Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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Archives for August 2009

The Ultimate Solution to Self-Defeating Habits

We all know what it’s like to get trapped by an unwanted habit. You may have vowed to eliminate fried food from your diet, start an exercise regimen, show up on time from now on, or stop arguing with your wife. Suggestions abound in contemporary media to help you achieve your self-improvement goals. You can easily learn what to eat, when to exercise, and how to communicate or manage your time better. For some of us some of the time, implementing these suggestions works, and if you are one of these lucky ones, I celebrate with you on your success. But what about lasting change at the deepest level? For most of us, true and sustained transformation, especially regarding our most entrenched habits, seems elusive.

In this post I want to begin demystifying the process of unlocking yourself from the cycle of self-defeating behavior. Even the most deeply rooted behaviors that seem hopelessly fixed can be examined in a new light, opening up endless possibilities. I’ve seen this work in my own life and in the lives of hundreds of others, and I am happy to be sharing this process with you. What I discuss here applies to all personal experiences that stand in the way of peace and contentment, including specific behaviors you perform, challenging emotional habits such as anger or depression, and negative or anxiety-based thought patterns.

What Are Habits

By definition, habits are behaviors that occur with regularity and often have an unconscious or involuntary quality to them. They are conditioned behaviors that may be so well learned that we don’t even realize we are doing them, for example driving a car. Many habits are benign or useful for daily functioning – looking both ways before crossing the street, checking yourself in the mirror before you leave for the day. We perform hundreds of automatic behaviors every day that bring ease to our lives; thus, there is nothing inherently negative about a habit.

The trouble comes when the habit detracts from your happiness. You might feel worthless because you can’t stop procrastinating; your health may be at issue and you just can’t seem to eat less or reduce your stress; you typically feel depressed or anxious; or you have a tendency to see yourself, others, and the world through a negative lens. You might even have what we call an addiction, an activity you keep doing compulsively despite harmful consequences. You can probably identify habits in your own life that bring the dark cloud of unhappiness. Know that you can address them effectively so you feel more at ease, lighter, and happier.

Modifying Habits: Attention, Willingness, Exploration

The straight talk about these seemingly resistant behaviors is that modifying them requires AWE: Attention, Willingness, and Exploration. By using your attention, you are illuminating the unconscious beliefs and motivations that provide the fuel for the habit. To truly resolve a troubling behavior pattern, every aspect of it must come out of the shadows so it can be seen for what it is. There is no way around this radical process of being precise with your attention to become aware of the emotions and subtle beliefs that keep the habit in place. Until you consciously know exactly what is driving a habit, it will be sustained. Where you place your attention, then, is integral to your happiness and freedom. It is the one choice you have that really makes a difference. When you pay attention to the underpinnings of a habit, you are the hamster stepping off the wheel. You are allowing for the possibility of being fresh, flexible, and open.

Because you are examining the source of a behavior that has been rigidly in place for perhaps a very long time, willingness is required. You have to really want to know the truth and be open to change and release – not just once, but over and over for as long as is necessary. Human beings will go to great lengths to preserve what is familiar to them, rather than risk what is new and potentially uncontrollable. When you begin to honestly address a pattern that no longer serves you, you are putting the brakes on a train that has been hurtling down the tracks with great momentum. You need to be willing to stop feeding the pattern, to stop thinking the thoughts and feeling the feelings that keep it going. Instead, make the decision to turn your attention to an investigation of what drives it and see what you can do differently. Willingness strengthens when you get fed up, when you are tired of unpleasant feelings, conflict, and the same old, same old. Willingness is the breath of inspiration in your process to pick up the key and walk out the prison door.

Now that you are willing to place your attention on the source of your problem, you can begin to explore. Find within yourself a place of curiosity and acceptance, and inquire into the reality of the problem. I suggest setting aside some time for this inquiry and maybe writing your thoughts on paper. Ask yourself each question, then wait for the answer to come. Regarding the habit, contemplate: What is the specific content of my thoughts? What is the energy or feeling behind these thoughts? If these feelings had a voice, what would they say? What do they believe about the world? What motivates my behavior? What am I getting out of continuing this habit? What are the consequences of it for myself and others? What do I really want? As you contemplate each question, allow the response to sink in – not just at a mental level, but all the way into the cells of your body. Really feel the experience.

Let’s take as an example self-critical thinking, which is a very common problem. This is a conditioned habit in which negative thoughts about yourself appear in your mind, and you believe them. You might believe that you are too shy, too heavy, too aggressive, too needy, not bright enough, not strong enough – whatever is your particular version of this pattern that undermines your confidence, engenders feelings of sadness and frustration, and interferes with you accomplishing all that might be possible. Once you become aware of this cycle of thinking and decide that you don’t want to be weighed down by it any longer, you are willing to focus your attention. ( See also Q & A on the inner critic)

Find an inner place that is curious, open, and available for exploration.  Begin to ask yourself the inquiry questions, allowing time for the answer to come to your awareness and be felt directly in your body. You might discover that the feeling behind the thoughts is fear. You might realize that you are saying these thoughts to yourself because someone earlier in your life said them to you. You might feel frustrated about the power of these thoughts and their effect on you. You might notice that these thoughts see the world as a harsh and unfriendly place that makes you shrink away or be overly aggressive or controlling. You might contemplate, when you look carefully, that these thoughts aren’t even true, or that their opposite could be just as true. Allow these responses be known to you as you are now understanding the core of the pattern and what sustains it. Ask yourself what you really want. Are you willing to cease feeding these thoughts and believing them? Thinking them brings you stress and frustration; giving them space to float and dissolve brings you peace.

AWE Works

With the practice of AWE, the pattern becomes less rigid. By giving it your gentle attention with a clear intention to know the truth, you are much more conscious of the pattern. Rather than operating outside of your awareness, you are likely to recognize the pattern as it begins. As you become more conscious of it, it no longer occurs automatically, and you can choose to place your attention on what will bring you happiness. When you realize you are in a cycle of self-critical thinking, for example, and you move your attention away from feeding these thoughts, you are lighter and less encumbered.

Notice that I am not suggesting you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, often called affirmations. If affirmations work for you, please continue practicing them. However, ultimately what is most helpful is to get to the root of the problem and liberate the energy it takes to sustain a conditioned habit. As you become free of conditioning, infinite possibilities open up to you.

I conclude with two essential points about this process. First, it undoubtedly will need to be repeated many times, as your questioning reveals more about the foundation of the pattern. When people say, “I tried that already, and it didn’t work,” I know that they didn’t persevere enough. There was a period in my life when, with each instance of a thought, feeling, or behavior that was part of a conditioned habit, I stopped, sat down, and investigated it on the spot. This probably occurred hundreds, if not thousands, of times over a span of several months. Gradually, the grip of these patterns released. They just couldn’t hold up under the scrutiny of honest and heartfelt investigation. And for me, it is a joy to live in inquiry and be open to whatever arises. Have patience with yourself and bring a gentle, even loving, quality to your inquiry. With persistence, you will experience freedom from your conditioned habits.

Second, depending on the pattern you are working on, you might benefit from learning about the problem and practicing some skills that might help you as your behavior changes. Education about the behavior can be enormously valuable. For example, if you are trying to lose weight, it might be supportive to learn about the calorie content of different foods, ways to effectively exercise, etc. If you want to be less argumentative or more assertive, you might study some communication skills. However, if you have difficulty implementing these changes, don’t give up. Go back to the process of AWE, over and over, and find the undiscovered kernel in your beliefs and world view that will set you free.

I know for certain that freedom is possible. You can study limiting behavior patterns and the beliefs that underlie them. By so doing, the foundation will shift, or maybe even fall away entirely, leaving vast space for the unknown to be known. You are the light; allow your radiance shine.

I am interested in your experiences and reactions. Please write and let me know how it’s going.

image: uggboy

Thoughts on Preventing Depression

Dear Gail,

What can I do on a regular basis to prevent myself from falling into depression?
Thank you,
Wanting Happiness

Dear Wanting Happiness,

Here are some suggestions for you to help prevent depression.

  1. Be aware of negative thinking, which is common in depression. Notice or write down the thoughts that are running through your mind that you have come to believe. They are likely be negatively-tinged ideas about your self-worth, your capabilities, other people, and situations you encounter that make you feel hopeless and despairing. Know that these are distorted and essentially untrue. Remember that what you feed is what will grow. Your attention is like fertilizer in that where you place your attention determines what flourishes. If you feed negative thoughts with your attention by thinking them a lot and believing them, the result will be more negative thoughts. Allow for bountiful crops by consciously placing your attention on that which brings you happiness, joy, relaxation, ease, laughter, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Consider people in your life, your work, how you spend your leisure time, activities you engage in, the rhythm of your daily life. How can your inner and outer life feed those experiences that are more true and life-affirming?
  2. Allow yourself to feel good about all accomplishments you make throughout the day, no matter how small. The depressive mind easily negates our successes. Lift the veil of depressive thinking, and see that enjoyment and satisfaction are already there.
  3. Listen to your inner voice, that soft whisper that tells you what is true for you. It will guide you toward what you love, what brings you happiness. When we forget to listen, we tend to feel ungrounded and alienated from ourselves. Stay in touch with yourself by continually asking: What is true for me? What makes me happy? What am I being guided to do?
  4. Sometimes we indulge in the story of depression, so much so that it takes on a life of its own. We believe it is who we are. Freedom from depression comes from gently and tenderly knowing your inner experience. The key is to become familiar with your depression, rather than running from it or trying to fix it. Set aside some time every day to sit quietly. Take some breaths, and find the inside of your body. Use your awareness like a candle in the darkness to gently see the subtle belief systems, bodily sensations, and emotions that underlie the story of depression. Don’t accept the story as true. Rather, see in your own experience what is actually real. As the identity of depression is brought out of hiding, it is no longer assumed to be true. It loses its power when it is seen and cannot grab you with quite the same intensity. The book, “The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness” might be a support for you in this process.

    5. I once worked with someone who came to me saying he had been depressed for many years. I invited him to begin noticing his inner experience. He quickly saw that there had been a commentary of negative thoughts running through his mind, like an endless loop, that he had never before seen. Really, that’s all it took. Depression continued to show up from time to time, but never again with the same persistence.

  5. Don’t hesitate to seek out support. Many people with depression would benefit from working with a guide to help them discover the rigid beliefs that are undermining their happiness.

Happiness in Four Essential Paradigm Shifts

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All of us want to be happy, yet we sometimes find ourselves feeling grumpy, hopeless, dissatisfied, or depressed. We may live in discontent or be sailing along just fine when something challenging happens, and we are triggered once again. Happiness is our birthright, our true nature, always available. So if happiness is obscured, it makes sense to wonder why, to ask: how have we turned away from what is so fundamentally true?

A paradigm shift is a revolution, a complete, radical change in how one views reality. With a paradigm shift, old assumptions and beliefs are seen to be false and no longer applicable, and a completely new, fresh way of being takes their place. Do you want to be happy? Consider the following, and prepare for the inner revolution.

Shift #1: From Being Unconscious to Being Conscious

Several years ago, my interest in freedom ignited, and I realized that in order to be completely free I needed to notice all the ways that I was bringing some form of suffering to myself. I saw the useless mental chatter that accompanied me as I washed the dishes. I discovered quite a bit of tension in certain muscles that never seemed to dissolve. And one morning upon waking, I noticed a subtle heaviness that was saying, “Oh, I need to deal with another day,” a feeling I had to slog through to get out of bed, and I realized that that feeling had been present most mornings for a very long time.

It was a lightbulb moment for me to see that my days began with the persistent whisper of a “no,” an experience that I carried around well into the morning. Strange as it may sound, I was excited to recognize this feeling, as I knew that once I saw it, it could never again have quite the same hold on me.

Much of our behavior happens automatically, outside of conscious awareness. We inhabit familiar patterns that are based on assumptions we have about the world, patterns that continue until we become aware of our behavior and question the truth of these underlying assumptions. For example, I was waking up every morning unconsciously dreading the day and assuming it was going to be difficult. Couples often repeat the same argument over and over, even though they vow not to. Someone trying to eat a healthier diet is defeated by unexamined habits of food choices and eating patterns. You might find yourself feeling angry or afraid on a regular basis without knowing why. These conditioned tendencies run deep.

There is nothing inherently wrong with not being aware. But if what we want is greater happiness in our lives, conscious awareness is the key, the first essential step toward freedom from automatic behavior patterns. We need to look at what is actually happening in our experience when we are triggered so we know what we are dealing with – the thoughts, mental stories, sensations in our bodies, emotions, and the reactions of those around us.

We can then ask, “Is this what I really want?” We recognize that bringing awareness to the experience of our lives opens up the possibility for change. When we see a familiar pattern beginning to take shape, we can choose not to perpetuate it. We become flexible and open to respond in a life-affirming way.

Seeing my morning resistance to the day sparked a momentous change. I saw that it was based on pessimistic assumptions that were not necessarily true. I started waking up looking for this feeling, smiling at it, then going about my business. Once I noticed it, it became small and powerless. Several months later, I realized that the feeling had not even appeared in a while.

When we start to become more conscious, we might not always like what we see. But what quickly becomes apparent is the opportunity to live a life that is no longer ruled by unconscious motives and habits that seem out of our control. We become totally alive to our experience as it is actually happening. No longer resisting, happiness has a welcoming space to bloom.

Shift #2: From Looking Outward to Looking Inward

For most of us, the usual way to solve problems is to try to fix something about the situation or other people. This is called the “if only” life: if only my husband would help more around the house, if only it rained less, if only my boss would acknowledge the good work I do. You get the picture. We look outside ourselves to change a situation that causes us trouble. Sometimes this works, but often we hit the wall of realizing the limited amount of control we actually have. People do what they do; situations occur unbidden.

The only real way to deflate the areas of unhappiness in our lives is the last one we think of – looking inward to examine our own reactions. Seriously consider this for a second. Say that your husband always leaves his dirty clothes in a pile on the floor and that each time you see them you feel irritated and begin a monologue in your head loaded with negative thoughts about him. You’ve tried talking to him about it, ignoring the clothes, picking them up, but nothing has changed your internal reaction. Now imagine this: if you did not react by feeling frustrated and running a litany of critical thoughts in your mind, it wouldn’t matter what he did with his clothes. He could do whatever he wanted, and you would remain clear and non-reactive.

The key is not to try to change something you have no control over, e.g., someone else’s behavior, but to examine your own reactions, to understand the nature of being triggered: what exactly is triggering you, what does the trigger consist of (thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, urges), what do you really need? This investigation, done in a kind and friendly way, brings a tremendous amount of compassion and understanding to yourself right where you need it. And as these reactions are investigated repeatedly, they tend to lose their power and melt away. Freedom begins to take hold.

Admittedly, what I am suggesting may seem difficult or feel unfamiliar. It takes courage to honestly look at ourselves, to see how we are making ourselves unhappy by our reactions. It is a move from insanity to sanity, from relying on the external world to make us happy to discovering that we can be happy no matter what happens. When our reactions subside, anything can occur, and happiness remains undisturbed.

Shift #3: From Living in the Future or the Past to Being Present

There is a lot of talk these days about being present. It seems like a good thing, a desirable state, but what does it actually mean to be present?

The truth is that it is impossible not to be present. When we think about or relive the past, we are not actually in the past, we are experiencing it in our minds – in the here and now. And when we project into the future about what may or may not happen, we are not actually in the future. When the “future” comes, we are experiencing it in the present.

In actuality, we are always in the present; it just doesn’t seem that we are because our minds are so actively involved in thinking about the past or the future. And where can happiness be found? Yes, in this present moment.

Say you are looking at a photograph of an enjoyable time during your recent vacation. You are being reminded of an event that already happened, but the holding of the photograph, the looking at it, the warm glow of happiness you feel, even the playing out of the memory in your mind are all happening in the present.

When you begin to take an honest look at your thoughts about the past and the future, you will see that most of them are based on fear or lack, not on happiness. We worry, analyze, doubt ourselves, criticize, and obsessively plan. We think about what we need that we don’t have and how a situation other than what is happening would be so much better. And we run these thoughts in our minds over and over with very little useful function. Does any of this sound familiar?

When the mind becomes quiet, even if just for a moment, a deep, pervasive sense of peace is apparent. Joy may bubble up for no reason. We feel happy and connected. The experience of being present is always available to us; it is a sense of coming home to a place we never actually left. It may be veiled by the active thinking mind, but when we refrain from feeding thoughts with our attention, we see that reality is always here, completely reliable, never disturbed.

Life is so incredibly rich. There are sounds, sensations in the body, emotions, sights, great intimacy with all things. And when we allow solutions to appear from this peaceful space rather than figuring them out in the mind, clarity emerges. Moving from the past and future of the mind to the present is the beginning of being truly alive.

Shift #4: From Criticism and Judgment to Appreciation and Gratitude

When the intention arose in me to become very aware of my inner experience, much to my chagrin, I noticed that my thoughts were often critical and filled with judgment – not just of people around me, but of myself as well. These were unpleasant stories that appeared spontaneously – before I knew it, I was harshly condemning someone in my mind.

As I delved into the experience of these thoughts, I found negativity, disconnection, and shame. I couldn’t see any good coming from this tendency, which motivated me to make a significant change. I imagine I’m not alone in the degree to which criticism and judgment were taking up my mental space.

It was a long process that took several years, but gradually the critical thoughts subsided. At the same time, I noticed that I was naturally more open and available to people and the world around me. It became a joy for me to frequently verbalize my appreciation and to openly express my love and caring for people.

Eventually, I felt moved to study forgiveness and to recognize all the ways that I was still closed down and holding a grudge. Person by person, situation by situation, I forgave myself and others, not to condone or dismiss anyone’s actions, but to free myself from being a victim of stories I clung to that perpetuated hurt and blame.

Happiness doesn’t even begin to describe my current experience. Moving from the mental activities of criticism and judgment to the heart-based expression of love in all its forms is nothing short of transformative.

So how to experience happiness? It takes an inner revolution. Make a commitment to be conscious in your life. Look inward to become aware of the patterns you play out that disturb your well-being. Live in the present; be awake to life as it is actually unfolding. Let go of the critical mind, and allow your heart to sing. Happiness is right here, right now, in this very moment.

Please feel free to comment with your reactions, insights, etc. I’d love to hear from you!

Image credit: Pink Sherbet

The Secret to Peaceful Relationships

“What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.”
Benjamin Disraeli, British author and statesman

There was a time when it was very easy for me to be disappointed by other people. I can’t tell you how many times I would feel angry or let down when someone failed to do what I wanted them to do or what they agreed they would do. I would sometimes be filled with strong, uncomfortable feelings in these situations. In addition, as you might imagine, this propensity brought friction into my friendships and other relationships as I even complained to these unwitting perpetrators that they shouldn’t have done what they did. Am I alone in creating discord by not accepting people as they are?

The last time I felt disappointed by someone’s behavior, a friend had decided to attend a concert with me that I really wanted to see. A few days prior to the event, she cancelled. Sure, I could have taken it in stride, rallied, and found someone else to take her ticket, which I eventually did. But in the moment when she cancelled, I was taken over by feeling bereft – and very irritated. Her behavior had failed to match my expectation. What was different about this time is that, thankfully, the light bulb went off.

Expectations Are Not Reality

First, I recognized that I had been in exactly this place, feeling exactly what I was feeling, countless times before. I knew it was a trap to place my happiness in the hands of something I had no control over – someone else’s behavior. I was definitely motivated to look into my own process in an attempt to find a way out. In a freeing moment of insight, I saw how I had created the whole problem in my thinking. At the root of the problem was my expectation that my friend should do what she said she would do. I had unconsciously turned that thought into reality: because she said she would go, then that is what would – and should – happen. I realized how my expectation about her behavior had nothing to do with what she actually did. People do what they do; they don’t do what they don’t do. And they definitely don’t always do what they say they are going to do. I saw that applying an expectation to a person or situation is actually a recipe for suffering.

I undertook a study of the nature of expectations. The dictionary defines an expectation as “the act of regarding as likely to happen” and “anticipating the occurrence or the coming of.” An expectation is essentially an imagining about the future, a theoretical pseudo-reality that is created by thoughts in the mind. It is a thought that, when taken as real and true, leads us to assume that a given occurrence will happen. When seen for what it really is, it is merely a thought that has nothing to do with what may or may not happen. I may expect my friend to attend the concert, but this expectation is irrelevant to what she actually does. And believing that she “should” attend the concert when she decides not to only sets me up for an unpleasant emotional reaction.

When I applied this understanding to my persistent inclination to expect something to happen followed by disappointment, the whole pattern unraveled. I saw the way I had created this problem over and over. I had placed an expectation onto people’s behavior that I believed to be true, then became incensed when they did not comply. So many years of stress for me and disharmony in my relationships. I felt sad and contrite as well as liberated and joyful. I phoned my friend and thanked her for canceling our plans as I shared my insights with her. We laughed and felt our bond once again.

Relationship Difficulties

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that our unmet expectations of others is the primary cause of interpersonal strife. Take a moment to reflect on how this operates in your own life. When you consider every problem you have with someone else, no matter how important or insignificant, you will probably notice that it is based on your belief about something that person should or shouldn’t say or do. You may try to convince yourself that you are right, that whatever you want to happen is the best or most appropriate outcome. But your beliefs about what is right do not control other people’s behavior.

The Essential Question

So here is the dilemma: We develop an expectation about someone else’s future behavior; then, if the expectation isn’t met, we experience an emotional reaction. The way out of this dilemma is to get in touch with one of life’s big questions, which is, “What do you really want?” Do you want to set yourself up to experience internal stress and bring struggle into your relationships – or do you want to feel a sense of internal – and interpersonal – ease and well-being?

For myself, I choose the latter. Since my light bulb moment, this problem has never plagued me again to any great degree. The fundamental attitude required is a desire to know the truth, no matter what, in conjunction with a willingness to pay attention to your own thought process. At the beginning, I would catch myself feeling disappointed, then trace back to discover the expectation that I had unconsciously formulated. It was always there – the root of the problem. I connected with what I truly want, which is to let the moment be as it is without interfering, to not try to control the uncontrollable. Do I really want people to do what I expect them to? Actually, no. What I really want is for each person to act according to his or her own truth – not to cater to my expectations. I want to accept people as they are. Then it becomes my responsibility to address whatever reaction I might have to their behavior. This reasoned investigation lead me to willingly, happily abandon my expectations. I have become open and humble. There is space and freedom for whatever happens, which brings some unexpected delights. Having expectations feels stuck and constrained, while being free of them feels, well, free.

How to Release Expectations

If you feel inspired to unhook from having expectations of others and to do your part to bring harmony into your relationships, here are some guidelines. The first step is to recognize the expectation and its effects on you. Signs that you are trapped by this mode of thinking about others include the following:

  1. Thoughts that someone should or shouldn’t do something, sometimes showing up as an intense whirl of mental activity. Clues are: he should…, she should have…, he needs to…, she better…, I hope he…, I want her to…, I don’t want him to…
  2. Accompanying emotions directed at those who have not met your expectation – anger, frustration, fear, disappointment, abandonment, feeling like a victim.
  3. Stress, possibly appearing as physical sensations of tightness or tension.
  4. Discord in your relationships.

Once you have discovered an expectation and how it is affecting you:

  1. Find within yourself an attitude of openness and curiosity. You already know that continuing to create your old pattern is no longer viable. You are on the precipice of an important shift, about to do something radical and different, which is to explore a habit that has troubled you for perhaps a very long time.
  2. Ask yourself these questions, one at a time, and wait for the response to arise. Allow the answer that comes to sink into your mind, your body, and the deepest part of your being.
    – What do I really want?
    – Do I have control over someone else’s behavior?
    – Is this expectation true?
    – Is this expectation serving me and this relationship?
    – What if I let go of trying to control and allow things to unfold?
  3. Continue this process each time you find yourself caught by expecting a certain outcome.

Notice that I’m not advising you to drop the expectation. I am simply inviting you to become aware of your thoughts and feelings and ask some questions about them. This is all that is needed to take the charge out of your expectations. By truly questioning them, you are challenging the underlying assumptions that have been operating underground about them. Once your process becomes conscious and you see clearly how believing these thoughts induces suffering, your expectations actually let go of you. They no longer make sense, and you cease putting your thinking energy into them.

You may find some inner resistance as you investigate your expectations, as you are meeting a habit that may be quite ingrained. You may find yourself developing a strong rationale to defend your expectations. Be gentle with yourself, but don’t be defeated. I can promise you that when you get fed up enough with disharmony within yourself and in your relationships, when you are persistent in being humbly willing to investigate your own thinking, when you really want inner peace, you will see results.

But beware. You will undoubtedly experience the side effects of joy, intimacy, and a love of being alive.

I’d love to hear your reactions, questions, insights, and experiences, so feel free to comment.

Challenging Marriage

Dear Gail,

I am in a tumultuous marriage. I have been on the spiritual path for over two decades. I have cultivated my sense of inner peace, and I have many tools to help myself stay centered. What I don’t seem to have is a way to relate harmoniously with my wife. Well, some days I do but then things change in an instant. My wife goes from loving me to hating me. It seems there is no amount of compassion I can offer her when she is in that state. She just despises me and has venomous anger. In my opinion, she does not have the inner resources to move these feelings and beliefs. Truly, I feel stuck in these moments. My current strategy is to love her and withdraw.

Please let me know if you have advice you can offer me.

Thanks,
Feeling Stuck

Dear Feeling Stuck,

Essentially, you are asking if there is a way for you to influence or control your wife’s behavior. You want your wife to stop despising you and behaving in an angry manner toward you. The truth is: you cannot control her feelings or her behavior. If she changes, the change will come from within her. Paradoxically, she is more likely to change – on her own – if you accept her as she is. Perhaps you can build upon your current strategy of loving her by communicating acceptance. You might reflect back to her, “You really hate me right now,” or, “You want me to be different than I am,” or, “You are very unhappy.” These statements meet her experience without expressing a desire for her to change; she is likely to feel seen and heard, which all of us want from our partners. You might then go further by asking her genuine questions about her concerns from a place of curiosity within yourself. This style of relating to her can be the beginning of authentic conversation that unlocks dead end communication patterns that aren’t working for the two of you.

I imagine that at times you react, internally and/or verbally, to her attacks. As is true of all difficult situations, these problems with your wife are tailor-made to reflect back to you the stuck places inside yourself. You are being invited to pursue your spiritual path to an even deeper level by investigating and releasing your emotional patterns that have not yet been fully explored. When you find yourself focusing on your wife’s challenging behavior, you might instead, and more fruitfully, turn your attention to the beliefs you hold that are feeding your reactions. You are likely to find that there are ways you are resisting reality that are disturbing your sense of inner peace. No matter what happens, then, you will have used the experience to free yourself and be more fully alive. I admire your courage and offer you my full support.

My response to your concerns provides a starting point. You might feel the need to seek the services of a professional to help you integrate these suggestions.