By Lissa Carter, LCMHCS
He sat very quiet and still on the couch, as far from me as his body could go. His face was drawn. In a whisper he said “it’s going to sound so crazy what I am about to say. And it might be hard to hear.”
And then he proceeded to say something so human, so relatable, that I could not keep my head from nodding along. When, after a few moments of silence, his eyes rose and clocked me nodding, his face registered shock.
“You understand what I’m talking about?” he asked.
“As a counselor and as a human: yes. Extremely relatable,” I responded. His shock melted slowly into laughter.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we believe that our behavior, our feelings, our thoughts, hold us apart and unwanted from the greater river of humanity? Why do we so unerringly believe that everyone --except for, specifically, us --was given the manual for life?
Most of us have learned, through trial and error, that trying to control others does not end well. We’ve learned, through relational pain, to attune and connect to those we love, even when we don’t understand why they are behaving the way they are.
(And sometimes we forget, and try to control, and remember why it doesn’t work, and start again. Yes, I’m looking at you, Self.)
Yet relatively few of us seem to turn that knowing back on ourselves. Rather than attune inside, rather than treat ourselves with love and curiosity when we are struggling or unsure, we berate, discipline, and control ourselves. And, slowly, that inner relationship deteriorates until we think of ourselves as little more than a set of actions and products.
Over time, if there is no space between who we are –our innate value as a human being—and the outcomes of our actions and products, something even more dire occurs. Because if I AM my actions and products, then any criticism, any feedback at all, about those actions or their products is intolerable. Because it feels like criticism of my selfhood. So I must defend against feedback in any way possible, must resolutely avoid either feedback itself or any truth it may contain. Which, then, in a terrible spiral, begins to deteriorate my relationship with others.
But what if we were to reverse that spiral?
What if my response to the feedback of someone I love is –once I’ve fed it through my psychological boundary to ensure the feedback is accurate and coming from a trustworthy source—to take in the parts that are true and helpful?
This builds the trust between me and the person I love. Now, through the feeling of attunement with this person, I remember my innate goodness. Rather than punishing myself for having “gotten something wrong”, I can feel compassion for the way in which I continue to try, and for the aspects of myself that were perhaps misunderstood in this encounter.
From here, I begin slowly to build a space between who I am and the roles I play, the actions I perform, the results I get. And I can take refuge in that space when others offer me constructive feedback—refuge enough that I can hear the impact my presence has on others, and allow it to inform and grow me, without feeling personally attacked.
Of course it’s never that graceful, continuous, or easy, but there is such a direct connection between the way we treat ourselves and the way we treat others that no matter which side you start with—the way you talk to yourself or the way you take in the feedback of others—transformation will flow in this circle, self to other, other to self.
And this might—eventually—call me crazy—be the way we stop waging war. On ourselves, on other people, species, countries.
After my client and I had processed a little, I asked him if I could share an impression with him. He consented, and I told him “when I hear you say to me that I might think you are crazy, my impression is that’s not about me. My impression is that somewhere inside, you are saying to yourself ‘this is crazy. I’m crazy.” He nodded. “So—if that’s true—what happens next?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you hear yourself saying ‘I’m crazy’—what happens next?”
“I feel sad, I guess. Or I tell myself something to do—go to the gym usually, something a normal sane person would do.”
“So there’s no response?”
“I don’t get it.”
“When you said to me—I might think you are crazy—I responded. I said ‘that’s very relatable actually.’”
“I see what you mean. Yeah, no, there’s no response. Or the response is “okay, crazy, go the gym and act normal!”
“What if we shoehorn in something between the “I’m crazy” and “go to the gym like a sane person.” What if we put in there something like what I said—a response. Something like “it’s frightening to feel crazy—is there anything you need?” or “I bet a lot of people go through this, is there someone you’d like to talk to?” Something that expresses care and connection.”
“I mean I could, but I don’t think it would help.”
“It might not. But I am noticing that when you came in here, you were sitting way over there and your face looked scared. And now your voice is more relaxed and you’re leaning in and coming up with ideas and conversation. And that happened because there was some connection around this thing that was making you feel crazy. I’m just saying that can be available inside when it’s not available from other people.”
“Interesting.”
If I protect myself no matter what the world throws at me, I’m safe but I’m an island. If I go unprotected out into the world, I can be utterly devastated by what I hear from others. Self-attunement is a little bubble of safety within which we can take refuge, that allows us to be both protected and connected at the same time. It’s a little bit of sanity each of us can create within ourselves. To protect the world from our crazy, and to protect ourselves from the crazy of the world.
Deep gratitude to my client who gave me permission to share their story—details have been changed to protect their privacy. And thank you to brilliant behavior analyst Shannon Fee for sharpening my thinking on this topic.
