Dear Friends, Neighbors, and Family —
In a comment on last week’s post, someone who has known me very well for a long, long time, expressed surprise. She had no idea how much distress I was in and wonders how I hid it so well. I tried very hard to hide my difficulties from those around me, especially those I loved and cared about. This is fairly common. I don’t know why other people do it, but I did it because I was ashamed of myself. It felt like a moral lapse to consider suicide — a terrible weakness. I’m mentioning this because it’s pretty common for suicidal people to hide their intentions. Due to the pandemic and the terrible emotional stresses it has created, we are dealing with historic levels of depression throughout our society. If someone you know is having a hard time, it’s important to notice it and offer kindness and compassion freely!
As it turns out, this is a nice lead-in to the subject I had planned for this week — the small matter of changing the way we see our self. I grew up in a culture that celebrated women who could “cowgirl up.” I wanted to be that mythical, tough cowgirl, someone who could handle anything, even though I wasn’t really. I thought that’s who I had to be in order to be loved, not just by those I cared about, but by myself! My inner narrator harped at me relentlessly for both real and imagined transgressions. I didn’t know it then, but my most urgent task was to banish that narrator and replace it with a kinder one. I had no idea how to do that. I didn’t even know that false beliefs about myself were the problem.
So, picking up from last week, there I was, in the pit of despair, just beginning to hope, dimly, that there was a way out, but still clueless about what that way might be. When, as I had promised, I went back to the counselor’s office in two days, I had to admit that I had noticed many good moments. In fact, noticing the good moments had already begun to change the way I felt about things. I was still a wreck. But I no longer wanted to die. The word “hope” had re-entered my vocabulary. But how could stopping to notice a few small, pleasing things have such a powerful effect on my mental state?
As the counselor and I talked, it dawned on me that somewhere along the way, I had lost the ability to know when I was happy. For many years I had found myself fondly recalling good times long past. I would think, “That was a good time. I was happy then.” But while those good times were underway, I hadn’t realized I was happy. I was too busy dreading the end of the good time. Or too busy remembering a different good time way before the current one. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the present to notice my own enjoyment of it. Here’s the thing. If you’re happy but you don’t notice it, how can you actually be happy?
The counselor recommended a book to me, which I now recommend to you. I’ve lost track of how many copies of this book I’ve bought and given away to friends in distress. The author is an obscure clinical psychologist who practiced for many years in Stockton, California, but is now retired. His name is Timothy Miller. I think this is the only book he ever wrote, but what a book it is! The title is “How to Want What You Have.” It has been out of print for a long time now, but you can still get it on the used book market without much trouble.
On the face of it, wanting what you already have seems impossible. I mean, if you already have it, how can you want it? But the concept is actually ancient, and is part of most religions the world over. Miller’s approach is Buddhist, but he presents his thoughts so clearly and accessibly that even an ornery Nevada girl with a libertarian streak and a fundamentalist Christian background (me) was deeply affected by them. He talks about how to develop new mental habits using the overlapping ideas of compassion, gratitude, and attention. Compassion for others who are suffering makes us more grateful for the good things in our own lives. Gratitude for what we have makes us more attentive. And attention without judgment allows us to recognize suffering wherever we find it, including in our self, making compassion possible.
One of the things Miller’s book allowed me to do was notice that I had a voice in my head, and that it was rather mean — an understatement. How did it get there? Our internal voice is influenced by our beliefs about things, and those beliefs are the product of our whole environment. That is to say, the people around us and their beliefs, the messages we get from ads, TV shows, movies, books, social networking platforms, the crowd at the ballgame, you name it. Cowgirl up, cupcake.
The strange idea of wanting what I had was already allowing me to begin the process of turning the voice in my head from an angry, critical one into a kinder, more forgiving one. But our internal narration is a mental habit, and habits of any kind are hard to change. Next time, some thoughts about practical ways to do this, always with the aim of making compassion something we offer without hesitation, whether it’s for others or for our self.
In parting, here is a poem from that period of my life, and a small good moment. Nobody knows how to appreciate a small good moment like a cat.
LOST URBANITE
strange how the wet sidewalks,
the smoking roads clogged
with fellow absentees,
we furious drifters in
a seeker’s storm, the wind
made of anger, the rain
of cars, watches, pretty
food that leaves us hungry,
homeless in a stranger’s house,
the walls frost-white
with noise
ask nothing,
give nothing in return.
please, whoever
you are, i am too tired
to walk anymore and oh
how i fear sleep, please
gather me up, carry me into
that small silent space,
where moonlight rings
a pool trout-kissed,
a mockingbird sings,
and You lean smiling
against a dogwood tree.