Minimizing Pain

This post is in response to a section called “The Stifled Scream”.  David Richo talks about the fact that pain we experienced earlier in life can have a way of being silenced (not heard by our own selves or the people around us).  It is silenced especially if there was a message transmitted somewhere along the line that the expression of feelings needed to be muted.  Just think about this:  this is an indirect message that is occurring a lot.  Consider cultures where it is prudent to keep the inner world private, to a situation where there is violence in the home, then all the way along the spectrum until you get to a parent that is doing the best they can with three children who ends up snapping at a kid who gets super excited about seeing candy or a toy because they need to make it through that trip to the grocery store.    Of course, the intensity of the message to silence our experience varies across situations.

Ok, so let’s say that, to some degree, we got the message that we needed to limit our full self expression of feelings.  That means the volume was turned down on the whole spectrum of emotion:  not just excitement, but also pain.  We got the message, then all of the sudden, our brain started to help us out by coming up with ways to manage our feelings that matched the cues of our environment without much conscious effort.  Fantastic.  The only trouble is that the way we figured out how to do it doesn’t always work in the long run.  That’s why I’m writing to you about this.  Along with the theme of what I have talked about before, we actually have the choice to update our system for dealing with pain as adults. 

A lot of times the way that someone learns how to cut down on pain is through minimizing the event that caused the pain or rationalizing it.  It looks like this:  ‘My dad had to leave because he got a great job opportunity in another state after my parents divorced’.  Yes, you can understand this and maybe even respect it if it helped him support your family/education or if he had trouble finding work before.  You might even understand that he missed you.  At the same time, it was painful that he was not there to teach you to ride a bike, to protect you from your mother’s mood swings or be with you in quiet moments at night when you missed him.  I love what David Richo says about this:  “the phrase ‘what was meant’ is totally unintelligible to the body” (p. 27).  Yes, exactly.  To a little boy, it does not matter why his dad was not there.  To him, to his little body, his Dad is not there when he needed him.  Period. 

In order to silence the pain, we try to make sense of it in our mind (rationalize).  We might even try to make little adjustments to the truth of what happened like minimizing our feelings or start bending the truth of what was right in front of us ('My mother wasn't that mean when she was drinking and she didn't really mean what she said anyway').  It is totally understandable why we would do that, but the cost is that this becomes a habit.  We have turned down the volume on the pain (not allowing it to simply move through us since there might not have been a lot of support for our little bodies to allow this process to occur: remember the beginning where we got the message that we had to turn down our full self expression?) and we have dampened down our whole selves.  Without allowing feelings to simply move through and be processed, they get stored and stuck inside without our conscious awareness and then we are depressed and anxious human beings.  

I am not, and David Richo surely is not, suggesting that we live in pain and fear non-stop.  No, in fact, I am saying the opposite.  Let the pain have its day in the sun and let it be done.  David Richo says: “Impact takes precedence over intention every time” (p. 29).  That’s the key:  allowing what occurred to have an impact.  Tell your loved one: “I was hurt by what you said/did”.  They need to receive your communication.  Then there can be space for them to say and for you to listen about the intention behind what they said or did. 

I find that usually people act in a way that makes sense if you follow their steps.  But just because we can understand them does not mean our feelings about it don’t matter.  Consider that maybe people need to hear the impact they have on us, how their words and actions come across.  Your authentic feedback could be a gift for them if they are willing to receive it.  We have to be kind, fair and responsible about how we communicate about our response, otherwise, our delivery is what the person responds to and your golden message that could help them grow as a human being gets lost.

*To learn more about this blog and the author, please visit the About section of this website.

 *This post based on the section "The Stifled Scream " (pp. 26-29). 

Being Triggered

Oh, wow.  Being triggered is not fun.  Especially when you don’t know it is happening.  In this section, David Richo is talking about fears that come up, particularly old ones that cause us to act from the space of the neurotic ego (I just think of the neurotic ego as a space of unhealed pain.  And, because we are all human, we all have a little bit of it).  Usually this pain is showing up when you are really upset about something or you’re involved in a disagreement with someone…during your least favorite moments, let’s just say.

The fear David Richo talks about is related to what he calls a “cellular memory” which connects the mind and body.  So, something unpleasant happens, adrenaline is released because of the fear being experienced and it is encoded as a fear in the body.  This usually happens early in life.  The tough part is that these fears aren’t always being activated with a picture memory to help us know it is happening. 

David Richo gives us a couple of hints to help us know a fear is being triggered:

1.        You revert to your worst fear or most disabling belief (i.e. I can’t survive alone,        there’s something deeply wrong with me)

2.       You feel powerless which can often times translate to rage

3.       You experience a visceral response (it makes you want to tear down a telephone pole, hurt someone or yourself…not for real, but almost)

4.       You may be indignant and looking for validation and agreement from others to prove that what you are upset about is not irrational

The way to handle the fear is to know it is happening (use those four points to check yourself when you’re upset or some of my suggestions below) and create a pause between the experience of the fear and your response to it.  When I talk with my clients about this in therapy, we look for different ways that my client can know they are triggered.  Is it a feeling in the body?  It is a re-occurring thought that comes up when the fear is activated (maybe something minimizing “this is stupid” or maybe something self abasing “everything is always my fault”)? Is it self destructive behavior?  Once you find your cues, you can know the fear is coming up and you can create space, a moment before you react. 

This takes practice, so be patient.  Once you know the fear is happening, stop the action.  Let it pass by.  Do things that don’t require emotional effort.  I let myself go to the grocery store, run errands, listen to music, watch TV, exercise, vent to my sister because she makes me laugh.  It also helps me to remind myself that I am just triggered and that it will pass (even though it seems unbearable sometimes).  It always does!  Some things that are definitely not on the approved list: making any big decisions or having any big talks with anyone about the state of your relationship.  Seriously.  If we can stop ourselves from automatically reacting (i.e. attacking your partner, quitting your job, deciding you need to move immediately, doing something to sabotage yourself), we can eliminate collateral damage.   The more practice you get with recognizing the fear and stopping the action, the easier it will get.  Also, the more you will be able to show your body that you are safe even when the fear is activated.  This means you are resolving the fear experientially (i.e. scary stimulus is paired with a non-scary reaction) and addressing what David Richo talks about: the fear being stored in our cells.  You are literally changing your body and your brain, moving toward health, when you create the space by having the presence of mind to have a different response.

*To learn more about this blog and the author, please visit the About section of this website.

 *This post based on the section "The Past of Fear: Cellular Memory" (pp. 21-26). 

Evolution of the Ego

To be honest with you, the first time I read this section of the book, I really didn’t get it.   

When I read it again, I literally screamed “for real?!?!” … a couple of times.  I love it so much because David Richo gives a name to a process that I could feel and sense but not intellectually understand.  In this section, he is talking about the evolution of the ego.

Just to give you some context, the evolution basically goes from the neurotic ego to the functional ego, which then surrenders to the Self. 

To clarify these terms, David Richo describes the ego as “the center of our conscious, rational life, and is functional when it helps us fulfill our goals in life” (p. 18).  He defines the neurotic ego as acting in a “repetition of archaic ways of protecting ourselves against what no longer truly threatens us” (p. 18). 

So, hold on for a second.  It would be easy to stop right here and think “I don’t have a neurotic ego, that doesn’t seem too good”.  You’re right, it’s not flattering.  I know my behavior when that guy is in charge is not fantastic or desirable.  But we can look at it this way:  we all have pain that we have experienced in our life.  So, if you have experienced pain, naturally, there is fear of experiencing that pain again.  What happens is we construct ways to set ourselves up so we don’t experience it again.  All that construction occurs mostly unconsciously.  It’s pretty awesome that our brain will just help us out like that without us even asking. 

The fear does not seem like what you would typically think of when you think of fear.  It is more subtle and also more powerful.  Usually, when we experienced the initial pain, we were young and had ways of coping that were not very sophisticated.  One hint that the neurotic ego is present:  either you are presenting with “arrogant, inflated grandiosity” or “deflated, victimized, self-abasement”. 

The other term, the one I get so excited about, is the Self.  David Richo says:  “the Self is the same in everyone: unconditional love, perennial wisdom, the power to heal ourselves and others” (p. 18).  So, basically, this Self goes beyond who we each are individually and is actually the rich, abundant source that connects us all.  Belief systems have different words for this source, so I won’t include any name for it besides the Self.  I like how David Richo distinguishes between the two:  “Our ego is our capacity for light, the Self is light itself” (p. 20).

David Richo is proposing that the ultimate goal is for us to bring our ego into the service of the Self.  That’s the tricky part!  The ego is the EGO and does not take kindly to being dethroned.  It fears being displaced by the Self.   Sometimes it actually takes a crisis for this surrender to occur. 

Along the way, David Richo explains, we have to do the work of forming a fully functioning ego.  Why?  Because we want to be successful in our life in at least one or two important places, right?  The problem with the neurotic ego is that it makes us unhappy and sabotages our functioning in the places that matter to us the most.  To form a functional ego means acknowledging the pain we have experienced and how we act out of that pain.  If you don’t know what your unresolved pain is or how you act from that place, ask your partner, your friends or your family.  They know because they have been affected by it.  You can also think back on critical feedback you have gotten from people over the years and see if there are any patterns there.  But, please, if you ask, really be curious and open.  You are asking so you can grow, not to defend yourself (even though you really might feel like you need to defend!).

The process of moving toward the functional ego through healing the pain that causes the neurotic ego to act up takes time.  It also takes active effort and courage.  This is what people are working on when they come to see me (even if they didn’t know that is what they were trying to do).  Allowing the emergence of the Self is not an effortful process.  It is a surrender.  And what comes from that surrender is a tremendous amount of peace, love and faith; giving you the ability to be more buoyant with the truths of existence. 

We all need our functional ego because it is a part of our humanness.  We have this human body and mind to use as an expression of the Self here on this earth.  The idea, as David Richo puts it, is to have the functional ego and the Self work in concert.  That way, you have the power of functioning in this human life and you have the power of the Self behind that expression making the process of being human more easeful, fulfilling and, most importantly, fun!

*To learn more about this blog and the author, please visit the About section of this website.

 *This post based on the section "Fear and Ego" (pp. 18-20). 

Human Program for Handling Loss

Throughout his book, I notice that David Richo talks about grief and how it is often intertwined with fear.  Much like the way he talks about fear, grief seems to be hidden from us unless there is a death or something along those lines that would fit our traditional concept of a loss.  However, there are lots of other losses we might need to grieve as human beings: needs not being met in childhood, a child growing up (even moving from childhood to adolescence), visions of ourselves that are not realized, friendships or relationships becoming more distant/ending, our perception of time being lost to a condition such as an injury or an addiction…the list goes on. 

In this section, David Richo orients us to the concept of grief and why we are often in fear of it.  First of all, let’s be honest, we all want to avoid the pain that comes with loss.  Sometimes the grieving process is protracted and unpredictable because it comes in waves and involves several different emotions.   I love the way he describes the complexity of grief:  “we fear facing the sadness that italicizes the loss, the anger it happened, the fear that there is no replacement or ultimate comfort for us” (p. 15).

The truth of the matter is that this uncomfortable process is a part of human life.  I checked with the conditions of existence, and, yup, loss could fall under any single one of the four truths.  If we refuse to grieve, David Richo says, it means we are refusing to experience life fully.  This makes sense to me.  We don’t get to choose to only feel things we like.  If we don’t want to feel any of the uncomfortable things like anger, sadness, jealousy, disappointment, we have to then disengage from our alive, human experience.  So, while disengaging, we miss out on the full beauty of the emotions that are a lot more fun.  David Richo writes about this and I see it every day in my practice as a therapist.  Being shut out from the full range of human emotion leads to depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction in life, trouble in relationships…again, the list goes on.  It is a basic disconnection from ourselves.   By the way, this is not suggesting that we spend time choosing to be miserable.  It just means that we need to honor our true responses to things that occur, give that response an audience and it goes on its way.

Of course, Mr. Richo gives us some grace.  He reminds us that it is natural to fear grief as a child.  Yes, for a child to lose an attachment figure is really a question of life or death.  Think about it: if a child does not have someone to care for her, her physical survival is threatened.  How will she manage to have shelter or food?  Also, she is not fully developed in her capacity to grieve, so it is terrifying. 

That outdated fear just needs to be acknowledged as we remind ourselves that we are adults who are capable of caring for ourselves and tolerating grief even though it can be overwhelmingly uncomfortable.

Finally, I want to mention the last point in this section.  Sometimes our fear of grief can make us fight for things that are unrealistic like that relationship with a person that is not a good match for you or is just not into you or that job that doesn’t really fit your goals or life path.  Look, there is a moment to be bold, fight for what you believe in and give it everything you’ve got.  Definitely.  And, then there is a moment to align with reality, what is right in front of you.  We don’t always know what we need; sometimes life just gives it to us.  My clients hear me say this all the time…it would be great if there were some less painful processes in the human program.  I mean, think about child birth.  Really?  That is the best design?  Well, that’s the way babies come into the world and grief is our human program to deal with loss.  We need it to be healthy and to exist fully.  So, let’s go with it.  We can tolerate the pain and we can find support when it is unbearable.  And, remember, the moment where it is unbearable cannot last forever.  Those intense emotions only come in waves.  What will make the process last forever is when we try to stop the natural flow of how we are designed as humans.

*To learn more about this blog and the author, please visit the About section of this website.

 *This post based on the section "Fear of Grief" (pp. 15-17).