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Authors: Thomas Bien
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Your True Face: John’s Story
John was in psychotherapy for the first time. He thought he knew what to expect. But his ideas about therapy were drawn from indirect and questionable sources, such as movies and television, newspaper and magazine articles. His therapist wanted to help him face his anger, and he gave John an assignment to record his anger-related fantasies. John immediately translated this assignment to fit his preconceptions about therapy. His task, as he took it, was to really get into his anger. He felt that his anger was some awful thing that needed to be exorcised. Instead of looking deeply into the anger that was there, he went way beyond his actual feelings, trying to record what he thought he should feel. He described in great detail the horrible tortures he imagined doing to the person he was angry at, in this way trying to be a good therapy client and do what he should do. After writing this exaggerated version of his anger, John only felt angrier. Worse still, he felt bad that all this hostility and violence was in him.
When he read this material to his therapist at their next meeting, the therapist said, “Wow, you really were angry!” Since John was constantly scanning for cues about whether he was being a good client and having the kind of experience in therapy he was supposed to have, John took this comment to mean he had done it wrong and had gone too far. John was no closer to getting acquainted with his own anger, so anxious was he to conform to what he thought he should be feeling. A Zen koan asks: What was your original face before your parents were born? This question points toward the real you and your true experience, before you were trying to be anything other than who you are. This is the point of mindfulness, and not trying to make your experience conform to anything. If your philosophy is that matter is the only stuff in the universe, but you have an experience you can only call spiritual, let it be. If you consider yourself a spiritual being, but 02 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:46 AM Page 30
30
F I N D I N G T H E C E N T E R W I T H I N
continue to only experience the body and the material world, let it be. If you think of yourself as gentle but experience anger, or think of yourself as calm but experience anxiety, let it be. Be willing to experience whatever comes. See what happens as you become more accepting of your true experience, of your true face.
Acknowledge All Your Experience: Joe’s Story
Joe had a very stressful job. He was a middle manager for a technology firm, which was not doing well. Management blamed the workers, and the workers blamed management. Joe constantly got caught in between. Joe believed in being optimistic and strong. He boasted that he had never had a bad day. He would tell you this, if you asked him, even last Tuesday when half of the workers under him took a sick-out and his boss scolded him mercilessly right in front of the people Joe managed. That evening, Joe had what his doctor called a “cardiac event.”
Joe’s philosophy has merit. Optimism helps us through some tight situations. But taken to extremes, it causes as many problems as it solves. In one way there are no “bad days,” if what you mean by “bad”
is a day with no positive elements whatsoever. There are always some positives, no matter how extreme the situation. But if this means that there’s nothing going on that is less than wonderful or that causes pain, then this is not only absurd, it’s destructive. If Joe had allowed himself to realize earlier how uncomfortable his job had become for him, he would have felt his pain. By acknowledging it, he might have foreseen his need for a change. He might have combed the Sunday paper for jobs or done something to manage the stress he was feeling. Quite possibly, that “cardiac event” would not have happened. Joe was, in a sense, the opposite of John. John’s image of emotional health emphasized expressing negative feelings. John
John was in psychotherapy for the first time. He thought he knew what to expect. But his ideas about therapy were drawn from indirect and questionable sources, such as movies and television, newspaper and magazine articles. His therapist wanted to help him face his anger, and he gave John an assignment to record his anger-related fantasies. John immediately translated this assignment to fit his preconceptions about therapy. His task, as he took it, was to really get into his anger. He felt that his anger was some awful thing that needed to be exorcised. Instead of looking deeply into the anger that was there, he went way beyond his actual feelings, trying to record what he thought he should feel. He described in great detail the horrible tortures he imagined doing to the person he was angry at, in this way trying to be a good therapy client and do what he should do. After writing this exaggerated version of his anger, John only felt angrier. Worse still, he felt bad that all this hostility and violence was in him.
When he read this material to his therapist at their next meeting, the therapist said, “Wow, you really were angry!” Since John was constantly scanning for cues about whether he was being a good client and having the kind of experience in therapy he was supposed to have, John took this comment to mean he had done it wrong and had gone too far. John was no closer to getting acquainted with his own anger, so anxious was he to conform to what he thought he should be feeling. A Zen koan asks: What was your original face before your parents were born? This question points toward the real you and your true experience, before you were trying to be anything other than who you are. This is the point of mindfulness, and not trying to make your experience conform to anything. If your philosophy is that matter is the only stuff in the universe, but you have an experience you can only call spiritual, let it be. If you consider yourself a spiritual being, but 02 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:46 AM Page 30
30
F I N D I N G T H E C E N T E R W I T H I N
continue to only experience the body and the material world, let it be. If you think of yourself as gentle but experience anger, or think of yourself as calm but experience anxiety, let it be. Be willing to experience whatever comes. See what happens as you become more accepting of your true experience, of your true face.
Acknowledge All Your Experience: Joe’s Story
Joe had a very stressful job. He was a middle manager for a technology firm, which was not doing well. Management blamed the workers, and the workers blamed management. Joe constantly got caught in between. Joe believed in being optimistic and strong. He boasted that he had never had a bad day. He would tell you this, if you asked him, even last Tuesday when half of the workers under him took a sick-out and his boss scolded him mercilessly right in front of the people Joe managed. That evening, Joe had what his doctor called a “cardiac event.”
Joe’s philosophy has merit. Optimism helps us through some tight situations. But taken to extremes, it causes as many problems as it solves. In one way there are no “bad days,” if what you mean by “bad”
is a day with no positive elements whatsoever. There are always some positives, no matter how extreme the situation. But if this means that there’s nothing going on that is less than wonderful or that causes pain, then this is not only absurd, it’s destructive. If Joe had allowed himself to realize earlier how uncomfortable his job had become for him, he would have felt his pain. By acknowledging it, he might have foreseen his need for a change. He might have combed the Sunday paper for jobs or done something to manage the stress he was feeling. Quite possibly, that “cardiac event” would not have happened. Joe was, in a sense, the opposite of John. John’s image of emotional health emphasized expressing negative feelings. John
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