by Nancy Jonker
Yet, when I asked Caroline what she would look for in choosing a person to mentor and bring into leadership roles, she was clear that she would not be as put off by someone else’s weakness as she is by her own. In fact, she would see this as an opportunity to help a younger professional and an opportunity to make a real impact.
We tend to be hard on ourselves with regard to our weaknesses. To us, they are like neon signs telling the world about our insecurities and flaws. Yet maybe the biggest weakness of all is not having the courage to face ourselves and the fact that we are not perfect and never can be. The quest for perfection is really about trying to avoid pain.
Strength without weakness hardly allows us to be our authentic selves. We cannot be transparent while we are hiding. We cannot fully own our power when we’re afraid of what people might see.
We will talk more about this in Chapter 8, but owning and emphasizing our strengths does not mean disowning our weaknesses or vulnerabilities. It means making peace with our imperfections, doing what we can to grow while coming face to face with our fears of being rejected.
When we can face these fears, we can stop trying to protect our image, and we can run with our strengths, which in turn will increase the quality of our relationships, our emotional functioning, our personal energy, and our capacity for taking risks. We’ll talk about how exactly to discover and expand into our strengths when we review the POWER formula.
—Journal Junction: Strength and Vulnerability—
Explore your attitude about strength and vulnerability. In your workbook or journal, take 5–10 minutes to describe a situation in which you did or did not show your vulnerability and the results of that. Write about the role of weakness in your quest to be strong. In what relationships and situations do you have the best and worst balance?
Belief #5: Self-Compassion Is Self-Indulgent.
In my clinical practice, I often raise the idea of self-compassion. There has been a surge of research on this topic by Kristin Neff and others, and it proves to be profoundly helpful.
Yet you should see the looks and the eye rolls when I first bring it up! Back to this idea about being strong and vulnerable—compassion aimed at the self has a connotation of being hopelessly soft and self-indulgent. We fear that compassion toward ourselves will make us into couch potatoes. We fear that without the criticism we pour on, we’ll be aimless, lazy, and ineffective.
—Journal Junction: On Self-Compassion—
For now, just notice and take a few minutes to write about your attitudes toward self-compassion. Use one of these sentence starters:
If I were more compassionate with myself, I might . . .
If I treated myself more like I treat a friend, I might . . .
Add ten or so endings to the one you choose and see what your subconscious has to tell you. Try to expand your thinking, so you see not only how compassion toward yourself might seem counterproductive for you but also how it might help you. You’ll find this Journal Junction conveniently laid out in the workbook for your exploration of the positive side of self-compassion.
We will be talking in greater detail about self-compassion in later chapters, exploring how it differs from self-esteem and what’s involved in the practice of extending compassion toward ourselves. We’ll take a look at what the research has to say about self-compassion too—because it’s clearly not self-indulgent!
Plus Two More
In addition to these five widely held beliefs that can seriously hamper our development of personal power are two other beliefs shared among some of us. These may not be as widely held as the others, but they need to be included because the repercussions from them are so destructive. These beliefs are “I Can’t Trust What I Know” and “I’m the Problem.”
Belief #6: I Can’t Trust What I Know.
How do we know what we know? And how do we come to trust it? How many of us were actually taught to seek out and value our ideas, feelings, and beliefs? How many of us were told, when we said we were cold, hot, or hurting, that we could not be—because it was not cold, hot, or there was no reason for hurting? Without ever being told directly to mistrust ourselves, we got the message to mistrust ourselves, what our bodies were telling us, and what our inner voice was telling us.
Mistrusting ourselves leads to devaluing ourselves. It also impacts our sense of reality. Afterall, if you’re told time and time again that what you feel is not the way it is or that your mother or brother or someone else older and wiser than you has a hold on reality and you do not, it makes you question whether what you perceive is real. This, in turn, greatly decreases your personal power in so many dimensions—your cognitive functioning, your emotional functioning, your sense of boundaries, your personal energy, and your capacity for taking risks.
Developing a trust in your own sense of reality is especially difficult when there are family secrets that the family system is protecting. These can vary in degree from minor, such as an incident from the past that’s embarrassing to talk about so no one does, to major, such as alcoholism or abuse, past or present. When the family is keeping secrets, the result on the person growing up in that environment is often a developmental deficit of being able to know, test, or trust reality.
Being unable to trust our own sense of reality makes us vulnerable. Vulnerable to relationships with men who use power to their own advantage. These men may tell us things and even if what they say doesn’t ring true, we might accept it anyway. When what we’re told doesn’t conform to how we feel, we tend to go inward and question, question, question—“Am I being the stubborn one here?”, “Maybe I am being cold-hearted,” “Am I expecting too much?”—and on the questions go.
A malleable sense of reality is one of the most significant challenges to being empowered because we tend to question everything within us. This untenable sense of reality walks hand in hand with devaluing the self and the information available to us. We become dependent on validation from those outside ourselves.
In the best-case scenarios, this means we rely on the love and good intentions of our partners to take into consideration what we want along with what they want. In the worst-case scenarios, this mistrust of reality can leave us susceptible to abuses of power.
The subtlety of this problem is what makes it so dangerous. When women don’t know they suffer from mistrusting their sense of reality, they accept the reality told to them—over and over and over again. They continue to believe that they are the problem (after all, if it’s not cold in here and you’re cold, you must be off somehow). And this leads to the related and equally destructive belief, “I’m the Problem.”
Belief #7: I’m the Problem.
As long as women believe they’re the problem, they cannot effectively confront or challenge the reality presented by another. Worst-case scenarios with a malleable sense of reality include domestic violence. But more subtle forms include misuse of power within a relationship where the confidence of the woman is eroded.
In my practice and in my life, I see the damage this deficit and the resulting attitude of “I must be the problem” does. It is pernicious and requires that a woman who suffers from a malleable sense of reality must surround herself with clear-headed people who can see the situation she’s in, who know who she truly is, and regularly provide her an accurate “read” on reality.
A commonplace example of this is the malfunctioning gas gauge in my sons’ Honda Civic. The gas gauge has been broken since we got the car, so the boys have learned not to depend on it. They track their gas consumption, miles driven, and time of last fill-up as the reliable indicators of gas in the tank.
So it is when our sense of reality malfunctions because it has been messed with. The first step in dealing with it is to be aware that there’s a problem. You get the bind here though, right? It feels like an awful state to be in.
Once you know you don’t trust your own perceptions of reality, whether they’re trustworthy or not, you don’t just flip a switch and start tr
usting it. This is something you have to develop (unlike the gas gauge that will never be accurate unless replaced). And since we’re talking about such a pervasive, important ability, we discover we’re quite vulnerable in this window of time between becoming aware of the problem and having a solution.
Women who are in partnerships where they are constantly being told they are the problem have a particularly poignant challenge. They tend to lose confidence in their own perceptions and feel beaten down. They are unsure whether their take on the situation is worthy of their trust. This is how such a difficult cycle ensues.
When this happens, it is imperative to find other reliable indicators of reality while doing everything possible to rebuild trust in your inner voice, your sensations, and internal messages. During this critical time, it is important to identify a person (or two) in your life who sees you most clearly and has an accurate read on your situation. If you rely on too many people, you will end up in confusion again.
So pick one or two clear-headed people you trust who have a strong investment in you. Maybe this is a good friend, a sister or brother, a mentor, or a therapist. Establish an understanding that you will need to do brief reality checks on a frequent basis to keep your perceptions clear. Get their agreement to participate for a set period of time to help you grow this capacity.
Not only is it crucial to rebuild trust in ourselves, we need to make our inner knowing as accurate as possible. This requires easy and ready access to what we know inside, so we need to build a bridge between our heads and our hearts and keep the access clear.
—Journal Junction: Plus 2 More—
Take a few minutes to write about these last two beliefs―I can’t trust what I know and I’m the problem―in the complimentary workbook or your journal. Explore how any aspect of these two beliefs may be present in your life, whether in a big or very small way. Describe how these beliefs impact your choices, decisions, and actions.
Up Next . . .
In the next chapter we’ll explore how to build a bridge between our head, heart, and gut. Our way of getting acquainted with our inner selves is often through the body. We’ll go through some body awareness exercises to open our minds and senses to the myriad of information available to us about what we know and feel.
Chapter 4
Building the Bridge between Head and Heart
It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that the “I Am,” our real presence, can awaken.
—G. I. Gurdjieff
We know we need easy, clear access to what our inner voice is telling us and need to develop trust in what our inner wisdom is telling us. How do we do this? Fortunately, we have what we need with us all the time—we just have to learn and be willing to tune in.
Self-Awareness Follows Body-Awareness
Boundaries and Bodily Cues—An Exercise
Try this exercise:
First, you’ll need the help of someone you know and like.
Stand on one side of the room. Have this person slowly walk toward you—slowly enough that you can tell them when to stop. When they get “close enough” tell them to stop.
Now reflect on HOW you knew they were “close enough.”
What in your body told you?
Did your breath get shallow? Did your eyes go wonky, feeling like they wanted to move back into your head?) Did you feel a tension in your chest? A tightening in your gut? A subtle backing away with your head?
Now play with it. Have the person move back a step or two. Have them move forward and back if you like. Notice what happens in your body. What changes? Where do you feel it?
Then have them come close again.
This is body awareness. Our bodies are giving us clues and information all day long.
We need to attune our ears. We need to focus our inner vision. We need to pay attention and be willing to accept what we learn. In so doing, we can increase our personal power in our cognitive and emotional functioning, as well as our boundaries and personal energy.
—Journal Junction: Your Bodily Cues—
This is a great time to jot a few notes in your workbook or journal about what you tuned into. Maybe you’re already good at this and have had lots of practice. Or maybe you’ve been living in your head because you find it too painful to tune into your body. Write down what you noticed about yourself from this exercise.
Maybe you’re ready to start, however slowly, claiming the information and wisdom your body can share with you. Make a note about your attitudes toward your body and the information available.
Taking Inventory: A Slow Journey Through the Body
This next exercise is all about focusing inward, so I have created an mp3 available for you to download. This way, you can tune into yourself with your eyes closed if you’d like to focus on the exercise without having to read it. Click here to download MP3.
Once we tune into our bodies, we can have quite the treasure hunt! Let’s try going top to bottom and see what’s available to us. Let’s start with our eyes. We might notice them tightening, hardening, growing wide (usually in fear or surprise), or feeling a pressure behind them, possibly a buildup of unshed tears.
Next, the lips and the jaw. Think back to that exercise—or do it again. Do your lips change at all when someone draws near? Maybe they become tight and thin (tight-lipped, when we suppress what we want to say). Maybe they’re pursed in consternation. And the jaw—we can clamp it down purposefully or tighten it unconsciously.
The neck and throat can also provide us information. Maybe the muscles around our throat get tight and constricted. See if you can gauge your voice on the continuum of full-throated to pinched, breathy, raspy, or tight.
One of the easiest ways to hear your clear vocal sound is to pretend that there’s someone in the street who is going to get hit unless you get their attention. So without thinking much about it, yell, “HEY!” This instantly engages the diaphragm and opens your throat. You can then compare this sound to the more familiar sound you make to see how open or constricted your throat typically is.
The muscles supporting the head also have something to tell us. Maybe they bend to one side (and always to the same side, of course!). Maybe they’re always a little contracted in the back, making our chin point up just a little. Notice whatever you can now and in the days ahead about just how your head is supported by your neck.
Moving to the chest, a place of breathing and also the heart center. To start, just notice how the chest feels. Heavy? Like there’s a weight sitting on it? Light? Do you feel open? Protected? Many of us have a desire to protect ourselves and our tender, vulnerable heart feelings.
Along with this, notice what your arms are inclined to do. Do they reach out to offer or receive support? Do they stay rather stiffly by your side? Do you have an inclination to reach out, then check it, or pull back?
Our chest area and diaphragm are loaded with information. Once we tune into the breath, we have a reliable monitor of what’s going on. The breath is also one of our most valuable tools for shifting what’s going on. First, notice your breath right now. Does it feel shallow or deep? Effortless or like you have to work at getting a good breath? Is it rhythmic, or does it have more of a sporadic pattern?
Also with the breath, notice what moves to make room for the influx of air. Does your chest lift up? Do your shoulders move? Do your lower ribs expand? Does your abdomen relax and move out? If you can’t tell and would like to know, you can move in front of a mirror and look, you can put your hands on your chest and abdomen, or you can put your hands around your lower ribs.
In my experience as a therapist, I find that people often don’t want to tune into their breath. They find it frustrating to pay attention to how they breathe. They might have the sense of doing it wrong or of becoming aware of how difficult it is to breathe naturally and effortlessly. Sometimes they don’t feel like they get enough air but don’t know what to do about it.
Call on Your Courage
Everyone knows that the gut is a source of information. We don’t always know how to interpret the information we get from here, however. For example, when I signed up to go on local TV, my gut was churning so much I thought I’d be sick. I knew it scared me. In this case, I had to decide whether to listen to the fear and not sign up, or to listen to the fear as an indication that I was taking my next big step. This requires some discernment.
So the gut can churn, burn, and tighten. It can flutter with excitement or feel like it’s doing somersaults in turmoil. Often, guilt is experienced in the gut as a relentless churning, begging to be relieved. This is one reason we stay stuck in our patterns. Our bodies react when we try to create new patterns, and often it seems the only way to relieve the discomfort is to re-engage the old patterns.
When we think of the body, front and back, we come to the back and spine. We talk about people who have “backbone,” meaning they have the strength and fortitude to stand up for themselves (see how many common expressions refer to the body?). When we think about standing tall, we think about owning who we are.
When we “collapse,” there’s often a folding inward and downward. Our backs or spines can be too rigid, too flexible, have a tendency to take on too much, and so on. Think about your back and what it’s telling you. What are your tendencies where your spine is concerned?
Finally we come to our pelvis and legs, the seat of deep emotion and strength. Who has heard, maybe in a yoga class, that we store feelings in our hips? Our hips tighten up and hold on for dear life. It can be difficult to let go here. But for now, we’re focused just on noticing. Notice if your legs feel strong, like they can support you. Do you have awareness of your feet? Sometimes fear interrupts our messaging system, and we can lose contact with our legs or feet.
