Dolphins!

            My Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills mentor Charles Holton introduced me to a sneaky deep tool I use daily. He wrote on a white board the words ‘dolphins!’ and ‘rhinoceros.’ He drew circles around each, a line through ‘rhinoceros’, and then an arrow pointing at ‘dolphins!’ He said, “It’s easier to think about dolphins than to not think about rhinoceroses.” (He contends that it was polar bears and dolphins, and I remember it differently. Ah, human memory…)

            The idea here is that it’s easier to direct one’s brain toward something than away from something. When I get caught in a cul-de-sac of thinking and notice it feels yucky or stuck or I need a break, I use ‘dolphins’ as a trigger, especially in my journaling, to remind myself to return to something positive.

            A common phrase when I go off on uncomfortable tangents is: ‘circling back, this time with more dolphins…’ Other variants: ‘dolphinology,’ ‘so, how about those dolphins?’ ‘how can I dolphin this?’ Sometimes I’ll imagine, and describe in detail, swimming with dolphins.

            Some metaphors and symbols really work well for me, especially the more I like and use them. This is one of the ways I can consciously develop/program positive triggers, like a song that might lift my mood, or that I listen to when I do a compassion meditation (see my post on compassion for a description of the ‘tonglen’ practice I use) to help prompt the feeling. Everyone is different, so substitute whatever positive thing you find it easy and desirable to visualize or thing about for ‘dolphin’ and give it a whirl. Brain hacking!

            Sometimes it can be hard to ‘dolphin’ myself out of something pervasively negative, particularly if it’s a problem that really needs validation and action to address it, rather than being ignored. Approaching it from a more ‘where can I find the dolphins in this situation?’ can be useful, or at least provide some needed respite.

            This is one of the ways I look for to make things easier, to introduce more positivity even into the really distressing tasks and places in life. Not to take away from the seriousness of the situation or invalidate my pain, but to make it easier on myself and get through it. It’s helpful for me to have a choice when I get stuck in a moment, a feeling, a thought, that sucks, and fighting it just makes it worse.

            Here’s a live dolphin webcam! (Live feed may be down periodically, so here’s some older footage.)

Ways to Always Have the Support You Want

            A concept emerged from self-exploration and journaling that I later found mirrored by ideas in Barbara Sher’s ‘I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was’ and a website I’m frustratingly unable to find again that gave advice to survivors of child abuse. It’s been so enormously beneficial to me I want to share.

            I want supportive people in my life. I think that’s pretty universal. However, other people have their own lives and concerns and stuff and can’t always be there for us, and even when they are they may not say what we need to hear (or listen as much as we need) or provide the support for which we long.

            I, like many, find inspiration and encouragement in quotes from famous people, and in the creative work and behind-the-scenes sharing of artists who inspire me—television, movies, music, art of all kinds. In my imagination I found I could extrapolate on what I knew about these people, what I liked best, what words they had said, and envision characters based on them, sitting with me in my distress. I could clearly imagine what they looked like (like Jim Henson’s awesome sweaters), their expressions (like Audrey Hepburn’s winsome smile), and most especially what they would say to me.

            This for me was a good way of finding out what I wanted to hear, what the support I craved looked and felt like—not only that, but giving it to myself. Once I realized this I started listing the people that I would like to imagine supporting me, that seemed to offer me the best comfort and advice. I look at this as a way of tapping into that place in my imagination and subconscious that knows what I need, and giving it to myself.

            Even if your imagination has been repressed, as mine was and many others as well, I truly believe there are ways that most everyone who wants to can create within themselves the support of the people they find most inspirational.

            Here are some of the ways I find and give myself exactly the support I want—whenever I want it, and particularly when I need it most. They’re incremental, but each also can be used independently.

Collecting Quotes and Putting them Up Everywhere

            This is a pretty common idea and practice. It’s also a really good way to figure out who it is you want in your corner, and familiarize yourself with their ‘voices’—what words they say, how those words ‘sound’ in your head, what you see in your mind when you sit with those words.

            I have a list of my favorite short motivational phrases, but also longer quotes taped up where I’ll see them every day, and a document of quotes I collect whenever I spot one I like.

Collecting the Work of Inspirational People

            Books, movies, television, music, interviews, audiobooks, pictures, sculptures, poetry—go to town collecting the stuff that lifts you when you feel down. Make playlists. Set aside a shelf in your library for your favorite books, underline or highlight passages and turn down corners (or mark passages in your favorite e-reader; I often export highlighted Kindle passages using Bookcision), bookmark the best bits. Make a section of DVDs you watch when you’re blue, or when you have what Holly Golightly in the movie ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ refers to as the ‘Mean Reds’:

            “Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling? Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany’s. Calms me down right away.”

Making Self-Comfort a Daily Practice

            This is one of the hardest parts for me. Sometimes cultural, financial, health, life, work, or family pressures mean we don’t prioritize or take seriously making ourselves feel better. It’s all about working, and serving others’ needs, and doing things necessary to keep our lives going and all the plates spinning.

            It takes determination and practice to overcome the sense that if you’re taking time out for yourself you’re being lazy, unproductive, or selfish. Yet it’s so important to take care of yourself in order to be productive, active, and be able to give to others. You are the only you there is, and it’s your job to take care of you for the good of yourself, your life, and everyone you encounter.

            I still struggle with remembering to use things that I’ve found that help me every day. I make and protect time in my daily routine for it. As much as eating, drinking water, showering, and sleeping, it’s part of self-care that is essential to being healthy. Like those other basic self-care things, the easiest way to make it a habit is to make practice a part of your daily routine.

            You have your collection—use it. Suggestions: have music you like when you’re getting ready in the morning or on hand in the car or at work, have pictures and quotes of your favorite people up in your workspace and on your computer, watch or read favorite quotes or poems or passages every day. Find the best time and things that work for you. You’ll know you’ve got it right when it feels good and you want to do it, rather than getting that ‘eat your vegetables, it’s good for you’ feeling.

            Doing this not only gives me daily doses or inoculations of positivity to offset the world’s negativity, it also ingrains favorite people and kinds of inspiration I like in me. It helps me notice and seek out more. It helps feed my imagination and build my capacity to extrapolate from what I know, and create new phrases and words tailored to specific times of distress.

Having Imaginary Conversations

            Barbara Sher refers to the people one looks up to and is inspired and influence by as a ‘cheerleading squad.’ I call them an ‘Imaginary Family.’

            After saturating my life with my favorite words and inspiring people, I would imagine and often write down in my journal conversations between myself and what I imagined the other person would say. Having put in all those hours watching and listening to and reading what I love—a positively reinforcing experience—I could begin to create my own imaginings based on what I knew about the people who inspired me.

            It wasn’t easy at first. I was self-conscious, and it took a while to learn to tap into those voices and practice imagining them more and more. It also felt wrong, selfish, and like a violation of these other people. I’ll share what I’ve come to think and feel to help me cope with that.

            First, I hold strongly to belief and knowing that the people I imagine are characters and figments of my own imagination. This not only keeps me from mixing up reality and fantasy and creating unrealistic expectations about the real people these characters are based on, it reminds me that everything I’m imagining these people saying to me is something within me, some part of my subconscious that knows how to take care of me. This doesn’t diminish the value of the imaginary play for me. It helps me feel safer from losing touch with reality and more confident and aware of my own capacity to support and encourage.

            Practicing this not only makes me more effective at taking care of me, but also gives me access to that source of comforting and soothing to share with another person. If I have these words of support and affirmation and encouragement in me to give to myself, and I practice that, I can call on them to support and encourage and affirm others.

            Second, and equally important, I resist the temptation to share these things with anyone else, especially any living persons I am imagining. Again it’s important for me to remember that although I am inspired continually by these people, that is all I am getting from them—inspiration, and what words they’ve actually said. I give them credit for that, and I am very thankful to them, but I remember that everything else is something I am giving myself, and it’s important to recognize and give myself credit for the words I am imagining and creating. It helps me build up belief in myself. It also helps me remember that I always carry around these ‘people’ I imagine with me.

            The more I play with and practice this, the more accessible this place of self-comfort becomes for me. In the BBC series ‘Sherlock,’ they refer to and show Sherlock Holmes’s ‘mind palace,’ a space in his imagination to organize and access what he knows to work. I sometimes imagine not just the people who comfort me but actual places—the imagination is unlimited in what places and characters and  things one can create.

            It’s important for me to practice imagining first when I’m just a little distressed or down, for the little things. It builds up my imagination muscles—think of it like starting out with little weights before moving on to bigger ones. This makes it easier to try draw on my positive imagination when I’m really freaked out.

            Sometimes my thoughts are spinning so fast I can’t possibly use my imagination for anything but terrible fears of apocalyptic destruction and failure and shame. Recently I’ve found something really special to deal with the most distressing times in life.

Making Tangible Representations of What I’ve Imagined

            This is what I do to prepare for those times when things are just so bad, or busy, that I can’t sit down and imagine my cheerleading squad, my imaginary family. This way I can still draw on them in the times when I need them most!

            First I made collages of my favorite pictures of them, sometimes with quotes and words woven in. Collages are something I like to do. You can draw on whatever creative talents and skills you have to put together something you can look at that don’t require much imagination work.

            I started working recently with self-hypnosis, under the guidance of my therapist. I’m drawing on everything I know about hypnosis, trance, the power of story to subliminally suggest and aid learning and retention, narrative therapy, DBT, positive psychology, behavior change, the principles of implanting and reinforcing ideas (which can be used negatively in brainwashing and mind control but also positively to overcome the results of such abuse), and what I know about myself and what words and mediums are most effective to me. I record scripts for me to listen to, paired with music that puts me in the right state of mind—soothing, gentle, invigorating, inspiring, whatever is called for by the subject of the script.

            I write them in a kind of open verse poetry form to have the freedom to switch between prose and powerful words. I interweave phrases and quotes that are inspiring to me. Some of the scripts are just audio collages of my favorite inspiring quotes, or short stories and zen koans that encourage and inspire me.

            The final ingredient for these audio tracks is the piece de resistance. I’ve enjoyed editing audio digitally for eighteen years as a hobby. The first things I recorded and collected were sound bites from movies that lifted my heart.

            Because I’ve so often turned to these things for comfort I could easily call to mind words I’d love to hear over and over again. Using Audio Hijack Pro and audio editing software Audacity I captured and edited down just what I wanted from online videos and DVDs and MP3s, and pieced them together into sound collages, tracked over music. I can sprinkle the voices of the people who inspire me most in with whatever hypnotic tracks I make, or build tracks entirely out of words of encouragement and support in the voices I’ve come to associate with those things.

            I can even cut apart phrases and words to create things that these people haven’t said all at one time, but that I have imagined my characters based on them saying, and written down, that I find most effective in self-soothing. ‘I love you exactly as you are, no matter what,’ is a favorite of mine, and ‘How can we make it easier?’ helps remind me to use my creativity and knowledge to do that.

            It sounds weird, but think on this: How many times have we had something specific we wanted someone to say to us? And we know we can’t force someone to say that particular thing, or to say what we know we want to hear exactly how and when we want to hear it. In a lot of ways it’s not fair of me to expect or demand that of others. If I know what I want to that specific degree, why don’t I find a way to give it to myself?

            That’s what I’ve done. It may sound weird, selfish, even a little creepy to mess around with the voices of people we don’t know. But it’s not for them or for anyone else, it’s just for you.

…And the Benefits Keep on Growing

            By giving myself these things I’m no longer solely dependent on others for emotional support and encouragement. I’m no longer making unreasonable demands of them or having unreasonable expectations. When I can soothe and comfort myself, I can be more effective and calm. I’m less afraid and needy or clingy when it comes to other people when I draw on what I’ve created to take care of me.

            I also found out a lot about what I want and what it feels like for me to be comforted and supported. I can recognize a lot more readily when I find those things in others, and when I don’t. This means I spend less time and energy on relationships that aren’t healthy for me or the other person. I’m naturally more drawn to invest time and energy in people with whom I get the feelings I get from my inner support system.

            When I know what I want it’s easier to go after it, to give it to myself, and to find others who find value in what I have to give as well. With all this practice, I’m getting good at knowing what I have to give, and giving it—whether to myself or someone else.

Hula Hooping and Mindfulness

What is mindfulness? What does it feel like? How do you do it? And why?

I’d heard about mindfulness, but had not had the experience. I didn’t know what it felt like. Reality was so painful I consistently dissociated from my body and the present. Having nothing to compare it to I wasn’t even aware of this. It was as though my life and myself were a dilapidated, scary, dangerous house, and every time I got close to going into that house, it felt so awful I couldn’t bear it. Mindfulness meditation was the antithesis of peace for me. Trying it was exposing myself to a reality I was doing everything I could to escape.

I was not consciously aware of this. I felt I was searching for something that felt good, that would last, that I would keep coming back to, whose magic would not fade or run out. I wanted to feel better.

Hula hooping made me feel better. Not only that, but it gave me the experience of mindfulness independent of a need for faith or belief—secular, flexible, warm, inviting, and not requiring anything of me but to show up and pick up the hoop. It made mindfulness fun. It made being present and aware enjoyable.

It turned out the trick to inviting myself back into a burglarized, vandalized, falling-down house meant making a place that was inviting, irresistible, enjoyable. Inviting myself back into my body meant creating a space where it felt good to be in my body, rather than being hit with total retraumatizing awareness. Inviting myself back into the present meant making a moment where it felt good to be.

I imagine you can relate to being in a situation, or a time in your life, where awareness of what’s really going on is painful and it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to change it. As a protective measure we may become mindless, use various defense mechanisms to escape, deny, or numb to reality. Denial. Obsessing over the past or the future. Compulsive or addictive behaviors or relationships. Constantly seeking stimulation.

Without awareness it can be difficult to address painful situations effectively, through radical acceptance or change or both. Mindfulness is a powerful tool, but what if you have a life or situation where being aware and present is intolerable?

Mindfulness doesn’t have to be a chore. In fact, if I wanted to positively reinforce the practice and build the skills to the point where I could begin to practice them even when it was difficult and painful, it had to be fun.

I hooped and kept hooping because I enjoyed it. The more present and aware I became, the more I found I could do. Having a ‘flow’ practice one enjoys like this, whether it be anything from artistic expression to washing dishes, makes mindfulness rewarding to practice. The more you practice, the better you will get at it. Whatever you feed will grow.

When I started learning the mindfulness-based skills of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy was when I realized how much I already knew. A lot of skills used in DBT are ones I first learned in the hoop. Gently returning my attention to my focus was necessary to keep trying after the frustration of dropping the hoop. Focusing on my goal of feeling better kept me persevering even when sometimes I wasn’t quite there. Being one-mindful kept me from distractions that tripped me up. In hooping I could accumulate positives, build mastery, and radically accept reality.

Learning these things didn’t have to be arduous. There were so many tangible rewards to practicing these skills in doing something I loved that I didn’t have to convince myself to use the skills. That for me has been the real trick to learning—positively reinforcing through rewards and enjoyment along the way, rather than hoping that in the end the payoff will be enough. Rewards are a mindfulness skill, too. Making the learning itself fun encourages me to keep doing it.

Do what you love, and your mind will follow.

Compassion

Self-Compassion as Shame Resilience

“Self-compassion is key because when we’re able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we’re more likely to reach out, connect, and experience empathy.” — Brené Brown, ‘Daring Greatly’

Shame is painful and visceral. We go to great lengths to avoid and defend against experiences of shame. Often we put on masks and avoid being honest and authentic out of shame. This can set up an endless cycle of not feeling good enough, and judging others.

In ‘Daring Greatly’ Brené Brown talks about cultivating experiences of empathy with others as a balm to answer shame. However, that requires the participation of someone who can engage empathetically, and with people run rampant with unaddressed shame of their own, it’s a rare thing to find. Also, while empathy requires two participants, shame does not:

“Shame started as a two-person experience, but as I got older I learned how to do shame all by myself.” —Robert Hilliker

Compassion is something we can practice on our own—and I’ll describe how I do it in the next two sections. The great thing is that building compassion with ourselves and with others are linked. The more compassion I feel for me, the more I can feel for others. Like mindfulness, it’s not a state that once achieved is just there, always, absolute. Compassion is a skill, and there are many ways to practice it.

“In her new book, Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, [Dr. Kristen Neff] defines each of these elements:

• Self-kindness: Being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.
• Common humanity: Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience—something we all go through rather than something that happens to “me” alone.
• Mindfulness: Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness requires that we not “overidentify” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.”

 —Brené Brown’s summation from ‘Daring Greatly’

Using ‘Tonglen’ for Compassion Practice

“In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.” —Pema Chödrön

The exercise of tonglen was described to me this way:

• Settle first with breathing mindfulness
• Identify stuck thoughts or emotions
• Breathe in the emotions or thoughts gently
• Be with it as fierce protector
• Allow it to be present
• Watch the urge to push it away
• Remember that all emotions are transient and will pass
• Hold open the possibility of change
• Breathe out compassion or other opposite emotion, for:
• Yourself
• A benefactor
• A loved one
• An acquaintance
• A stranger
• An estranged one
• Settle back to basic mindfulness of breathing before finishing your practice

Breathing in the stuck emotion, validating and welcoming it fully into your consciousness, is not something we tend to do. We push away, we numb, we reject. As I mentioned in my post on validation, this can make those feelings more intense. Breathing in what hurts and what’s stuck is somewhat counterintuitive and can be quite difficult, and can be done to degrees. The important part is breathing in what you don’t want, and breathing out what you do.

“Tonglen practice is a radical departure from our usual way of going about things. It may seem threatening, and even crazy; but it strikes at a very core point—how we barricade ourselves from pain and lose our connection with one another. The irony is that the barricades we create do not help all that much; they just make things worse. We end up more fearful, less willing to extend ourselves, and stunted in our ability to express any true kindness. Tonglen pokes holes in those barricades that we create.” —Judy Lief, ‘Making Friends with Death’

What does compassion feel like? How can we practice something if we rarely experience it?

Shame was so prevalent in my life I thought I had no understanding or experience of compassion. But I did—my dog. We shared an unconditional bond. Sometimes I might be upset with her behaviors, if she peed on the floor, but I still loved her very much.

When I started practicing tonglen, that was my out-breath visual—sitting with and petting my dog, looking into her eyes. I could easily call that image to mind. It felt good to think about, which positively reinforced and strengthened that feeling. I was practicing compassion and learning what it felt like.

Even if you are not a dog person, chances are you have an experience of compassion, somewhere in your life, even if only a brief memory you can call upon. The more you call it up, and the more pleasurable it is, the easier to draw on it becomes.

Someone We Care About

 “To claim the truths about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, and the very imperfect nature of our lives, we have to be willing to give ourselves a break and appreciate the beauty of our cracks or imperfections. To be kinder and gentler with ourselves and each other. To talk to ourselves the same way we’d talk to someone we care about.” —Brené Brown, ‘Daring Greatly’

In my Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills class I received a non-judgment worksheet, to help challenge judgmental thinking. The last question is, “If this happened to a friend, what would you say to him/her?”

We’re good at imagining other people who are important to us, pre-visualizing conversations to others, imagining what we might say to them and what they might say to us. I take the practice one step further. I imagine what others would say to me.

In Barbara Sher’s book ‘I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was,’ she describes an exercise for self-cheerleading that involves imagining all your heroes and idols around you, encouraging you. Perhaps famous people or mentors or family members whose words and deeds have inspired you. The goal of the exercise, and one of the goals of this book, was to self-encourage to dare greatly, to be vulnerable and take risks.

Having cultivated this imaginary cheerleading team for myself, it was easy to expand that practice to the comforting words I wanted to hear when I felt shame, when I felt pressured to do or be something.

By imagining in tonglen that I am being held by someone who encourages and accepts me unconditionally, imaginary though they be, I am practicing self-compassion. I have gone from only being able to imagine compassion for others to being able to imagine both giving and receiving at the same time.

I’ve also developed positive triggers by diligently practicing tonglen, even for a few moments, whenever I hear a certain audio cue with which I’ve saturated my playlists, CDs, and life. I have gotten into the habit of practicing tonglen when I am journaling through tough emotions and thoughts, as often as it occurs to me, usually at the end of a really rough thought or writing. I highly recommend the process of associating certain cues with positive practices of which you wish to make a habit. Pavlov yourself.

The more I practice, the easier it gets. I still experience shame often, but I am building resilience through compassion.

Sources and further reading:

• ‘Daring Greatly’ by Brené Brown
• ‘Self-Compassion’ by Kristen Neff
• ‘Tonglen’ by Pema Chodron
• ‘Making Friends with Death’ by Judy Lief
• ‘I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was’ by Barbara Sher with Barbara Smith
• Non-judgmentally (DBT Self Help)
• ‘The Power of Vulnerability’ TED Talk by Brené Brown