Author: Ron Johnson

What Do You See?

Ron Johnson mindfulness, Personality, relationships, Self-Awareness

I’ve been working with a teenage boy and his stepfather recently and observed something that gave me a bit more clarity in how we see the world, namely that we see different things. Furthermore, when we see different things, we are simultaneously evaluating the things we see. It is possible that the valuing precedes the seeing but most certainly the seeing and the valuing occur in close proximity. Josh, the son, and Gabe, the stepfather, are both good people but have struggled to find a way to successfully communicate. I discovered, as I often have, that Josh and Gabe see different things and hence value different things. How does it happen that we actually see different things?

For those of you familiar with the Jung/MBTI view of personality type, Josh is an INFP and Gabe is an ESTP. In personality temperament terms Josh is a lover/player, while his stepfather is primarily a caretaker and secondarily player. (You might need to review previous blogs on personality type and temperament). Thus, from a personality type perspective, Gabe and Josh can find common ground on the “P” part of their profiles, namely what I call “low boundary,” or spontaneous and freedom-oriented. On the temperament side of things it makes sense that Josh and Gabe do well when they are playing, whether across the table with table games, teasing and joking, or otherwise playing around, because they share the player temperament orientation. The challenges these two men have is most specifically how they deal with property, but underlying this view of property is a much more profound element of what they actually see.

It became clear to me that Josh sees things that move and things that are alive, while his stepfather sees things that are not alive and do not move. Let me give you an example. Gabe has complained that Josh “not seeing the obvious.” Gabe gave the example of finding Josh’s underwear on the floor in the bathroom, leaving his laundry on the washing machine, and many examples of his using some tool, dish, or book, and then leaving it where he happened to be standing. Gabe noted a time where Josh complained that “someone had taken his glass of water” only to minutes later finding that he, himself, had left his glass in the bathroom. Josh thought that this was funny; Gabe thought that it was irresponsible. The “obvious” to Gabe is property, namely caring for property and putting property “in it appropriate place. I explained to Gabe that Josh had a very different view of property and that when Josh saw property, it attracted him when it was alive and moving. This didn’t make much sense to Gabe until I asked him what Gabe tended to comment on. Gabe said that Josh always comments on birds or bugs flying, or even a jet flying in the sky, as well as any animal that ran across the lawn. Josh tends to see things that are alive or moving, and he is particularly attracted to living things that move. “Why doesn’t he see that the wrench needs to be put back where he found it, and why can’t he remember that he put his water glass on the bathroom counter?” I explained that neither the glass nor the wrench is alive and neither is moving. This was a very hard thing for Gabe to understand, much less appreciate because for him, “everything has a place and everything should be in its place.” I noted that when things are in a “place,” they are stationary, i.e. not moving, and furthermore these things were not living. It was a stretch for Gabe to understand that his stepson didn’t see what Gabe saw. Following this challenging discussion, Josh was, of course, all ears because he admitted that he is attracted to living and moving things, not to things that were stationary and nonliving.

What I want to discuss is how we see, what we see and to some degree what we choose to see. I will delay the discussion on this latter element, namely “what we choose to see” for a moment and focus on what we see with our eyes. I need to note, however, we “see” things with all five senses and may also see with what we might call the “sixth” sense, intuition. We also need to discuss how what we see is what we value leading us to a discussion of how and what we value. Finally, we will briefly look at some underlying neurological elements of seeing and valuing.

Differences in what we see

Gabe and Josh display the dramatic differences in what people actually see. It is distinctly possible that they actually see the same things but then quickly move from what they see to what they enjoy seeing. Gabe sees a wrench as something valuable in and of itself, while Josh sees a wrench as something that can be used. So when Josh uses a wrench, it is seen when it is moving, but when he is finished with it, the wrench is no longer moving, and so it is not seen. So he puts it where he was using it, not where he found it in the garage, and then forgets entirely about the wrench. Understandably, this seems like “irresponsible” to Gabe who views the wrench as intrinsically valuable, not only for its use but also for its care. While the wrench is in its “rightful place” 99% of the time, Gabe views this stationary wrench place equally valuable as when it is in use. Not so for poor Josh who views the wrench something of value only when it is used; afterward, it has no value, i.e. no intrinsic value. Josh and Gabe talked about a walk in the woods that they had together. They both spoke about the things they “saw” but they “saw” different things. Gabe saw the birds and the bugs; Gabe saw the path and the rock formations. Josh valued the life and movement of the animals large and small; Gabe valued the history behind the sandstone and tried to explain the geology of the rocks while Josh tolerated such discussion. Did they see different things? Yes, in a way, but not really. More accurately, they attended to different things. Certainly, Josh saw the rocks but didn’t particularly care about them, that is unless a rock fell from the top, which would have been very interesting to him. In general, Josh saw the living and the moving while Gabe saw the inanimate and the stationary.

Consider what you see, or more accurately, what interests you. I see plants and other things green, but I don’t see them the way Deb sees such things. I see the garage in somewhat disarray and wasn’t to get to reordering it after some necessary neglect. I don’t usually tell Deb my interest in things brown and gray as most garage items are because I know that she sees such things but doesn’t care about them any more than I care about plants and flowers. This is where seeing and valuing begin to connect.

Valuing what we see

I think there is an equation between what we see and what we value although many Jungians would debate that theory. Jungian theory has a different “function” for valuing called the Judging dimension. Where there is overlap between perceiving and judging, I think that we see what we value. Josh values things that move and things that are alive, whereas his stepdad values things that are not alive and do not move. Consider how difficult it is for both men to be in the situation we find themselves seeing different things and hence valuing different things. Gabe and Josh have talked to me about the fact that Josh doesn’t like Algebra and History. Gabe was a Math major and a History minor in college. He knows all the U.S. Presidents and can give you a 10 minute or a 10 hour lecture on all of human history. Josh could care less. “What good is it for me to know X’s and Y’s when I grow up because I plan to be a park ranger?” Josh likes Shop, Music, and P.E. Note that all three classes are those with movement. There’s not a lot of movement in Math and English.

This valuing of what we see (and consider “see” might mean all six senses) is quite significant with many people. I have been seeing a couple who display much the difference that we see with Josh and Gabe. The man “sees” the house in disarray; she “sees” the house as orderly, but the words “disarray” and “orderly” are clearly value judgments (By the way, she is a “NP” and he is an “SJ”). There are many other differences in what they see, and hence what they value. And this is where things get dicey. What if you really value something that your friend, partner, employee, or employer doesn’t value; and of course, visa versa? Potential disagreement? Potential argument based on what one values? Potential hurt done and certainly harm done to one another? Yes to all these questions. It is painfully obvious that we see different things and value different things, but is it just in the physical things that we see? There are differences in what we see and value in the realm of thoughts and feelings.

Beyond seeing physical things

Yes, there are most certainly differences in what we see and value in things other than the physical world. Very simply, some people value feelings while others value thoughts, but the situation goes much farther than this simple dichotomy. Gabe values history, pretty much any part of history. But history is certainly not the most well liked subject by most students. History is seen as “boring” or irrelevant. There can be a case made for knowing history so as to prevent history repeating itself, but that is much more of a theoretical view of liking history. Many people, like me, just like history. Furthermore, we “see” history. Gabe can “see” various presidents, the progression of history from Africa outward, the causes of the Civil War and the World Wars. He sees these things as if they were alive, but of course history is “alive” only to Gabe and a few other history buffs (like me, for instance). I think I like history because it is real, at least real to me. Like, something really happened. Other people do not see history as real.

While I see history (and other things), other people see what they value. Some people value ideas and enjoy the thinking and discussing various ideas of who they are, who other people are, whether God exists, various political theories and ideas, and many more things that are not particularly real to me. But ideas and such are very real to people who value them. Theorists of many persuasions, whether scientific or philosophical, value ideas and possibilities including how two or more things fit together. Many people are not so much interested in ideas and theories as they are in feelings and relationships. I have written a good bit on the whole matter of feelings and Deb and I just finished our I Want to Tell You How I Feel, which we hope will render some assistance to all of us in the whole feeling realm. But why would I write a book about feelings when I have stated that I like things that are not alive and don’t move? Because I also like feelings; I just do make a habit of attending to feelings like some people do. So am I really different from people who are more theory-based or feeling-based? I don’t think so. It depends on what one has seen in the past, what families they were raised in, what culture they were raised in, and most importantly, whether they have matured in life.

Maturing in what we see

If Gabe is to be a good father-figure for Josh, he has to understand that he sees and values things that his stepson doesn’t see and/or doesn’t value. Gabe can’t make a judgment of what Josh sees and values as irresponsible and distracting, much less having an “attention deficit.” He sees what he sees and values it. My hope is that I can be of help with both of these men to understand what they see and value and then mature into understanding what other people see and value. Too often, people are not encouraged to see what they see, and value what they value. This understanding more about what one sees and what other people see lies with the mature person. In the case of Gabe and Josh it lies primarily with Gabe, as such is the requirement of any parent.

It is understanding yourself and then being able to forget about understanding yourself, defending yourself, and demanding that everyone else be like you. You can really spend time understanding other people only when you see what you value, and then value what you value first. You do this, and you can spend a lifetime getting better at understanding other people and helping them understand themselves. This does not mean changing. It means maturing. In fact, the essences of maturity is based first on self-awareness, and then necessarily on adding to that self-awareness an understanding of how the rest of the world sees and values. It is laudable to try to “change” one’s perception of life, whatever that might be, but it is not valuable, and it is not possible. You don’t need to change and you can’t change. But you can learn other ways of seeing. If you do this, you will be sad for a while because you will realize that most people do not see what you see, nor do they value what you value. Then, you will be able to understand them better and just possibly help them understand what you see. You could both be better off. If, however, you stand by what you see and insist on it, you will be lonely. If you work on understanding yourself so that you can forget about yourself, this work will be painful. You will choose between lonely and painful. I hope you choose to see more so you can know more, so you can love more.

I see I have reached the end of my energy for this discussion so I will have to delay several elements not discussed here including “seeing” with the other four physical senses and seeing with the sixth sense, intuition. Then we need to look at the neurological factors (brain functioning) that are related to what is seen and values. Later.

Deep Holes

Ron Johnson emotional maturity, Feelings, mindfulness, Self-Awareness, social esteem

Ya’ gotta look out for deep holes when you’re walking in unfamiliar territory. Deb and I do a fair bit of hiking, and in fact, she does twice as much as I do, often in our preferred Wisconsin state park, Devil’s Lake, but anywhere we are, whether in the U.S. or Europe. Since we are often in unfamiliar territory, we have learned to be careful where we walk. If we are on some kind of unfamiliar precipice, we need to use great care because one false step could be life-threatening. On the other hand, hikes to both familiar territory are always enjoyable and hikes to unfamiliar territory are always exciting. Sometimes, these deep holes are of one’s own making. Literally, we have often made the mistake of doing some kind of yard project and stumbled over the block, the wood, or the tool as well as having tripped into the hole we dug for the post we were putting in on the fence line. Sometimes Deb has dug a hole that I didn’t know about and then I stumbled on it. So deep holes can come by someone’s own making or someone else’s making. Additionally, sometimes you have to watch out for massive holes that seem to come out of nowhere.

Holes of your own making

These are things that you have created on your own that now suck energy out of you or otherwise impede your progress in life. They may be major holes, like a marriage that you shouldn’t have entered, a profession that you shouldn’t have entered, or a house that you shouldn’t have bought. Almost always, you know at the time that you shouldn’t have done these things but for some surface reason you went against your better judgment, intuition, or deep feeling. You married the woman because you loved her despite the fact that you knew she had a lot of psychological baggage; you went into the profession because you were good at math and could make a lot of money in accounting even though you hated the tediousness of such work; you bought the house because it was a good deal even though it was way too big for you. These are holes that you have created for yourself. You have tried to justify your errors by citing the love, the money, or the beauty, but because these big holes continue to bother you, you continue to be in this hole. Furthermore, you are inclined to complain about your wife, your job, or your house to anyone who will listen, always to no avail. You created the hole; you have to get out of it. By the way, this doesn’t mean that you should get a divorce, quit your job, and sell your house. It does mean that you need to admit that you are in a hole, and you created it. Then you can…see later.

There are other holes of less significance, or shorter duration, and of only moderate distress, but they are self-made holes nevertheless. You make too much food for dinner just before you go on a two-week vacation, and you can’t use the leftovers like you usually do; you bought the wrong size shoes and you can’t easily get back to Chicago where you bought them, or you agreed to take on that Sunday school class for preteens that has become a burden. These short-term errors are holes, but not deep ones.

There are self-made holes that lie somewhat between holes of marriage, job, and house on the one hand and buying the wrong pair of shoes on the other. These holes are often related to the avoidances-come-addictions that most people have. A hole for many people is the undue use of alcohol, which then causes other holes like money spent, or days in jail. There are, in fact, more behavioral addictions than those of chemicals, namely gambling, hoarding, and working. In addition to addictive substance and behavior, the most common self-created hole are physical illnesses. Overweight people use 50% of the medical dollar spent in America (and probably elsewhere), but continue to overeat and under-exercise with the result of their talking about their various body ailments as if someone else created them.

You can actually deal with these self-made holes if you admit that you made them. Sadly, most people don’t admit to their part in the hole-making. The holes that are more difficult to deal with than the self-made holes are the ones that other people or situations have created for you. Almost all self-created holes have been created to compensate for the larger hole that was created by your family of origin. But before we get to that part of the discussion, let’s discuss holes that are “just there” coming out of nowhere.

Holes that are created from nonhuman external circumstances

The most obvious hole is the current lockdown due to the coronavirus. This is a large hole. It is frustrating, scary sometimes, uncertain always, of unknown duration, and certainly not something that you created. It is clear to all of us that, for the most part, there isn’t much we can do but wait and try our best to be careful. But in this circumstance there is no absolute rule. Some people don’t care a whit about social distancing while others are wearing hazmat suits. You are probably somewhere in the middle. Note that however difficult the lockdown is, it is actually easier to deal with than the holes that you created in your life because you can talk about “it” that has control over you or “they” who have control over you. It’s much harder to face the holes that you created in your own life.

There are many less profound holes that nonpersonal external factors have caused for you. You get fired (or these days, “laid off”) from your work; your wife dies; you lose much of your life savings due to a market turn-down. Externally created holes can be less profound, like losing your cell phone on a trip west, find yourself facing an unexpected real estate tax bill, or some unknown person failed to clean up the dog poop in your yard. These are holes that you can step around, fall into (hopefully not the poop), and recover pretty quickly. Not necessarily so easy when people have put holes in your way.

Holes that are created from other people

These are holes that other people have put in your way, almost always without intention to do so, but rather just due to the way they acted in life. Some of these holes are profound, and some much less so. It is a delicate time for you because it is way too easy to “blame” other people for the hole you stepped in and then continue to blame them for the fact that you’re still in the hole. We’ll deal with these other-created holes, and all holes, in a moment. First, look at the profound holes.

Profound holes (big ones) come primarily from your parents. All parents do their best when they raise children, but their best is often not good enough. Very simply stated, parent-caused holes come from parents who neglected their children, indulged their children, judged their children as lacking in some way, or demanded too much of their children. As you look back at your childhood, you will see some element of at least one of these tendencies, possibly two. It is easiest to see the neglect (or abuse) of children, but the larger issue that I see these recent decades is indulgence, namely where children are not given responsibility to take care of themselves, property, and other people. Indulgence creates a huge hole in children, who then grow up to be big people with big holes in them. Such people think that the world will give them everything they want like their parent(s) did. Neglected children have a very different hole in them, which turns out to be a deep hunger for the safety, comfort and nurturance that they didn’t get as children. A subtler hole is created in children who have been criticized and judged for the way they went about life, or forced to abide by a set of rules and structures that was not consistent with how they truly were. A freedom-oriented child needs great freedom together with the consequences of using freedom to a fault. A deeply loving child needs the freedom to love all people and animals and slowly learn that loving such is not always good. They don’t need to be judged for loving freedom o4 people, nor do they need to be forced into other ways of life. While most of the big holes in people’s lives come from parents, it is occasionally true that some other person has created such a hole, like an abusive husband, a promiscuous wife, an intolerable boss, or a friend who abandons you. Usually, however, we meet, marry, befriend, or work for people who simply replicate the damage that was done to us as children. (Look up Freud’s “repetition compulsion” concept.)

Most people do not do well with any kind of hole, even the small ones, but when people have had holes created in their lives due to early life losses, they rarely recover. Instead, they find ways to avoid the holes with some kind of filler. Most often this filler is addictive in some way, but not just substance and behavior. Some people use their natural gifts to fill the hole but always without genuine success. They talk more or they talk less (if at all); they cry all the time or they fail to ever cry; they work 90 hours a week or they don’t work at all; they dream all the time with various theories of life or they just keep doing things to keep from feeling the hole inside. Unfortunately, this filler works for minutes, maybe hours, but not for long because the filler is not real: it is imaginary. They think that if they continue to work, play, dream, do something, eat something, drink, cry, or talk, they will fill the hole. A deep hole cannot be filled. It needs to evaporate. Sadly, they very often drag other people into the hole that is in them. They actually become psychologically dangerous, and occasionally physically dangerous. It is a task to truly befriend such a person and keep a safe distance at the same time.

Dealing effectively with people who have big holes in them

I want to be very delicate here so as to avoid offending people with holes that they have to deal with. We all have holes, some small, some large, and we usually find ways to deal with them, stepping around them, fixing them, or simply falling into them and getting out by hook or crook. On the other hand, many people have such large holes in them that they are often unable to muster up the courage or find the recipe for climbing out of the hole, that they become stuck in these holes or become psychologically dangerous to people around them. Most specifically, I want to avoid talking about what is “wrong” with such people, much less render some kind of diagnosis. Diagnoses could include depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or borderline personality disorder, but none of these diagnoses actually helps people suffering from having a deep hole inside. Sadly, it behooves people who are in their lives to protect themselves from being drawn into the hole. I can be drawn in by the person’s genuine complaints about some part of life, or all of life for that matter. I can feel sorry for the person, render some shoot-from-the-hip advice, or avoid the person altogether. In most cases, the last option is where people end up because they have become exhausted in trying to help their friend with words and actions. This leads to a kind of abandonment that only exacerbates the person with the hole because s/he feels bad about him/herself, and then looks for someone else to fill the hole. The important truth is that no one, and nothing, can fill the hole. So what can be done? We’ll get to it is a moment.

It is important to realize that that all people have holes and these very same people want someone else to fix the hole or fill it. You can do neither. In fact, if you have such a person in your life, you must do what your friend most does not want: limit. You have to say no to her/his requests for more information, more money, or more time. The more you limit, the less you will be frustrated by failing to help your friend with his/her hole. This, of course, will make your friend mad at you for hot “helping” him/her, but limiting your friend is the only thing you can do. Simply put, you give what you can, and no more. But people with holes always have “one more question” or one more request or need one more minute. From the people I have known with big holes in them I have heard the following: “I don’t want to go to the hospital where my wife is having brain surgery because it’s going to be all about him” (yes really); “If you gave me all the time you have, I would want more;” “All I want is all you have.” These are actual statements made by people, all good people, and all intelligent people, who have big holes in them. So you cannot fill their holes. Give, yes. Give in, no. Giving in is not giving. You know the difference because when you give in, you resent and you complain about your friend. Do neither. Just give, and then stop giving when you don’t want to give.

Dealing with the hole(s) in your life

Finally, I get practical. It is much easier to wax psychological. Effective dealing with the hole is getting the hole to evaporate. By this I mean that as you take responsibility for seeing yourself and seeing the world realistically, the hole that you have been living in begins to disappear. It is most certainly not filling the hole, whether with words, not with comfort, not with anger, and not with advice. You can deal with the small holes with some time, effort, and intelligence. It the larger, deeper inside of you, holes that require a good deal of work. This is the procedure:

  • Recognize that you have a big hole in your life. This is painful, but it is absolutely the necessary beginning, and it is the only beginning.
  • This will make you sad because you will see that you are missing something very central to life. You need to be sad for a period of time to allow you to move on.
  • Moving on is not forgetting the hole or neglecting it. Moving on is finding ways to improve your life. This usually means admitting that you have wanted someone else to fill the hole or fix the hole. Giving up this dream is painful, and you will see that no one, absolutely no one can, or should, fill or fix the hole.
  • Note the intrinsic fear that you have when you see that, whoever created this hole in you, it is now your hole and you have to deal with it. You need to reflect on what you missed in childhood, which will always be some combination of undue limitation, not enough limitation, neglect, indulgence, lack of understanding of your nature, some kind of true abuse, or a combination of these elements.
  • Finding, facing, and feeling the cause for your hole will begin to give you confidence that you can climb out of the hole. Again, there is no fixing or filling the hole. You have to climb out on your own.
  • You will not want to climb out. You would much rather have someone climb in or at least give you a latter. Won’t happen. Can’t happen. Just admit that you don’t want to climb out and you will soon find yourself climbing…hating it all the while.
  • As you climb, you will notice your confidence increases. This kind of confidence is not based on what you’re good at like playing, working, talking, dreaming, or crying. It will be something different. You are, as you climb out, developing other skills that have long eluded you. I can’t tell you what skill you will learn, but it most certainly won’t be what you’ve been doing for years, which is, figuratively, using a fork instead of a shovel or a ladder to get out of the hole. Forks are great for eating, not for climbing.
  • As you climb out, tell someone about your journey. Avoid the tendency that still resides in you, that someone else can rescue you. just tell your friend your struggle and ask your friend to keep quiet while you talk about your feelings and thoughts.
  • Note that you are feeling better and the hole is smaller. Eventually, it will evaporate

Helpless

Ron Johnson emotional maturity, Feelings, grief, mindfulness, Self-Awareness, Spiritual

Helpless is a feeling. That having been said, it is a subset of “feelings” that I have written about (and that Deb and I have written a book about incorporating all of my feeling blogs). Describing helpless as a feeling is the best way I can define helpless, just as all words representing deep feelings are undefinable. While you can’t define such feelings, you can see the effects of these feelings, and the outgrowth of these feelings in some kind of expression. Expressions of feelings are always physical, emotional, cognitive, or active. I want to discuss the nature of this very important feeling, which means primarily the effects true helpless has on an individual or a group of people. I will also touch on other topics that relate to helplessness, which are genuine depression, feigned helplessness, the value of genuine helplessness, and how to handle helplessness. But first a couple of stories.

Stories of helplessness

This past week I have had no less than three men speak of feeling helpless. One man, a Catholic priest, chose to seek my counsel regarding the effects of the current pandemic had on him and on his parishioners. He reported that he had two issues: the feeling of loss and the fear of the unknown effects of the virus. Then he told me first of the worries he had about catching the coronavirus, or perhaps his sister catching the virus together with the effect that such a thing would have on her family given that she is a single parent. While painful, he could see himself coping with dying, or tragic as it might be, he could cope with his sister dying because he could see himself through these possibilities. However, what was most challenging for him was to think of how he might be called upon to serve his congregation. He noted, for instance, that many of his parishioners were seniors who could be most susceptible to becoming ill. If that were to happen, he thought, what would he do to serve them: stay at home and talk to them on the phone; visit one of them or a group of them at their homes or in the hospital, visit their relatives, or what? Secondly, he noted the concern for the forthcoming Holy Week, namely the week leading up to Easter, which is the most significant week of the church year. He wondered how he might handle Easter? As he spoke of these concerns, particularly those related to his congregation, I asked him how he felt. Helpless, he said. Then all changed in the conversation. Somehow, oddly, he felt better. We discussed, back and forth, certain theological and biblical matters related to fear, love, trust, and faith, but the lasting feeling he came to was helplessness. We discussed, for instance, how God is yet in command of the universe, and that we are but His servants in some way. But aside from the theological part of our discussion, he continued to feel “better” having admitted to feeling helpless. Just admit to feeling helpless. This priest’s helpless is essentially spiritual, i.e. seeing how God is in command, not he.

I saw Jack this week and heard the “H” word from him but in regards to a very different situation. Jack is married and desperately wants to stay married after seemingly been happily married for 30-some years. However, his wife is planning to leave him, apparently as a kind of separation, sometime soon. This I’d devastating to Jack. First, he is an evangelical Christian, and feels that such things are just wrong, but equally important he doesn’t know what he has done wrong, much less what he could do now to forestall such a drastic action as being separated. Jack is a very outgoing guy, a person who has been quite successful in his working years even though at the present he is working at a job that does not suit him. Jack has been successful in ministry, sales, and general management over these years and has generally been highly regarded. He has no particular addictions save one, which might call a food addiction. He is bereft of any understanding of why his wife is leaving him and has worked to hear what she has said about what she thinks he has done wrong. Yet nothing really makes sense to him even as he tries desperately to figure out what is going on with his wife. Our recent discussions have centered around the fact that he is a “we” person and then a “you” person despite his extraverted ways. (You might profit by reading my blog on “We, You, I people”). This means that he looks for connection, and when he can’t find it, looks to what is going on with his wife, always coming up with zero understanding of why she should be doing what she is doing. He feels helpless. Jack’s helplessness seems rooted in the fact that he has a deuce of a time coming out of his “we” and “you” orientation towards an “I” orientation, meaning who he is, how he feels, what he does, and what he says. Jack’s helplessness is his difficulty, almost impossibility, of looking at himself rather than his wife and their relationship.

The third man I saw this week speaking of helplessness is a person who, indeed, is suffering from a Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). You must know by now that I use this diagnostic label, or any diagnosis for instance, very rarely and with great caution. People use the term “depression” so freely, as with all other popular diagnoses, that the word is meaningless for the most part. The symptoms of MDD are disturbances in three areas of life: sleeping, eating, and energy. True MDD sufferers may suffer from all three or just one, but the primary symptom of MDD is energy, usually low energy. We call this condition anhedonia, which means lack of energy, fatigue, or lack of interest and drive. Such is the case for Bruce. More specifically, when we were working together, we addressed an early family situation that was less than functional, and so I asked him how he felt when he was a child in this situation. “Helpless,” he said. This is a guy who survived and thrived in life somewhat based on a life of “just doing what is needed to be done,” and how has collapsed. Why? He ran out of energy. Anhedonia. His brain is saying something like, “It’s time for you to take a time out and rest until you can finish all these feelings that you have necessarily repressed for decades.”

These three stories just this week, and many more in previous weeks. I did my best to help these guys feel helpless. Help them feel helpless, you say? Why? More later. Now, to discuss some helplessness that is really not helpless.

False Helplessness

This is a delicate discussion. Delicate because I am loathe to use words such as “false,” much less lazy, avoiding, addicting, lying, and such that are derogatory with no real value. Such words only serve the speaker, not the individual. This having been said, many people have fallen into a genuine feeling of helplessness because they have not grown up. Not grown up; what does that mean? It means that some element of emotional/social maturity has eluded them for some good reason. The two origins of failing to grow up (emotionally and socially) is deprivation or indulgence. Plus, both of them always lead to shame. The deprived child puts up a big fuss because she is not receiving what she needs, and then she is shamed for wanting what he actually needs. The indulged child puts a bit fuss because he thinks he should have everything that he wants, and then is shamed for wanting more than he should have. Whether from deprivation or indulgence, a child comes to view him/herself as helpless in life: helpless to get what he wants or needs. We can call the indulged child spoiled or the deprived demanding, but both of these children are just wanting to get from the world what they actually need. The deprived child needs to have nurturance and guidance; the indulged child needs to be limited. However, when one has had either of these unfortunate circumstances (and some children actually receive both, oddly), it is rare that they ever find a way to get away from feeling helpless because they continue to think/feel that the outside world should provide to them what they want. There is little distinction between wants and needs in such children, nor in the adults they become. Even though we who have received a modicum of limitation and encouragement might think otherwise, people in this feeling of helplessness truly feel and think that they are not able to do something. At this point people in this emotional/social immature condition find some kind of reasoning or addictive behavior that keeps them helpless.

Of the many people I know who truly feel this false helplessness I know of a woman who feels completely at the mercy of one or more physical ailments she has, a man who “can’t” find a way to get a job, a young girl wo at 14 really “needs” someone to help her remember to flush the toilet, a boy of 7 who thinks that he should win every game and it is “unfair” when someone else wins, a person in poverty thinking that rich people should give him money, and a wealthy woman who thinks that she has to protect her millions from the dangers of such people.

It is a challenge to feel any kind of helpless, but when a person has had a life of feeling helpless, it is extremely hard. And it is hard to befriend such a person, and harder yet to deal with such a person in your family.

A personal story

So do ever feel helpless? Not much, not often, and not for long, that is until recently. I am not at liberty to discuss the exact nature of my feeling helpless except to note that it has to do with what I should do and should not do in dealing with a particularly challenging family member. (By the way, this is not Deb, as she also feels some of the helplessness in this situation.) Given that my value system is “God first, work second, wife third, friends fourth, and family fifth,” I have found that I have needed to examine how I need/should deal with this family situation. It has been much like that I heard of from my priest patient, and it has brought me to my knees more than once. I feel a certain common feeling with him as I traverse these murky waters. So this brings me to the “so what” and “what can we do” part of this blog.

What can we do about feeling helpless, and perhaps get over it?

  1. Absolutely #1: accept that you feel helpless. If you don’t do this, you will not be able to manage it, find ways to survive, ultimately find ways to thrive, and ultimately find a place for normal helplessness in your life. This goes for the short-term helplessness of the coronavirus, the intermediate term helpless of serious depression, or the lifelong feeling of helpless due to indulgence or deprivation
  2. Come to grips with the fact that you, along with every other person in the world, feel helpless from time to time. It is the way of the world. How many people have you heard on the street who have said in regards to the current epidemic, “You have to accept what you have and get through it.”
  3. Avoid a tendency to try to fix helplessness. Helplessness can’t be fixed. It has to be faced, felt, and finished, just like every other difficult feeling. Face it; feel it; finish it. You don’t fix it.
  4. Share your feeling of helplessness with just one trusted friend, hopefully someone who will not think that s/he has to fix you, but can share with you this feeling, just as we need people to share our loves and our losses.
  5. Find a way to accept this helplessness as part of the way the universe unfolds. For me as a theist, I find that it is profitable for me to remind myself that “God is yet in control the last time I checked,” noting that I certainly don’t like all that God does, nor should. For people who are nontheistic it is equally possible to find a way to see that, as Einstein said, “The universe is friendly”…eventually.
  6. Note that your feeling of helpless decreases when you begin to accept, talk to someone, allow it to run a course, and find a real solace in God or the universe at large.