Lots of people want to talk with me. Lots more say they want to, and then don't quite follow-through for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, people just need to hear themselves speak out loud about their concerns, worries or issues to a listening and compassionate ear, and then they figure out for themselves their best way forward. Sometimes they really do need to speak with someone who has ideas or suggestions of books they could read, or actions they could experiment with, that help them find a beneficial or productive way forward.
I'm going to make an assumption (risky, I know) based on conversations with everyone I have ever had in any circumstance, with every book about psychology I have ever read, and my own personal experience, each of us has an internal dialog that goes on constantly within our minds. And that internal dialog bears a lot of similarities with, but may not be exactly the same as, the exchanges that happened in our homes as young children. If you had critical parents, as I did, then that internal voice can have a strong bias towards being critical and judgmental. It wasn't their fault. Critical parents raised them too. Further, there's a commonly-held belief based in fundamental Christian and parenting methods at the time, that children were all hedonists at heart and needed structure, rigidity and control, so that 'they would grow up right'.
As a result, many (all?) of us have this critical voice that resides in our minds. The first challenge is to recognize that this voice is part of our history and the story we tell ourselves, and that it is not who we are. Once we are aware we have this critical voice, we can recognize that we get to decide whether to listen to it and try to satisfy it (impossible, by the way), ignore it by numbing out (effective, but not ultimately useful), try to outrun it, argue with it, or make some peace with it. Running away doesn't work, this critical voice is like our shadow, always present. Arguing with it, while sometimes effective, tends to create an argumentative point of view towards life, so that's no fun at all. So how do we make peace with this critical voice?
Thich Nhat Hanh, in his little book How To Love, shares these thoughts, As long as we're rejecting ourselves and causing harm to our bodies and minds, there's no point in talking about loving and accepting others. With mindfulness, we can recognize our habitual ways of thinking and the contents of our thoughts. Sometimes our thoughts run around in circles and we're engulfed in distrust, pessimism, conflict, sorrow or jealousy. This state of mind will naturally manifest in our words and actions and cause harm to us and to others. When we shed the light of mindfulness on our habitual thought patterns, we see them clearly. Recognizing our habits and smiling at them is the practice of appropriate mental attention, which helps us create new and more beneficial neural pathways.
Self-kindness and compassion is a great place to start. And sometimes, that's enough. It we want to increase our management of our interior world, we decide to choose how we want to treat ourselves, rather than just acting out our default programming. (I'm carefully avoiding the 'c' word, control, because even the thought of control empowers the critical voice.) Another action we can take that increases our interior awareness is to practice meditation. As one of the basic spiritual practices that we teach (and practice), CSLT provides many opportunities for learning, experimentation, and practice. If you don't know how to meditate, don't know who to ask, or would like support in this, please ask me, or our practitioners.
This blogpost was inspired by 'World Suicide Prevention Day' (September 10th). Have a look at this powerful article (qz.com/1381952/suicide-hotlines-really-do-save-lives-i-know-because-one-saved-mine/) written by Corrine Purtill, who reached out when she was suicidal and spoke with a compassionate person at a suicide hotline. That action saved her life. We never know how we can help ourselves, and others, by being kind and listening with an open heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment