Toxic Striving, page 13
This guilt is different from the guilt that indicates you’ve behaved in a way that doesn’t align with your values. As someone who values kindness, I feel guilty when I participate in gossip. In that scenario, guilt is actually an important messenger, showing up to discourage me from future gossipy behavior.
So how can you tell whether guilt—or any other emotion—is delivering an important message, or whether it’s just a reflection of your conditioning? You may have to do some light detective work. Consider the context in which the guilt is showing up, and then reflect on the values you identified in chapter 5. If you were behaving in a way that aligned with the type of person you wish to be, and you still felt guilty, perhaps that guilt reflects your conditioning. If this is the case, it can be helpful to name what’s going on (I’m feeling guilty because I chose not to succumb to the pressures and expectations I’m facing) and then offer yourself some compassion (Everyone feels this way sometimes! I’m only human, and humans feel icky sometimes. I know this hard feeling will pass eventually, and I will survive it.). With practice, that conditioned flavor of guilt may become a bit easier to handle, even if it continues to pop up.
Defensive reactions are also emotional messengers that can be difficult to interpret. Typically, we feel defensive when someone or something hits on an insecurity, or presses the bruises of past hurts or traumas. My client Mary really wanted a boyfriend. All her friends were in serious long-term relationships, and she felt envious. Over the phone, Mary’s cousin asked her whether she had plans that weekend, and Mary’s instant reaction was one of feeling judged. She snapped at her cousin, “Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I never have plans!” Her cousin was flustered. She only wanted to see if Mary was available to have dinner. Yet because her cousin was married, and Mary was sensitive about her relationship status, she interpreted the innocent question as judgment laden. She treated her automatic feeling of insecurity as a messenger, bringing her the message that her cousin was judging her.
If she paused and considered the larger context of the situation, she would recognize that her cousin has never said or done anything to indicate she judges Mary for being single. It was Mary’s own inner critic, plus her cultural conditioning, that made her feel embarrassed by her relationship status. Taking a pause and regulating herself in the face of emotional reactivity and defensiveness would have allowed her to more clearly discern what that emotion was about, and to choose with intention how she wished to respond in that specific situation, with that specific person.
We all feel defensive sometimes. In these situations, your emotion seems like it’s cluing you into one thing, but really it’s an indication of something else. As you practice listening to your emotions and getting clear on what they’re telling you, it’s important to take your time. If you’re unsure what the emotion is communicating, or if it seems disproportionate or unrelated to the situation that elicited it, let it be. If there is truly a meaningful message underneath, it will present itself in due time.
There’s one last thing to remember about emotions: sometimes they mean absolutely nothing! Your emotions can be influenced by life events, hormone levels, time of day, and any number of other biological, psychological, social, and environmental factors that you might not always be able to consciously pinpoint. Given their complexity, sometimes emotions will pop up that simply make no sense. You might just feel grumpy or irritable, even though the sun is shining, you’re on vacation, you’re well rested, fed, and have no clear reason to feel cranky. It happens! If you’re not sure why a feeling is showing up, it’s possible that there is no meaningful reason for it at all. If you leave it alone, you’ll get through it much more easily than if you try to force a reason for it.
In her groundbreaking TED Talk The Power of Vulnerability (2010), Brené Brown reminded us that “we cannot selectively numb.” It may be automatic for us to try to drown out unwanted emotions, but in doing so we also erode our ability to experience life’s more enjoyable moments. Or, as the saying goes among ACT practitioners, we get so focused on feeling good that we forget how to feel good.
Being “good at feeling” means being able to notice what’s there when it arises, without getting caught up in it. You notice what’s happening in your body, and practice self-regulation if you’re struggling to tolerate the feeling. Then, you can treat the feeling like a visiting guest. Greet it, and get curious about whether the guest is there to deliver a message. If the message isn’t immediately clear, it’s possible that it will present itself over time, or maybe there simply isn’t a message accompanying this visitor. Regardless, you can rest assured that no matter how intense or overwhelming an emotional “guest” might be, it will always depart eventually.
If you’re ever unsure how to handle an emotion or set of emotions, look to your values for guidance. Do your values tell you to ignore or suppress emotions until they leak out through passive-aggressive behavior? Do they tell you to silence yourself in order to please or accommodate others, even if you’re secretly miserable as a result? Do they tell you to express your feelings in a way that hurts others, through hostility or aggression? You don’t get to choose your emotions, but you do get to choose how you respond to them.
For those who value authenticity, self-silencing may not be the values-aligned way to respond to emotions because it would mean being fake. For those who value curiosity or self-awareness, numbing feelings would not be values aligned because it would prevent you from gaining the knowledge those feelings provide. For those who value kindness, lashing out at others would not be values aligned because you would be treating them cruelly. For those who value connection, pretending everything is fine when your feelings are hurt would not be values aligned because being dishonest about your feelings would foster distance, not closeness, in the relationship. As you practice regulating yourself when feelings arise, you’ll find that you can gain more from their messages and respond in ways that make you proud of yourself.
Your emotional world can provide wisdom about what you care about and what you need. When you tune in, you can use that wisdom meaningfully. Wellness and hustle cultures will tell you that some feelings are unacceptable and that you must silence yourself to preserve a certain image. Yet you can learn to stay rooted in your values and behave authentically even in the face of these pressures. Intuition is the ability to innately understand something without having to overanalyze. As you work on trusting your body, mind, and emotions to give you the information you need, you can begin to connect with the intuition that lives within you.
In the next section of this book, you’ll learn to integrate sources of information from your mind, body, and context in order to live from a place of intuition. You’ll prepare for potential challenges, whether from your own inner critic or from the outside world. Your intuition is like a compass, guiding you along your life’s path. As you go, there will always be creatures that pop up to try to break your compass, or shake it up so that it’s harder for you to read. Sometimes the creatures will come from your own mind, and other times they will come from the outside world. Our goal is to strengthen your inner compass, so that nothing can destroy it.
Part 3:
Your Unbreakable Inner Compass
Chapter 10.
Guided by Your Gut
Allie could hear her team members breaking down the latest episode of The Bachelor from down the hall. When she walked into the conference room, their animated chatter quieted. The truth was that Allie was also a Bachelor fan, but she never participated in these conversations. She believed that as their manager, she had to keep everyone focused, and if she let the conversation get too off topic her team wouldn’t take her seriously. She felt pressure to present herself as confident and put-together. Meanwhile, her team members experienced her as cold and uptight. They got nervous when she put a meeting on their calendar, never knowing if she was going to point out a mistake with her matter-of-fact attitude. Allie’s boss reinforced her leadership style, frequently reminding her that she needed to command respect from her team. She wasn’t there to make friends, after all. Still, most days, Allie felt like she was acting—playing the part of a boss and tricking her staff into viewing her as an authority figure.
One morning, on her way into the building, a member of Allie’s staff overheard her on the phone with a friend, cracking jokes about one of the Bachelor contestants. As they got on the elevator, the staffer said, “I didn’t know you watched!” For a moment, Allie froze, worrying that she shouldn’t be too friendly, but then she figured there was no harm in showing her personality. It was clear the young associate was eager to connect about their shared interest. They chatted about reality TV for a bit, then naturally segued into talking about some upcoming work projects. Outside of work, she was naturally bubbly and goofy, but after her promotion, she thought she had to keep that side of herself buttoned up. From that one interaction though, her corporate mask slipped off, and she could feel her whole body relax.
Allie realized that maybe the style of leadership that worked for her superiors wasn’t authentic for her. She began to let her sense of humor come out with her team, and their responses surprised her. Instead of clamming up when she entered the room, they looked forward to her arrival. She took an interest in their lives, and in response, they felt like they could trust her and come to her for support.
Her anxiety about being respected began to ease. She discovered that if the conversation got off track, she could nudge everyone gently back to the task at hand, instead of coming down harshly in a way that never really vibed for her. By being herself and showing her humanity, she was still doing her job, but she was doing it authentically. Instead of playing the part of what she thought a boss was supposed to be, she was being the boss that only she could be. She was bringing her unique brand of enthusiasm, encouragement, and humor. Allie began leading from her intuition—trusting her knowledge and experience, considering the type of mentor she wanted to be, and listening to her body and emotions to guide her decision-making processes each day.
A few months into Allie’s more authentic leadership style, she arrived one morning to find that Jose, the associate who was supposed to pitch to a big client, was nowhere to be found. She called his phone and he didn’t answer. Something in her gut told her there was a problem. Instead of texting him a frantic “You’re late—where are you?!” like she would have in the past, she texted, “Is everything okay?” and then asked another associate to prepare to take over the pitch.
When she finally heard from Jose an hour later, she answered him with genuine relief. Sure enough, her gut had been correct. Jose’s mom had a heart attack that morning and he had rushed with her to the emergency room. The old Allie would have been so fixated on being the boss that she would have jumped to conclusions. When she saw Jose was missing on a big day, she would’ve called him to angrily demand an explanation. Instead, from this new authentic place, she was able to listen to her gut. It was unlike Jose to run late without communicating. She instinctively integrated knowledge about the situation and context, her inner thoughts and feelings, and her values of kindness and respect, to decide how to behave in the heat of the moment.
When you’re operating from a place of authenticity, you have this same ability to instinctively use information from your mind, body, and the situational context to decide how to behave. You have the capacity to think critically—not only about the messages swirling in the culture around you, but also about the messages being sent from your own mind and body. You also have an awareness of your true values, and an understanding of how those values can guide you in your daily life. The rest of this book will help you integrate all these sources of information so that they come together in a cohesive and helpful way. When you’re connected to your mind, body, emotions, and personal values, you hone that deeper gut sense—your intuition. Living from your intuition is like having an inner compass that guides you, sometimes in the span of a single instant, to just know where to go or what to do.
The outside world tries to sell you a replacement for intuition. The ideals of wellness and hustle cultures seem like they provide a clear evaluation of whether you’re doing it “right.” Eat this, not that. Do this amount of exercise. Take these supplements, use this bullet journal. Doing these things can feel like you’re doing something right. Measurements like grades, performance reports, and billable hours can provide a false sense of comfort. If you’re ever unsure what to do, you can always turn to the outside world. Someone out there will be happy to tell you what to do, insisting there is a correct choice. These cultural forces are so powerful (and that hit of dopamine you get from receiving approval is so alluring) that you might come to believe that other people know better than you about what you need.
Conversely, if you’re not guided by those rules and mandates, everyday decision making can feel daunting. We face countless decisions every day that don’t have an objective right or wrong answer. How do you know whether to break up with the person you’re dating, or move to a new city, or stay at your current job? These aren’t decisions anyone else can make for you. If you surveyed a hundred people you would likely get a hundred different answers—and all might be right for someone. Yet the only person who knows the right answer for you, in your unique life and situation, is you. Now that you have a clearer sense of your own values, it might be time to focus less on whether you’re doing things right, and more on whether you’re doing things in a way that’s right for you. Shifting from the pursuit of “right” to the pursuit of “authentic” comes from listening to your gut.
Of course, even if you’re in the habit of making decisions based on intuition, you still won’t have complete freedom over the direction of your life. While everyone deserves autonomy, many decisions are taken away from people due to systemic inequalities and circumstances beyond individual control. Opportunities aren’t available to everyone equally. Still, even in situations where your choices are extremely limited, you have control over your own behavior. You don’t choose what happens to you, but you do choose how to respond. Every day, you face decisions of varying significance, whether you’re figuring out when to seek medical care for a symptom, when to say “I love you” for the first time, how to recover after making a mistake, or how to handle hurt feelings. You may not consciously or logically know what to do in these moments, but deep down in your gut, the answer awaits. You can’t think your way to it or force it out; you have to open up, give it time, and trust it to arrive.
For years, my incredibly patient therapist tried to connect me to my gut. I’d sit on her couch agonizing over decisions big and small, weighing pros and cons of every possible move I could make. I’d fixate on how others would react to my choices, or what I felt like I “should” do, and wallow in despair. I insisted that I didn’t know what to do. “Yes, you do. Drop down into your body,” she’d say. I’d close my eyes and try to check my gut, but it felt impossible. Then I’d get frustrated and repeat the cycle: fixate, agonize, beat myself up for not figuring it out. “Give it time,” she’d say. “You’ll know the answer when there is one.” Finally, I had an experience where it all clicked: when my intuition told me I had found the person who would become my partner.
I met Jeremy when I was nineteen and he was twenty-two, working as camp counselors one summer. When summer ended and we went our separate ways, he wanted to pursue a long-distance relationship, but I put him in the friend zone. He was so nice, so consistent, and the unhealed part of me didn’t know how to handle his stability. Over the course of the next decade, I had a string of relationships with people who charmed and excited me but were ultimately emotionally unavailable. Eventually, with the help of that same gut-guiding therapist, I learned that I needed a partner who was secure and consistent. I set off to meet someone who wouldn’t get skittish when I cried or act annoyed when I expressed myself, who made me feel genuinely respected. It didn’t occur to me that I had already met someone who did exactly that.
One night in my late twenties, I was at home listening to music and stretching on my yoga mat. A song came on that reminded me of that summer at camp, and I began to reminisce. Jeremy’s face popped into my head for the first time in a few years. I thought, I wonder how he’s doing these days, and sent him a text.
The next day we got on the phone and before we knew it, we’d been talking for hours. We decided he would fly to town to visit me the following weekend. I was nervous, but as soon as I saw him, I felt a sense of calm. We spent the weekend catching up. I was surprised to discover that the self-consciousness I usually felt while dating was absent. Something in my gut said, This is right. There was no intense burst of fireworks, but there also wasn’t a “will we, won’t we” tug-of-war in my brain. There was a calm little gut feeling telling me to go forward, and that quiet confidence grew stronger each time we saw each other.
You may be able to recall moments similar to this one, where you just instinctively knew something was right or something needed to be done. It could be that you knew when it was time to end a relationship, put an offer on a house, or look for a new job. You might be able to tell when your child is getting sick, or when it’s time to say good-bye to a pet. On a smaller scale, it comes in the form of knowing what to have for dinner that will leave you feeling exactly as satisfied as you want, or when a friend could use a little pick-me-up. Intuition doesn’t come from the outside world, but it also doesn’t operate in a vacuum. You might learn things from the people around you or gather context clues, and still that gut instinct comes from within. Sometimes it can even feel like a spiritual signal, a deep sense of knowing.
