External Focus is a Setup for Failure

When I make what's out there primary, whether it be correcting behaviors in my kids, whether it be trying to convince my wife she should be a different way, whether it be talking to my mom when she was ill about being more open to what was really going on in the moment, that when I focus on out there, there's a very, very good chance it's not going to work out. Really high chance. And when I focus here, which is about the only thing I have potential to have some grip on, and not usually, but potential at least, then I have a much higher chance of a better outcome. How come I don't get it? I'm repeatedly out there and it seems like that's the condition I see around me everywhere.

I think all of us are raised as children to believe that we define ourselves by the response that we get out here. So if we can be connected with our lover, if we can have a good relationship with our kids, if we can impact those around us, then we're worthwhile. Now our inner state is just ignored. That's the way we define ourselves, by the effect we have on others. It really is a developmental stage of the highest level of mental health or spiritual health where we really realize, you know what, my, my relationship to myself is primary. And paradoxically, if we really keep the focus on how open is my heart, where is my heart shut down, where am I getting into the danger of defining myself? By making sure that you change when we do that, then we have really a chance of improving the quality of our lives. Because ultimately the quality of our inner state is really our sense of well being or not. So it is a perpetual commercial and reminder inside ourselves where we're saying, remember, remember, it's about opening my heart. Remember, remember it's about when my heart is closed, having a voice that's saying, stay alert, stay, stay focused on yourself. And when you're not feeling good, then you need to either pray, which means you need to be really asking for a kinder or more gentle or stronger place inside you to emerge if you're feeling critical or broken down, or you need to just at least stay aware of the fact that I'm in a broken down state and that when I try to change my wife or my kids or my friends or anybody else, when I'm broken down, I'm way off base. So I'm in a state of dependency. I'm in a state of brokenness that needs my own heart's attention or needs my own higher self's attention.

The task though of fixing My brokenness, it feels like a lifetime task. I gotta interact with people I still have to deal with my wife, my kids, co workers, friends. In states where I'm broken and in states where I'm not resolved with the feelings I see come out, come up in me about what's going on around me and how do I work with that combo?

Well, the first thing you said, which was fixing it, is a great joke. I mean, there is no fixing it. But there is a way of having the depth and maturity to recognize that our lifelong process is being in relationship to our own feelings of brokenness, our own feelings of emptiness, incompleteness, helplessness, frustration, anger. And that, yes, we do need to relate to the outer world. But the question is, have we developed enough where the dominant attention is on whether our heart is open or not? And can we not only communicate that to ourselves, that, gee, my heart right now isn't open, but can we start to communicate that to others and ask for help?

So then the question is, do I have in the moment, the courage to say to somebody who is involved with me in a way that I'm not very happy with, here's what's going on with me. Yes, this is going on, but here's what's going on with me, right?

And for you personally, which is true with probably at least half the population, your tendency is to not give enough attention to where you're hurting. You're broken, you're empty, you're feeling incomplete, and you're someone who has a tendency to attend too much to the outer people around you.

It's so much easier to point to their brokenness or their problem. And yes, you're right, that is my pattern. And it is hard for me to look inside and stick with me in a way that's effective for any period of time.

So what. What is the most important place inside you that you need to give more attention to that is broken or is wounded or is hurting that you want to pledge to stay aware of. So you don't think you can start to help other people on the outside because actually you're hurting on the inside. And by the way, while you're thinking about that, that's the question that all of us need to ask. It's like, where am I most hurting? Empty, wounded, Where I have the tendency to sort of act like I can be in relationship to someone else, but actually I'm hurting in some way that needs more attention?

The question, I don't even know a single area feels pervasive with me. It almost Feels like looking at myself, period. Being willing to have somebody look at myself with me, to ask to be vulnerable enough to say, I can't get the word out. It's hard to say come and look at me. To be willing to do that is really hard.

So I'm willing to. To come and be with you right now. And so if there isn't just one place, what are the two or three or four places where you most frequently need more attention and you're in danger of going on the outside rather than staying with the inside? What are the emotional states that you abandon?

I would say one that comes up as needing, just needing other people, being dependent on other people feeling judged and lonely because of the judgments and just rationalizing that others opinions don't matter, but really being impacted by them and not being willing to come out and talk about those things.

So needing, what is it that you're needing? Dependent. What's making you feel dependent? When you're feeling judged, what do you want instead of judgment?

Mostly I want to be nurtured by somebody who sees me. That's probably the thing that comes first. I want to be not just nurtured, but nurtured by somebody who's seeing me at the same time seeing what my. Hopefully what I've exposed. But if not what I've exposed, then at least being willing to be patient while I'm not able to expose it. And in a given moment it might be my fear with Susan, it might be my wishing to connect at a place that's hard, at a place where I'm not in control of things, at a place where I'm inadequate and wanting to be seen and nurtured while that's happening.

And then what's the dependency place? What would be the healing that you'd be asking for when you're feeling dependent, what are you wanting for yourself?

This is another question. Is where need and dependency, how are they different? I don't relate to them as that different. And I judge the word dependent. I don't like the word need is more acceptable, but they don't really feel that different to me. I don't like being dependent. I like being independent. I don't like being vulnerable to being hurt. I like being invulnerable.

But you used the word dependent.

I did.

Okay, so there must be some kind of very gentle or kind or warm qualities that would relate to your own feeling of dependence. Because not liking your dependency isn't going to make it go away. So what is it that you're wanting inside when you're in that dependent state.

To be seen to be held. I need patience. I really need patience. I feel so locked into the other side of myself that I feel phony when I'm dependent, doesn't even feel like myself.

So the need for patience needs to be supported. You, because you call it phony. And your need for patience, therefore is thrown out the window because you're cut off from the need, the dependency, and your need for dependence, therefore, or for patience gets thrown out the window. Then we deal with the part of you that feels judged. And what does that part of you need?

It seems like the same thing. I need patience. I need to be seen and nurtured by someone who's seeing me.

So all of these places are pretty much reflecting a very deep need to be nurtured, to be seen to be held as you used and how important that is for you to see that this is primary for your well being and also as you stay inside yourself. This is the prayer that I need this for myself. I need to pray inside myself for the patience, for the seeing myself as I am, for the nurturance and humble yourself to recognize you're in a state of need. So on the inside you need to pray for it and on the outside you need to ask for it.