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Two types of questions you might find on an exam include multiple choice and open ended.  In a multiple choice question, your answers are constrained, provided to you by the person who asked the question.  However, the task of providing an answer is made easier.  In an open ended question, like an essay question, you are free to provide whatever answer makes sense to you, although coming up with one may be more difficult.

When it comes to communicating, professionally or personally, I tend to be a multiple choice question giver.  Before I approach someone with a problem or present them with my distress, my tendency is to consider in depth precisely what it is I expect them to do in response.  Logically, analytically, sequentially, I contemplate the point of communicating.  What is the desired outcome?  I put myself in the other person’s shoes.  If I were them, what could I do or say that would help or solve anything.  In other words, what are their multiple response choices?

The Trouble with Multiple Choice Communication

As I imagine the possible responses available to the other person, I begin to realize that virtually anything they could do or say is something I can do without help.  If I need information, usually I can find it on my own.  If I need advice, often I can figure things out on my own.  If I need encouragement, I can often muster it up on my own.  If I need consoling or reassurance, I might surmise that I should deal with things on my own and not drag that particular person into the picture.  If someone hurts my feelings, I might come to understand their situation before bringing it up, then bringing it up seems unnecessary.

I may end up playing out the whole conversation and finding very little that another person can actually help me with or do to fix anything or make things better.  If I exhaust the gammut of choices in my mind beforehand, talking seems unnecessary.

Some problems with multiple choice communication:

• You run into situations in which you cannot envision or predict the full spectrum of response choices.  You don’t know what you need, or you don’t know enough to know what another person might be capable of providing.  Then you cut yourself short by failing to offer those options or foregoing communication altogether.  You have no idea what you might be missing out on.
• You put yourself in a position of trying to control the interaction, to evoke the response that makes the most sense to you, and if the other person selects the “wrong” answer, they seem to have failed the test.  People lose the freedom to be themselves. 
• Sometimes, you don’t need a response.  You just need to be heard.  It may be important that someone simply know about your experience (e.g., for future reference).

Opening to Possibilities You Can’t Envision

I’m beginning to realize that I don’t need to offer (explicitly or implicitly) multiple choice options when I communicate.  I can be open ended.  I can lay things out as they are and simply allow the other person to use their ingenuity and good will to make of it what they can.  Open ended communicating gives people more space across which to reach out with a genuine response, and if they have no response, it nevertheless provides them with information and feedback about my situation that might be important later.

This is relevant not just with coworkers and friends but with one’s approach to the universe or oneness as well, in meditation or prayer.  Even my prayers are multiple choice questions!  When I can’t envision the options, I’m disinclined to meditate on my needs and desires, because why pray if you don’t know what you’re asking for?  Yet, I can be open ended in that domain, too, and open up to possibilities that I myself could not envision.

The push behind multiple choice is probably the tendency of people to feel pressed to provide immediate, concrete answers when confronted with a problem.  It’s very frustrating to be made privy to someone’s distress and not know how to help.  Having multiple choices appeases this need.  Perhaps a combination of both is best: have multiple choices available, but be open to other possible responses.

Soothing the Paired Bind

The ability to engage in open ended communication, which can seem pointless, becomes critical in situations that have no solution.  Disagreements or conflicts that cannot be resolved, called “paired binds,” are common to close relationships.  Paired binds are “fundamental disagreements where each apparent outcome or solution is unacceptable to one or both partners.”  Dr. David Lowry also says, “Because the binds are tied up in the deeply held beliefs, values and convictions of the participants, they cannot be satisfactorily solved by compromise.”  In a paired bind, the purpose of communication is not to reach a solution but to express or receive understanding and compassion:

“When couples recognize that they are caught in a paired bind, it is important that they communicate and explain the situation to the other. Partners have the capacity of becoming more understanding when both people recognize their predicament. Wile states that it is possible for each partner to develop compassion towards the other when their mutual situation is acknowledged. Since paired-binds cannot be resolved like other disagreements, the best outcome that each can hope to reach is the demonstration, to the other person’s satisfaction, that each understands and appreciates the positions that are held. In so doing, both will know that they have been heard and understood. Even if neither have the outcome they desire, the psychic space created by mindful and compassionate listening can help in the positive development of the relationship.”

~ From Paired Binds: The Fight that Can’t Be Won, by Dr. David N. Lowry
Article in Conscious Loving

Humility is one of those tricky, elusive virtues.  There’s optimism, which you can aspire to perfect, and the more optimism you have, the easier it is to have even more.  You can be optimistic about being optimistic.  But it’s hard to be humble about being humble.  And so one strives for genuine humility, but if you ask yourself, “Am I doing it?” and you think “Alright, yeah, I’m really humble now!” then you may have just blown it.

I’ve caught myself, over the years, holding onto humility with all sorts of roundabout strategies to fool myself.  Recently, someone said some really amazing things about me.  I expressed my appreciation but denied the degree to which the comments applied to me.  “Ah no, I’m not that great.”  Honestly, if I fully assimilated the lavish compliments, my head would be the size of the state capital and floating off somewhere over Lake Mendota.  Honestly, I’m really not that great. 

She said I was too humble.  Then I did something that makes me giggle only now, looking back on it.  I said, “Ah no, I’m not that humble.”  If humility equals denying that you have a virtue, that statement is an oxymoron.

My ego-circumventing tactics to preserve a state of true humility seem innocuous enough.  However, I’m beginning to see one way in which being “humble” can actually hurt a person’s feelings.  In addition to my “deny all grandiose compliments” strategy, another strategy of mine is to assume that my contribution to a conversation or social interaction is minor, perhaps even negligible.  I don’t want to find myself thinking that I’m “oh so special” or important.  Is that not the antithesis of humility?  I used to think so, until now.  If you assume that your part in a conversation is nothing special or important, you might also assume that if you withdrew yourself from said conversation (or other such interaction), it would have no effect.  Sometimes it does matter.  Avoiding such assumptions is even more critical in ambiguous situations, when you don’t necessarily know how your behavior is being interpreted.

The belief that stereotypic humility is always the more kind, loving, and gentle way to approach people doesn’t necessarily pan out.  You might think you’re being kind by downplaying your positive qualities when in actuality, you’re making it harder for people to enjoy the actual kindness, love, and gentleness that you have to offer.

“Many people believe that humility is the opposite of pride, when, in fact, it is a point of equilibrium. The opposite of pride is actually a lack of self esteem. A humble person is totally different from a person who cannot recognize and appreciate himself as part of this worlds marvels.”
~ Rabino Nilton Bonder

“True humility is not an abject, groveling, self-despising spirit; it is but a right estimate of ourselves as God sees us.”
~ Tryon Edwards

“Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself.”
~ Charles H. Spurgeon

“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright

Personal transformation, or the metamorphosis of any situation into something more beautiful and pleasing, fits nicely into the metaphor of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.  I’ve been using that metaphor a lot and wrote about it in a recent post. 

Then, a couple of nights ago, my children knocked over a display case of butterflies sitting on a bookshelf in my living room.  The butterflies crashed to the floor and broke into pieces.  I was furious!  “You… broke… my… butterflies!” I yelled through clenched teeth.  The words came out sounding funny, actually, but I was too enraged to express myself intelligibly.  I picked up a broken frame piece and tossed it back onto the floor.  I apprently got my emotion across, because my previously rambunctious boys were soon frozen solid on the couch looking as though some scary clown had entered the room (which was probably not far from the truth).  I immediately sent them to bed.  Erik brushed his teeth with tears in his eyes.  ”Mommy is really mad!” he noted to himself, as I lectured him about taking better care of our things.   

Before getting into bed, Erik offered me a heartfelt suggestion.  “How about if we take the butterfly pieces and glue them onto some paper and make a beautiful picture?”  A great idea!  I gave him a hug and told him how much I appreciated his idea.  The next night, we painted pictures and carefully glued the individual butterfly wings onto our paintings.  Erik created a colorful collage with wings scattered about randomly all across the paper.  It looked as though several butterflies had died there, and their wings had been cast to the wind.  It was beautiful! 

I always think I’m close to completing whatever personal transformation lies ahead of me, or at least I hope for that, but even if I do become a full fledged butterfly, the metamorphosis can’t end there.  There may be something more beautiful, a transformation even more intriguing.  Or, the butterfly will simply turn into an insect carcass (blech) that will turn into dirt and dust and soil nutrients that will feed caterpillars that will turn into butterflies.  I imagine one cannot embrace one’s inner butterfly without embracing one’s inner caterpiller, and if we are to be butterflies, we are also to be dirt and dust.  It seems better than eternity in a display case.

More than a decade ago, strong emotions and overwhelming passions predominated in my life.  I let my feelings be my compass, but sometimes my feelings were too intense and tumultuous to guide me properly.  Eventually, my Vulcan-like persona expanded to overtake my Betazoid nature (Betazoids are an alien race on Star Trek who experience the emotions of everyone around them).  I made my emotions a subject of study and became a psychology student.  I moved from my turbulent heart to my tranquil head, from feeling to logic, and resided firmly in this relatively docile zone of intellectual inquiry for ten years.

As a psychology student, I’ve had a deep desire to help people who suffer emotional pain, but on some level, I kept a distance between myself and those I imagined helping.  I chose not to pursue work as a therapist or counselor, because I didn’t want to bring additional pain into my awareness.  Instead, I decided I would help through science and research.  “I’ll discover how thoughts and emotions operate, then I’ll pass along my knowledge through books and talks, and people can apply it on their own time,” I reasoned.

Then, a few years ago, I applied for a fellowship.  I didn’t receive that particular award, but I was able to read the reviewer comments.  Based on my application essay, the reviewer wrote, “This woman will have compassion!”  I was taken aback.  Really?  Do I actually feel compassion?  Up until that point, my compassion was in my head, but I realized in that moment that my heart was relatively numb.  I wanted to FEEL compassion, really feel it!  I wanted to open my heart again, and this time without the fear or grief that stopped me in the past.  Immediately I knew deep down that that would soon develop.  I knew my life was going to change dramatically.  I knew that the old fears and griefs would come back for processing, once and for all.  I knew it was time to revisit my old self and finally transform into the shape I was meant to take.

Soon, and quite coincidentally and without explicit request, I was introduced to meditation practices aimed specifically at opening the heart and developing compassion.  I also developed a deep longing to find a new partner, and my marriage of twelve years gradually dissolved.  I moved to a new home that became a sacred space for me, a sanctuary of personal development and peacefulness.  And finally, last month while on retreat, I had the opportunity to speak with a man who had been in my life fifteen years ago during the worst of my emotional pain.  I hadn’t heard from him since I was nineteen, and I had no idea he would be at the retreat.  Coming full circle!  Our conversation gave me a profound feeling of resolution.   

As I’ve reentered my heart, all of the old, old patterns of emotion have surfaced, gently and kindly awaiting final transformation.  Watching the old patterns morph into something wonderful has been really satisfying, and it’s made me unbelievably happy.  But I have seen why I moved up into my head years ago.  My intellect provided a certain balance and guidance, a way to channel the activities of my heart.  Perhaps I need both.  At the end of my retreat in January, a man wishing to thank me for showing kindness to him during a moment of grief gave me a small statue of Quan Yin (the goddess of mercy and compassion).  As he handed it to me, it fell to the ground, and Quan Yin’s head broke off.  We were both unphased and thought it an amusing metaphor, because my first task upon returning home would be to put her head back on.  How apropos, I thought.

Finally, two nights ago, I had a most gruesome dream.  I was lying on an operating table, and a surgeon was attempting to reattach my OLD HEAD.  While lying on the table with no head, I was also sitting beside myself watching the grotesque procedure.  Blech!  I looked away.  The doctor put my old head back on then said that he could not complete the reattachment.  The blood vessels in my old head were decayed or broken, and they would not provide a sufficient blood supply to my heart.  The dream ended there. 

In my dream, the heart was not in service of the head.  It was the other way around!  Instead of my heart nourishing my head, my head was supposed to nourish my heart.  I don’t know where I am supposed to find a new head, or if I am supposed to find one at all, but if I do, my new head must be capable of nurturing and supporting an open, compassionate heart.

So, for the most part, I’ve been feeling swell.  I mean really truly happy, like how did this happen?  My perspective on life and on my relationships in particular has transformed into something quite stably positive.  I’ve had less attachment to my own identity, less sensitivity to rejection or exclusion as I understand that what I value most is to simply go with the flow and be what I can from wherever I am.  I’m like, I’m getting into this!  It’s sticking, and it feels really good.  I feel larger than myself, part of something bigger, released from some sort of ego shell, not afraid to run into the fire and die in love.  Trust has grown and grown, until I can’t help but trust, as over and over again I see just how taken care of I am in every moment, how everything that happens falls into a larger pattern of love and oneness.  I’m high on life.

Insert sound of screeching record needle.  Every now and then, perhaps maybe once every couple of weeks, my bike hits a pebble in the road so to speak, and even though it’s just a little pebble, I’m thrown off and hit the ground hard.  Maybe two hours or maybe ten, I feel small again, cut off.  My mind falls into old habits of thinking, old ways of seeing things, as my body aches with sadness and grief, disappointment, embarrassment and regret. 

The Old Perspective

My old perspective is not so much a set of beliefs as a focus of attention on certain perceptions, which include:

• The absence of social contact in that moment and the desire for physical affection (which is often triggered by physical pain, like the flu or fibromyalgia)
• Ways in which I’ve hurt other people (coupled with a distrust that all things make sense in the end)
• Personal failures or things I’ve done that make me look bad or unworthy of company (coupled with sudden amnesia for accomplishments and positive qualities)
• Ways in which events did not follow my expectations, or wonderful things I anticipated that turned out quite differently

I remain fully aware of how my old perspective pales in contrast with my new one, and how I have repeatedly switched from the old to the new with great success.  I can feel the inaccuracy of it, and my sadness feels unnecessary, yet it persists.

Switching Frameworks

Entering the old perspective is less like adopting a belief and more like switching modes from one network or framework of perception to another.  Like seeing the contrasting shape in an optical illusion (like the Necker cube or the two facial profiles that form a vase). 

However, my attempts to exit the old perspective usually involve the gradual (teeth clenching) introduction of individual beliefs (e.g., “I’m good enough.  I’m smart enough.  And gosh darn it, people like me”).  This works sometimes.  But it’s like trying to see the vase between the two facial profiles by pointing to individual elements and saying, “Well that part is the top of the vase.  That part is the lip of the opening, and there’s the bottom.”  Again, that helps a little.  But the most effective means of changing perspective is to look at the situation holistically and just SEE the other pattern in front of you.  To just see it there, still there as an equally if not more legitimate way of perceiving what is there.

The Benefits of Reverting

I did a decent job of coming to.  It gets easier, sometimes.  But there is something even more important about this whole experience, something that I’ve been missing up until this point.  I keep thinking that every time I enter my old modes of perception, it means that I’ve failed.  But actually, I think it’s the opposite. 

What seems to strengthen my new perspective is not simply the process of having it but the process of entering it.  The act of moving from the old perspective to the new perspective, of making that shift, gives greater strength and definition to the new way of seeing things.  Perhaps this is then a natural and beneficial process in the development of a new paradigm.  Not only do we gain perceptual flexibility and the agility to change our perspective at will, which is important if you want to approach life intelligently, but we further solidify the perspective that makes the most sense and proves most rewarding.

Perhaps oscillating between the two perspectives is exactly what has to happen in order to properly give birth and establish the new one.  Having a bad day, or a bad night, going back to bad feelings you thought you overcame, is maybe then not a bad thing at all, not a failure at all, but an experiment of sorts, a process of contrasting and comparing, an opportunity to emerge once again into the viewpoint you know better nourishes you.  If that is true, what feels like a step back is really a step forward.

Is self-assuredness always a vice?  Think carefully.  The answer gets to the heart of what it means to have worth and love the world.

Over the years, I’ve recognized a blatant, rampant, sometimes flambuoyant and borderline-irreverent sense of self-assuredness in my approach to psychology and emotion research.  I never felt above anyone or better than anyone.  In fact, I’ve been more prone to feel lower, less worthy, and less like I belong.  I value humility to the point of self-denigration, and I’ve been in a constant battle to destroy my own self-assuredness by actively absorbing others’ doubts in my abilities.

I’m also a one-man-band when it comes to research.  I have my own ideas, which I’ve been pursuing for more than a decade.  Most of my colleagues seem to find my ideas counterintuitive.  Some find them ludicrous.  Very few have supported my endeavors, and even fewer have wholeheartedly agreed with me.

And yet, the theoretical model I’ve proposed for years is now published in someone else’s paper along with intriguing experimental evidence.  Even more bitterly, I had proposed a nearly identical experiment a couple of years ago, but the reaction was one of constrained disapproval.  I’m still recovering from the impact.  Rather, I’m still trying to determine the full impact.

Some consequences… I’ve deeply questioned my worth as a researcher, my place in the field of psychology, my ability to contribute something of value to the world.  Intellectually, I know it can’t be that bad, but I’m still in shock.  Still.  I’ve been doing this for eleven years.  That’s a long time to be devoted to one goal, struggling to be heard, frustrated that no one would listen long enough to realize I was saying something important.

Yet, one thing I am learning is that if you are brave enough to pursue an idea or a goal from within your own heart, one that you know deep down is important, self-assuredness is critical.  Maybe you’re wrong, or maybe you’re not entirely correct, but you can scrutinize the accuracy of your ideas without abandoning your faith in yourself.  I was succeeding at that for the most part, I think, but over time, I can see that I did abandon some goals when I felt unsupported. 

Anyone who endeavors to contribute something truly new or have truly original ideas must inevitably face threats to self-assuredness.  There’s a tendency in society to squelch anyone who departs too far from the beaten path, especially if they look inexperienced.  Despite a decade of obsessive contemplation and readings on the topic, I’m sure as a graduate student I looked like I shouldn’t know anything.

Self-assuredness offers comfort when moral support is nowhere to be found.  It creates a capsule of belonging when you don’t really belong anywhere, which is exactly the case when you struggle to do something really new.  When I feel self-assured, I feel as though my sense of belonging is greater than the small group or facility immediately housing me.  I feel a sense of belonging to the earth, to higher goals of truth and love.  I feel a committment to making the world a better place regardless of how it receives me.  When my self-assuredness is crushed, I become sensitive to how the world receives me, and as a result, my love for everything is stifled. 

I don’t think I can give what I believe I have to give without self-assuredness to see me through.  And so I’ve decided to value that quality in me.  If you have a problem with that, well you can keep it to yourself (wink).

Patience is a virtue, so we hear over and over again.  When waiting is necessary, sure patience is great, but what if we are waiting on something that will never come or waiting for someone to meet a need that can and should be met in this moment, not in some imaginary future.  Waiting could go on indefinitely when all the while we have it within our power to meet the need now. 

We can be fragmented by the passive vigilance and attentional split of unnecessary waiting, like keeping one eye fixed on a pot of water waiting to see if it might boil from the warmth of a little match.  Who knows… with enough time, the water might get hot enough.  Probably not.  This waiting makes it impossible to move forward, to move on, as a whole, and if you do anything or go anywhere, every cell in your body should be moving in unison in the same direction, or the joy is diminished.     

My mom had a dream that beautifully illustrates the wisdom of impatience:

I go to a doctors office, am checked in and put in the exam room in one of those open-back gowns. No one ever comes to check on me and I must come back the next day.

Day after day, this scenario repeats, until I become an office “quirky fixture.”  I fill my time waiting for the doctor by cleaning up the coffee pot/snack area. The office staff stand by the desk, laughing at me.  I scold an old man for smoking a pipe in the waiting room.

One nurse comes over to get a file and I approach, saying “Do you realize that I have been here since 1 and it is now 4?” She starts to make excuses. I stop her and say, “I don’t have time for that now, I just want to know, why don’t you care for me?”

She relaxes, thinks a moment, and says, “Follow me.”  I follow her to a place down by the river. She rummages through some tall grass, looking for my tree stump. I understand that everyone has a special tree stump that must be protected at all costs because the core of it is extremely precious. She finds mine, and pulls it out of the grass. She says “Oh no, someone has already stolen it!”  I look at my tree stump. Someone has cut a slice through to the core and all that is left is a dry hollow husk of a tree stump. I feel profoundly sad and I wonder if someone has “black-marketed” my precious heartwood.

I think if you focus on the idea that you have to wait for what you need, you end up creating nothing more than an experience of waiting; you sow the seeds of postponement with the belief that your needs must be put off, but the moment you alter this belief, resources once hidden become visible, new avenues open up, and you’re free to take care of yourself. 

I don’t know if it was a hang over or what, but I woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday night, after my housewarming party, and I felt as if I was simultaneously in some sort of acid nightmare hell and completely encompassed by the most powerful, omniscient, palpable love imaginable. The thought came into my mind, “I’m in God’s stomach” and felt utterly true.  Stuff I thought was long buried and healed is surfacing again, which makes me feel as though I’ve profoundly failed. I’m not really sure where it’s leading. Sometimes I trust and sometimes I’m scared.

My 5 year old son Erik went into another one of his monologues again, cupping my cheek and holding my hand, speaking slowly and deliberately and looking into my eyes, he said:

“There’s a small tube that goes to your heart, and it’s invisible, and when your heart breaks, it goes into the tube. Every time your heart breaks, the pieces go right back together. [He repeats that slowly with gestures for emphasis.] The small tube is from the Indians, but now there’s a larger tube, and love goes into this tube, up, and out your mouth. Every time you breath, you breath in love. We’re surrounded by love. We all breath love. Did you know that? The whole planet is covered in love.” Then he said something about the whole body consisting of love, love on your skin, love even on the ends of your hairs.