Stepcase Lifehack: What Makes Life Worth Living?

What Makes Life Worth Living?


My partner is taking a class in psychology and one assignment asks her to write a paper answering the question “What makes life worth living?”

For the past few days, she’s been asking the people around her – kids, friends, co-workers – what they think makes life worth living, and the answers have been pretty much of a sort: family, friends, work, music, some possession or other, faith, maybe health. Computer games.

Although these answers aren’t necessarily trivial, they strike me as very unsatisfying answers to the question “What makes life wort living?” What about family, friends, work, etc. makes life worth living? Just having them?

Then why aren’t most people – who generally have families, friends, and jobs – happier than they are? Why, indeed, do we live in a society where anti-depressants are among the most profitable medications? Why are the bookstore shelves packed with books explaining how to be happier?

I think there’s a resistance to answering a question like this honestly. Sure, being put on the spot and asked one of the most profound questions humanity has managed to come up with is probably not exactly conducive to thoughtful responses, either, but I doubt she’d get much better responses if she gave them a week to think about it.

It’s the same resistance I see when people talk about the GTD weekly review. We’re pretty much ok with going over our tasks and doing some short-range planning, but when Allen insists we take that “50,000 foot view” of our lives – the Big Picture view – people tend to come up short.

And when Allen insists, over and over in virtually every interview with him I’ve ever heard or read, that we ask ourselves, “Is what I’m doing right now the most important thing I could be doing in my life?” I see the same resistance. Who am I kidding? I feel the same resistance. Maybe I’m cleaning up dog poop in the backyard, or playing BrickBreaker on my Blackberry – is that really the most important thing I could be doing?

Probably not.

But it strikes me as a really important question. What does make life worth living? And I think the reason people answer in such unsatisfying ways is that we’ve grown so used to defining ourselves in terms of possessions – possessions that literally feel like extensions of our self – that it’s hard to think of even the people close to us in any way other than as possessions, as “objects” with certain qualities that make us happy. Or, more often, don’t.

Which is to say, they’re all “things” that are external to us, no matter how much a part of our life they feel like. I think any question of what makes life worth living has to start with an inward look at one’s self, not an outward look at the people and things one surrounds one’s self with.

Instead, I think we need to address the question with our own actions, the things we do that make life worth living. Verbs, not nouns. When I think of how I would answer the question, the following behaviors come to mind:

* Creating: Writing, drawing, painting (though I’m not good at it), playing music (though I’m not especially good at that, either). For others, it might be inventing something, building a business, coming up with a clever marketing campaign, forming a non-profit.
* Relating: It’s not “family” that makes life worth living, I think, but the relationships we create with members of our family, and the way we maintain and build those relationships. Same goes for friends, lovers, business partners, students, and everyone else.
* Helping: Being able to lend a hand to people in need – however drastic or trivial that need may be – strikes me as an important part of life.
* Realizing: Making, working towards, and achieving goals, no matter what those goals are.
* Playing: Maybe this is a kind of “relating”, but then, play can be a solo affair as well. Letting go of restraints, imagining new possibilities, testing yourself against others or against yourself, finding humor and joy.
* Growing: Learning new things, improving my knowledge and ability in the things I’ve already learned.

Those seem like more satisfying answers to me – they strike deeper into what it is I want for myself, what makes it worthwhile to get up in the morning.

What about you? What makes your life worth living? Do you feel like I’m headed down the wrong path here? How would you answer the question, “What makes life worth living?”

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Evolution of Self: Laziness: Fact or Fiction?

By Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D.  in Evolution of the Self

Addressing this topic generally, the immortal Dagwood Bumstead once claimed: “You can’t teach people to be lazy—either they have it, or they don’t.” So what is laziness anyway? Is it about being slow to do something (what we typically call procrastination)? . . . Or about doing something slowly? . . . Or about not doing it at all? . . . Or, finally, is it about not sufficiently wanting to do something? And if this last alternative is true, when we label someone lazy are we really talking about that person’s being indolent, sluggish, or slothful? Or is there something else going on that hasn’t yet been appreciated?

What I'm going to be discussing here is my own, somewhat unorthodox view on laziness. For I believe (apologies to Dagwood, who would otherwise seem to be one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject) that the whole idea of anyone's being inherently lazy--or having a "lazy personality"--is basically a myth.

My experience, both as an individual and therapist, has led me to conclude that laziness as an explanation of human behavior is practically useless. Referring to--or rather, disparaging, or even dismissing--a person as lazy seems to me a glib and overly simplistic way of accounting for a person's apparent disinterest or inertia. And resorting to this term to categorize a person's inactivity suggests to me a laziness more on the part of the describer than the person described. In short, I view this pejorative designation as employed mostly as a "default" when the person talked about is not particularly well understood.

What I'd like to consider here is a more useful--and psychologically accurate--way of understanding people who don't do what we believe they ought to do. And my thesis is simply that what we commonly think of as laziness is not really about a lack of mobility as such but a lack of motivation.

What Interferes with Motivation

In reflecting on laziness and its various ramifications, I'll explore some of the factors I believe diminish or undermine the motivation required to embark upon--and follow through on--life's various challenges and difficulties. So far at least, here's what I've come up with to help clarify the various reasons all of us, at some time or another, fail to start or complete a task.

• Lacking a sense of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the conviction that if we put our mind to something, we'll be effective with it. Without adequate self-confidence, however, we may not believe we're capable of doing something successfully, so we end up not attempting it. Without a "can do" attitude, we unfortunately restrict ourself to doing only what's already within our comfort zone. And, going forward, we are limited precisely because we have such a limiting view of ourself. Another possibility here is that even after we've successfully undertaken something, because we still harbor doubts about our self-efficacy, we continue to delay, procrastinate, vacillate, etc.

• Lacking sufficient emotional support. It may be that we require some sort of "cheering section" to handle what otherwise might overwhelm us. Without enough encouragement from without, we simply may not be able to motivate ourselves enough from within. As adults, we should be beyond needing "attaboys!" or "attagirls!" to stay resolved to complete a task. But many of us still depend on others for the motivation--or inspiration--to do what, technically, we should be able to do independently (without being "cheered on" by others).

• Needing--but not expecting--that others will give us recognition. When we apply ourselves to something, it's usually done with some expectation of reward--whether material or emotional, internal or external. If, developmentally, we're still at a place where we must anticipate "strokes" from others to feel sufficiently motivated to begin a task, then lacking any hope that we will get such acknowledgment may leave us without the motivation to undertake it. If in the past, our application and diligence hadn't gotten us the positive feedback we craved, then how realistic is it to think we could yet maintain such diligence going forward?

• Lacking self-discipline. It may be true that we can do almost anything we set our mind to. But if our mind is our worst enemy, we simply may not be able to believe this otherwise inspiring (and motivating!) maxim. That is, whatever anxieties we may have about failing, as well as our poor sense of self-efficacy, may either keep us from starting a task or prevent us from completing it. And even if we do end up finishing it--because, say, it's a job requirement and we absolutely must--our pattern of delay will still persist. Unresolved self-doubts (deeply programmed within us) aren't automatically erased by an expedient action and will reaffirm themselves (through some sort of procrastination) the very next time we're obliged to do something.

In my experience, people who lack self-discipline also lack fundamental self-esteem. And here the latter deficiency seems to feed directly into the former. That is, significant defects in our self-image undermine our confidence in our abilities, and this lack of self-confidence negatively affects the development of self-discipline--which of course is necessary to accomplish just those things that would enhance our self-esteem. Psychologically speaking, this has got to be one of the most vicious of vicious cycles.

• Lacking interest in the endeavor itself. If the task or project feels tedious to us (i.e., not appropriately challenging), we're likely to want to avoid it altogether. If it's essential we do it, we probably will--but in one way or another we'll "act out" our displeasure by hesitating, or by doing a halfhearted, mediocre job with it. When we denigrate someone as lazy, frequently what we're really referring to is a task that the person finds so dull or boring that they just can't get themselves to tackle it. After all, it's only human nature to avoid those things seen as a nuisance or burden.

What induces us generally to evade work is not really laziness but the fact that the work isn't sufficiently compelling to us. Think of it in terms of "working" on a jigsaw puzzle. If absorbing ourself in the puzzle is experienced as fun, we'll readily engage in it. But if, frankly, we're not much attracted to jigsaw puzzles--that is, such pursuits don't represent an interesting challenge for us--we'll consider such "play" to be work and (unless we feel we have to participate) try to get out of it. All of which is to say that what motivates some people won't motivate others; and in neither case does doing, or not doing, something say anything about a person's "laziness." After all, what might be a task for one person might be an absolute delight for another.

• Ambivalence--or lacking faith that the action will be worth the effort. If certain of our priorities or values are in doubt, we may lack the clarity to move forward. Our contradictory motives--to approach or to avoid--may be weighted equally and so cancel each other out, leading to a kind of behavioral torpor. We may not be convinced that the action we're considering--or that's been suggested to us--will be all that useful, or valuable, or satisfying to us. And so we're unable to commit to performing it. Without the belief that a particular act or enterprise will somehow improve the quality of our life, it's hard (if not impossible) to cultivate the initiative necessary for undertaking it.

• Fear of failure. This explanation for not doing something overlaps with the lack of self-efficacy already discussed. But whereas an inadequate sense of self-efficacy reduces our motivation because we don't believe we can complete something successfully, the fear of failure focuses much more on our lacking the emotional resources to cope with the possibly negative outcome of our efforts. There's an old expression--"Nothing ventured, nothing gained"--that cogently makes the point that if we're ever to succeed we must at least be willing to try. But if our self-esteem is so tenuous, so weak, so vulnerable that the very risk of failing easily trumps any other consideration, we'll be stymied.

Even if the odds of success are actually quite good, we may still not be able to go forward, since we'll nervously anticipate how bad we'd feel should our efforts not be successful. Without the internal resources to "catch" ourself should we fail, and absent the ability to unconditionally validate ourself independent of failure, we're unable to start the project in the first place. In short, our negative programming-not our actual ability-renders us unequal to the task.

And, it should be added, absolutely none of this has anything to do with laziness. Moreover, even though what we label procrastination may relate simply to poor time management, the act of procrastinating may also be motivated principally by the fear of failure. And such a delaying tactic (commonly seen as depicting some sort of "laziness") generally goes back to our having learned in childhood that we weren't good enough if our performance was somehow flawed. So naturally we learned that it was better not to take on anything unless we were sure in advance we could do it well. In fact, much of what we describe as perfectionism derives from having grown up in a home where our parents held us to unrealistically high standards that, unless we could meet them, led to our being constantly criticized.

• Fear of refusal or rejection. If we require help to get something accomplished and we're afraid that the person needed to assist us might refuse our request, we might decide--for that reason alone--not to start the project at all. As regards, secondly, our fear of rejection, if we're dependent on others to feel good about ourselves, then we won't be able to undertake anything that could lead another to be frustrated with us, stand in judgment over us, or maybe even reject us altogether.

• Sense of discouragement, hopelessness, futility, etc. All of these feelings, moods or states of mind can drop us into that listless place of apathy where we no longer care about getting anything done. This is a painful, dispirited state in which our very will is paralyzed. And in such a state virtually no task seems worth doing. For it's impossible to imagine that undertaking it would help us feel better about ourself, or about life generally.

And so our lethargic avoidance--which to an outsider might seem indistinguishable from laziness--has in fact nothing to do with laziness and virtually everything to do with depression. DSM-IV (the mental health practitioner's diagnostic bible) actually defines depression as characterized by a "markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities." And so, whether the activity be work- or pleasure-related, the overwhelming impulse is to avoid it. In such a state, merely getting out of bed in the morning can feel like an almost insurmountable task. What we might appreciate here as the enervation of our spirit seems almost synonymous with what the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron (in her article "Looking into Laziness") refers to as the agonizing "loss of heart" experienced in this state.

• An attitude of pessimism, cynicism, hostility or bitterness. One final reason for explaining our lack of motivation to apply ourselves to some task or project has to do with our becoming so jaded that we view our efforts as benefiting only others rather than ourself. Or we've become so skeptical about our future prospects that we no longer believe it makes sense to push ourself to do anything.

This I'd refer to as rebellion masquerading as "laziness"--a kind of "Hell, no! I don't want to do it, and I'm not going to do it!" Underlying this self-restraining orientation is un-discharged anger (or rage) from past disappointments, which propels us into resistant negativity. Because of the depth of past psychological wounds, we're left disheartened, disillusioned and disenchanted. And perversely, we experience our strength only in reactive, oppositional willfulness. So we refuse to do what otherwise we might achieve without much difficulty. And here--yet again--our resistance to take action, even if it's really in our own behalf, has nothing to do with laziness.



Originally, I'd considered calling this post, "The Many ‘Motives' of Laziness." But in the end, putting the word "motives" in quotes seemed less descriptive than putting those quotes around the word "laziness." Hopefully, as a result of reading this piece, readers will begin to question in their own lives whether they might not want to re-think some of their former assumptions about this so oversimplified concept.

Having given Dagwood Bumstead this post's first words, I thought it fitting to give the last to an even zanier humorist--namely, W. C. Fields--who once declared, "The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves" (!). I must admit that this quote sounds more descriptive of true laziness than anything I've described earlier. But we must still ask ourselves whether Fields' portrayal actually reminds us of anybody we ever knew.

What, ultimately, makes Fields' quip so funny is its very exaggeration. It's doubtful that we can actually recognize ourselves, or anybody else, in this ingenious, intriguing (but not finally revealing) one-liner. To the extent that anyone might have tried to get popcorn to execute the job of turning over pancakes, such a novel approach would suggest more about the person's creativity in the service of making a task less routine and more fun than an expression of some biological propensity toward sloth.

---Comments? Questions? Criticisms? If you're sufficiently motivated, I welcome responses to this post.

Notes:

Regrettably, this piece has had to ignore entirely the topic of overcoming laziness, for such a focus would have taken me in a completely different direction. Reviewing what on the web relates to this equally important topic, I can direct readers to at least two articles, even though I don't necessarily agree with all the suggestions included in them. They are: "11 Tips for Nuking Laziness Without Becoming a Workaholic," by Scott H. Young , and "10 Ways to Make Laziness Work for You," by Leo Babauta

There's actually a book entitled The Myth of Laziness, which I thought I should probably mention, even though it has almost nothing to do with the thesis of my post. Written by pediatrician Mel Levine, it's about so-called "lazy" children who in fact can't perform up to their innate potential because of what he calls "output failures." These failures are caused by a variety of biological, neurological and psychological deficits. Obviously, my post is not intended to address such performance-degrading deficits--which Levine conceptualizes as involving such internal factors as motor skills, long-term memory, oral language ability, mental energy dysfunction, idea generation, and organization; as well as external factors, relating to family patterns, socioeconomic background, and negative modeling.

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Alone by Maya Angelou

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Maya Angelou

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The Therapist Is In: From Pathological to Positive: A New Psychology for the Twenty First Century

By Mark Sichel, L.C.S.W. on July 30, 2008 in The Therapist Is In
These days when people come to my office, I'm not interested solely in rooting out their painful personal and familial issues. Building on their strengths, positives, achievements moral, ethical, and spiritual beliefs, is much more helpful, I've found, in overcoming psychological and interpersonal problems.

Vaclav Havel, playwright, dramatist, statesman, humanist and former President of the Czech Republic, beautifully and boldly encapsulates the lessons we should have learned from the ignominious twentieth century: Without a sober and conscionable approach to human events, affluence and technology has bred world wars, genocide, greed, and despair. This is especially tragic in an era that could have used innovation, expertise and prosperity to create a renaissance of the human spirit.

"Whenever I reflect on the problems of today's world, whether they concern the economy, society, culture, security, ecology or civilization in general, I always end up confronting the moral question: what action is responsible or acceptable? The moral order, our conscience and human rights - these are the most important issues at the beginning of the third millennium."

Twentieth century psychology paralleled the prevailing societal ethos with a focus on psychopathology, internal and intrapersonal psychological wars, and individual wants, needs, impulses, and feelings. Rather than developing as an inspirational art and providing guidance based on strength, optimism, hope, and wisdom, therapists were taught to be scientific practitioners of a skill taught to help people indict their parents and partners in the hopes of attaining symptom relief. While indictments are often merited, unless initiated after a moral inventory of personal responsibility and accountability, indictment simply justifies psychopathological behavior.

Many psychotherapy orientations still use the prevailing twentieth century focus on psychopathology. Psychological education often ignores questions of wrong and right, faith and fidelity. Hope and optimism are pejoratively labeled reassurance and deemed to thwart patients' autonomy. In psychological circles, wisdom is circumvented with a prohibition against giving advice.

The hopeful news is that the twenty first century has ushered in Positive Psychology, a treatment that focuses on positives, strengths, and moral character. Virtue, spirit and character are emerging as crucial elements of professional guidance. Blame and negativity are being replaced with a positive attitude and a quest for correct behavior in an imperfect world.

The challenge for all of us is to bring our behaviors in line with our convictions. Whenever I've asked a person whether they aspire to be a good human being who lives in a virtuous manner, their answer is "yes, of course I do, I'm a good person. I always want to do the right thing." When I point out to them that their actions contradict their beliefs, an individual will invariably stop dead in their tracks and pause to think. The benefit of this kind of thinking immediately suggests new ways to handle personal and painful issues and conflicts that hurt, upset, and anger others. It helps people assume responsibility for their own behavior and changing focus from MY needs to what their immediate community needs. It stops accusation and blame and gives direction to a higher purpose of positive and happy human relationships. The willingness of people to bring their behaviors in line with their beliefs, their desired perception of themselves, will always put a person where they really want to be, on the high road to more hopeful, optimistic and positive living.

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Bangkok Post: A Fighting Chance

Peace activist Ouyporn Khuankaew tells 'Outlook' why she's embraced Buddhist spirituality in her work to help victims of gender-based violence

SANITSUDA EKACHAI

How could a man who was a devout Buddhist, who regularly visited temples and was ever ready to give and help out the monks, treat his wife and children so violently?

Peace activist Ouyporn Khuankaew, 45, was talking about her own father.

At the mercy of her father's hot temper, young Ouyporn also often wondered why her kind neighbours who never said no to merit-making activities at temples never came to her rescue. Or why the abbot, who often visited the villagers when they were sick, never visited the wives and children who were beaten up by the man of the house.

It was her painful efforts to answer these questions that drew her to feminism.

"I wanted to understand why my father was so controlling and violent. He had an axe in his bedroom. We never knew when he would wake us up in the middle of the night to threaten us with the axe in his hand.

"No one in our village dared help us. They thought it was a private matter. People don't see domestic violence as a kind of war. That's why violence against women is the worst kind of violence, because it can happen every day, at any moment, in your own home, and most of the time by the one you love," she explained.

Feminism, she said, helped her see structural violence as the root cause. It also helps explain how patriarchy distorts Buddhist teachings to keep women down. But it did not help reduce her anger one bit. Understanding how patriarchy works and trying to change it, in fact, brought Ouyporn even more disillusionment and anger.

That led to Ouyporn's new questions: How to continue working towards change but free of anger? How to shed light on patriarchy without perpetuating the blame game? How to empower the victims of violence so they can help others? And how to make one's work a way of life that fosters inner growth?

Buddhist spirituality, she said, has not only answered all those questions, it has also helped her to undo her childhood trauma.

And, more importantly, to forgive her father.

"Sixteen years after his death, I was still burning with anger. I refused even to have his picture in my house. Now I pray for him every day," she said.

A petite, lively woman with short-cropped hair and sunny smile, Ouyporn - chosen to deliver this year's prestigious Kothom Keemthong annual speech for her long-standing work in social activism - related her journey to transcend childhood pains as if she was talking about someone else.

She was, in a way.

Indeed, Ouyporn then and now is a different person.

The practice of mindfulness, she said, has helped her become aware of the reality of impermanence and non-self of her own mind and body, enabling her to let go of the past, to feel with others' sufferings, and to cultivate compassion to all beings.

"Feminism gives me the head. But Buddhist spirituality gives me the heart," she added.

To read the rest of the article, click here:

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Genius and Madness: The Mental "Illness" Metaphor Has Not Worked: What's Next?

By William Todd Schultz in Genius and Madness


Several decades ago the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said it was time to start comparing mental “illnesses” to something different. That is, to move away from the “illness” metaphor. I could not agree more. Insisting on thinking of people with mental problems as “diseased” has been and still is a strategic and practical failure.

It was at the start of the 20th century that medicine managed to wrest control of the treatment of the insane away from non-medical moral treaters, many of whom were Quakers. There then commenced what my friend the sociological historian Andy Scull has called an “orgy of experimentation” on the mad (see Scull’s wonderful book, Social Order/Mental Disorder, UC Press). Medicine had no clue what to do. The mad were injected with horse’s blood and malarial fever, placed in refrigerated “mummy bags,” given camphor derived seizures, subjected to various “heating” therapies--the list goes on. One theory, proposed by Henry Andrews Cotton, held that all forms of insanity, from juvenile delinquency to schizophrenia, were caused by infected third molars or “wisdom” teeth. His treatment? Tooth extraction. All such approaches were steeped in biological reductionism, and they all boasted astronomically high cure rates of 70, 80, even 100 percent. It was during this time that the “illness” model took firm hold. Soon there would be additional types of seizure models, coma models, and eventually lobotomy. At last antipsychotics arrived, and when they did they were referred to as “chemical lobotomies” because their chief effect was to produce disinterest and apathy (just like today, in my opinion).

The sad fact is that in over 100 years of research into mental “illness” driven by a defect-based disease model, the yield in terms of true understanding has been negligible. That may sound unrealistically unkind, but here is what I mean. Still today, we have no idea what schizophrenia even is, let alone what causes it or how to effectively treat it (to take just one example). As a disorder it is extremely heterogeneous; it looks different in everyone who “has” it. This heterogeneity bedevils research into causality since to find what causes something we have to first know what that “something” is. And speaking of causality: no causal model of schizophrenia has ever panned out. No specific site of brain pathology has been reliably identified. And the biochemical models focusing on dopamine (or D2 receptors) are deeply flawed, as most will readily admit. Lastly, as to treatment, antipsychotics are simply terrible drugs. A recent study (in the New England Journal of Medicine) of the newer agents found a 72% discontinuation rate. Why so high? Because the side-effects are debilitating.

Although it may seem different, the case is much the same for depression. We do not know what causes it—though there are lots of theories—and the antidepressant medicines on average only slightly outperform placebo in clinical trials (one study, for instance, found a 89% placebo duplication rate for Prozac in particular).

I’m no simple-minded Szaszian, but let’s be honest: mental problems do not resemble most illnesses in the least. My daughter had a compound fracture of her wrist. The MD took an X-Ray, and lo and behold, there was the break, for all to see. There was no mystery as to what caused the break, and also no mystery as to how to treat it. With mental problems, diagnosis is sketchy and almost never definitive (no UA or blood draw or brain scan tells me what you “have”), causality is a mystery, and treatment is trial and error (for instance, no one knows with any degree of certainty which antidepressant will work for which individual).

Prima facie, the disease model makes very little sense. And, even more importantly, it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. Psychiatry is in the stone ages.

A new metaphor, one to replace “illness” and “disease,” is called for. The question is: What form should it take?

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Washington Business Journal: Specialist helps mentally ill pros get back to work

Washington Business Journal - by Jennifer Nycz-Conner Staff Reporter

Tom O’Conner, managing director of O’Conner Associates, said the American workplace has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to workplace mental illness.

Tom O’Connor, managing
director of O’Connor Associates LLC in Potomac, specializes in
psychiatric disability management and helping professionals return to
work after struggling with mental illness. He shares some thoughts
about the issues facing human resources professionals when it comes to
managing mental illness in the workplace.

What is the most common question you hear regarding mental disability in the workplace?
Frankly, HR reps are not asking questions ... they are carefully
responding to them, posed from authorized outside agents representing
their employees’ medical needs or legal rights. There are two
dynamics driving this posture by HR professionals; first, the ADA has
created a culture of HR risk management which has employers acting
responsively to events instead of proactively preventing them. Only
employers with high disability-related costs or adverse events from
egregious line staff have invested in disability management. The other
dynamic is stigma and ignorance. Mental health is considered a personal
health phenomenon, experienced and managed outside the workplace. Of
course, savvy employers understand that mental health disabilities have
a bottom-line cost as well as undermine productivity in their work
culture.

What are the biggest challenges executives have returning to work after leave for a mental disability? Primarily,
reconciling their known identity as mentally intact, productive leaders
with their new, unfamiliar identity as emotionally frail or cognitively
impaired individuals working to regain their former selves. The
disability of depression or bipolar disorder, functionally speaking, is
not the hopelessness and negative thinking; it’s the diminished
staminas and cognitive skills. Remember, the higher you get on the
achievement ladder, the more your functional capability is dependent on
mental skills and adaptiveness. Psychiatric events are like brain
injuries and wash these abilities out like a wave over a crisply formed
sandcastle. A concurrent challenge is pacing one’s return to work
with these realities instead of the demands of the workplace.

You say you’re in the quality of life business. What does that mean?
Specifically, I help professionals regain their jobs, relationships,
and overall health. Psychiatric rehabilitation teaches people adaptive
behavioral strategies to master the effects of an emerging or
re-occurring mental illness. Knowing who you are in this life (I.e.,
your skills, worldview, capabilities) is critical to mental stability
and keeping life predictable. Once a psychiatric event shakes that
stability, the employee is jarred out of a sense of security and hope
for recovery. Giving people back the ability to feel safe and secure in
their professional identity (and ability to perform) is the true
satisfaction of my work. For HR professionals, it’s coaching them
to create healthy work cultures that people want to work in, not have
to work in. Disease management, integrated disability management, and
employee assistance programs are still preventive strategies. HR
professional who understand the dynamics of mental wellness and
professional identity design work cultures that satisfy the CEOs,
general counsel, and employees.

What’s the biggest challenge HR reps face in helping employees working through depression or mood disorders? Without
a doubt, the biggest challenge is the lack of comfort or competency
addressing performance issues that may be a result of psychiatric
disability. HR folks are left to address these events strictly from
performance and expect the employee to disclose the health-related
nature of the deficits or formally request accommodation, which almost
never happens. I think most workplaces don’t have common sense
policies and procedures that evoke dialogue. Between the lawyers
combing over the policies and procedures and HR generally having a
“less-than” management identity in all but the largest
employers, the American workplace has created a ‘don’t
ask/don’t tell’ culture about mental health-related
behavioral or performance issues.

Should executives disclose when they’re fighting a mood disorder? The
truth — without exception — is that executives never
disclose, will never disclose, and get punished severely in their
public identities or worse when they do. I had a client years ago who
was an anesthesiologist with bipolar disorder, who never disclosed his
condition medical partners because it never interfered with his
practicing medicine effectively. He was a star, and his private
identity of having this illness was no different that one of his
partners or any other physician who privately managed a physical
disability. But one day, he had to perform back to back-to-back
surgeries and as a result of the sleep disruption, had a full blown
manic event. In the end, his partners fired him for
‘withholding’ this information and he lost his livelihood.
In the end, he returned to work as a researcher (very successfully).

Tom O’Conner, managing director of O’Conner Associates, said the American workplace has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to workplace mental illness.
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Tom O’Connor, managing director of O’Connor Associates LLC in Potomac, specializes in psychiatric disability management and helping professionals return to work after struggling with mental illness. He shares some thoughts about the issues facing human resources professionals when it comes to managing mental illness in the workplace.

What is the most common question you hear regarding mental disability in the workplace? Frankly, HR reps are not asking questions ... they are carefully responding to them, posed from authorized outside agents representing their employees’ medical needs or legal rights. There are two dynamics driving this posture by HR professionals; first, the ADA has created a culture of HR risk management which has employers acting responsively to events instead of proactively preventing them. Only employers with high disability-related costs or adverse events from egregious line staff have invested in disability management. The other dynamic is stigma and ignorance. Mental health is considered a personal health phenomenon, experienced and managed outside the workplace. Of course, savvy employers understand that mental health disabilities have a bottom-line cost as well as undermine productivity in their work culture.

What are the biggest challenges executives have returning to work after leave for a mental disability? Primarily, reconciling their known identity as mentally intact, productive leaders with their new, unfamiliar identity as emotionally frail or cognitively impaired individuals working to regain their former selves. The disability of depression or bipolar disorder, functionally speaking, is not the hopelessness and negative thinking; it’s the diminished staminas and cognitive skills. Remember, the higher you get on the achievement ladder, the more your functional capability is dependent on mental skills and adaptiveness. Psychiatric events are like brain injuries and wash these abilities out like a wave over a crisply formed sandcastle. A concurrent challenge is pacing one’s return to work with these realities instead of the demands of the workplace.

You say you’re in the quality of life business. What does that mean? Specifically, I help professionals regain their jobs, relationships, and overall health. Psychiatric rehabilitation teaches people adaptive behavioral strategies to master the effects of an emerging or re-occurring mental illness. Knowing who you are in this life (I.e., your skills, worldview, capabilities) is critical to mental stability and keeping life predictable. Once a psychiatric event shakes that stability, the employee is jarred out of a sense of security and hope for recovery. Giving people back the ability to feel safe and secure in their professional identity (and ability to perform) is the true satisfaction of my work. For HR professionals, it’s coaching them to create healthy work cultures that people want to work in, not have to work in. Disease management, integrated disability management, and employee assistance programs are still preventive strategies. HR professional who understand the dynamics of mental wellness and professional identity design work cultures that satisfy the CEOs, general counsel, and employees.

What’s the biggest challenge HR reps face in helping employees working through depression or mood disorders? Without a doubt, the biggest challenge is the lack of comfort or competency addressing performance issues that may be a result of psychiatric disability. HR folks are left to address these events strictly from performance and expect the employee to disclose the health-related nature of the deficits or formally request accommodation, which almost never happens. I think most workplaces don’t have common sense policies and procedures that evoke dialogue. Between the lawyers combing over the policies and procedures and HR generally having a “less-than” management identity in all but the largest employers, the American workplace has created a ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ culture about mental health-related behavioral or performance issues.

Should executives disclose when they’re fighting a mood disorder? The truth — without exception — is that executives never disclose, will never disclose, and get punished severely in their public identities or worse when they do. I had a client years ago who was an anesthesiologist with bipolar disorder, who never disclosed his condition medical partners because it never interfered with his practicing medicine effectively. He was a star, and his private identity of having this illness was no different that one of his partners or any other physician who privately managed a physical disability. But one day, he had to perform back to back-to-back surgeries and as a result of the sleep disruption, had a full blown manic event. In the end, his partners fired him for ‘withholding’ this information and he lost his livelihood. In the end, he returned to work as a researcher (very successfully).

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Life As Art: Depression, Creativity, and a New Pair of Shoes

By Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D. on July 30, 2008 in Life as Art

After reading a newspaper article about some of the current research linking depressive disorders to creativity, an artist friend of mine commented, "Well, I guess now all I have to do is get depressed and my work will improve."

Since the time of Aristotle, creativity in the arts has been linked to melancholia...but depression itself doesn't necessarily enhance creativity. Quite the opposite: most poets, artists, and composers have reported over the years that they are decidedly unable to work during episodes of severe depression. In fact, many have found their inability to create while depressed to be an impetus for ending it all. Virginia Woolf, for example, unable to write during the onset of a depressive episode, filled her pockets with stones and submerged herself in the River Ouse.

So if depression inhibits creativity, why the long-standing recognition of a connection between the two?

Here are four suggested theories: First, some artists and writers admit to engaging in their craft as a kind of auto-therapy for depression (a more healthy coping mechanism than booze but lots of artists and writers use that, too!). So depression (or the effort to avoid depression) may provide an incentive to do creative work that wards off melancholia. A second theory is that the experience of depression may provide subject matter for artistic creations: Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream and Emily Dickinson's "There's a Certain Slant of Light" are just a couple of examples. A third theory, one held by many Romantic-era luminaries, is that one cannot truly comprehend the human condition (or convey it meaningfully in creative work) unless he or she has experienced the highest emotional highs and the lowest lows. Thus, depression provides the existential angst from which great art arises.

Finally, recent research on mood disorders and patterns of creativity suggests that it may not depression itself but recovery from depression that inspires creative work. Kay Redfield Jamison found that periods of creative productivity occur when individuals are either transitioning out of a depressive episode or are transitioning from normal mood into a manic or hypomanic episode (more on mania and manic depression in my next post). In other words, creative productivity is linked to upward changes in mood. This dovetails nicely with work done by Alice Isen's group at Cornell which found that people scored higher on creativity measures after a positive mood induction in the lab. Positive mood was induced by giving study participants a small, unexpected gift.

Okay, so maybe my artist friend doesn't need to get depressed to improve her work; maybe all she needs is an unexpected gift (a manicure? a new pair of shoes? an unexpected snuggle from her four-year-old?). The point is, perhaps an upward change in mood can mimic recovery from depression and increase creative thinking.

If you're currently suffering from creative block, try the "unexpected gift" strategy. You could either arrange for someone to surprise you with a small unexpected gift...or you could find a small, unexpected gift on your own (a flower growing in a crack in the sidewalk, a full moon rising over the trees, or the taste of a ripe strawberry - anything that inspires unexpected joy.) By keeping your senses open to unexpected pleasures, you may be able to get your creative juices flowing.

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Zen Habits: The No. 1 Lifehack You can Implement Today to Make the World a Better Place

from Zen Habits:

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mark Hayward of the MyTropicalEscape blog.

In a word: Kindness.

The Oxford Pocket Dictionary defines kindness as - the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.

It’s a simple concept in theory, but in reality it is an action that can sometimes be difficult to implement on a day-to-day basis.

Now I am not talking about the kindness that you might show to your spouse, family members, or friends; yes, of course that’s important.

Likewise, if you are going into your preferred religious institution or social gathering place it is easy to be kind to your peers and those who are familiar…however, how do you (we, me, US) treat those who might be different?

Specifically, I am talking about kindness toward strangers, particularly, those who might be different from us.

A little background
Today the sun is rising perfectly over Mt. Resaca as I sit here on the beach watching my dog dig for crabs in the sand. For me life is really quite good. However, yesterday a pipe burst in my house and we had gallons of water on our office floor, which took me the better part of two hours to clean up.

While undertaking the mindless act of soaking up water and wringing out the towels I got lost in my thoughts and began to reflect upon both the past and present state of the world.

* Why is there so much hatred?
* How come people have to suffer?
* What is one small change that I can implement to help make the world a nicer place to be?

Germination of this reflection
Typically I don’t think about such heavy subjects while I am working. However, two items that I have recently read, one a blog post and the other the beginning of a book, really struck a chord.

The book, The Years of Extermination, by Sal Friedlander covers the horrendous story of Nazi Germany and the Jews from 1939 to 1945. During the introduction of the book Friedlander starts off by telling the story of a photo that contains a young man, David Moffie, who was just awarded his degree in medicine in 1942 from the University of Amsterdam with all of the regular pomp and circumstance. He goes on to describe that in the photo you can see Moffie wearing a small palm sized star with the word Jood underneath.

The significance of the photo?
David Moffie was the last Jewish student at the University of Amsterdam under German occupation. According to Friedlander, shortly after graduation Moffie was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Along with the book’s introduction as described above, the other item that got me contemplating about the world and kindness was a recent blog post about racism on Chris Brogan’s website.

In his recent missive Chris veered from his usual musings on social media, the net, and blogging and he decided to get people thinking with a subtle post about media and how it can be used to perpetuate racism. As one example in the post he mentioned the recent New Yorker cover featuring Barack Obama and his wife who are shown, as a caricature, in a not so positive light.

What does this have to do with kindness?
While this is certainly not a post about racism or the Holocaust, I feel that both subjects are about as far away as one can get on the spectrum from kindness, as both are intentionally meant to degrade, humiliate, and hurt people.

Within my life I have been quite fortunate and have had the opportunity to travel to many countries, live for extended periods in various foreign nations, and have made some remarkable friends along the way.

Unfortunately, while traveling and living overseas I have also been the target of someone’s dislike and animosity on more than one occasion simply because I was different. Whether it was my skin color, poor language skills, hairstyle, or whatever, I am not really sure.

Nevertheless, as I have recently turned 40 I have been asking myself and thinking about the following:

“Where does the seeming hate and vitriol of racism come from and what would the world be like if we were all a little bit nicer to each other?”

Surely most of us are not perfect, but I have also been thinking lately about the fact that it’s very hard to have hate in your being or in your actions if you are sincerely trying to be kind towards others.

This is not meant to come off as preaching, in fact, this is as much a note to myself as it is to the Zen Habits’ readers who choose to peruse this post.

So what have I decided to do?
Starting today, the simple act (hack?) that I am going to practice to try and make the world a better place to live in is:

Kindness

Why kindness? Because it’s free, easy to implement, and we can consciously choose to be kind to fellow humans.

How can you participate?
In true Zen Habits fashion, what I would like to see the reader’s do is quite simple - be kind to someone today, i.e. kindness it forward through your actions and interactions.

By myself the act of kindness is just one very tiny drop into the global bucket, but Leo has over 60,000 subscribers from all over the world!

Together, as a collective effort and united front, if we all decide to “kindness it forward” today, tomorrow, and the next day can you imagine the impact we could have?

Think about it, if even 30,000 of Leo’s subscribers go out and are kind to two extra people today that is 60,000 acts of kindness. Possibly, the 60,000 recipients of this kindness will then decide to be kind towards at least two other people during their day. That would spread the kindness movement to 120,000…and you get the idea.

Instead of listing out ways to be kind (e.g. saying hello, smiling, giving someone a ride, etc) I would like to turn this into a Zen Habit’s participatory exercise.

In the comments section as a way to help us to remember to be kind I thought we could list out 100 ways that our collective kindness might help a stranger and just possibly make the world a nicer place to be today.

I will start with the first five. Our kindness today might just:

1. Save somebody’s life.
2. Cause a person to be nice to someone else.
3. Make someone smile.
4. Ease someone’s stress.
5. Help you to meet someone you might not normally come into contact with.

100.

Can we change the world? I don’t know.
But do we have the ability to make someone’s day a little better today because of a small act? Absolutely! And it all starts with kindness.

Mark Hayward owns a small business on the island of Culebra in the Caribbean. He blogs about lifestyle design, entrepreneurship, and travel at MyTropicalEscape and you can follow him on Twitter.

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Tehran Times : Children of mentally ill parents need support

The offspring of mentally ill parents are at a higher risk of becoming psychologically disturbed than their peers, according to mental health experts in Germany.
In addition to genetic factors, the chance of developing a mental illness increases depending on the psycho-social stress a child is exposed to.

These children are also likely to experience poverty, discrimination and lack of people to relate to, according to Christa Schaff of the Stuttgart-based Professional Association of Child and Teenager Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy.

Schaff says it's important that affected children receive emotional and psychological support as soon as possible.

The basis for that support is the effective treatment of their parents.

It's also important that the illness is openly dealt with within the family structure because children often blame themselves for their parents' psychological problems, Schaff explains.

In many cases, children do not have the courage or opportunity to talk to someone about mental issues in the family.

Psychotherapy or discussion groups for the offspring of mentally ill parents often provide a good opportunity to get to grips with the situation.

The chance of a child becoming mentally ill depends on the type of illness and the degree to which their parents are affected.

The age at which their father or mother becomes ill also plays a role.

'If one of the parents suffers from depression, their child is four times more likely to suffer from a mental illness at a young age or as a teenager,' says Schaff.

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globeandmail.com: Mental illness - past or present - is not a crime

ANDRE PICARD
August 28, 2008 at 9:08 AM EDT

Is having a bout of mental illness something that should result in a police record?

Astoundingly, that is the reality in much of this country.

It is an egregious breach of civil rights, yet the practice continues because people who suffer serious mental illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are all too often voiceless, powerless and victims of well-entrenched stereotypes.

To understand this story, a little background is in order. In the post-9/11 era, police checks have become the norm in our society; it is a simple way of weeding out pedophiles and other "bad" people, or at least giving the illusion of doing so.

If you apply for a job or a volunteer position - fundraising at the local hospital, coaching a peewee hockey team, helping out with the school choir or any other of those innumerable, thankless tasks - you will have to agree to a police check.

These checks come in two forms.

The first is a search of the computerized records maintained by the Canadian Police Information Centre. If you have a criminal record, the information is likely to show up in CPIC.

The second is a police records check. In addition to CPIC, local, municipal and provincial police forces maintain their own computerized records.

These records contain all manner of information about any contact you have with police, whether you are a criminal, a victim or a witness.

When you have a loud party and the neighbours rat you out, both your names are in the system. A Good Samaritan calling 911 is in there, and so are the people they are calling about, even if they are harming no one but themselves.

People who suffer bouts of mental illness tend to have a lot of encounters with police. They make suicide attempts and threats of suicide. Sometimes they starve themselves, drink or drug themselves silly, make paranoia-spewing phone callsand trash their cars. And these are the "respectable" people with nice homes and good jobs, not the stereotypical "crazy" street people.

These encounters all result in a police record.

"So what?" you may ask.

Aside from the principle that we should not accept gratuitous violations of civil rights, there are practical harms being done every day. Take the example of Ontario, where the Mental Health Police Records Check Coalition has done a wonderful job bringing this issue to light.

If you apply for almost any volunteer post in Ontario working with children, the elderly, people with disabilities etc. you must undergo a Vulnerable Person Screening.

This report will tell the volunteer agency if there are red flags on a person's police record. Some police forces simply make the vague statement that there is "information of concern," while others provide details such as "suicide attempt" or "arrest under the Mental Health Act."

(Incidentally, when people are detained under the terms of the Mental Health Act, it is not an arrest. Police have the legal right to take people who are a danger to themselves for treatment at a medical or psychiatric facility, but police tend to use the misnomer "arrest.")

Mental illness is a medical issue. What business do police have disclosing this information to potential employers? Some police forces retain and release this information for up to 25 years after an "encounter."

Police in London, Ont., no longer release mental-health information contained in police records, a change made as part of a settlement of a human-rights complaint.

That should be the norm everywhere in Canada.

Police records contain other sensitive medical information, including whether a person who has encountered police is infected with HIV, hepatitis or other diseases. Police would not dream of releasing this information as part of a background check. So why is it okay to disclose suicide attempts, psychotic episodes and other cries for help?

It's done because of lingering stereotypes about people with mental illness being violent and untreatable.

The reality is that the mentally ill are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, and it is those with severe, untreated mental illness who tend to be violent, but are unlikely to be applying for work - volunteer or otherwise.

The reality, too, is that the vast majority of people who suffer a bout of mental illness get better. For many, part of the healing process from these horribly isolating and soul-destroying illnesses is reintegrating into the community. That means getting work, volunteering and building social networks anew.

That's what makes these policies doubly horrific. They not only discriminate against people for no good reason, but they can set back their recovery and destroy their hope of being a "normal" citizen again.

Having a mental illness - present or past - is not a crime. But discriminating against people with mental illness in this manner is.

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The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor | A Certain Swirl by Mary Ruefle

A Certain Swirl
by Mary Ruefle

The classroom was dark, all the desks were empty,
and the sentence on the board was frightened to
find itself alone. The sentence wanted someone to
read it, the sentence thought it was a fine sentence, a
noble, thorough sentence, perhaps a sentence of
some importance, made of chalk dust, yes, but a sen-
tence that contained within itself a certain swirl not
unlike the nebulous heart of the unknown universe,
but if no one read it, how could it be sure? Perhaps it
was a dull sentence and that was why everyone had
left the room and turned out the lights. Night came,
and the moon with it. The sentence sat on the board
and shone. It was beautiful to look at, but no one
read it.

"A Certain Swirl" by Mary Ruefle from The Most Of It.© Wave Books, 2007.

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Beautiful Minds: On Being in "The Friend Zone"

By Scott Barry Kaufman in Beautiful Minds



"I think we should just be friends."

Seven of the most horrifying words a women could ever utter to a man.

How about this one:

"Yes, I slept with Bobby and not you, but that's because I respect you!"

Another 14 words that make men cringe. In fact, most men, upon hearing such a declaration, think to themselves: "Please, stop respecting me!"

For many, both men and women (I don't want to get too tripped up on the focus on men here), being rejected sexually is the greatest insult, above being called a jerk, a loser, a "bad boy", or even a "bad friend". From an evolutionary perspective, this is not a surprise. Evolutionary Psychologists would be the first to point out that sexual intercourse gets our genes passed on to the next generation, while friendly banter, in itself (for now, note my phrasing here; in later posts I will elaborate), cannot offer the same vehicle.

Why am I writing about this? I'm a "serious" intelligence and creativity researcher. This post seems to have come out of nowhere!

Well, not really. I am deeply interested in the role of creativity in human mating behavior. So some of these ideas are on the forefront of my mind.

But even more relevant, I was spurred on by a recent post by one of my esteemed blogger colleagues Michael J. Formica on the topic: Pornography, Emotional Availability, and Female Objectification.

I often enjoy reading Michael's posts (they add much needed soul to life), and this one was no exception--particularly striking my chords.

In his post, he argues that pornography is about the objectification of women and can subtitute for a real "emotional connection". I agree with him that addiction to pornography can be a problem, especially if it interferes with forming desired emotional bonds. But it's important to bear in mind that the problem isn't with pornography itself but as Michael astutely points out, when that pornography acts as a subtitute for real human contact.

But more relevant to the current post, Michael said something in particular that got me thinking:

"Most men who indulge themselves in pornography would be appalled - despite the immediate response -- if their wife or girlfriend walked into the bedroom wearing fishnets, stilettos and a latex corset and wanted to get nasty."

I found this humorous. But I also found it thought provoking. Thinking along these lines reframes, at least for me, the entire meaning of "The Friend Zone". Suddenly, comments such as "I didn't get nasty with you because I respect you," and "Let's just be friends. I want to sleep with the milkman and you are getting in my way," make sense. The person actually does respect you, and that is the reason why they don't want to have mad passionate monkey sex with you. The problem is they respect you too much to see you as a sexual opportunity.

And while Michael frames his entire blog post in terms of "the objectification of women", objectification is an equal opportunity employer. Even if more men consume hardcore pornography than women, women are quite capable of objectifying men in other ways-- such as treating men like "sugar daddies" or valuing men strictly for their wealth or fame.

My point is this: for many (if not most) individuals, the "mystery" and "intrigue" of meeting a stranger is sexy. If we become too close to that person in a "friend way" too soon, we start caring about them in a way that isn't associated with sexual intercourse. If this emotional connection is formed too soon, before at least a modicum of sexual attraction is formed, the person enters "The Friend Zone".

Of course, none of this means that if you act out scenes from your favorite pornography movie with your interested partner that you don't care for that person. And while Michael's point is well taken, I'm sure there are many individuals who would not be appalled in the least if their partner "wanted to get nasty". For many healthy relationships, "getting nasty" is a normal way of expressing each other's love, devotion, and sensitivity to their partner's desires.

Here I only address "The Friend Zone": that curious, poorly understood, much under-studied (yes, by scientists) place where one is cared about in a way that isn't sexual. Of course, friends can develop into lovers. But this only happens when the long-time friend, for whatever reason, starts to be seen in a new light: as a sex object (among many other objects: social, emotional, etc--indeed viewing someone as a sex object isn't in itself objectification, it's only when that's the only way you view them).

In fact, the reality is that being in the friend zone is an honor: it means you are well-respected, have formed an emotional connection with that person, and are thought of as nice, considerate, and dependable. These are really valuable traits. And I really mean that. They just aren't all that helpful in getting out of "The Friend Zone" if there isn't also a sexual attraction.

But for many who get in the zone, it's easy to lose sight of how much of an honor it really is.

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Enlightened Living: The Longest Distance in the World Is From the Head to the Heart

By Michael J. Formica in Enlightened Living

Lao Tzu said that the first step on the path to wisdom is the ability to say, "I don't know." We like to believe that we know a great many things. We understand far fewer of those things, however, than we might like to admit. Knowing a thing and owning it - truly being invested in actions and outcomes - are two different things. True wisdom is, ultimately, not in the knowing, but in the doing.

The longest distance in the world is from head to the heart. Taking what we know and turning it into a demonstrable action, something that will elicit change in our lives and the lives of those around us, is true wisdom. The ability to transform knowledge into action is oftentimes quite the hurdle.

As long as we maintain a rational perspective on our personal condition, we will remain stuck. In psychological jargon, this is called "isolating". It means walling off an emotionally charged situation and thinking, rather than feeling, it through. No emotion, no investment - no investment, no movement. It's really pretty simple stuff.

The willingness to change is driven by investment and emotion. We may know that we shouldn't take that drink, but we still do it. Why? We aren't invested in the outcomes and consequences, yet. It is not until we feel a thing - moving from the head to the heart -- that we become invested in it. That is part of the reason that we often need to confront a crisis - or create a crisis -- before we create movement.

So, how do we change our relationship to change? By using the very thing that is the obstacle to our change as a tool for eliciting change.

Think about something you know is an issue for you - I drink too much, I'm passive-aggressive, I anger too easily, I am intolerant of change, etc. Now, think about how you feel when that thing is happening. Make an agreement with yourself that you will pay attention to that feeling.

The next time that feeling arises, it's a fair bet that you will respond in the way that you have in the past, because human beings are nothing if not consistent. When that feeling arises, you now get to say, "I'm not going to do this." instead of "Here we go again."

This idea goes back to our conversation about Yoga as a medium for change, as moving from needs to feelings and emotions to action is coincident with egocentric, ethnocentric and geocentric worldview, as well as movement from the first, to the second, to the third chakras.

It is no accident that addicts or individuals who are acting in ways that diverge from the social norm are consistently regarded as selfish - i.e., egocentric. Change is tied to thinking about the consequences of our actions, which means thinking about others - i.e., ethnocentric. Action means imposing ourselves upon the world in which we live in a productive way - i.e., geocentric - but, in order for us to do that, we must first be healthy and well constituted ourselves. That means learning to be self-ish.

It all comes down to choice. The decision to evoke change can be one driven by raw emotion or it can be a conscious, rational effort that invokes feeling through thoughtful process. Either way, we need to get from the head to the heart before we can create movement and proscribe for ourselves genuine transformation.

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The Urban Monk:The Key To Behavioural Mastery: Letting Go

The Urban Monk:

In the months past, we’ve discussed how our attachments, our desires, are the root of much of our painful habits.

But what do we do, then? What if the usual methods of handling our
behaviours are making them worse? This article details some of these
errors, and provides a long-term solution, the most useful I have come
across: simply dropping the rubbish.

This article builds heavily on ideas covered in the first two posts – [1] Part One, and [2] Part Two.

Denial and Suppression

The first thing to know is that we cannot deny our desires, pretend
they don’t exist, push them down. Repressed cravings, like
emotions, will simply resurface in the future with greater intensity,
in a different form, or create psychological and physical symptoms.

A good friend of mine used to overeat compulsively, and one day
decided to stop using sheer will-power. Soon afterwards, she began
smoking heavily, but she justified it by saying it helped her lose
weight. When she decided to stop that, again using will-power, she
started drinking almost nightly.

Why was this so? She had changed her external behaviours over the
years, but the driving forces inside her remained the same. She was
shocked when she begun to practise awareness, she told me – for
she discovered the triggers for all these behaviours stemmed from the
same insecurities and fears.

Many of the ways we handle our desires and attachments are helpful,
but are merely temporary measures. I am not saying that channelling
your energy into other outlets, or quitting a bad behaviour through
force of will is wrong, if they work for you – but they are not
permanent solutions.

Further, these techniques create more inner conflict. The craving
itself is causing us pain. We are adding to it every time we fight it;
force it down; beating ourselves up or feeling guilty about indulging.

Please note that this article has a general behavioural focus; I am
not an expert on addiction. The addictions I have quit, and therefore
discuss here, are fairly minor – cigarettes, painful mental
habits (rumination), and various other unhealthy lifestyle choices. So
if you are dealing with a serious addiction, this is not a replacement
for whatever program you are on, but something that can be attempted in
conjunction.

Based on my research and discussions with others, the principles are
the same, regardless of the habit or behaviour you want to change.

Bringing Awareness To Your Behaviours

What then, can we do? In my experience, the best practice is to let
go of all your painful attachments, behaviours, habits, and tendencies.

To do so, we first need awareness, mindfulness. The [3] first post
of this series contains a section on analysing your negative habits.
This step alone will raise your awareness of how it manifests in your
life, the possible root causes and insecurities. This is a tremendous
step, so please take the time to try it.

The mind will often fight this exercise. This is the cutting to the
core of our suffering – and we will do anything to avoid looking
at parts of ourselves we do not want to see. The mind screams, fights,
tricks, deceives – anything to get us to avoid the pain. Some
people even begin to feel dizzy or bored.

Lorne Ladner, in [4] The Lost Art of Compassion , provides some useful questions.

Analyse your behaviours –

• What were you feeling at the time?
• Does it come when you are stressed or angry?
• When you are reminded of something in your past?
• When you are feeling lonely, unloved, insecure about something?
• Does it come during a specific time in the day?
• Is it associated with other feelings?
• What were some of the triggers?

I first started smoking a while ago, for instance, when I felt
lonely. It was after a break-up, and whenever I felt insecure about my
attractiveness, or saw other happy couples, I would run and hide behind
a cigarette.

Awareness In The Moment

With this background work, it is easier to bring awareness to your
actions in the moment. Be mindful of what you are feeling; try to catch
yourself when the triggers present themselves. [5] Thich Nhat Hanh calls them habit energies, and I think that is a beautifully apt name.

Sometimes you’ll only realise what you’ve done when it
is over. Don’t make a problem out of it. Slowly, you’ll
catch yourself sooner and sooner in the habitual cycle. In time,
you’ll be able to stop yourself before the behaviour even starts.

Awareness and the habit energies that drive us are so broadly
applicable that they can be applied to almost anything. I’ve
found people tend to be “locked in” by my examples, so
I’ll select from several different examples – some
successful, some not – in the hopes it can stimulate your own
explorations.

Anger Habits

The first example would be my anger habits. A few weeks ago I had a
big online argument with a close friend. I have not had reason to be so
angry for a long time, and as a result I was not actively watching out
for habit energies in that area. In addition, much of my habits around
anger have been let go of, and I thought I was done with it. I did not
realise some old and stubborn habits had remained hidden inside me.

My friend managed to press just the right buttons, and in that
moment I was overwhelmed and piled on him several abusive and
foul-mouthed messages.

As the days passed, my thoughts would flash back to the argument,
and as the anger arose again, I felt the urge to contact him again to
start another fight. Sometimes the habits got too strong, but with
awareness, I dropped many of these urges before I acted on them.

Mental Habits

Another area we can apply this to would be our mental life. When I
began personal development, I used to have a strong tendency to drift
off into painful memories, replaying them endlessly in my head. Often I
would suddenly look at the clock and realise I had spent the past two
hours reliving an old insult, fantasising about revenge. Over the
months that followed, I began to “snap out” of the reverie
sooner. In time I managed to bring awareness to the triggers that would
start such self-pity sessions, and have stopped them altogether.

Social Behaviour

The last example would be in the social world. I used to indulge in
approval seeking behaviour – trying to manipulate people into
liking me by smiling too much, showing too much false interest, or
exaggerating accomplishments. It was a deeply ingrained habit, based on
the false belief that I was not likeable simply for whom I was.

This habit was a bit more complex simply because of the countless
ways my insecurity showed up; but it is useful to note that we do not
have to be aware of them all. Start with a few – excessive
smiling, boasting – and you’ll find the others much easier.

Again, be gentle with yourself. While some people can make
tremendous progress in days or weeks, it would be more realistic to
measure your progress in months.

The Growing Awareness

Some people spontaneously drop their habit energies when they become
aware of it. But don’t make it a problem if you don’t
– simply stop and take a few deep breaths when the habits arise.

By doing so, you are interrupting the loop, and being mindful of
what it is. Thich Nhat Hanh puts it simply – smile internally. Hello, habit energy. And let it pass through.

In doing so, we disconnect with our compulsions –

“I have to make this person love me” becomes “This is my tendency to supplicate.”

“I WANT TO KILL HIM!” becomes “Hello, anger energy.”

“I need to smoke!” becomes “My insecurities have been brought up again.”

How much freedom comes from that one shift!

Letting Go

If we see our habits and compulsions are simply energy, perhaps
blocks of thoughts and feelings – we can simply let them pass
through us.

What are you thinking now? What were you thinking five minutes ago?
Where did they go, where did they come from? Thoughts and feelings
simply come and go, and that is what they are supposed to do.

Our minds have been wrongly habituated to hold on to certain
thoughts and feelings, when the natural, healthy, response is to simply
let them through. And so freedom comes in retraining our minds, to go
back to what they are supposed to do: let go.

How Do We Let Go?

So how do we release? First, feel these energies completely without
repressing them. Say hello to them; let them be there for a few
seconds. In the first two posts, we have seen that these habits,
cravings, and attachments merely cause our suffering. They don’t
satisfy us for long; at best, they are a temporary relief. And finally,
we’ve discussed that we can still enjoy what we have, in fact
enjoy them even more, without the associated cravings.

With that in mind, simply try dropping it. This can be a difficult
process to learn, because most of us have never tried it before. The
first time you do it, you probably won’t get it right. Drop it,
in the same way that we loosen our grip on a pencil and simply let it
fall to the floor. Relax, soften up internally and physically, and let
it go.

If you are having troubles with this, a technique from NLP might
help. What is your strongest sense? If you prefer seeing, try to
picture your habit energy. What colour is it? What does it look like?
Does it have a shape, a picture?

If you prefer, try hearing it. What does it sound like? Is it a voice? What is the tone? Is it a sound? An animal?

Or you can feel it – is it a tightness in your chest, a heat in your neck, or any other sensation?

Then whatever it is, try dropping that. Don’t get too caught
up in these imaginings, they are training wheels, meant to be discarded
at the right time.

Miracles May Happen, But Don’t Expect Too Much

If you do let go of the desire, you probably won’t get any
fireworks or excitement. You won’t feel any deflation or anything
negative either. You just feel the urge has lessened, or that you feel
satisfied and relaxed without having indulged in it.

The first time I heard about letting go was from a Buddhist teacher
I met a long time ago. I tried it for a day or two, didn’t feel
any different, and simply gave up on it. This is a common mistake
– while some people can drop it all immediately, many cannot. The
habits are so strong, have been there for so long, that we are dropping
bits and pieces of it.

The desire might return in the future, and it might feel just as
intense, but it doesn’t mean that you’re doing something
wrong. It just means that you haven’t dropped enough to see a
significant difference. This is especially true when we are learning
how to do it. Dropping becomes faster and easier the more we practice,
so please don’t get discouraged.

Further, realise that these desires are surface expressions of
something far deeper, something that has possibly been there for
decades. It doesn’t always go away in a few days.

If you are still having troubles, I recommend [6] The Sedona Method. While their marketing might turn off some people, the method is entirely about letting go.

There is a page on their website which provides a [7] sample of their approach
and the basic releasing questions, which invites you to let go. That
page is more focused on emotions, but the principles are the same.

In the book and the audio course, they trace all tendencies and
emotions back to the roots: the four basic wants. Wanting control,
approval, security, and separation are the master programs the Method
claims underlie all our tendencies, and I have found it tremendously
helpful to let go of those directly.

What’s Next?

As we’ve discussed, our habits are often a surface symptom of
deeper thoughts and beliefs. Future posts will go into mindfulness in
more detail, as well as challenging our stressful thoughts and beliefs.
I will also detail other measures that are more temporary in nature,
but helpful if used in conjunction with letting go.

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Comedy Central: Pop-Culture Philosophy! It's about time!

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/root_of_all_evil/index.jhtml

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Enlightened Living: Looking Beyond Our Problems and Looking Toward Our Solutions, Pt. 1

By Michael J. Formica in Enlightened Living

Hold your hand in front of your face with your thumb folded. How many fingers do you see? Four, right? Maybe...maybe not.

One of the mantras that we've often been hearing of late is "be part of the solution, not part of the problem." In business it is widely held that one should never walk into one's supervisor's office with a problem, but with a problem and a solution - even if it's not the right one. How do we do that?

We often find ourselves stuck because we get hung up on the problem that we are confronting - hung up on what's in front of us. This limits our vision, limits our creativity and limits our possibilities. It limits us - more to the point, we limit us. If we can set aside our anxieties, we can see more clearly and thus broaden the possibilities of our response.

First, we need to discover what is keeping us stuck. Often, it is a habit of the mind. If we believe something to be true, we tend to behave in a way that confirms that truth, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Think of something that is a negative constant in your life. Maybe you are always late, even when you try to be on time. Maybe you struggle with finances, even though you make plenty of money. Maybe you consistently choose a particular sort of relationship, or behave badly given certain circumstances.

Take that circumstance and write it down. Simplify the idea of that circumstance - put it into simple language in a sentence that is short enough to fit on a bumper sticker.

Now, do the same thing with a positive constant in your life. Maybe you are exceedingly punctual. Maybe you are a wizard with a dollar, and have more than enough even though you make minimum wage. Maybe you have been blissfully married for 30 years. Do the same exercise.

You have now identified two Core Truths - one positive, one not so positive. Think about and try to identify where those truths come from. Maybe you are always late because your father was always ahead of schedule and constantly criticized you to, "Get a move on." and you accepted the instruction that you were a slow poke. Maybe you're great with managing money because you grew up poor and vowed to yourself you'd never go without, or you were once humiliated because you came up short.

You have now identified two Core Beliefs. And it is those beliefs - good, bad or indifferent - that drive our choices and interfere with, or promote, our decision making. They are the lens through which we see a problem or with which we see past a problem.

Identifying those truths, suspending or even changing those beliefs are what allow us to free ourselves from our self-imposed bondage and the tyranny of our own fears.

So, hold your hand up in front of you face with your thumb folded. How many fingers do you see? Don't look at the hand (the problem)...look past it.

How many fingers do you see? If you said eight, your vision is clearing.

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Predictably Irrational: Procrastination and Self Control

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In Practice: A Quick Note: It's Depression That Keeps People Off the Job

By Peter D. Kramer in In Practice

As an addendum to my posting earlier this week on the harm that depressive symptoms cause for patients with bipolar disorder —

Regarding the question of mood and days lost from work: Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle have just published results from a 2-year-long overview of the employment status of outpatients with bipolar disorder. Depressive symptoms but not mania were significantly associated with time off work. Patients with substantial depressive symptoms missed about a day of work a week more than did patients in remission. That's an enormous difference, representing very substantial impairment. (Patients with manic symptoms missed work, too, but this finding did not meet statistical standards of significance.) The depressed patients were also 15% less likely to be employed. Almost half of the unemployed were experiencing a full depressive episode.

The researchers conclude: "Among patients with bipolar disorder, depression is strongly and consistently associated with decreased probability of employment and more days missed from work due to illness. Symptoms of mania or hypomania have more variable effects on work productivity."

Adding to a large literature on the disabling effects of mood disorders, this study underscores the harm done by depression in particular.

Note: My former Brown colleague Mark Bauer contributed to both this study of employment and the one referenced in m

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irishtimes.com - Mental illness linked to genes, says expert

CLAIRE O'CONNELL

Tue, Aug 26, 2008

GENETIC STUDIES are helping to piece together the puzzle of how our genes contribute to mental illness, and are paving the way for more personalised and effective drug treatments. That's according to an expert who was in Cork yesterday to address a major international conference.


"There is a strong genetic component to most psychiatric disorders, with evidence coming from studies of twins and families," said Prof Peter McGuffin from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, who yesterday spoke about genes, behaviour and mental illness at a European Behavioural Pharmacology Society conference in University College Cork.


Speaking to The Irish Timesin advance of his talk, he described the complexities of the interactions between genes and the environment in mental illness, and said that genetic studies were starting to unpick those relationships and highlight the need for an individualised approach to drug treatment.


Prof McGuffin was recently involved in a study - published online last week in the journal Nature Genetics- that newly links two genes to bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). The study, to which researchers at Trinity College Dublin also contributed, looked at more than 4,000 people with bipolar disorder and found variations in two "ion channel" genes that function in the transmission of messages in brain cells.


"A lot of inherited forms of epilepsy seem to be to do with defects in ion channels and various anti-convulsants are good mood stabilisers, but we have never known why. It's all coming together now," he said.


His group has also found that an individual's response to antidepressants is affected by their genetic profile: if their genes mean they transport the brain chemical serotonin less effectively, they will have a poorer response to a commonly prescribed type of antidepressant known as an SSRI.


It argues the case for a more personalised approach to treating mental illness, said Prof McGuffin: "The hope is that we will be able to take existing compounds and predict who will actually respond to what."


Behaviour can also be in part down to genes, he added. "There's a lot of evidence from good old-fashioned twin and adoption studies that criminal behaviour is influenced by genes," he said. "It's a touchy topic to talk about but the evidence is consistent."


And the environment also plays a key role, said Prof McGuffin. "In addition to genes and the environment adding up together there's something called gene-environment interaction, which means that some people are more susceptible to stresses than others.


"There's also a strange phenomenon which is less intuitive called gene-environment covariation, which means that to some extent people create or evoke their own environments."


He cited alcoholism as an example: "Suppose you have an inherited predisposition to alcoholism - your parents might also have alcohol problems and you grew up in an environment where you were exposed to alcohol.


"And maybe because you like alcohol you might go out and seek it, so you are creating an environment where you get more exposure to alcohol."


The conference, which runs until tomorrow, will include discussions of the genetic basis of schizophrenia, depression, drug dependence and autism.

© 2008 The Irish Times

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