My senior year in college I spent a semester studying the novels of James, Ford, and Conrad. I was dismayed to discover that this coterie of writers believed that the definition of a well designed character is one whose actions are finally inevitable. It seemed untrue to life that one's destiny is sealed. That one is locked into a fate with no chance of change. As far as I could tell, one always has options. One just needs the courage to deal with the consequences.
Six years later I found myself grading blue books in grad school. It was a beautiful day, and the window was open. I hated grading exams. It filled me with dread. I was never sure who was right, the student or me. And calculating points was a tortuous process. Suddenly, as if an angel had landed on my shoulder, I heard a voice say, "You don't have to do this." I got up, walked out, and never looked back. From that moment on I knew I'd never be a professor. I made the choice to change the story line of my life.
This was a transformative moment for me. I recognized that I had a choice in my career. I didn't have to follow the plot I was given. Or even the one I wrote for myself. I got to change the narrative whenever I wanted. As long as I was ready to handle the fallout.
The fallout was massive but utterly vitalizing. I finished my doctorate, took accounting and finance, temped to support myself, and moved to California -- in hopes of pursuing a career in entertainment. I had little savings, no job, few friends, and a rusted car. I was starting a career from scratch at age 30. But I was chasing what I wanted and leaving behind what I didn't. That alone was worth the losses incurred.
It took a decade from my moment of epiphany in the library to settle on a career that made sense for me. In the interim I was a Kelly Girl, a would-be producer, and a developer. I learned what it felt like to work in an office, to option a script and pitch a movie, and to buy land and build apartments. I discovered the exhilaration and anxiety of doing deals. I got a huge dose of the reality I longed to experience. Then I was ready to explore something new.
When I realized that I didn't have to be a professor, I discovered that what seemed necessary was actually optional. This freed me to ask myself what truly felt good and on the basis of this feeling to change my career. Though I didn't realize it at the time, my paradigm had shifted. I stopped following my head and started following my heart. Not only in what I did but also in how I did it. And not only professionally but personally as well. It was only an illusion that my destiny was sealed. Once I saw the illusion it ceased to exist.
Over the years I have come to the shocking conclusion that very little in life is actually necessary. We don't choose to be born, and we don't choose to die. But much in between, within absolute limits, is in many ways within our control to negotiate. The challenge is to be mindful in the choices we make -- while recognizing that at best they're no more than good guesses. As long as we can accept the consequences of change, we can continue to exercise our option to choose. To choose lives that feel right despite our thoughts and fears. To choose lives of courage, and freedom, and change. To choose lives that continuously surprise and confound us with the unfolding mystery of who we really are.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
From Loving Perfection to Perfecting Love: A Matter of Acceptance
Many years ago, out of the blue, my girlfriend asked me if I liked her . . . body part. This created an immediate dilemma. I had never really thought about whether I liked it. As far as I was concerned she was a beautiful woman. But once she posed the question, I didn't know what to say. I looked for some standard by which to measure its quality. On a scale of 1 to 10, how did it rate? Should I compare it to a model's? To an athlete's? To an actor's? Needless to say, I made a mess of the moment. Only now do I understand what she was asking.
I recently took a course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a secular approach to Buddhist meditation based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. MBSR claims that we are perfect the way we are, but at the same time it encourages long lasting change. Initially this appeared to be a hopeless contradiction. Eventually the contradiction resolved into a paradox when I realized that MBSR redefines the term perfect.
The conventional meaning of perfect is "without flaw or blemish." It derives from the Latin perfectus, the past participle of "to finish," and in this sense means "finished," "lacking nothing," "complete." This definition of perfection is based on performance. Anything or anyone who is conventionally perfect has met the highest standards of possible achievement. They've reached a level of excellence that's as good as it gets. They lack nothing in their capacity to realize their goals.
The unconventional meaning of perfect is "worthy of love." This has nothing to do with the etymology of the term and doesn't appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. But the claim that we are perfect just the way we are means that we are worthy of unconditional love. No matter how flawed or incomplete we may be, we each deserve love because it's a birthright. To be loved, in other words according to this claim, is a right to which we are inherently entitled. We needn't do anything at all to deserve it.
What's stunning about this unconventional definition of perfect is that it quietly undermines an entire way of thinking. It takes a term that describes the performance of the few and revises it to describe the birthright of the many. It takes a term that entails rigorous comparison between contenders and revises it exclude all reference to others. It takes a term that evokes social stratification and revises it to make everyone equally worthy. By redefining the term perfect as "worthy of love," MBSR dismantles the foundation of the paradigm by which value and love are based on achievement.
What it means to be perfect just the way we are is to be worthy of love regardless of achievement. To be worthy, this is to say, of unconditional acceptance, of empathy for our pain, and of compassion for our suffering simply because we are part of humanity. This kind of love is radically inclusive. It holds all people together regardless of difference in a universal embrace of mutual acceptance. This does not however mean that other people must like us, nor does it mean that we must like them. But it does mean that if we could learn to love others we might be able to achieve a depth of understanding that would allow us to live together in relative harmony.
What's true between people is also true for oneself. To accept oneself as perfect just the way one is is to manage to love oneself regardless of achievement. To accept oneself unconditionally, to empathize with one's pain, and to have compassion for one's suffering keeps one together regardless of conflict in a self-sustaining embrace of internal acceptance. This does not mean that one must also like oneself. But it does mean that if one could learn to love oneself one might be able to achieve a depth of understanding that would allow one to live in relative harmony with oneself.
To accept others and ourselves just the way we are is also the best hope for the depth of understanding that makes possible both collective and individual transformation. Only by understanding our differences with others and only by understanding our differences with ourselves is it possible to find practical solutions to conflict. Moreover, when we attend to the differences at play we already put in motion the process of change. This is because attending is a transformative act. By shifting the emphasis from opposition to acceptance, replacing critical judgment with compassionate discernment, the simple act of attending invites new information that generates insight and lays the groundwork for change.
The change that is made possible through total acceptance can lead to greater health, smoother functioning, and more contentment. It can end wars between people and end wars within ourselves. And it can lead to a more vital experience of life. It cannot, however, make us any more or less perfect, at least not in the unconventional sense of the term. Because no matter how much we do or don't change, we are always just as equally entitled to love. This is what it means to be perfect as is. Worthy of love no matter what.
When I look back at that terrible moment years ago when my girlfriend asked suddenly if I liked her body part, I now understand what she really was asking. She was asking if I accepted her just the way she was. Without condition. Without comparison. Without requiring any change. She wasn't asking if I liked her body but rather if I loved her self. I only wish I could have answered, "You're perfect just the way you are." But it has taken me a lifetime to understand what this means.
I recently took a course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a secular approach to Buddhist meditation based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. MBSR claims that we are perfect the way we are, but at the same time it encourages long lasting change. Initially this appeared to be a hopeless contradiction. Eventually the contradiction resolved into a paradox when I realized that MBSR redefines the term perfect.
The conventional meaning of perfect is "without flaw or blemish." It derives from the Latin perfectus, the past participle of "to finish," and in this sense means "finished," "lacking nothing," "complete." This definition of perfection is based on performance. Anything or anyone who is conventionally perfect has met the highest standards of possible achievement. They've reached a level of excellence that's as good as it gets. They lack nothing in their capacity to realize their goals.
The unconventional meaning of perfect is "worthy of love." This has nothing to do with the etymology of the term and doesn't appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. But the claim that we are perfect just the way we are means that we are worthy of unconditional love. No matter how flawed or incomplete we may be, we each deserve love because it's a birthright. To be loved, in other words according to this claim, is a right to which we are inherently entitled. We needn't do anything at all to deserve it.
What's stunning about this unconventional definition of perfect is that it quietly undermines an entire way of thinking. It takes a term that describes the performance of the few and revises it to describe the birthright of the many. It takes a term that entails rigorous comparison between contenders and revises it exclude all reference to others. It takes a term that evokes social stratification and revises it to make everyone equally worthy. By redefining the term perfect as "worthy of love," MBSR dismantles the foundation of the paradigm by which value and love are based on achievement.
What it means to be perfect just the way we are is to be worthy of love regardless of achievement. To be worthy, this is to say, of unconditional acceptance, of empathy for our pain, and of compassion for our suffering simply because we are part of humanity. This kind of love is radically inclusive. It holds all people together regardless of difference in a universal embrace of mutual acceptance. This does not however mean that other people must like us, nor does it mean that we must like them. But it does mean that if we could learn to love others we might be able to achieve a depth of understanding that would allow us to live together in relative harmony.
What's true between people is also true for oneself. To accept oneself as perfect just the way one is is to manage to love oneself regardless of achievement. To accept oneself unconditionally, to empathize with one's pain, and to have compassion for one's suffering keeps one together regardless of conflict in a self-sustaining embrace of internal acceptance. This does not mean that one must also like oneself. But it does mean that if one could learn to love oneself one might be able to achieve a depth of understanding that would allow one to live in relative harmony with oneself.
To accept others and ourselves just the way we are is also the best hope for the depth of understanding that makes possible both collective and individual transformation. Only by understanding our differences with others and only by understanding our differences with ourselves is it possible to find practical solutions to conflict. Moreover, when we attend to the differences at play we already put in motion the process of change. This is because attending is a transformative act. By shifting the emphasis from opposition to acceptance, replacing critical judgment with compassionate discernment, the simple act of attending invites new information that generates insight and lays the groundwork for change.
The change that is made possible through total acceptance can lead to greater health, smoother functioning, and more contentment. It can end wars between people and end wars within ourselves. And it can lead to a more vital experience of life. It cannot, however, make us any more or less perfect, at least not in the unconventional sense of the term. Because no matter how much we do or don't change, we are always just as equally entitled to love. This is what it means to be perfect as is. Worthy of love no matter what.
When I look back at that terrible moment years ago when my girlfriend asked suddenly if I liked her body part, I now understand what she really was asking. She was asking if I accepted her just the way she was. Without condition. Without comparison. Without requiring any change. She wasn't asking if I liked her body but rather if I loved her self. I only wish I could have answered, "You're perfect just the way you are." But it has taken me a lifetime to understand what this means.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
The Hard Work of Love
In my first semester of grad school in English literature at Harvard I enrolled in a seminar in Renaissance poetry. My professor was an elegant man in his 60s known for his vocabulary, intelligence, and wit. The class had two requirements, a book report and a paper. He delivered his evaluations of each student before the class.
My book report on Christian imagery went very well. He called it "exemplary," and I felt like a star. My paper on Ben Jonson went very badly. The details have faded, but the pain lingers on. I remember him suggesting it was more of a draft.
I was devastated and went to see my professor in his office. I asked him why he humiliated his students in public-- I wasn't the only one in the class he had shamed. He told me he saw Harvard as a cloistered environment. He said it was his duty to prepare his students for the profession by helping them to build up their scar tissue in advance. My internal response was, "Don't do me any favors."
About 10 years ago I heard he had died. Unfortunately, my response wasn't especially yogic. I was delighted and imagined doing a dance on his grave. I hated him then, and I hate him now.
And yet, the only hope for me is to to love my professor. It's hard to believe that anyone so sadistic hasn't been the victim of sadism himself. I take his cruelty to his students as a gauge of the cruelty done to him. The profession -- or life -- left its scars on his heart.
Loving my professor means accepting him completely, empathizing with his pain, and feeling compassion for his suffering. To the extent that I hate him I begin to resemble him. And to the extent that I resemble him I lose my humanity. The choice is very clear: to cultivate hatred and perpetuate trauma or to cultivate love and generate healing.
This is not in any way to deny his brutality. Nor is it a roundabout way to excuse it. It is, nevertheless, a plea to explain it. And in order to explain it I must understand it. I cannot do this effectively if I push him away, if I resist his perspective, or if I prematurely judge him. I cannot do this effectively without acceptance, empathy, and compassion. I cannot do this effectively without the openness of love.
It is also not to suggest that I must tolerate abuse -- regardless of how much pain my abuser has suffered. On the contrary, it's essential to do what I can to protect myself. But protecting myself from abuse does not entail hatred. To love those who hate me and also to protect myself. This is the way to retain my humanity.
And so the work before me is to cultivate love -- while doing whatever is necessary for protection. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to all beings no matter how great their capacity for hatred. This goes beyond my grad school professor to include every person who is capable of this feeling.
As far as I can tell, this includes everyone. It includes Hussein, Milosovich, Pol Pot, and Hitler. It includes my employers, therapists, teachers, and colleagues. It includes my parents, sister, partners, and friends. And, most importantly, it includes myself. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to us all. That is truly the hard work of love.
My book report on Christian imagery went very well. He called it "exemplary," and I felt like a star. My paper on Ben Jonson went very badly. The details have faded, but the pain lingers on. I remember him suggesting it was more of a draft.
I was devastated and went to see my professor in his office. I asked him why he humiliated his students in public-- I wasn't the only one in the class he had shamed. He told me he saw Harvard as a cloistered environment. He said it was his duty to prepare his students for the profession by helping them to build up their scar tissue in advance. My internal response was, "Don't do me any favors."
About 10 years ago I heard he had died. Unfortunately, my response wasn't especially yogic. I was delighted and imagined doing a dance on his grave. I hated him then, and I hate him now.
And yet, the only hope for me is to to love my professor. It's hard to believe that anyone so sadistic hasn't been the victim of sadism himself. I take his cruelty to his students as a gauge of the cruelty done to him. The profession -- or life -- left its scars on his heart.
Loving my professor means accepting him completely, empathizing with his pain, and feeling compassion for his suffering. To the extent that I hate him I begin to resemble him. And to the extent that I resemble him I lose my humanity. The choice is very clear: to cultivate hatred and perpetuate trauma or to cultivate love and generate healing.
This is not in any way to deny his brutality. Nor is it a roundabout way to excuse it. It is, nevertheless, a plea to explain it. And in order to explain it I must understand it. I cannot do this effectively if I push him away, if I resist his perspective, or if I prematurely judge him. I cannot do this effectively without acceptance, empathy, and compassion. I cannot do this effectively without the openness of love.
It is also not to suggest that I must tolerate abuse -- regardless of how much pain my abuser has suffered. On the contrary, it's essential to do what I can to protect myself. But protecting myself from abuse does not entail hatred. To love those who hate me and also to protect myself. This is the way to retain my humanity.
And so the work before me is to cultivate love -- while doing whatever is necessary for protection. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to all beings no matter how great their capacity for hatred. This goes beyond my grad school professor to include every person who is capable of this feeling.
As far as I can tell, this includes everyone. It includes Hussein, Milosovich, Pol Pot, and Hitler. It includes my employers, therapists, teachers, and colleagues. It includes my parents, sister, partners, and friends. And, most importantly, it includes myself. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to us all. That is truly the hard work of love.
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Meaning of Love: Acceptance, Empathy, and Compassion
In the movie Dead Man Walking, Sean Penn plays Matthew Poncelet, a white supremacist who's been sentenced to death. Susan Sarandon plays Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who petitions the court on his behalf. Though she initially believes that Poncelet is innocent, by the end she recognizes that he's guilty of murder. And yet, she continues to love him completely. He's a murderer, and she loves him. How can this be?
Something changed in me when I saw Dead Man Walking. I saw that it's possible to love another person even if you don't like the terrible things they do. Before I saw the movie I thought you earned love. Afterwards, I realized that love is a birthright.
It took becoming a therapist for me to apply this. I learned to accept my patients completely as they are. I learned to try to see the world through their eyes. And I learned to have compassion for their suffering and pain. In other words, I learned to love them as fellow humans doing the best they can with the resources they have.
This doesn't mean that I don't worry about their actions. I often feel concerned about the choices they make, the harm they sometimes do both to others and to themselves. Undereating, overeating, purging, abusing drugs, obsessing, checking compulsively, driving recklessly, and being promiscuous. But these destructive actions don't make me dislike them. They demonstrate how much my patients are suffering and the lengths to which they'll go in order to survive.
When I think about why I love my patients this way, I realize it's because this is how my therapist loved me. She accepted me, she empathized with me, and she radiated compassion. No matter what I did to keep things together.
My experience in therapy taught me how to love. To love my patients. To love my students. To love my family. To love my friends. It even layed the groundwork for me to love myself. To accept, to empathize with, and to extend compassion to everyone. A task that it certainly easier said than done.
As with Sister Prejean, it doesn't mean we deny the truth. Nor does it mean we don't condemn, convict, and punish. But it does mean that we separate the doer from the deed and remember that we all deserve to be loved. No matter how terrible the crimes we commit. No matter what we're willing to do to survive.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The Challenge of Love
I picked up a man from the street, and he was eaten up alive with worms, and nobody could stand near him he was smelling so badly. I went to him to clean him, and he said, "Why you do this?" And I said, "Because I love you." -- Mother Teresa (Mother Teresa, 1986 Documentary)
I've been thinking a lot about love in recent weeks. What it means to love. What it means to be loved. You'd think it would be obvious. But it's strangely elusive. Only now can I recognize it. Only now can I attempt it.
Unfortunately, I've always confused liking with loving. I've mistakenly assumed that they were points on a line. That loving was a matter of liking times ten. But I'm finally realizing that this isn't the case. That liking and loving aren't related at all.
A survey of any date site tells us all about liking. It's amazing to see what people like in their mates. Intellectual, biker, atheist, religious, conservative, liberal, hippy, clean cut. These qualities all have one thing in common. They are based on idiosyncratic, individual taste.
But love has nothing to do with our taste. Where taste locates difference, love finds identity. Where taste pulls apart, love brings together. And where taste creates strata, love evens out. To like is to discriminate between qualities based on taste. To love, on the other hand, is completely to accept.
But what are we completely accepting with love? On one level, it is the qualities we dislike in other people. The fear, helplessness, and panic that seize our partner is a clutch. The greed, envy, and brutality that emerge when they fail. But on a deeper level we are accepting those same qualities in ourselves. Our capacity as human beings to have feelings we despise. Our capacity as human beings to commit acts we cannot speak.
In fact, one might say that it's our discomfort with ourselves, with our capacity for unconscionable feelings and acts, that lies at the root of our discomfort with others. We invariably hate in others what we hate in ourselves. And we can only love others when we completely accept ourselves.
To accept ourselves completely is to accept our humanity. That all people, as people, have the capacity for evil. That all people, as people, have the capacity for good. That we can all commit murder. And we can all save a life. That we can all be oppressors. And we can all be oppressed. Recognizing this identity makes it possible to bring together. Makes it possible to even out. Makes it possible to accept. Recognizing this identity makes it possible to love -- even when we don't like some of the qualities we embrace.
This is what Mother Teresa so deeply understood. That she was the worm eaten man on the street. That she was the savior who gave him to eat.
And the benefit of cultivating the capacity to love? An acceptance of self and an acceptance of other that creates the conditions in which compassion can arise. It is only through compassion that we are able to explore. Only through exploration that we are able to discover. Only through discovery that we are able to understand. And only through understanding that we are able to resolve.
Love, it turns out, makes it possible to find peace. Peace with our enemies. And peace with ourselves. This is my hope for the new year.
I've been thinking a lot about love in recent weeks. What it means to love. What it means to be loved. You'd think it would be obvious. But it's strangely elusive. Only now can I recognize it. Only now can I attempt it.
Unfortunately, I've always confused liking with loving. I've mistakenly assumed that they were points on a line. That loving was a matter of liking times ten. But I'm finally realizing that this isn't the case. That liking and loving aren't related at all.
A survey of any date site tells us all about liking. It's amazing to see what people like in their mates. Intellectual, biker, atheist, religious, conservative, liberal, hippy, clean cut. These qualities all have one thing in common. They are based on idiosyncratic, individual taste.
But love has nothing to do with our taste. Where taste locates difference, love finds identity. Where taste pulls apart, love brings together. And where taste creates strata, love evens out. To like is to discriminate between qualities based on taste. To love, on the other hand, is completely to accept.
But what are we completely accepting with love? On one level, it is the qualities we dislike in other people. The fear, helplessness, and panic that seize our partner is a clutch. The greed, envy, and brutality that emerge when they fail. But on a deeper level we are accepting those same qualities in ourselves. Our capacity as human beings to have feelings we despise. Our capacity as human beings to commit acts we cannot speak.
In fact, one might say that it's our discomfort with ourselves, with our capacity for unconscionable feelings and acts, that lies at the root of our discomfort with others. We invariably hate in others what we hate in ourselves. And we can only love others when we completely accept ourselves.
To accept ourselves completely is to accept our humanity. That all people, as people, have the capacity for evil. That all people, as people, have the capacity for good. That we can all commit murder. And we can all save a life. That we can all be oppressors. And we can all be oppressed. Recognizing this identity makes it possible to bring together. Makes it possible to even out. Makes it possible to accept. Recognizing this identity makes it possible to love -- even when we don't like some of the qualities we embrace.
This is what Mother Teresa so deeply understood. That she was the worm eaten man on the street. That she was the savior who gave him to eat.
And the benefit of cultivating the capacity to love? An acceptance of self and an acceptance of other that creates the conditions in which compassion can arise. It is only through compassion that we are able to explore. Only through exploration that we are able to discover. Only through discovery that we are able to understand. And only through understanding that we are able to resolve.
Love, it turns out, makes it possible to find peace. Peace with our enemies. And peace with ourselves. This is my hope for the new year.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
You Are Not Your Yoga Posture
Years ago I was living with a jewelry designer who noticed the intensity that I brought to my yoga practice. In particular I was struggling with a posture called pasana. You crouch down with your knees together, keep your heels on the floor, twist your torso to the left, loop your right arm around your knees, reach the left arm behind your back, and (if you're lucky) clasp your left wrist with your right hand. Then, for fun, you do the other side. The literal translation of pasana is noose pose. There's no more to say. You get the idea.
In any case, my girlfriend watched me struggle with the posture. Though she didn't say anything about what she saw, one day she gave me a talisman for my practice. It spelled out in beaded letters: "You are not your pasana."
It has taken me a long time to understand what she meant. I grew up in a world, as so many of us do, where we learn to value ourselves on the basis of our achievements. For me, it was academics. Going to an elite school. For others, it is money, beauty, or sports. But whatever you're measuring, the bottom line is the same. Your are only as valuable as your achievements.
And achievement in this system is always comparative. Being the smartest, the wealthiest, the most beautiful, or the most athletic. Enough to join the ranks of the chosen few. Enough to prove definitively that you are truly special.
Because what's at stake is your lovability. Feeling special enough for others to love. When value is about achievement, and achievement is about winning, the only way to feel special is truly to stand out. If you win, you feel special and therefore worth loving. If you lose, you feel worthless and completely unlovable.
Moreover, we tend to treat ourselves with the same conditional judgment. If we go to Harvard, earn tons of money, become a model, or make the pros, we secretly believe we are God's gift to man. But if we're rejected, squeak by, get turned down, or don't get drafted, we attack ourselves harshly with hatred and loathing.
To make things worse we almost always equate possessions with achievement. We treat our houses, our cars, our clothes, and our offices as indications of success and thus as proof of lovability. And invariably we include everything else in our orbit. Our wives, our kids, our friends, and our acquaintances. They all become gauges of our success, and we need them to achieve for us to feel lovable. If they don't, we feel disgusted and push them away, afraid that their failure will somehow infect us.
Needless to say, this is a challenging way to exist. Always feeling judged, judging ourselves, and judging others. Afraid we'll be left if we don't constantly win. On the verge of leaving others because they fall short. More or less living life on a tightrope with no net.
For many people this is the only life that they know. And they're confounded when I suggest that there may be another way. It's as if I'm describing an unthinkable universe. They can't imagine a world where love isn't based on achievement.
Or to put it in terms of my girlfriend's talisman, they can't imagine a universe in which you are not your pasana. In which your value isn't determined by what you do, what you own, what you look like, or whom you know. In which your value isn't determined by achievement at all.
This was my experience when she gave me the talisman. Which is why I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me. She was saying that she didn't love me for my pasana -- or for any of the other achievements I had spent my life amassing. But if she didn't love me for them, what else was there to love? I couldn't find anything else of value to point to.
Then I realized that it wasn't about me. It wasn't so much that my girlfriend loved me, it was more that she loved how she felt in my presence. God knows what it was about my presence that worked for her. I'd like to think it was my integrity, my honesty, and my compassion. But it was at least as much my confusion, my self-deception, and my guilt. And all of this filtered through the lens of her subjectivity. None of it in any way an impartial measure of my value.
In other words, I realized that she loved the way we fit. And the fit had nothing to do with being the best and the brightest and had everything to do with the quality of our connection. She liked how she felt, and that was enough. My proficiency at yoga was completely irrelevant.
Which is not to say that she didn't enjoy watching me practice. Appreciate my professional and personal achievements. Or take pleasure in my appearance and how we looked together. It's just that they had no bearing on the nature of her love. They didn't affect our connection or change how she felt. They colored the landscape but didn't alter the ground. For her the ground was solid enough on which to build a life.
Unfortunately, for me, the same wasn't true. I was as hard on my girlfriend as I was on myself and unable to forgive her for her humanity. Only now, many years after I ended the relationship, do I understand how my girlfriend was able to accept me despite the many ways I was neither best nor bright: she cared about fit, about the connection between us, about how good she felt when she was around me and not about what I had managed to achieve.
Realizing this, even late in the game, allows me to shift what I look for in relation. Rather than scanning for objective achievement, I focus instead on subjective attachment. How do I feel in relation to the other? How do they feel in relation to me? What is the nature of the connection between us? And the same goes for the relationship I cultivate with myself. How does it feel? Is it wholesome or parasitic?
Understanding the distinction between achievement and attachment also enables me to empathize with any patient or student who has come to believe that love is based on performance. It helps me to understand why the stakes are so high. It helps me to recognize why the pressure's so great. And it helps me to invoke the unthinkable hope of striving to achieve because it feels good.
And this in itself is a wonderful gift. For without the risk of rejection to push us ahead, we can finally stop and ask ourselves what gives us pleasure. And even if we continue to do the same things, why we choose to do them can fundamentally change -- a change that can transform our experience at the root. Pasana for pleasure, who would have thought? That is an unthinkable universe, indeed!
In any case, my girlfriend watched me struggle with the posture. Though she didn't say anything about what she saw, one day she gave me a talisman for my practice. It spelled out in beaded letters: "You are not your pasana."
It has taken me a long time to understand what she meant. I grew up in a world, as so many of us do, where we learn to value ourselves on the basis of our achievements. For me, it was academics. Going to an elite school. For others, it is money, beauty, or sports. But whatever you're measuring, the bottom line is the same. Your are only as valuable as your achievements.
And achievement in this system is always comparative. Being the smartest, the wealthiest, the most beautiful, or the most athletic. Enough to join the ranks of the chosen few. Enough to prove definitively that you are truly special.
Because what's at stake is your lovability. Feeling special enough for others to love. When value is about achievement, and achievement is about winning, the only way to feel special is truly to stand out. If you win, you feel special and therefore worth loving. If you lose, you feel worthless and completely unlovable.
Moreover, we tend to treat ourselves with the same conditional judgment. If we go to Harvard, earn tons of money, become a model, or make the pros, we secretly believe we are God's gift to man. But if we're rejected, squeak by, get turned down, or don't get drafted, we attack ourselves harshly with hatred and loathing.
To make things worse we almost always equate possessions with achievement. We treat our houses, our cars, our clothes, and our offices as indications of success and thus as proof of lovability. And invariably we include everything else in our orbit. Our wives, our kids, our friends, and our acquaintances. They all become gauges of our success, and we need them to achieve for us to feel lovable. If they don't, we feel disgusted and push them away, afraid that their failure will somehow infect us.
Needless to say, this is a challenging way to exist. Always feeling judged, judging ourselves, and judging others. Afraid we'll be left if we don't constantly win. On the verge of leaving others because they fall short. More or less living life on a tightrope with no net.
For many people this is the only life that they know. And they're confounded when I suggest that there may be another way. It's as if I'm describing an unthinkable universe. They can't imagine a world where love isn't based on achievement.
Or to put it in terms of my girlfriend's talisman, they can't imagine a universe in which you are not your pasana. In which your value isn't determined by what you do, what you own, what you look like, or whom you know. In which your value isn't determined by achievement at all.
This was my experience when she gave me the talisman. Which is why I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me. She was saying that she didn't love me for my pasana -- or for any of the other achievements I had spent my life amassing. But if she didn't love me for them, what else was there to love? I couldn't find anything else of value to point to.
Then I realized that it wasn't about me. It wasn't so much that my girlfriend loved me, it was more that she loved how she felt in my presence. God knows what it was about my presence that worked for her. I'd like to think it was my integrity, my honesty, and my compassion. But it was at least as much my confusion, my self-deception, and my guilt. And all of this filtered through the lens of her subjectivity. None of it in any way an impartial measure of my value.
In other words, I realized that she loved the way we fit. And the fit had nothing to do with being the best and the brightest and had everything to do with the quality of our connection. She liked how she felt, and that was enough. My proficiency at yoga was completely irrelevant.
Which is not to say that she didn't enjoy watching me practice. Appreciate my professional and personal achievements. Or take pleasure in my appearance and how we looked together. It's just that they had no bearing on the nature of her love. They didn't affect our connection or change how she felt. They colored the landscape but didn't alter the ground. For her the ground was solid enough on which to build a life.
Unfortunately, for me, the same wasn't true. I was as hard on my girlfriend as I was on myself and unable to forgive her for her humanity. Only now, many years after I ended the relationship, do I understand how my girlfriend was able to accept me despite the many ways I was neither best nor bright: she cared about fit, about the connection between us, about how good she felt when she was around me and not about what I had managed to achieve.
Realizing this, even late in the game, allows me to shift what I look for in relation. Rather than scanning for objective achievement, I focus instead on subjective attachment. How do I feel in relation to the other? How do they feel in relation to me? What is the nature of the connection between us? And the same goes for the relationship I cultivate with myself. How does it feel? Is it wholesome or parasitic?
Understanding the distinction between achievement and attachment also enables me to empathize with any patient or student who has come to believe that love is based on performance. It helps me to understand why the stakes are so high. It helps me to recognize why the pressure's so great. And it helps me to invoke the unthinkable hope of striving to achieve because it feels good.
And this in itself is a wonderful gift. For without the risk of rejection to push us ahead, we can finally stop and ask ourselves what gives us pleasure. And even if we continue to do the same things, why we choose to do them can fundamentally change -- a change that can transform our experience at the root. Pasana for pleasure, who would have thought? That is an unthinkable universe, indeed!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Further Reflections on the Question of Power vs Preference: Or How to Deal with Bartleby's Syndrome
Herman Melville's story "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street" is about a clerk in the period before Xerox machines and typewriters whose job it is to copy legal documents by hand. Though Bartleby is initially a diligent copyist, he is unwilling to run errands or work in groups to check for errors. This does not win him any good will. "Imagine my surprise," his employer says incredulously, recounting Bartleby's response to his request for assistance, "nay, my consternation, when . . . Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”
"I would prefer not to" may also be the response, though more likely delivered as passive resistance, when one member of a couple moves from power to preference. It's rare to find a couple that starts so mismatched, since we are usually drawn to partners at a similar level of consciousness. But sometimes, through therapy, one person can change, and then then as they say, "Let the games begin."
If it's the other way round, and you play the power game, there's really nothing new of any substance to discuss. As always, you'll be trying to get your partner to agree. You'll assume that only one of you can be right in any conflict. That the one who is right will be the only one who is normal. And that that person will have a corner on the sanity market. The other one will be wrong, abnormal, and crazy. Same book. New cover. Disturbing and familiar.
However, if you're the one who prefers to prefer, and if you love your partner enough to want to stick around, how do you handle the pressure to duke it out? The answer essentially is to refuse to engage. You can't fight a war if no one shows up. Or so they said during the Vietnam conflict.
But refusing to engage is only the shorthand. The longhand is that it's necessary to hold onto your experience in the face of tremendous pressure from your partner to have theirs. That to hold onto your experience you must have strong and clear boundaries. That to have strong and clear boundaries you must accept difference from your partner. That to accept difference from your partner you must tolerate being separate. And that to tolerate being separate you must handle loneliness, doubt, and fear -- the terrifying feelings that come with having a distinct body, the state of existential aloneness from which no one escapes.
Few of us, if any, manage all this consistently. But even understanding this disengagement conceptually can help you circumvent the habitual clashes that destroy the integrity of so many relationships. It can help you determine when your partner is scared and is trying to merge to find emotional shelter. It can help you determine when you're overwhelmed and are tempted to merge to find any shred of safety. And it can help you begin to do the invaluable work of developing the capacity to sit with your feelings -- which is the real hope for internal and interpersonal change.
If you're lucky, your partner will benefit from your efforts and will discover that they also can survive on their own without demanding that the two of you pretend to be one. Hopefully, they'll find their way to a compassionate therapist who can help them start to build a more robust sense of self. And if possible, the two of you will begin couples counseling and have a chance to view your relationship through the eyes of a professional. Being able to deal with separateness can make it possible to come together as two distinct people in search of common ground. And there's no telling how close two such people can be.
If you're unlucky, however, your partner will feel abandoned and will be unable to sustain the connection between you. They'll refuse to seek help individually or as a couple, not because they're immoral but because they're afraid. In this instance you may find that no choice is appealing. To leave can be gut wrenching, but to stay can be deadening. Either way, it may be time to start asking tough questions. Because as challenging as it is to deal with existential aloneness it's even more challenging to deal with the loneliness of a relationship in which there's no one with whom to share the utter terror of being separate.
"I would prefer not to" may also be the response, though more likely delivered as passive resistance, when one member of a couple moves from power to preference. It's rare to find a couple that starts so mismatched, since we are usually drawn to partners at a similar level of consciousness. But sometimes, through therapy, one person can change, and then then as they say, "Let the games begin."
If it's the other way round, and you play the power game, there's really nothing new of any substance to discuss. As always, you'll be trying to get your partner to agree. You'll assume that only one of you can be right in any conflict. That the one who is right will be the only one who is normal. And that that person will have a corner on the sanity market. The other one will be wrong, abnormal, and crazy. Same book. New cover. Disturbing and familiar.
However, if you're the one who prefers to prefer, and if you love your partner enough to want to stick around, how do you handle the pressure to duke it out? The answer essentially is to refuse to engage. You can't fight a war if no one shows up. Or so they said during the Vietnam conflict.
But refusing to engage is only the shorthand. The longhand is that it's necessary to hold onto your experience in the face of tremendous pressure from your partner to have theirs. That to hold onto your experience you must have strong and clear boundaries. That to have strong and clear boundaries you must accept difference from your partner. That to accept difference from your partner you must tolerate being separate. And that to tolerate being separate you must handle loneliness, doubt, and fear -- the terrifying feelings that come with having a distinct body, the state of existential aloneness from which no one escapes.
Few of us, if any, manage all this consistently. But even understanding this disengagement conceptually can help you circumvent the habitual clashes that destroy the integrity of so many relationships. It can help you determine when your partner is scared and is trying to merge to find emotional shelter. It can help you determine when you're overwhelmed and are tempted to merge to find any shred of safety. And it can help you begin to do the invaluable work of developing the capacity to sit with your feelings -- which is the real hope for internal and interpersonal change.
If you're lucky, your partner will benefit from your efforts and will discover that they also can survive on their own without demanding that the two of you pretend to be one. Hopefully, they'll find their way to a compassionate therapist who can help them start to build a more robust sense of self. And if possible, the two of you will begin couples counseling and have a chance to view your relationship through the eyes of a professional. Being able to deal with separateness can make it possible to come together as two distinct people in search of common ground. And there's no telling how close two such people can be.
If you're unlucky, however, your partner will feel abandoned and will be unable to sustain the connection between you. They'll refuse to seek help individually or as a couple, not because they're immoral but because they're afraid. In this instance you may find that no choice is appealing. To leave can be gut wrenching, but to stay can be deadening. Either way, it may be time to start asking tough questions. Because as challenging as it is to deal with existential aloneness it's even more challenging to deal with the loneliness of a relationship in which there's no one with whom to share the utter terror of being separate.
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