07_13_2019

Taking Notice of Your Progress

One element of continuing to evolve that I find I don’t give enough attention to is Taking Notice of my Own Progress.  It is so easy for us on the journey of evolving to our best selves to become too narrowly focused on pursuing self-improvement projects.  Once we’re on that hamster wheel we can become so absorbed by new learning that we miss noticing that we’re actually incorporating and putting into practice some of what we are learning.

Here are a couple of things I found myself noticing around the July 4^th holiday.  For many years I was the host for close friends joining me for dinner to watch the spectacular local fireworks on the eve of July 4^th.  I live near where the firework display takes place, so friends would gather here and we’d walk to the fireworks after dinner.

But as we all know, people evolve and make different plans for one reason or another.  So this holiday I found myself on my own.  It didn’t take long before I started hearing those prickly little critic voices kicking in with their debilitating messages.  Their theme this time was along the lines of “I am no longer as important to my friends as I once was.”  I could feel myself beginning to sink into the blues that are deepened by my overly dramatic assessments and projections of my destiny to experience unimaginable levels of loneliness.

I heard variations of these messages play out before I was aware that a wiser guiding Voice kicked in.  This Voice was very clear, non-judgmental and direct.  Speaking calmly, it said:  “Your friends are pursuing their own evolvement….doing what they feel they need to do to be true to themselves.  They are not trying to hurt you nor does their absence mean that they care less about you.  Take a moment and recall some of the many kind and caring things you have experienced with them in the last month.”

Just that Wise Voice with its straightforward reminders put an immediate stop to my starting the downward plunge into sadness, fear, and loneliness that I’ve experienced so many times before.  I definitely noticed that something had changed within me to allow the wise Voice to be heard.  Curiosity led me to ask, “Where did this Voice come from? “  It didn’t take long before I thought of all that I’ve been reading and discussing about self-care in the last year.  Once I realized how I make choices in providing for my own self-care, it was easy for me to transfer that same understanding and compassion to my friends.

So I had one of those AHA moments as it actually hit me that I am making progress.  I don’t know if you have ever experienced a similar insight, but it feels very empowering.  It made me realize that I do have the capacity to reflect on my reactions and to analyze them to better understand them with the end result of choosing healthier, more self-compassionate reactions.

Around the same time, I had another example of how the acquisition of new insights and tools gave me important resources to help break old patterns.  Sharon Salzberg in her book, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection, introduces the reader to a process known as RAIN.  In her words, “RAIN is an acronym for a practice specifically geared to ease emotional confusion and suffering.   When a negative or thorny feeling comes up, we pause, and remember the four steps cued by the letters, and begin to pay attention to our emotions in a new way.”

• R: RECOGNIZE. Before we are able to deal with emotions as they arise within us, we first have to acknowledge them, and to fully recognize them, we need to label them.  Sometimes emotional reactions involve multiple feelings; e.g., anger, hurt, fear, etc.  Once we call an emotion by name, it loses some of its hold on us.  When I recognize that I’m feeling angry about something, sometimes that is enough for the feeling to dissolve as I realize that the issue is not worth getting angry over.
• A: ACKNOWLEDGE. This step is an extension of the first step…once we recognize the emotion, we just allow it to be.  We don’t fight it, try to push it away, or judge it.  You give yourself the permission to feel it.  Salzberg suggests that we replace judging our emotions as “bad” or “wrong,” and that we simply rename them as painful.   Doing this worked for me as I’ll share in the example that follows.
• I: INVESTIGATE. This is in my view the cornerstone of this process.  For as we clarify what we’re feeling without judging ourselves, we’re able to explore in depth why we’re experiencing the feelings that have surfaced.  Salzberg recommends trying to identify where those feelings manifest in your body.  For full disclosure here, the first time I saw this process described, I more or less disregarded it.  I found this step of identifying where the feelings showed up in me physically particularly annoying.  But I finally gave it a try and here is how it helped.  When I realized I was most aware of my physical reaction in my upper body (shoulders, neck, face, and throat), I was more able to identify the source of my anger.  In essence, I realized that part of my anger was fueled by my belief that I had to absorb the hurtful and unwarranted comments without the opportunity to actually express my reactions to such comments.  In other words, I felt stifled and forced to stand by and be pummeled without protecting myself.

I have to work on my holding in my reaction to nasty or demeaning comments.   I think my withholding stance stems from not being able to have a voice when  interacting with controlling adults who played key roles in my childhood, as well as some inchoate ideal about  behaving with compassion.

• N: NON-IDENTITY. The value of this step is that you can differentiate between feeling something without defining yourself with that quality.  I can be angry, but that doesn’t automatically make me an angry person.

So here’s how I found myself calling on this practice after I had actually pooh-poohed it the first time I read it. One of my volunteer activities involves interacting with a real malcontent….and that description is an understatement.  She doesn’t listen or accept suggestions or directions easily, and she frequently launches verbal attacks on individuals who disagree with her.   She is also highly manipulative, and has great skill at presenting herself as a victim to others who aren’t privy to all of the facts.  If she doesn’t like a decision that the Board has made, she recruits and uses others to find ways to continually challenge the Board’s decisions.

As a Board Member of this organization, I and others are trying to help this non-profit thrive, but we find that this particular volunteer is always working to undermine us and our future initiatives.  I go through periods where I just reach a peak of my frustration and anger with her – and at that point I’m more than livid.  I generally experience the “peak” when her actions overlay a period of time when I have been putting in an enormous number of hours.

So during my most recent “peak of anger” with her, I recalled having read about the RAIN practice and I decided to give it a shot.  When I walked through the four steps, here’s what I discovered:

• RECOGNIZE: It was easy to acknowledge that I was angry. Just saying that helped me become an observer of my anger instead of feeling controlled by it.
• ACKNOWLEDGE: I also found that I was quite comfortable admitting that I was angry, and I could do that without having to justify to myself why I was angry.
• INVESTIGATE: Here’s where I really gained some helpful insights.  My anger with her actions was amplified by my actually recognizing that this woman just doesn’t stop after her initial attack.  Her frequent, renewed attacks throw a net over the Board’s momentum and efforts.  We get moving on a project and once again we have to halt and find appropriate ways to respond to her latest challenge to an issue we felt we had settled.

I realized – which is why I think I felt this anger in my upper body, especially in my neck and throat muscles – that part of why my anger felt supercharged is that I had refrained from actually calling her out on her behaviors and from labelling them for what they are.

So I put in writing to her as President of the Board that we were holding firm to the policy decisions that had been made and that we were not going to respond to any further attacks or challenges to the Policies that have been approved by the Board.  Just putting these words in writing led to a sense of closure regarding her behavior on this issue.  While I’m certain that we’ll be subjected to more harassment, at least we’re on the road to discovering ways to contain her damage.

• NON-IDENTIFY. It was also helpful to me to realize that just because I experience anger doesn’t mean that I am an angry person.

All in all, it is very encouraging to realize that with insight, helpful tools, and reflection, we can all help ourselves evolve into happier human beings.