This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, We Get Better: 48 Treatment Options for Chronic Depression.
***
Treatment option 1: Making your decision to get better
Ancient hunters, it is said, didn’t always run to catch their prey. Often, they walked over long distances using a technique called “persistence hunting.” Humans weren’t the fastest or the strongest animal in the wild, but our stamina made up for that shortcoming. In the immortal words of the long-running show Survivor, we were able to “outwit, outplay, outlast.”
The people who successfully manage or overcome their depression are those that have the qualities of a survivor: persistence, determination and grit. They use these qualities to pursue relevant knowledge and take action in spite of any internal resistance that might be present.
They do what it takes to survive.
For many of us, maintaining our mental health is a lifelong project that encompasses almost every area of our lives. Before exploring available treatment options, then, take some time to consider whether or not you are fully ready for this commitment.
Ask yourself this question: Am I willing to do whatever it takes to manage my depression in a healthy way? This could include introspection and honesty, putting aside old habits, forming new habits, consistently working toward goals, questioning long-held unhelpful beliefs and much more.
Take as long as needed with this task: minutes, hours, days, weeks or even longer. Only you know what you are able to commit to and when.
This is chapter one of my book, The Power of Acceptance: One Year of Mindfulness and Meditation. Get your copy at Amazon, Walmart or your other online retailer of choice. And leave a review if possible. Thank you!
***
I wish I could remember the exact phrase that got it into me, that finally made it go click! But maybe there wasn’t one; maybe it was the book as a whole that implanted it, in some otherworldly, sibylline way. Whatever the case, soon afterward came the more important moment, the one I remember to this day.
It was the summer of 2013. I was sitting in our family room reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now as the baby played next to me on a big green comforter on the floor. As he mouthed one unsuspecting rattle after another and pressed buttons that rewarded him with nonsense, I finished the book for the third time. And though I still don’t know the exact point at which it happened, by the time I set the book down, something inside me had changed. I put a hand on Xavier’s fresh little face and he turned to me, looking disoriented. I smiled and he held my gaze and smiled back, then held out his stubby arms. I pulled him into my lap and his head bobbed toward my breast and as I nursed him I considered what I’d just read.
Though I had been raised immersed (some may say half-drowned) in religion, the several years leading up to Xavier’s conception had been focused elsewhere—mostly on my new partner, David, and my growing freelance writing business. Spirituality was still there—part of me, part of my definition of myself—but it wasn’t very close to the surface.
Then, a year before the baby was born, I discovered Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch, and with it a strange brand of spirituality called New Thought. By the time I picked up The Power of Now for the third time, a year and a half had passed, and Xavier was about six months old. I had explored and applied my new beliefs in depth, and now it was time to take the next step. Long days of motherhood begged for community and friendship, as well as increased inner strength. And so, to my still-unfamiliar routine of play dates, car naps and Gymboree, I added going to church.
Another book of mine discusses my attempt to fulfill a two-pronged goal to increase both earthly and divine connection. Meditation was a logical part of the plan, but there was a problem: until that day on the floor with Tolle and baby, I had never truly tried it. Once, while I was still a Christian, I attended one Buddhist meditation session in a home that had been revamped into a temple, but this hardly counted; it was cultural voyeurism, not a sincere effort. It was a minor act of rebellion, of open-mindedness, a pushing of the envelope, the kind of thing a good girl like myself found exciting.
Except one thing: It wasn’t exciting—not at all. Not the least little bit. In that room decorated all in red—red velvet pillows, red calligraphy wall hangings, red-patterned plush carpet—I could hardly breathe for the effort it took to sit still. And when I tried to focus on my breath, as the unsmiling leader suggested, I nearly hyper-ventilated.
And that was just the first five minutes.
Soon, I gave up, and instead watched the clock and the handful of people sitting with me. How do they do it? I wondered as my back started aching and my legs fell asleep. More to the point, why do they?
I shifted out of the kneeling position and moved against the back wall. I considered leaving, but didn’t.
Slowly, slowly, time dripped from the clock, and the final instruction—to open our eyes—came as a relief. I got out of there as fast as possible, shoes in hand, and fidgeted my way to the car.
Which is why it was strange that after finishing The Power of Now that day twelve years later, I decided to try it again.
Like I said: something had clicked.
Sitting on the green blanket, Xavier still in my arms, I flipped back through the pages of the book I hadn’t wanted to read again, then hadn’t wanted to finish. I looked for a passage I’d underlined about Tolle’s unique meditation technique, namely, sensing the energy of the body, then reread it several times.
You know what? I thought, This doesn’t sound so bad.I don’t even have to stop thinking. What if it really can help me connect with the Divine inside myself?
What if it actually works?
I closed my eyes. I tried to sense my body, as Tolle instructed—to feel the subtle energy moving in and through me. It didn’t take long before I realized that it was working: I could feel it. It was there. This was real.
I felt the tingling of my hands. I felt the pulsing of my arms and legs. Though I knew it was probably just a body being a body, noticing it in this way was calming. Suddenly, it hit me: I was meditating. And it wasn’t even that hard.
That evening I took a long walk with the baby and tried the technique again. This time, I didn’t think of it as meditation—I wasn’t sitting, after all—but the feeling I had was the same. I was relaxed, but it was more than that: I was present. I was in a now-place in my mind, rather than in the future or the past. There was a subtle joy and a feeling of love that accompanied this presence, too, which I considered to be some sort of connection with the Divine. And so, the following day I decided to take the next step: I looked up meditation classes in my area.
Not long after that, I was hooked.
Before I knew it, Xavier was one year old and I had spent the past six sleep-deprived months honing this newly-discovered skill. The following year, as I wrote You’re Getting Closer, I expanded my spiritual practices considerably, with success following disappointment following success.
A year passed. Xavier was now two years old, and as I reflected on that milestone in his life I thought about my own progress, too.
And one of the things I thought about most was my failure.
***
Last November, sometime in the middle of the month, I had the best two weeks of my year. After a couple of particularly enjoyable incidents—one being a trip to see my family—a warm, delicious feeling got into me and stuck, and every day—nearly every moment, even—I felt the presence of God.
I felt it when I read. I felt it when I played with my child. It was there all the time, a bit below the surface of my thoughts. Even when difficulties arose, the state of mind remained; I was able to stay an arm’s length from my problems. At one point during this time, for example, a friend got upset at me for not cleaning up the mess my kids had made at her house. Though our hour-long conversation about it was tense and uncomfortable, delving into past slights and wrongs, I got though it without anger. A few days later, on my most enjoyable birthday in recent memory, I told my husband I felt deeply at peace.
Then one day, a week or so later, that special feeling went away. I still don’t know why it happened. Maybe I’d become complacent, or maybe I wasn’t mediating as much, or maybe it was a new bout of depression coming on. Whatever the cause, it was a great disappointment—one that represented a much larger problem.
This wasn’t the only time a spiritual high was followed by a major low that year—or the year before, for that matter. And so one day toward the end of that year, I attempted to figure all this out.
What am I doing wrong? I asked God over and over. More importantly, what was I doing right before that I am not doing now?
And I didn’t just pray. Every day for a month straight, I tried every trick I knew to get the feeling back. Of course, meditation was the first on my list, as it had been for the past year and a half. I upped my weekly goals from one class to three, enlisting my husband’s support. He took the baby swimming while I went to church or temple, seeking that spiritual high. The hour-long sessions were helpful, but they didn’t get me out of my rut. Neither did my mantras or my visualizations—or my walks, which often incorporated both.
I still felt pretty crappy.
And so, for a while, I stopped trying. I gave up. I was tired of all the effort, the fruitless striving. I needed a break, but what I didn’t realize was that more than four months would pass before I even attempted another sitting meditation.
The time off wasn’t a total loss. During it, I thought about what I needed that I didn’t have—the missing link, so to speak. Intuitively I knew that there was some method I could use anytime, no matter how I felt, that would immediately get me in touch with the Divine. After all, all of the New Thought mentors out there say that spiritual connectedness is our natural state. So why, after several years of striving and seeking, was I still feeling it so infrequently?
Truly, I was missing something.
With this goal in mind, I resumed my current spiritual practices as well as my search for more effective ones. I read more books, discovered more techniques—prayers and ideas I hadn’t yet tried. I counteracted negative thoughts with positive ones, as the collective entity known as Abraham recommends. I re-read You’re Getting Closer and became inspired to again surrender each moment to divine guidance. But while these practices and many like them brought some encouragement, some peace, I never got back to where I was.
I am still not back. Currently, I’m swimming upstream, as Abraham says, very much against the current of the spirit. My thoughts are often negative. My mood is often recalcitrant. Most of the time, I want to be somewhere else. I’m easily annoyed, and easily insulted, and often downright neurotic.
In other words: I’m not feeling very spiritual.
It is the beginning of January, however, and if there’s anything I love, it’s a fresh start. Sure, it’s only a date on the calendar—but it may be just the thing I need.
It’s time for a New Year’s resolution.
***
Although it was long before the beginning of the year that I decided to make a spiritually minded resolution, until a few days ago I knew only the criteria. The goal, I realized, would have to be doable, something I could stick to all year. It would have to allow for imperfection, and maybe lots of it, and be simple and clearly stated. When one pen, two pieces of paper, my favorite chair and thirty free minutes collided in my world, I sat down to consider my options.
Should I do a sitting meditation every day, and if so, how long should it last? Would five minutes be enough to make it worth the effort, or should I do at least fifteen?
Should I resume my goal to hold myself in continuous meditation all day long? And if so, how would I do it? Would I say mantras, visualize my God-self, listen for action-by-action guidance? Or should I try something else entirely?
Finally, I made the decision. My twofold resolution this year isn’t as bold as my last—and not nearly as frightening, either. I will do sitting meditation for at least five minutes every day, and I’ll remain in the state of meditation as much a possible after that.
Five minutes is doable every day, I realized as the idea came—even for a busy mom like me. It’s simple and easy to track, and if I’m able to stick with it, the benefits could be enormous. But what really convinced me to choose this goal was that, compared with other options, it’s relatively low-pressure.
***
Recently, I was reflecting on some of the spiritual books I love that draw so many other people in, too, and with such devotion. Why do I like Eckhart Tolle so much? I asked myself. And Neale Donald Walsch, and Esther Hicks?
Is it because they’re so quotable, so poetic? Somehow, I don’t think that’s it. Is it because they claim to hear directly from a divine Source? Maybe, but Tolle doesn’t channel his books.
The number one reason we love them so much, I believe, is this: they are extreme. They don’t merely describe a nice spiritual practice, or summarize a few lofty ideas. They aren’t conservative. They don’t hold back. Instead, they insist we can all be great. We can all get enlightened. And maybe even healthy and wealthy, too. Barring these goals, we can at least experience something we’ve been seeking a long time: our next major spiritual high.
And we believe them. We read them, then read them again, then try to practice what they preach. Our efforts pay off: we get a glimpse of the bliss they promise. Then we read the next book and wait for more.
Many of us—most of us—are still waiting.
Of course, our frequent failed attempts at inner peace are not the fault of these wonderful authors. Bliss, enlightenment, our next spiritual high—these are, as they say, truly possible for us all. The problem is this: obsessing about where we’re headed doesn’t help the car drive faster; if anything, it tends to slow it down.
Which is why five minutes of meditation feels right to me this year. It isn’t an overly optimistic goal. It isn’t going to cause me to expect fast miracles, or spiritual ascendance overnight.
If anything, it’ll remind me to stay humble.
And although the second part of my resolution is much like that in You’re Getting Closer, namely, remaining in continuous communication with the Divine, there’s one important difference here. That difference comes in the middle part of the sentence: “as much as possible.”
As much as possible. As much as I can.
In a way, the qualifier is an escape clause—a way out of my resolution, should I need one. But I know me, and perfection can’t be my goal. If it is, I’ll just give up. And that seems pretty counter-productive, doesn’t it?
When I’m an old woman, with cropped curly hair, and eight pink sweaters and one pair of brown shoes, I’m going to be good at being spiritual. I’ll have one of those blissed-out smiles for everyone, and upbeat catch phrases like “You do you, Martha!” I’ll be wise, and silly, and sane, too, damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it: I will. Until then, though, I’ll just be consistent. I’ll just do the work that will eventually get me to that point. Every day, for five minutes, I’ll seek a peaceful mental place. And when I find it, I’ll try to stay a while.
As it turns out, I’m not Eckhart Tolle—or Esther Hicks, for that matter. I’m just a regular person, muddling my way through, hoping for a few answers to the usual questions, such as those I’m asking this year:
Will I be able to keep my resolution this year to meditate for five minutes a day?
Will I find it hard to do so, or will it be fairly easy?
Will I get rid of any part of my neurotic tendencies? Or will they mostly remain?
Maybe most important, will I find the missing link I’m looking for—a continuous meditation method that works every time?
I have no idea whether or not the perfect spiritual practice is out there, or whether there’s some other, more important lesson in store. But isn’t the process of discovery a major part of the fun?
Seeking is what makes the finding interesting.
***
Get your copy of The Power of Acceptance at Amazon or your other online retailer of choice, or be one of the first to purchase it from Walmart. And, if possible, don’t forget to leave a review.
If you have depression, helpful resources abound. I can’t recommend a mood- and life-improvement strategy more highly than reading excellent books on the various facets of depression and the many treatment options that exist to address them. Especially these.
My top picks are the first three on the list: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon; This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More, for Young and Old Alike by Augusten Burroughs; andLost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hopeby Johann Hari. The Noonday Demon covers many of the heavy hitters of depression treatment: medication, exercise, hypnosis, cranial stimulation and more, in surprising detail. This Is How is written by a hilarious serial memoirist and has a great, no-excuses message, and Lost Connections is, I think, a literary feat as well as a self-help one, devoting one chapter each to the types of connections we need to rediscover if we want to successfully manage depression.
Books on Multiple Treatment Options for Depression
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon (This is one of my favorite books on depression, as it covers many of the heavy hitters: medication, exercise, hypnosis, cranial stimulation and more.) This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More, for Young and Old Alike, Augusten Burroughs (Burroughs is a great writer and a no-excuses kind of guy. The book covers a lot of ground and is pretty funny, too.) Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope, Johann Hari (With this book, Hari has accomplished a literary feat, devoting one chapter each to the types of connections we need to rediscover if we want to successfully manage depression.) Depression is Contagious: How the Most Common Mood Disorder Is Spreading Around the World and How to Stop It, Michael Yapko The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs, Stephen S. Ilardi How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad): A Creative Workbook, Lee Crutchley and Oliver Burkeman Depression Survival Guide: Your Path To A Joy-Filled Life, Debbie Brady The No-Bullshit Guide to Depression, Steven Skoczen
Books on Cognitive Therapy for Depression
When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life, David Burns Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, David Burns The Feeling Good Handbook, David Burns Mind Over Mood, Second Edition: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think, Dennis Greenberger and Christine A. Padesky Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple: 10 Strategies for Managing Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Panic, and Worry, Seth J. Gillihan The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time, Alex Korb and Daniel Siegel Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, Martin Seligman Who Would You Be Without Your Story?: Dialogues with Byron Katie and other books by Byron Katie, Byron Katie
Books on Exercise for Depression
Exercise for Mood and Anxiety: Proven Strategies for Overcoming Depression and Enhancing Well-Being by Michael Otto and Jasper A.J. Smits Manage Your Depression Through through Exercise: A 5-Week Plan to a Happier, Healthier, You by Jane Baxter
Books on Improving Relationships
For Better: How the Surprising Science of Happy Couples Can Help Your Marriage Succeed, Tara Parker-Pope The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things That Make a Big Difference, Shaunti Feldhahn Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship, Stan Tatkin Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love, Amir Levine and Rachel Heller The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, Melody Beattie Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, Emily Nagoski His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage, Willard F. Harley, Jr. How to Break Your Addiction to a Person: When–and Why–Love Doesn’t Work, Howard Halpern Love Is Never Enough: How Couples Can Overcome Misunderstanding, Aaron Beck Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, Sue Johnson Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships, Sue Johnson Mating in Captivity: Sex, Lies and Domestic Bliss, Esther Perell Neale Donald Walsch on Relationships, Neale Donald Walsch Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No, To Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Books on Increasing Vocational Fulfillment
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, Martin Seligman Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmivaly The Inner Game of Work: Focus, Learning, Pleasure, and Mobility in the Workplace, W. Timothy Gallwey
Books on Meditation and Mindfulness
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle Meditation Without Gurus, Clark Strand When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Pema Chodron The Wisdom of No Escape And the Path of Loving-Kindness, Pema Chodron Ten Percent Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story, Dan Harris The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, Thich Nhat Hanh Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, Thich Nhat Hanh Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Jon Kabat-Zinn Meditation: How to Reduce Stress, Get Healthy, and Find Your Happiness in Just 15 Minutes a Day, Rachel Rofe Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing, Anita Moorjani Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation—A 28-day Program, Sharon Salzberg Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, Sharon Salzberg The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, Daniel Siegel
Books on Acceptance
Radical Acceptance: Living Life with the Heart of a Buddha, Tara Brach Self-compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, Kirstin Neff The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won’t Work and What to Do Instead, Kristen Ulmer The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, Mark Manson
Books on Trauma and Depression
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma, Stephanie Foo
Books on Habit Formation and Motivation
The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home, Dan Ariely What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, David DiSalvo The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Chip Heath and Dan Heath Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Joe Dispenza Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d, Candace Pert Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel, Candace Pert
Books on Positive Psychology
The Science of Happiness: How Our Brains Make Us Happy–and What We Can Do to Get Happier, Stefan Klein The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, Sonja Lyubomirsky Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile, Daniel Nettle Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, Richard Layard Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, Ed Diener & Robert Biswas-Diener The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything, Neil Pasricha Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment, Martin Seligman Engineering Happiness: A New Approach for Building a Joyful Life, Manel Baucells and Rakesh Sarin The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life, Shawn Achor
Other Helpful Books
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca by Dr. Richard Louis Miller Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, Viktor Frankl You Need Help!: A Step-by-Step Plan to Convince a Loved One to Get Counseling, Mark S Komrad
Mollie:
Tell me about your experience with minimalism.
Bernadette Joy: I’ve been in the process of decluttering and reorganizing my home as part of my journey to become debt-free. My husband and I paid off $300,000 of debt, including debt from student loans and two mortgages, in three years. Adopting a minimalist mindset was a big part of our change.
At first, I decided to
declutter just to find things to sell in order to help pay off our
debt. I sold a lot of unneeded housewares, clothing, furniture, etc.
At the first garage sale we made over $400 in four hours and that
encouraged me to want to get rid of more stuff because we weren’t
using any of it and it felt like free money!
Mollie: Tell me more about
your debt repayment experience. How did you manage this feat? What
did you give up?
Bernadette Joy: We started in
January 2016 with about $70,000 in student loans and the rest in
mortgages. It started because I felt overwhelmed with how much debt
we accumulated in less than a two years because essentially, I cared
more about what other people thought about us than about our own
well-being. People will like me more if they think I’m smart and have
a nice house, right? I started learning everything I could about
money and debt through podcasts and YouTube. My husband and I started
implementing everything I learned like budgeting and making extra
money through side hustles. The biggest things we had to give up were
time (we worked a lot during that time period), investing for the
first 7 months (we stopped while we paid off the student loans and
then resumed at 15% of our total income, more than what we were
investing before) and large expenses like travel. All of this was
temporary and since we’ve become debt free we’ve resumed all the
conveniences and fun including going to see my favorite K-Pop band
live in concert, buying a car in cash and going to Italy!
Mollie: What are your most
prized beliefs regarding the minimalist lifestyle—the ideas you
most wantto spread?
Bernadette Joy: Minimalism is
not just about stuff. It’s about minimizing anything that causes you
stress, including stress at work, stress in relationships and stress
in your mind. I’ve worked on automating or outsourcing a lot of
things that used to cause me stress (for example, I now have a
regular cleaning service that helps me keep tidy instead of agonizing
over not doing it myself). I also believe that you don’t have to
adopt a poor or no-fun lifestyle that I think people confuse with
minimalism. I minimize material things like clothing and unnecessary
house stuff to make room and finances available for things like going
to concerts and on vacations.
Mollie: Can you share a few specific tips for
organizing and simplifying?
Bernadette Joy: Find things you aren’t using and
sell them! Garage sales worked great for me in the area I’m in, but I
also sold a lot of housewares on Facebook. It’s a great way to
encourage you if you’re like me and feel guilty about what you spent;
at least you make some money back and use the money towards something
you really want.
Work on one room at a time only. Don’t move onto
the next room until you complete the previous. Start where you spend
the most of your time because you will get the most benefit out of
it. I started in my kitchen and in my bedroom. I immediately felt
relief getting rid of so many kitchen items that were just cluttering
up our space.
I’m a big fan of the minimalist
challenge: get rid of one thing on the
first day, two things on the second day,
etc. for a month. I have
committed to it at least once a year, sometimes multiple
times a year. I like crossing things off my list and challenges in
general and it really got me motivated to
keep it up for a month!
Donate where you can instead of
throwing stuff out. If I can’t find local
charities, I just post things for free on Facebook or Craigslist.
Everything I’ve put out, someone has picked up, so at least I know
(or hope) they are being reused!
Mollie: Any final thoughts
on minimalism?
Bernadette Joy: For me, a minimalist mindset has not deprived me of anything I wanted. In fact, it’s created more room for things I absolutely love in life and focused more on experiences than accumulating stuff. It’s also always a work-in-progress. One might come to my house and not think it’s minimalist because we own more than a few dishes or towels. But I can confidently say everything I own right now is on purpose and has a purpose, and that is peace of mind that I’m so grateful for.
Mollie:
What was the most cluttered home you worked in like? How did the
process of organizing affect your client?
Ben: We have seen everything
from estates to apartments, but the only clutter difference is the
volume. In some cases, no room is being used for its intended
purpose:
the cars can’t go in the
garage, the home office isn’t being used for work, the dining room
isn’t hosting anyone. When you add to that situation not being able
to find what you are looking for and having to do multiple purchases,
this puts a lot of stress on relationships between family members.
The children feel they can’t have friends over and the adults don’t
entertain. This creates a feeling of being trapped.
Organizing takes time. Busy
people usually just start putting everything in the attic or
basement. After that they hide everything in bins and drawers, but
eventually those areas fill up, too. This isn’t organization. Being
organized is different from being neat or tidy.
Mollie: What circumstances
led to your passion for simple living?
Ben: Growing up as a
child of a difficult divorce, having control
became pretty important to me. People have
anxiety when they are not in control and in life there is a lot we
cannot control; however, we can control our physical space. My belief
is that nothing good comes out of chaos
and being a minimalist and having organized
systems allows me to be more productive. I see this with my own
children: when their room is a mess they simply don’t play in it, but
when the floor is clear they actually
build things, use their toys and imagination.
Also, as a child I always liked
jigsaw puzzles. There’s something about putting
a giant mess together into something complete that calms
the mind.
When I was young the desire for
stuff seemed pretty cool but getting married and having children
focuses you on experiences. A kid is excited by the new toy but she
is also just as excited by the box it came in, and after a few hours
it just goes on the pile with the other unused toys. The older you
get you realize that happiness comes from within, that buying
stuff doesn’t solve your problems or actually make you happy. Having
experiences with friends and family leads to great memories and at
the end of the day, all we have are our memories.
Mollie: What are the common
mistakes your clients make when it comes to managing their home
environment?
Ben: For a lot of people, the
act of shopping or the thrill of getting a bargain is the real juice
and getting the thing is more important than the actual thing. Also,
in our clients’ homes we see items unused
and crammed into closets and after reviewing we discover they are
gifts the receiver didn’t want, doesn’t
like and doesn’t know what to do with.
Most people give gifts to make
themselves, not the person getting it, feel better. If someone took
the time to give something wanted it would be experiences or
consumables; a night of free babysitting
is worth more than two hundreditems
from the Christmas Tree Shops or the Dollar Store.
Mollie: Any additionaltips for simplifying thehome?
Ben: If you’re a parent,
you are the gatekeeper. When your kids are
a certain age, they may get up to thirty or forty gifts
for their birthdays and holidays. You know how your children play and
what they like and steering people to give
swimming lessons or tickets to the movies will save everyone in the
end.
Another suggestions to cutting
down on accumulating because of retail therapy is to pay cash for it.
If you really want it, take the time to get cash out. You can also
print the page out from Ebay or Amazon and wait a week. If you really
still want it, then get it. My economics professor used to
say, “More is preferred to less,” but the stress of clutter hurts
relationships and your free time and
creates anxiety.
Mollie: One final thought?
Ben: Good things aren’t cheap and cheap things aren’t good. Well-made items that you can depend on are more important than quantity.
Kelly Rupiper is Content Director at Upparent, a recommendation-sharing website for parents. She is also the mother of two elementary school-aged kids. See Upparent.com.Here is the interview we did for my book, The Naked House: Five Principles for a Minimalist Home.
Mollie:
Have you ever significantly reorganized and decluttered your home?
What led to the decision and what did you change?
Kelly:
Parenthood brings with it a lot of stuff. When my kids were a newborn
and a toddler, we moved from a small condo into a larger home and it
felt like the floodgates for accumulating toys, clothes, and gear
were opened. It was easy to add more and more stuff now that we had
the room, and though I don’t think we had gone overboard by common
standards, eventually I started feeling like we
were spending too much time putting away toys, sorting through piles
of clothes, and generally cleaning up. The
effort that we were putting into taking care of all of these things
was more than the happiness we were getting out of having them. This
was around the time that people started talking more about a
minimalist lifestyle, and the idea of letting go of the clutter
seemed freeing to me. I spent the better part of a year combing
through our home and putting together donations, selling items on
Facebook, and handing things down to family members. A few years
later we embarked on a cross-country move, and this was a great
opportunity to think critically about what really needed to come with
us and pare down some more.
Mollie:
What are your most prized beliefs regarding minimalist lifestyle—the
ideas you most want to spread?
Kelly:
A minimalist lifestyle isn’t just
about owning as little as possible or going without. It’s about
limiting yourself to the things that are important, special, and
useful to you, and getting to enjoy these things every day because
you’re not weighed down by needing to weed through and maintain all
of the fluff.
It’s
also not just about physical belongings.
Think about taking a more minimal approach to the way you schedule
your family’s time and attention, too.
Take a hard look at all of the after-school activities and
obligations on your calendar, and think about how it would feel to
spend less time driving around and more time at home as a family.
Mollie:
Tell me more about the benefits of minimizing one’s schedule.
Kelly:
Aside from keeping more money in the bank and enjoying more family
time together, I have found that minimizing the number of activities
that kids have on their plates helps to keep them from getting burned
out. My kids tend to get overwhelmed when the schedule gets to the
point where we’re running from one activity to the next, and
lessening their load means they can actually look forward to the
things they’ve signed up for.
Mollie:
Why do you think people have a hard time being at home with no
planned activity?
Kelly:
There’s an instinct to feel like we have to entertain our kids, and
the choruses of “I’m bored!” don’t help. But when kids
aren’t overwhelmed by a playroom stuffed with endless choices and
instead have a small collection of toys that inspire open-ended play,
it’s pretty amazing to see how well they can entertain themselves and
each other without parental intervention.
Mollie:
How can people learn to embrace unplanned family time?
Kelly:
Simple, low-key family traditions
can be a great way to give some structure to your family time without
introducing outside obligations.
My family does a weekly Friday night family movie night and we rotate
the person who gets to pick what we watch. The kids look forward to
it all week. We are also reading the Harry Potter series together,
and we sit down to read a chapter most evenings after the kids are
showered and ready for bed. Introducing fun (and often free!)
activities like these gives the family something easy to do together
that they look forward to and creates memories that you’ll be able to
enjoy for years.
Mollie:
Can you share a few specific tips for simplifying a home?
Kelly:
Do what you can to keep excess
things from coming into your house in the first place. Getting your
family on board with this will make it much easier. It’s hard to deny
well-meaning relatives who love to buy gifts for your kids, so give
them ideas that mesh well with minimalism: a museum membership, a
kids cooking class, or one larger-ticket holiday gift (like a
basketball hoop or a streaming service membership) for the whole
family to enjoy together. My kids will often choose a special family
experience like an amusement park trip or theater tickets instead of
a large birthday party with friends and gifts.
Mollie:
Any final thoughts?
Kelly: Minimalism isn’t just about clearing out your house. It’s about changing your mindset, so you’re better-equipped to maintain your new way of life moving forward. Once you discover and embrace how freeing it is to be living without the clutter in your house and on your calendar, it’s easier to be able to say “no” to the pressure we all feel to take on more.
Tara Skubella teaches tantra and conducts tantra ceremonies. See nakedearthtantra.com.
Mollie:
Tell
me about your minimalist lifestyle.
Tara: My partner and I are minimalists who live in
a tiny home (a converted fifth-wheel)
nearly off-grid on the side of a mountain. We’ve been here for
three
years and love it. We’ve condensed so much of our lives to make
this our truth. Not only are we tiny house minimalists, but we don’t
have running potable water and heat with wood.
Mollie: What was your decluttering and
simplifying process like?
Tara: My first decluttering process
happened while I was living in a 1400 square
foot house. I donated, gifted or threw away 365 things in my home
that I no longer needed. These items ranged from old cleaning
products and makeup to pairs of earrings to clothing to a piece of
furniture to kitchen supplies and books. It’s amazing how fast you
can rid of items no longer used.
This became a ritual I continue to do about every
other year, even while living in a tiny home. Most of the items I
release these days are small things like pens or pencils, makeup,
notebooks, accessories, old food and clothing items. It feels good to
have a fresh start every now and then.
Releasing
365 things clears the mind and gives us one less object to worry or
think about each day for
a year.
Mollie: What are your most prized beliefs
regarding minimalist lifestyle? What ideas you want to spread?
Tara: Living a minimalist, off-grid, tiny-home
life is extremely important to me. I enjoy being immersed in
Mother
Nature. I depend on snow for water to do my dishes and to boil water
for tea. I depend on dead standing wood to heat our tiny home during
the harsh 9,000-foot winter
months. Living with Mother
Earth
instead of carving space into her creates a wealth of gratitude each
day. Even living the primitive way I do is still very abundant, as
I’ve experienced harsh survival situations in the past. Coming home
to a cozy, safe space warms my heart.
I also believe living with less helps me with my
ADHD. Since my mind is cluttered most of the time, living in a space
with less to clean and to worry about simplifies my life even more.
Living with less is also a mindful life choice and practice.
Consciously choosing what we can live without opens the spirit to
reconnect with intuitive choices about what we truly need in order to
survive. Otherwise,
instead of being more mindful of tasks we look
for an easy way out. Thinking this way sometimes isn’t a big deal;
however, the more we develop an attachment to objects for meeting our
needs, the more we look for answers outside instead of within.
Mollie: Can you share a few very specific tips
for cleaning, organizing and simplifying a home?
Tara:
Yes. First, if you haven’t used something in a
little over a year, you really don’t need it so get rid of it.
Second, if you bring a non-perishable item into the house, release something else as an exchange. For example, if you buy a new pair of socks, donate or gift a pair that has never really fit right. If you receive a fancy new air-vacuumed mug for your birthday, donate the plastic one that doesn’t keep coffee warm as long as your new one.
Also, remember that linens and towels can add up quickly. We only need one to two sets of sheets per bed and one to two bath towels per person. Depending on the family size, three or four kitchen towels is plenty. People often accumulate too many linens because we don’t like to do the laundry. This accumulation also happens with clothing. The more we are able to be mindful with laundry, the less we actually need on hand.
My final tip is to rent a storage unit. Seriously. If you are uncertain about releasing a number of items, rent a storage unit and place those items in it, then see how often you return to use them. For the items you truly need, you’ll be willing to drive to the unit, use it and drive it back. If items stay unused for several months or they aren’t worth the rental fee, then you’ll learn that those unused items aren’t worth the money and effort to keep around.
Haley Gallerani runs The Vegan Abroad, a
website about traveling sustainably and as a vegan. Visit it at
theveganabroadblog.com.
Mollie:
Have you ever significantly minimized your possessions? What led to
the decision and what did you change?
Haley:
I would say that I officially became a minimalist in 2018 when I
moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I brought two suitcases with me and
two suitcases back. I knew that I wouldn’t be living in Thailand
forever so I didn’t want to purchase too many things while I was
there. I did have to purchase a few things for my apartment, but it
came furnished so my purchases were minimal.
The
biggest way that I minimized my possessions was with my clothing. I
used to own so many clothing pieces that I hardly ever wore. I now
rotate among
around ten different outfits. My biggest tip for simplifying your
wardrobe is to only purchase neutral
colors. This will allow you to mix and
match more than if you own clothing with different colors and
patterns.
Mollie:
What is your life like now? How often do you travel and for how long?
Do you still take only two suitcases?
Haley:
I have been in the United States for the past few months, but I will
be moving to Europe in January 2020. I am a big believer in slow
travel. That means that I spend a long time in one location before
moving onto the next. Europe is a bit more complicated than Thailand
because of visa issues. I will start in Italy where I will stay for
three months: one month in Rome, one month in Florence, and one month
in Sicily. Then I will be going to Croatia for three months before
finally settling in the Czech Republic where I will get a visa.
I am planning on only bringing one suitcase and a
backpack with me to Europe because I will be moving around so much. I
know that this is going to be even more challenging since Europe has
four different seasons that I need to pack clothes for whereas it was
almost always summer temperatures in Thailand. I am excited about the
challenge, though, and I think that I will grow even more minimalist.
Mollie:
What are your most prized beliefs regarding minimalist lifestyle—the
ideas you most want to spread?
Haley:
My most prized belief regarding a minimalist lifestyle is that there
isn’t a one-size-fits-all for minimalism. I think that you have to
find what brings you joy in life and focus on that. Clothing doesn’t
bring me joy, so that is a very easy area for me to be a minimalist
in. I do love cooking, though, so someone could look at my kitchen
and think that I am not a minimalist, but then look at my closet and
think that I am. Ultimately, I think that minimalism is about
focusing on the things that matter to you, and spending less time
(and money) on the things that don’t. When you find the things that
don’t bring you joy, get rid of them.
Also,
try to find ways to simplify the things that do bring you joy. For
example, I am an avid reader. I only purchased physical books prior
to moving to Thailand. I decided to purchase a Kindle before moving
to Thailand so I could easily purchase books in English while I was
abroad. It ended up being one of the best purchases that I have ever
made because I no longer have the clutter of books anymore, and I can
fit hundreds of books on a very small device.
Mollie:
Any final thoughts?
Haley: Becoming a minimalist can be scary at first as you are getting rid of a bunch of your possessions. The thought of “What if I need this in the future?” may show up. My advice would be to keep the item that you are questioning for six months to a year depending on what the item is. If you haven’t used it in that time then you should probably get rid of it.
Pablo and Beverly Solomon have been minimalist designers for over forty years. Their work has been featured in over forty books as well as numerous magazines and newspapers; on TV and film; and on the radio. You can see examples of their fashion and home designs at PabloSolomon.com and BeverlySolomon.com.
Mollie:
What is the essence of your minimalist design philosophy?
Pablo:
You have so often heard it said that the core of minimalism is the
concept of “less is more”. We would modify that a bit and
say that putting quality over quantity is also minimalism.
Minimalism is also the recognition that simplifying your life and
achieving a harmonious balance between things and experiences,
between your comfort and respecting nature, between activity and
rest, etc. are also goals. Minimalism strives to be a physical
representation of a serene, uncluttered mind that lives in harmony
with nature.
Mollie:
That’s an interesting idea. What does minimalism have in common
with living in harmony with nature?
Pablo:
Beverly is part Native American.
One of her core beliefs that we try to follow is that we are just
passing through this life and should leave the smallest negative
marks behind—that we respect nature by using only what we need and
protecting the rest. Minimalism design not only tries to blend the
architecture into the setting, but to do the least amount of damage
in the process. The concept of your home blending into the setting is
representative of your being part of nature, not at odds with nature.
Mollie:
Can you share a few specific tips for living a successful minimalist
lifestyle?
Pablo:
It really begins with choosing to live in harmony with nature and to
create a setting for yourself that puts you at peace. Keep the things
that you cherish, that bring you happy memories, that make your life
more pleasant. Eliminate those elements that just fill space for the
sake of filling space. Learn to embrace the concept that voids can
give meaning and emphasis to chosen elements. And it is okay to
be as minimal or non-minimal as makes you comfortable.
Mollie:
How do voids help give meaning? Can you give me an example of how you
would use a void in an interior or exterior home design?
Pablo:
The most
simple example would be a wall. Having one valued painting is
emphasized by the blank space around it. Were the wall to have as
many paintings as you can cram on that wall, no one painting would
have much impact.
Mollie:
Any other thoughts?
Pablo: Like so many truths in life, the journey is often more important than the destination. Just considering the mindset of minimalism and taking the first steps in simplifying your life and calming your mind are worth it. Just let go of one thing today. Tomorrow is another day.
Amanda
Clark is the owner or Ever So Organized®️, a full-service home
organizing company based out of Orange County, California. They
specialize in decluttering and creating beautiful, functional and
organized systems for homeowners. See eversoorganized.com
for more information.
Mollie:
Have you ever significantly reorganized and decluttered your home?
What led to the decision and what did you change?
Amanda:
A few years ago I moved into a new home, more than doubling the
square footage of the previous home. I did not declutter before the
move because I was pregnant with my third baby and fairly immobile. A
month into the move my third baby was born and I decluttered my
entire house during my maternity leave. I no longer wanted to
organize and re-organized the amount of stuff I knew I didn’t even
need. I wanted to enjoy the expanded space without adding more stuff
in it.
Mollie:
So now you actually have a large home that is spacious, too? What is
that like?
Amanda:
With more space in my home comes more space in my head; a weight has
been lifted. I’m extremely proud of my house and it has been
featured in a local publication. That never would’ve happened if it
was filled with stuff.
Mollie:
Can you share your process for decluttering?
Amanda:
Look at one area at a time. For example, a pantry,
closet, or even a drawer.
Step
one: Remove everything from the space. That means everything!
Step
two: Wipe down and clean the surfaces while they are empty.
Step
three: Sort like items together. You may be surprised at how many
black socks, tubes of toothpaste (you can never find) or cans of
beans you own.
Step
four: Declutter. Be ruthless. Do you love it? Does it improve your
life? Can you purchase it in twenty minutes for under $20 if you need
it later?
Step
five: You are now allowed to shop for those pretty containers only
after you know what you have left. Can risers, plastic dividers for
drawers and matching slim velvet hangers really can make a big
difference organizing your space. Go wild on Pinterest for ideas or
check out my Instagram @eversoorganized.
Step
six: Use containers to separate items and label everything.
And
finally: Respect
the space as a defined perimeter for how much you can keep. Don’t
cram more stuff in the space later on. Use the one-in, one-out rule
to keep it under control.
Mollie:
Any more tips?
Amanda:
Yes!
Turn all of your hangers backward in your closet.
As you wear something replace the hanger with the cleaned item as
you normally would. At the end of the season you can clearly see
which clothes you have worn and which you haven’t. Consider
decluttering those never-worn items.
Have a pretty bin, basket or container in a handy
area. Put your mail, to-do items and even broken items you’ve been
meaning to fix inside the container. Set aside time every single
week to work on those actionable items. If you are consistent, very
few things will fall through the cracks.
File fold your clothes in your drawers.
This will change your life.
Mollie:
What is file folding?
Amanda:
File folding is a simple way of folding your clothes in a square or
rectangle shape and then placing them in the drawer on their
sides instead of flat. It
looks similar to folders in a file cabinet. No more forgetting about
what’s on the bottom of your pile: now there is no bottom.
Mollie:
Any final thoughts?
Amanda: Less stuff truly means more time, more money and more freedom: less time maintaining the stuff, more money in the bank account because you are buying less and more freedom from consumerism.
In a past installment of this serial, I shared my own worksheet for the Work, a longer version of Byron Katie’s. Recently, I decided to add another section. Over and over again, I come to the Work with only an undesirable feeling–no thought, nothing to blame. My need to excavate the feeling further before doing the Work led to my adding a new subset under Step One. I share the entire revised worksheet here.
As I noted previously, this information is not Byron Katie or Byron Katie Foundation approved.
A Complete Revised Worksheet for The Work of Byron Katie
There are three main steps to The Work of Byron Katie. First, find the thought that is causing you pain. Then question the thought as directed. Then turn the thought around–find evidence for it’s opposite and discover what it’s trying to teach you about yourself.
Step One: Find the Painful Thought
Painful thoughts are thoughts that judge a person or a situation unfavorably, causing negative emotion.
First, identify who or what you judge to be your problem.
Is your problem (apparently) an undesirable situation or event, the undesirable behavior of another person, or an undesirable, unexplained feeling? Move to the relevant section below. (Note that if the thought appears to be about yourself, it can and should be reworded to be about a situation instead. For example, “I am lazy” can be “I have a problem with laziness” and “I feel depressed” can be “I am experiencing depression frequently.”)
Thoughts Concerning a Situation or Event
1. What situation or event angers, confuses, saddens, or disappoints you and why?
I feel (emotion) because (situation).
2. How do you want the situation or event to change? What would you prefer instead?
I want (action/change).
3. What is it about this situation or event that you don’t ever want to experience again?
I don’t ever want to experience (emotion and/or action).
4. What does this situation or event say about you? What is the hidden meaning behind it?
This situation shows that I am (descriptor). This situation means that (hidden fear).
5. What difference would it make if you got what you wanted in this situation or event?
If I got what I wanted, I would feel (emotion). If I got what I wanted, I would experience (result).
6. What is the worst thing that could result from this situation or event?
Due to this situation, I could experience (result).
7. If your emotion about this situation or event was a small child, what would it be screaming out?
My (emotion) would be screaming out (unrestrained illogical conclusions).
Choose the thoughts from your list above that deeply resonate and do steps two and three with each.
Thoughts Concerning Another Person
1. Who angers, confuses, saddens, or disappoints you and why?
I feel (emotion) with (person) because (reason).
2. In this situation, how do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?
I want (person) to (action).
3. In this situation, what advice would you offer to them?
(Person) should/shouldn’t (action).
4. In order for you to be happy in this situation, what do you need them to think, say, feel, or do?
I need (person) to (action).
6. What is it about this person’s actions that you don’t ever want to experience again?
I don’t ever want to experience (emotion and/or action).
7. What does this person’s behavior say about you? What is the hidden meaning behind it?
This situation shows that I am (descriptor). This situation means that (hidden fear).
8. What difference would it make if the person acted the way you wanted them to?
If (person) acted as I prefer, I would feel (emotion). If (person) acted as I prefer, I would experience (result).
9. What is the worst thing that could result from this person’s behavior?
(Person) could cause (result).
10. If your emotion about this person was a small child, what would it be screaming out?
My (emotion) would be screaming out (unrestrained illogical judgments and descriptors).
Choose the thoughts from your list above that deeply resonate and do steps two and three with each.
Unexplained Feelings
1. What undesirable feeling are you experiencing?
I am experiencing (emotion).
2. What emotion would you like to feel instead?
I would like to feel (emotion).
3. Why don’t you like the feeling? What aspect of the feeling is undesirable to you?
This feeling is undesirable because (reason).
4. What difference would it make in your life if you never had this feeling again?
If I never had this feeling again, I would experience (result).
5. What is the cause of this emotion?
I feel (emotion) because (cause).
6. What life change could get rid of this emotion?
If (event), I would not feel (emotion).
7. What should you do differently in order to avoid this emotion?
I should always (behavior). I should never (behavior).
8. What do you lack inside yourself right now that might lead to this emotion?
I lack (personal or physical quality).
9. What does having this feeling say about you? What is the hidden meaning behind it?
This situation shows that I am (descriptor). This situation means that (hidden fear).
10. What is the worst thing that could result from your having this feeling?
With an ongoing experience of this emotion, (result).
11. If your emotion were a small child, what would it be screaming out right now?
My (emotion) would be screaming out (unrestrained illogical statements).
12. What are the benefits (seeming or actual) you receive when experiencing this emotion, either from others or from yourself?
When I feel (emotion), I receive the benefit of (benefit).
Choose the thoughts from your list above that deeply resonate and do steps two and three with each.
Step Two: Question the Thought
Slowly, carefully answer the following questions about your painful thought, whatever kind of thought it is.
1: Is it true?
2: Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3a: How do you react—what happens—when you believe the thought?
3b. Can you find one stress-free reason to keep the thought?
4a: Who would you be without the thought?
4b. Can you find a reason to drop the thought?
Step Three: Turn the Thought Around
Finally, find evidence for the opposite of your statement and discover what your negative beliefs can teach you about yourself.
1. Turn the thought around to the opposite. For example, “Melody is rude” becomes “Melody is not rude.”
2. Turn the thought around to yourself. For example, “I am rude.”
3. Turn the thought around to your thinking. For example, “I am rude in my thinking.”
4. If the thought is about another person, turn it around by switching the names. For example, “Melody is rude to me” becomes “I am rude to Melody.”
5. If the thought is about another person, turn it completely to the self. For example, “I am rude to myself.”
6. If the thought is about another person, turn it completely to the other person. For example, “Melody is rude to herself.”
7. If the thought is about another person’s negative quality, turn it around by finding similar qualities you see in yourself. For example, “I am selfish when I . . .” or “I am impatient when I . . .”
8. If the thought begins with “I don’t ever want to,” turn it around by replacing that phrase with both “I am willing to” and “I look forward to.”
9. For each turnaround that resonates, find three pieces of evidence for the truth of the thought. For example, “Melody is always nice to my children,” “Melody is always nice to her children,” and “Melody was nice to our waitress.”
10. Finally, ask yourself how the experience or situation might be the universe’s way of bringing about your your highest good. If you do nothing else on this worksheet, ask this question.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a bit hard to pin down. It’s a lot of things to a lot of people. The common thread is that it’s a therapeutic technique that teaches people how to identify “inaccurate negative thoughts” that can cause depression and anxiety and find “healthier ways to view the situation” (WebMD). Put simply, it’s talking yourself out of your negative beliefs. “I am stupid,” then, becomes “I didn’t study hard enough for the test,” and “No one like me” becomes “I haven’t reached out to new people and offered friendship.”
Sound familiar? Sure it does. The Work is a lot like CBT. Some might even argue that it’s a subset or an offshoot. Who can trace the history of an idea? In any case, in this, the first of several special sections for this serial, is a list of the major differences between these two great practices.
CBT Versus The Work
1. CBT is widely used by professionals and non-professionals worldwide. According to Wikipedia, CBT is “the most widely used evidence-based practice for treating mental disorders.” So there’s that.
2. CBT is well-studied and proven to be effective. It’s the therapeutic technique with the most proven results. The National Institute of Health and many other respected organizations claim that it both alleviates depression and prevents relapses, and does so as well or better than medication.
3. The Work is simpler. In spite of my musings on the complexity of Byron Katie’s process, it is as simple as it can realistically be. CBT can be simple, too; there are many, many versions of it. But Katie went to great effort to reduce the process to a teachable form.
4. The Work has the guru. And I like a guru. There’s something about a truly inspired teacher that sets a fire in you, the believer. Byron Katie is beautiful. She’s a human, but superhuman. She convinces us that deep, abiding inner peace is possible.
5. The Work is more dramatic. In doing the Work, we question everything. Anything and everything, even the reality of our own firsthand experience. This leads to some really deep, really insightful conclusions–conclusions we never see coming. An example: In CBT I might take the thought “I am depressed” and change it to “I feel some depression now, but it will pass. I am very good at finding new and creative ways of coping, and I’m very good at taking care of myself.” All good stuff. While working through Katie’s turnarounds, though, my results look much different. They cause me to examine the basic truth of the negative thought. “I am depressed” might become “I am not depressed in any essential way. My natural self is joyful and at peace. I am not suffering from a condition called depression. I am merely experiencing a temporary feeling that is the natural result of my habitual thought patterns up until this time.” Big difference. When you’re able to see that not only is your thought not true, but the exact opposite is true, something does shift inside you.
6. The Work feels more spiritual. While the Work can be done from an agnostic perspective, in practice it often brings us back to our core spiritual understandings. Many of the thoughts we want to get rid of have to do with death, loss, and animosity. When we believe, as Byron Katie does, that there is no death, and there is no loss, and all animosity is just misdirected ego . . . well, it really puts things into perspective. I’m not sure if you’d be able to completely turn around a thought about a seemingly undeniable factual experience if you didn’t believe, as Katie does, that reality is an illusion and truth is relative.
The way Byron Katie looks at things—the perspective you get from her while reading her book—is based on the idea that in the end, we’re really all okay. The stock market crashed? You lost all your money? Your wife is cheating on you right now, as we speak? Welcome it. Welcome it all. There’s even an analogy she gives about the peace people feel while plummeting to the ground with a broken parachute. And she’s right—that really does happen. Even in life-or-death circumstances, she says, the only real problem is our mind. And it’s that ultimate view of reality that in the end, none of this shit really matters that makes her often extreme positions on temporal pain tenable.
Far be it from me, though, to recommend one process over the other. I like both. I do both.
And now, I leave you to it. But first, the final special Byron Katie section of this serial: A Byron Katie Q and A. Here, I take on some of the hang-ups people experience while doing the Work and some common difficulties in understanding the process itself. Note that the questions are mine and the answers are, too.
Q. Byron Katie says that all “should” statements are inherently not true, because everything that is, should be. So why does the Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet specifically instruct us to write “should” statements? Isn’t that sort of stacking the deck?
A. Technically, yes. And if you don’t actually have a “should” thought, don’t write one down. But the reality is that most of us do. And the Work isn’t only for the thoughts that are logical. It’s for any stressful thought–even the ones we already know aren’t true. Because they’re there, hiding just beneath the surface and affecting us more than we realize. By working on them, we bring them into the light.
Q. What about when someone really should do something differently? For their own good, and all that?
A. This one is easy. Byron Katie often reminds us to stay in our business and let others stay in theirs. “Do you really want God’s job?” she asks. So sure, offer advice. Give them a friendly suggestion. Just don’t get attached to the results. Spend your energy doing the Work on your thoughts about the person instead.
Q. Byron Katie says it’s best not to have any goals regarding the Work as we’re doing it–not even the goal of feeling better, finding emotional relief. What is the reason for this? And is it even possible?
A. Every single time I do the Work, I have a goal: I want to get rid of that ugly thought. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing the Work at all, would I? I suspect if you’re at a certain so-called “level,” spiritually speaking, you know what Byron Katie means by having no goal. I suppose you’re able to comprehend the idea of total acceptance of all outcomes, all negative thoughts, all of what comes into your experience, even suffering. I’m not quite there yet. In one video I watched, Katie says that if your Work has goals, your Work will reflect those goals and, I suppose, yield results that are less honest. I see how that could happen. I’m not sure if it happens to me or not.
Q. We’re supposed to love our negative thoughts? Why?
A. Stressful thoughts are like alarm clocks, Katie teaches. They wake us up to reality, take us out of the dream. This is an important function, and if the thought isn’t lovable for it, it can still be worthy of appreciation.
Q. Byron Katie teaches us that stressful thoughts are never the truth. But how can we know that assumption is true? As long as we’re questioning things, shouldn’t we question that?
A. I don’t claim to know how Byron Katie would answer this question. It is a hard one for sure. My best guess is that she’d say that stressful thoughts always involve a story, an interpretation. No matter what happens to you, it’s the story that causes the stress, not the situation itself. If there is no story, all we’re left with is our true nature, which is to love what is. Two quotes on this that relate:
“Love is not a doing. There is nothing you have to do. And when you question your mind, you can see that the only thing that keeps you from being love is a stressful thought.”–I Need Your Love–Is It True?
“The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want. If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. You can try and try, and in the end the cat will look up at you and say, ‘Meow.’ Wanting reality to be different than it is is hopeless.”–Loving What Is
Q. The Work isn’t as simple as I thought it would be. There are a lot of tricks to it. Why is that?
A. Such an interesting question. Again, my answer is just a guess, but here’s what I think right now. The Universe is such an amazing thing–so simple and at the same time, so complex. We look at the human brain, for example, under the microscope and all we see are clumps of cells operating on simple principles of biology and physics. But what those cells do is beyond our comprehension. No one understands what makes them work.
In the same way, the Work is simple yet complex and profound.
Q. Why does Byron Katie recommend that we only do the Work on other people, not on ourselves, until we’re more experienced with the process?
A. I hate this rule. It bugs me. I don’t have a ton of judgments about other people. Mostly, I have general negativity. My stressful thoughts usually have to do with slight annoyances that are no one’s fault or stuff about myself, usually bad feelings. When working on these thoughts, I sometimes write about them in the third person. It helps.
That said, there’s a decent argument in favor of this guideline. Other people serve as mirrors into ourselves surprisingly often. Also note that TheWork.com suggests that if you want to start by working on thoughts about yourself, you can call an experienced practitioner. (There is a free service available through TheWork.com.) Also not a bad idea.
Q. What if The Work doesn’t work?
A. How do you know it didn’t? The change in your thoughts and feelings can be subtle, and can take time to make themselves obvious. Try not to get too wrapped up in your preferred outcome. Trust there was an effect, and if the thought comes back, do the Work on it again and again–as many times as it takes. Another of my favorite Katie quotes: “No one has ever been able to control his thinking, although people may tell the story of how they have. I don’t let go of my thoughts—I meet them with understanding. Then they let go of me.”
Q. Regarding the JYN worksheet and the four questions: Do you have to ask the questions in the order given?
A. No. Use your intuition. Byron Katie recommends not skipping straight to the turnarounds, especially if you’re new to the process. Elsewhere, though, she says that you could spend a long time just in question one, and at other times the Work will be almost automatic. Generally speaking, when in doubt, go through the process step by step. But don’t feel boxed in by that rule.
Q. Byron Katie sometimes suggests we make amends to those we’ve hurt–for our own good, not for them. What if the person is gone or dead?
A. There are many ways to make amends: not repeating the action; asking for forgiveness, even if they aren’t there to hear you; offering some sort of material recompense. My favorite, though, is Katie’s suggestion that we do random acts of kindness every day–and if someone finds out it was us, it doesn’t count. I love it.
Q. What if I really, truly want to change myself, to become a better person in some way, but I can’t? I try and try and just fail?
A. What you can’t do, you don’t need to do, Byron Katie says. No matter how important that thing seems to be. In one video Katie tells a man who thinks he’s not successful at his career that he should be glad that the work is getting done without his help. It’s getting done and he didn’t have to do it. Interesting.
Q. I have so, so many negative thoughts. How can I do the Work on all of them?
A. To this, Katie might say, “Do the Work on the one that comes next.” However, I’m too much of a planner for that. I like to keep a list of thoughts to do the Work on. I also like to play with them a bit till I find the one that packs the biggest emotional punch. Neither technique is wrong, and either way it’s the doing of the Work, not the specifics, that matters. The more you do it, the more automatic the process will become, until one day you realize you’ve fully downloaded the program. When stressful thoughts come, the four questions meet them immediately and without much conscious effort. When this is where you’re at, everything gets easier–even the stuff you haven’t worked on yet. It becomes habitual, ingrained.
Here, I might also suggest a non-Byron Katie-approved technique, which I’ll call the Quick Stop. As soon as a stressful thought comes, something like “I am so sick of doing the dishes,” take just a second to tell the thought to stop. Then find one reason–any one reason–the Universe is bringing you this inconvenience. Maybe the dishes are teaching you to slow down. Maybe they’re giving you an opportunity to serve your family, show appreciation, or contribute. Maybe they’re revealing to you that it’s time to do the Work on your stressful thoughts again, or teaching you a bit of patience. Maybe doing them allows you to experience anew the pleasure of a clean kitchen. Maybe the dishes give you an excuse to avoid other work or a chance to watch the birds out the window. Or maybe they simply remind you to get some more soap next time you’re at the store. Maybe you’ll have an important insight during this time, or a short mental break. Any reason your perceived inconvenience is working for you, not against you, is fine. No need to list more than one or two.
I know, I know. Being an optimist is such a pain. But it’s worth the effort, I swear.
Q. What if I don’t want to let go of a stressful thought since if I do, I will lose the motivation to act?
A. The final question, and for good reason. It’s one of the most common, and a particularly difficult one. I mean, Katie’s answer isn’t complicated. She says that we won’t lose motivation to do anything that is good for us and others that we’re meant to do. Our nature is love, she reminds us. If your child is hungry, you’ll feed her. If you need money to live on, you’ll go to work every day, and if you need a good friend, you’ll be one. So what about the other stuff, you might wonder. The stuff you don’t need to do, but should do? Katie would say, If you’re meant to do it, you will. But if you’re like me, that answer isn’t good enough.
I should play with my kids every day. I should drink more water. I should jog. I should read instead of watch TV. All these thoughts stress me out for sure. But do I really want to give them up?
Because I haven’t found my answer to this question yet, I’m going to leave it unanswered. Something for you to think about on your own.
Okay. Let’s take a minute here. Things are about to get complicated. You’ve heard this God-is-all-there-is theory before, but have you ever really unpacked it? Well, Byron Katie has. And in a way I hadn’t heard–really heard–until following her on her unique trip of the mind.
Before discussing this idea, though, let’s do something else. Let’s break down her entire philosophy of life–all the basics. I told you before that I wrote a few sections for this book concerning Katie’s actual teaching and concerning how to do The Work. This is a fun one of those. I call it A Byron Katie Metaphysics.
If this were a college class, here’s how it would start: the professor would watch the clock, waiting to begin. As soon as the second hand reached the twelve of the appointed minute, he’d say, “Byron Katie isn’t a spiritual person.”
Laughter. “Huh?” one student might say.
Another: “Okay. Then who is?”
“According to her, no one,” the professor would reply. “There’s no need to be; spiritual ideas are just a layer, an interpretation. Reality isn’t spiritual. Reality just is. What do you think? Does that make sense?”
“Are you saying that God is like reality? But God isn’t like reality. God is an unknowable, non-physical concept.”
“Are you sure? Byron Katie believes that God and reality aren’t only similar, but they’re exactly the same thing.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Kinda changes everything, doesn’t it?”
The discussion would continue for forty minutes or so, and just before the end of class, the professor would hand out a piece of paper.
“Here are our topics for the semester.”
The students would then begin to read.
Byron Katie’s Philosophy of Non-Belief in Three Parts:
Part One: There Is No Knowledge
God may or may not exist. Truth may or may not exist.
If God does exist, He is unknowable. If truth does exist, it is unknowable.
Reality exists. However, it is experienced subjectively and thereby distorted.
In sum, there is no true or objective knowledge, either of things seen or unseen. There is only subjective knowledge.
Part Two: There Is Only Reality, and Reality Is Perfect
If there is a God, God is just another name for reality. If there is a truth, truth is everything that is.
Reality is perfect. Everything that is, is exactly as it should be. Always.
For this reason, whenever you argue with reality, you suffer. In fact, all suffering results from believing a thought that argues with what is.
It is possible to be completely free from suffering.
The process of ridding ourselves of our suffering is self-inquiry.
Part Three: Experiences Are Not Reality
Reality and experiences are different. Reality is objective. Experiences are subjective.
Our experiences are a mirror of ourselves, of what we are believing about who we are and what the world is like.
Therefore, when you judge another person, you are actually finding that same quality in yourself.
By changing your beliefs, you change our experiences.
Part Four: Twelve More Surprising Beliefs
The universe is friendly. Reality is much, much kinder than the stories we tell ourselves about it.
Love is what we are made of. We can’t help but love, and we don’t need to try. If we want to feel it, we just have to uncover it.
There are no legitimate “shoulds” in the world. Not one. Everything should be exactly as it is, because it is. Even things like death, anger and abuse.
All thoughts are a gift, even the really awful ones. By listening to them, even loving them, we give them room to teach us, then leave us alone.
Intuition is more reliable than planning. Listen to your inner guide, not your mind. The right decision will come when you need it.
There is no such thing as a victim. You can only suffer if you believe a painful thought or tell yourself a painful story—not a moment sooner. Therefore, the only person who can hurt you is yourself.
“Letting go is an outdated concept.” It is impossible to drop a thought on purpose; it’s just not the way the mind works. Instead, the beliefs we don’t want let go of us after we question them honestly.
There is no reason to defend yourself. “Defense is the first act of war,” Katie famously says. Avoid starting wars.
There’s no such thing as enlightenment. And even if there is, simple kindness is a more noble goal, anyway.
The thoughts we think are not observations of facts. They are only suggestions. No need to take them seriously.
Negative thoughts about an incident are often far more injurious to us than the incident itself ever was.
Since God is reality, if you want to love God, just love what is.
Class dismissed.
Don’t you wish your real college courses had been this thought-provoking?
And now, time for the wrap up of this serial. Here are just some of the changes I noticed in myself over the past year.
I’m less judgmental. One of the first changes I noticed in myself after starting this detox was that I didn’t come down as hard on other people in my thoughts. I still judge, but right on the heels of my judgment is often a benefit-of-the-doubt type modifier. She’s lazy, I’ll think. But hey, I get that. I’m lazy, too, when I think I can get away with it. I complain to no end about housework and cooking, for instance. . . . He’s negative, I’ll think. But I’m negative, too. I focus way too much on what I don’t have. These reminders take much of the bite out of my thoughts, which helps me see people more clearly. And I think they notice the difference.
I am more fair-minded about myself. As described previously, I’ve found a great deal of freedom from the belief that I should be perfect and that I have to accomplish something significant every day (or ever, for that matter). I write when I have the time, energy and desire to do so, and I’m usually surprised by how much ends up getting done.
I feel more secure in my friendships. Byron Katie says that the relationship you perceive yourself to have with someone else is the true relationship–even if the perception and reality of it is different for the other person. One of my favorite Katie quotes: “I like to say that I have the perfect marriage, and I can never know what kind of marriage my husband has.” In the past, I’ve often tried to analyze a friend’s feelings for me–take her temperature, so to speak–then grade our relationship accordingly. Lately, I’ve felt a much reduced compulsion to do so. When the temptation comes, I say to myself, “I love her. That’s my only job here.”
I enjoy motherhood and marriage more. I love my family the same as ever, but now I appreciate them more. I understand that they’re not the source of my unhappiness–or my happiness, either.
I feel less attached to my positive-feeling beliefs (including my spiritual beliefs). I’m humbled knowing I could be wrong about every last one of them.
When a stressful thought arises, I feel a great sense of relief when I remember that I have the Work. I wrote about this realization early on in this serial, and it remains one of the most significant advantages of the process for me. The Work calms me, even before I begin.
I am more grateful for challenges, more accepting of pain. I’m reminding myself often that the worst is really the best. Doing so has become a new spiritual practice.
In the beginning of this serial, I hoped to make major inroads against my depression, to get rid of my negativity and maybe even to experience a glimpse of the nonbelief state in which nothing is known. I also wondered if the Work might be my so-called One Great Spiritual Practice–my go-to strategy for feeling better when everything else fails. I did not accomplish most of these goals. As I said before, I am still depressed. I didn’t glimpse the nonbelief state and truth be told, I’m not sure I want to anymore. I’ve decided I no longer believe in a One Great Practice; to the three I’ve been doing this year (mantra meditation, following my inner guidance and the Work) I’ve added two more: reminding myself in difficult moments that pain is a gift and taking time to feel my feelings of sadness. All these practices are helpful, and I don’t plan to prioritize the Work over any other of them. I’ll admit, though, that I have no desire to add another to the list. It just gets hard to keep track.
But there’s the negativity thing, too, and in that the improvement is significant. I didn’t realize how much victim thinking I’d fallen into until this year. As I wrote down my negative thoughts one by one, self-awareness crept in. Then, as I worked through them, my head cleared.
I called this process my detox, but do I feel detoxified? Honestly, not as much as I’d like. One year is a long time, but the thirty-eight and a half that came before it have taken their toll. My detox continues.
So, it’s June. June 12, my phone says. I find myself, suddenly, at the end of my detox. But it’s not done. I’m still going.
There’s more.
Though I appreciate the freedom I found this year as often as I remember it (which is often), as I told you before, my depression did not improve. I don’t know why this is, though I don’t think it’s a failure of the Work.
Depression is complicated. No one really understands it. Is it genetic? Is it reversible? We don’t know. I do know that I’ve now spent a year dealing with my negative thoughts using the primary non-medicinal treatment, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and another process that’s similar. I’ve dealt with my negative thought patterns, untangled a lot of brush. I feel like I’ve cleared a pretty nice path and found a great amount of peace.
And my efforts, of course, were not limited to this year. The last decade of my life has been devoted in part to overcoming depression through spiritual and other means. And though I’ve had some significant successes with the spiritual stuff, it’s the non-spiritual methods that have worked the best so far.
So, this month, I return to my full dose of my antidepressant. Too, I recommit myself to frequent heart rate-raising exercise. I’m not giving up spiritual techniques; I’ll definitely continue doing the Work on depression. But I am giving up the idea that in order to be mentally healthy, I can’t rely on medication. I’m giving up the idea that antidepressants are a weakness, that I could do this on my own if only I were perfect enough.
I am not perfect. I am not always strong. And even if I were, I might not be able to cure my depression. “Even if I were.” How profound. How ridiculous. I’m not perfect. I’m not always strong. And because I’m not, I don’t need to be.
There are no “shoulds,” remember? There’s only what is. There is only each of us, doing the best we can. Right now, as I sit here, on the twelfth day of June, the best I can do is exercise and medication.
And more Work.
In May, I did the Work on twenty-one stressful thoughts, and I did a handful of extras so far this month as well. Here are a few significant examples of my turnarounds.
Thought: My husband doesn’t appreciate me. He takes me for granted.
Turnarounds: My husband does not take me for granted. I take him for granted. I take myself for granted. He respects me. I don’t respect him. I don’t respect myself. He was mad at me about an action. It was me who made it about not appreciating me and not acknowledging me, me who started looking for evidence of that.
Thought:My depression is deeply ingrained and will take a long time to undo.
Turnarounds: My depression is not deeply ingrained and it will not take a long time to undo. It will take the right amount of time to undo. It is not ingrained at all. It is a result of my stressful and untrue beliefs. Maybe a different medication will help a lot very quickly. Just exercising helps me immediately, too, almost every time.
Thought: I am bored with life. Motherhood is so boring.
Turnarounds: I love being a mom. Love it. I can write, read, watch TV, talk with friends, make art and more if I feel bored. I am not bored with life. Motherhood is good to me. Life is good to me. Motherhood is quiet sometimes, but not boring.
Thought:I should not be depressed.
Turnarounds: I am meant to be depressed. There is a reason for it. I should be depressed. It is teaching me a lot. It makes me more compassionate, more caring, more sensitive, a better friend and a better human. I will be able to help a lot more people because of it.
Thought:I want to help more people in my life. I am not helping other people enough.
Turnarounds: The right opportunities to help others come along when they come along. What’s meant to be will be.
Thought:I cannot handle this much depression.
Turnarounds: I can handle this much depression. The nanny comes tomorrow and after that I’ll take a nap. I have things to look forward to. David is helping me greatly with the kids every day. I will get through, like I always do.
Other thoughts I worked on:
I am not a very likable person.
There is something about me that is unattractive to other people.
I am bossy, opinionated, uncaring, a loudmouth and judgmental.
Several years after first learning about the power of the mind, I, too, was finding my way. For a time, my main spiritual practice was saying mantras and affirmations in an attempt to change my life circumstances. The strategy worked; things I wanted came to me. Then, the rate of change slowed. I became interested in other ways of improving myself, an interest that led to my writing the first two books in this series. During this time I learned several new spiritual practices, including meditation and following my intuition, practices I value to this day. By the end of the second of these spiritual memoirs, though, my focus began to shift. Rather than seeking enlightenment, I started seeking acceptance. And I don’t think it’d be an overstatement to say that since completing that book, acceptance has been the theme of my life.
One afternoon during this difficult time my Buddhist friend came to my house for a visit. She let me sit on the mattress on my living room floor–practically at her feet–and ask her what she thought of my life goal to live in a state of meditation (which for me is spiritual-ese for “continual bliss”).
“That’s a good goal,” she said. I was buoyed, but she wasn’t done. “You will still feel pain, though, you know. The waves won’t knock you over, and whatever happens, you’ll have peace. But sadness? That’s still going to happen.”
“Even if you’re perfect, if you do everything right?” I asked. “Even if you’re in touch with the Divine at all times?”
“I think so,” she said. “I think you always will.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “But part of me is convinced that if I’m spiritual enough, pain will be impossible. I’ll be able to return to my spiritual high, no matter what happens–at least most of the time.”
“Well, that’s what you’ve been taught. As a Buddhist, I’ve been taught something different. Buddhists seek to be at peace in the midst of all circumstances. But we don’t try to maintain an emotional high. The body can’t handle it. It wouldn’t even be healthy.
“The high is temporary. The high is a buzz. When you seek to sustain it, you create attachment.”
Byron Katie disagrees. “Peace is our natural condition,” she says. When we’re free of our limiting beliefs, we can’t help but feel good; it’s who we are. The discomfort, the pain–they’re not the truth. They’re the result of our fears. As we do the Work and the untrue thoughts dissipate, we free ourselves from suffering. This is my experience, and yet–there’s still pain. Lots of it. Even after a year of the Work. Maybe a year isn’t long enough to find freedom. Or maybe my Buddhist friend is right, and as long as I’m still on earth, I’ll have suffering.
I don’t know. I wonder. I don’t know.
But I know what I know, which is that when you can’t avoid pain, you can still appreciate it.
Appreciation is a shortcut to acceptance.
***
A few days ago, a blog reader asked me how we can balance our need to change difficult life circumstances with our need to accept them. It’s a great question, and when I began my response, I didn’t know where it would go. I made a few general statements, nothing particularly insightful. Then I decided to speak of my own experience. This is what I said:
“Personally, I don’t leave much to fate. If I want it, I go after it. I simply try to do so in an detached way, with the attitude that if it’s not meant to be, well, I’ll be fine. Does this ‘going after’ of something sometimes feel like non-acceptance? Surprisingly, not really. Think of it this way: Acceptance is not liking something. Acceptance is looking at something you don’t like and realizing that it is the very best thing for you right now.
“Acceptance isn’t liking something. It’s not liking it and appreciating it, anyway.”
At the start of this serial, I described my struggles with motherhood, perfectionism, depression and more. And since writing those words, little in my external reality has changed. Ellie is over a year old now. My boys are five and three. I still don’t get much time to write, and I’m still depressed.
And yet. Things have changed. Internally, that is. Somewhere along the line–I believe it began in the fall–I started interrupting myself during tough moments to remind myself to appreciate difficulty. “This is the good stuff,” I tell myself when I find myself bubbling with annoyance or anger. “This is the best part, the part that helps me grow. If I didn’t have challenges, life wouldn’t be worth living. If everything was always perfect, what would be the point?”
It’s a great habit. No–it’s a great spiritual practice. One of the best.
These days, I still seek to maintain a state of continuous meditation. I still try to use my intuition for decisions large and small. But when it comes to spirituality, I’ve shifted focus significantly. My new form of spirituality isn’t seeking bliss, or enlightenment, or a continual experience of the Divine. It’s less lofty than that, more practical. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like spirituality at all; instead, it’s just a philosophy that helps me get through the day. Put succinctly, my religion is peace, pain, hard work, appreciation and acceptance.
Pain is a gift. It’s the greatest teacher we’ll ever have. Inner peace is our truest compass. Hard work reminds us of our humanness, but it’s appreciation that does the heavy lifting. When I appreciate something without liking it is when I’m really being a master. Then, at the right time, acceptance follows.
Appreciation leads to acceptance, which leads to peace.
Like Kuffel, I’m not everyone’s idea of a success story. She’s still fat. I’m still depressed. But I’m starting to see my way more clearly. And for now, that’s enough.
Frances Kuffel is not a fashion model. She’s a literary agent, an author and a struggling overeater. She’s written two memoirs–both excellent, I might add–and she’s both your most smartest and your most understanding friend. In Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self, Kuffel recounts her journey from a size thirty-two to a size six. In Eating Ice Cream With My Dog: A True Story of Food, Friendship and Losing Weight . . . Again, she details her way back up the scale, and her attempts–and those of four of her friends–to regain control. In the end, none have met their goals.
And there is good reason for that, Kuffel writes. Everything from depression to hormonal imbalances to family to habits. When Kuffel attends a week-long weight-loss retreat, she follows the strict diet almost exactly . . . and loses two pounds. By the end of the book, she’s found acceptance for herself at her current weight, an example many of us would do well to follow. Of women who manage to maintain their hard-won weight loss, she says, “They are either biologically lucky or work so hard at it that it’s become their life.”
I have to agree. For some people who are temperamentally and evolutionarily predisposed to easy weight gain, being thin is worth the effort it takes. For others, it really isn’t. I wish more people would make the decision to maintain healthy eating and exercise habits, as Kuffel tries to do at any size, then let the numbers fall where they may.
It’s a bold decision, this cross-current choice. Many fat people feel constant pressure to force their bodies to change. I don’t know Kuffel’s thoughts about her body today and how much of that pressure she feels. But from her writing it seems that she’s found her own kind of happiness, her own way through it all.
Byron Katie isn’t the only one out there screaming about questioning one’s established beliefs. Lots of people are–people of all kinds. Most aren’t quite as awe-inspiring as Katie, but they’re pretty cool anyway. Here, a small list of people I find myself thinking about long after reading their stories.
Gary Taubes argued convincingly against the health and effectiveness of the low-fat diet and quickly became a polarizing figure. (See Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease.)
Timothy Ferris rethought work efficiency and built a huge, loyal following and a global brand. (Read The Four-Hour Work Week.)
Josh Waitzkin came up with a unique learning strategy—and won both the U.S. Junior Chess championship and the world champion title in Taiji Push Hands, a martial art. (See The Art of Learning: A Journey In the Pursuit of Excellence.)
Social media marketers Seth Godin and Jeff Jarvis were among the first to realize the potential of online social media-, gift- and content-based marketing. (Read anything by Godin and What Would Google Do?: Reverse-Engineering the Fastest-Growing Company in the History of the World by Jarvis.)
Robert Kiyosaki redefined wealth as the ability to live off the interest of your assets (Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!).
Chris Anderson predicted the future of purchasing patterns (The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More).
Tony Hsieh created a company devoted primarily to its front-line employees (Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose).
Then, of course, there’s Todd Beamer.
When United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked on September 11, 2001, this all-American hometown boy from Flint, Michigan helped deflect a terrorist attack. The Wikipedia article on his life tells the story:
“United Flight 93 was scheduled to depart at 8:00am, but the Boeing 757 did not depart until 42 minutes later due to runway traffic delays. Six minutes later, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. 15 minutes later, at 9:03 am, as United Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower, United 93 was climbing to cruising altitude, heading west over New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. At 9:25 am, Flight 93 was above eastern Ohio, and its pilot radioed Cleveland controllers to inquire about an alert that had been flashed on his cockpit computer screen to “beware of cockpit intrusion.” Three minutes later, Cleveland controllers could hear screams over the cockpit’s open microphone. Moments later, the hijackers, led by the Lebanese Ziad Samir Jarrah, took over the plane’s controls, disengaged the autopilot, and told passengers, “Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board.” Beamer and the other passengers were herded into the back of the plane. The curtain between first class and economy class had been drawn, at which point Beamer saw the pilot and co-pilot lying dead on the floor just outside the curtain, their throats having been cut, as a flight attendant informed him. Within six minutes, the plane changed course and was heading for Washington, D.C.. Several of the passengers made phone calls to loved ones, who informed them about the two planes that had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Beamer tried to place a credit card call through a phone located on the back of a plane seat, but was routed to a customer-service representative, who passed him on to GTE airphone supervisor Lisa Jefferson. With FBI agents listening in on their call, Beamer informed Jefferson that hijackers had taken over United 93, that one passenger had been killed, and mentioned the dead pilots. He also stated that two of the hijackers had knives, and that one appeared to have a bomb strapped around his waist. When the hijackers veered the plane sharply south, Beamer briefly panicked, exclaiming, “We’re going down! We’re going down!”
At this point, Beamer and several other passengers and crew members decided to ignore the threats of the hijackers and face near-certain death by storming the cockpit and steering the plane into the ground. “The plane was twenty minutes of flying time away from its suspected target.”
Beamer, a baseball player and Sunday school teacher, was survived by his wife and two sons, aged three and one at the time.
What inspires me most about Beamer, and about all of the people in this list, is realizing that at some point, they all had to make a decision. A window opened–whether for minutes, as it did for Beamer, or for months, as it likely did for some of the others–during which they had to define who they were, no matter the consequences. And each of them was able to get it right.
Would I?
By a general standard, I’m not a fearful person. Not shy. No huge paranoias or looming existential concerns. And yet, the opinions of others–or, more accurately, the possible opinions of others–give me pause on a nearly daily basis. Talking to other moms about various parenting decisions, for instance. Talking about a controversial book I like, or the fact that I’m a libertarian. Just earlier today I found myself seriously considering what my neighbors would think if I plant a bunch of new trees in our yard. Twenty trees, but still. They’re just trees.
What the heck?
I don’t know what it’s like to be Gary Taubes or anyone a tenth as influential as he. But if he can face the ire of entire organizations devoted to vegetarianism, grain production and nutrition information dissemination, plus a lot of reputable scientists and in-person hecklers, I think I can plant any damn number of trees I want.
I can make my yard into a damned forest.
I can question my beliefs–even the ones that people swear are healthy and important.
Is it true? I’m getting a yes. I know that we often feel unable to change our bad habits, our bad feelings, our unhappy life situations. But when I close my eyes and question the belief, all I can think is, “Yes. I can feel it. My inner body, the energy inside myself that I feel when I’m meditating, is part of the rest of the world’s energy. I may be in this body right now, but the essence of me is power.”
Can I absolutely know it is true? No.
How do I feel when I think the thought? When I feel that I have power, I also feel that what I do, say and think is important. I remember that my thoughts create my reality, and even affect others around me and beyond.
How would I feel if I were unable to think the thought? If I thought I was powerless, I’d probably feel that life is meaningless, that nothing I did mattered.
The Turnaround: We don’t have power. This statement is also true. We don’t have power over God or other people. Also, though we do create our realities, the vast majority of that creation happens subconsciously. With years of spiritual practice, we can change our beliefs and brains somewhat, but most of us will never get around to doing the Work on them all. Which is why Katie tells us to focus on the thoughts that cause stress. The others just aren’t the priority.
So again, is it true? Yes and but. People have power, and yet, we can’t always access it. That is the truth, and it reminds me to have compassion for those among us that feel stuck in a pattern they don’t like.
