"There are men who seem to have started in life with a bottle or two of champagne inscribed to their credit; whilst others seem to have been born close to the pain-threshold, which the slightest irritants fatally send them over."
-- William James
I know which one I am and I sometimes wonder why it should be so. I know that everyone struggles with their own particular issues, but some days I feel no one struggles as much as I do and no one has made as little progress as I have. I shake my head and fear there are certain knots in me that will never be untied, that even as I go to the grave I'll be dealing with the same resistances and cravings and negative voices as when I first started out. On champagne days, I think that's a good thing - it tells me there's no end to the depth inside and no end to the work that always leads me to energy and surrender. But mostly I use the fact that I struggle as proof there's something wrong with me. I beat myself up for not being perfect, for being human. In other words, some days I accept my struggles and even relish them, while other days, maybe most days, I struggle with the fact that I struggle.
Blaming myself for struggling is a way to keep me in the struggle, not making progress. Blame, shame, an anxious focus on self - they're bright shiny objects dangling in front of me, entrancing me, saying, "Dig in. Don't move. You know it's useless to hope so stay in this fog which requires nothing from you, never pushes you to take a risk and create the possibility of change." They keep me from even making an effort; they keep from willingness.
I can see the process of change has at least two aspects for me. First, I need to get free of my usual culprits so that I am willing to try, and then I have to gather the courage to act. For someone like me, mostly on the wrong side of the pain-threshold, getting free enough to act is no easy thing. And I realize that's the aspect I most blame myself for, having to find a way to surrender shame, blame and self-loathing, even at this late date. Why haven't I banished them, or at least made them into a low wall I can easily step over? Why is my stuff this stuff?
I've laid out an anatomy, a schematic of my struggle with struggling. These ideas are sometimes helpful but the fact is change never comes to me through rational thought or insight. It comes when something I can't grasp inside me shifts, when grace comes in and takes the veil off my eyes so that I feel new strength and clarity and see I'm in a different place. All the time I think I'll never escape blame, shame and self-loathing, wheels inside are turning; progress on my path is slowly being born. I become willing, ready to embrace my struggles and set free the energy to change.
I was thinking about how humans are symbolizing animals. Culturally, we've created huge symbol systems - God and morality to name two of the most complex. "God" is made up many symbols - rituals and sacred books, houses of worship, the tenets of faith, rules and regulations - each of them symbolizes particular ways of being and belief and all of them are multiplied mind-boggling times all around the world. Morality is fluid with symbols that are always evolving - ideas of "right" and "wrong and should" (two very complex symbols) mean different things to different people and are always subject to change.
But there are much smaller symbols up and down the symbolic ladder; every time we use something as small as a word, we're using a symbol. We have a symbol for that thing with legs and a flat top - table - but "table" is arbitrary, simply something we've agreed to call that particular thing. It could easily be called Fred and if it was we'd see the thing with legs and a flat top. For each of us, "table" gives rise to an image in the mind but I have no way of knowing if our concepts of "table" exactly agree. I may see a dining table; you may see a coffee table, while others may see a very long line of "tables." It isn't the table that arises in our minds; it's the concept, the symbol of "table," which has individual and private connotations for each one of us. Also, we may not picture anything at all when we hear or read (a purely symbolic activity, nothing but words giving rise to images and ideas) "table". We're so familiar with what it is that we don't need to stop and visualize anything at all, at least not consciously. It's like not actually reading the names of characters in a Russian novel; after a while, we don't see a name or even a group of letters and we still know exactly who is speaking or being discussed..
All that is an unnecessarily complex prelude to the simple reason I was thinking about symbols in the first place: my love of vistas. When I stand looking out at a wide vista, I immediately feel expansive, exalted, have a certain sense of grandeur that only comes for me from the widest possible view. Time stops as I look out and I can feel how eager I am to take it all in, to note every last thing about the landscape and the color and the light, and I can gaze with time stopped until I feel full.
"Vista" has become a powerful metaphor (a symbol) for me. Alone in my room or just moving through the day, I can think "vista" and feel an echo of what I've felt at the brink of a high cliff, the top of any mountain, even the 35th floor of a building with an unobstructed view. "Vista" helps me step back for a higher perspective on myself. It sets off something optimistic and connected in me, an energy that wants to go forward, to embrace the most encompassing view of all my possibilities. "Vista," what it symbolizes to me, sets off the feeling of freedom.
Everyone has their individual metaphors and symbols. For some it's the ocean while others see the forest or a still blue lake and idiosyncratic others I can't even guess at. The important thing is that we nourish these symbols of aspiration, allow them to put us in touch with our best nature as they expand our sense of self. They become one of the most inspiring elements of change.
I've said many times that the solution lies in letting go of whatever it is that's blocking me. It sounds as if it's easy and simply letting go - however I understand it at any particular time - will quickly bring change. I know from experience that isn't so. Whatever the change I've wanted, I've had to become willing to struggle to let go and I've had to do it over and over again. It's true that every time I've let go and let new energy come into my life, it's helped me stay on the path to change. But sometimes that's barely discernible. Time goes by and it feels to me that I'm making no progress. No progress at all. It's very easy to get discouraged.
I've had to learn change only comes slowly. I can't think of a time it's come all at once. Even when I believe I'm willing, I may still make no progress at all. My willingness meets resistance and I hang motionless at the dividing line. Nothing will happen if I'm not willing, but it's also true that nothing will happen until I acknowledge my resistance and work to let it go. That's the letting go behind the letting go. It's a very long process.
Do I want to stop smoking? Yes, I'm willing but I can't seem to get to actually throwing the pack away. I'm afraid of who I'll be without the crutch of a cigarette; I don't think I have the discipline. I'm ambivalent, and some part of me is echoing St. Augustine's famous "Lord, make me abstinent -- but not yet." A lot has to happen internally to allow me to get past that "not yet," to bring me to being unafraid to risk knowing who I'll be without a cigarette and to imagine that I might have the discipline after all. Willingness has to wrestle with resistance until finally I'm no longer ambivalent and am ready for a real attempt at letting go. That takes a long time.
Do I want to let go of pride and arrogance? I'm very willing but in fact I don't understand how pride and arrogance work in me. I remember once signing up at a temp agency that gave a basic math test. I couldn't believe how simple it was so I did it quickly and although there was time to go over my answers I didn't think I needed it. Well, I was shocked, shocked to learn I had gotten three wrong. It wasn't until much later that I understood why I didn't take the time to check my answers: pride and arrogance. I had known their dictionary definitions but I hadn't a clue of how they worked in me. I prayed to be willing, I thought I was willing, but I still had to uncover all the subtle ways pride and arrogance lived in my consciousness and affected my actions. Only then could I make much progress in letting go. That takes a long time.
Sometimes change moves at a glacial pace and it's easy to get forget that wheels are turning inside. But once you know what you're aiming at - giving up cigarettes, learning to recognize pride and arrogance - the process is set in motion. When people quote St. Augustine, it's usually to nod in identification with that "not yet." But it was the first part of that prayer that moved him step by step toward change.
I'm a very impatient person. I want things when I want them and if they don't come quickly I'm as likely as not to give up trying to get them. The voice that says, "Nothing is happening. Why bother? Give up," is sometimes very loud. It repeats and repeats, a negative mantra, installed in me a very long time ago. But I know now that voice isn't telling me anything that has to be the truth. It's only an old habit, a way for me to have excuses not to do the hard thing, not to struggle with my own imperfections, not to aim high. I'm able to pay less attention to it than I used to. I practice patience and do what I can to deepen my faith in my own possibilities. And I remind myself, as many times as I need to, that change, deep change, only comes slowly.
I used to have a lot of stuff on my kitchen counter - a canister of coffee, the coffee machine, more than a dozen knives held in a wood block, a small bowl for spare change, a roll of paper towels, and odds and ends that were meant to be temporary but somehow never moved. Sometimes, I had trouble clearing enough space to do whatever it is you usually do on kitchen counters but I hardly noticed the inconvenience. It simply didn't occur to me that things could be different.
Last week, I made a change. I moved the bowl of change onto a shelf outside the kitchen, found a place in one of the cupboards to store the block of knives, cleared off the odds and ends. That left the coffee canister and maker and the standing roll of paper towels. Now, when I walk into the kitchen I'm amazed at all the space. I could cater a five course meal without a problem at all.
What took me so long? Why was I so able to ignore the inconvenience? Why didn't occur to me to make things easier for myself? I have some idea of the answers - these are questions I've asked myself many times before over different problematic areas of my life.
It turns out I have a high tolerance for inconvenience. I can step over a pile of papers on the floor for days instead of picking it up and finding a place for it. I can put off depositing checks in the bank despite knowing my account is running low. I can sit with the pain of isolation without making a move to connect with friends and go out. Then one day something shifts inside and I pick up the papers, get the checks in the bank, call up a friend and make a plan for dinner.
Full frontal attacks on whatever the problem is don't seem to get me moving. I wish they did, but there's a perverse resistance in me and it's that I have to work through. "There's a problem, why don't I deal with it, I have to deal with it, I don't want to deal with it." That litany goes round and round in me... until "one day something shifts." I didn't decide to clear off the kitchen counter - instead, I just found myself doing it. Clearly, the time had come.
In the face of change, there's a pushme-pullyou inside me and as long as the conflict, the ambivalence lasts I can't force myself to act. I need to chip off little pieces, sometimes tiny pieces of my resistance, until, like Michelangelo's statues emerging from the stone, right action emerges from me. Why can't I hurry it along? I don't know, maybe I'll never know, but in any case, I've learned not to ask this particular why. After all, I know from experience: it just takes what it takes.
Yesterday, an opportunity to send my work out into the world came up. I felt a familiar flicker of excitement, but it was short lived - immediately an even more familiar voice said, no, that will never work, no point in even trying.
It was only in talking to a friend a few hours later that I realized what I had done. I had deflected a good possibility before I even explored it by allowing the voice of self-censorship to be the loudest voice I heard. I saw the pattern I've repeated so many times - an idea or opportunity arises and I deflect, squash, allow it to pass. It's as if there are templates inside me and when things present themselves I automatically sort them - in this case, opportunity went into the I-always-deflect template.
Telling my friend put the possibility out into the world, instead of leaving it in my head where it could have drifted for days until it disappeared. We quickly made a step by step plan of what I could do to follow through and in the time since I've done what I said I would.
All day today, I've felt a subtle energy, something light and clear. I've realized what it is: the energy of hope. Not the hope that I will put something out into the world which will be recognized and rewarded, but the hope that I can change the old patterns which have so often in the past kept me from doing so. I can't control what happens after I've done my part. All I can do, and it's crucial, is to act in spite of binding old habits. I can accept the challenge of change.
Isolation is one of my default settings. I distinguish between that and solitude - solitude is the alone time everyone needs - to reflect, create, calm down. My isolation is of another order - it's the thing that makes it hard for me to get out the door or initiate plans with people and stay in touch with them even when I want to. It's what keeps me invisible - lets me be invisible. It's a feeling that descends on me as soon as I turn away from people, away from the world.
There's no point outlining the anatomy of my urge, need, compulsion to isolate. I know enough about it; I want to know how to change. Powerlessness is one way in. Not the kind of powerlessness that's an admission of defeat, or enslavement or in fact anything negative. My admission of powerlessness is an opening. It allows me to take my white-knuckled hands off the frantic need to figure things out and change myself in an instant. There is no kindness to myself in that and it doesn't help in any case. Change doesn't come when the knives are out.
The powerlessness I mean creates a enough space so that I can take a deep breath and relax into the moment, this moment. Willfulness, the endless jockeying of my mind looking for a sense of control - all that dissolves and I feel myself expand. That's where the kindness is, the compassion. Without the calm that comes when I allow myself to feel that kindness, there's no chance at all that anything will change.
"Plasticity then, in the widest sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits." -- William James
Substitute flexible, malleable for weak...plasticity, able to be shaped, molded, able to change. Not all at once, dramatically, but step by step, gradually so that equilibrium can be maintained. When it is you find yourself in a new place, acting in a new way.
A slow transformation...I picture an old fashioned scales with suspended plates (or whatever they're called) on either side. Add a weight and then another to one and slowly the plate that was high becomes low. There's a tipping point, a moment and it's elusive, impossible to discern.
The only physical exercise I genuinely like is walking uphill. I used to walk up one of canyon trails that begin where the pavement ends in Griffith Park. This particular trail was steep for the first ten minutes or so. When I first began walking up, I'd stop after those ten minutes, out of breath, my muscles sore.
One day, I found myself feeling bad because I stopped. It seemed like a wimpy thing to do. Nonetheless, I continued stopping but day by day the bad feeling deepened, the sense that I was letting myself down. You know what comes next - a day came when as I took my first steps I said to myself -- no stopping. If it kills you, you're going straight to the top. Reader, I did.
I think about that walking very often because I see in it the slow transformation of self. For a while, I choose to stay put rather than take the risk of changing. But slowly wheels turn inside, the scales tip, the line is crossed. I realize I can't stand the pain of staying put and I take the risk of change.
I no longer wish I could will myself across that line. I no longer believe that if only I could find the right words, ask the right questions, have enough information, change would come in a minute.
Flexible and strong, change coming in small increments, slow but from a very deep place. I'll take it. Gladly.
There are "frameworks" and "contexts" which are the opposite of what interests me. Many contexts grow out of rigid ideas - the orthodoxies of organized religion, political ideologies, conspiracy theories. These are closed systems and their main characteristic - and failing - is that they don't allow for new information and ideas. Everything that might be "new" is made to fit a locked world view, interpreted as further evidence of the rightness of the particular set of beliefs. These systems constrict rather than expand, limit rather than increase.
All beliefs - those that constrict and those that expand - are just that, beliefs. For a long time, I believed every negative thought the voices in my head shouted at me, believed that I wasn't good enough and was doomed to frustration and unhappiness. I thought there must be something fundamentally wrong with me, some flaw I couldn't see. And because it's hard to act against that tidal wave of fear and doubt, the facts of my life lived out those thoughts. I was frustrated and unhappy, felt alien and isolated; I censored myself over and over again because, since I was doomed to failure, what was the point of even trying to achieve and connect? These self-loathing, self-lacerating beliefs ruled me and turned me into an emotional anorexic; I was starving for connection and purpose but I couldn't feed myself. I was living in a closed system of negative beliefs and everything that happened was proof of the rightness of those beliefs. How could it be otherwise when I myself was the main witness for the prosecution?
Then something inside me began to shift, and the closed narrow ideology of my self-loathing and fear slowly, very slowly showed enough cracks so that the light of hope, at first a despairing kind of hope, could come in. A flicker of possibility, the merest shadow and I grabbed on to it. I didn't know it then, but I had come a great distance in order to begin, to climb out of the bushes and step on to the path.
Questions worth asking:
If belief, meaning and value are conferred by us through our interpreting consciousness, how do we know what's True with a capital T? Does Truth even exist?
How can we create a new context through which to judge our experience, transform a context that constricts into one that expands?
How do we move toward freedom?
