I’ve recently come across some rare bits of good psychology. As a general rule, I don’t think most psychologists have the tools to do anybody much good that they could not have better done themselves, under the encouragement of friends and church. Quite often, I think psychologists–pop psychologists and clinical psychologists–breed self pity and resentment, which makes things WORSE.
However, I will recommend the book “Willpower”, by Roy Baumeister and (I think) John Tierney. I will also recommend the “Panic Away” set of exercises by Barry McDonagh.
The two are related in many ways, which continue to occur to me.
As far as willpower, what I found interesting is that it is a physical quantity, in effect, not that different than physical stamina. Like physical stamina, it can be built, but it finite in quantity, and used for all sorts of things we would not normally consider, such as suppressing emotions, suppressing the expression of emotions, paying attention, resisting temptation, and thinking new thoughts (this last is my extrapolation from their basic thesis). Every use of willpower pulls from the same pot, so logically putting up with idiots at work requires a lot of willpower, which is why it is so stressful.
When you run out of willpower you get more emotional, and everything seems more vivid. This is the feeling some of us have had where, if not on the verge of a nervous breakdown, we can at least see the street that deadends there.
Logically, absent other tools, combating anxiety also requires the use of willpower. I will allow myself a tad bit of autobiography because it might be useful to someone. I grew up in a very nervous, emotionally suppressed home. I took these traits into adulthood. Most who know me would not describe me as nervous or emotionally suppressed, but I see now I exert a lot of energy keeping emotions in check, which leaves me with less energy for other tasks.
The trick to maximizing willpower, you see, is using it in the right places. If you are using it to suppress emotions, then you have less energy to form good habits. Habits in turn reduce the need for willpower, since decision-making, too, requires willpower, and tires you. If you obviate the need for a decision, then that energy carries forward. William James said this 100 years ago, but somehow this book made this more clear to me. All of this is common sense, of course, but it only becomes common for any of us when we actually GET it. I probably only understand half of what I say. Maybe less.
It occurs to me too, that much of our culture is dedicated to the goal of making us more nervous, and less trusting. Look at all the CSI clones. Yes, of course like all crime dramas they are about bringing closure to a crime. But unlike all entries in the genre until perhaps the late 1990’s or so (I don’t watch them, so am not familiar with the exact history), the physical acts of murder, the details, are a character on the shows. People obviously want to see the bodies, watch the autopsies, and in so doing serve some ghoulish impulse in them that we all have.
The opposite of fear is not indifference. Courage, in many cases, amounts to indifference, since it can be the absence of fear. Sociopaths can be quite brave, for the simple reason that situations that normally induce fear in us, simply produce nothing for them.
The opposite of fear is love. It is the capacity to imagine being tender, completely open, and understood; to be in a warm room where everyone welcomes you, as you–with no pretenses, and no hiding of flaws and failures, and shortcomings. We all have them. Only fools (and scoundrels, for their own ends) pretend otherwise.
I am a great believer in the therapeutic effects of deep relaxation, and have experimented with it from time to time. I’ve tried Jacobson’s “Progressive Relaxation”, and have as my goal getting Luthe’s entire series on autogenics. It is an interesting intellectual/political/business question as to how he has been so thoroughly shut out of mainstream psychotherapy, at least in the West. My understanding is he consistently achieved excellent results. Of course, the literature on him seems, on my superficial analysis, quite small. He was no Freud, no Skinner, no Rogers. He simply developed a body of work that over definable periods of time was effective at alleviating the most obvious symptoms of treatable, non-psychotic illnesses.
Be that as it may–and that was a long digression–I really like McDonough’s work because he has apparently incorporated some visualizations from some spiritual tradition, likely Buddhism, that work to connect relaxation with the expression of love; and at that not universal love, which is hard, but simple love for someone or something that is personally important to you. He has that in the Seven Minute Exercise and the Deep Relaxation. In this, he is unique in my experience. Most of them just work to relax you. This is defense. Offense is creating an internal world in which you are actually comfortable.
A large part of my problem with deep relaxation has been that once I get relaxed, I get MORE irritable dealing with the countless details and idiocies that I encounter on a daily basis. Quite often, it makes my mood WORSE, which is not the goal at all, obviously.
I get the newsletter from Victor Zammit weekly. He is a quirky, probably a bit cantankerous at times, but all the same recognizable and lovable person who puts together weekly–at no benefit to himself–videos and stories dealing with evidence of the after-life. Viewed as a whole, the evidence is quite substantial, and some of the cases really don’t have alternative explanations than that our consciousness survives physical death.
One week, he had “symptoms of inner peace”. One was “A loss of the ability to worry (This is a very serious symptom).”
This makes sense to me. If you are spiritual, or trying to be, then you are trying to conquer fear and worry. We all have it. Most of us worry about something all day every day. This is no way to live.
That is why I got McDonough’s series. It was a $100, which is not cheap. Yet, it’s been worth it. I actually feel some progress. The series is principally targeted at people who have panic attacks. That’s not one of my problems, but I’ll close with some observations on his technique.
The tactic is to EMBRACE the queasiness and fear, then to ASK FOR MORE. This is strongly counter-intuitive. If something unpleasant is happening to you, the normal reaction is avoid it, to try and get away. Yet, as he points out, a panic attack is more or less one part of you attacking another part of you. Given that you cannot get away from you without lapsing into psychosis, then the best defense is a good offense, so you turn round, face it, and move forward. According to thousands of testimonies, this apparently works wonders.
This of course (I am often tongue in cheek with my streams of consciousness, if that is not obvious) led me to think of country music. Country music mixes the sad, the happy, and the silly all together. You might one of each, one after the other. For the seasoned country music listener, you’re OK with Randy Travis’s sad but inspirational Three Wooden Crosses, maybe followed by Miranda Lambert’s “House that built me”, and Jason Aldean’s “My kind of party”.
This is an emotional tonic. Three wooden crosses gets me misty eyed every time I hear it, because there is so much love in there. Love and tenderness are related: it’s a good kind of sadness, one that strengthens you for the challenges of life.
I have other work to do, but hopefully the connection I am trying to make here is clear enough. If you have a world of troubles, I’d encourage you to try out McDonagh’s work. Solving problems is hard enough–doing it with lots of worry and grief is even harder. If you can save your willpower for your work, you’ll have more of it left for others, and for yourself.
I don’t get paid for anything, and I’m not getting paid for that. That, for the more cynical among you.