Development

Surviving or Thriving

Ron Johnson appreciation, Development, Discovery, emotional maturity, Feelings, happiness, love, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness, Spiritual

Some years ago I asked to talk to an African American man who had written a number of pieces in the local paper. In my email I said that although I had two Black sons in law and had Black men occasionally come to my office, I often felt that I was missing something important about the Black subculture, namely how Blacks actually engage in conversation, friendship, and intimacy. Intimacy is the heart of any good therapeutic alliance between therapist and patient. I was to meet him in a local café. I had been interested in some of the things he had said about his work, which was essentially with primarily Black kids. When I entered the café, he waved at me and invited me to come to the table where he was sitting with a friend/colleague (who happened to be White) with whom he had been working for a few years. As I approached the table and had not yet sat down, he volunteered something that has stuck with me since our meeting although I have not had contact with this man since. He said something like, “I want to start by saying that you look confident and a man who is thriving in life. If you want to know that your very appearance suggests thriving and it is off-putting. I have lived in an environment that has been one of surviving, not thriving.” I was not offended by his comment, but I did take a figurative step back from the conversation because I had never heard of the difference between thriving and surviving, and I immediately knew that I had not been raised in a survival context. This matter of surviving has continued to be an important aspect of my understanding people, to some degree the subcultures of America like the African American culture, but in a larger context of how many people engage life: they are surviving. Let’s look at the whole business of thriving and surviving that people do. There are many people who survive terrible ordeals, like physical illness or even war, but my focus will be primarily on people who survive through emotional challenges.

People who are surviving

  • People with physical limitations
    • Blindness
    • Debilitating illnesses like cancer and heart disease
    • Physical disabilities
  • People with household difficulties
    • Financial limitations or challenges’
    • Deteriorating living quarters
    • No living quarters
  • People who interpersonal difficulties
    • One partner is seriously physically limited
    • One partner wants out of the relationship
    • One partner is unfaithful
    • One partner is addicted to some behavior or chemical
    • Partners have substantially different religious/philosophical orientations
    • Partners have a cognitively impaired child, which causes them to frequently be at odds with each other
    • Partner one does not like the biological family of partner two. Makes Christmas celebrations difficult
  • And many other difficulties that people need to manage by surviving

People who are surviving long term personal and interpersonal challenges

  • Jack is unable to conquer his addition to one of the following: alcohol, drugs, food, promiscuity, gambling, video game playing, other screen time, working, playing, toxic relationships, or sleeping (too much or not enough)
  • Marge is generally not happy with herself. She thinks she is stupid.
  • Peter is not happy with people. He doesn’t know how to admit that he is smarter than most people.
  • Both Marge and Peter are lonely
  • Stan continues to pine for the woman he thinks he should have married, a feeling that makes life difficult for him and secondarily and unconsciously for his wife
  • Dad doesn’t really like his son. Thinks that he is too much like his wife
  • Mom really favors daughter # 1 over daughter #2 because Mom is more like #1
  • Martha loves, or thinks she loves Sam, but Sam is quite neglectful of her. She has tried everything to accommodate to him and to change him without success
  • Anthony just went through radiation treatment for prostate cancer but his PSA numbers are even worse than before treatment.
  • Anthony’s wife is surviving his illness and imminent death by worrying about how she will make it alone given their current financial disaster

The ways people survive these difficulties

In a nutshell, they avoid them. This means that ignore the feelings associated with their lives. What happens then? They turn to anger, avoidance, addiction, or some kind of fruitless activity.

  • Philip on the cruise boat holes himself up in his cabin coming out only to eat when he is desperately hungry
  • Alex spends 85% of his day playing video games
  • Francis takes Tylenol every two hours
  • Craig does his best to ignore the mess his dogs makes and covers the smell with incense
  • Frank talk about doing something on the house that pleases his wife but never actually does anything
  • Anthony’s wife goes silent for the most part, occasionally throwing barbs at her husband for not managing their finances well
  • Anthony indulges in a good deal of self-hate, which seems to be a way he can atone for his mistakes.
  • Some people start projects and abandon them because they are tired or bored. This leads to a lot of clutter in their lives, like property, relationships, and projects half-done.
  • Many people go to doctors and hospitals to have yet another blood test or CT scan to find the magic bullet

What has gone wrong with these people, many of who are intelligent and kind, and been productive in life?

In a nutshell, they haven’t grown up. But what does that mean? Almost all of the people I have noted above (all of whom have had their presented situations altered for privacy) have had pretty good lives and then got stuck somehow. They got stuck because they stop growing, which means that never learned to adapt, adjust, compromise, and find a way to adequately meet the new challenges of life. They might have had good marriages and jobs to start with. They might have successfully raised children. They might have even made a great deal of money along the way. But somehow, they never were able to move from one element of life to the next, from one need to the next need, from one job to another, from one house to another, or maybe even from one spouse to another or to being alone. They didn’t adapt to the changes that occurred in their lives thinking that the old things should still work.

Secondly, they didn’t learn how to feel, particularly the feeling of disappointment and hurt that comes in life, usually every day, allow themselves to feel sad for a season, and then take stock of what lies in front of them.

Thirdly, because they haven’t grown up and haven’t found a way to deal with disappointment, they have fallen into the avoidance, anger, avoidance, or fruitless activity that used to work but no longer works.

Fourthly and most importantly, they haven’t found ways face the paradoxes of life. They want the old things to work rather than finding new ways to succeed in life. They haven’t found ways to love you wife but not like some things about her, like your job for the most part but not like the 20% that you don’t like, love the house and hate the housework.

So, what can be done to do more thriving and less surviving?

  • Admit to your feelings. If you have read any of our blogs, you have already heard this call: admit to what is there, particularly how you feel. You will feel some combination of:
    • Hurt
    • Disappointment
    • Sadness
  • Then note the quick transformation of these basic feelings hurt and disappointment and the natural emotion of sadness quickly transfer into something else:
    • Anger
    • Fear
    • Avoidance
    • Addiction
    • Undue activity
  • Tell someone how you feel, ideally a person who doesn’t give you advice or “get over it” or “just do something.” Such a person could be a good friend, family member, or a therapist-like person.
  • Consider that there might be drastic action, like divorce, moving to a new house, quitting your job. Most of the time you won’t have to do such things. Just give these thoughts some room
  • If you are really in an intolerable situation, whatever it is, find a way out of it.
    • Leave your wife or job or house
    • Find a way to live the life you have left on this earth
    • Go to the country you have wanted to see all of your life
  • If drastic action is needed (it usually isn’t), note your feelings
    • Admit to the feeling of disappointment. Life at this point in your life is just not what you expected
    • Admit to the sadness
    • Allow your sadness to run its course. Sadness always ends
    • Work diligently to prevent anger, avoidance, addiction and fruitless activity
  • Do something that you really don’t want to do
    • Work out
    • Fix the garage
    • Clean up after your dog
    • Dare to look for a job even though you don’t want to work at “some stupid job.”
  • Then sit back and realize you did something you really didn’t want to do and appreciate your small effort.
  • Take a break from doing what you didn’t want to do and indulge yourself in video game laying or eating a donut.
  • Take a bit of stock of the other paradoxes in your life. Maybe read a snippet or so from the Stoics, like Marcus Aurelius.
  • You will find that much of your life, perhaps most of your life, is pretty good for the most part and enjoyable. Allow yourself a few moments to appreciate and enjoy.
  • Then, and only then will you be able to slowly move beyond surviving to thriving. Thriving takes time and a lot of work. It is not about money, property, or even relationships. It is about seeing what is, accepting what you can, changing what you can, and trusting yourself.
  • You will notice that you will begin to have a very positive effect on the world around you: people, places, things, and ideas

 

 

The Basic Anxiety in All Men

Ron Johnson addictions, Development, emotional maturity, Feelings, men's issues, mindfulness, Self-Awareness

Since my practice is composed of entirely men, I frequently hear similar things from these men, and surprisingly from men of very different ages. I have come to believe that the central ingredient that men where when they get distress in some way is some form of anxiety. I will discuss the various faces of anxiety in this blog a bit. We will also talk about the secondary effects that these other “faces” of anxiety cause in their lives. I want most importantly to identify what I think is the basic building block of this anxiety, which is not anxiety itself but rather a very important element of manhood. This is not something wrong with men, nor is it something wrong with women or with society in general. We want to look at the causes of men’s anxiety and most importantly look at what can be done to reduce it to zero.

The faces of anxiety

  • Anger. This is, of course, one of the most obvious challenges that most men face. We tend to get angry too easily, speak too loudly, yell and scream, or, God forbid, become physically aggressive in some way.
  • Avoidance. This is the second most common thing men do when they are anxious. If they don’t yell and scream, they go into the man cave, whether that is a real physical place or whether it is just sitting silently on the couch or in front of some kind of screen.
  • Addiction. This is the third most common form of men feeling anxiety without an understanding of what to do about it. Addictions can be chemical or behavioral. Chemical addictions include marijuana, alcohol, or script drugs. Behavioral addictions include gambling, some form of excessive sexual expression, overeating, working too much, not working enough, or playing video games.
  • Physical and medical abnormalities. This would include the simplest headache to the serious heart attack or cancer. With little doubt, anxiety aggravates a man’s inclination to some kind of physical abnormality. Not every man will have headaches, nor will everyone have heart attacks.
  • Dishonesty. Dishonesty is usually not in the form of stealing or outright criminality but rather hiding some activity or outright lying about some small thing in life by a man who otherwise might be a man of quite good character
  • Depression. I don’t not use the term depression, like anxiety, as a “diagnosis” of a mental disorder but rather the extended realm of a man’s unhappiness. A man can become increasingly unhappy with one or more elements of his life, like work, relationships, play, or life in general. They all stem from anxiety.
  • Helplessness. There is a helpless component of depression, but the more serious helplessness is when a man feels that he just can’t do what he knows that he should do. As a result many men work all the time, while others do nothing at all.

Statements that men make regarding their anxiety

I use the term anxiety with care because it don’t see anxiety as a mental disorder that needs to be treated. I see it as a result of men not knowing who they are, how they feel, how to speak, and what to do about the causes of anxiety. Nevertheless, I have heard the following from various men:

  • From a very successful professional man, 55, when I asked him what he felt when he thought his wife might be mad at him: “terrified,” he said
  • From another successful man, 65, when I asked him what he felt when he thought his wife might find out something he did that she didn’t approve of: “terrified.”
  • From many men including a man of 32, many men in their 40’s, and some in their 20’s:

“I feel a constant feeling of anxiety in my stomach (chest, back).”

  • From many men of various ages: “I feel some kind of anxiety every time I make any decision. This could be turning my car into an unfamiliar driveway or deciding what to eat at a restaurant.”
  • “I might have some kind of death fear. I think of the possibility of my dying all the time.”
  • “I think I made some dumb choices in my early years that still cause me anxiety, almost like I think I can turn the clock back and make different choices.”
  • For some parents: “I can’t seem to shake the fear that my son will die for some reason>
  • “I am afraid that they will discover some mistake I made at work and demote me or fire me.”
  • “I’m afraid that they (whoever the unknown “they” might be) might discover that I am a fraud in some way.”
  • “I am afraid that will be impotent in bed with my wife.”
  • “I am afraid that I am a failure in life, despite my apparent success and accolades.”
  • “I just don’t know what to do so much of the time. This could be if to take a shower, go to work today, or tell my wife that I love her.”

The causes of male anxiety

This is the most important thing I have to say about anxiety, and it leads to our final discussion: What can we do about it? The essence, the foundation, the cause of male anxiety is around the concept of responsibility. Every man feels a kind of immense load of responsibility in life, no matter how old he is. This feeling of undue responsibility starts in adolescence, develops in his 20’s and accelerates in his 30’s as his responsibilities become larger and harder to manage.

This concept of felt responsibility is very hard for me to communicate, especially to women, and certainly to most men because they don’t think about it consciously, but the feeling that “I have to do something, something important, something significant, something real,” is always there in some form. President Truman said it right when he spoke of the responsibility he had as President: “The buck (bucket) stops here.” Most men are not presidents but they often feel the burden of responsibility

  • Adolescence is difficult for everyone, boys and girls because this is a time of transition from the freedom of childhood and the freedom of early adulthood, which is what adolescence is. There are the general challenges of adolescence for guys like what to do with emerging sexual interest, academic interest (or disinterest), and some initial thoughts about one’s ultimate vocation. There are more specific challenges that every boy faces, like the adolescent who doesn’t like reading in school, doesn’t like sports, really likes music, or can’t find anything that he really likes. However good at one thing, like reading, sports, or music, he feels the insecurity and inferiority associated with not being good at something else.
  • The 20’s is particularly difficult because the guy is now in college or the world of work trying to find his way. He also has to deal with the challenge of how to relate to women (or to men if he happens to be gay). Marriage used to come during the 20’s but many men forestall marriage for a live-in arrangement that can be complicated by pregnancy, the partner’s children from another relationship, or the desire not to have children. All of these responsibilities are on the guy’s shoulders with no one really able to help him through these difficult years. A good deal of addiction begins in the 20’s, whether chemical like alcohol or pot or behavioral like promiscuity, video game-playing, or gambling.
  • I think the 30’s is perhaps the most challenging time for men. Some men I see haven’t been married and desperately want to do so. Many men are in the wrong profession, perhaps something that makes them money but not happiness. Marital struggles usually are at their height at this time of life, and children are now a dominant part of the man’s life.
  • After the 30’s a man’s responsibilities continue to grow including vocational, relational, financial, geographical, and ultimately personal. Few men migrate these waters without some form of addiction, avoidance, and anger. Suicide is four or five times greater for men than for women, often because of the burdens that they have without any guidance.

All of this accelerating responsibility and the results of these responsibilities lead most men to a deep-seated feeling of anxiety:

  • Do I want to stay married to the woman I married 10 or 15 years ago?
  • Do I want to stay in the job that makes me money but I hate?
  • Do I really like my children (of course, I love them)?
  • Do I like my house?
  • How do I deal with the fact that the electric doesn’t work in the bedroom?
  • How do I deal with my gaining weight and all that goes with it?
  • Am I having any fun
  • How do I deal with my addiction(s)?
  • Where’s the guy who could help me navigate these rough waters?

How to deal with the anxiety I feel regarding all my responsibilities and questions?

  1. Admit to it. You can’t get to the bottom of feeling anxious, much less cure it without first admitting that you feel overwhelmed
  2. Observe that you either work too much trying to stave off your anxiety or avoid your responsibilities
  3. Note the addictive tendencies you have: eating, playing, working, drinking, gaming, talking, or perhaps the more serious addictions like alcohol or promiscuity
  4. Find someone to talk to. This should most certainly be a male, perhaps a therapist, perhaps a wise uncle, perhaps a clergyman. But not your neighbor, your brother-in-law, or the guy at the bar. You need someone who understands and can help you through this crisis of feeling overwhelmed
  5. If you have a significant other in your life, tell her (or him) but be careful to keep her from advising you. A good way to develop a later intimacy is to learn to talk about yourself and feel vulnerable. Then you will be able to listen with as much love as has been rendered to you by your loved one.
  6. Avoid anxiolytic medication. It is addictive. More importantly, it covers the symptoms but doesn’t treat the problem. The problem is a very male-centered thing of feeling responsibility for everything and everyone.
  7. Begin to notice that you feel better, less anxious and more content. The more you admit to your feeling of anxiety and all the other steps along the way, the better you will get in talking and reducing your anxiety.

The Centrality of Disappointment

Ron Johnson appreciation, Development, emotional maturity, Feelings, grief, happiness, love, mindfulness, Positive psychology, Self-Awareness, Spiritual

One of the most important terms to use daily is “disappointment.” Think about it: how many times during a single day are you actually disappointed. If you’re careful to note your feelings and thoughts, you will notice that disappointment is an experience that occurs several times a day. I want to discuss what disappointment is, how to handle it, when to express it, and how to use it profitably on a daily basis. Simply stated, if you can observe, feel, and selectively express your disappointment, you will ultimately reduce anger and fear substantially, you will improve your relationships, and you will find life much more enjoyable. How weird does that sound? Feel more disappointment and feel better about life? Yes.

What is disappointment?

Disappointment is, quite simply, the feeling of sadness that occurs when you have lost something. We might also add that there is often a feeling of hurt that almost always accompanies the feeling sadness. In fact, these three terms are largely equivalent, but I think the term “disappointment” is the most palatable and understandable of the three. I often help people to feel disappointment in their daily lives and hence forestall anger, fear, and agitation. Deb and I have seen the centrality of the feeling of sadness in life for decades and published our first book, The Positive Power of Sadness: Good Grief, and on this experience as well as good portions of our second book, I Want to Tell You How I Feel.

Disappointment (and sadness and hurt) come when I lose something, usually something that I did not expect to lose. Most of our daily disappointments are of simple, often trivial, matters:

  • I spill my cup of coffee
  • I take wrong turn on the highway
  • I forgot to drink enough water in the day
  • I didn’t get a call from my daughter
  • My friend was late to our pizza date
  • My computer took forever to boot up in the morning
  • I pressed the wrong key on my computer and ended up with a note from Ethiopia
  • I bit into an apple and realized I just bit into a worm hole

There are more significant disappointments that often occur frequently, of not usually daily:

  • I lost a game of golf on an important tournament
  • My book didn’t get published as I expected it would
  • I lost my job
  • My spouse left me for another person
  • A good friend or relative died
  • I had a heart attack

While the simple and profound disappointments are both essentially sad and often hurtful, the degree of sadness and hurt is obviously greater. In our Good Grief book we wrote a lot about “little sads,” which are spilling my coffee and such, as perhaps the most important ways to learn of the centrality of sadness and find good ways to cope with these disappointments. If I can learn that I have many disappointments in a normal day, I will be better equipped to deal with the larger losses and consequent disappointments that will most certainly occur in my life.

Why do I have so many disappointments?

Because you love a lot. Love a lot? What does that mean? We talk about people have various “love problems,” which means that they love a lot of things and are disappointed a lot. Let me explain. Let’s review the small disappointments, the “small sads” as we call them, and see how each one of them has a love factor imbedded in it:

  • I spill my cup of coffee: I love to have a good cuppa and a clean floor.
  • I take wrong turn on the highway: I love to drive on the right road.
  • I forgot to drink enough water in the day: I love to engage in healthy endeavors.
  • I didn’t get a call from my daughter: I love hearing from my daughter.
  • My friend was late to our pizza date: I love having people be on time.
  • My computer took forever to boot up in the morning: I love jumping right into my computer work.
  • I pressed the wrong key on my computer and ended up with a note from Ethiopia: I love to be efficient on my computer.
  • I bit into an apple and realized I just bit into a worm hole: I love good apples.

Now, you might not normally use the term “love” for all of these activities, but I think it is actually the best word. You could use “value” or “what’s important to me” but these terms are equivalent to love, albeit we have different amount of love for all of them.

You can see how the more significant losses are also love-based, like losing a love one, losing a job, or losing your health. If you can conceive that every time you are disappointed, you have a “love problem,” you will begin to see how central love is in your life. You might prefer the term “value” to love but I think it is better to use the term “love” because it brings us closer to how we can handle these regular and unavoidable disappointments that come from some kind of loss.

How exactly do we process disappointments?

Simply stated, by being sad. This is simple but immensely hard, perhaps especially for us Americans who are generally not particularly good at feeling sad. One of the greatest things about America is the pioneering spirit that has made this country so great and successful. This pioneering spirit drives us to move forward, to get through, to forge ahead, and to not stop when we have found some kind of impediment in our way. I read Lewis and Clark’s journal of their trek west from St. Louis to the Portland, OR area and back again. They forged through and opened up the west for America. We might notice, however, that this opening up of the west for “Americans” also set the stage for the displacement of Native Americans, a thought that deserves some attention in our discussion with our tendency to move forward when we meet some challenge or disappointment,

The process of disappointment is simple but hard, meaning that the process is a clear road but the road is a tough one. What makes the road tough is the emotion of sadness that is always at the heart of disappointment. Simply stated, it is hard to be sad, at least it is hard for most people, certainly most Americans, and generally harder for men than for women. The beauty of feeling naturally disappointed, and eventually sad, is that sadness ends. Thus, disappointment ends. We tend to interrupt the process of sadness by some other means, usually with anger, fear, resentment, cognition, or action. In other words, instead of simply feeling sad, we tend to run away from it into anger or fear, action, or thought. I just had a session with a man who has lost his job, talked about having lost his marriage some years ago, and how is afraid of continuing in a female relationship. All of this has to do with the fact that he hasn’t felt disappointed and eventually sad, felt the sadness through, and then being able to think clearly and take clear action. The process of (natural) disappointment is all about love:

  • I love something
  • I am assaulted (I may “assault” myself by doing some untoward)
  • I lose something
  • I feel disappointed
  • I feel sad
  • I continue to feel sad until I no longer feel sad
  • I now can think clearly with the impediment of fear, anger, or fear
  • I feel some hope of resolution or adjustment if that is necessary
  • I take action
  • I review my action…which may be good or less than good
  • I adjust my action of necessary.

Notice that the core of this whole array is the emotion of sadness caused by being disappointed. It is not anger, it is not anxiety, it is not resentment, it is not getting even, it is not avoidance, and it is not denial. So what is it? It is the realization that when I am disappointed, I am helpless, at least for the moment. I cannot change the past (with anger) and I cannot change the future (with retribution). I cannot change the present. Rather, I need to simply (but with difficulty) feel sad and let sadness run its course. What does “run its course” mean? It means finishing sadness.

How do I “finish” feeling sad?

We say this about sadness: “Find it, feel it, feel it, feel it…, finish it.” This means that I have to notice the disappointments that I have every day. I have to admit that I feel disappointment. Then I have to simply be sad about the loss that I suffered, which might actually be something that I caused. Then I have to bear the burden of feeling sad and seeing that whatever I lost, I can never have back again. I might have something as good or even better, but I can’t retrieve what I lost. I can’t go back in time and take the right road. I can’t unspill my coffee. I can’t bring my friend back to life. I have to be sad, sad, sad…until I no longer am sad.

But how can I ever get over being sad about losing my child, like Deb and I did when we lost our dear daughter, Krissie, three years ago? When I think about Krissie these days, I often feel nostalgic: nostalgic about the good and the not so good; about what I did right and what I did wrong. And as I do this, my love for Krissie rises in my heart and I feel tearful. These are tears of love and mostly joyful tears and perhaps a few sadness tears. But largely, my sadness of Krissie dying is largely gone these days. But, of course, Deb and I did a good deal of grieving, crying, and sharing our grief in order to no longer be sad about this tragic loss. If I can get through the sadness of losing a child, you can get through the sadness of spilling your coffee or hitting yourself with the hammer by accident…without being angry. Just feel the disappointment and ultimately the sadness, and it will finish.

An important aspect of finishing sadness is that you now become a better person. You are a better person because you realize that you are a person of love. You have loved and lost, and now you know that you will love and lose again…and again…and again. You will get better and better at the loving-and-losing process. You will be a more loving person…because you are now a person who knows how to love and lose, so you will actually be better at loving. You will not hang on to things, people, property, and ideas when they have been lost. You will remember what you have lost, remember the love you had…and have…for what you lost.

So, Love much, Lose much, Love again, and Love better.