You could call this part two in the lessons I learnt from Misha Thomas (part one is here).
Life shouldn’t just happen to you.
We’re in this world so BE in this world.
Be a human and use your life as an art form to become better.
You need to constantly refine, adapt, evolve, improve, reflect, change.
And you do this on a daily basis.
- Just like a pianist has the process of practicing scales every day.
- Just like a painter will sketch bowls of fruit or leaves dangling from trees
- Just like an athlete will set themselves goals and challenges in order to improve their sport.
You need to do this on a human level.
Examine what you’re doing and why and how.
Without conscious thought, without introspection, without expression, we feel confused, bewildered by our lives and everything that’s happening around us caused by our actions.
Here are four orientating questions, CBT-style, that you can use to take leaps forward in your understanding of yourself, to take your daily actions, your purpose, your mission to the next level.
You can also use these questions to get to the core of why you’re doing what you’re doing.
You can use this questions to help you through a tough or specific time in your life.
- What do you get from X? What’s the payoff?
- What will it cost you?
- What would it mean for you to have no X at all?
- What evidence do you have for this?
There’s no judgement here.
You’re not being asked to change your behaviour.
You’re just becoming more thoughtful about why you’re doing what you’re doing.
It’s iterative.
And each day your answers become deeper.
Your actions do change as well.
I discovered more about myself answering these questions, more about my motivations and needs.
It’s therapy, but therapy that works.
So let me ask you: what are you struggling with right now?
What addictive behaviour are you indulging that you wish to eradicate?
What stupid things are you habitually doing?
What patterns of thought have you caught running through your mind?
How do you want to change?
Change is terrifying and difficult and we rarely know how.
Start first with these orienting questions for whatever you’re going through right now and for the next five days answer them every day in a loving way and without judgement.
Go down the rabbit hole.
You’ll be a changed person by the end of the week.
And ask yourself this too:
What is the story you’re telling yourself?
Is it the story of a four-year-old?
Is your depression a convenient story?
So much of what we choose to identify with is bullshit.
“I’m depressed.”
Well, what’s your evidence for that?
Misha told me about his break up. He loved him. The relationship had no problems. But he saw it wouldn’t last and so he preemptively broke up with kindness. And it hurt him. It hurt him so much that he was convinced he was depressed.
During his Europe trip, he asked his friend why he couldn’t see he was crying out for help. Why couldn’t his friend see and understand that he was crushingly depressed?
His friend’s reply?
“What’s your evidence for that?”
He then went down the list. Misha was still going to work everyday. Not only that, he was excelling and putting in stellar performances in his career, his calling, his vocation. He organised, planned, and took this huge Euro-trip by himself. He was socialising with friends, laughing and smiling. Misha might have been extremely sad, but he was not depressed – at least not in the clinical, chemical sense.
Life is not always supposed to be filled with happiness.
If you’re sad, be sad.
If you feel like crying, let the tears flow if they come.
If you’re anxious, be anxious!
Stop hiding from the wide tapestry of your emotions.
Stop bandaging over your human experience.
If you’re feeling raw, be raw.
Let that emotion sit with you.
This is classic Viktor Frankl to a tee.
He told an anxious woman with agoraphobia that she should “take her anxiety for a walk”.
This woman was convinced she would have a breakdown if she left the house.
So Frankl told her to imagine it all in detail. Leaving the house, getting further down the street, feeling her heart pounding. And if she collapsed from terror? Someone would help her. She had friends and family and neighbours around.
You can be anxious.
The aim is not to get rid of the anxiety.
The aim is not ensure that the anxiety is not controlling you.
Imagine your anxiety, your sadness, your depression is like a dog.
Put a collar around it and take that bitch for a walk.
This reminds me of someone close to me who struggled with severe anxiety and couldn’t even have a haircut without feeling like bursting into tears.
But he got a handle on his anxiety.
He still feels it acutely, but he now has a collar around it.
At the time of his breakthrough when he took back his life, took back control, suddenly he started getting more frequent haircuts.
He was taking his anxiety for a walk and making it his bitch.
It was a huge triumph.
Remember as well when we say things like:
- I’m depressed.
- I fail at everything I do.
- I miss my ex and will never find another.
- I’m not worthy of love and something’s wrong with me.
These are stories.
Just stories.
And they’re false.
These stories are rooted deeply in our psyche.
Many of them are planted at times long gone.
The stories we tell ourselves are often the stories of a little kid.
Often we’re playing a character.
Sometimes we even know we’re playing a character.
It’s easier than going deeper and giving a proper evaluation of ourselves.
We’re lazy so we latch on to familiar habits, patterns, and inner narratives.
Then we look for things to reinforce them.
If you’ve always told yourself the story that you’re not worthy of love (perhaps because you didn’t get hugged enough by your mother as a child), you will look to confirm that story because you’re looking to affirm who you are.
So you’ll act in ways that sabotage your relationships.
Then when he or she leaves you, you’ll say, “A-ha! I knew it! I knew I was unlovable and here’s the proof again!”
We don’t know the true nature of reality.
In fact, there is no true nature of reality.
We can never be an unattached unbiased observer.
This is a million times more true when it comes to self-evaluation.
There’s a quote that goes something like:
There are three sides to every story. My side, your side, and the truth.
Stop thinking that the stories you tell yourself are fact.
Because you’ll look to constantly affirm them and strengthen them.
Stories are either useful or useless, harmful or helpful.
Start telling yourself a new story today and look to affirm it in your every day experiences.
Stories you may want to explore (by going into your history and being on the look out in your day-to-day life):
- I’m extremely lovable
- I have an abundance of interesting ideas
- People are always curious to get to know me
- People find me charismatic, funny, and charming
- I always overcome even the toughest challenges
We will always have that needy little child inside us.
But it’s our job as the adult to babysit that child.
When you babysit your nephew, you don’t let him eat ice cream, jump on the couch, and stay up watching TV all night do you?
Remember who is in charge here.
The child is there, but the adult is running the show because the adult knows what is best.
These are Misha’s words coming out of my mouth, inspired by our long conversation in Vienna. Check out more of Misha’s writings here.
Further Reading: