In Recovery terms, the monk had trained himself not to be startled by sudden feelings, sensations or thoughts. When he experienced them, he didn’t display an external reaction to them though he may have had a brief, internal flare of temper. In Recovery, we learn that we’re not responsible for the initial startle, but we are responsible for what we do afterwards.

How can we learn to see bad feelings and moods on the horizon? The four-part Recovery example gives us an opportunity to practice on the annoying trivialities that we all experience many times each day. Let me quote Step 2:

Report the symptoms you experienced — both physical and mental. (For instance, angry and fearful thoughts, confusion, palpitations, disturbing impulses, tightness in your chest, lowered feelings, sweaty palms, and so on.)

As noted in Step 2, for many people the body sends signals through physical symptoms that a temperamental reaction is pending. In this case, palpitations, racing heart, tightness in the chest, wobbly legs, stomach pains, blurry vision and so on are not symptoms of physical illness–presumably you’ve already made the circuit of doctors and had many lab tests and been told nothing physical is wrong with you, but that doesn’t make the symptoms any more comfortable. However, noticing these symptoms and developing a “body sense” is one way we can enhance our mental health as they’re the body’s way of telling us something’s up–kind of an early warning system.

When I have lowered feelings (AKA sadness or “depression”–a loaded term we like to avoid), it feels like my face and head are sagging, I feel tired all over, my chest feels tight. Noticing a symptom like this doesn’t make it worse. In fact, it’s a way of being objective and “cool and chilly”, and not taking our symptoms so seriously, especially since we’ve learned there is no danger. In other words, we don’t have to fear the symptom. It’s just something that happens to us. And we can observe feelings and sensations rise and fall and take their course; we just have to be patient and wait it out. Easy to say, hard to do!

I’ve got a very long way to go before I can see my moods coming, like the monk. And that’s OK, I’m average, not a saint or monk.

What’s your “tell”? What types of physical symptoms do you have?  Where do you notice them in your body? Have you started noticing them more since you started Recovery training?

When I started attending Recovery meetings three and a half years ago, one of the real eye-openers for me was Dr. Low’s idea of Fearful Temper. Like many people, I used to think “temper” simply meant angry outbursts – the classic adult-acting-like-a-two-year-old-having-a-tantrum type of thing. Nothing to do with my so-called “panic attacks“, such as the first one I experienced almost 35 years ago while driving an old VW Beetle across a long, high bridge, and which continued to plague me on and off for many years, in many different situations, persisting through many different types of therapies, treatments, medications, groups, etc.

Besides “panic attacks”, I also often experienced feelings of unreality, depression (AKA lowered feelings), anxiety, mental confusion and racing thoughts, anger/frustration, nervous fatigue, nightmares, preoccupation/chronic worrying, and numerous other symptoms. To add to the mix, I cultivated phobias of bridges, highways, airplanes, highways, and enclosed spaces, and was probably even agoraphobic for awhile. I was starting to feel pretty helpless about my mental health when I finally discovered Recovery International quite by accident.

Here’s what Dr. Low has to say about temper:

[T]emper has two divisions. One comes into play when I persuade myself that a person has done me wrong. As a result I become angry. This is called angry or aggressive temper, which appears in various shades and nuances: resentment, impatience, indignation, disgust, hatred, etc.

The other variety of temper is brought into action whenever I feel that I am wrong. This gives rise to moral, ethical and esthetic fears or to the fear of being a failure in pragmatic pursuits. I am afraid that I sinned, failed, blundered, in short, that I defaulted on a moral, ethical or esthetic standard or on the standard of average efficiency. This is called fearful or retreating temper which may express itself in many different qualities and intensities: discouragement, preoccupation, embarrassment, worry, sense of shame, feeling of inadequacy, hopelessness, despair, etc.

…Whether it be of the angry or fearful description, temper reinforces and intensifies the symptom which, in its turn, increases the temperamental reaction. In this manner, a vicious cycle is established between temper and symptom.

~Mental Health through Will-Training, 3rd ed., pp. 26-27

It was a revelation to me to discover that fear is also a form of temper, with both angry and fearful temper resulting from startles in our inner or outer environment. We’re not responsible for the initial flare of temper but we do have the choice of working tempers up or not, by forming or dropping the judgment that someone or something is wrong. This spoke to me: It meant I could do something about it, that there was hope for me. In other words, just as people can decide whether to vent anger or not, I can choose whether to “work up” fearful thoughts, feelings and sensations.

Recovery has given me a simple (but not necessarily easy!) four-part tool to use on trivialities–in other words, everyday events that work me up. This is the hallmark Recovery four-part example. I wasn’t confronting my deep-seated fears about bridges, analyzing childhood traumas, or trying to figure out why I had that panic attack on that particular day on that particular bridge. It was more like, someone cut me off in traffic, or looked at me funny, or I got what I thought was a mean email from a relative–and I started to work myself up. By chipping away at these everyday sources of stress, I eventually got to the point where I could start to work on “strong link” areas.

I’m still not the most confident driver-across-bridges or airplane passenger, but I can see myself as having average fears that I can choose to work up or work down. Now on to that bridge!

“There are very few people who do not think of themselves as being of a superior breed, as ranking above the ‘common herd’, that is, as being excpetional. With most of them it is merely a dream, an ambition and aspiration.”
~Dr. Abraham Low, Mental Health Through Will Training, p. 248

This morning I heard a story on TV news about a new study out of the University of Ottawa that concludes that just about every driver thinks he or she is an above average driver. Of course, with something like driving skills that can be objectively measured (more or less), there is no way that anywhere more than half of people could be above average! All you have to do is go on any road to realize that it’s not possible. It just goes to show how pervasive the wish to be superior is.

Dr. Low says exceptionality and vanity are harmful, causing tension when we don’t get the kind of accolades, attention and flattery we think we deserve. In nervous people, tenseness creates symptoms, keeping us from getting well. This has a lot to do with the “comparison temper” I wrote about, in my new year’s resolution to cut back on comparing myself to other people.

That’s why Dr. Low tells us to embrace averageness, and I’m sorry to admit that I find this one of the hardest things to accept in Recovery. We live in a society where competition  and awards for “winning” are the norm, in everything from academics to sports to entertainment to volunteering. We’re told from an early age to “be the best we can be”, to get the best grades we can and write the best papers, to beat the other team, to win at regionals (a la Glee), to be outstanding in our service to the community, and just about everything else. “Progressive” bosses use praise to encourage us to work harder, and inadvertently lead us astray, prompting us to forget that our own inner approval is what really matters.

It’s hard for me to let go of wanting to be an exceptional worker, problem solver and colleague, not to mention wife, mom, friend, relative and everything else. But that’s what I must try to do–be average at all of those things. Dr. Low does tell us that if we’re realists in everyday practical matters, we can balance that behavior with “dreams and fancies (which) are given free play on an imaginative level.” And with all the energy we free up by accepting our averageness,  who knows where those dreams and fancies will take us?

Dr. Low tells us “comparisons are odious”. Good word, odious, and very apt in this situation. Someone loses, someone “wins” (though it’s a hollow, symbolic victory) and because of my over-active imagination and assumption that I think I know what’s going on in other people’s supposedly ideal minds and lives, I’m usually on the losing end. All of which leads to lowered feelings and fearful temper in the form of self-pity and self-blame.

Dr. Low advises us that the only valid comparison we can make is to ourselves before we began to make mental health our top priority by practising Recovery techniques. So instead of comparing, I’m going to work on endorsing, thereby changing my insecure thoughts to secure ones. Happy new year to me!

I would really like to hear from other people: Have you come up with good ways to stop comparing yourself to others? Or is this not an issue for you (I promise not to compare myself to you )?

I say, Bring it on! Of course it’s already started–regardless of whether I want it to. Christmas is a week away, it’s bleak and dark and damp. The reality that I won’t do anywhere near as much as some part of me seems to want to (Baking! Decorating! Entertaining! Making eggnog! Writing out personalized Christmas cards! Making wreaths! Shopping! Caroling! Seeing lights! Visiting friends! Having family to visit! Sleigh rides through winter wonderlands!) is starting to sink in.

This all would seem to indicate a tendency to perfectionism. And high expectations that ultimately lead to disappointments.

So why “Bring it on”? Because it’s an opportunity (OK, many opportunities) to practise. Dr. Low tells us that “control of our internal environment is infinitely more important than all the possible triumphs we may be able to scre over external environment” (MHTWT, p. 110). Every time we bear discomfort and endorse for the effort, we improve our mental health. And after all, that’s our supreme goal.

So this year I plan to give myself the best Christmas present I can think of–a commitment to my mental health, no matter how uncomfortable and difficult it may be getting there.

So I guess I’m “driven” and have a tendency to be a “workaholic”. I experience what we in RI would call “impulses”. And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this is a type of addiction or to call it workaholism.

This may have come about because, even though I long ago resigned myself to being the sort of person who has lots of unfinished projects in my life, a few years back I decided to get more “closure“, meaning actually finishing more things. That’s healthy, right? I’m starting to wonder if it always is , especially if achieving it causes temper.

Leaving something unfinished at the end of a work day gives me an opportunity to practise Recovery techniques, especially bearing discomfort and remembering to  endorse for the effort. I need to spot my fearful temper (worry, anxiety, embarrassment, inadequacy) so I can regain and retain my balance.

If my supreme value is my mental health and everything needs to be placed in this context, then I need to strive for balance, not extremism, in how I use my time. I need to see when I’m being exceptional (“look at all I get done and how well I do it!”) and accept a philosophy of averageness.

I have to have the courage to make a mistake at work–while being conscientious enough, but not too conscientious about my responsibilities as an employee. Dr. Low wrote: “I wish that my patients were a trifle less concerned about their ethics and morals and legality. They are far too concerned about these matters. Instead of having an average concern they have an extreme concern about them.” (MFMA, p. 65-66)

There won’t be an easy fix for me, but I do have several opportunities a day–two breaks, lunch, and the end of the day–to practise my Recovery techniques and work towards my goal of inner peace.

So what constitutes a startle? Many things! It can be a barking dog. It can be a car cutting you off in traffic. It can be a seemingly harsh word from a relative or co-worker, even in an e-mail. Or, strangely enough, it can be a thought–something that seems to come “out of the blue”. Generally it’s a triviality.

Today’s first startle, for example, happened as I was driving to work, when I suddenly thought about how I don’t have any nieces or nephews and my kids don’t have any cousins. I began to work myself up. I got lowered feelings (which we say in Recovery instead of “depressed”). I felt self-pity–woe is me. I even started to cry–boo hoo! Thanks to Recovery training, though, I was immediately able to spot that:

• Yes, it is kind of sad and it’s a genuine feeling.
• BUT…feelings rise and fall and run their course if you don’t attach danger to them when they reach their peak (in other words, “stay with the feelings” as many therapists tried to counsel me over the years but couldn’t explain HOW to do it)
• Don’t CODDLE your feelings–be objective, cool, chilly, dispassionate about them.
• Just say no to the crying habit!
• Endorse for the effort.

After a few tears and a few minutes, I actually felt fine again. A couple of minutes later, I felt sad again (there go them feelings–rising and falling as is their wont) and went through the process again. Then I was okay. Before Recovery I most likely would have indulged in self-torture and self-pity and felt fairly debilitated all morning and unable to work productively. I much prefer arriving at work cheerful and being able to face whatever the day has in store for me!

How to let go of the angry temper? Yes, I have to drop the judgement against others and myself. And change my mindset to “take the total view.” But for me, it always comes back to endorsing. Yet it is so hard to do (“simple but not easy” as the wise Dr. Low would say)–hard to remember and hard to believe it. But it really is the key to the kingdom, at least for me.

I’ve heard “self-love is the first love”. I’ve also heard that self-love is heretical–even if we don’t think of it that way, it seems that there’s something self-indulgent and wrong about endorsing ourselves. This kind of confusion is wearing. I think that’s why this quote from Vietnamese Buddhist monk “Thich Nhat Hanh” resonated with me when I saw it yesterday:

May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of understanding and love.

Giving ourselves as much respect, understanding and love as we strive to give others is a worthy goal. We can try, fail, try, fail, try again…and ultimately succeed. We need to nourish ourselves with endorsements, much the same way raindrops fill a pond–gently, slowly, persistently.

In Recovery we often talk about doing things in part acts, as well as endorsing for the effort not just the results. For example, most people can get out of bed in the morning without fear–they’re fearless about it; but for some people at some times in their lives, just getting out of bed in the morning is a courageous and endorseable act. In Dr. Low’s words, “The resoluteness of the muscles overcomes the defeatist babble of the brain.” And “Muscles can be commanded to do what one fears to do.”

And although Dr. Low tells us we don’t have to be angels, saints, heroes or martyrs, I don’t think he’d disagree  with Lama Surya Das’s redefinition of heroism in Letting go of the person you used to be.”The greatest heroes are often the quiet men and women who are simply and bravely facing up to the many unexpected losses and difficulties that life has to dish up. . . . All heroes have at least one quality in common: They don’t run away from their fears. Heroes are just as afraid as the rest of us, but they have learned how to confront and walk through their terrors. Quite simply, heroes aren’t afraid of being afraid.”

In Amongst white clouds (a documentary about Zen Buddhist hermits in the mountains of China), a Cantonese nun is a hero of this type. She speaks about hardship and fear in her chosen way of life. “Everything is a trial. You can’t be afraid of hardship. The more the hardship, the more you move forward. There is this physical hardship, but the mental hardship is most important. If you see a demon, demons are your mind demons. It’s not just any demon. You don’t want to grasp hold of it. Don’t fear it, don’t hurt it, just sit and don’t move. Something happens outside. You let go of it, examine yourself. Meditate quietly. Isn’t that how it is?”

In Dr. Low’s words:

• Motionless sitting, commanding the muscles to be still. (Or moving them.)
• Doing the thing you hate and fear to do.
• Recognizing Outer Environment–which we have almost no control over, and Inner Environment, which we can control through our thoughts, muscles and beliefs.
• Self-led, not symptom-led.
• The phrase ‘I’m scared but I am going anyway’ expresses beautifully the very core of Recovery thinking…. Ignoring fears and moving muscles is the essence of courage, will and determination, which means the essence of Recovery thinking.

I’m nowhere near there yet and don’t have any plans to be a hero. My “demons” still get the better of me sometimes. But that’s average. I’ll just keep trying and failing and trying and failing–and endorsing for the effort.