New HCSI Logo

Words with Friends

"The most common mistake that most of us make when it comes to finding meaning in life is that we think big.  We wait and hope for a transformational moment to shake us up and change the way we live, such as a near-death experience that suddenly reorganizes our priorities.  But that's just one way to develop meaning in our lives.  There's another, more powerful way--by focusing on the small things in life." (Ori Brafman, Succeeding When You're Supposed to Fail, page 78).

To make our moments and days more meaningful, we can:

1. Divide our activities into smaller tasks and focus on the impact, purpose and meaning of each moment and each accomplishment;
2. Focus more on the questions than on the answers--let the thrill of the chase be the real source of meaning and purpose;
3. Make sure that we share our journeys with people who engage with us in the pursuit of meaning and purpose.

The third item is the focus of this post.  Brafman describes an experiment with three groups of subjects.  One group received encouraging feedback after a task.  The second group received challenging feedback after a task.  The third group received no feedback.  Instead, the partners of the third group simply counter the number of times the test subjects uttered "th" as part of the conversation.  So the respondents were distracted and disengaged.

The group that found the exercise least meaningful was the group that was in it "alone."  Even challenging, contradictory and disagreeable feedback is preferable to speaking to an empty room. Having no one with which to share the joys and challenges of life is, for most of us, a bleak prospect at best.  Being for all intents and purposes ignored was the least meaningful condition.

It is true that apathy is the most painful of all responses.

I resonate deeply with this element of the pursuit of meaning.  I had become so accustomed to sharing the joy and challenges of life with a partner that when Anne died I couldn't conceive of life in another way.  I probably could have figured out some other path, but I didn't want to do that.  At the time I knew that I needed to get a "life" before I could go back to work.  And getting a life, for me, meant having someone with which to share the love, the life and the adventure.

It's as simple as playing "Words with Friends."  I don't much care to play such things by myself with others.  However, when I can serve as a personal consultant to my spouse, Brenda, as she plays seven games at once, I find the whole thing great fun.  It is the collaboration, the mutual problem-solving, the shared sense of triumph, the joint amazement at the creativity of the opponents.  Meaning that is shared is not additive.  I think it is logarithmic.

Antoine de St. Exuperay said that true love does not consist of gazing fondly into the eyes of another. It consists, rather, in looking in the same direction together.

I have a much deeper appreciation now of the sense of loss of those widowed.  I think about the decades of partnership for some of those couples.  I know the sense of amputation, of truncation, and of pointlessness I experienced.  John Gottman notes that allowing one's spouse to influence a person is one of the seven keys to marital success.  I suspect that is the case because such mutuality deepens the meaning of the things we do together.

I am not suggesting that only married people can have such a sense of shared meaning and adventure.  That's how it works out for me.  But meaning is both a personal and a communal enterprise.  By the way, I'm looking for a word...

Finding Meaning in the Middle

In my adult years, I've been a big "meaning of life" kind of guy.  That has especially been true when things haven't gone so well.  The existential crises in my life have always come down at some point or another to "So, what's the point of it all anyway?"  At a few of those moments I have considered--at least at an intellectual level--taking my own life and answering the question myself once and for all.

To celebrate the obvious, I have not followed through with that academic exercise.

Where do we find meaning?  Ori Brafman describes the ways that resilient people--the ones he names "tunnelers"--find and maintain meaning and purpose in their lives.  I find his analysis to be helpful in many ways.

One way to derive meaning and purpose that can sustain me is to break my life down into smaller tasks and goals.  For example, I may find that my current work situation is not all that meaningful or purposive.  I can take that as a given for now and put it on the emotional shelf.  In the face of that, I can identify smaller and specific tasks and goals that are important and produce some good.  

For example, I can make a visit to someone who is ill and provide comfort and support.  I know that I am engaged in something that makes life better for that person and makes the world a better place.  I may be unable to place that activity in some cosmic or even personal framework at the moment, but that is beside the point.

I wish in hindsight that I had been given this orientation much earlier in life.  I was so bogged down with big picture meaning that I could easily lose track of the small things that give joy and hope every moment of every day.  Now I know, for example, the healing power of making lists and marking things off the list.  When I am overwhelmed with the sense that life isn't going anywhere and I'm not doing anything that matters, I make a list.  I start with items that I know I will accomplish.  Sometimes I even list things that I've already done just to be able to mark them off.

Giggle if you must (I will join you), but it works.

A second strategy that Brafman describes is one that I love.  Meaning is not equated with certainty. Meaning is found in the search itself, not in the discovery of the answers.  

For example, I am meeting with young people soon to be confirmed in our congregation.  To each of them I have issued a challenge.  Please share with me and with the congregation at least one question about your faith journey that remains unanswered.  If you can't come up with such a question, I'll be glad to supply one for you.

Of course, I love the questions.  But I am North American enough to still connect meaning with certainty and success with the security of answered questions.  So when life throws at us an "unanswerable"--the death of a loved one, a debilitating illness or injury, the end of a relationship, the loss of a business or job or farm--we are often plunged into an emotional abyss.  

"I thought I knew how things work.  I was sure I had the path figured out.  I believed that I understood the nature of existence."  Brafman points out that this becomes more and more of a crisis for some of us the older we get.  In most of human experience, however, age is thought to produce the wisdom that embraces the mystery.

That is my experience now.  Would I like to have abundant security and certainty?  Of course!  Am I finding the resources to embrace the adventure of later life with fewer answers?  Well, that's coming along.  And when I can be comfortable with the mysterious adventure, then this meaning business comes clearer.

So, I don't know what it all means for me, how it all works for me, where it's all headed for me.  But I do know what I can do for someone else today.  And I do trust that it all comes together in the end. That's how to find some meaning in the middle, eh?

Taking the High Road

It's a mantra in the parenting class I teach.  "In the long run, the high road is always the best road." Parents nod their heads in agreement.  Then one of the honest souls says, "Yes, that's true.  But it's awfully hard when the other parent has just told your kids that you are a no-good, deadbeat who doesn't love them and who never wanted them.  How can I keep from setting them straight on this?"

I have not experienced this personally, although I have been the subject of more than a few attempted character assassinations.  How, indeed, do we keep from responding in kind to such deliberate broadsides?

One of the real marks of healthy resiliency, as Ori Brafman notes, is maintaining the locus of control (what he calls the internal limelight).  He urges that instead of putting the spotlight on how another has wronged us, we can examine our own responsibility in the situation.  "This doesn't mean that we should absolve others from responsibility," he quickly adds.  "It simply means that no matter what happens, in the end the only person we have full control over is ourselves." (Succeeding When You're Supposed to Fail, page 57).

This isn't, however, merely the council of despair.  In fact, maintaining that sense of agency is one of the ways to be healthy and hopeful.  After all, why should I allow the behavior of another person to dictate how I act?  If I am in charge of myself, I have choices about how I will respond (see my previous post).

In fact, taking the high road is one of the ways to maintain a full sense of personal agency in a difficult situation.  Any fool can let the barbs of the opponent push him into a corner.  That is, in fact, often the goal of such poisonous remarks--to goad someone into a response that will result in bad behavior.

This is, of course, just one long truism.  But that doesn't make it any less true.  No one can make me do anything.  Period.  End of conversation.  I choose my actions, and I am responsible for what I think, do and say.  Feelings may overwhelm me like a flood.  But I can still decide whether to go along for the ride or to swim against the tide.

Healthy and resilient people opt for swimming.

How can I do this?  One way is to become your own consultant or coach.  How would you advise someone else in your situation?  We mediators call it a form of "going to the balcony."  Step back and observe your situation from a third person perspective.  If you were supporting a friend through this difficult time, what counsel would you give?  After a few moments of such reflection, you will certainly come up with a better answer than simply responding in kind.

When we make such choices, we do better in our lives.  For parents in difficult situations this is critical.  Children are emotional sponges.  How we manage ourselves will have a direct impact on how they cope.  Parents (and others) who are able to maintain their agency will feel better and do better.

The high road is always the best way to go.

You Still Have Choices

It is one of the three most hopeful statements a human being can make: "But I can still make choices."

I may be unable to live any longer in my own home.  I may need help to get in and out of bed. I may have surrendered financial and medical decisions to someone else.  In larger frameworks I may have chosen to give up my choices.  But I can narrow the framework of my perception.  And then I still have choices.

Ori Brafman has a lovely little book that describes the psychology of human resilience. How is it, he and other psychologists wonder, that some folks can endure horrific circumstances and still flourish?  What characteristics do they exhibit, and how can the rest of us learn greater resilience from their examples?

One of the characteristics of the resilient, those that Brafman calls "tunnelers" (because they find a way through the obstacles in life that might inhibit the rest of us) possess is the power to live with an "internal limelight."  Tunnelers never surrender their perception of choice.  In technical terms, they maintain their sense of themselves as a "locus of control."  In terms of the psychology of hope, tunnelers maintain their sense of agency.

Other folks have an "external limelight."  Externals, Brafman writes, 

"believe that in life, as in the formation of a weather system, many different elements come together; chance plays a major role.  Just as it would be ridiculous to expect that you can influence the weather by flapping your arms to create the wind, the argument goes, it's futile to believe that you play a major role in determining your career track. According to externals, the only thing that's certain is that believing that you have significant control over life's complex events is nonsense."  Ori Brafman, Succeeding When You're Supposed to Fail, page 45.

I was struck by Brafman's description.  I have often listened as folks described how life was somehow just "happening" to them.  I have, based on my own experience, noted that feelings and responses are not like weather fronts.  They don't just happen to us as passive observers and recipients.  Life when properly lived is not a spectator sport.  We can still make choices.

That is the case even when it seems that no choices are left.  Like many pastoral care givers, I have sat with folks who should have been dead weeks or months ago.  The family was called.  Hospice services were launched.  Physicians rendered their statistical predictions. But somehow the subject of all this activity had not gotten the memo that it was time to die.

Sometimes the dying person is waiting for that last family member to get home and say good-bye. Sometimes the dying person has simply never quit at anything in her or his life.  Choosing how to live and what to do is simply etched into her or his character.  And even comatose, that character will not be altered.  Lots of things are happening to such a person.  But even to the last, we can still make choices.  It is only the framework of those choices, the size and scale of the arena that has been changed.

Brafman summarizes the work of numerous psychologists who all agree that an internal limelight is crucial to flourishing in the face of adversity.  I know that reminders of this sense of choice were critical to my own survival in the face of crushing grief.  Nothing made a larger difference to me than the simple and regular reminder that I could still choose who to respond to situations and how to manage my feelings.

This is why self-determination is so critical to mediation processes as well.  "But you still have choices," is the most hopeful and helpful thing I can say to parties in a difficult mediation.  Conflict has a way of closing off our vision of what's possible.  My most important job as a facilitator is to help people regain their capacity for seeing alternatives where it appeared that none existed.

Be hopeful, friends--you can still make choices.

Dealing with Bullies

In this part of the country, primary and secondary schools re-open in a week or so.  I remember those days leading up the beginning of a new school year.  I loved school, and I will always love being a student.  So I was excited and energized as I looked forward to getting back in the classroom.

And I was terrified.

School meant another year of riding the bus for an hour each way.  This meant two hours per day of potential bullying.  I was often subjected to verbal abuse, "titty-twisters," getting punched in the groin and being made to feel useless and worthless.  I was sure that no one at home wanted to hear about this, so I kept it to myself and prayed for the day when I could drive myself to school and back.

It was a wonderful motivator to earn and save money for that first car!

So, perhaps we can think together a bit about the psychology of bullying--at school, in the workplace, and at church.

Many times I was told that bullies are people with low self-esteem who build themselves up by making other people feel smaller.  In fact, that is not for the most part the case.  Most bullies appear to be quite narcissistic and suffer from too much self-esteem rather than too little.  Most bullies live as if they are the center of the universe--the only real humans in their life dramas.  Everyone else is really just a means to their ends.

This doesn't mean that bullies are without their emotional issues.  Bullies are driven intensely by shame.  This is a different issue from lack of self-esteem.  Bullies have been told that they aren't good enough, and they rebel against this notion by proving that they control the universe.

Researchers find that bullies are born as much as they are made.  Children who engage in bullying behavior often have parents who engage in similar kinds of behaviors.  We can debate the genetics of this reality.  We can discuss the nurture dimensions.  Just know, as one wise person has said, that "dogs don't have cats."

I was often told that if I just ignored the bully, he would get tired of the game and go away.  That was not at all true.  Bullies take such treatment as a further challenge to their inflated sense of self.  Ignoring a bully is an effective way to generate even more negative attention.  "You WILL acknowledge that I am powerful and important.  If you don't, I will make you pay."

Now, bullying is not the normal rough and tumble of the playground.  Children are quite adept at hurting each other and then moving on.  Bullying is a systematic and repeated pattern of intimidation and manipulation designed to enhance the pleasure of the bully.  So bullying requires a systematic and repeated response from the community.  

• Those in authority need to respond by challenging the bullying behavior publicly.  
• The community needs to isolate the bully when possible from those who are being abused.  
• Those who are not victims need to stop feeling relieved that they have been spared and to start being indignant that anyone should be treated in such a way.

Bullying cannot be ignored away.  It cannot be wished away.  It cannot be "niced" away.  This behavior must be confronted and counteracted--whether in the home, the school, the workplace or the church.

More to come...

To Be Fully Human

The quoted paragraphs are from Robert A. Emmons, "Pay it Forward" in Dacher Keltner's The Compassionate Instinct:

"Gratitude serves as a key link between receiving and giving: it moves recipients to share and increase the very good they have received.  Because so much of human life is about giving, receiving and repaying, gratitude is a pivotal concept for our social interactions."

"Gratitude implies humility--a recognition that we could not be who we are or where we are in life without the contributions of others."

The benefits of working consistently at gratitude:

• greater levels of optimism about the future;
• fewer physical health complaints;
• greater energy for exercising;
• increased feelings of joy, enthusiasm, interest;
• greater capacity to offer emotional support or help to others;
• more hours of sleep and better quality of sleep;
• increased frequency of helpful behaviors toward others;

Gratitude strengthens our ties to one another and increase our sense of personal worth.  Gratitude is an important antidote for anxiety and depression. 

 "We are receptive beings, dependent on the help of others, on their gifts and their kindness.  As such we are called to gratitude.  Life becomes complete when we are able to give to others what we ourselves received in the past...It is gratitude that enables us to receive and it is gratitude that motivates us to return the goodness that we have been given.  In short, it is gratitude that enables us to be fully human."