F*ck Feelings (3 page)

It's not clear when people started equating solving emotional issues with retracing your steps in order to find your car keys, but if you retrace your steps to uncover the ultimate source of your problems, you won't usually find it. On the plus side, you might find your sunglasses.

What people hate to consider, even after root seeking has been getting them nowhere for some time, is that, sometimes, it just doesn't work. There are lots of problems we'll never know the answer to. There's nothing wrong with looking for answers that might actually exist, but, when the search isn't bearing fruit, there's a strong possibility that answers aren't to be had, and obsessing about finding them is a distraction to figuring out where the real keys are—and what you're going to do next.

People prefer to believe that, with enough fact gathering, insight, and the heart-to-heart sharing of honest, heretofore suppressed, and probably embarrassing emotion, any problem can be sourced and solved. In fact, knowing why you've got a bad habit usually gives you no ability to stop it, and the search for deeper knowledge sometimes serves as an excuse for waiting until it's easier to stop, which it never is. So getting to the root of your problem is often antitherapeutic, and, at worst, a giant waste of time.

Or, if therapy hasn't solved a problem, you wonder whether it's been intense and long-lasting enough, or if you've been sincere enough, or if your therapist is skilled enough. If the problem involves a relationship, you wonder if you've worked hard enough to express painful and negative feelings—which again, surprise, often makes things worse.

Among the wishes people express when they feel there must be an answer to an unsolvable problem are:

• To figure out what happened that caused them to lose the control they once had

• To find out why they can't do something when they've always been good at doing something similar

• To understand why they can't stop being drawn to doing something bad

Here are three examples:

I don't understand why I started drinking again after ten years of sobriety. I had no desire to drink—going to bars didn't bother me, nor did having liquor in the house or being around friends who were drinking. Then suddenly I was tense over a problem at work, and I figured I should be able to control myself after all these years, so I had a drink. It was fine, I had only one, and kept to a one-per-day limit until a week later, and now, three months later, I have no control over my drinking and I'm back to square one. My goal is to figure out what happened to me and why.

I don't know why I avoid finishing certain tasks at work. If something involves talking to people, and I can get it done quickly, I'll work hard until I'm finished, but if I've got to fill out a lot of forms and no one is looking over my shoulder, I let things slide until I'm really in trouble. I've always been like that and my desk is piled high with papers that I'm afraid to look at. I don't know whether it's because I'm afraid to succeed or afraid that I'm living out my father's prediction that I'd be a fuckup, but it's crippling my life. My goal is to figure out whether I'm lazy or have a psychological issue that prevents me from succeeding.

I'm always attracted to the wrong kind of guys, and it always ends poorly, mostly with me getting dumped, sometimes with me getting either physically or verbally abused along the way. A therapist told me I choose men who remind me of my father, who was a charismatic sweet-talker who dumped my mother when she was pregnant with me. I think that's a fair assessment, and it's time for me to find a better sort of person, but no matter how hard I try, I keep on dating assholes. My goal is to figure out why I'm so attracted to Mr. Wrong and how to get more attracted to someone nice.

Whenever we're perplexed by weaknesses that don't make sense, questioning why is as helpful from the mouth of an adult as it is from a four-year-old. If you can't understand why you've started drinking
again after ten years, or can't get work done when you've done it before, or can't find a better guy when you know what you're doing wrong, you have a right to wonder why. Asking the question more than once or twice, however, is a Job-like move that may help you express frustration, but will not help you overcome it.

What neurobiology has taught us is that every action we take depends on multiple unique subcapacities, and all it takes is for one of those subcapacities to be weak or broken, and our ability to function is compromised.

If you resume drinking, it's not because you're a weak person, but because drinking triggers something in your brain that says, “I've got to do that again.” If you have trouble with paperwork, it may be because your brain has trouble translating or using written symbols in a specific way (numbers, maps, English). If you can't change whom you're attracted to, you may be directed by a part of your brain that, whether it was programmed before birth or a few years later, can't be changed now.

So the answer you'll get from your maker, when you finally meet Him or Her and get to ask why, is the same one you got from your mother when she didn't know the answer and didn't want to waste time— “Because I said so, now go make yourself useful.”

Of course, knowing there's no root answer, or that, at the very least, it's unobtainable, doesn't relieve you of responsibility for dealing with a problem; it just spares you having to take an exam on its origins. Depending on how obsessed you are with a Faustian quest for knowledge or how avoidant you are of messy, painful tasks, you will or won't like putting the quest aside, accepting the uncertainty of not understanding a problem's roots, and nevertheless dedicating yourself to managing it.

Having given up on the false hope that deep understanding would make it possible to solve your problem, gather motivation by reviewing your reasons for imposing change on yourself and your life. Doing it to please someone or to look better are not motivations that tend to last; instead, decide for yourself whether change is necessary for you to be the kind of person you want to be. Then, if you find good
reasons rooted in your values, remind yourself frequently what they are so that you can ignore pain, frustration, and humiliation while seeking to strengthen your management of yourself.

Instead of trying to figure out your problem, use your best tools for managing it, be they finding a rehab program, an organizational coach, or a group of girlfriends whose opinions on jerks you trust. Having given up the quest for a deep solution and the urge to ask questions, find the motivations that matter and learn how to take action.

Here's what you wish for and can't have:

• A clear understanding of what's wrong

• Complete control over your problem

• An easier way of dealing with your problem, now that you know its origins

• A reliable way of treating and preventing it

Here's what you can aim for and actually achieve:

• Know as much as anyone knows about a problem while accepting your inability to know more

• Accept the pain and confusion of having to deal with a problem you don't understand

• Find deep motivation for not letting a problem change your priorities or values

• Not let confusion or humiliation interfere with your determination to manage it

Here's how you can do it:

• If you don't figure out the answer after checking the Internet plus two experts, stop trying

• Don't reopen your efforts unless today's headline proclaims new knowledge of your issues specifically

• Stop asking why and start asking how

• Prepare a plan of action contingent on your knowing nothing but what you know now

Here's what to tell someone or yourself while you're totally unable to understand the reason for or source of a problem.

Dear [Me/Family Member/Spouse/Overly Logical Friend]:

I know it's hard to understand why a [positive adjectives] person like me should have a problem with [addiction/politics/attraction to morons] but I do, and, to date, treatment with [three analysts/kabbalah/Judge Judy] hasn't given me an answer that makes a difference. I've decided that ignorance is okay, but my problem isn't, and that from now on I need to do everything I can to improve and manage my behavior, just to be the person I want to be. So I will be open about my problem [in meetings/press releases/tweets], welcome observations about my behavior [with/without retaliating], and track my progress over time [in my computer/Facebook/a secret journal that you should burn if I die]. And I will not give up.

Negative feelings, particularly anger, self-pity, and envy, are painful to feel and also to hold back, since unleashing them makes you a jerk who's a drag to be around. It's like having to hold in a full bladder all the time, except it's your mouth, and if you let it go, it could release things so hurtful, mean, and unjustified that you'd prefer having a wet crotch.

So when it comes to becoming more positive and less negative, many people would like to cleanse themselves of negative feelings,
remove the temptation to act like a dick, and ease the strain of constant self-monitoring and self-restraint that often makes them tense and cranky and causes them to be dickish despite themselves.

Unfortunately, many things that promise relief from negative feelings aren't good for you and won't really make you a better person, even if they make you feel better. You can be justified in attacking someone, physically or verbally, but the satisfaction it brings is limited; it often leaves you with a bad feeling in the long run and gets you more involved with someone you'd like to stay away from.

You might also try to become more positive by withdrawing from whatever causes you to feel negative, but that's not so hot if it requires you to shed responsibilities, abandon people who need you, or dull down your personality. You may wind up with a serene smile but you may also have betrayed your own standards of behavior.

That's why your primary goal is not to get rid of negative feelings and feel better, but to block them from controlling your behavior while you continue to act like a decent person.

Don't stigmatize negative feelings; even pacifists, yogis, and nursery school teachers get road rage under the wrong circumstances (e.g., in downtown Boston). Some people have bad tempers or are chronically grouchy while others are stuck in situations that happen to hit their weak spots and drive them nuts. Either way, if you chastise yourself for having nasty feelings when you really can't help it, you usually make them worse. After kicking yourself, you're that much more likely to kick someone else.

Besides, your nasty, demonic side may be part of the spark that makes you creative, funny, and energetic. While that side may not be easy to control or live with, you can try to use that negative energy in good ways. Becoming more positive doesn't mean becoming sweetly angelic, but rather, decently demonic, or at least decent enough that your friends don't all tell you to go back to hell.

Among the wishes people express when they want to improve themselves by reducing bad feelings are:

• To stop hating someone (spouse, child) who doesn't deserve it

• To be less angry and more kind in general

• To stop pining for what's lost and get over it

• To stop being controlled by fear

Here are three examples:

My father-in-law is not the worst person in the world, but I can't get over the feeling that I hate to be in the same room with him, and I have to, because my family lives with him right now. We could never afford to live in a nice house otherwise, and it's great for our kids, but in the meantime, he sits in the living room every night, watching his TV, bossing his wife around, spouting his hateful political rhetoric, and insulting me at every opportunity, and I want to kill him. Complaining to my wife doesn't do any good because it just makes her feel helpless, and then she defends her dad's behavior and I feel worse. I wish he were dead. My goal, if you don't know a hit man, is to stop hating him.

It's been two years, and I haven't been able to get over my divorce. My ex was an asshole who betrayed me terribly and I know I'm better off without him, but for whatever reason, it still hurts. I really loved him for a while there, and I still can't get over the memories or stop tearing
up when I think about him. The kids, who are teens now, are doing better than I am and ask me when I'm going to start dating again, but I can't imagine a time when I'll ever be interested. My goal is to get over loving him and feel better.

I wish I wasn't so insecure. I'm always shy and I get very nervous before networking events, which are a requirement for my work, and my least favorite part of a job I otherwise love. I shake and break out in hives. My brother has always been more confident, but I can't really blame my parents, because they've always encouraged me. It's my own fault. I thought it would go away as I got older, but I'm thirty, and it's just as bad as ever, particularly when I get promoted and have to meet new people even more. My goal is to be less nervous and instead have some confidence in myself.