How To Fail
We may come to a place where we are so averse to failure that we avoid it at all cost …which maybe sounds like the path of success, but what tends to happen along that path is not the success we want. What if, in order to succeed, rather than avoiding failure, what we need, is to become good at failure.
Do you know the story about the farmer who went out to plant seed in his field?
As he was scattering seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and produced a hundred times more than what was planted.”
Do you see that most seed fails. But if you look outside, it certainly does not appear so. What if this story is saying, “most of what we try doesn’t work” ….but what does work, really works. Most of our attempts fail but if we are persistent and generous enough with our attempts, a few of those attempts will be abundantly successful.
Do you see that this is already true in your life. When you were little, you fell over and over again. Learning to walk was failure upon failure …until it was a success. Playtime was so much about repeating what didn’t work …until it did work. You and I grew so much when we offered generous allowance for failure.
We might come to believe, “Failure is embarrassing and shameful; failure means that we’re inferior; failure means we’ll never get it; failure means the door is closed; or maybe we can’t afford to fail?” But avoiding failure will be our most disappointing failure.
If we must succeed, it will be necessary to learn to fail generously.
We must not be above failure. We are born of failure.
Who Needs Therapy?
For too many years, I thought therapy was for other people. I could think my way out of problems.
The thinking solution only half works. And your partner will be the first to notice when the other half is missing. They did not just choose a thoughtful and practical partner. They chose one with whom an emotional bond could form. This part often retreats when couples get closer (ie. move in, get married, share a family…). It seems easier to manage a relationship without the messiness of the emotional half. But this retreating half never goes away. It is always a part of you. It is there but it is neglected. It hurts. This is who needs therapy.
Watch the video below entitle “How to Beat the Bully" and consider this: Sometimes we bully a part of ourselves.. One half dominates the other. We may decide that emotions are weak and cannot be trusted while thoughts are strong and reliable. The experience of therapy will help you to discover, your neglected half was a strong trustworthy partner all along.
Relax! This Will Hurt!
When my chiropractor tells me to relax, I brace myself for pain. It’s about to hurt, but I will be thankful after the adjustment when the pain I came in with is released.
She counts down, “relax in 3, 2 ,1…” but before “1” is fully formed into word, the adjustment has already happened. She tricked me again! She knows that when it hurts, it is almost impossible to relax.
It’s the same with emotional pain. When it hurts, we tense up. Just like on the chiropractor’s table, a protective reflex kicks in to keep it from hurting more. But this reflex is the very tension that holds on to the pain both when it is physical and when it is emotional.
It is difficult to relax when it hurts.
Psychotherapy gives us the ability to relax with emotional pain so that we can hear its complaint, adjust appropriately, and release the pain.
Over-Functioning Guilt and Learning to be Self-ish
An over-functioning experience of guilt is often hidden. Guilt hides on the other side of people-pleasing, over-responsibility, over functioning in relationships, over giving… It can be so well hidden that a person doesn’t even recognize that guilt is involved in making many of their day-to-day decisions. Issues come up when exhaustion sets in. It is eventually physically and emotionally exhausting to continually put others first and to deny priority to your own personal needs. The unfairness of relationships leads to feelings of obligation, resentment, and eventually anger. Anger is the body’s protest to unmet needs. Have you ever been “hangry” (ie. hungry-angry) before?
Now, with an undertone of anger, it is unpleasant to be around the very responsible, super giving, high functioning, people-pleaser. And now this bitter expereince is more for the person with an over-functioning experience of guilt to feel guilty about.
It’s time to attend to unanswered personal needs and to learn how to be self-ish. Want to develop a healthy relationship with guilt?
Looking for a therapist “near me”
I am learning about Google searches these days as I plan out advertising strategies for my work. Over and above all other keyword combinations is the general search for a therapist, psychotherapist, or counsellor “near me”. Depending on where you live, and Google’s mood, you may or may not find me. But finding me is not necessarily what you need. Several times a month, clients find me, only to realize they are looking for someone else.
I suspect, for too many, the exhausting search halts the process before it has a chance to begin.
Let me help you to refine your search with 3 TIPS to finding the BEST therapist for you. Also consider, with the advent of online therapy, you may not even need to find a therapist “near you”.
Focus on your particular concerns
Add some keywords to your search in order to find a therapist who specializes with your concern (eg. depression, anxiety, stress, relationship trouble, communication, marriage, identity issues, infidelity and affairs, parenting, grief, guilt, trauma, couples or individual therapy…)Determine what service is required
Some benefits providers require “psychological supervision”. This service tends to cost more in order to pay the supervising psychologist’s fee. Some benefits providers require therapists to be “Registered Psychotherapists”. Some leaves-of-absence require certain treatments (eg. CBT treatment is often required/preferred for treatment of depression).
These first two steps will narrow down your search to a specialist with more training and experience related to your concerns.Shop around
Therapists are well aware that research points to “the therapeutic relationship” (ie. a good fit) as the single greatest determining factor to successful outcomes in therapy. That is why many therapists offer a free 15-30 minute consultation. Therapists want to be successful in their work, and so finding a suitable fit is in their best interest too. Consider reaching out to at least 3 therapists. Find someone you can relax with. Find someone relatable. You will not regret this investment in the process.
Bonus Shortcut
Call a clinic: Some clinics employ a team of therapists representing a variety of experience, training, and specializaiton. Intake staff are trained to match your concerns with an experienced specialist. They can also help to guide you through questions about benefits coverage. Some clinics offer the option to meet with several therapists.
Good luck on your search!
Be sure to reach out if you would like to meet. You can book a free online consultation following the link below.
Virus d-STRESS: How to PROJECT Yourself
Transcript:
I hope you're doing well out there through this viral crisis, and with all the prevention measures that are in place. And if you are sick on top of feeling awful, this must be very scary. I wish you well, and I hope for your recovery.
In a situation like this it's interesting to see how we react to distress. Our evolutionary genetics kick in, and we find our primal tendencies are working to get us through the crisis. So what is your destress tendency? Is it distress or is it de-stress? Here's what I mean:
Distress is like an emergency alarm. Do you signal an urgency for everyone to acknowledge the severity of the crisis? Does the expression on your face reflect the very real distress of our present reality? This is an important stress reaction, because if the house is on fire, the alarm needs to go off, everyone in the house needs to know that there's distress.
On the other hand do you de-stress?
Are you sensitive to panic that might spoil a thoughtful response? Do you destress, moving into your head, amidst the panic, and call others back to their destressed logical senses? This is also an important stress reaction, because if the house is on fire we're going to have to be able to follow a thoughtful plan so that everyone can get out.
These stress reactions are both important survival projections. We need to get them out there. We need to hear the distressing alarm, and we need to de-stress and stay calm. But over the difference instead of listening to each other, and hearing each other, and responding affirmingly to each other. Under stress, we might instead argue over the difference, and invalidate each other; One side yelling: if you don't care we're all in trouble, the other side yelling back: stop panicking and calm down. I think the tug of war has its place, sometimes. We need one more than the other, depending on the situation, but in every situation survival favors the consideration of both. We need both.
We need each other. We need to hear the distressing alarm, and we need to de-stress and stay calm. So what if this is what we projected forward in crisis? We need each other. Not: my way or your way, but we need each other. I think we'd see the difference when it comes to getting us through this matter and any and every matter as partners, and parents, and co-workers, and friends, and neighbors, everything.
So let's start here: during this distressing crisis consider this projective measure: we need each other. I think we'll find out this was the best way for us to project ourselves and protect ourselves.
My therapist needs a therapist... and that's no lie!
Transcript:
It's getting to the end of February and the days are much brighter again. Every year at around this time i also welcome back a brightness to my emotion. I don't notice it so much on the other end of the season as I'm lulled into a somber winter sleep.
It's so gradual that on on most days I don't realize how difficult the winter has been, and how much i miss being more happy. Dr. Elvin Semrad taught the the sources of human suffering are the lies we tell ourselves, and he insisted: people never heal without knowing what they know and feeling what they feel.
Now he's not saying that that people suffer because they go about life with a deliberate dishonesty, but he's saying that hardship and trouble can lull us into a numbness. And to not feeling emotional pain that's still there, and into ignoring trouble we know has happened to us.
Now, numbing and ignoring, may be what got us through a very hard season, and that's good. Sometimes that's the only way through. But if we keep numbing, and if we keep ignoring what hurts, parts of ourselves are held back. And this is where the lie is.
A denial of our fullest self. We're not able to fully show up emotionally. We're not able to fully show up in our relationships. And we suffer. The trouble is it's hard to feel what we've adapted to not feeling, and to know what we've spent so long forgetting.
It's like a winter has gradually come over us and it's hard to remember. Well it's winter, what we were like in the summer. May not even feel like a winter suffering until in retrospect we've had the renewing experience of a summer again.
This emotional deception or or lie as Semrad insists is something I experience just as much as anyone else. And for me sitting down with a therapist has been so helpful in allowing me to fully reconnect with myself; to feel what I feel, and to know what I know.
To see what healing can come to hurt so that it can finally be left behind. Every season surprises me with a lie and a suffering that's waiting for retirement. And so i look forward to seeing my therapist this season and I look forward to fully reconnecting with myself.
And I hope you do, too.
“Shame on You!”
Why must you wear the shame?
What do I hope to accomplish with the shame on you?
Why must anyone wear the shame?
Where did the shame come from in the first place?
Who is wearing it now?
“Shame is a soul eating emotion.”
When I declare “shame on you”, I am trying to escape “shame on me”. Shame is a proverbial hot potato of intolerable soul eating emotion so unbearable that it is unwittingly passed on to anyone within immediate range.
In my reassignment of this dreadful burden, I cannot send it away. Nor can I change the “undesirable” quality in you, mirroring undesirability in myself, and rousing a smoldering internal anguish. This banishment will only deny your rescuing comfort and bury this dangerous grievance more inaccessibly within myself. The projected punishment of “shame on you” represents a more critical occupation of “shame on me” crying out to you for desperate relief.
But what if instead of sending you away with my burden of shame on you, I confided to you the shame on me.
“Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot survive empathy”
Hell is Other People
“Hell is other people”
We assume that Sartre means that everyone else is awful. We should set our expectations low and keep our distance. But for Sartre, hell is established by none other than our very self, captive to and captivated by the objectifying impulse of others. Hell is other people insomuch as we inhabit judgment.
And Sartre warns, there is “no exit”. We are subject to judgment.
We will try to escape. And yet, in our determination to rid ourselves of the problematic other, we only find ourselves an accomplice to the very hell we contest.
“I can’t live with or without you”
Will this hell be our end? Or might this fiery domain of judgement bare forth new potentials. Mercy? Forgiveness? Understanding? … those prospects which conceive meaning and worth in the very places of suffering, and which finally bring us into contact with a most dreadful but nonetheless beloved “other” …our inmost self.
Hell is other people … but it is also salvation … and you are worth the journey.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Breathe
Hold your breath.
Wait.
Wait some more.
Give it another moment.
Do you feel the tension... in your lungs? Now in your chest? In your shoulders? Eventually in your arms, in your legs, in your head, and in your whole body. The pressure is building.
Wait.
What happened?
You gave in. You’re breathing. All at once…. gasping! You’re overcome by this physiological reflex… because you’re alive. Your breath is a vital sign.
And so are your tears. You might hold them back. You might refuse them for a moment, a season… persistently.
Your tears returned… inconveniently… uncontrollably….by surprise… in a burst of feeling... unwelcomed.
This is not a sign of breakdown. This is a vital sign.
“All I do know is as we age, the weight of our unsorted baggage becomes heavier. With each passing year, the price of our refusal to do that sorting rises higher and higher. Long ago, the defenses I built to withstand the stress of my childhood, to save what I had of myself, outlived their usefulness, and I’ve become an abuser of their once lifesaving powers.
I relied on them wrongly to isolate myself, seal my alienation, cut me off from life, control others, and contain my emotions to a damaging degree. Now the bill collector is knocking, and his payment will be in tears.”
How to Fail
“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die ”
We want…
the success without the failure,
the joy without the sadness,
the security without the risk,
the patience without the frustration,
the intimacy without the antagonism,
the pleasure without the disappointment.
And there appears no shortage of expert advice to encourage us along a path to obtain all of these. But eventually, in this frenetic pursuit of success, we forget how to live…
with failure,
with sadness,
with risk,
with frustration,
with antagonism,
with disappointment.
We hope success will mean averting all of these, but our skillful escape distances us from the very matters of life which contract hope. A “successful” life costs more than we realize. The cost is indeed more than any earnest vitality can afford.
Sooner or later we hope there is more to life than “success”. Sooner or later, we return to the problematic and yet crucial growth edge of life with a newfound affinity for failure, sadness, risk, frustration, antagonism, and disappointment. We intuit a confidence that these will achieve for us a reward that far outweighs their trouble. In consenting to our personal trouble, our hope renews. We’re ready to be complete …even when it means learning how to fail.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”