There are several problems with being tough. First of all, it’s a lie.
We all have mottoes - things we say to ourselves or words of so-called wisdom we learned from others along the way. Mottoes are supposed to be little sayings that encapsulate a set beliefs or ideals that can guide us through life. The trouble with mottoes is that they often lead us astray. This is first part of a series on the mottoes I have had in life which did me no good at all.
We are all made up of each and every experience that ever happened to us. They are all stored in our subconscious and are influencing us moment by moment without our even being aware. Although we think our conscious minds are calling the shots in our lives, they are not – our subconscious is mostly what drives us.
It is our instinct to avoid or recoil from pain and suffering. It’s a good instinct – a survival instinct. But often times instincts that are there for our survival, can turn into ways of being that ultimately tear us down. Our fight or flight response, when it’s ON daily, leads to stress-related illnesses. Our bodies’ attraction to high fat, high sugar foods …well, we all know where that leads.
And our avoidance of pain and suffering can also end up nowhere good.
If there is a part of us that has suffered, we often try to just put it away.
“Don’t think about it”
“Don’t dwell on it”
“get over it”
“Be tough”
That was my dad’s motto – be tough. My dad was a football coach. He was tough. His motto "be tough" got him through a lot as a child of an abusive and alcoholic father. He said it to us as kids - repeatedly.
There are several problems with being tough. First of all, it’s a lie. I’m not tough and neither are you. We are all weak, and fragile. We all feel stuff and that is totally OK, totally honest and totally human. The second problem is that no one can keep up being tough. If we don't allow ourselves to be weak and fragile, it will come out in our bodies. We will have muscle spasms, headaches, backaches and any other number of other problems. Our bodies cry out to us, "HEY!! Guess what!! You're not as tough as you're trying to be!" Our bodies always tell the truth and will try to get us to stop being tough all the time. Another problem with being tough is that to be tough you have to reject the part of you that isn’t. And to reject it, you pretty much have to tell yourself that it’s bad, and worthy of rejection. The idea that some feelings are good and some feelings are bad is built in to our society. It’s ingrained in us almost from infancy. So we reject the parts of us that we have been taught are bad: weakness, fear, anxiety, sadness, confusion, boredom, uncertainty. When we encounter these feelings, we find ways to get rid of them as quickly as possible: deny, medicate, blame, lash-out, act out. Anything we can do to return to “good” feelings like: strength, certainty, happiness, confidence.
Those “good” feelings are only half of us. We are rejecting half of ourselves, and rejecting half of others as well. How can we have lives of love if we reject fully half of all that makes us and everyone else human? Who is going to love our “dark” side?
We walk through life feeling lonely and unloved because we have rejected half of ourselves and others have as well. Imagine what it would feel like if we lived in such a way that the side of ourselves that we keep in the shadows, the things we don’t want people to know for fear of their rejection – were loved and appreciated every bit as much as those qualities we call our strengths.
It starts with us. An exercise that I use is a visualization of cradling pain and suffering. I learned it years ago when I was becoming certified to be a hypnotherapist. In this visualization, I imagine the thing I am trying to reject in myself. Maybe it’s a personality trait, a behavior, a past experience, or an experience I’m having right now. I imagine holding that thing and cradling it like a mother holds and cradles her baby, speaking words of love and acceptance to it. Sometimes the mother doesn’t even know why the baby is suffering, but the very act of cradling the baby soothes its suffering. I find in myself that this visualization lets me acknowledge that within me are many, many feelings and experiences that are not tough. They are soft, and vulnerable, and hurt; and that's OK.....they are loved.
(To comment click at the top on the title of this post - "Mottos - Part 1 "Be Tough")