emotional maturity

Self, Selfish, and Selfless

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

There is much talk in the psychological community about “self,” and rightly so because the idea of self is central to understanding the very basis of psychology. Unfortunately, “self” is not defined, nor should it be, because it is one of those concepts that is so important that it can’t be defined. You might recall that I have written (as have many others) that the most important concepts in psychology are undefined, like feelings, love, wisdom, and perhaps other ones as well. Additionally, the three basic ingredients of the known universe are all undefined: distance, mass, and time. All other physics concepts are based on these three undefined concepts. We can measure time, distance, and mass, and we can combine them, like distance/time = velocity, but we don’t define them. Neither do we define “self.”

Not all psychologists use the term “self,” preferring “core self,” “soul,” “spirit,” “inner self,” and other such concepts that all refer to this essence of being human that is not only undefinable, but also fraught with implications according to how people use such terms. I will not debate the values and dangers of these terms but simply state that my preference is “core self” for the most part, but for this blog I will be using “self.”

What is self?

When you have an important concept like self, or time, distance, and love for that matter, you can understand the concept not by a definition but by three ways: (1) observing the absence of the concept, (2) observing more complex concepts that are comprised of self in combination with self, and (3) observing the effects of the concept. Note that the operative word is observing. Let’s look at these three ways of observing self.

The absence of self

We can understand self to some degree when we see what we call an “absence of self.” This terminology is not the best, I grant you, but it does communicate something of what apparently happens with some people: they have failed to develop a clear concept of who they are, that they are important in some way, or even that they exist. A related phenomenon exists with some severely impaired autistic people, or perhaps more accurately, they don’t have a concept of their actual existence.

But this is not what we are talking about with people who have an absence of self, or more accurately don’t have a good sense of self. The primary symptom of such people is an undue attachment to something other than oneself. There is some truth to the theory that people who become addicted to something, whether person, property, substance, or behavior, might not have a good sense of self. So they find a kind of attachment to one of these things (or behavior), which then gives them a sense of existence. This is tantamount to a person feeling such an attachment to, for instance, gambling, that s/he feels a real sense of self when s/he gambles. More often, however, the attachment is less to a behavior, person, property or whatever, as it is to the endorphins that are churned up when the individual is attached to this thing. It is like the person feels, “I feel real when I…(gamble, drink, or fuse with someone else, etc.).”

Most people have at least some sense of self, and hence “absence of self” is not quite right, but when someone has failed to develop a sense of his basic existence apart from anything, we do have this lack of a good sense of self.

Self combined with other elements

People who fuse with something so much that this thing, whether person, property or whatever, becomes what the person is rather than attached to the thing. There is a much healthier and profitable experience than fusion and consequent lack of identity: attachment. There is a literature on several kinds of attachment, but for our purposes here, we are talking about secure attachment. This is typified by the person who can separate him/herself from the behavior or product but finds that the use of something makes him/her a better person. Thus, a person who has a good senses of self can develop a passion for swimming and see swimming as a reflection of one’s self rather than swimming being the essence of oneself. In fact, the best competitors, whether in swimming or playing chess, are people who can attach to the sport and then detach from it without discomfort. To some degree, you can observe a person with a good sense of self engaged in some activity, do well with it at one time, do poorly with it at another time, and have other activities that assist the person to display his/her “self” in the activity. People who have to win at everything do not have a good sense of self, neither do people who simply do not try or give up too easily.

Aside from attaching and detaching from a sport, people with a secure sense of self can truly enjoy something like reading, writing poetry, painting, working, playing, singing, and many other elements of life. Common among people with a good sense of self is their being able to attach and detach from several things, which also suggests that the individual is able to love more broadly, say love swimming, love being alone, love being with people, love playing checkers, and love reading.

The effects of having a good sense of self

In all of these ways of attaching and dethatching to things, the person with a good sense of self is appreciative of the many aspects of life. The primary effect of having a good sense of self is that the individual appreciates life and has a sense of gratitude for living. People with less of a good sense of self do not feel such gratitude. Rather, sadly, they feel that they have not had enough and need more. This effect of having a good sense of self yields a deeper and deeper appreciation for what the world provides them, sometimes as simple as air to breathe and water to drink, but also property, people, and position in life.

In addition to feeling a sense of gratitude the second effect of someone with a good sense of self is that s/he has a passion to do something for humanity. You don’t have to be a philanthropist or a tree hugger to do something for humanity. You can be that cheery cashier or the honest attorney who both feel a passion to do something good for other people. When these things happen, namely feeling grateful and feeling a passion to give to the world, an interesting thing happens: you forget about yourself.

Forgetting about yourself

Now this must seem quite contradictory to what I originally wrote, namely that ideally a person has a good sense of self. So what do I mean suggesting that one “forget about him/herself?” I mean that when one’s sense of self is truly solid, s/he doesn’t worry, doesn’t fear, rarely gets angry, and spends a great deal of time thinking of how to serve the world. Such people are not defensive because they know their limits and their flaws. They are not critical because they know that everyone is doing their best to survive in life. They do not worry what other people think of them because they know that most people don’t care about them whatsoever, while there are probably an equal number of people who do like them and don’t like them. In their doing, they make mistakes and quickly come out with a “my bad” expression. They listen to criticism, whether right or wrong; they know they are hurt, but they don’t let their hurt lead them into anger or fear. Most importantly, they are more interested in other people than they are in themselves. They don’t live through other people, but rather have a life orientation of service. You can’t serve, give, and sacrifice if you are constantly thinking of what you want, which is so common among people with an inadequate sense of self.

Be yourself. It is the best thing you have. When you really know that, you will be able to “forget about yourself” without losing yourself. It is like having such a good foundation that the upper stories can collapse but never damage the foundation.

The Joy/Sadness Dyad of Love

Ron Johnson appreciation, emotional maturity, Feelings, grief, happiness, mindfulness, Spiritual

Do you ever feel “emotional”? Yes, just “emotional” without any real kind of definition to what this means. The symptoms of being emotional are often a tearing up in some way. You might feel something physically in another part of your body, probably depending on your personality type and temperament. You might have an immediate thought or take some course of action, but there is a predominance of emotion. I have come to think that this feeling “emotional” is a very important experience, one that needs to be noticed, allowed, understood, and possibly expressed because I’m quite sure that this experience has love written all over it.

Previously, I have written about how sadness is “a love problem,” which means exactly this: when I am sad, I am in a state of grief for having lost something that I love. This “thing” that I have lost usually will be a person, a piece of property, or an idea. There are other losses that lead to sadness, like loss of opportunity, loss of a game, loss of some physical ability, and perhaps other forms of losses, but the primary losses that stir our emotions are people, property, and ideas. Deb and I wrote extensively about losses and the centrality of sadness in any kind of loss in our The Positive Power of Sadness book published a couple years ago, yet we continue to find new and important things related to this whole sadness matter. In this blog would like to take apart this “love problem” thing that includes sadness but also includes joy because I think there are many times, often when we feel “emotional” that we feel both joy and sadness simultaneously.

As often happens in therapy, I often feel “emotional,” i.e. tearful when I am working with a patient. I have found that if I can carefully speak of my feeling emotional or tearful, the man in front of me says something like, “Yes, I feel the same thing.” People familiar with psychoanalysis will note that this kind of encounter has to do with transference and countertransference that are both frequent and probably essential ingredients of any good psychotherapy. Simply put, transference is the feeling the patient has for the therapist, while countertransference is the feeling the therapist has for the patient. These feelings can often turn into emotion (note the distinction, by the way between “feelings” and emotion, with emotion a subset of feelings). The emotion can be any of the four basic emotions of joy, sadness, anger, or fear, and these emotions, often triggered by physical sensations, can lead to some kind of thought or action. (Forgive the complexity of this matter as this sentence is a summary of two chapters in our forthcoming book, I Need to Tell You How I Feel.) There are many times of everyday life that are like this, namely when a person has an emotional moment (erupting out of one’s feelings, of course). Before we look at some examples of these important times of emotional experience, allow me to set the stage with a bit of theory.

The experience of love always has both joy and sorrow in it

Well, probably not always…but I could make a case for “usually.” My point is this: when I feel this emotional moment, I feel some kind of true love, be it person, property, or idea. Very often, this love is for a person, and perhaps people bring these emotional moments more than property or things. My point is that when I feel this emotion that brings tears, this experience is so basically loving that it is simultaneously joy and sadness. When people try to explain what they feel at these moments, they usually use the term emotional, or perhaps sadness, but rarely do they see that joy is equally a part of the experience. I have come to see that these emotional moments are quite important in life and need to be recognized and treasured. They may also need to be expressed, but any expression of the emotion (and the feeling under the emotion) might actually take away from the feeling because we are inclined to explain why we feel something more than just feeling it.

Just feeling something can be done quite easily once one realizes that an emotional moment is really a love moment. If you can do that, you will be able to tear up, cry, or perhaps even sob as you allow yourself these moments to be a part of you. Extraverts will be inclined to want to share these moments, while introverts will want to keep them private. Nothing wrong with either pose, but it is important for extraverts to know that there not everyone wants or needs to hear their feelings all the time, and it is equally important for introverts to know that they can too easily hide their feelings for fear of being misunderstood. My main point is: feel it first; value the feeling second, and then decide whether it is valuable for you and your audience to express this feeling.

 

Examples of feeling emotional

I am not an animal person as compared to almost everyone else in my family. You will never see me cuddle up to some dog or cat that happens to be in the vicinity, nor do I take any kind of great joy in seeing deer cross the road or geese flying overhead. My grandson sees all of God’s creatures, large and small; my sister has always had at least one dog, and for a time had a room full of birds…jut normal birds that somehow ended up in the house; my daughter, Krissie, loved dogs. Animal people can easily have an “emotional moment” when they see some animal. I watch as these folks seem to necessarily touch their chests while simultaneously coming out with a verbal or nonverbal expression of joy. Good for them. They are experiencing love, usually the joy side of love, but I have also seen the sadness side of love when they see an animal is in distress.

I see many examples of this sadness/joy experience with clients. Recently, I was with a man who is quite a “caretaker” by temperament and also a thinking-based person (INTJ for those of you who know the Myers-Briggs). Jim has been working diligently to suffer through and get through a serious depression, which he is doing marvelously, almost entirely by recognizing what he feels, predominantly the feeling of emotion. When was with him the other day while hearing his thoughts and surmising his feelings, I felt somewhat “emotional,” and after a moment, I told him so. This led to more than 30 minutes of his simply feeling “emotional” replete with a few teardrops. Throughout this period of time the mainstay of his experience was, in his words, “God’s comfort.” This led him to conclude that he needed to trust God more, and along the way, trust people more. Thus, Jim noticed what he felt physically, stayed with what he felt emotionally, thought what he felt cognitively, and then felt led to do something about this feeling. Thus, it was the emotion that was so important for him that led him into thinking and doing.

I have had many such times, often daily, where I feel this amorphous joy/sadness experience, sometimes alone, more often with someone, rarely with nature. Nature people, often simultaneously animal people, feel this joy/sadness/love experience quite frequently, whether sunset, sunrise, full moon (last night by the way), or even rough weather. I had a friend years ago who was hunter and a real naturalist who just loved it when his hunting weather (usually fowl) was “nasty” as he said it. It just moved him to tears.

While not a naturalist by any means, I can read about nature, or history, or theology, or psychology, and become quite moved, not always, but sometimes to tears. I just love to learn something in one of these genres. Making sense of some piece of history, theology, or psychology is truly a love moment for me. I never could see how kids thought history was boring. Why would a person, like me for instance, come to tears with some new insight about psychology, history, or theology? I doubt that I am the only one.

By far the most predominant emotional moments occur with other people. Not long ago when writing about the loss of our dear daughter, Krissie, now nearly nine months ago, I noted how the sharing of her loss in some circumstance led to various people coming to tears. What were these tears about, especially with most of these people had never met us before, much less Krissie? They were tears of love replete with both the emotions of joy and sorrow. There was the woman at the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the woman in the shoe repair shop who had lost her boss, the woman at the headwaters of the Mississippi, and more than a half dozen people at various Starbucks’ counters where Deb prefers to get espresso. Note, all women, but it doesn’t end there. I had an encounter with a man in my office during my very first Intake Assessment with him where we were talking about feelings in the larger sense, and emotion in the smaller sense. I mentioned the loss I had had with Krissie as a point of reference to emotion, and this guy was fraught with uncertainty as to how to handle his emotion. I had to help him allow himself to cry because, as ye said afterward, he “didn’t want to appear emotional.” In fact, his felt emotion was an act of love: both joy and sorrow. What was the joy? He loved Krissie, and at that moment he loved me although he is not emotionally mature enough to feel the “L” word, much less allow himself to express it

I encourage you to notice these “emotional moments”, allow for one or two tears, or more if necessary, and then note the love you have just experienced shown in this odd admixture of joy and sorrow.

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