Sadness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  If an accident happens to a child among the Dieri, his relations beat themselves on the head with clubs or boomerangs until the blood flows down over their faces. They believe that by this process, they relieve the child of the suffering. [1283] Elsewhere, they imagine that they can obtain the same end by means of a supplementary totemic ceremony. [1284] We may connect with these the example already given of a ceremony celebrated specially to efface the effects of a ritual fault. [1285] Of course there are neither wounds nor blows nor physical suffering of any sort in these two latter cases, yet the rite does not differ in nature from the others: the end sought is always the turning aside of an evil or the expiation of a fault by means of an extraordinary ritual prestation. Outside of mourning, such are the only cases of piacular rites which we have succeeded in finding in Australia. To be sure, it is probable that some have escaped us, while we may presume equally well that others have remained unperceived by the observers. But if those discovered up to the present are few in number, it is probably because they do not hold a large place in the cult. We see how far primitive religions are from being the daughters of agony and fear from the fact that the rites translating these painful emotions are relatively rare. Of course this is because the Australian, while leading a miserable existence as compared with other more civilized peoples, demands so little of life that he is easily contented. All that he asks is that nature follow its normal course, that the seasons succeed one another regularly, that the rain fall, at the ordinary time, in abundance and without excess. Now great disturbances in the cosmic order are always exceptional; thus it is noticeable that the majority of the regular piacular rites, examples of which we have given above, have been observed in the tribes of the centre, where droughts are frequent and constitute veritable disasters. It is still surprising, it is true, that piacular rites specially destined to expiate sins, seem to be completely lacking. However, the Australian, like every other man, must commit ritual faults, which he has an interest in redeeming; so we may ask if the silence of the texts on this point may not be due to insufficient observation. But howsoever few the facts which we have been able to gather may be, they are, nevertheless, instructive.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  And when people ask me what has been the hardest part of being a transsexual, expecting me to say that it was coming out to my family or the growing pains of going through a second puberty, I tell them that the hardest part, by far, has been unlearning lessons that were etched into my psyche before I ever set foot in kindergarten. The hardest part has been learning how to take myself seriously when the entire world is constantly telling me that femininity is always inferior to masculinity. These days, I am an outspoken feminist and transgender activist. And most days, I dress like a tomboy in striped shirts, jeans, and Chuck Taylors. To most people, I probably seem pretty selfconfident, but that’s only because they can’t see my submissive streak. It’s like a scar I keep hidden up my sleeve, a scar that still sometimes opens up and bleeds. Like a shark bite, it literally tore me apart when it was first happening to me. But these days, my submissive streak is just another reminder of how I survived. 16 Love Rant IT STARTED AS A CONVERSATION with a friend. Okay, it was more of a rant. I was going off about that stupid, crass, recurring scene that I have seen in at least thirty-nine different mainstream movies by now. You know, the one where the guy falls for a girl who turns out not to be “all girl” genital-wise. And the audience always obediently identifies with the guy, empathically laughing at his embarrassment or groaning along with his disgust. And nobody ever thinks twice about the tranny—who she is or how she feels about the incident—because she is just a prop, like the banana peel that only exists for the silent film star to slip upon. And I ended my diatribe by lambasting all of those arrogant and ignorant people who only ever see trans women in terms of how we might affect their own sexual orientation. My straight-male-identified friend, who had been listening patiently to my entire tirade, asked me: “Well, tell me, how would you feel if you became interested in a woman, but then discovered that she was a transsexual?” Now, my friend knows that I am happily married and monogamous, so it was a given that this was largely a hypothetical question. Nevertheless, he seemed surprised when I replied that I would not be bothered one bit. And it’s not that I would merely “tolerate” a relationship with a trans woman. On the contrary, I would consider it an honor.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  2 This tendency renders invisible the fact that many of us struggle more with issues related to our physical femaleness or maleness than we do with our expressions of femininity or masculinity. Throughout this book, I will use the word trans to refer to people who (to varying degrees) struggle with a subconscious understanding or intuition that there is something “wrong” with the sex they were assigned at birth and/or who feel that they should have been born as or wish they could be the other sex. (It should be noted that some people use the word “trans” differently, as a synonym or abbreviation for the word transgender). For many trans people, the fact that their appearances or behaviors may fall outside of societal gender norms is a very real issue, but one that is often seen as secondary to the cognitive dissonance that arises from the fact that their subconscious sex does not match their physical sex. This gender dissonance is usually experienced as a kind of emotional pain or sadness that grows more intense over time, sometimes reaching a point where it can become debilitating. There are many different strategies that trans people may use to ease their gender dissonance. Perhaps the most common one is trying to suppress or deny one’s subconscious sex. Others may allow their subconscious sex to come to the surface occasionally, for example through either crossdressing or role-playing. Still others may come to see themselves as bigendered (having a mixture of both femininity and masculinity and/or femaleness and maleness), gender-fluid (moving freely between genders), or genderqueer (identifying outside of the male/female gender binary). And those of us who make the choice to live as the sex other than the one we were assigned at birth are commonly called transsexuals. Perhaps the most underacknowledged issue with regard to the transgender community—and one that is a continuing source of both confusion and contention—is the fact that many of the above strategies and identities that trans people gravitate toward in order to relieve their gender dissonance are also shared by people who do not experience any discomfort with regards to their subconscious and physical sex. For example, some male-bodied crossdressers spend much of their lives wishing they were actually female, while others see their crossdressing as simply a way to express a feminine side of their personalities.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Unless the food and housing remain proportionately better, the American workman is drained faster. Immigrants who try to continue the kind of food that kept them in vigor at home, collapse under the strain. Under such a combination of causes the health of the people inevitably breaks down. Improved medical science has counteracted the effects to a large extent, but in spite of all modern progress the physical breakdown is apparent in many directions. Diseases of the nerves, culminating in prostration and insanity; diseases of the heart through overstrain; diseases of the digestion through poor nutrition, haste in mastication, and anxiety; zymotic diseases due to crowding and dirt—all these things multiply and laugh at our curative efforts. Tuberculosis, which might be eradicated in ten years if we had sense, continues to cripple our children, to snuff out the life of our young men and women in their prime, and to leave the fatherless and motherless to struggle along in their feebleness. Alcoholism is both a cause and an effect of poverty. The poor take to drink because they are tired, discouraged, and flabby of will, and without more wholesome recreation. When the narcotic has once gained control over them, it works more rapidly with them than with the well fed who work in the open. Tuberculosis and alcoholism are social diseases, degenerating the stock of the people, fostered by the commercial interests of landowners and liquor dealers, thriving on the weak and creating the weak. This condition of exhaustion tends to perpetuate itself. Children are begotten in a state of physical exhaustion. Underfed and overworked women in tenement and factory are nourishing the children in their prenatal life. During the years when a workingman’s family is bringing up young children, before their earnings become available, the family is submerged in poverty through these parental burdens, and neither the parents nor the growing children are likely to be well fed and well housed. Very early in life the children are hitched to the machine for life, and the vitality which ought to build their bodies during the crucial period of adolescence is used up to make goods a little cheaper, or, what is more likely, merely to make profits a little larger. Imagine that any breeder of live stock should breed horses or cows under such conditions, what would be the result in a few generations? Our apple orchards are planted in wide squares, so that every tree has the soil, the air, the sunshine, which it needs. If we planted a dense jungle of trees, we should have a dwarfed growth, scraggy and thorny, and only here and there a crabbed apple. What harvest of human kind will we have in the broad field of our republic if we plant men in that way? The physical drain of which we have spoken is gradual and slow, and therefore escapes observation and sympathy.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The old customs and regulations which had forbidden or limited free competition were brushed away. New economic theories were developed which sanctioned what was going on and secured the support of public opinion and legislation for those who were driving the machine through the framework of the social structure. The distress of the displaced workers was terrible. In blind agony they mobbed the factories and destroyed the machines which were destroying them. But the men who owned the machines, owned the law. In England the death penalty was put on the destruction of machinery. Sullenly the old masters had to bow their necks to the yoke. They had to leave their own shops and their old independence and come to the machine for work and bread. They had been masters; henceforth they had a master. The former companionship of master and workmen, working together in the little shops, was gone. Two classes were created and a wide gulf separated them: on the one hand the employer, whose hands were white and whose power was great; on the other the wage-earner, who lived in a cottage and could only in rare and lessening instances hope to own a great shop with its costly machinery. This disintegration of the old economic life has slowly spread, reaching one trade after the other, one nation after the other. To-day it is working its way in Russia and India. Longfellow, in his “Village Blacksmith,” has described a master of the old kind. “The smith, a mighty man was he, with strong and sinewy hands.” To-day one son of the smith is nailing machine-made horseshoes on with machine-made nails, and repairing the iron-work of farmers which is wrought elsewhere. The other sons have gone into town and are factory hands. One worked in the fluff-filled air of a cotton mill and slept in a dark bedroom. He died of consumption. Thus went the old independence and the approximate equality of the old life. The old security disappeared, too. A man could not even be sure of the bare wages which he received for his toil. The machine worked with such headlong speed that it glutted the market with its goods and stopped its own wheels with the mass of its own output. Periodical prostrations of industry began with speculative production, and a new kind of famine became familiar,—the famine for work. The machine required deftness rather than strength. The slender fingers of women and children sufficed for it, and they were cheaper than men. So men were forced out of work by the competition of their own wives and children, and saw their loved ones wilt and die under the relentless drag of the machine. The saying that “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household,” received a new application. Under the old methods industry could be scattered over the country.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  When the dearest ethical convictions of the people in such a crisis are brought into collision with organized religion, the result is sad for the people and disastrous for the Church. In Germany the process has worked out its conclusions quite fully. For a long time the German state Church took no sympathetic interest in the socialist movement. It preached loyalty to the king, the divine necessity of social classes, submission, and godly patience. A socialist was a heathen and a publican. It was generally denied that a man could be both a socialist and a Christian. The socialists in their propaganda constantly encountered the Church as a spiritual and social force defending the existing social order, a bulwark of privilege and conservatism. They could gain a man for socialism only by undermining the authority of the Church over his mind. At the same time the leaders of the working class were drinking in eagerly the new results of natural science and philosophy, which at that time was baldly atheistic in Germany. “Science,” as popularized in socialist literature and propaganda, was atheistic materialism. The German Social Democracy professes to be indifferent to religion and declares it a private affair, but actually it is a force hostile to religion. The tide of socialism has risen until now the Social Democratic Party is almost coextensive with the working class in the cities. Gradually the Church woke up. It tried to remedy the social misery of the people by charitable work and by alleviative legislation on the basis of the existing social order. In both directions splendid work has been done, but the allegiance of the people has not been regained. The clergy are now thoroughly awake to social questions. Many of them are more or less socialistic in their thought, but the State and the governing bodies of the Church have favored the social activity of the clergy only when it seemed likely to quiet the people and establish the existing order, and have been harshly repressive as soon as individual ministers went farther. The Church in past centuries repeatedly lost the respect and affections of the people by its corruptions and the oppression which it sanctioned and intensified, but it was able to regain its hold when it repented and improved. It may be that in coming days the Church in Germany will regain its old influence in the life of the people. But the outlook is not sure. The old mediæval reverence for the Church as the only mediator of salvation is gone, and the people are permanently critical in spirit. Formerly the Church was able to envelop itself in awe by the shimmering mist of idealized history which it spread about its past services. The people are now educated beyond that. So the future is sombre. When a mountain-side is once denuded of vegetation and the roots of the trees no longer lace the soil together and hold the rain, the soil is washed down into the valleys.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  The world Walt Disney had created—one of fantasy, innocence, and wish-upon-a-star fulfillment of dreams—stood in stark contrast to the world he lived in, where it was too precarious to loosen his grip, enjoy a genuine interest, or be a friend instead of a taskmaster. A New York Times reporter who visited the studios noted, “I came away feeling sad” to find that the brilliant man who had delighted the world’s imagination was now deflated, intransigent, craving approval but desperately lonely, and avoiding his problems by procrastinating with toy trains. * * * The popcorn machine was filled with too many kernels. As the cameras rolled on the television show The Children’s Corner, the lid bounced open and the newly popped popcorn exploded over the sides. After filming wrapped, the show’s cocreator, thirty-three-year-old Fred Rogers, said, “Now we have to do that again.” The show’s star, a bubbly young woman named Josie Carey, was mystified. “Why? That was fun! The kids will love it.” But Rogers was concerned that for younger children, the runaway popping and the ensuing mess could be disturbing. Carey threw up her hands. He was so particular, so exacting. To Carey, the popcorn spilling everywhere was exciting—it was exactly what made TV entertaining. But Fred Rogers hadn’t gotten into TV to be entertaining. According to biographer Maxwell King, Rogers’s mission on TV was “to make it better, to make it more appropriate and educational for young children. The slapstick, pie-in-the-face quality of early television was just what he wanted to change.” Rogers had high standards, deep commitment, yet also a clear-eyed vision. He paid attention to the details—he saw things and thought of nuances nobody else did. In 1961, the head of children’s television at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation thought these traits made Fred Rogers the right person to lead a quiet revolution in children’s education. “I’ve seen you talk with kids,” said the executive. “I want you to look into the lens, and just pretend that’s a child.” And so began the show that would come to be called Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Over thirty-one seasons and 895 episodes, the world would witness Rogers trade a blazer and dress shoes for his cardigan and sneakers at the start of every show, a comforting, reliable signature. Each episode underwent intense care and deliberation. Excellence was the only acceptable standard. Every script went through multiple levels of review —Rogers himself, the show’s producers, and Rogers’s mentor and consultant, Dr. Margaret McFarland, a child psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh. Once, in the middle of shooting an episode, Rogers felt the script was not quite right, even after all the usual layers of input. So he did the unthinkable. He stopped production, left a highly paid, mostly unionized crew twiddling their thumbs on set, and walked down to the university campus to consult with Dr. McFarland. After about an hour, he came back, and the show rolled.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  everywhere, to use as a screen in case he has an erection in public—an event that does finally occur at the blackboard in math class, when a book provides the necessary cover,” Kirkus said on October 18, 1971, calling scenes like this one “refreshingly light.” A young male narrator, it seemed, could get away with referencing the physical trials of puberty in a book for children in a way a female character couldn’t without raising questions. Meanwhile, Judy was already getting involved with yet another novel for readers aged eight to twelve, called It’s Not the End of the World. The conflicts were very different from those experienced by Tony Miglione but a similar, aching strain played throughout the pages—that of feeling like a stranger in your own home. It’s Not the End of the World is a book about divorce, told through a child’s eyes. Like Henry James’s classic novel for adults What Maisie Knew, published seventy-five years before in 1897, Blume’s story lets readers watch a marriage fall apart by way of the observations and experiences of a sensitive daughter. Unlike in What Maisie Knew, the parents in Blume’s tale are loving and almost entirely well-intentioned. But for sixth-grader Karen, their breakup still feels crushing—almost catastrophic. Eventually, she comes to accept that her mom and dad won’t be getting back together, but not before she digs out the personalized cocktail napkins from their wedding, buys them an awkwardly timed anniversary card, and convinces herself that a handmade diorama about the Vikings is the perfect magical item that will help rekindle their love for each other. Judy got the idea to write the novel after a wave of divorces hit her neighborhood, rattling her elementary school–aged children. In Scotch Plains and around the entire country, the seemingly solid suburban dream—erected by American culture in the boon years after World War II—started to splinter. The baby boom was over and another trend tiptoed across the country’s green grassy lawns and began to chew away at the house frames: breakups. Between 1967 and 1979, the divorce rate doubled, affecting families of all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. “There are a number of different factors that go into really rapidly rising divorce rates in the sixties and seventies,” said Suzanne Kahn, author of Divorce, American Style: Fighting for Women’s Economic Citizenship in the Neoliberal Era. These included “everything from changing economic conditions, the feminist movement,

• From Bold Move

  But slowly the intensity came down and I could really start to look behind that pain and ask myself: What value of mine would I have to not care about for this pain not to exist? I kept asking myself, Why is this still hurting so much? And I finally arrived at my answer: trust. Trust is one of my core values, and one that is really challenging for me. As an adult I understand that I was never able to trust my father. He was simply too unreliable. Of course, my wonderful mom was always there, so that has long been my model for trust. But I had also seen early in life how she couldn’t trust my father either, so trust has always felt like a precious stone that I only share with those who are closest to me. This is not uncommon for individuals who have had traumatic experiences, especially early on in life. 18 So the experience with Robert hurt so much because I felt I could no longer trust him, and all the memories that are associated with this time in my life are related to a violation of trust in some form or another. So for me to have been able to say, “To hell with Robert; he’s out of line!” without any pain, I would have needed to not care about trust, and that just isn’t me. I need to trust those around me to feel safe in the world so I can function, and that is why this experience hurt so much. After identifying the value behind my pain, I was able to start healing and find a way to really consider what I would do today if I hit a similar crossroad. For some of you reading, if you were to be in my situation with Robert, trust might not have been what impacted you the most. It could have been another value, like integrity, truth, or fairness. The value that was compromised is unique to me and my views of the world, but the underlying principle is universal to all of us. For example, if you really care about growth but find yourself in a job where you are constantly underperforming or being asked to do things that you feel underutilize or stymy you, you will likely feel stress in your work life. Similarly, if you care about justice but find yourself in situations where there is constant injustice, you can expect to feel strong emotions. The emotions here are not the problem, as they are indicating to us that something is not working—in this case, that your value is being compromised. But if you can start to take this pain as a point of reflection, you will see that emotions will tend to come down a bit and you will be able to identify the value behind the painful feelings, just like I did.

• From Bold Move

  Reflection Uncovering Values in Sour Patches Anchoring on your narrative about this painful moment, ask yourself: What value of mine would I have to not care about for this pain to not exist? [Your Notes] What is it that matters to me that is being compromised? [Your Notes] After reflecting on these questions, try to identify a few values that are important to you. At times, Naming values is hard, so if you need help identifying yours, please look back at the list of common values here. The Pain of Reflecting on Pain If you are struggling to slow down and quiet your brain to engage in this reflection, you are not alone. I have personally found that looking at pain to identify values is very helpful, yet I often avoid it myself because just like Miriam, a patient of mine, said the other day: “It feels like there is a huge fire in my life right now, and instead of putting it out, you want me to let it burn to see what’s behind the pain.” I had to agree with her: it is counterintuitive to contemplate pain, both from a cultural and biological standpoint, yet every time a client of mine has allowed themselves to go there, the outcome has been absolute clarity in terms of values. Before we get to Set as the next step to align values with goals, I want to share with you my own painful moment, which in many ways led to this book. In fact, if I hadn’t allowed myself to experience that pain, I bet I would still be pursuing goals, lying to myself that it was driven by ambition, but knowing all the while that something was off. As I wrote about earlier in this part of the book, there came a time when I knew that things were not working for me in terms of my career, yet I had refused to really address this until I hit a huge pain point. It came in the form of a clash of values between myself and those who lead the institution where I work. The reality is, there were many moments that could have illustrated why I no longer fit, but I will share one here that I think will illustrate the pattern and how pain can reveal our compromised values. During my career I had a difficult boss—I’ll call him Robert. Robert was a physician and senior leader at the hospital where I work.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  If we have any zeal for the truth in us now, it is altogether likely that we would have shouted for the Homousios or the Homoiusios had we walked the streets of Alexandria in the fourth century. If I had known St. Francis, I hope I should have had grace enough to become a Franciscan friar and to serve the Lady Poverty. If destiny had put me on the chair of St. Peter, I hope I should have made a good fight against the encroachments of the secular power on the sacred heritage of Christ and the vicar of Christ. But being a twentieth-century Christian, I hope I shall do nothing of the kind. If the men of the past flinched in following their ideals, they must answer to God for it. Also if they consciously taught what was unchristian, or quenched the better light in others. The passing of these causes in modern life The sadness of the failure hitherto is turned into brightest hopefulness if we note that all the causes which have hitherto neutralized the social efficiency of Christianity have strangely disappeared or weakened in modern life. Christianity has shed them as an insect sheds its old casing in passing through its metamorphosis, and with the disappearance of each of these causes, Christianity has become fitter to take up its regenerative work. Let us run over the causes of failure set forth in this chapter and note how they have weakened or vanished. In the Roman Empire, as we have seen, social agitation would have been suppressed promptly. To-day it still encounters the moral resentment of the classes whose interests are endangered by a moral campaign and, if necessary, these interests are able to use the political machinery to suppress agitation. But in the freer countries of Western civilization the dissemination of moral ideas is almost untrammelled. The prophet’s message still brings the prophet’s odium; but a man will have to go far if he wants to be stoned or put in the stocks. Primitive Christianity did not work for social changes which required a long outlook, because it expected the immediate return of Christ. That the return of Christ will end the present world is still part of general Christian teaching; but the actual lapse of nineteen centuries has proved so plainly that we have to reckon with long reaches of time, that this expectation deters very few from taking a long look ahead in all practical affairs. There are, indeed, a number of Christian bodies and a great number of individuals who have systematized the apocalyptic ideas of later Judaism and early Christianity and have made them fundamental in their religious thought. They are placing themselves artificially in the attitude of mind which primitive Christianity took naturally. They are among the most devout and earnest people.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  Sitting down, she takes the ashes into her hands, rubs them into her wounds, and then scratches her face (the only part not touched by the fire-sticks) until the blood mingles with the ashes, which partly hide her cruel wounds. In this plight, scratching her face continually, she utters howls and lamentations." [1249] The description which Howitt gives of the rites of mourning among the Kurnai is remarkably similar to these others. After the body has been wrapped up in opossum skins and put in a shroud of bark, a hut is built in which the relatives assemble. "There they lay lamenting their loss, saying, for instance, 'Why did you leave us?' Now and then their grief would be intensified by some one, for instance, the wife, uttering an ear-piercing wail, 'My spouse is dead,' or another would say, 'My child is dead.' All the others would then join in with the proper term of relationship, and they would gash themselves with sharp stones and tomahawks until their heads and bodies streamed with blood. This bitter wailing and weeping continued all night." [1250] Sadness is not the only sentiment expressed during these ceremonies; a sort of anger is generally mixed with it. The relatives feel a need of avenging the death in some way or other. They are to be seen throwing themselves upon one another and trying to wound each other. Sometimes the attack is real; sometimes it is only pretended. [1251] There are even cases when these peculiar combats are organized. Among the Kaitish, the hair of the deceased passes by right to his son-in-law. But he, in return, must go, in company with some of his relatives and friends, and provoke a quarrel with one of his tribal brothers, that is, with a man belonging to the same matrimonial class as himself and one who might therefore have married the daughter of the dead man. This provocation cannot be refused and the two combatants inflict serious wounds upon each other's shoulders and thighs. When the duel is terminated, the challenger passes on to his adversary the hair which he had temporarily inherited. This latter then provokes and fights with another of his tribal brothers, to whom the precious relic is next transmitted, but only provisionally; thus it passes from hand to hand and circulates from group to group. [1252] Also, something of these same sentiments enters into that sort of rage with which each relative beats himself, burns himself or slashes himself: a sorrow which reaches such a paroxysm is not without a certain amount of anger. One cannot fail to be struck by the resemblances which these practices present to those of the vendetta.

• From Bold Move

  I moved away, tears in my eyes, trying to understand why she had yelled at me. Perhaps because of this incident, I have often used the analogy of a pressure cooker to explain reacting as a form of avoidance to my clients. When we avoid through reacting, it’s like we become a pressure cooker without a pressure valve (or if we do have one, we don’t trust it will work). When our emotions begin to boil, the temperature and pressure inside us rise so fast and so violently that we figuratively explode. And what do we do when we feel like we are about to explode? We act to eliminate the perceived threat by doing whatever we can to feel better fast. From an emotional standpoint, the explosion immediately—yet temporarily—relieves some of the pressure, but afterward we are always left with an even bigger mess to clean up and plenty of hurt feelings to go along with it. Blowing off steam feels helpful in the moment, but it can turn into a continual reactive avoidance pattern, which ultimately robs us of a bold life. Reactive Avoidance: My Many Faces Reactive avoidance has many forms, some harder to detect than others. But I will confess, I know this one well because reactive avoidance is the go-to tactic I have employed my entire life to avoid discomfort. I fight back to feel better. I mean, sure, putting on a conservative pantsuit might not seem like your idea of a fight, but there’s a defiance contained within this action that is, deep down, my version of flipping the bird. I will also react with an email (I know, I’m a true Hell’s Angel over here). Case in point: About a year ago, my mentor at MGH, a remarkably kind woman named Susan, sat me down and said, “Can we talk about your emails? Specifically, when you’re stressed?” I could see in Susan’s face that she was struggling to be constructive, despite the awkward nature of the conversation. I remember the spike in my anxiety, as I waited for her to tell me something awful. Oh my God, the only person who has my back is about to fire my ass! The traitor! As these premature thoughts were rushing through my head, I tried to plaster a fake (and probably deranged- looking) smile on my face. Susan continued, “Luana, you are one of the most productive people I know. You’re brilliant, caring, and you know I love working with you.” My heart pounded while I waited for her to say “. . . and yet, I’m tossing you out on the street like a piece of garbage.” But the axe didn’t drop. Instead, she proceeded to tell me that she had noticed I might be my own worst enemy. “I’ve noticed that you seem to respond to emails late at night. Like, very late at night. With urgency. And ferocity.

• From Bold Move

  As Marcus and I discussed this scenario, my grandmother’s questions failed both of us because there doesn’t appear to be any other way to interpret this situation beyond prejudice. Yet, for Marcus, this awful and painful experience had triggered his core view of himself—“I am insufficient”—which in turn triggered sadness and led him to consider dropping out of his program. In situations in which we are dealing with discrimination, sexism, homophobia, or microaggressions, it is important to face the reality of the situation. When we’re talking about discrimination, it can be challenging to consider a broader or heterodox perspective on the topic, because injustice and inequality are facts in this world. Yet, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias can also appear, even in such sensitive topics, and at times this might affirm our own unhelpful core belief. In Marcus’s case, he was discriminated against, but because it activated his core belief, it put him at risk of dropping out of the program that he had worked hard to be accepted to. Today, I love my Latina identity, take pride in my curves, and often talk to my son about the fact that he is “Brazilian, Mexican, and American” and that all of those are part of him. I am trying to teach Diego to integrate his identities in a way that allows him more flexible beliefs about himself and to not get stuck in black-and-white thinking. But I won’t lie to you, whenever I am in a white- majority Harvard meeting with mostly high-power, older men, I still have trouble thinking “I am enough.” What changed for me is that I now proudly sit at the table! Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, Just Shift I have been sharing examples in which my clients and I have faced painful deep core beliefs that are causing us significant distress. But Shifting is a skill that applies to more than just the “deep” stuff in life. It is actually a way of seeing the world: even when it is just small stuff, Shifting will help. For example, my husband, David, was teaching his graduate class last night, when he noticed one student had checked out. His brain immediately said, I am not engaging well with the students; I need to do better, which made him slightly anxious while teaching. But David has had his share of coaching on Shifting during our marriage, so he asked himself, What else might be happening here? and immediately he came up with a few possibilities: 1) it is a night class; perhaps the student is tired, and 2) maybe something happened for them and that is why they seem checked out.

• From Bold Move

  Unfortunately, there is no happy ending to this story. That night, my grandmother was not able to get through to me; there was too much history with my father, too much pain in that moment. As I look back, I see that my brain was in survival mode: my amygdala was predominately in charge, and I was predicting the world through my own beliefs that formed when things fell apart in my childhood: I am not enough. Through these lenses, I was unable to even consider another view of the world. Back then, my brain felt like a locked vault; the keys were thrown out, and forever and ever this would be the only way I would ever see the world . . . forever. Did I say forever? The conclusion my brain had drawn generated no dissonance because it just confirmed my core belief. But in doing so, my brain had made a giant pretzel with the information coming in: “My father didn’t show” was twisted into “It is all my fault.” That day, confirmation bias won: my brain interpreted my father’s absence as confirmation that I wasn’t enough. Yet, there is a catch here. By allowing confirmation bias to guide our conclusions, we are merely confirming beliefs that may no longer fit us or have any basis in reality. That day, I proved that it was indeed my fault that my father was not there because if I was enough, he would have shown up for me. (I wish I could give younger me a hug and teach her all that I know today!) While I hope you have not had the experience of a parent standing you up like this, most of you can likely relate on some level—a friend who disappointed you, a date who didn’t show, a boss who did not come through with their promised raise . . . Let’s Look at This Differently As I write this book, I can fully appreciate the intersection between my grandmother’s wisdom and science, and how applying the lessons from this intersection to my own life has allowed me to enjoy a better life, while also helping hundreds of my clients through the work that I do. Yet, at fifteen years old, I had no idea that the simple question my grandmother kept asking me again and again—“Is there another way to see this situation?”—would be legitimized by decades of psychological science. Today, I know that my grandmother’s question is at the core of what psychologists call cognitive restructuring, which is the classic cognitive therapy technique that psychologists teach their clients to update their predictions by identifying distorted beliefs and recalibrating them into more balanced views of the world.

• From Bold Move

  Often my clients understand that our brains want to keep the status quo and conserve energy by confirming what we already know. It is sort of easy to match “I am lovable” with knowing my husband loves me, or “I am smart” when I get accepted to a highly prestigious scholarship. It’s also not hard to reconcile the core belief “I am reliable” with missing one appointment. Our brain simply rationalizes our action as a mistake or brushes it aside completely. Yes, I missed the appointment, but I honestly couldn’t get there on time given my other commitments. It won’t happen again, because, after all, I’m a reliable person. When it comes to these more favorable views of ourselves, we often can quickly understand what happened and move on. They don’t keep us stuck in avoidance. Yet that is not the case with the unfavorable core beliefs. Our brain still works the same way: it tries to confirm those beliefs, but the problem is that the confirmation process is usually painful. Now, here is the question I often get: Why is my brain confirming pain? I don’t get it! I don’t want to think this way, but it keeps happening. Our brain confirms unfavorable core beliefs to conserve energy. It will do whatever it takes with information coming in to make sure it fits our views of the world, even if it has to bend the information into a pretzel (see figure 2). For example, if you believe that you’re a failure and someone congratulates you on a recent promotion, then you might quickly say something like, “Well, everyone gets a promotion after they have been here as long as I have.” This thought might not make you feel great, but it feels better than going through the mental energy and gymnastics of asking yourself, What if I’m really not a failure? Basically, when the puzzle pieces do not fit each other, your brain pretzels the information to make them fit. “People who get a promotion are usually doing something well,” contradicts “I am a failure,” but your brain changes “I got a raise” into “I only got a raise because I have worked here for this long.” This allows you to maintain the old belief “I am a failure.” Figure 2: How the Brain Makes Faulty Predictions Now let’s go back to my brain and its tendency to use the “I’m not enough” category when processing information. Pause for a second and ask yourself: Does being a prolific researcher mean I am not smart? It doesn’t! And if you were my client, I would completely agree. Yet, in my brain, it makes sense, even though it hurts.

• From Bold Move

  He was a loving man and would do anything for his family, but his worldview was like hardened cement. Relative to Sara’s dad, her mom was the flexible one. She believed that people had the right to pursue their dreams no matter what anyone else believed. She believed that life was too short to worry about what other people thought of you. Despite these apparent differences, Sara’s parents had a good marriage based on mutual understanding. They also had been married long enough to know that they couldn’t change each other, and their different temperaments made for a nice balance. Sara was a great student and, though she described herself as an introvert, had a small but strong group of friends. In high school, Sara didn’t date at all, and when prom arrived, she decided not to go. The idea of going alone in a long fancy dress was not something that appealed to her. Even though her friends really wanted her there, she just could not talk herself into doing it. From all vantage points, Sara’s life was on track when she left for college—or at least it appeared so to the outside world. Internally, however, Sara had been fighting a war within herself. From middle school on, she felt different. She didn’t care much for the boys in her class, and when she was being completely honest with herself, she noticed that she was more attracted to girls. This confused her. For as long as she could remember, her father adored her and referred to her as his princess. Following the logic, she would often think: And princesses marry princes. With her father’s perspective framing her own internal landscape, she pushed her feelings aside and focused on her schoolwork and friends. However, the price of keeping this mask on was becoming costly, and she nearly failed her first semester at a prominent Boston-area university. It was at this crisis point that I first met her. Sara looked sad as she walked into my office, as if she were dragging around a very heavy burden. As we started to talk, Sara asked a lot of questions about my work and about therapy in general and seemed especially concerned about the confidentiality. As soon as I assured Sara that I could keep her confidentiality as long as it was medically and legally appropriate, she began to share her story with me. I learned about Sara’s early interest in girls, her fears related to her sexuality, and how she had been repressing her feelings because of her mother’s Catholic beliefs and her own beliefs around her father’s desire for her to be his princess in search of Prince Charming.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  We argued for hours: I couldn’t convince him any more than he could persuade me; he tried his best to get me to stay two years at any rate and then go with full pockets: “you can easily spare two years”, he cried, but I retorted, “not even two days: I’m frightened of myself.” When he found that I wanted the money to go round the world with first, he saw a chance of delay and said I must give him some time to find out what was coming to me; I told him I trusted him utterly (as indeed I did) and could only give him the Saturday and Sunday, for I’d go on the Monday at the latest. He gave in at last and was very kind. I got a dress and little hat for Lily and lots of books beside a chinchilla cape for Rose and broke the news to Lily next morning, keeping the afternoon for Rose. To my astonishment I had most trouble with Lily: she would not hear any reason: “There is no reason in it”, she cried again and again, and then she broke down in a storm of tears: “What will become of me?” she sobbed, “I always hoped you’d marry me!” she confessed at last, “and now you go away for nothing, nothing—on a wild-goose chase—to study”, she added in a tone of absolute disdain, “just as if you couldn’t study here!” “I’m too young to marry, Lily,” I said, “and—” “You were not too young to make me love you”, she broke in, “and now what shall I do? Even Mamma said that we ought to be engaged and I want you so,—oh! oh!” and again the tears fell in a shower. I could not help saying at last that I would think it all over and let her know and away I went to Rose. Rose heard me out in complete silence and then with her eyes on mine in lingering affection, she said: “Do you know, I’ve been afraid often of some decision like this. I said to myself a dozen times, ‘why should he stay here? the wider world calls him’ and if I feel inclined to hate my work because it prevents my studying, what must it be for him in that horrible court, fighting day after day? I always knew I should lose you, dear!” she added, “but you were the first to help me to think and read, so I must not complain. Do you go soon?”

• From Bold Move

  So, take a moment to complete the reflection below and uncover where in your life you might be hitting a crossroad. Is Remaining Always Avoidance? When I am teaching the idea that sometimes we stay in situations as a form of avoidance, one question I often get from trainees is: Are you telling me that the person stuck in a domestic violence situation is avoiding? Domestic violence is a serious and multifaceted situation. I know this not only as an expert who has treated many trauma survivors over the past two decades, but also from witnessing my mom go through it for years. When it comes to situations that can be life and death, there is only one certainty: safety comes first. So, if you are reading this book and find yourself in this situation, I strongly urge you to find a provider or a close friend and to ensure you care for your safety above all else. Although I imagine that the way out is difficult, I saw how my mom changed after she was in a safe place. Don’t get me wrong, it was challenging. But it led to a better life for all of us. Reflection Identifying Crossroads Where Values Collide Experiencing the stress of colliding values is not something unique to Ricardo and me—we all deal with this all the time. It is not the collision that is the problem: the problem is when we feel the tension of making a choice, but instead of being intentional about our choice, we avoid. Looking back at your values that you identified earlier in this chapter, reflect on a recent situation where two of those values collided, and think about the following questions: When my values collided, what did I do? [Your Notes] How did I feel after I took this action? [Your Notes] Is this something that I do over and over again? [Your Notes] What is the short-term consequence of my action? [Your Notes] Long term, does choosing a specific action related to one of these values keep me stuck? [Your Notes] Here is another example of someone who is remaining in place but not avoiding. Kate, a client of mine, called me the other day to check in and talk about whether or not she was avoiding. Kate had been in a very abusive and unhappy work environment when we met and was frozen in place. She had gained a hundred pounds over the years, and she was feeling terrible.

• From Bold Move

  I asked Ricardo. “Well, as it turned out, my wife”—he looked sad as he said the word—“was also in a meeting at work and didn’t see my messages, so the kids were stranded at school. Thankfully not alone, because their teachers stayed with them for an extra twenty minutes, but man, they were furious with me when I got them.” Ricardo’s eyes welled with tears. “It’s not like I was consciously choosing work over my family! Sometimes these things just happen, and I end up always choosing what feels most pressing in the moment. Honestly, I think that’s why my wife is leaving me. She says that I’m not a true partner, someone she can rely on. And after eight years, she says she’s had enough. I don’t think I can change her mind, but I need to figure out how to behave differently, because I know that while I only have my family’s best interests at heart, they don’t see it that way, and that kills me.” For Ricardo, this decision between success at work and dependability for his family had been particularly painful because he often found himself choosing success at work and compromising his family life. When Ricardo’s wife finally asked for the divorce, he was crushed because in his heart he deeply loved her and fully understood why she was upset. In fact, he shared her frustrations with his own behavior! He wanted to change but didn’t know how to stop avoiding by doing what he had always done. I often find myself stuck just like Ricardo, and perhaps some of you reading this feel the same. Every day I wake up and say to myself, I will exercise this morning! Then, before I know it, Diego is up, gives me a hug and a gorgeous smile, and asks: “Mamãe, vamos brincar?” (“Mom, let’s play?”) At this point, my heart melts and all I want is to spend every second of the rest of my life with him and any and all hope of spending my morning on a stair-climber or picking up a barbell goes out the window. I prioritize him at that moment (and all such moments), and it feels good . . . momentarily! But it also has an unpleasant whiff of avoidance to it because this choice always has me stuck in place, doing what I usually do, with forty pounds to lose and feeling physically tired and achy, none of which will get easier to fix as time goes on. Luckily, we don’t have to wait until a breaking point to identify areas of our lives where values are colliding. These areas are usually ripe with avoidance.