Not Okay

I was listening to my sweetie, Ellen, express a feeling she was having about something coming up in her awareness that felt emotionally not okay. She didn’t know what it was but felt it tickling at the edge of her consciousness. She said that these things usually meant that life was trying to show her something wrong with her that she had to change. As I took that in, it reminded me of an article I wrote not long ago on pain. The key message of that article was that pain was not bad and not something to be feared, but rather it was just a message from our body that we need to do something differently to avoid hurting ourselves. I applied this same message to what Ellen was telling me. The feeling she was having was not a judgment saying that she was wrong or bad but simply that some part of herself was letting her know that it wanted her to do something differently so its needs would be better met.

I began seeing a larger picture of how often all of us relate to these feeling messages as judgments and condemnations. We feel wrong or bad because life does not respond to our actions in a way that supports our inner story about how things should work or be. My curious nature prompts me to ask why. Why do we feel this way? How does this all come about? My attention is pulled to the inner story that carries the image of how things are supposed to be. If I didn’t have that story to compare reality to, I would never feel like I was falling short or failing. There must be some reason I hold on to these stories even though they cause me so much pain. What gives?

Following this curiosity into a feeling of contemplation, I discovered that as a young child, I frequently did not get my wants/needs met in a way that felt good and satisfying, but sometimes I did. The times I did get what I wanted gave me a picture of what satisfaction looked like. As I got older, I could see others gain satisfying outcomes to meet their needs and wants sometimes. Even in stories from books and movies, the protagonist eventually reaches the happily ever after point at the end. My mind started to generate various pictures and scenarios that I came to believe would fulfill my feelings needs and wants. These generally involved other people relating to me in ways that I desired. Sometimes the picture involved an entire context of relationships around me that would feel supportive and safe. I have come to describe these stories as salvation scripts. I believe that we each have various stories of ‘how things should be’ buried inside us that we are certain would save us when we feel not okay. Because of the salvation feeling aspect of these stories, we feel deeply that they are right and should be how things play out. We come to believe we are entitled to them.

Along comes life and all it presents to us. Most obnoxiously it refuses to play by our rules. It does not care that we feel entitled to have things follow our rules and play out in ways that make us feel safe and fulfilled. Real life is just rude that way. As a result, it makes us feel bad. And since it does not care that we feel bad, eventually we start to feel there must be something wrong with us. Where is our happily ever after? Why aren’t we the winners? Even when we do win, why is that feeling so short-lived? Where is the ease and fulfillment we should be getting? If everyone would just do things our way and be our way then everything would be perfect. What is wrong with us that life is not working the way it should for us? These are the buried cries of a little child down inside most of us. A few of us are certain that we are perfect and the problem is entirely with the outside world. But most of us come to doubt and judge ourselves negatively.

This contemplation brought me back to Ellen’s feelings in the present time. The message it carried which I shared with Ellen is that there was nothing wrong with her and she had no need to judge herself. Most likely she was noticing a mismatch somewhere between her story about how something was supposed to be as decided by that little child within herself and what the world was presenting. What that little child wanted was not wrong, but simply unavailable. This happens a lot because we form these stories from our perspective. We don’t consider that every person around us has their own stories that they want everyone to follow that are different from our story. Even when the stories seem similar on the surface, their story has them as the protagonist and our story has us as the protagonist. They believe they should win the prize while we believe we should carry the prize home with us.

Life is full of difference. Essentially we are the only ones that carry our specific set of beliefs and stories because our perspective necessarily has us at the center. Try as we might, we can’t see life any other way. No matter how much we might try to see life through someone else’s eyes, we can’t. To do so we would have to know all their history and feeling experiences tied to what we are seeing. We don’t and can’t have that. Likewise, no one will ever see life through our eyes. Our view of life is unique to us. This is why life does not do things our way. Life is the outcome of the mixing of all these differences. It is like a big pot of stew. We are but one of the spices added to the stew. Consequently, the stew is not going to come out tasting like us. Our beliefs and stories have to blend with all the ideas and stories of those around us to produce the outcome.

Life is designed to be a little bit of everyone’s way, but as we all know individual impact on outcome varies tremendously. Some people have great skills at influencing others to follow their lead while the majority of folks prefer to follow along and copy the attitudes and stories of the influencers. In past times I would be using the terms leaders and con men, but today the idea of simple influence skills actually can make you a lot of money. Social influencers are real creatures and are named as such. Their success is a big message to us. Instead of feeling inadequate and judging ourselves for not being able to get others to be our way, look to people like influencers to see the skills involved in moving people to align with your perspective. There are definite reproducible action skills involved in influencing people’s perspectives. Before these days, these skills resided primarily in the world of politics and marketing.

I remember asking someone I knew who was good at influencing others how they developed that skill. They told me they used to be very shy but took a job selling door-to-door to get over it. In that job, nine times out of ten people wanted nothing to do with a salesperson. You knew that every time you went up to a door. You learned to take the likely risk of rejection to make that one-time-in-ten sale. When someone did show an interest, you had to connect with them on their level by presenting your product as something that would meet their personal needs. That means you had to find out what they needed and figure out how you could meet that need. Taking the risk even with probable failure and seeing everyone in terms of their needs instead of your own taught this person the perseverance and attitudes necessary to participate in life successfully. This is not easy to do. Our child self does not want to have to learn such difficult skills to be more successful in life. Yet this is what life is always presenting us with. We must learn to see every situation as larger than just our needs being met. Everyone has needs and wants, not just us.

I believe this is what Ellen was facing. Wanting her needs and wants met is not wrong nor is she wrong for wanting to meet them. The message that is constantly being tossed in our faces is that everyone is in the same boat. Everyone has needs and wants and their needs and wants are simply more important to them than ours are to them. Their concern is getting their needs and wants met, not meeting ours. That is why life (meaning people) refuse to be our way and do what we want. The fault is not in what we want or that we want, the fault is in not seeing the bigger picture and working within that reality. It is okay that I want crème brulee for dessert. The real question is what does the person who is making the crème brulee want in exchange for that delectable dessert?

Take care,

David

Ellen 

Ellen took me to dinner for my birthday last Sunday. We went to Ruth’s Chris. Ellen had the Chilean Sea Bass and I had the petite fillet. For dessert we finished off with a banana custard pie for Ellen while I had the Creme Brulee. To mark the occasion the wait staff put a candle on my plate along with a Happy Birthday.