19 October 2024
In terms of processes—which is our primary sub-heading—the message here is
1. Know yourself, and,
2. Know and regularly practice the processes that keep you course-corrected—on a weekly basis.
Earlier, I stated that a good life comes of accurate thinking and well-spirited actions. To achieve accurate thinking and well-spirited actions requires disciplined practice or, per Aristotle, habituation. The goal, of this section of the book, is helping readers to identify the places where each requires individualized course-corrections.
For example, if you suffer from Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), one of your probable processes is attending meetings on a regular basis. Whether it’s SMART Recovery or AA is less important than the fact that both provide connection (people) and recovery (purpose)—two of the four main themes under discussion (people, process, purpose, & product). Attending regular meetings, in a way that maintains your balanced health, is an example of habituation of process. Once you know your booked every Monday night, it’s easier as you start building your weeks to accommodate that meeting.
So is going to the gym three times weekly or running every couple of days. So is watching what you eat, who you sleep with, and keeping a positive balance in your bank account. We all know this but, at least for me, until I systematized some of these habits, they could slip out of view like a lighthouse in heavy fog.
In SMART Recovery for Family + Friends, we use the lighthouse as a metaphor for the impact of our own recovered behaviour. A lighthouse never moves, never nags, never complains, it just does its own thing: it acts as a destination toward which sailors can aim for a safe port in a storm. This is what your systematized processes do: they provide an editable but well-considered and prioritized set of goals to direct you toward your own chosen destination.
That stated, every human pathway I’ve encountered has included stressors, tolerance, and resilience; too often an abundance of the first and an absence of the latter two. And that point leads into a concept I first saw in The Daily Stoic, “regulation first, happiness second.”
A good part of my work, as a psychotherapist, concerns dysregulated emotional responses. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines this term as “n. any excessive or otherwise poorly managed mechanism or response. For example, emotional dysregulation is an extreme or inappropriate emotional response to a situation (e.g., temper outbursts, deliberate self-harm); it may be associated with bipolar disorders, borderline personality disorder, autism spectrum disorder, psychological trauma, or brain injury.” That wording is interesting in itself.
When I see “poorly managed” and “inappropriate” I imagine a client with low self-esteem feeling judged, “So I’m, like, poor at this—or inappropriate?!” A more helpful way to look at the issue is by determining which emotional responses produce desired (or healthy) outcomes versus undesirable, self-destructive (or unhealthy) outcomes. In the same Daily Stoic post as that referenced a couple moments back, Nassim Taleb is quoted stating that “Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination.” That’s well observed. As above, we need our emotions to tell us how we’re feeling and whether the current situation should be leaned into or avoided. What we don’t need is to be led by our emotions. And that is the work I prescribe as knowing your processes.
So, for example, if you check positive for some symptoms of borderline personality, or are prone to overstatement, you can greatly improve your conversational skills by checking-in, journalling, and developing inner ears. And there’s an unstated premise in play here: everyone watching this is different but none of us is without shortcomings. When you face, befriend, and learn to live with your own shadow, your darker side, life becomes easier, and these processes are less painful.
For the record, checking-in can be done almost anywhere at almost anytime. It’s a process of internally scanning from head to toe, left hand to right, sensing pain, tension, fatigue…any of which come with emotional correlates (fellow travellers). For example, if my shoulders, upper back, or neck are feeling tense or sore, I know I’m carrying unreleased stress. The more often we check-in, the better we know ourselves. The better we know—and accept—ourselves, the more serene life can be. This is a process requiring regular practice to keep you well tuned for life.
Journalling is writing freely and without reservation about experiences presently active within self. I have years of journaled notes that are fascinating (only to me!) to which I return. They provide markers of where we’ve been, where we started, and what we’ve overcome. Remember Heraclitus, we never step into the same river twice. That’s because the current brings different water day in and day out while the person stepping into that river is in an equal state of flux. Journalling is a process that helps you gauge how harmoniously you’re moving with or resisting that flux.
Lastly, growing inner ears, is an expression I use. That phrase is used with clients to emphasize the need to tune in to your inner dialogue, which is active your whole life. When you learn to tune in, you may be stunned at the negativity, and lack of self-compassion, conveyed by the seemingly heartless voice—but that voice is you and, as you are a creature of volition, you can change that voice. But the largest part of that change is the auditing. If you can’t hear it, you can’t know what it’s saying so neither can you correct it.
I have found it easiest to tune in, or overhear my inner dialogue, when things go wrong. I say some shockingly mean-spirited things to myself, a voice I believe I inherited from my father. And I’ll respond, often aloud but softly, with something like, No Dan, you’re not a goddamned fool, you’re a kind, intelligent man who just made an entirely human error. Forgive yourself and move on, buddy.
Thank you for thinking and acting. More next week. Be well.
Summary
Sources Referenced:
Allen, R. (Ed.) (2015). SMART Recovery Family + Friends Handbook. Alcohol & Drug Abuse Self-Help Network, Inc.
American Psychological Association. (2024, October). https://dictionary.apa.org/dysregulation
Holiday, R. (2024, 15 October). Regulation Frist, Happiness Second. Daily Stoic Emails https://dailystoic.com/regulation-first-happiness-second/
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