Big D

“In order to open ourselves to the rich possibilities relationships can bring into our lives, there needs to be an acceptance that those same relationships can also bring hurt, sadness, and ache.”

"Your best defense is a good offense." This might be true on the field or court but this strategy stays confined within those narrow parameters. For our lives, the best defense is a strong, impenetrable barrier between us and anyone who comes near. We saw that Cass used a pair of sunglasses to prevent others from coming too close and knowing him. He was safe from the pain that often comes from being in relationships but his precautions simultaneously denied him access to the comfort and intimacy that relationship provides. (All of this, of course, is happening unconsciously. Most of us don't wake up declaring we are going to push people away.)

In order to open ourselves to the rich possibilities relationships can bring into our lives, there needs to be an acceptance that those same relationships can also bring hurt, sadness, and ache. But we have been emotionally destroyed and devastated in relationship so feeling pain is not an option. We were made and desire to be known so being in isolation is also not an option.  So we creatively attempt to circumvent the natural consequences of authentic connection so we can still experience closeness while avoiding pain. We want a guarantee that we can experience intimacy and come out unscathed; it is a non-negotiable. Enter: self-protective defenses. 

“We want a guarantee that we can experience intimacy and come out unscathed.

Enter: self-protective defenses.”

The thing is, self-protection doesn't yield what we seek. We find that we don't have everything we want: perfect relationships and constant elation and euphoria, for all our effort, eludes us. Conflict, misunderstandings, and disappointment creep in. How dare they! To keep them at bay, we return time and time again to our perceived 100% guaranteed protective way. We WILL have pain-free interactions with people. To secure this, people must be pushed further and further away. This emotional distance reinforces people are dangerous. As a result, you feel the painful consequences of loneliness and despair. Our desire for healthy, real relationship is thwarted time and time again. We don't know HOW to change because we are unaware of what TO change. 

Defenses, in and of themselves, are neither good nor bad; protecting ourselves is wise and healthy. The question is whether they are being used in a way to benefit and help you or if they are stunting growth and development. Becoming more aware of these protective ways of relating to people allows you the ability to determine what TO change and you can then see HOW to grow through self-exploration. These stories must be honored and given a place to safely be shared. Remember, the best defense is a good offense. 

Coat of Armor

“My shield is down.”

— Cass

There's a reason children (and adults alike) anticipate Halloween. Outside the bounty of sugar they will soon possess, it's an evening dedicated to being someone or something you're not. For a magical evening, you get to transform into whatever your heart desires and have it be accepted and sometimes even praised. 

If we take a closer look, there's something powerful in what the external can provide. Superheroes have their capes which can instantly transform an average news reporter into the Man of Steel. For us mere mortals, we have power suits, haircuts and access to blogs and online tutorials demonstrating how to dress for success. I find nothing wrong with physically transforming ourselves or wanting to look our best. The problem lies when a dependence is formed on physical measures to give us a sense of who we are.

“The problem lies when a dependence is formed on physical measures to give us a sense of who we are.”

The podcast, Invisibilia, is one of my new favorites. In the episode "The Secret Emotional Life of Clothes" the creators explore what clothes provide for their guests. 

One such guest, Cass, is "convinced the right article of clothing could transform him". As an adolescent, after daily encounters with bullies, he set out to find a way to make the bullying cease through what he wore. After multiple clothing experiments, he landed on a pair of sunglasses and to his delight, the bullying ended.

Cass found that these sunglasses provided him with protection. He was transformed into someone different, someone who was no longer made fun of, someone who was not the source of abuse and life was better for it. In fact, they worked so well that Cass has literally taken this defensive measure into adulthood. To this day, he still wears his sunglasses, day and night, indoors and out, with his closest friends and strangers alike.

He genuinely believes they hold a "magical power" and have the "ability to protect bullied kids". He explains that "shielding the eyes can provide cover to people who need it...special advantages for those who choose not to wear a mask over their face". But at what cost comes this cover?

Those who know him describe him as "Look[ing] at the world through a telescope". He stands at a distance with a physical and emotional barrier. This "shielding of the eyes" prevents him from intimate knowledge of people closest to him. Cass does not even know the color of his ex-wife's eyes. This measure of protection, his defense of choice, changes how he sees the world. It keeps him locked in a world of being the bullied adolescent that is unsure if he is safe or not without his sunglasses.

The interviewer asked him to take his sunglasses off and reported that he looked "naked" and "vulnerable". To her, he changed and seemed different. He explained that he feels flustered without his glasses ("My shield is down"). These glasses have been given power to embolden him to engage the world.

“The objects offer security to the degree the child allows it.”

These physical barriers of protection, what I call defenses, mirrors what happens on an emotional level. It isn't the sunglasses themselves that actually kept bullies at bay but rather what it gave Cass, a sense of power. It's the same with security objects children have. The objects offer security to the degree the child allows it. 

I'm not disparaging that Cass needed to find a way to protect himself. I'm glad he found a way to survive the cruelty of others. He resourced himself with what was available at the time. But he's an adult now and what was once used to help him is now harming him. He is unable to engage others without them. Because his shield is always up, he misses out on deeper, more intimate relationships and in turn others miss out on truly experiencing him. 

“Because his shield is always up, he misses out on deeper, more intimate relationships...others miss out on truly knowing and experiencing him.”

We are all walking around with our own version of sunglasses, our own shield. And like Cass, we needed them at the time but what was once helpful is now harmful. The cost of a shield is an honesty that is missing, a prevention of intimacy. Do we want to live life with little access to people and ourselves?

What might it mean to let others see you? What might it mean for you to see yourself? 

We'll explore the answers to some of these questions later this week.

Belongingness

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody. I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

— Mother Teresa

We are a tribal species. No man is an island, you've heard. Studies have proven this inherent pull to be a part of something is crucial to our ability to not only survive but thrive.

In a CNN article entitled, "The Importance of Belonging", Amanda Enayati reported on such consequences, "Isolation, loneliness and low social status can harm a person's subjective sense of well-being, as well as his or her intellectual achievement, immune function and health. Research shows that even a single instance of exclusion can undermine well-being, IQ test performance and self-control." 

It is clear we were wired to belong. But there are many things that can threaten our sense of belonging. Whether through a choice we made with isolating consequences, difficult life circumstances or harm inflicted by another, we find ourselves lost and alone.

How are we to find our way to a place with receptive and open arms? Storytelling. Social psychologist and Stanford assistant professor Gregory Walton found that placing our traumatic experiences in a narrative "with a beginning, a middle and an end" provides "meaning [that] the negative experience is constrained, and people understand that when bad things happen, it's not just them, they are not alone, and that it's something that passes."  Through sharing their experiences, his studies' subjects learned that they are not alone when terrible things occur. It brings awareness that others have also experienced similar things. 

“How are we to find our way to a place with receptive and open arms? Storytelling.”

By withholding our stories, we choose to live cut off which can lead to feelings of isolation and depression. However, by offering our stories, we can discover an emotional connection to another that fosters a sense of belonging which can lead to healing. We are comforted that we are not alone in our struggles. 

Academy award winner Mahershala Ali speaks to the importance of both telling and listening to stories, "When you peel all the layers away, we're all the same. We're all dealing with wanting to be a part of a tribe. We all need to be supported. We all need a presence in our lives." The beloved saint would agree. 

“We’re all dealing with wanting to be a part of a tribe. We all need to be supported. We all need a presence in our lives.”

— Mahershala Ali

Beyond the Beast

As we continue to dive into this notion that compassion gives life to empathy, I thought it might be helpful to pull from another beautiful piece of literature, La Belle et la Bête by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. This fairy tale is better recognized from the Disney film adaptation, Beauty & the Beast. 

“We give shame the authority to be narrator and shame’s theme is that we are unworthy of love, of belonging, of kindness.”

While the Beast's plight is due to his own arrogance and pride, unlike Boo Radley, they both experience the painful consequence of being outsiders. They are dismissed and discarded; they are unseen. When we agree with the narrative that others create for us, we become what it is they believe and cast away any notion that it could be different. We give shame the authority to be the narrator and shame's theme is that we are unworthy of love, of belonging, of kindness. And so our Beast, believing he is unworthy of redemption, remains isolated, ferocious, and terrifying. He relates to the outside world the way he does to his internal world. 

That is, until, a woman steps in to counter the story he has surrendered himself to.

Emma Watson, who plays Belle in the live-action version of the original animated film, describes the power in their relationship, "What's so beautiful about this story as a whole is this idea that Belle is able to see past these extraneous, external, superficial qualities of Beast. She is able to see deeper, and that's one of her special powers. It is her superpower: empathy." 

“She is able to see deeper, and that’s one of her special powers. It is her superpower: empathy.”

— Emma Watson on Belle

She juxtaposes Beast to Gaston, "[Beast] has been damaged and needs rehabilitating. He is just in need of love, whereas Gaston is someone who has had nothing but love and admiration and easiness and because he's never suffered, he doesn't have any empathy." How interesting that she correlates suffering to empathy. But is that not true? If we are unwilling to be affected by hardship and pain, we will remain blind.

Belle's own sufferings have allowed her to see "deeper" and in seeing Beast, she saves him. All it takes is one person to see who we were meant to be and can be that can unshackle us from shame. Empathy is  powerfully healing. Empathy says, "I see you. I see your pain. I see your struggle. I see your hopes and longings. I'm here and I'm with you." We need empathy to find our way to our truest self. 

“All it takes is one person to see who we were meant to be and can be.

Empathy says, “I see you. I see your pain. I see your struggle. I see your hopes and longings. I’m here and I’m with you.””

Porch views

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

— Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird

One of my favorite pieces of literature is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it for the first time as a freshman in high school as part of our summer reading assignments. The relationship formed between Scout Finch and Boo Radley left me with a powerful example of compassion. At the end of the novel, young Scout stands on the porch of the reclusive town outcast Boo Radley. She looks out and for the first time, sees how he sees and experiences the world. And something within her shifts. 

It is a profound gift to offer and receive the compassion of another human being. Someone willing to step into our skin, to stand on our porch, in order to understand. Compassion begets empathy; empathy is the foundation for authentic relational connection. Without the cornerstone of compassion, we cannot be in healthy, thriving relationship. Relationship is disrupted when we demand others behave as we want and judge their motives. It is only when we choose to see the world as others see can we begin to understand what author Ian Morgan Cron describes, "one's behavior is born out of a singular biography, a particular wound, a fractured vision of life". This is true for our own stories; we all see from our own porch steps. In order to live fully, we must pay attention to the experiences that have shaped us. The more we acknowledge these defining stories, the more deeply we will feel compassion for others and ourselves.  

While we can't change WHAT we see or what others see, we can consider HOW we see. This posture creates a beautiful greenhouse of transformation. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist teacher, explains, "When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can't accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don't make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform." 

As we cultivate a heart of compassion, our vision becomes more clear; our vantage point expands to see what we couldn't see before and something within us shifts.

““Atticus, he was real nice.”

”Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.””

— To Kill a Mockingbird

G.O.A.T.

“Once our basic needs are met, we human beings arguably crave value above all else.”

— Tony Schwartz, "The Enduring Hunt for Personal Value"

Over the last year, we've been privy to some spectacular athletic feats on the track, on the field, in the pool, and on the court. Usain Bolt, Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky, Serena. Inarguably holding in their respective fields, the coveted, "Greatest Of All Time". 

The amount of time and energy (emotional, physical and mental) sacrificed at the altar of winning can be brutal. To be within the league of the elite, one must live with an intensely hyper focused drive to endure the training regimen these Olympic and World Champions put their mind and bodies through. Why? Why not retire after your 5th gold medal or 3rd Super Bowl ring? Most will never know the feeling of standing on the top podium representing your country, let alone having done it 28 times. 

“With success comes a level of sadness. You think, “I’ll reach this goal and then I’ll feel a sense of completeness. I’ll feel that I have accomplished something. I will see myself as a worthy man.” And it doesn’t really exist.”

— Vincent Kartheiser

In an interview, Vincent Kartheiser, actor on Mad Men, captures the answer to the continued pursuit to be on top, "With success comes a level of sadness. You think, "I'll reach this goal and then I'll feel a sense of completeness, of wholeness. I'll feel that I have accomplished something. I will see myself as a worthy man." And it doesn't really exist." 

Expounding on Kartheiser's sobering reflection, Tony Schwartz, writes in a New York Times article, entitled, "The Enduring Hunt for Personal Value", "Once our basic needs are met, we human beings arguably crave value above all else. We each want desperately to matter, to feel a sense of worthiness."

No matter our profession or economic bracket this desire to be valued is the great equalizer. Inherently, we all want to know that we are worthy. That's why shame is so incredibly toxic. Shame tells us that we are inherently defective. To combat this feeling, we continue our vain attempts at proving shame wrong through perfectionism, being the best.

Shame researcher, Brene Brown, writes, “Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.” She talks about the antidote to shame: “Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” This is the definition of vulnerability. In order to grow an unshakable sense of value and worth, we must decide to offer our truest stories to safe people who will receive us with unconditional empathy. This suffocates shame.

As we do this over time, the pull towards success and perfectionism becomes less strong. The desire to be wholly seen, warts and all, while still scary, is not as threatening as it once was, so we live with a courageous invitation to be known, first and foremost to ourselves. This posture spurs us toward an openness in relationship. And we come upon a redefined experience of value that has nothing to do with output and everything to do with the source. 

“The desire to be wholly seen, warts and all, while still scary, is not as threatening as it once was, so we live with a courageous invitation to be known.”

Gold Digger

Supply/Demand. Sold out. Often times we fear that the fluctuating market of our emotional experiences will leave us wanting, with little to no provision remaining. This is especially true when we are in a season of struggle. We respond by isolating our emotional resources from others because we are afraid the demand cannot be met. But what if there was an endless supply? What if there was excess available to you? What if that mine of treasures was within your possession and you were not left to scavenge? You do not need to hoard for fear the well of emotional sturdiness will run dry.

“You do not need to hoard for fear the well of emotional sturdiness will run dry.”

We rarely take inventory of our internal resources until they become threatened in some way. Whether that be through relational conflict, loneliness, life demands, or transition. We then ask and assess, “Do I have what it takes?”  and “Can I deal?”  We are afraid to answer because we fear the possibility that we don’t have what it takes and might be incapable to deal.

I consider my clients some of the most courageous people I know because they risk asking and investigating what they possess in order to face what comes their way. They do so with vulnerability, authenticity, and a fortitude that looks a lot like grit. Because the unknown is more paralyzing than the answer, they set forth to find what treasure trove lies beneath, what their endurance will reveal about their truest selves. Over time, they discover they are lavishly supplied with what they need and more importantly, that they are their own source. They are then able to offer more of their emotional energy and strength in relationship to self and others because they know they are internally rich. I encourage you to consider going on a treasure hunt, who knows what you’ll find.