Conditional Love
It feels like the whole world only loves us when we are
good, succeeding, doing something big, or performing.
It feels like that.
It is easy to get down on yourself.
These days, if you try hard enough you can leave no doubt about
how mediocre you really are. All that you need to do is go online, scroll
through Facebook (or any other platform), and if you try hard enough you can even find it in yoga class. You can
find people who are prettier, smarter, funnier, more successful, better at
yoga, more confident, and popular. You can find whatever you choose.
There are a million ways to feel crappy about yourself- seek
it, feel it, and the world will agree.
Unhappiness and conditional love are very easy to find.
To really bring it home, live your life in a constant state
of assessment. Better yet-- to be advanced at feeling crappy about yourself-- you
can rate your crappiness by numbers. We
all judge each other liking photos on instagram, posts on Facebook. We pin
something on Pinterest. We reblog on tumbler. Perfect. Pay attention to this.
Count the likes, the reblogs…. Count it all.
Even better yet, bring this all to work. You can assess and judge each aspect. For example, in academia there are things like h-indexes,
which tell you how many times someone has cited your publications (sort of like Pinterest, except more academic).
Dig in. Feel super crappy and lost.
It is all measured. We are all measured.
It is all judged. We are all judged.
I believe it becomes a practice and then, over time, a way
of being. We develop these habits of mind. We see our friend’s outfit, her
face, her smile. Do we like it? Pin it? Reblog it? or scroll?
So easily and quickly we assess and discount one another all
day long. So easily and quickly we assess and discount ourselves all day long.
Or, or, just maybe, there is another way. A long time ago, there was this psychologist named Carl
Rogers (1902 to 1987, see http://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html).
Growing up in a harsh judgmental environment, he strove to see things
differently, to be different. One day, he was in his basement and he saw this
old sack of potatoes. One of the potatoes had grown roots and a stem. The stem
had grown all the way up the wall of the basement to the window, where its potato
plant leaves found light.
Young Dr. Rogers saw this as a metaphor for all life, for
human life. He saw in all beings this need, this capacity, to grow no matter the circumstances.
What Rogers realized was that even without the best of circumstances humans have this innate capacity
for growth. You see, NO MATTER WHAT;
we have the nature to grow. He saw that it is just there, in each of our hearts
and minds-- this innate capacity is there and if we add a few things- bam! What Rogers came to realize is that things could not just survive, but thrive; people could thrive if they had the best of circumstances. With the best of circumstances, we are
on the journey toward self-actualization (see references below).
The mechanism (outside of our own innate capacity for
growth) that Dr. Rogers identified as critical to this whole process was unconditional
positive regard- unconditional love. This kind of love occurs when you
have someone (or more than one someone) in your life that loves you no matter
what.
This means that when you are trending on the Internet and when you get scrolled by,
ignored, or even negatively commented upon- you are loved. It means they love
you when you are standing on the podium giving your thank you speech for an
award and when you are being really annoying and hard to be with. It means they
love you even when you are clingy and insecure.
They love you anyway, always. To have this kind of your love in your life. Ahhh. That is a gift.
They love you anyway, always. To have this kind of your love in your life. Ahhh. That is a gift.
Seems though, that people are busy and looking for their own
love, and mad, and sad, and stressed. It seems that much of the time that there
is no occasion for this kind of love.
Do we sit like a sack of potatoes on the basement floor
hoping for our innate humanistic growth to kick in?
Sort of, yes. And more than that. What we don’t do is this: We
don’t wait for the acknowledgement, the love, from the outside.
We engage in self-care, self-love, and self-compassion. We
do this like we are the best mom to ourselves that anyone ever had.
In her stirring book, The
Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother, Kim Chernin describes the process
of internalizing the sense of mother, the practice of self-care. The way she sees
it (and others; see Dan Siegel) each of us can development our own routine of
self-nurturance, self reward, and self acknowledgement.
We can create our own unconditional positive regard
Zuri’s Story
Zuri has been at her Aunt Jasmine’s with Rashan for some
time now. Her mom has touched base a few times and Zuri has decided to return
her calls and sometimes even picks up her phone once in a while. Her mom is struggling; Zuri
can hear it in her voice. She is in no place, right now, to be a parent. That
is for sure.
Aunt Jasmine is not fairing much better. Zuri is quite sure
that it is a good thing that she has come to stay with her Aunt. Her Aunt needs
her. The cancer treatment leaves Jasmine quite tired. Zuri has been making
meals for the three of them. Jasmine is very thankful for the support. She
acknowledges Zuri.
Alone at night, Zuri digs into the yoga bag. She finds my
notes on the four immeasurables (see http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/bs-s15.htm).
In my journals, have written about them at length: Joy, Equanimity, Compassion, and Loving-Kindness.
I have written that the practice of these four states of mind can be a pathway
to contentment and happiness. I wrote about how I have worked to be centered
and happy even though my mother is very sick and far away.
Zuri connects to this immediately. Her mom is sick and far
away too.
I wrote about how I try to find joy in the present moment.
Not in way to snuff out the pain and sadness, but as a way to bring light into
my life. Zuri reads this and looks over at Rashan doing his homework and
tickles him. He laughs his contagious laugh and tickles her back. Joy.
I wrote about equanimity. How when I have a set back or a success, I try to take them both in stride and remind myself that the journey is the reward.
The highs the lows, the days with no change, they are all the reward. I look
for balance in my practice. I wrote how I try to think that the backslides in my mom's
illness and progress in her treatment just are what they are and to stay
present no matter what.
Zuri thinks about her mom’s sobriety and lack there of.
Yeah. She gets it.
I wrote about compassion. I wrote a lot about self-compassion.
I wrote about how I honor my efforts and my discouragements. I wrote about how
I understand that my struggles are struggles that are, in their core, human
struggles. I wrote how I want to love and honor myself always. I wrote that I
acknowledge my efforts, that I see myself for what I am and what I am not and
that is good.
Zuri thinks about her own efforts in school. Her average has
dropped to 92. She worries. This is an A-. She has been so off routine with the
move and all the driving back and forth to Aunt Jasmine's. She sets her eyes on
tomorrows and honors her commitment to work even thought it has been hard. Zuri
is sure that she likes self-compassion.
I wrote of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is love, a warm
big-hearted love that we offer to ourselves and to others. We wish ourselves
well, those close to use well, those we barely know well, and those who
frustrate us well. We love.
Zuri thought about Rashan and Jasmine, the people in her
life that are easiest to love. She sent them love. Then she thought about Eric,
her bother, and sent him love. She thought about her teachers and the staff at
school and sent them love. Zuri thought about the crossing guards. She sent
them love. Last, she thought about her mom’s addiction, her addicted mom. This
was hard. She loves her mom when she is sober, but her drunk, drugged, spaced
out mom- ugh this was hard. She held the drunk version of her mom in her head and
she sent her love. She hoped that love she was sending would penetrate the
drugs and get the core of her real mom-- the real mom who could feel the love
she as sending.
The four immeasurables… Zuri sat back on the couch and
thought that these were definitely good things. She took her pen and drew hearts
around the edge of the journal pages upon which I had written. She closed the notebook
and tucked it into the yoga bag.
Aunt Jasmine asked, “What do you have there baby?”
Zuri said, “My journals. They help me be okay Auntie.”
“Well, good then baby. You write.”
Zuri was ready for bed. Another long day was in store for
tomorrow. Pausing, she pulled the bag back out. She opened my notes to the page
of the four immeasurable and copied them down on the inside cover of her daily
planner. She thought, “I need these close by.”
She and Rashan headed up to bed. With the yoga bag tucked
under her bed, she curled up and fell sound asleep, wishing loving-kindness to
her mom.
The Process
Our practices can become our self-administered, unconditional
positive regard. There is no need to wait for others to come to the rescue. No
need at all.
A daily routine of yoga asanas, meditation (like the four
immeasurables), and journaling can cultivate the very conditions that we see
when a person experiences an attuned attachment. There are powerful changes
that can take place.
·
Your practice and self-regulation help create
neurological integration.
·
Self-as-witness in meditation creates a sense of
being seen and validated.
·
The processing of emotions and words in your
journal narrative stories your experience, much like you might experience when
a parent is telling a loving story about you.
·
The asanas create an embodied experience within
which your breath, movement, and awareness are synchronized creating physical
experience of connection, a yoking.
Self-care, self-love, and self compassion are powerful
forces. No need to search outside of yourself.
Within the practice of yoga, within you, they can be found. You
can be your own source of unconditional positive regard-- a very powerful
source.
Practice and all is coming.
Namaste,
Catherine
References
Rogers and Unconditional Love (from
http://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html)
Carl
Rogers (1902-1987) was a humanistic psychologist who agreed with the main
assumptions of Abraham Maslow, but added that for a person to "grow", they need an
environment that provides them with genuineness (openness and self-disclosure),
acceptance (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being
listened to and understood).
Without
these, relationships and healthy personalities will not develop, as they
should, much like a tree will not grow without sunlight and water.
Rogers
believed that every person can achieve their goals, wishes and desires in life.
When, or rather if they did so, self actualization took
place. This was one of Carl Rogers’s most important contributions to
psychology and for a person to reach their potential a number of factors must
be satisfied.
Self Actualization
"The
organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize, maintain, and
enhance the experiencing organism” (Rogers, 1951, p. 487).
Rogers
rejected the deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and behaviorism and maintained that we behave as we do because of
the way we perceive our situation. "As no one else can know how we
perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves."
Carl
Rogers (1959) believed that humans have one basic motive that is the tendency
to self-actualize - i.e. to fulfill one's potential and achieve the highest
level of 'human-beingingness' we can. Like a flower that will grow to its
full potential if the conditions are right, but which is constrained by its
environment, so people will flourish and reach their potential if their
environment is good enough.
However,
unlike a flower, the potential of the individual human is unique, and we are
meant to develop in different ways according to our personality. Rogers
believed that people are inherently good and creative. They become
destructive only when a poor self-concept or external constraints override the
valuing process. Carl Rogers believed that for a person to achieve
self-actualization they must be in a state of congruence.
This
means that self-actualization occurs when a person’s “ideal self” (i.e. who
they would like to be) is congruent with their actual behavior
(self-image). Rogers describes an individual who is actualizing as a
fully functioning person. The main determinant of whether we will become
self-actualized is childhood experience.
The Woman Who have
Birth to Her Mother, by Kim Chernin
Whether we
are aware of it or not, we are all storytellers. Our stories can be as simple
as "the time I locked my keys in the car," or "the fish that got
away." Or they can be complex and difficult to relate—stories less for
relating an experience than for preserving that experience in a manageable
form. The storytellers in Kim Chernin's The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her
Mother are preserving the experiences of growing up with their
mothers. Some tell their stories reluctantly; some in what seems like a single
breath. One woman's story changes each time she tells it; another's offers a
startling, hidden revelation. For each of these women, the process of telling a
story is an opportunity to work through paralyzing pain, fear, loss or anger so
that she can move on with her life. It is this transformation, and the ability
to achieve it, that Chernin brings to light in this moving book.
Chernin's
book offers two primary messages. One is the idea that through telling stories
or by objectifying certain events in our lives, we can create an emotional
distance between ourselves and those events. This distance allows us the
freedom to explore those events less painfully—and even to be healed through
the telling of them. As a writer, Chernin reaches for the same technique she
employs in her clinical practice, in which she is ethically (and legally)
required to maintain confidentiality between herself and her client. By
disguising the women in her stories Chernin is able not only to protect their
identities, but also, perhaps, to more effectively explore the importance of
the stories themselves.
The other message
is illustrated by a metaphor—the act of giving birth—that offers images of
renewal and possibility, of creation and survival. By giving birth to her
mother, a woman can re-create her own experience of childhood and provide
herself with the kind of mothering she needs but perhaps never had. In this
book, Chernin identifies a series of stages women go through in telling their
"mother stories." Like most natural things, these stages do not occur
linearly but cyclically. They are part of a transformative process that may
take months or years to complete—or it may never be completed. What Chernin
shows us is that learning to identify any given stage is more important than
getting through it as it is through self-awareness that we grow. As a
psychoanalyst, Chernin understands that progress is more often than not the
result of breaking down an idea to examine its parts, of slowing down a process
to fully experience it. This takes time, patience and courage. The
mother-daughter relationship is both complicated and fragile. It is also
strong, and not easily changed. For women who want to start the process of that
change, The Woman Who Gave Birth to Her Mother offers
understanding and guidance as well as women with compelling stories of their
own.
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