Shame

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 Wild (2012)

  He wanted to see me. Right now. Lisa had told him about Joe and about my using heroin, and he’d immediately driven the seventeen hundred miles straight through from Minneapolis to talk to me. I met him within the hour at Lisa’s apartment. It was a warm, sunny day in late September. I’d turned twenty-six the week before. Joe hadn’t remembered. It was the first birthday of my life when not one person had said happy birthday to me. “Happy birthday,” said Paul when I walked in the door. “Thank you,” I said, too formally. “I meant to call, but I didn’t have your number—I mean, Joe’s.” I nodded. It was strange to see him. My husband. A phantom from my actual life. The realest person I knew. We sat at the kitchen table with the branches of a fig tree tapping on the window nearby, the broom with which Lisa had struck me propped against the wall. He said, “You look different. You seem so … How can I say this? You seem like you aren’t here.” I knew what he meant. The way he looked at me told me everything I’d refused to hear from Lisa. I was different. I wasn’t there. Heroin had made me that way. And yet the idea of giving it up seemed impossible. Looking Paul squarely in the face made me realize that I couldn’t think straight. “Just tell me why you’re doing this to yourself,” he demanded, his eyes gentle, his face so familiar to me. He reached across the table and took my hands, and we held on to each other, locked eye to eye, tears streaming first down my face, then down his. He wanted me to go home with him that afternoon, he said evenly. Not for a reunion with him but to get away. Not from Joe, but from heroin. I told him I needed to think. I drove back to Joe’s apartment and sat in the sun on a lawn chair that Joe kept on the sidewalk outside the building. Heroin had made me dumb and distant from myself. A thought would form and then evaporate. I could not quite get ahold of my mind, even when I wasn’t high. As I sat there a man walked up to me and said his name was Tim. He took my hand and shook it and told me that I could trust him. He asked if I could give him three dollars for diapers, then if he could use my phone inside the apartment, and then if I had change for a five-dollar bill, and on and on in a series of twisting questions and sorry stories that confused and compelled me to stand and pull the last ten dollars I had out of my jeans pocket. When he saw the money, he took a knife out of his shirt. He held it almost politely to my chest and hissed, “Give me that money, sweetheart.”

• From Wild (2012)

  In the mornings, my pain was magnified by about a thousand. In the mornings there weren’t only those sad facts about my life. Now there was also the additional fact that I was a pile of shit. I’d wake in Joe’s squalid room implicated by every banal thing: the lamp and the table, the book that had fallen and rested now belly-down and open, its flimsy pages buckled on the floor. In the bathroom, I’d wash my face and sob into my hands for a few fast breaths, getting ready for the waitressing job I’d picked up at a breakfast place. I’d think: This is not me. This is not the way I am. Stop it. No more. But in the afternoons I’d return with a wad of cash to buy another bit of heroin and I’d think: Yes. I get to do this. I get to waste my life. I get to be junk. But this was not to be. Lisa called me one day and said she wanted to see me. I’d stayed in touch with her, hanging out for long afternoons at her place, telling her glimmers of what I was up to. As soon as I walked into her house this time, I knew something was up. “So tell me about heroin,” she demanded. “Heroin?” I replied lightly. What could I possibly say? It was inexplicable, even to me. “I’m not becoming a junkie, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I offered. I was leaning against her kitchen counter, watching her sweep the floor. “That’s what I’m worried about,” she said sternly. “Well, don’t,” I said. I explained it to her as rationally and playfully as I could. It had been only a couple of months. We would stop soon. Joe and I were simply messing around, doing something fun. “It’s summertime!” I exclaimed. “Remember how you suggested that I come here to escape? I’m escaping.” I laughed, though she didn’t laugh along. I reminded her that I’d never had trouble with drugs before; that I drank alcohol with moderation and reserve. I was an experimentalist, I told her. An artist. The kind of woman who said yes instead of no. She challenged my every statement, questioned my every rationale. She swept and swept and swept the floor as our talk turned into an argument. She eventually became so furious with me that she swatted me with the broom. I went back to Joe’s and we talked about how Lisa just didn’t understand. Then, two weeks later, Paul called.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I closed my eyes, heard the rip of stitches, and when next I looked my sister had the bonnet in her lap, and George had half the ostrich feather in his fingers. The chip of diamante had flown off, and been lost.Poor George began to gulp and cough; Rosina said sternly that she hoped that he was satisfied. Liza took the hat and the feather and tried awkwardly to reunite them: ‘Such a pretty bonnet,’ she said. Alice started to sniff, then placed her hands before her eyes and hurried from the room. Father said, ‘Well, now!’; he still held his gleaming watch-guard. Mother looked at me and shook her head. ‘What a shame,’ she said. ‘Oh Nancy, what a shame!’ In time Rosina and the cousins left, and Alice, still rather swollen-eyed, went out to call on a friend. I took my bags up to my old room, and washed my face; when I came down a little later, the presents I had brought had all been tidied out of sight, and Rhoda was helping Mother peel and boil potatoes in the kitchen. They shooed me away when I offered to join them, and said I was a guest; and so I sat with Father and Davy - who seemed to think that keeping to their usual habits, and hiding themselves behind the Sunday papers, would put me at my ease.We had our dinner, then took a walk to Tankerton and sat pitching stones into the water. The sea was grey as lead; far out upon it there were a couple of yawls and barges - bound for London, where Kitty was. What was she doing now, I wondered, apart from missing me?Later there was tea, after which more cousins appeared, to thank me for their presents and to beg for a look at my handsome new clothes. We sat upstairs and I showed them my frocks, my hat with the veil upon it, and my painted stockings. There was more talk about young men. Alice, I learned - they were surprised she hadn’t told me this - had finished with Tony Reeves from the Palace, and had started stepping out with a boy who worked at the shipyard; he was much taller, they said, than Tony, but not as funny. Freddy, my old beau, was also seeing a new girl, and seemed likely to marry her ... When they asked me, again, if I was courting, I said I wasn’t; but I hesitated over it, and they smiled. There was someone, they pressed - and just to keep them quiet, I nodded.‘There was a boy. He played the cornet in an orchestra ...’ I looked away, as if it made me sad to think of him, and felt them exchange significant glances.And what about Miss Butler? Surely she had a young man? ‘Yes, a man named Walter ...’

• From Wild (2012)

  “Yes,” I said, oddly flattered that I appeared that way to her, in spite of my filth and stench. “Or I used to be. I graduated four years ago,” I said, and then took another bite of food, realizing it was technically a lie. Though I’d promised my mother in the last days of her life that I would finish my BA, I hadn’t. My mother had died on the Monday of our spring break and I’d returned to school the following Monday. I’d staggered my way through a full load of classes that last quarter, half blind with grief, but I did not receive my degree because I’d failed to do one thing. I had not written a five-page paper for an intermediate-level English class. It should have been a breeze, but when I tried to start writing, I could only stare at my blank computer screen. I walked across the stage in a cap and gown and accepted the little document baton that was handed to me, but when I unrolled it, it said what I knew it would: that until I finished that paper, I would not have my bachelor’s degree. I had only my college loans, which, by my calculations, I’d be paying off until I was forty-three. The next morning Frank left me at a convenience store on the highway after instructing me to catch a ride to a town called Ridgecrest. I sat on the front porch of the store until a guy who distributed chips came along and said yes when I asked him for a ride, in spite of the fact that it was against company rules to pick up a hitchhiker. His name was Troy, he told me once I’d climbed into his big truck. He drove around southern California five days a week, delivering bags of chips of all varieties. He’d been married to his high school sweetheart for seventeen years, since he was seventeen. “Seventeen years out of the cage, and seventeen years in,” he joked, though his voice was raw with regret. “I’d do anything to trade places with you,” he said as we drove. “I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.”

• From Wild (2012)

  “Detached,” I said. “Or many of them are, anyway. I’m like that too. Capable of being detached when it comes to sex.” I looked at Vince. He was fortyish with dark hair parted in the middle and feathered like two tidy black wings along the sides of his face. I had nothing for him, but if he’d risen and come across the room and kissed me, I’d have kissed him back. I’d have done anything. But he didn’t rise. He only nodded without saying anything, his silence conveying both skepticism and faith. “Who detached from you?” he asked finally. “I don’t know,” I said, smiling the way I did when I was uncomfortable. I wasn’t exactly looking at him. Instead, I was looking at the framed poster that hung behind him, a black rectangle with a whirl of white that was meant to be the Milky Way. An arrow pointed into its center, above which were written the words YOU ARE HERE. This image had become ubiquitous on T-shirts as well as posters and I always felt mildly irritated by it, unsure of how to take it, whether it was meant to be comical or grave, to indicate the largeness of our lives or the insignificance. “Nobody’s ever broken up with me, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said. “I’ve always been the one to end relationships.” My face felt suddenly hot. I realized I was sitting with my arms wound around each other and my legs wrapped around each other too—in a yogic eagle pose, hopelessly twisted. I tried to relax and sit normally, but it was impossible. Reluctantly, I met his eyes. “Is this the part where I tell you about my father?” I asked, laughing falsely.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  This brought back too many memories. It recalled the sewing machine, and the reprimands designed to destroy our self-will and self-esteem. Indeed, during one of my run-ins with the head, Pearl, who seemed to find it difficult to keep away from the school once she had left, told me that the head had said to her: “I really must break Miss Armstrong!” Her behavior was, of course, preposterous, but I could not laugh it off as easily as my colleagues. I could not see it in proportion, and found to my disgust that I actually minded being out of favor. This was not surprising; I had been programmed to relate to authority in this way, and the head’s leadership sometimes seemed as perverse and irrational as that of some of my former superiors. When, for example, I was called up for jury service and had to spend two weeks at Knightsbridge Crown Court, she was almost beside herself with fury. “The head is hopping mad!” her deputy informed me on the phone each night. But what could I do? She had got it into her head that I need only serve for a couple of days, but that was simply not the case. I asked if she would be prepared to pay the fine I might incur for contempt of court, or stand bail if I were hauled off to prison. When the judge finally released me and I went back to work, she was so unpleasant that there were moments when I felt that jail would have been preferable. She was not always as bad as this. She could be very kind indeed, was excellent with the students, and when she was not trying to break me, went out of her way to be appreciative of my efforts. But the experience of being cursorily ordered around and “owned” in this manner was bad for me, and I knew it.

• From Wild (2012)

  Throughout the evening I repeatedly filled the little paper cup I’d taken from the convenience store, gulping smooth sips of wine as if it were water until it tasted like nothing but water to me. It didn’t feel like I’d hiked seventeen miles in midnineties heat that day with a pack on my back and duct tape wound around my feet. It seemed as if I’d floated there instead. Like the picnic table was the best place I’d ever been or would ever be. I didn’t realize that I was drunk until we all decided to turn in and I stood up and it struck me that the art of standing had changed. In an instant I was down on my hands and knees, retching miserably onto the dirt in the middle of our camp. In spite of all the ridiculousness of my life in the preceding years, I’d never been sick from alcohol before. When I was done, Stacy placed my water bottle beside me, murmuring that I needed to drink. The real me inside the blur I’d become realized she was right, that I wasn’t only drunk but also profoundly dehydrated. I hadn’t had a sip of water since I was on the hot trail that afternoon. I forced myself to sit up and drink. When I took a sip, I instantly retched again. In the morning, I rose before the others and did what I could to sweep the vomit away with the branch of a fir tree. I went to the shower room, took off my dirty clothes, and stood under the hot spray of water in the concrete stall feeling like someone had beaten me the night before. I didn’t have time to be hungover. I planned to be back on the trail by midday. I dressed and returned to camp and sat at the table drinking as much water as I could tolerate, reading all nine of my letters one by one while the others slept. Paul was philosophical and loving about our divorce. Joe was romantic and rash, saying nothing about whether he was in rehab. Karen was brief and workaday, providing me with an update about her life. The letters from friends were a rush of love and gossip, news and funny tales. By the time I finished reading them, the others were emerging from their tents, limping into the day the way I did each morning until my joints warmed up. I was grateful that every last one of them looked at least half as hungover as me. We all smiled at one another, miserable and amused. Helen, Sam, and Sarah left to take showers, Rex and Stacy to pay one more visit to the store.

• From Bold Move

  Here is something important to note: we will never be able to completely quiet our brains with their distorted or less-than-helpful thoughts. The spin will always happen, and our goal here is not to forever eliminate negative or stressful thoughts from our mind, but to do as Janet did: develop a healthier relationship to these thoughts. As you gain proficiency in this skill, you will find that although these thoughts still occur, they happen far less often, and when they do pop up, they don’t have the same power they once did to throw you off course and take control over your actions. Sara’s Shift: I Am UnlovableFor Sara, there was one belief that fundamentally filtered her worldview: “I am unlovable.” This might strike you as strange: Why would Sara’s brain want to confirm something as hurtful as “I am unlovable”? You might be saying to yourself, Even my fucked-up brain doesn’t do that! Sara and I worked hard for nearly a year to uncover and change her painful core belief. At first, Sara’s brain did whatever it could to avoid discussing it. For example, she would change the topic in therapy, but whenever this happened, I would gently steer things back. In the end, what helped Sara the most was looking at this belief through the lenses of her friends. Being part of a strong and supportive LGBTQ+ community at Harvard, Sara was eventually able to tell me that she would never say to any of her friends at school that they are “unlovable” because they are gay. By considering what she would say to a friend in her situation, Sara was able to slowly free herself from this belief. After a year, Sara came out to her parents during winter break. As she predicted, it was explosive at first. Her father retreated into his office for days and ignored her. Her mom tried to change Sara’s mind, insisting that this was perhaps just a phase. Through tears and fear, Sara held strong and was able to do so because she knew she was, in fact, lovable. It has been three years since Sara came out, and I recently got an email from her with a photo of her and her family at a pride parade. I will confess, Sara’s dad looked very uncomfortable, but as Sara described in the email, he was trying. Sara told me that although there was still a lot of discomfort around her new (to them) identity, things were improving. Like everything else, the big stuff takes time. But Sara was much happier now that she could bring her full self to those she loved the most. As the (useful) cliché goes, we can only control what we can control. By Shifting , Sara was able to do just that.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  There was nothing surprising about it. During those lonely weeks before the viva, I had lived with my failure and grown accustomed to it. Not so my colleagues. Richard and Jackie looked at me dumbfounded when I told them the news that morning. For once even Richard, a naturally voluble and ebullient soul, was lost for words. And when I phoned Jane with the news that night, I was astonished and touched when she burst into tears. I know perfectly well that if this had happened to somebody else—to Jane herself, for example—I should have been angry on her behalf. Yet because it had happened to me, all I could feel was cold, fatalistic acceptance. I was not simply in shock. For years, people had told me that I was rubbish, and this proved it. I had tried to convince myself that I had talents, but I think that I had been waiting subconsciously, but with a dread that I dared not acknowledge, to be finally, fatally unmasked. Now it had finally happened. There was, if not relief, a grim sense that this was right; it had to happen. I should have known better than to imagine that I could succeed. For all the spurious success that I had enjoyed, I was just no good—and I should have known that all along. This latest debacle was, in the original sense of the word, a revelation: it had “unveiled” a reality that had been there all the time but which I had not seen with sufficient clarity. But that was not the whole of it. I still felt at some profound level that it was wrong to feel distress. For years I had been castigated for being too sensitive. I had spent the three years of my novitiate weeping like a broken waterspout. Reduced to tears by a pitiless rebuke for a failure or mishap, I would then be chastised for weeping. And the tears would flow again. It became a vicious circle. I became obsessed with my sensitivity, and would include these lachrymose episodes in the list of sins for my weekly confession. Eventually I learned to keep my feelings at arm’s length, and refused to allow myself to feel anything at all. It was part of the residual damage that I had incurred as a result of my training and had still not completely overcome. This, coupled with the fact that my “weird seizures” made me see everything in a remote, distanced way, meant that I was unable to connect with my feelings at all. Friends later told me that I had imparted the bad news about my thesis with an uncanny, unearthly smile. “I’ve failed,” I would say calmly. “Yes, failed.” This icy calm persisted for days. Then I had a call from my supervisor. “No, listen!” she said urgently, after we had exchanged greetings and commiserations. “There is a crisis. People are furious. This is a scandal, my dear.

• From Wild (2012)

  “Detached,” I said. “Or many of them are, anyway. I’m like that too. Capable of being detached when it comes to sex.” I looked at Vince. He was fortyish with dark hair parted in the middle and feathered like two tidy black wings along the sides of his face. I had nothing for him, but if he’d risen and come across the room and kissed me, I’d have kissed him back. I’d have done anything. But he didn’t rise. He only nodded without saying anything, his silence conveying both skepticism and faith. “Who detached from you?” he asked finally. “I don’t know,” I said, smiling the way I did when I was uncomfortable. I wasn’t exactly looking at him. Instead, I was looking at the framed poster that hung behind him, a black rectangle with a whirl of white that was meant to be the Milky Way. An arrow pointed into its center, above which were written the words YOU ARE HERE. This image had become ubiquitous on T-shirts as well as posters and I always felt mildly irritated by it, unsure of how to take it, whether it was meant to be comical or grave, to indicate the largeness of our lives or the insignificance. “Nobody’s ever broken up with me, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said. “I’ve always been the one to end relationships.” My face felt suddenly hot. I realized I was sitting with my arms wound around each other and my legs wrapped around each other too—in a yogic eagle pose, hopelessly twisted. I tried to relax and sit normally, but it was impossible. Reluctantly, I met his eyes. “Is this the part where I tell you about my father?” I asked, laughing falsely.

• From Bold Move

  And in times like that, the best strategy I had was to walk away for a moment (or several) and calm down before interacting with him. Moving away from discomfort to cool off so you can successfully reengage is not avoiding because the discomfort doesn’t dissipate! Pulling the Switch to Get UnstuckFor Janet, it was the core belief I am worthless that kept her from asking for a raise. Meanwhile, our friend Sara was certain beyond all certainty that if she were to come out, her parents would hate her, which stemmed from the core belief I am unlovable . For yours truly, my brain graffiti—I am not enough —ended up costing me weeks of avoidance before I was able to get my act together and actually finish this chapter. Across all examples, what we see is that no matter who you are, your brain can come up with some upsetting grenades to lob your way. Of course, none of this is a conscious effort to be cruel to ourselves, as one cannot simply think a thought before it appears. But no matter how ephemeral or weightless these kinds of negative thoughts may be, they can do real damage to our psyche. It doesn’t matter whether your brain is saying, “I don’t deserve a raise,” “I am an impostor,” “I am unlovable,” or “I’m stupid,” these types of thoughts can make us anxious, scared, sad, or anything in between. And when emotions become too much to handle, we are wired to avoid. Reflection Uncovering Your Hidden Lenses Understanding the hidden lenses that might be distorting your view of the world is extremely helpful in overcoming avoidance. Set aside some quiet time to focus on this reflection, grab a pen and paper, and follow these steps to uncover your hidden lenses. Think about a situation in which you felt discomfort, which you wanted to avoid, to walk away from as fast as you could. Describe this situation:[Your Notes] Now ask yourself, “What was I saying to myself in this situation that got me feeling so uncomfortable?” Write out a few thoughts that you had in this situation.[Your Notes] Once you’ve identified them, pick one thought and answer the following questions based on this thought:What does this thought mean to me?What does this thought say about me?If this thought were true, then what?What worries me about this thought being true?Why does that upset me so much?What does this suggest about me?Check the answers above against the list of core beliefs here to see if you can identify one (or more) core beliefs that might be your hidden filters. Instead of fighting these thoughts or ignoring them the way we’d (ideally) ignore a rude person on the street, we end up believing these thoughts, accepting them as God’s honest truth, and then we do everything we can to avoid them.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  This was the spring of 1969, and I now realize that on the international stage, the weeks that had elapsed since my departure from the convent had been momentous. Richard Nixon had been inaugurated as president of the United States, Yasser Arafat had been elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and a military coup had taken place in Pakistan. Palestinian terrorists had attacked an Israeli airliner at Zurich airport, Nixon had authorized the secret bombing of Cambodia, and Soviet and Chinese forces had clashed on the Manchurian border. I knew nothing of this. I had never heard of either Nixon or Arafat, and would have had difficulty in locating either Cambodia or Manchuria on the map. In the convent, we had not kept abreast of current events. In the noviceship, indeed, we did not even see newspapers. We were told of the Cuban missile crisis, which occurred a few weeks after I entered, but our superiors forgot to tell us that the conflict had been resolved, so we spent three whole weeks in terror, hourly expecting the outbreak of World War III. Mother Walter also told us about the shocking assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Catholic president. Later, this strict embargo on the news was mitigated somewhat, but in general political interest was frowned upon. As a result, I entered the secular world completely ignorant of the problems of our time, and because I lacked basic information, could not make head or tail of the newspapers. What I needed was a crash course in the current political scene, but this was not available, and I felt so ashamed of my ignorance that I did not dare to ask questions that would have revealed its abysmal depths. As it happened, there were students at my college who would have been delighted to take my education in hand, because St. Anne’s was probably the most politically minded of all the five women’s colleges. This was, of course, the great period of student unrest. In January, while I was preparing to leave my convent, the Czech student Jan Palach had publicly burned himself to death to protest Soviet occupation, and in Spain student disturbances had led to the imposition of martial law. In April, left-wing students at Cornell University in New York State staged a three-day sit-in to draw attention to their outdated curriculum, while at Harvard, three hundred students occupied the campus administration building and were forcibly removed by the police. Oxford was also aflame with revolutionary enthusiasm. But the ringleaders looked absolutely terrifying to me—unapproachable in their righteous rage.

• From Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry (2017)

  appear to be. Others may look completely formidable to you. Regardless how big or small, each opportunity will present a challenge. If you remember to choose opportunities that are just outside your present zone of comfort, with stakes that you can handle, your practice will be both rewarding and sustainable. Celebrating Imperfection Here are some opportunities for the perfectionist monkey mind-set, which does not allow for making mistakes. Values that you are looking to nourish include creativity, risk, and adventure. Add acceptance and compassion to the list—they’ll be needed when your inevitable mistakes are made. You’ll also want flexibility and resilience in order to recover from them. A mind-set that celebrates imperfection is characterized by these beliefs: I know I will do some things well and other things poorly, and neither reflects my worth as a person. (Unconditional self-acceptance) Mistakes, judgments, and criticism are signs that I have taken a risk and seized an opportunity for growth. I am motivated by excellence, creativity, and purpose. It is more important to do my personal best than measure myself against others’ accomplishments. Being imperfect and fallible is part of being human. Here are some examples of perfectionist safety strategies we use in common situations, as well as alternative expansive strategies you can practice using instead. Safety strategy: Repeatedly check an e-mail for errors. Expansive strategy: Write and send. Safety strategy: Organize workspace so it is neat. Expansive strategy: Leave some clutter. Safety strategy: Put off doing taxes, or anything else you hate. Expansive strategy: Set a time and spend five minutes on that task. Safety strategy: Attempt to cook the perfect meal. Expansive strategy: When cooking for others, allow for mistakes. The preceding strategies were behavioral. Here are a few opportunities to practice mental expansion strategies: Safety strategy: Review the past, looking for mistakes. Expansive strategy: Allow yourself to be uncertain about whether you made mistakes in the past. Safety strategy: Worry when reminded of a problem. Expansive strategy: Use the five-step problem-solving process. For a complete list of Safety Strategies versus Expansive Strategies for the Perfectionist, visit http://www.newharbinger.com/35067. Here are a few all-purpose Expansion Charts to help your practice. Each of them addresses a specific problem area common to those of us with a perfectionist mind-set. Opportunity: Impostor syndrome—Feeling like I have to prove myself or I’ll be discovered as a fraud Values: Authenticity, Creativity, Self-Acceptance Monkey Mind-set Mistakes equal incompetence. If people see weakness, I’ll look inadequate. Expansive Mind-set Mistakes are part of being human. I don’t need to prove myself. Safety Strategies Hide mistakes. Don’t ask questions or for help. Overwork to prevent mistakes. Don’t take risks. Don’t share details about yourself. Expansive Strategies Reveal minor mistakes. Ask for help or ask a question once a day. Restrict time on tasks, leave work on time. Try something new and allow for mistakes. Share one thing about yourself every day. Necessary Feelings: Anxiety, shame, and embarrassment Opportunity: Procrastination

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  It was not a truthful account. This was not because the events I recounted did not happen, but because the book did not tell the whole story. The publishers were concerned that I should not come across as an intellectual. So I had to leave out any kind of learned reflection. There could be no talk of books or poems, for example, and certainly no theological discussion about the nature of God or the purpose of prayer. I should stick to external events to make the story dramatic and accessible. I was also told to present myself in as positive and lively a light as possible, and as I was still very unsure of myself as a writer, and assumed that my publishers knew what they were doing, I went along with this. But most important, I wanted this cheery self-portrait to be true. It was, therefore, an exercise in wish fulfillment, and predictably, the result was quite awful. Today I can hardly bear to look at Beginning the World, which has a hearty, boisterous, and relentlessly extrovert tone. It is like reading my life story as told by Ruby Wax. The reality was very different. During those years, I did in fact live a great deal inside my head, and approached the world largely through the medium of books and ideas. To an extent, I still do. And I was not a lively, positive girl. Much of the time, I was withdrawn, bitter, weary, frightened, and ill. And while I was writing Beginning the World, I was particularly scared—with good reason, because yet again, my latest career had collapsed and the future looked most uncertain. The book was badly conceived, and could be nothing but a distortion of an important and ultimately valuable period of my life. And so I have decided to try again. We should probably all pause to confront our past from time to time, because it changes its meaning as our circumstances alter. Reviewing my own story has made me marvel at the way it all turned out. I am now glad that after all I did not simply “begin the world.” Something more interesting happened instead—at least, I think so. T. S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday, a sequence of six poems that traces the process of spiritual recovery, has been central to my journey. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. Catholics have ashes smeared on their foreheads to remind them of their mortality, because it is only when we have become fully aware of the frailty that is inherent in our very nature that we can begin our quest.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Both were mind-bogglingly boring. “God, what a dreary crew!” she would mutter, far too audibly, as she sank into the seat beside me, and I had to agree that our fellow students were not an inspiring bunch. Many of them seemed besotted by the intricacies of bibliographical science and were producing definitive editions of minor works by little-known writers in lieu of a thesis. Some of them looked as though they had been born in a library. Jane held aloof from all this, and made a point in class of asking the most intelligent and witty questions that she could think of, and I followed suit. To hide my mental distress, I was developing a hard, intellectual manner that, I thought, provided me with some protection. I felt that I was a soft, mollusklike, hopelessly vulnerable creature who needed a thick shell in order to survive, and I was learning to use words to create this carapace. I did not want to appear before the world as pathetic, depressed, and psychologically ill. So I erected a barricade of words and wit around myself, so that nobody could see how needy I really was. Some of my remarks were so scathing that even Jane was surprised. “My God, Karen, I would really hate to incur your enmity!” she exclaimed one day after a particularly biting riposte. This surprised me, as I tended to underestimate the power of my tongue. In the convent I had grown accustomed to extremely abrasive treatment, and I thought that my own retorts were mild in comparison to the rebukes of some of my superiors, which I now reproduced in a secular context. Like many frightened people, I tended to lash out like a wounded animal, and very rarely said anything nice about anybody. Charlotte had also stayed in Oxford, but was not doing graduate work. She had begun to write seriously and now lived in a tiny room in the Iffley Road, and to pay the rent was working as a clerk in the local tax office. There was just enough space for a bed and a desk. When we sat there together, drinking coffee or a bottle of cheap wine, I felt full of admiration. I could not imagine how anybody had the courage to be a writer, but undeterred by her grim surroundings, Charlotte was steadily amassing a pile of typewritten sheets. Yet in some ways Charlotte seemed as ill equipped for the world as I. She too seemed to be imprisoned in her own Shalott. She was in love, and Mike, whom none of us was allowed to meet, dropped in on her sporadically whenever it suited him.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  It seems that the inner dynamic of all these great religious traditions can work effectively only if you do not close your mind and heart to other human beings. For years, however, when traveling around the world and talking about these matters, I often felt rather a fraud. People would ask my advice about spiritual practice, clearly thinking that I was more enlightened than I really was. After all, I wasn’t a truly religious person. I never went near a church and did not belong to an official religious community. I could not really believe that the seconds of oratio that I experienced at my desk amounted to a real contact with the sacred. It was surely just a moment of delight in work that absorbed me. I was not directing prayer to anything or anybody. There was still emptiness where the personalized God used to be. It was Fred Burnham, the director of Trinity Institute, Wall Street, who made me rethink this. We had both spent a week at Chautauqua, that quintessentially American utopia in New York State, in the summer of 2001, just two months before the catastrophe of September 11, in which Fred was nearly killed. Each afternoon I had lectured on the theme of “The Human Person” in the Hall of Philosophy, and Fred had come from Trinity to introduce me and to moderate the sessions. On our last evening, sitting on the porch of the Hall of Missions, Fred with a vodka on the rocks and I with a glass of Kendall-Jackson chardonnay, Fred had said: “You always claim that you have never had a religious experience. But I disagree. I think you are constantly living in the dimension of the sacred. You are absorbed in holiness all the time!” I waved this aside, thinking that Fred was telling me that I was a holy person. But Fred is not given to such exuberant or inaccurate remarks, and that was not what he meant. His words stayed with me, and now I see what he was getting at. Insofar as I spend my life immersed in sacred writings, living with some of the best and wisest insights that human beings have achieved, constantly moved and stirred by them, I am indeed in constant contact with holiness. The fact that my “prayer” seems directed toward no person, no end, is something that many of the theologians I have studied had experienced. This, after all, was what I had been writing and talking about for the past seven years. I had constantly explained that the greatest spiritual masters insisted that God was not another being, and that there was Nothing out there. Yet for all this, at some level I had not relinquished the old ideas.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Half a dozen hands waved and pointed to where the man leaned over the footlights, his whiskers fluttering in the heat.He, now, had started banging on the stage with the heel of his hand. I suppressed an urge to dance up to him and stamp upon his wrist (for, apart from anything else, I thought he was quite capable of seizing my ankle and dragging me into the stalls.) Instead, I took my cue from Kitty. She had hold of my arm, and had pressed it, but her brow was smooth and untroubled. At any moment, I thought, she would slow the song, launch into the man, or call for the door-men to come and remove him.But they, at last, had spotted him, and had begun their advance. He, all unknowing, ranted drunkenly on.‘Call that a song?’ he shouted. ‘Call that a song? I want my shilling back! You hear me? I want my bleeding shilling back!’‘You want your bleeding arse kicked, is what you want!’ answered someone from the pit. Then someone else, a woman, yelled, ‘Stop your row, can’t you? We can’t hear the girls for all your racket.’The man gave a sneer; then he hawked, and spat. ‘Girls?’ he cried. ‘Girls? You call them girls? Why, they’re nothing but a couple of - a couple of toms!’He put the whole force of his voice into it - the word that Kitty had once whispered to me, flinching and shuddering as she said it! It sounded louder at that moment than the blast of a cornet - seemed to bounce from one wall of the hall to another, like a bullet from a sharp-shooter’s act gone wrong.Toms!At the sound of it, the audience gave a great collective flinch. There was a sudden hush; the shouts became mumbles, the shrieks all tailed away. Through the shaft of limelight I saw their faces - a thousand faces, self-conscious and appalled.Even so, the awkwardness might have lasted no longer than a moment; they might have forgotten it at once, and grown noisy and gay again - but for what happened, simultaneous with their silencing, upon the stage.For Kitty had stiffened; and then she had stumbled. We had been dancing with our arms linked. Now her mouth flew open. Now it shut. Now it trembled. Her voice - her lovely, shining, soaring voice - faltered and died. I had never known it happen before. I had seen her sail, quite at her ease, through seas of indifference, squalls of heckling. Now, upon that single, dreadful, drunken cry, she had foundered.I, of course, should have sung all the louder, swept her across the stage, jollied the audience along; but I, of course, was only her shadow. Her sudden silence stopped my throat, and stunned me into immobility, too.

• From Bold Move

  But then he would be late for dinner with his family, causing another argument with his wife and disappointing his children. In these moments he was guided by his emotions. He put work first not because he consciously wanted to, but because he felt it was the only way to manage his discomfort in the moment, and this led to his divorce. I often struggle with emotion-driven behaviors myself. As I shared with you, I have tended to prioritize time with Diego, which is lovely, but honestly I do it based on how it makes me feel in that moment: his sweet eyes, smiles, kisses, and hugs every morning make me feel so loved that I choose to spend time with him, even though I know that taking some of that time to go to the gym would be better for me in the long run. But I have to confess, it is challenging. I often find myself falling prey to my emotions in that moment. Then I wind up upset with myself later in the day when my back hurts or my pants don’t fit. At such moments my brain scolds me: Hypocrite! Whatever happened to practicing what you preach? In these moments, Ricardo and I are acting based on how we feel, not what we value. And that is why emotion-driven behaviors are problematic when it comes to living a life in line with our values: these behaviors rob us of the opportunity to move toward what matters most to us. This is why I often refer to emotion-driven behavior as the fire extinguisher approach. Sure, we might be successful in putting out the closest fire, but we might also miss the broader opportunity to save what matters most. Are All Emotions Bad?Absolutely not! Our emotions have important functions. If you’ve seen the popular Pixar film Inside Out , you probably already know what I’m talking about. You can’t have a limited set of emotions and still live a rich and fulfilling life. Living a human existence means being open to all our emotions. Moreover, emotions contain information about our environment that helps us keep safe from harm. Out in the wilderness, if we are face-to-face with a lion, our fear propels us to get the heck out of there. At home, the disgust you feel when sniff-testing the milk in your fridge protects you from drinking rancid milk and getting a horrible stomachache. Emotions don’t just benefit us; they can help others too. The emotional expression of others also contains details about our environment that help us make our next move.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  When you’re trying to kill yourself, sponge bags are not uppermost in your mind.” I don’t want to make too much of this. When I woke up the next day, and gradually pieced it all together, I felt ashamed and could understand the scarcely veiled contempt of the nurses. When you are caring for people who are mortally ill and struggling desperately to live, it must be almost insupportable to have to deal with people who want to throw it all away. But I did not believe that I had really wanted to die, and as I pondered the events of that night, I became more and more certain that it was not death that I had sought. The pills that I had swallowed were not lethal; I could have downed any number of them without doing myself irreparable damage. And I was almost certain that I was aware of that. This strange act had been another cry for help. What I was unconsciously trying to do that night was to make clear the depths of my desperation. I did not know how to live any longer. And nobody seemed to realize just how frightened I was. Nobody was willing to listen. The trouble is that when people decide that what looks like a suicide attempt is “only” a cry for help, they sometimes conclude that this appeal need not be answered. Indeed, they even decide that it is better not to respond, because the patient must not be encouraged to give way to such neurotic exhibitionism. He or she must learn to express pain simply and directly, without resorting to such outlandish symbolism. But I had tried to explain my fears and bewilderment as clearly as I was able, and no aid was forthcoming. Quite simply, I wanted help, and I didn’t feel that I was getting it. That was probably what lay behind this unconsciously performed gesture. As I lay in bed that morning, amidst the confusion and the fear—what might I do next in this amnesiac state?—I was also aware of a definite sense of relief. I was sorry to have caused all this unnecessary bother, but on the other hand I was so weary and needy. I had spent years now fighting with demons, and the struggle had pushed me to an extreme. I felt exhausted, and it was good to have people looking after me, instead of telling me briskly that I was perfectly well and getting along just fine. I knew that this could only be a temporary respite, but it was not altogether unpleasant to give up the struggle for a while. And something in me had been calmed. Instead of the familiar turmoil within, there was a new stillness. I had tried my best, and to no avail. I had expressed my fear and despair, and I could do no more. I had come to the end, had given up hope, and there was a certain peace in that.

• From Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry (2017)

  shares it. Make a toast? Are you kidding? I haven’t had time to prepare! Like the quest for certainty, the quest for perfection can include overplanning and list making. It can mean spending too much time on clothing and grooming, as well as decorating and cleaning. If you’ve got the biggest screen, the coolest kitchen, and the latest smartphone, who can criticize? As long as everything is “just right,” you won’t have to feel “less than.” Mistakes, of course, are inevitable. So your safety strategies will also include damage control. Mentally review everything you’ve said or done that might disappoint or offend. Justify your actions, first to yourself, then to everybody else. Everything can be explained if you put your mind to it. Once they understand what you’re up against, nobody can blame you. The safety strategies associated with perfectionism all share the same objective: neutralize the perceived threat and the anxiety that comes with it. If you can use these strategies occasionally without maintaining an anxiety cycle, good for you! For the rest of us, they bring only temporary relief. The cycle repeats and the quest for perfection continues. Over-responsible Strategies One of the great truisms in our culture is the assumption that caring for others’ needs is what brings the greatest happiness. But if you are saddled with a responsibility that is straining your resources—a chronically sick or mentally ill relative, for example—you can testify that taking care of others when you cannot take care of yourself can be a joyless burden that burns you out. When you are acting out of obligation or fear of disappointing others, caretaking is a safety strategy. Perhaps your partner has problems that you take on and try to manage, like poor diet, lack of exercise, or substance abuse. Unless he or she is happy and healthy, you can’t be happy and healthy. Are you the essential person in your work environment, someone everyone can depend on? Maybe things fall apart unless you pick up the slack, so you wind up working overtime and filling in whenever someone else is sick. Have you been doing more than your fair share for so long that you’ve become irreplaceable?