How can we find dignity and peace in challenging feelings and situations? - Episode 52

Awareness That Heals, Episode 52.

To develop a friendly mind when we're in hell is even more impressive. We deserve even more credit than when we are in a relatively less form of suffering.

The Awareness That Heals podcast helps its listeners learn to develop the capacity to have a more healing response to emotions and situations rather than becoming stuck. Your host, Robert J. Strock, has practiced psychotherapy for more than 45 years. He wrote the book, "Awareness That Heals: Bringing Heart and Wisdom to Life's Challenges," to help develop self-caring and the capacity to respond in an effective way to life's challenges, especially at times when we are most prone to be critical or to withdraw. Together, we will explore how to become aware of our challenging feelings and at the same time, find alternative ways to live a more fulfilling and inspiring life.

I'd like to welcome you again to Awareness That Heals and let you know that this is a place that really touches my heart. I hope it touches yours. And we're focusing on bringing heart and wisdom to our life's challenges. We start again and again with being aware of what is most difficult for us. And some of you might just hear this and kind of glaze through that and not really, really, really take this personally and take this in. But the reason why we're saying it in this way is because it's so counter-instinctual, it's so counter-conditioning. And even as I'm speaking right now, take a look at whether you're even glimpsing what is difficult for you. And when you hear this, because you'll be hearing this in future episodes as well, really take the opportunity to drop in and say hello to the part of yourself that is probably suffering from malnutrition and recognize that you want to give it a nutritional awareness. And these difficulties that we're talking about, these challenges we're talking about, are universal for all of us, whether we recognize them or not. It's absolutely a part of being human. And valuing them, seeing them as being seeds of potential for ourselves is so crucial. And what makes it desirable isn't just suffering. It's then inquiring, how can we care for ourselves at these times? So it's a partnership. We look at what's difficult and we look at how we can best move in the direction to care for ourselves. And of course, as we become adept at this, we have the potential to do this for those around us as well. And this sets up the ideal conditions for us to be fulfilled in our lives and to support those we love and contribute to the world by finding and living closer to our best selves. And I'd like to start again with introducing Dave. And as I did in the last episode, I'm not even going to tell you our relationship because I'm assuming you've probably been around with us. And if you haven't, hopefully it'll be incentive. You'll, you'll go back just to find out who is this guy Dave.

Thank you. Well, I'll say it, we've been friends for 50 years. I don't want to have anybody guessing out there. And these episodes of moving from feelings to needs, um, for me are just an important place along the road of awareness that heals, uh, because it really is getting right to the place in our moment-to-moment lives where it matters, where we can make a difference, where we can really take care of our own suffering in a way that at least allows us to be with it and creatively find ways and important ways to even move on.

Exactly. Thanks, Dave. So as we ended the last episode, I realized I wanted to highlight, and I do want to highlight right now, that this is much more difficult than just circling emotions, challenging emotions, and our essential needs or actions or qualities. On a chart, that the charts will help us identify it. But it requires an actual significant motivation on your part to realize this is important. This is a way where I get to be the real me, all of me, and not cave into or run away from What is difficult? And again, just take that in, because I think it's so intuitively obvious, but not obvious if we're not in touch with our intuition, that of course we want to include the part of ourselves that is challenged. And of course we want to do our best to take care of it. And so why wouldn't this be a central part of our lives? Why wouldn't we wanna raise our children with recognizing that we are interested in what's difficult in them? Or for those of us that are as old as we are, our grandchildren, why wouldn't we want to be interested in what is hurting? And gee, I wonder how you can help yourself. And of course the language changes when you're dealing with a 7-year-old or a 5-year-old, or you're dealing with an adult. But the theme is not only universal, it's ageless. Starts very, very young, from the time children can speak, to very, very old when we're dying. All the way through, there are going to be challenges, and all the way through, there can be needs that are so subtle that we need to refer back to a source as in the introspective guides on awarenesstheheals.org that are free, to be able to really continually identify them. And I caution you that you may look at these lists and it may work for you 3 times, and then you think you got it, and then 6 months later you're dealing with another challenge and you're confused. And you forget that, you know what, I don't have to stay confused. I can identify what the needs, what the challenging feelings are. And then in this case, it would be having a dignifying response to confusion. And you'd be starting where you are. And then you'd be asking questions like, well, what am I confused about? And you drill further and further and further.

If I, if I could jump in here, your engineer Mark, if that's okay. When I'm, when I'm listening to this just now, I think, I think about actually my childhood. And I grew up with a pretty large family. We were all Christians and we were all born again and we all prayed to Jesus at least twice a week and believed that if we did right, we'd get right. And that our prayers would be answered. And, um, you know, you'd find the right one to marry, and you— and God would bless you with kids. And then you'd find, uh, by walking that life of faith, that, that, you know, as, as the Bible says, um, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. And that you'd have an abundant life and, and these kinds of things. Well, I'm 64, and I've had a lot of hard stuff happen to me, and I have a lot of shitty things in my future I got to deal with. I have a surgery coming up that could be really not good, um, you know, and I, I feel like I'm doing right in life. I have a homeless, uh, homeless initiative where we're going to provide an income to the homeless, um, and that just sounds really great, but it feels like it's falling apart. It feels like my faith is falling apart. It feels like, you know what, all those years of prayer and all that somehow good intention that I thought I was living, I'm starting to doubt it. And it makes me disappointed and it makes me feel hurt and it makes me feel like it's my fault because I should never be doubting my faith, but I do. And I also, I'm really disappointed in the world, and that, that kind of thrives into it in terms of the division in the world and the way that people seem to be more and more isolated and more and more angry. And so I'm in a tough spot, and I'd like you to address that because I, I'm so cynical. I don't want to feel like you're telling me to just have a better attitude. I'd like some help with that.

Well, first of all, Mark, you always have the invitation to join, and this is a classic reason why you have the invitation, because you're relating to probably half the world, and it's very touching to me, the depth of where you're speaking from and the transparency on a level of personal suffering, on a level of difficulty with how do I stay with my faith, how do I really relate to the world that appears to be in such division that it seems like it's falling apart. And what I would first say is that with your faith, I believe it's a critical piece, and the emphasis is peace, of honoring both your faith and your doubt. So for you to doubt your faith, for me, it's worthy of doubting it being the end-all and be-all. At the same time, it's sacred. At the same time, your prayers and you really opening yourself to a source, a religion, a God that is beyond our conception is very valuable. So great support for you both to go with your faith, to go with your prayer, and to respect your doubt which is really saying, and I need more. I need to do more of the work myself and not just put all the power into God. And I need to see what way can I be resourceful as well. And so it's a yes and. Yes to my faith, yes to my belief, and Yes to being resourceful, to identifying the suffering and seeing how I can do what I can do to, in a certain way, supplement God's will, to find the inner God, the inner guide, to be able to move myself in a direction that makes sense. And when you have the feelings, or even if the feelings are chronic about the world, not to forget that the reason why you're having the feelings of despair is because you are so innocent in wanting the world to really work out, wanting those that are suffering that you're working with, that are homeless, that your goodwill, even when you're suffering, is still reaching out to that community that so desperately needs help. And I know you well enough to know that you're not in Fat City yourself economically, and yet you're still reaching out. And so somehow to be able to have several messages at once. One is having doubt about my faith doesn't mean that my faith isn't real. Having doubt about God doesn't mean God isn't real. In your life. What it means is there's an 'and.' And so, congratulations, I still can be asking and praying for the best possible outcome in whatever way you choose to say, to ask that. And you say, okay, I'm feeling fear, or I'm feeling anxious, or I'm feeling depressed, or I'm feeling hopeless. Or I'm feeling cynical. And how can I use feelings? And what way can I move to move toward trust, toward hope, toward acceptance, toward courage, towards— toward my— toward my faith? And yet still respect that a part of you is cynical. And I think cynicism is an exaggerated feeling of doubt. And maybe as you give that cynicism more outward attention, you will see that it really is just doubt. And knowing you as I do, I know you're not a cynic, you know, that that would be a fleeting awareness of feeling cynicism because you're so discouraged and maybe keep it inside for too long. But you're such a good soul that accepting your doubt and seeing that your doubt is smart, that how can we not doubt the well-being of the world? How can we not visit moments of cynicism because we see so many people that are self-centered and that are not really aiming for helping the homeless like you are, or people that have wealth contributing their dimes, and you can't get 10 cents a bottle or can for your homeless people instead of 5 because money is being held onto by the wealthy. So seeing the cynicism as doubt, seeing the doubt as a longing for faith, seeing your doubt of your faith as a longing for it to be a be-all end-all, and your life experience is teaching you that my faith is great, but it's not enough. I need to also do my part. And so for everyone that's listening, to respect their doubt of their faith, but not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It's like, you know, the, the faith is so central, and yet it's not enough. It's not enough. Because we're going to have obstacles, we're going to have difficult feelings, and if we're honest with ourselves, it's not going to cover everything. So whatever is not healed, we need to have the humility, the honesty, the integrity to say, good for me, good for me. Not bad on me that I, that I don't have enough faith to have it all covered, but good on me that I have a life of faith. Good of— good on me that it might be 75% or 60% or 80% of me has faith, but then the rest of that, I am going to need to do my inner work. And that speaks to really everyone, not only that's in that situation, but everyone that has doubt about any approach, including the approach I'm expressing. If you have another 35% And you want, you want to go that way? Absolutely. Follow your own wisdom as to where it guides you to where you can be most resourceful to take care of your suffering in the best way possible and to not give up on yourself and to be really honoring of what the challenge is and then really be riveted to how can I move toward healing? And that may be meditation, that may be prayer, that may be right action, that may be dedicating yourself to the homeless, that may be listening to music that will put you in a mood that will allow you to be having a greater sense of well-being, or an art form, or going to nature. There are so many ways to move toward healing. And whatever works for you is golden. The key thing is not to suppress the challenges and not to just stay with the challenges, but to really ask that question. And sometimes, you know, I asked my teacher one time when I was really immersed in a, uh, deeply, deeply hopeless state for years following the chemical reaction to my transplant. And his response was, sometimes it's good to go cook some eggs. And, and it was like, sometimes it's good to distract yourself and just go into the entertainment or, or go into some kind of mundane, uh, action that's going to take your mind off it. And then you ask the deeper questions. So there are so many ways that we can move toward our needs. And so from my vantage point and my understanding of God, God blesses you for even those doubts, and especially blesses you when you respond in kind with what I believe a God, the God, would wish for all of us, that in addition to having faith, we need to turn that faith inward, and we need to have enough faith to have courage to face what's difficult, and then to keep having the perseverance to go for what we need and to try to be with it as specifically and dedicatedly with, with our faith in that direction as well.

Thanks, Robert. That's a bullseye. Thank you.

And the timing turned out to be absolutely perfect because really the next place I wanted to go into was that all too often our spiritual approaches don't value the awareness of our challenges as much as being liberated in understanding. We need to also go in the direction that we just talked about, and whatever isn't working, whatever our best approach is that isn't working, not to give up on ourselves and to keep looking. What else is the direction that I can go? Now, in my life experience, there is prayer, there is meditation, and there is awareness that heals, that involves being honest and courageous enough to face our suffering and to look for the needs that are under— underneath there. That are often hiding. So it's so important that in addition, we all need to be included as worthy people, no matter whether we have faith or we don't have faith, and that there are parts of life that are going to come into us that are deeply challenging. And again, as I'm speaking, please don't listen dominantly to my words. I'm hoping that as you're listening to this podcast, it's like a Woody Allen movie. You know, where at one level you're listening to me, another level is a bubble above your head that's saying, well, what are my needs? What are my feelings? What are my challenges? And that you stay with a Woody Allen image the whole time you're listening to me. You're only half listening to me. And I'm hoping the other half truly is dedicated to your own personal life and not going into abstraction or fantasy. When we see more clearly that we all are human and we all have these same universal needs to be safe, to be at peace, it, it becomes clear that of course living in especially this world, I would say this world where global warming has never existed before, where the division of wealth and poverty has never been so extreme, where the corruption is more obvious than it's ever been. We have the media that's putting a spotlight. We have iPhones that are showing us abuses that we never have seen so blatantly, and we can just be reactive and just go, oh, the world is so screwed up. But that's okay for an opening line. Then hopefully we follow it with, how can I do my part? And then maybe it comes, well, my part doesn't matter. It's so small, it's not gonna make any difference. The world is still screwed. The world is still gonna go down. Well, from my vantage point, we all need to recognize that our contribution is everything we can do. And that really the catalytic effect of any one of us really going for these universal needs is going to have a chain reaction. And that even if we're only starting off with 20% of us or 15% of us that really are caring for the world like you are, Mark, with, with caring for the homeless, that we need to keep finding each other as we find ourselves. We need to befriend people who have hearts that are looking for healing for ourselves and for others. And this is a time where finding each other is as important as finding ourselves.

I'd just like to, uh, first say, Mark, thank you for sharing, uh, and Really, that was a very vulnerable and, for me, poignant expression of a lot of areas of life, and it deeply touched me. One of the things you said, and of course I was raised Jewish, so it was different, but the feeling of faith providing early in life guarantees of certain outcomes. Was something I chased in a different way later in my life. And as life does, I was sorely not only disappointed but crushed in the expectations and in what I believed were the guarantees of that direction I was headed. I mean, crushed to a point where it created a post-traumatic stress that has lasted years. And Robert, what you just said, for me, I just want to emphasize how important it is, which is really— and I think, Mark, you are doing this— is it's asking, here I am, here's my experience, whether it's the world, whether it's me personally, whether it's my health, What can I do? Whether you use those lists that you've learned or whatever it may be, but how do I guide myself moment to moment and not just get absorbed in and drown in the feeling, but what can I do practically? What is the best I can do right now? I've made it my mission to do that as much as I can. And I am by no means perfect. I am by no means close. But that's, but that's what I aspire to.

Well, thanks, Dave. And also, I know how parallel your experience is, and yet unique and different from Mark's, of the depth of suffering that you went through when, as you said, you were crushed. And I think the post-traumatic stress we both know is still here. You know, you said it's gone on for years, and, and it— probably you will die with it. And, and to, to go deeply into anything that is a potential promise of liberation, spiritual health, complete well-being, maybe in itself is kind of a warning for all of us that that kind of depth of guarantee is kind of doomed to be a partial promise, and maybe not a promise at all. But, but I think in Mark's case, it certainly was a promise to a large extent. And I think, Dave, in yours it was too. But Dave, you faced a hell that's lasted for decades and have faced it and have really recreated a life that has had courage, has had a generosity, has had a caring for others. And as you've talked about in so many recent episodes, last but not least, a caring for self, where you've really, really wanted to treat yourself as you treat others. And you're kind of the reverse of the golden rule. You know, you've gone out to treat others as you'd like to be treated, and now you're, now you're going the whole way. And I think it's so important to realize that we just have 2 people, and really 3 people, that have all suffered a loss. And we're doing our best, each in our unique way, to really dig in deeply, to not just live a life where, as you said, Dave, moment to moment where we forget for a year. It's like every moment counts. And if this moment isn't a good moment, the possibility of being able to remember, how can I best take care of myself? What are my needs? What is this suffering? You know, the quality of life is utterly dependent on being exactly where we are and then being resourceful. But the bypassing of where we are, or the absorption in where we are, is the way to really suffer the most. Our emotions can be so riveting, so powerful, so compelling So pretending to be God, to be the all, to be the fate of our life, to be long-standing, we make ourselves believe, oh, this is going to be it for now, our life is over because this fear is just the beginning of the end, or this anxiety is the beginning, middle, and the end, or this depression is the same. And we need to be supported to really, A, remember that we can go for our universal needs that are so healthy and wholesome. And at the very least, even if we're in our very worst suffering, chronic pain, trauma, that we can have a mind that we can develop. And for those that haven't gone back there and are in that kind of pain, I would highly encourage going back to Friendly Mind. Mind, which is starting with the 7th episode, where at the very least we can develop a mind that can be on our side and that can be what I would call an empathic mind, where the mind itself is telling us, I know how hard this is, this would be difficult for anyone, I'm sorry you have to go through this. And we have our ways of saying that to ourselves to guide ourselves. And at the very least, we can find that resource. And as I've said many times, to develop a friendly mind when we're in hell is even more impressive. We deserve even more credit than we, when we are in a relatively less form of suffering and we're resourceful because it's that hard when we're in that kind of chronicity. So it's really important to recognize there is no state, whether it be extraordinary suffering that's overwhelming and traumatic, or whether it's circumstantial, that isn't dignified and worthy of our attention and our responsiveness to guide ourselves toward what is the best potential toward well-being and healing. So my wish at the end of this episode is that you see the dignity in the suffering so much that it really ratchets up your need and desire to acquaint yourself more deeply with the suffering and to be trusting enough and resourceful enough to see the many universal needs that can move you towards at least a healthier mind, if not a healthier state of well-being. So as I've said in the last episode, I thank you for my attention, but I'm adding also your retention. Because my wish is that we all really retain this state of appreciating our suffering and appreciating our resourcefulness to go for well-being, not only for ourselves, but for the world as well.

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