I have done it my whole life. Make progress in a certain area and then backslide to old habits. Maybe not all the way, but enough to feel bad about myself. I’ve done it with my body, my marriage, my goals, the list is long.
After I have blown off a commitment to myself, I make up story to explain why I am still lame in whatever way. It’s what we humans do to make sense of the world, we tell stories.
Take the twenty-five year relationship with my husband. We’ve had many good years, peppered with times when we barely limped along. I have suggested daily rituals to deepen our connection and provide a solid foundation for our family. They include but are not limited to:
- setting an intention and sharing it
- a good hug in the morning before we run off
- reaching out once a day with something thoughtful
- prioritizing each other—taking our phone calls no matter what
- before bed, naming three things from the day we are grateful for about the other
- reading three pages aloud every night from a book of mutual interest
- each of us giving our relationship 100%—if we want something from the other person, we must first offer it ourselves
When we practice connection regularly, it makes a difference. At busier, more stressful times, the gratitude at the end of the day is the one habit we’ve sustained. Over the last several weeks, however, we haven’t managed to accomplish even that. Mark’s been swamped at the office and has continued to work late into the night.
When our disconnection grows, I tell myself stories that explain the distance:
He only cares about work.
We are just different people who are not meant to be together.
This is how it’s always going to be and it sucks.
He won’t take a break to read together but he’d show up in a flash to get naked.
Maybe I just don’t deserve a fulfilling relationship.
I am meant to be alone.
I realize this story, not the actual working late, is what causes me pain. Martha Beck teaches about the four areas of human experience: circumstances, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Our circumstances create our thoughts; our thoughts cause our feelings; our feelings shape our behavior.
For us, our circumstances (Mark’s working late) have created these painful thoughts that have made me sad and caused me to be curt and chilly. Clearly, we all experience painful circumstances from time to time—that’s life. But telling ourselves a negative story and dragging it around inside us causes continued suffering. I don’t want to do that anymore.
This week I learned a few new tools that helped me to detach from painful thoughts. Steven Hayes, author of The Liberated Mind teaches Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. “ACT” interventions help people suffer less. He differentiates between clean pain and dirty pain. Clean pain is slamming your fingers in the car door. Dirty pain is when you tell yourself how stupid you are for doing it for the rest of the week. You attached a bad story to the painful event that causes way more suffering than the original incident.
The simplest of his techniques is to take a painful thought, in my case “Mark only cares about work,” and to place a few words in front of it, “I am having the thought that he only cares about work.” Repeating the phrase a few times may create some distance between yourself and the painful thought, allowing you to detach from it.
To create even more space, we can say, “I notice that I am having the thought that he only cares about work.” Repeating it 2-3 times may help. (Think of a painful thought and try it. Make sure it’s a thought and not a circumstance, feeling or behavior.)
My favorite of the ACT skills is Hayes’ Fiction vs. Fact tool. You take a cluster of painful thoughts, always somewhat loaded blanket statements, and juxtapose them with actual facts.
FICTION: Mark only cares about work.
FACT: He is a devoted Dad who wants to talk to and about the kids all the time.
FICTION: We are just different people who are not meant to be together.
FACT: We had an instant connection the moment we met and have grown personally and together for twenty-five years.
FICTION: This is how it’s always going to be and it sucks.
FACT: Our marriage is ever-changing, as are we.
FICTION: He won’t take a break to read a book but he would show up in a flash to get naked.
FACT: He would probably show up for either. Maybe test the theory before making assumptions.
FICTION: Maybe I just don’t deserve a fulfilling relationship.
FACT: I have the relationship I am actively creating.
FICTION: I am meant to be alone.
FACT: I like to be alone but it’s also pretty great to share my life with Mark. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like without him.
This one is my favorite exercise because it provides a drama-free look at what is going on in real life as opposed to our very active imaginations.
Okay, so we know it’s the thinking that caused the pain. But what about the emotion that resulted from the painful thoughts? If we’ve clung to the thoughts, the emotions are hanging around too. If we don’t process them, they show up in other ways: disease in the body or even as other emotions like anger. Music helps me, also @vjohanv (Johan van Vuuren’s) Instagram—I could cry all day at his posts.
So now that I’ve cleaned up the dirty pain, how do I solve the problem of growing distance? While cooking dinner this week, I clicked on a random podcast of best-selling Author don Miguel Ruiz and Oprah. He shares ancient Toltec wisdom in his brilliant book, The Four Agreements. Committing to this powerful code of conduct allows us to experience freedom, to be happier and love with more ease. They are:
- Be Impeccable With Your Word.
- Don’t Take Anything Personally.
- Don’t Make Assumptions.
- Always Do Your Best.
If I could live by this code, I would take 100% responsibility for my relationship. I wouldn’t take his working late personally, nor would I assume he values work and not me. Clearly these are aspirational because who is this perfect? These principles are simple but they are pretty hard core, so I will write them down, put them up where I can see them every day. I’ll start with the last one and simply do my best with good intentions.
When you keep your commitments to yourself, you change everything. Living a life of integrity, however imperfectly, gives you the sense that it’s all going to be okay.
Love,
Elizabeth
WRITING PROMPT: How do you manage your painful thoughts? What could you resolve by taking full responsibility? How will that change things?
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