Truth Handling

“What’s the truth about you?”

Depending on your story and life experiences, that question may feel loaded. It may have surfaced feelings of shame, embarrassment, disappointment, and loneliness. Or maybe you had the opposite reaction. Maybe you felt pride, confidence, and assurance. I wonder if the majority, though, felt uncomfortable with the question because of the answers swirling around inside.

For most of us, that question can feel threatening because it is tied to a negative belief we hold about ourselves. And to tell that version of the truth is exposing. 

Consider the following and see if any resonates:

• I don't deserve love.
• I am worthless (inadequate).
• I am not good enough.
• I am insignificant (unimportant).
• I am different (don't belong).
• I am powerless (helpless).
• I am a failure (will fail).
• I am inadequate.

My guess is that one or a few hit something deep within. It touched your shame and you want to hide. We may not consciously believe these things. On an intellectual level, we can easily find falsehood in these beliefs. But on a deeper level, that intellectual argument hasn't traveled down to our hearts nor has it made its home there. 

It's not a pleasant feeling to realize that part of our core self is made up of beliefs tied to shame. It's actually quite painful. But it is in this brutally honest place that we can amend those negative beliefs and cut ties with them.

“They are willing to intentionally look at their pain, to feel their pain, to grieve the losses they’ve endured...they are opening a new world for themselves.”

Early painful and difficult experiences in our life become the lens with which we later filter other experiences. They are self-defining experiences. They are foundational on which our struggles in life rest. Early on, we came to believe that we are insignificant, we don't belong and we're inadequate and it colored (or rather, stripped) our world, how we see ourselves and how we are to approach people in relationship.  

The process of diving into these pivotal moments in your story allows you to release yourself from the shame that has bound you. Dismantling shame's grip creates room to establish a new view of yourself. I've said it time and time again that this process is not for the faint of heart. My clients are some of the most courageous people I know; they are willing to intentionally look at their pain, to feel their pain, to grieve the losses they've endured. But it is here that they are opening a new world for themselves. A world that declares:

• I deserve love; I can have love.
• I am worthy. I am worthwhile.
• I am deserving.
• I am significant. I am important.
• I am okay as I am.
• I now have choices.
• I can succeed.
• I am capable. 

Let's begin to be truth-tellers to the reflection in the mirror. 

Honest Assessments

Let's just dive in, shall we? Travis Bradberry notes that, "Emotionally intelligent people don't just understand emotions; they know what they're good at and what they're terrible at. They also know who pushes their buttons and the environments (both situations and people) that enable them to succeed. Having a high EQ means you know your strengths and how to lean into and use them to your full advantage while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back."

“Those with a high EQ know and accept themselves. ”

In summary, those with a high EQ know and accept themselves. They are honest with who they are and don't hide it from themselves or others. Which is a bold move.

Our culture promotes strengths and shames weaknesses and we have internalized this to the detriment of our own emotional health. You are not allowed to be weak. Weakness is viewed as a liability. So we learn to hide it or seek to compensate for the areas of which we are ashamed. 

When the StrengthsFinder personality assessment came on the scene several years ago, it turned everything around. It allowed for people to accept the areas they were not naturally strong and pay attention to where they were naturally gifted and talented. The example author Tom Rach gives is that not everyone can be Michael Jordan. I will never be Michael Jordan even if I practice 16 hours a day; I simply do not have what is needed (the natural ability, the height, etc.) to play at that level of perfection. Instead of trying to be him, can I divert that level of energy and commitment to hone in on and improve the skills that I already have? 

There must be an acceptance of natural limitations which can be difficult. We may dream of the type of person we want to be or believe we should be and to find that reality doesn't reflect our fantasy can be painful. We can fight it. We can try to be what we think should be. But you can only do so by shaming yourself for not living into what this fantasy is. 

What if you take an honest look in the mirror, bravely accept that you are finite and limited as a human in what you can do? What if you take stock of the incredible strengths you've been given, celebrate those, and cultivate them? 

Oh, the real and available possibilities...

Accepting The Unacceptable

“The art of life is constant readjustment to our surroundings.”

— Kakuzo Okakaura

We're still looking at Emotional Intelligence...and we'll be looking at it for a few weeks. Next up: Those who have high EQ embrace change.

Travis Bradberry explains this attribute this way: "Emotionally intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting. They know that fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to their success and happiness. They look for change that is lurking just around the corner, and they form a plan of action should these changes occur."

The opposite of change is stagnation. You cannot grow without change. Growth reflects life. Without growth, there is no life. But we like the status quo. We try and maintain it; it gives us a feeling of power and control. Life sometimes acts as status quo's arch nemesis because it allows the unforeseen, unexpected, and unwanted to take place. Change can leave us feeling small, helpless, and powerless. But not all change has to be awful. There are many times we may even anticipate the change and want the change (marriage, child's birth, a new job, a move) but it still disrupts what was familiar and comfortable and requires adaptation to the new. 

“You cannot grow without change. Growth reflects life. Without growth, there is no life. ”

How do we deal with any form of new, whether wanted or not?

We can lock down and refuse to move with the current fighting with all your might. This will cause some pain. The refusal to see and face what is happening around you requires a denial that disengages from the present. Worst of all: you stay the same. Stuck. 

OR

You can acknowledge the fear, sadness, anger, confusion, conflicted emotions, happiness, elation that is occurring because of the shift in what was once your normal. You learn how to control what you are able to and how to best take care of yourself, what you're needing to thrive, not just survive this transition. You discover that, though it is not always pleasant, you have the capacity to adapt and it didn't kill you. This informs how you walk through the next change. Best of all: you learn and you grow. Your story becomes more dynamic and rich. 

Digging Deep

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

In looking at what it means to be a person of emotional intelligence, another characteristic is possessing a curiosity about others. 

Travis Bradberry says, "It doesn't matter if they're introverted or extroverted, emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they're going through, the more curiosity you're going to have about them."

A desire to know about another suggests that other people's stories matter to you and you give time and place to ask questions in order to understand. There is an openness to others' behaviors and wondering what is tucked behind their words, choices, and actions rather than a rigid and closed judgment. 

“When we close ourselves off to what another’s life can teach us, we miss out on how our lives can be stretched, challenged, grown and enhanced.”

Those who make snap judgments about other people remove the option of curiosity. They have already decided about that person and denied themselves the rich opportunity of learning. This will affect not only how they see and relate to people but also themselves. When we close ourselves off to what another's life can teach us, we miss out on how our lives can be stretched, challenged, grown and enhanced. It also begs the question whether or not those who lack curiosity about others' possess it for themselves. I doubt it. I don't think curiosity can be confined or contained. I think that if you are curious about your own story and how it informs the things you see, hear, say, do and believe, that self-curiosity will externalize beyond yourself. You also cannot be known if you are unwilling to know (yourself or others). 

“Will you explore within and without?”

Get Smart

Emotional intelligence: "the capability of individuals to recognize their own and other people's emotions, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one's goal(s)". 

“Unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions. ”

— Travis Bradberry

Research has shown a correlation between emotional intelligence (EQ) and greater mental health, leadership skills, and job performance. Travis Bradberry, co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, through data analysis, has identified hallmark behaviors of the emotionally intelligent.

I'd like to look at these features he's listed, one at a time, here. 

According to Bradberry, the first core behavior is having a robust emotional vocabulary. 

We all experience emotions and science has shown how necessary they are. However, the majority of people have difficulty clearly identifying what emotions they are experiencing in the moment or even upon reflection. People tease that counselors want to know and look at how you feel. However, there is scientific merit to giving space to exploring one's emotional reactions. 

Bradberry and his team found that "only 36 percent of people can [accurately identify their emotions as they occur], which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions."

He explains that those with high EQ's are not overrun by their emotions because they understand what they are feeling. They are able to locate the source of the emotion by utilizing an extensive emotional vocabulary to specifically capture and identify what it is that they feel. The majority of people may generalize their emotions to a few categories: "bad", "sad", "happy". But that generalization can make it difficult to gain insight into what is happening internally.

For example, I can be sad for multiple reasons: conflict with a friend, being misunderstood by my boss, losing a special memento, a friend's cancer diagnosis. Even listing only a few probable situations, there is a wide range of sadness that is possible. Associated with each of these different situations, there are varying degrees of how the emotion is experienced. Feeling misunderstood by my boss is not the same depth of sadness as learning of a friend's grave health status. Labeling one as "disappointing" and another as "sorrowful and grievous" gives the appropriate weight to what is being internally experienced. Having access to this insight and self-awareness allows me to respond appropriately to each situation because I understand what is occurring and why.

In their New York Times bestseller (and one I highly recommend!), The Whole Brain Child, Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Bryson, have a strategy for emotional regulation called, "Name it to Tame it". They are employing the same idea that in identifying one's emotion we can have mastery over the emotion. For many, you may feel like you are tossed and turned (emotional dysregulation) by what you are feeling because there is a lack understanding of what and why something is happening. Dr. Siegel and Dr. Bryson recognize what Bradberry does, "The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it."

To be emotionally healthier individuals, it's crucial you expand your emotional vocabulary. Most often it is beneficial to do so in the company and presence of one who will help you find this language to give more texture and depth to your life and relationships. We name to not only tame but to honor. 

My So Called Life

In a few days, my sister will be walking across the stage in a cap and gown for the third time from The University of Texas at Austin. Yes, THIRD time. She will be receiving her post-Masters degree because one, apparently, is not enough for this bright, hard-working and driven person with whom I have the pleasure of being related. (Congratulations, Stephanie!) 

“After the confetti has settled, post-college life can feel overwhelming, daunting, and uncertain.”

Over the next few weeks, countless videos of inspiring commencement speeches for the graduating class of 2017 will be posted to YouTube. (Dr. Will Ferrell's USC address is worth the 25-minute investment, in my opinion.) After all, this is graduation season. A season of excitement and promise of a bright future. While this may be true for those who have secured jobs in their desired field, for the rest, after the confetti has settled, post-college life can feel overwhelming, daunting, and uncertain. 

Freshman 18-year-old you had this idea of what graduating 22-year-old you would be and something isn't matching up. You've stepped into adulthood all of the sudden without a map, yet you're expected to navigate this new terrain like a pro. It seems your peers are owning adulthood, and life, in general, for that matter: excelling and mastering their dream job, climbing their respective field ladders, settling into romantic relationships and all the while still make time for Sunday brunch. Why, then, is it so hard for you? Is your internal compass faulty? Did you miss the manual that everyone else received along with their diplomas? How do you begin to figure things out when you don't even know where to start? 

“How do you begin to figure things out when you don’t even know where to start?

What happens when life doesn’t go according to the script you had laid out?”

What happens when life doesn't go according to the script you had laid out? This is a question for everyone, at every life stage. (However, I think for those coming into their own during their 20s, this question can be particularly challenging.) I doubt many people include cancer diagnosis, miscarriages, heartache and heartbreak, divorce, unemployment and other gut wrenching realities in their "Oh, The Places You'll Go" ideals. And yet, they find their way onto that undesired landscape. 

The unexpected can really disrupt and disorient us. Living in this haze, we wobble and stumble forward trying to find some version of our dreams, some aspect to not feel so powerless and helpless, some landing place to not feel inferior. I believe two things can happen here: 

1) It feels too excruciating to keep trying, to make sense of things, to be disappointed that life isn't what you wanted/thought it would be so you numb out. You disconnect and isolate from yourself and others emotionally and you find solace in various addictions to stifle your inner strife.

OR

2) It feels quite painful, excruciating at times, and you bravely choose to engage the pain. You allow yourself to explore false beliefs you have about yourself and the world. Our pain highlights an emotional depth needed to live a life of meaning, purpose, and hope. Our pain informs our joy. Our pain, like our joy, makes us real. Emotional resiliency is birthed.

There's not an in-between. There is not an option to not not feel pain if you want to have a life of connection. You either ignore your pain, which has its own cost, or you choose to befriend your pain and see what it wants to tell you. You're at a crossroads. This decision has far weightier and far-reaching implications than most others you'll have to make.

I wish for you the courage to remain present in the midst of uncertainty, disappointment, and expectations not being fulfilled. Perhaps you'll stumble upon something beautiful among the unexpected. 

Secret Keeper

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

— George Orwell

We all possess secrets. We've been entrusted to keep them. We have also offered them to others to hold with us or sometimes for us. At times we consider it an honor to be a confidante and other times it is a curse to be asked to hide something that should be revealed. Secrets are not just things we keep from the outside world; they are most often things we keep from ourselves.

In last month's issue of Pyschology Today, writer Carlin Flora explored the damaging effect secrets have on our mental, emotional, and physical health.

Founder and director of The Institute of Behavior Therapy, Barry Lubetkin explains, "Deep secrets are often traumatic events from the past such as a rape that has made someone feel vulnerable or a compulsion or obsession that feels too shameful to disclose". Other buried secrets according to Lubetkin include illnesses, a stigmatized identity, an addiction or a moral transgression such as a marital affair. Shame underlies much of secret keeping but secrets aren't necessarily secluded to the realm of shame. Flora says that "Hopes and dreams that people don't dare speak aloud are also secrets."

We withhold, not just painful memories but also celebratory or exciting things, because to acknowledge them requires vulnerability, to let people really see us, fears AND hopes. We wonder what people will think if they knew. Or if they did know, we don't want to know what they think because it may be different than what we want to hear. And if I acknowledge it to you, I am simultaneously acknowledging it to myself. Dare I speak aloud my deepest fears and fantasies? What if my fears become reality? And will I be able to bear the crushing weight of disappointment if my dreams do not come true? So we protect ourselves through withholding, denial and dismissal.

The mental bandwidth expelled to protect secrets takes a physical toll. According to Michael Slepian of Columbia University, "Secrets we consciously protect alters the body's stress response and "depletes mental resources". Studies conducted by James Pennebaker of The University of Texas at Austin "found that people who had a traumatic sexual experience as a child or teen were more likely to have health problems as they got older, particularly if they had hidden the trauma from others". 

“Secrets are usually a signal or manifestation of an underlying set of conditions. If someone is experiencing shame or fear, they create an internal marketplace for secrets.”

— Nando Pelusi

However, Pennebaker found that making sense of traumatic events had a powerful effect on the body. Those who spent 20 minutes each day for several consecutive days visited the health center "far fewer times in the following months than students who had written about a general topic or who revealed a secret but didn't delve into the emotions around it".

Clinical psychologist Nando Pelusi explains that secrets are a mirror of what one believes about themselves. Beliefs that one is incompetent, deficient, worthless, unlovable is often hidden beneath a traumatic secret. Pelusi advises the importance of "[taking] apart the traumatic event. Someone might always regret what happened, but if he looks at it in a safe environment, like a therapists' office, the trauma diminishes because it's been powered by secretiveness". 

“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter-they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside so long.”

— Slyvia Plath

Examining and exploring the purpose of the secret and the beliefs that have held it in the dark can release the power of shame. Being willing to look behind the curtain to find a mere man instead of the all powerful Oz can be quite painful. The Wizard of Oz was constructed for a reason and we are slowly dismantling that image, facing fears of who we are and are not. But from there, if you are willing, you can find meaning and chart a new course for yourself with healthier, more accurate beliefs of your true identity. 

Masters of Illusion

““Hush, Dorothy,” whispered the Tiger, “you’ll ruin my reputation if you are not more discreet. It isn’t what we are, but what folks think we are, that counts in this world.””

— Frank Baum, The Road to Oz

Early on, we unconsciously learned to present certain things to the world (like a powerful man in sunglasses) so the world will accept us. Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins sums this up brilliantly about the transformation of his character Chiron in his film Moonlight, "Over time some people become less and less themselves and instead turn into this thing that they feel like they need to be in order to survive."

So we hide in plain sight. We keep our true selves tucked away beneath layers and layers of the false images we portray. Carlin Flora's Psychology Today article, "Unlocking the Vault", dives into our propensity to hide. She interviews Barry Farber, Professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, who explains, "A struggle plays out constantly between a wish to be known and helped on one hand and the avoidance of feeling the shame of acknowledging pieces of ourselves we're not pleased with." Like the Tiger, we want to present ourselves in the best possible way that causes others to think highly of us because that is what "counts in this world". And somehow, being human with faults, fears and wounded histories doesn't fit into that equation so we bury those parts of us into the recesses of our soul.

“To quiet the noise of incongruence between the mask and the man, it’s easier to assume the mask is the man.”

To hide our humanness, we put a lot of energy to maintaining these facades. So much energy is given to employing these covers and keeping them in tact that we can't hear what is happening inside us.

To quiet the noise of incongruence between the mask and the man, it's easier to assume the mask is the man.  We lose track of who we are and unknowingly allow the self-protective ways of relating to take over. You wear this mask long enough and become known this way so it seems foolish to take it off. If you took it off, who would you be? Would you even recognize yourself? And would you be accepted without it? 

Yet, you're tired. You're tired of being different things to different people. It's exhausting wondering if you'll be exposed. Ultimately, it's lonely being a stranger in your own skin. Something inside longs to breathe, to connect, to love, to belong, to be known. That part wants to be real, wants to be authentic, wants to be true. Being true means accepting yourself as human and loving and seeing those parts you deemed unworthy. 

We can only test the climate of authentic revelation in a safe environment of compassion, kindness, patience and understanding. Without this, the masks and the belief of their necessity will be reinforced. As you shed those false layers, you'll come face to face with the painful reasons that caused those layers to originate. This uncovering is uncomfortable and can feel disruptive but it is necessary. You're knocking down what you've falsely built your world around in order to rebuild something true. This is wildly vulnerable.

But if you are willing to give yourself the gift of your own humanity you will learn like the Skin Horse, that "real" is a "thing that happens to you". When you are really loved, then you become real. Becoming real takes time "but once you are real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

That sounds like a comforting invitation to me. Will you accept what being real can offer you?

“Once you are real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

— The Velveteen Rabbit