anyone else. Yes, there will always be someone in need of your help, but a dry well doesn’t slake anyone’s thirst. Even the Buddha said: There is no one more deserving of compassion than you. Heed that wonderful advice and take the very best care of yourself you possibly can by asking yourself: Is it me or thee who will be served by this behavior?

Many years ago, I read a shocking truth in the New Yorker magazine about a man who was giving away all his organs. Naturally, his family was extremely upset as the only result would be his inevitable death. It is possible to be overly generous if it depletes you on any level. Sadly, if you are an over-giver, the only time you might recognize how much it’s depleting you is if you feel physically ill, overwhelmed, or exhausted. 

Perfectionistic, overly responsible, do-gooders, have had these warning signs for years. Given their habit of putting other people first, they power through their own emotional and physical fatigue to help someone else instead of tending to themselves. It’s easy to see how a steady diet of this can lead to burn-out, illness, and even death.

Thankfully, you can change. It won’t be quick, but with loads of kindness, self-compassion, and patience you can incrementally learn that you are just as worthy as anyone else. 

To change requires an unflinching awareness of how deeply ingrained these patterns are and how diligent you have to be to shift your behaviors. It requires a gradual re-wiring of your brain to feel, think, and behave differently, not an easy gig when society reinforces all that giving with accolades.

Immerse yourself in this practice by repeating the mantra: Is it me of thee? In time, you will reap immeasurable benefits. Just remember, if you spent your life finding value, purpose and meaning by putting others first this recalibration will take a Herculean effort.

Many of you reading this might think: That’s so selfish!

No, healthy self-care and balance in life is not selfish, it’s the adult, responsible thing to do. The best way to care for others is to take the very best care of yourself. The pendulum has to swing all the way to the other extreme before it can end up happily balanced in the middle. Over-giving has always been unbalanced. Learning to conserve some of your energy for yourself, to rest and be “unproductive,“ might actually save your life.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang 

If you are currently in therapy, here’s a question for you.

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Is there anything you wish your therapist asked you but hasn’t?

If there is, maybe it would be good for you to bring it up. As much as therapists are generally sensitive people, many are even empaths, they don’t have ESP.

Therapy is a collaborative experience.

For true collaboration, both people have to contribute. Are there any topics or experiences you have been reluctant to share but feel may be valuable to discuss? If your therapist hasn’t opened the door to a conversation you yearn to have, you might want to bring it up.

If that seems daunting, here are a few ways you can prepare yourself.

Do a written or audio journal in which you answer the questions:

What am I afraid of?

Am I concerned my therapist will see me differently, judge me, disagree with me, or think she can’t work with me anymore?

Am I afraid of being triggered if I simply bring up the topic?

Is my shame over something stopping me?

Have I spent hours, days, months, or years, putting myself down for something I think is too egregious to bring up?

Am I afraid I’ll break down and start crying, or even sobbing?

Am I afraid my therapist won’t understand me, and if she doesn’t, what hope is there?

If I divulge this, will she know I lied about something in the past? (If you are concerned about this, please read the piece on this website called: Why Do People Lie To Their Therapist?)

Am I afraid I will be too embarrassed to come in for another session?

If you didn’t like something your therapist said, or the way it was said, what stops you from mentioning it?

Please, remember: Your therapist works for you. If you are in therapy, I hope you have a wonderful relationship with your therapist. Trusting, safe, and supportive, where you feel treated with kindness and respect, as you are truly heard and seen. Even if that’s the case, you, or your insurance company, is paying your therapist. He or she works for you. You are entitled to ask for what you want.

The essence of therapy is feeling safe enough with another human being, who is not your partner, child, friend, parent, sibling, or clergy member, to be your authentic self. I have always believed it’s a sacred relationship, unlike any other. If you want to get the most out of the experience, be as honest and forthright as you can be.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

How bad does a relationship have to be for you to leave it?

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Have you ever looked at your relationships and wondered how much unpleasantness you’re willing to withstand to stay in a marriage or friendship?

Everyone has a different internal gauge for how much discomfort or misery they are willing to endure. This internal tipping point is based on their childhood and their own emotional constitution. While that might make it sound immutable, it is more flexible than you think.

For most people, it feels incredibly disturbing, even scary, to go out of their comfort zone. By comfort zone I mean this internal demarcation between the safety you feel in a disturbing or unpleasant relationship and the insecurity you feel relinquishing it, or even thinking about a change.

To an outsider, this may look like a fairly easy decision. But it almost never is. Why would you stand for someone treating you poorly? Because you’re still getting something valuable the rest of the time. In addition, our society does not equate emotional abuse with physical abuse. If your mate punched you every time they saw you and you ended up in the hospital with a broken nose, nobody would suggest you keep going back. On the other hand, if they belittled you every day and you divorced, many folks would wonder if you lost your marbles.

EMOTIONAL BONDS AND TRAUMA BONDS 

Emotional bonds can feel as if they are epoxied to our very essence. In addition, the strongest bond, especially if it’s a trauma bond, comes from intermittent reinforcement. In behavioral psychology, intermittent reinforcement is when you get what you want some of the time but you can’t predict when that will be. Just like gambling, you get enough of what you want to keep you in the game. Unlike gambling, in a relationship there is the nascent hope that if you are kind or patient enough you will somehow get more of what you want. Conversely, there are some people who think if they yell, scream, or cry enough the other person will be motivated to change.

If you recognize yourself in a trauma bond with your partner, but you aren’t ready to leave, you can use creative separation strategies. The most important of these is setting good boundaries. When your friend or mate behaves in a way that you find disturbing you calmly separate. You might say something like, “I don’t like it when you talk to me that way, so I’m going to go for a walk.” If you know your partner is particularly challenging when under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, it’s a good time to get out of their orbit. This may not always be easy or even feasible, but taking responsibility for yourself and physically separating from someone’s hurtful or disturbing behavior can be very empowering.

Trauma bonds and poor boundaries are almost always the result of childhood experiences. Being an adult child of an alcoholic, growing up with a raging or unpredictable parent, having a parent who over-protects and/or neglects you, all of these can easily create a tendency to be codependent. One of the hallmarks of codependence is difficulty being assertive and setting healthy limits on what you are willing to endure. That intermittent reinforcement schedule keeps you waiting for the next good thing.

If you do decide to set better boundaries, or even leave a relationship, expect that you will feel extremely threatened, anxious, and unhinged. Almost any deep internal change creates cognitive dissonance. Part of you feels cellularly attached and part of you wants the freedom that comes from taking better care of yourself. This is why the Holy Grail of psychotherapy is helping you feel safe inside yourself. But nobody feels safe inside themselves 100% of the time. You are a work in progress. You’re moving towards feeling safer. Be patient.

Anyone who has been through a divorce, especially after a long marriage, knows how incredibly difficult it is to make a major life change. It’s a gamble on your own potential for growth. And when you do it without the emotional safety net of having another person ready to substitute for your ex, you have to face yourself. As difficult as this is, because it’s rare to feel secure when your life is thrown into a blender, it’s the path to creating that internal sense of safety you thought you would get from your partner. The truth is, there is no real safety in this life.

TWO WAYS TO FEEL SAFER 

While there is no real safety, there are two ways to feel safer. Living with a willing suspension of disbelief, where you don’t focus on all the worst possibilities, and creating a refuge in yourself. Most of this website is devoted to the latter.

It takes a lot of courage to live even one day. Whether your internal world feels chaotic or you see chaos in the world at large, neither inspires a sense of security. Yet, if you live in this moment, “the thinnest slice of now” as my friend says, you can get through anything that doesn’t kill you.

Most choices in life are options along a continuum, rather than extremes. In other words, it may not be a question of staying or leaving a relationship, it may be staying and changing the relationship from within. Changing the relationship means changing how you respond, not changing the other person. That’s their job, and they may never do it.

Everyone has different tolerance levels for what feels acceptable or unacceptable, and those invisible lines can change throughout a lifetime. What you might have cheerfully accepted in your 20s or 30s may be untenable in your 40s or 50s. Staying curious, open, and committed to your own personal development, gives you the latitude to make different choices, even if those don’t align with who you think you are, or are supposed to be. Usually, who you think you are is based on who you think you were. Thankfully, who you think you’re supposed to be can become less relevant with each passing year as you naturally evolve.

It’s very difficult to accommodate this shifting inner demarcation of what you’re willing to accept or not accept. The most crucial thing you can do as you tolerate the fallout from a major life change is to lavish yourself with kindness, patience, and understanding. These precious gifts to yourself can be incredibly elusive if you grew up in a household where they were in short supply, or spent years in a challenging relationship. There is only one way to become more loving toward yourself: practice, practice, practice. It can take years to create an inner sanctuary. Along the way, you will notice how much quieter your inner critic and negative voices become. Patience and curiosity are your best friends along this path to self-love and unconditional self-acceptance.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang