mindfulness

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.

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.