Boundaries and Bridges

This article is the prework for the 12-step program Start Your Healing Journey. Start Your Healing Journey is a free introductory program designed to help people improve personal wellbeing. This program will also help participants improve in their relationships. It provides participants with 12 basic tools for healing. This self-help program can be done alone or under the guidance of a counselor and/or healing group.

In Start Your Healing Journey, I will provide you with 12 basic tools for self-empowerment. These are the 12 foundational tools from the Identity-Values-Reflection (IVR) toolkit for mental wellbeing. They are designed to help a person who is stuck in a pattern of being mentally or emotionally unwell. They move us from a helplessness mindset to an empowerment mindset.

In this prework, we will begin to separate out what is controllable in our lives from what is outside our control. Only by clearly understanding what is in our control can we then move towards empowerment. We must accept what we cannot change. Just like we cannot change the weather, so too can we not change certain things in our lives. But there is a lot we can change with the right tools.

We must also recognize that we have far more influence on our lives than we might be aware of. With the right tools, we can change how we feel. We can change how others feel and act towards us. This type of change happens slowly over time. There are no shortcuts. It requires loving discipline and continuous self-care.

In this prework article, we will learn our first healing tool: how to create safe spaces. Creating safe spaces is a foundational tool for healing and wellbeing. To achieve personal wellbeing, we need to create for ourselves a healthy living environment. We need a safe place for growth and exploration. This safe space must be free of judgement, blame and shame. We must be able to observe ourselves with clarity. Without this safe space, healing and wellbeing are impossible.

If you’re ready, let’s begin!

This Article Contains:

Introduction: Stuck in a hurricane

As a family doctor, I have encountered so many patients who come to me stuck. Sometimes they come alone. Other times they come together with loved ones. Let me tell you the story of John. John is a fictional character based upon several patients of mine. John is not real, but the things he says in this story are words that I hear often.

John is a 16-year-old who is brought in by his parents after he’s been found skipping school to smoke cigarettes and weed. His parents want him drug tested as they fear he’s also “doing other things.” From the moment I walk in the door, something is off here. Everyone is quiet and on edge. I feel it, also. Just walking to my seat, I feel like I’m tiptoeing over invisible landmines.

As I sit down, I try my usual icebreakers of asking how everyone is doing. John and his parents remain stiff. John’s head is buried in his phone, and he never once looks up to make eye contact. His mother forces a smile and spits out short answers to my questions. His father is so tense, the man looks like someone on trial for murder. He can barely contain the boiling fury that’s bubbling just below the surface.

After several failed attempts to get John’s attention, I do manage to get him to answer some easy yes-no questions about what grade he’s in and if he has siblings. His single-word answers are barely audible, almost like animal grunts. He delivers them without pausing his texting. Feeling a little frustrated myself, I come out with the big question, “So, John, why are you here?” After a long, awkward silence, I make it clear to John that the question was directed to him, not his parents. Irritated by my persistence, he fires back with a “Dunno. They made me come!” It’s the first sign of life since I walked in the room, the first time he’s stopped texting, the first time he’s strung a few words together. Progress!

After making sure it’s ok with John, I ask the parents to leave the room. On their way out, his mom whispers to me that John has been skipping school several days a week. They don’t know where he’s gone but suspect he’s doing drugs with friends. He comes home at his usual time in the afternoon, and they only found out about his missed days after the school contact them. He is no longer interested in sports and is now failing most of his classes.

Alone with John, he still doesn’t want to talk with me. It’s clear he doesn’t want to be here. He still doesn’t make eye contact, but he does put down his phone and just stare into his lap. I try getting him to open up with some more easy questions, but his replies are still one-word answers. I’m pulling teeth here. However, when I ask him about his parents or about school, there is a clear change. His breathing heightens and his cheeks go red. He’s holding back a lot, just like his father was. He tries again with the one word answers. It doesn’t take much prodding to let that steam to finally come out. “I hate school.” “I don’t like my parents. And they don’t like me.”

We pause there. I reassure him that it’s ok to be honest with me and that I can keep his answers confidential. I tell him this is a safe space where he can be himself. I try and validate his anger. I ask him if he finds it difficult to talk to his parents. He says there are a lot of arguments. There is yelling, intimidation, interrogations, threats, and punishments. His parents will chase him into his room when he tries to get away.

It takes some time, but John owns up to leaving school in the middle of the day and going to the woods. He hangs out alone. He admits to smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and drugs, although mostly marijuana. He also begins to open up about his frequent unwanted thoughts and feelings. He has intrusive thoughts, his own inner critic, that tells him he’s not good enough. He’s not worthy of this life. His parents don’t want him. School doesn’t want him. No one likes him. He should just get it over with. He’s contemplated doing this many times. I ask him if he likes himself. He admits that he does not.

Experiencing the hurricane

At some point in our lives, most of us will find ourselves stuck in a situation like what John has found himself in. We feel trapped and alone. We are helpless to escape. Our feelings are overwhelming. We may have dark, intrusive thoughts.

The particulars will be different for each of us. We may be like John, young and dependent upon caregivers who are simultaneously contributing to our entrapment. We may be older, struggling in school or a job that doesn’t suit us. There is the mysterious fatigue that is so common in new parents with multiple small children. There is the doom of being in a loveless marriage. There is the helplessness of caring for someone with chronic illness who is unable to overcome their hurdles. There is the alienation of being caught by a chronic medical illness that befuddles our doctors who are supposed to have all the answers. There is the snarl of alcoholism or drug addiction that eats away at one’s spirit. There is the despair of being an older adult whose independence is slowly, insidiously slipping away. There is the powerlessness of watching a parent fade into dementia.

Each of these situations is different. The specific feelings may be different. There may be anger and fury. There may be paralysis. There may be despair gathering ominously like storm clouds overhead. There may be the sense of victimization as the world pits itself against us. There is the helplessness as we realize, shockingly, that we lack the ability to confront our current situation. We find ourselves abandoned to our fate. There may be the betrayal that comes when outer forces abuse us. There is inner betrayal also as we discover parts of our inner selves have turned against our Whole. These inner rebels are aggressive and unrelenting. Their sting is more acute and vicious than anything on the outside. The cuts are deep and internal. They rip us apart.

Even as each situation is different, there are incredible similarities also. In each story, the world’s color changes to something else. Perhaps a gray or purple or red. Our environment lacks the vibrancy it once had. There is cloudiness and confusion. Our perspective shrinks and warps.

The nature of the storm is different for each person. For some people, the sky is an unrelenting gray–an endless winter spanning the horizons. Or there may be a dense fog of stale routines that keep us trapped. For others, the storm is a gathering of dark clouds, groaning and churning, a looming convalescence, menacing overhead. The clouds may take the shape of an oppressive black wall that steadily marches towards us, gobbling up all light. Or they may already be overhead, a looming convalescence, circling and choking. Still for others, the hurricane is in full force. The elements assault us with pelting sheets and bitter cold. The winds knock us around, and the sky spits out daggers of light. We battle to keep from being swept away. We search, in vain, for shelter, a place to regain our footing.

There are outside forces at work. These are easy to point to. Outside judgments assault us from every direction. We keep our heads low and brace ourselves against the forces arrayed against us.

If that was all we faced, we might have the courage to keep on. But deep inside, there is more. We know there’s more. For nothing matches the inner cycle of helplessness and secrecy and shame. The daily reminders. The indictment. The voice that calls us weak. A strong person wouldn’t feel this way.

Our own body is under assault from within. It is an invisible cancer that grows and spreads. It tightens and squeezes. It strikes in those dark places. Dark feelings and thoughts flood our minds. They attack with knifelike cruelty, like a scorned lover intent on destroying us. No one can help us because no one can see our assailant. But we hear it, and we feel it. It craves and it attacks. It calls us imposter. It whispers, “You are not worthy. You shouldn’t be here.”

Feeling the hurricane

This is a different type of hurricane. It is a hurricane of our mind, our spirit, and our body. Like the weather, this hurricane is out of our control. We cannot wish it away. We can yell and scream. We can try to command it. If we do manage to quiet it down, we know that it is only a temporary reprieve. The storm will return with a vengeance. If we run and hide, we know it still stalks our steps. It haunts us. It still calls out. Soon enough, it will find us.

We cannot command the hurricane. Neither can we hide from it. So, what do we do?

To escape the hurricane, we must understand it. The hurricane is power. It is energy. It is purpose.

To understand it, must feel the hurricane. We must feel its rhythms and its intent. It wants to help us. We need only realize that its energy is there for our use.

To calm the storm, we must help it realize its purpose.

The hurricane is not there to harm us. That’s not why it’s come. The storm inside us, whether looming or raging, is there for our benefit. It wants to help us. It doesn’t quite know how. We are disconnected from it. That’s why it attacks. It’s angry. It’s lost. And it wants to find us again.

We have to reconnect. Connection is healing. Connection is cure. But we’re not ready yet.

Connection is the end goal. Connection is the clarity at the mountaintop. We’re at the very beginning, the very bottom. We have a long way to go.

We can start our journey by recognizing that all feelings, even the difficult ones, have purpose. All feelings are important pieces of us. All thoughts are ideas to be cherished. Those inner parts that whisper them are the inner characters of our being. Each part carries a burden and pushes forward with an important task. Even if they are harming us, these inner parts deserve to be honored for their efforts.

To understand the hurricane, we must feel it. We must listen to its call. We must experience its power. We must soak up its cold wetness. Hear the words in the raging wind. Understand what it’s trying to say.

This is no easy task when we’re holding on for dear life. It may be downright terrifying.

And yet, this is the way forward. The storm is part of us, and we are part of it. We cannot fight it, and we cannot run. Instead, we must face it with confidence and courage.

We must be like Bruce Wayne who returns to the cave for the first time as a young man and feels the swirl of a thousand bats around him. He stands there, calm and sober. There is fear, but there is curiosity also. He outstretches his arms to the flow and rhythm of the creatures spiraling around him.

We must be the intrepid beekeeper who picks up his hive. Without protection, the bees swarm around him. They land on his cheeks and crawl on his nostrils. But they do not sting. If he has fear, he doesn’t show it. He is supposed to be there. He is part of them. They are part of him.

Navigating the hurricane

The hurricane is all those elements outside our direct control. It is outside forces, big and small. It is those friends and loved ones who assail us with blame and judgment. It is the communities and groups we belong to that are no longer meeting our needs. It is the undercurrents of brutal, painful history. It is the social forces battling to secure the future. It is the relationships and habits that no longer serve us. It is also the many inner parts we do not control. It is our autopilot, the machinelike being that drives us from one moment to the next. It is our inner children, marooned on islands, and the impossible burdens they carry. It is our inner critics that remind us we’re not good enough. It is the stagnant pools of our own cruel past, the lessons painfully learnt, the memories stuffed deep down, yet to be integrated into the Whole.

All of that together constitutes a mighty ocean of uncontrollables. So many aspects of our lives that we can’t dictate.

Then there is the small sailboat of our conscious being. The sailboat is our awareness. It is our power of choice. With its small sails and oars, we are given agency to navigate the undulating waters. That little boat is what we have to work with. It must carry us.

We would all love a beautiful blue sky, a calm ocean, and a steady breeze in the right direction. How often does that happen?

Sometimes in life, we find ourselves trapped in something far different. We are navigating a dense fog, an endless gray sky, a menacing stormfront, or a raging storm. It is daunting. The world becomes a scary place.

And yet, with the right tools, we can still get to where we would like to go. We can navigate forward.

There is a formula for change: Event + Reaction = Outcome. We cannot control the events around us. And so, our reaction will determine the outcome. If our reaction correctly complements the events, we can still go where we would like. This realization, that we are not powerless, is the critical first step.

If we attune ourselves to the weather, we can utilize its energy for our advantage. We can make the difficult weather work for us. It doesn’t matter if we’re dealing with a quiet, steady breeze or a raging storm. The principles are the same. Positive change occurs in a few basic steps:

• Become aware of the storm
• Accept that we cannot change the storm. We can only navigate through it.
• Harness the power of choice. We can choose our purpose–our end goal. We can choose our path of how to get there. We can choose to reflect after each step. We reflect to check on our progress to see if we are still on the right track.
• Practice loving discipline to keep going and build healthy habits
• Give ourselves grace when we need to change direction because things aren’t working.

The bottom line is that we are our own best healers. We cannot rely on others. They are not in our boat with us. They cannot change the sails or man the oars for us. Only we can do that. Other people may be able to sail alongside us. They can model what to do. But only we can do the work.

Seeing a path forward

Let’s return to the story of John. John is stuck in a hurricane of negative feelings. There are the internal negative feelings: the self-doubt, poor self-esteem, self-loathing, lack of confidence in personal abilities, helplessness, and disconnection. There is also the bombardment of external pressures: verbal aggression, intimidation, interrogations, threats, punishments, lectures, shaming, judgments, and entrapment at home.

Once we see the full picture of what’s happening here, John’s response to his situation becomes entirely logical and predictable. He is leaving school and going to a private place in the woods to do drugs. Home and school have become unsafe places for him. He is going to the woods, a place where he feels safe. Once there, he is numbing his intense negative feeling with marijuana.

What can we do if we’re trying to travel towards a destination, but the hurricane winds are blowing fiercely in the opposite direction?

Most people make the mistake of trying to fight the winds. They paddle as hard as they can toward their destination. Eventually, the winds exhaust them, and they give up.

So, what is the answer? Most people in this situation see two options: continue fighting the winds or give up. It takes patience and imagination to see past the binary choice. We have far more options available. Any good sailor will tell you that you can’t sail directly into a headwind. But you can still use a headwind to power your boat. You must zigzag through the wind. Choose a proper angle of attack, and with the right technique the wind will propel you in a net forward direction. You will need to switch directions periodically to reach your destination.

At this point, it should be obvious what John needs. We needn’t ask him. His behavior does the talking for us. John wants to be happy. That is the destination he is trying to reach. Except all the forces in his life are pushing him away from that destination. These forces are outside his control. And so, he is searching for a place where he can feel safe. He is also experimenting with numbing activities that provide relief from his negative feelings.

We cannot wave a magic wand and make John happy. However, we can support him in meeting his needs. He needs to feel safe and also have relief from the storm. We can help John feel safe by learning how to create safe spaces. We can also provide him healthy relief from his negative feelings through active listening and/or empathy.

Creating safe spaces

Creating safe spaces is a foundational tool for human wellbeing. It is the first step for all healing. Healing, understanding, and happiness do not occur without it. To heal, we must first feel like we are in a safe place.

If we did not grow up in a safe environment, then it may not be natural for us to create one for ourselves or our loved ones. We may think that we’re providing a safe environment when in fact that is not the case. It is not enough to provide a home free from physical abuse. There is a lot more that goes into a safe, nurturing environment. A safe home environment is one in which all members feel free to be themselves and express themselves in a respectful manner. A safe environment promotes the mutual growth of individuals and of the relationships they are involved in. This type of personal growth should span multiple domains including emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical growth.

How do we tell if we’re providing a safe environment for ourselves and our loved ones? The easiest way is to observe our collective behavior. If people are acting aggressively or disrespectfully, then this is not a safe environment. If people are sneaking away, hiding in their rooms, or otherwise acting dishonestly, then this is not a safe environment.

A safe environment has the following characteristics:

1. Open, honest communication
2. Private spaces where people can be by themselves and have their privacy respected (typically bedrooms and bathrooms)
3. Common spaces where dialogue and fair negotiation on group expectations can occur (i.e. dinner table, family room, etc.)
4. Presence of safe, age-appropriate boundaries segregating these different spaces
5. Freedom to come and go within a set of safe, age-appropriate boundaries
6. Absence of drug abuse, nicotine use, or intoxication within the premises
7. Absence of aggressive behaviors, including physical, emotional, verbal, or sexual abuse or harassment
8. Absence of judgment, shaming, blaming, comparing, interrogating, punishing, defensiveness, self-loathing, or accusing behaviors
9. Absence of manipulative behaviors, including accusations, ultimatums, chasing, pleasing, lecturing, and passive-aggressive behaviors
10. Radical acceptance of people as they are without the expectation that they will change into somebody else

If our home lacks one of these characteristics, chances are we are not living in a safe environment. I arranged all of these ideas in order. Start at the top and work your way down. How many of these unhealthy behaviors exist in your home? Which ones do you exhibit?

Common mistakes when trying to set up safe boundaries

This is a difficult list to commit to. It requires a daily commitment. I’ve outlined a few of the most common mistakes that I see people make. As a parent, I’ve violated the majority of these rules at some point. We need to give ourselves grace to be imperfect, but also hold ourselves accountable to keep working on these things.

• Lack of respect for private spaces. Commonly, I’ll see parents invade the bedrooms of children during an argument. If a child goes to their bedroom voluntarily, do not chase or follow them. This is actually a healthy natural way for children to seek safety and emotionally regulate. Let them come out of their bedrooms when they feel comfortable. Children are given ownership of their bedrooms and can invite or disinvite other family members at will.
• Using bedrooms as punishments. A bedroom is a safe space for family members and should never be treated as a jail, punishment, or banishment. Children should only be asked to go to their bedroom if they are acting aggressively towards other family members. Aggressive children can be given the option of going to their bedrooms or another place in the house, so long as they are able to remain safe in the place of their choosing. Make it clear that they are being asked to separate from the group for the purpose of mutual safety. Once they are able to emotionally regulate, they are welcome to return to the common rooms. And so, they retain freedom of movement throughout the house.
• Drug abuse, nicotine use, or intoxication within the home. Other family members should not have to suffer the consequences of adult drug or alcohol abuse. While moderate drinking may be ok, adults who wish to become intoxicated should do so outside the home. Other substances should be kept outside.
• Aggressive behaviors are tolerated in common spaces. This is especially the case for verbal abuse. Verbal abuse, like name-calling and accusations, should not be tolerated. Abusive individuals should be asked to go to a safe space until they are able to emotionally regulate and stop their abusive behaviors. Practice safe communication without aggression.
• Not tolerating certain beliefs. There should be space for people to hold differing, contradictory beliefs. All respectful beliefs should be tolerated within the home. This is especially true for differing religious and/or political beliefs.
• Not tolerating certain identities and/or identity exploration. A home that doesn’t allow individuals to be who they are is not a safe home. If children are fearful of disclosing aspects of their identity, then they are not living in a safe environment. It is the job of adults, not children, to create a safe living environment.
• Presence of manipulative and/or dishonest behaviors such as judgment, shaming, blaming, comparing, interrogating, punishing, ultimatums, pleasing, lecturing, defensiveness and passive-aggressive behaviors. These common, immature behaviors require a lot of work to eliminate from our use.

The last point on manipulative and dishonest behaviors is the one that trips people up the most. That’s especially true for me personally. I’m a judger. I’m also a manipulator, a lecturer, a pleaser at times, a verbal abuser, and I like to get defensive. These are all things that I’ve had to work on. As I’ve seen improvement in these behaviors, I’ve seen my children respond dramatically in a positive manner. My children, ages 7 and 9, used to exhibit a lot of aggressive behavior after the divorce. As I’ve seen my own parenting mature, I’ve watched them model my behavior. They will now voluntarily go to their rooms, without being asked, when they become emotionally dysregulated. They then return back to the family room once they feel better, usually after 5-15 minutes. They also feel comfortable talking about things that bother them, including things that might upset me. I’m very proud of the environment of open dialogue that we’ve built in our home.

Seeking refuge in a storm

Let’s return to John’s story to figure out our next step. John wants to be happy, but all the emotional winds are blowing him in the direction of further unhappiness. We cannot just plow through the storm. Instead, we have to navigate it efficiently. In fact, we should use those winds to a positive end.

John is going into the woods where he feels safe and is doing illicit drugs to numb his overwhelming emotions. This behavior provides him with temporary refuge from the storm, but it does so at a long-term cost. He never figures out how to maturely navigate his difficult situation. Furthermore, he will establish a co-dependency relationship with illicit drugs that will arrest social growth.

The easiest thing to do in this situation is to create for John a safe home environment for him to return to. Within this environment, John will have his own bedroom where parents will not enter without invitation. Then there will be common spaces for everyone to coexist together. These common spaces need to be free from pressuring/manipulative types of behavior. They should be free from lectures, judgments, shaming, interrogations, punishments, and accusations. John must feel free to come and go througout the home.

Now this doesn’t mean that John gets to do whatever he wants within the home. The family can work collaboratively to come up with a basic set of fair rules, of which John should have a say in crafting. Respecting everyone’s boundaries is an important part of those rules. John cannot get intoxicated or use drugs within the home. But this doesn’t mean that his belongings will be searched or that he’ll get dragged to the doctor’s office for a drug test. However, if John acts inappropriately, he will need to bear some natural consequences for his behavior. He may be asked to leave the common spaces if he is emotionally dysregulated. He may be later asked to repair any damage that he’s caused by his behavior.

John should be free to decide his future. This includes deciding if he will stay in school or not. However, if he decides to drop out of school, he should be expected to enter into the workforce. After all, everyone must contribute fairly to household chores and expenses.

While taking these steps will not solve all of the family’s problems, setting up a safe home environment is the critical first step to navigating John’s storm. John should not expect the hurricane to disappear with this first step. However, he should notice that he is getting a little closer to his destination. The intensity of his negative emotions should soften. The next step is to use empathy and active listening. When presented with a safe environment, active listening/empathy should allow John to open up and begin talking honestly with his parents about what is going on in his life.

What if, from John’s perspective, his parents refuse to create a safe home environment? Maybe they refuse to stop their manipulative behaviors or possibly they refuse to stop their intake of harmful substances. This creates a very sticky situation. From John’s perspective, he is forced now to “grow up” quicker than he should have to. He must act as both the child and the adult in this situation. This is hard for anyone to do, but especially hard for children and adolescents. There will be long-term cost for an adolescent being forced to grow up too fast, but at this stage it may be our only option.

John must create his own safe space. He is already trying to do that by going into the woods. Unfortunately, this will provide temporary safety at a long term expense to his wellbeing.

John can create his own safe spaces in a few ways. It’s best if he does this with others involved, at least at first. He should identify five individuals in his life as positive role models. These role models can be teachers, peers, siblings, extended family, or medical professionals like a counselor. He should make a plan to meet with these individuals and ask if they have the energy and bandwidth to be part of his support network. A support network is a group of individuals who coalesce around someone to aid in healing. A fully functioning support network can replace a dysfunctional home in extreme circumstances.

In a support network, there should be a mix of individuals with diverse backgrounds and ages, including at least one professional and one family member. John should not pick five peers from the same friend group. At most, one or two friends out of the same group is enough. He needs to involve other individuals outside his close friends.

If they are willing, he should then plan to meet with each person minimally once every two weeks, although more frequent meetings are ideal. These meetings should occur in a safe setting. They should not involve illicit drugs, alcohol, or other unhealthy behaviors. They can involve other healthy social activities, such as sports or playing games. However, there should be time set aside for 1:1 check-in’s. It’s during this time that John should be free to explore how he is feeling.

Notice here that these safe spaces may no longer be a physical space, like a home. It can be an emotional space for two people to connect freely with open dialogue. It can be a church, a park, a coffee shop. It can be talking on the phone. Talking online through texting or chat groups doesn’t count. A safe space for healing is not an online chat room any more than it is a friend group. Friend groups and chat rooms may be helpful for healing, but they do not constitute a person’s support network. They cannot substitute for a dysfunctional home the way that a fully functioning support network can.

Homework: a ten-step process to establishing a safe home environment

Here is where we begin the work with some homework. We cannot just read an article. We have to practice these ideas. We have to work at it on a daily basis until they become habit. But we also cannot overwhelm ourselves by biting off more than we can chew.

I will utilize Dr. Nicole LePera’s concept of the small daily promise. In this exercise, a person commits each day to doing one healthy act each day. Follow these instructions:

1. Pick one unhealthy behavior related to creating safe spaces from the list above. Common unhealthy behaviors include comparing, judging, blaming, self-loathing, accusations, ultimatums, chasing, pleasing, lecturing, intoxication, yelling, punishing, and/or passive-aggressive behavior. Pick only one of these.
2. Each morning, make a promise to yourself that you will put in effort to stop yourself from committing this one single behavior today. Notice that you are not promising to not do the behavior. You are only going to put in effort to find an alternative behavior to do instead.
3. When a familiar tense situation arises, take note.
4. When you start to feel a craving to do this behavior, take note of the craving. Where did it come from? How did it arise? Feel the urge. Don’t try to suppress it. Just examine it.
5. If you can, pause whatever you are doing. Excuse yourself and go to a different place where you can reflect. Put some more thought into what you were about to do. Give yourself five minutes before rejoining your previous situation.
6. If it’s too late and you’ve already done the thing that you were trying to avoid doing, that is ok. As soon as you recognize this, pause to reflect. Go into that separate private space and replay what happened. Ask yourself what else you could have done or said in that situation.
7. At some point, you should apologize for the behavior, “I’m sorry for being so critical,” “I’m sorry for yelling,” “I’m sorry for chasing you into your room. That is your private space.”
8. If you were able to stop yourself before doing the behavior, feel free to talk about what happened with the other people involved. Tell them, “I’m sorry for being so… in the past. I’m really working on not being that way going forward. I would appreciate it if you would help by being patient with me.”
9. Give yourself credit for doing this hard work, whether you were able to stop yourself or not. None of this is easy.
10. Keep up with the same behavior, day after day, until you do find away to replace that unhealthy behavior with something else that works better.

Bookshelf

Our subconscious mind manages the vast majority of what our brain does. It filters the immense volume of information coming in from our bodies. It acts as an autopilot by running countless routines. Within these routines, it makes countless second-by-second adjustments to maintain homeostasis. This frees up our consciousness to focus on the big picture.

This is all well and good when life is moving along smoothly. Often, however, we get stuck in bad habits. We feel helpless like a rudderless ship caught in a storm. Our feelings can become overwhelming. Our thoughts can become intrusive. And we feel trapped. We may already know that some of our behaviors are unhealthy, but we can’t see a way out.

Understanding how the mind works can be empowering. In this article, we will look at the differences between the subconscious mind and our consciousness. We will use three metaphors to demonstrate how they relate to one another. We will start to understand that our feelings do indeed have purpose even if they are overwhelming us.

It turns out that we have far more influence over how we feel and how our mind works than one might imagine. But that influence isn’t direct. It isn’t easy. Let’s dive in and see how this works.

In a separate article, we discuss how to build conscious self-awareness.

This Article Contains:

Basic duties of the conscious and subconscious minds

There are many ways to subdivide the mind. One of the most useful ways is to disassemble the mind into two basic components: thinking and feeling.

Feelings come from the subconscious. They are messages from our subconscious self to our consciousness. They are written in their own universal language. Anger, fear, happiness, disgust, resentment, etc. We feel good about something or we feel bad about it. We can’t help the way we feel. These feelings are generated by our subconscious self. They are only messages. They are pieces of information.

Thinking, on the other hand, is the work of our conscious mind. Thinking is everything the conscious mind does. There are many processes here: observation, perception, recalling something from memory, mental arithmetic, selecting data, assigning meaning, judging, making assumptions, and drawing conclusions.

The subconscious mind has the power of suggestion. It provides impulses to the conscious Self. It suggests things to remember. It suggests that we select certain pieces of data and not those others. It suggests meaning and judgements. It suggests assumptions and conclusions. Each of these suggestions is a type of intuition, a “gut feeling.” As we translate them into words, these suggestions become simple thoughts. We hear them as if they’re being spoken to us.

The conscious mind has the unique power of choice. The conscious mind gets to choose which suggestions to keep and which to discard. The conscious mind can also choose to remain passive, to not make any choice at all. In this case, we remain on autopilot. Out of the countless suggestions generated by our subconscious, we act out the ones that come with the greatest intensity. You deserve pizza tonight, not a salad.

The subconscious mind has two unique responsibilities. It sends a feeling message. You feel this way. And then it suggests what a person should do about it. You feel X, and therefore you should do Y. The conscious mind then gets to decide if we will act upon the suggestion. See Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow for more detailed information about this process.

Keep in mind, most of the time we are on autopilot. Most of the time, we are simply acting out the suggestions of our subconscious. That is the default. We are just doing. Only when we shine the spotlight of our consciousness on those choices, do we then think before we do.

The subconscious mind does another very kind thing for us. It allows us to forget. It gives us grace by forgetting. We don’t remember every mistake, every misstep or every injury. Over time, we only remember what we learned from those painful experiences, not the experiences themselves. We integrate these learned memories into our greater whole. We remember the experience but forget the painful details.

On a side note, unhealed trauma occurs as a failure to integrate painful memories. Because we can never make sense of them, they remain in their raw form. We can never forget the pain, and so we relive it again and again.

Three metaphors for understanding the mind

Let’s look at three separate metaphors for clarifying the roles of the subconscious mind and the conscious mind. With each metaphor, we will gain greater awareness of how these two interact. There are three lessons here that can allow us to unlock the magic of influencing our autopilot.

• The elephant and the rider
• The restaurant and the patron
• The storm and the sailboat

In each metaphor, there is the subconscious self: the elephant, the restaurant, and the storm. And then there is the conscious self: the rider, the patron, and the sailboat. We will see how the two interact and learn from those interactions. In each case, the subconscious dwarfs our consciousness in size and power. But the smaller being, our consciousness, has room to maneuver. It is through that influence that we move from helplessness to empowerment.

The elephant and the rider

I borrowed our first metaphor from Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis, who has borrowed from many other insightful and ancient sources. This is our first analogy to describe how the process of thinking and feeling works.

Haidt asks us to imagine an elephant with a man on top, a rider. In this analogy, the elephant is our subconscious mind. It is our animal brain. It doesn’t do math or logic. Instead, it represents everything we feel. It also includes everything that the subconscious mind suggests that we do. You should find food. You should find shelter. That is disgusting. Go find a mate. She’s pretty. You get the idea.

The rider is our conscious mind. It is our thinking self. It can do math and logic. It can make choices. It can act on suggestions. It has veto power over the elephant’s suggestions.

Then Jonathan Haidt asks an important question:

Who is in charge? The rider or the elephant?

I have gotten into arguments with friends about this very question. Turns out there are two questions here. Who is in charge? And who should be in charge?

Essentially, we are asking what drives behavior? What aspect of our Self determines what we do and who we are? The subconscious mind or the conscious mind? Our feelings/intuition or our reason/logic?

To argue over these questions is to misunderstand the mind. One part of the mind does not dominate the other. One is not submissive.

And yet, there is a lot of power in being the default mode, the autopilot. When the rider is passive, the elephant has all the power.

The human experience is incredibly complex. We feel so much. There is so much to process. We can’t sit there and think about it all. So, the subconscious mind does most of the work for us in the background. This is intentional. The elephant is all of our internal presuppositions, genetic inclinations, subconscious motives, and layers upon layers of uninterrogated, raw experience. It also includes our latent moral intuitions–the foundations of our moral values–the building blocks for morality and judgement.

Only a small fraction of what the subconscious deals with is ever allowed to approach the level of consciousness. Even that small fraction is an incredible amount of information. And so, the conscious mind is constantly being flooded with impulses, feelings and suggestions. There are so many. We cannot possibly sift through them all. Autopilot becomes the norm. With so many choices available every second of every day, the subconscious generally takes over.

Haidt points out another incredible insight here. Because autopilot is the norm, the elephant not only is making thousands of small petty decisions, it also generally makes most if not all the few important decisions. Who to marry. How much to spend, how much to save. What religious affiliation you should belong to. What political messaging resonates with you.

In fact, generally speaking, the conscious Self only realizes he had a choice after the choice is already made. He comes to this realization once he’s felt the impact of the decision. Again, it’s the elephant giving the rider the feelings of the impact. And so, we see that intuition comes first, reasoning second.

Intuition comes first, reasoning second.

Jonathan Haidt

This is a hard pill to swallow for someone new to this concept. We do have agency. But we wrestle with home much agency we truly have. Most of the agency we think we have really has been decided for us by our inner elephants.

There is a lot of data to back this up. I will defer to Haidt’s book for a detailed proof and review of that data, rather than pour it out for you here. It does make sense though, once you start to grapple with the concept. Open your eyes to choices that you make. Peel back the reasoning. Underneath the layers of logic, you will discover a feeling. An emotion. Some type of impulse. Beneath that is a basic human need. Realizing this, you can see that intuition, coming from your elephant, was really the driver of your decision. Not the logic and reason you expected. This holds true for decisions involving religion, politics, the abortion debate, race issues, how many children you want to have, who you fall in love with, how you feel in your marriage, etc. The elephant makes the decision in each case. The decision was intuitive, not logical.

Why have a rider in the first place then? It turns out, the rider exists mainly to justify the decisions of the elephant. Humans are social creatures. Often, the elephant does something that isn’t pretty or tactful. It needs a rider to justify those actions, after the fact.

The rider is still the conscious mind with all its rational functions and agency. And yet, the rider evolved to serve the elephant, to justify it decisions. According to Haidt, the rider became a type of lawyer or public relations consultant for the elephant. It is not a scientist that objectively sees the truth. It provides post hoc justifications and explanations for the moral convictions–the “intuitions”–of the elephant.

The rider evolved to serve the elephant.

Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis

The rider has evolved this grand vision of itself as a rational actor who makes measured arguments and thinks carefully about political affiliations, moral convictions, religious beliefs, etc. However, Haidt demonstrates in study after study that this type of vision is delusional. Humans are the opposite. Empirical research supports the bottom line that humans are emotional actors who act first, via intuition. Only after acting can we then provide a rational justification for our behavior.

Humans are emotional beings. We act first, justify later.

In this dynamic, the elephant holds the majority of the power. Realizing and accepting this is a critical first step to solving conflict and healing injury. We cannot fix our social problems if we don’t understand them. We need to be aware that our disagreements and conflict didn’t come from differences in logical thinking. They came from differences in needs, emotions, and values. The first two are the exclusive providence of the elephant.

The third–values–is a place of negotiation between the elephant and the rider. Here is where the rider has an opportunity for input. Here is where the rider can step in and alter behavior.

How does this happen?

Let’s look at our next metaphor: the restaurant and the patron.

The restaurant and the patron

The subconscious mind creates our world of feelings and possibilities. Such feelings and possibilities are presented to our consciousness. The conscious mind may then choose from among the available possibilities.

Consider a patron at a restaurant. The subconscious mind is the restaurant. The mood, environment, and feel of the restaurant represents our feelings. How do we feel walking in the door to a new situation? The subconscious mind also arranges the menu choices. These are the suggestions that it offers to the patron sitting down to eat.

The patron represents our conscious mind. He has agency to choose. He doesn’t have to like the restaurant, its environment or its menu, but he’s stuck eating there. He can only choose from among the possibilities on the menu. He can decide if he will eat or not. That is what it has available. He was not offered something that is distasteful to the restaurant–to our subconscious.

Even among the menu choices, the restaurant has preferences. Some items are bolded and made to look appetizing and have a reasonable price tag. Other options are written in small print and are hard to find. And so, by default, the patron usually picks the option that the restaurant prefers him to pick. He acts on the restaurant’s suggestion. It takes work to not follow the suggestion and do something else. Even then, he can’t eat something that the restaurant doesn’t make.

Once again, we see that the restaurant, like our elephant, really is in charge. The patron can only choose from among the possibilities he is presented with.

Becoming aware of this reality is another key step. We already learned that the elephant and the restaurant are in charge. We see that they present us with options, including both preferred and non-preferred options. We’ve accepted that these choices aren’t logically based.

How do take back some influence? How much control do we really have?

Turns out, we have a great deal of control and influence. But we have to dive in deeper.

So, what choices do we have?

If the rider, the conscious Self, aka the patron at the restaurant, has agency, then what exactly does he have agency over? What choices does he have?

The patron must choose from a suggestion provided to it by the restaurant (aka elephant)–the subconscious mind. Understanding how this works is really the key to discerning what is controllable from what isn’t. The magic comes when we realize that we have control over things we never knew we did. When we exercise that control, we can influence things that we don’t have direct control over, like our feelings. We can give the conscious mind better influence over the subconscious, which is otherwise running the show. I use the term influence here, because although we have a great deal of influence over the subconscious, we don’t have direct agency over it. We can influence our feelings, not control them. The same goes for other people. We have a great deal of influence over other people in our lives even if we can’t exert direct control over them. In other words, some of the things available on the restaurant’s menu are written in fine print. We need only look a little harder to find them.

The subconscious Self, the restaurant, provides us with suggestions. It does this by first starting with basic human needs (food, water, shelter, safety, belonging). The subconscious Self feels those needs. It generates feeling messages and impulses that it dispatches up to our consciousness. You are hungry, for instance. With that feeling message comes a suggested action. Go eat Doritos. Most of the time, we are on autopilot, and that’s exactly what we do. But we do have a choice. We can choose not to eat, if we’re paying attention.

What people don’t realize is that hidden within this simple message (You are hungry. Go eat Doritos.) is a value choice. We can translate that message to mean: “You value not being hungry. You value sustenance. You value survival.” And so, the restaurant’s suggestion is really a value message. The restaurant is telling the patron what they (collectively) value.

The same holds true for all of our moral values, all of our convictions. Moral values, as Haidt points out in his research, emanate from the subconscious. Moral values are intuition–“gut instinct.” Moral values are set up and authored by the subconscious. Where do these moral values come from? They come from our desire to fulfill our basic survival needs. It is our basic needs for sustenance, shelter, and belonging that generate our moral values designed to help us be productive, be safe, and build communities. Human values, as Haidt argues, cross cultural and generational barriers. They evolved to help us survive and prosper.

The subconscious mind picks a mood for the restaurant. Then it offers a menu of choices to our conscious Self. Feel free to pick from among what’s available: You can eat. You can be safe. You can build your community.

The subconscious gives the conscious mind freedom to choose. Each choice represents an important value. We can decide not to eat the hamburger. We can decide, instead, to be patient.

These values, as it turns out, are all the same values we teach our children. We know them already. Patience. Hard work. Safety. Compassion. Manners.

And so, we start to now see the interaction of feelings and values. Feelings remain outside our control. They are the sole purview of the restaurant (or the elephant). Values, on the other hand, can be the responsibility of the patron (or the rider), once he takes ownership of them. He must first turn off autopilot and assume some control. But these are all value choices. Not choices of logic and reason. Logic and reason have nothing to do with it. The patron/rider only tricks himself to believe he is a rational actor. When in fact, the choice came from the elephant/restaurant from the world of needs, feelings and values.

It then becomes the interaction of feelings + values which determines how we behave, and the impact our behavior will have.

A sailboat in the wind

It’s ok if this is still somewhat confusing. Let’s look at one final analogy to try to piece it together.

Remember that feelings are energy. They get us up and moving. Values are tools that channel our energy.

The subconscious is constantly bombarding our conscious mind with a flood of feelings, impulses and suggestions. Those messages are like weather. We cannot control the weather. It does what it wants to do.

Imagine a sailboat out on a windy day. Our feelings are the wind. The sailboat is our values. The sailboat, with its sails, is a tool that can move in the wind. We happen to be a person on the boat. We can be a passenger and just ride along, letting the boat and wind take us where they will. We can be passive, riding along on autopilot.

Or we can choose to direct the sails and point the rudder. If we want, we can aim for a direction. It takes work to do this. It takes effort.

We see here that the subconscious Self provides us with the wind (emotional energy) which the conscious mind has no control over. The subconscious Self also provides us with the boat and the sails (our values), which we can use and direct in the direction that we choose.

Love and work are to people what water and sunshine are to plants.

Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis

Hopefully this analogy seems basic and rudimentary. Too easy and simple.

But what happens when we are in an emotional crisis? What happens when we experience an overwhelming flood of emotions that threaten to drown us? What can we do then? What does this look like?

An example of taking back control: the sailboat in a storm

Let’s look at the example of Tara. Tara is 15. She isn’t very close with either of her parents who are divorced. She bounces between their houses, living at one for a few months before jumping back to the other. Her older brother recently enlisted in the Marines. They were close, and unfortunately she doesn’t expect to see him much anymore.

Tara’s father, William, brings her in to my office. Last night, he found her with a knife in her hand, contemplating cutting her wrists. She has cut herself once before. William is very concerned and doesn’t know what to do.

Through the course of our conversation, Tara describes feeling like she is alone on an island with nothing but empty ocean surrounding her. But when I dive into her feelings more, she describes a flood of negative feelings: I’m not deserving of happiness. I hate myself. I hate my parents. I hate my life. I’m worthless. Those feelings came to her like a storm last night. She had been fighting them for weeks now. She resisted the storm outright, battling the weather head-on, like a ship trying to paddle directly into the wind. Eventually, inevitably, she became exhausted. Her will to fight melted away. She became empty. She looked for a way out. She wanted to cut because she wanted to feel something again.

“What are you looking for?” I ask her.

“Relief,” she answered.

“What does relief look like?”

“I don’t know.”

Any good sailor knows that you cannot sail directly into the wind. It’s impossible. Paddle as hard as you like, eventually the wind will defeat you.

What if your destination is directly ahead? What if the wind is coming straight at you? How can you get there? What if all you want to do is feel better, feel happy again? Meanwhile the wind is saying all these awful things about you. The wind taunts you for trying to be happy. You’ll can’t be happy. You don’t deserve happiness.

You can’t charge straight forward. You will fail. But you can go sideways. You can go at an angle to the wind. You may not move fast. It may take a while to get where you want to go. But the wind, no matter how negative it is, will propel you if channeled correctly.

How do we help Tara get started? We need to give her a direction that she can reach. One where her wind will push her forward. A direction where she doesn’t have to paddle. All she has to do is hold the course.

Holding a firm course is hard work, certainly, but it won’t exhaust her the way trying to paddle against the wind will.

Tara’s dad is an engineer. He’s used to fixing things. He doesn’t know how to be a good listener or how to connect with empathy. Tara’s mom is the opposite. She is warm and loving. When her warmth and love run dry, she becomes hot and volatile. She gives in to her own emotions. A switch flips, and Tara’s mom becomes a different person. She enters survival mode and sees everyone else as a threat she must push away in severe terms. It is emotionally abusive to those around her.

Tara goes to stay with her mom when she craves human connection. Unfortunately, the connection often doesn’t last, as Tara’s mom frequently will run dry on energy. The she says childish, immature things that have the power to rock Tara’s world and send her running back to the cool safety of her father.

This happened recently when Tara and her mom got in a fight. Tara’s mom spouted out a ton of nasty things, including, “You take up too much space… You’re too loud and obnoxious… Make sure to put your makeup on… Why don’t you have more friends? You really should work on that. I don’t like you moping around here all the time. You bring me down. Don’t be so dramatic… Here, have a glass of wine, but don’t tell your father…”

After all of this, Tara found herself in a storm of her own feelings. A monsoon of negative thoughts pummel her in the face. She is looking for some calm, some brief respite. How do we help her?

If she fights the storm directly, it will exhaust and eventually defeat her. Examples of trying to fight the storm would include:

• Ignoring or attempting to suppress her feelings. Going about her day like nothing has happened.
• Doing activities that promote short-lived happiness without addressing the underlying issue (TV, video games, social media, drugs, alcohol, marijuana).
• Trying to force herself to be happy through insincere tasks – hanging out with friends and pretending to be in a good mood.

These tasks are all insincere. They involve her being dishonest with herself and trying to pretend her bad feelings don’t exist. These tasks will drain her energy really fast. Once her will to fight evaporates, she will succumb to negative cycling. The negative feelings will sweep her away. Or worse, she will discover a new habit, a crutch, that provides temporary relief at a great long-term expense. This is what happens when we use alcohol as a crutch for emotional problems.

What’s wrong with just giving in? What if Tara just goes with the winds? If she lets the storm blow her over and drag her further away from her goal, this is negative cycling. Examples of this include:

• Blaming her mother (or parents) for all her problems
• Blaming herself for all her problems
• Giving up and giving in to the feelings

These tasks will backfire. They will destroy her self-esteem. They will destroy what remains of her connection to her parents.

What can she do instead?

She needs to move forward. She has a goal, a purpose. Ideally, she would use her negative energy–the stormy winds–to her advantage. How is this possible?

She has to turn her rudder and reposition her sails. Turns out, she can still move forward. But she has to go at an angle to the wind. She needs a manageable direction. There are many places she can aim for and still use the negative energy to her advantage. Energy is energy. Energy helps us move. But it takes work to point the rudder in the right direction.

Her father (or another role model, teacher, close friend, family member) can learn to be a better listener. He can offer to be the source of connection that she craves. He only needs to abandon his Mr. Fix-it role. Instead of being a temporary refuge, he can become a permanent source of positive connection and modeling. He must put his focus on understanding Tara’s feelings and situation, rather than trying to solve her problems for her. This way, her father can be an effective bridge of connection. He needs to:

• Focus on understanding her feelings and situation instead of trying to solve her problems for her. Empathy and connection will cure her. “Solving” only degrades her self-esteem by sending the message that she isn’t capable. No advice-giving! No judgment.
• Avoid feeding the negative energy through blaming.
• Be a rock of stability. Keep his own emotions (anger, resentment) in check, except for the empathy that he shows towards his daughter. No oversharing (“Let me tell you how much your mother bothers me, too!”)
• Be an effective, curious listener. Avoid interrogating. Provide her a safe space to say what she wants to say at the pace she is comfortable speaking.
• Avoid nonsincere tasks. Don’t go pretend to have fun with Tara just to take her mind off things. Understand the difference between activities of rest/reflection and activities of distraction. Small activities of rest and reflection typically provide temporary relief and may include small pleasures not meant to distract or diminish a problem: a walk through a park, a board game, listening to music, a bowl of ice cream, being close to someone you care for who knows about your suffering and won’t violate your values. A person can still be genuine and get emotional (cry, have a panic attack, be angry) during such activities, if needed. Nonsincere, distracting activities are typically larger tasks intended to sweep problems under a rug: a rock concert, a seven-course gourmet meal, a beach vacation, hooking up with someone you don’t care for or someone willing to violate your values.

Tara can also learn how to effectively seek out and find help when she is in need. It is not just her father doing work here. Tara can learn to communicate with individuals like her father, who often rely upon the Mr. Fix-it role. She can learn to gently guide such individuals towards a more empathic stance of active listening.

Alternatively, there is another direction Tara can go to also get closer to her destination. Tara can work on setting appropriate boundaries around her mother. This is not an easy task and will take a lot of work. She could begin to explore the reasons why things her mom said were so hurtful. Tara can start to understand how things she did and said probably helped trigger her mom to be so hurtful. Finally, Tara can practice new strategies of what to say and how to approach her mom when her mom becomes so angry. Her father or another trusted friend can role-play past fights so that Tara can practice more constructive things to say. Tara can learn to own her nonverbal and verbal communication in these situations. This way, Tara will learn how to better protect herself, with person boundaries, from future abuse from any individual. These newfound abilities will serve her the rest of her life.

Tara should:

• Work on setting up safe, healthy boundaries for important relationships
• Establish safe spaces where she and her mom can go when they are feeling hurt to avoid fighting and defensiveness. “Mom, when I go to my bedroom, I need you to respect my privacy.” or “Mom, I’m feeling a little defensive right now. I’d like to pause this conversation and pick it up later when I’ve cooled off a bit.”
• Recognize when her mom is being verbally abusive and call out the behavior in a neutral tone of voice as “not ok.” If it is not terminated, then Tara must withdraw to a safe private space, saying respectfully that she will resume the conversation at a later time. Tara can then surgically employ negative emotions, like anger, in a nonthreatening manner, if and only if her mom proceeds to violate the boundaries of that safe private space. Tara doesn’t throw around her anger like a club. She needs to learn how to use anger, and other negative emotions, to her advantage. Doing so will effectively communicate to her mom that it’s now time to back off.
• Avoid feeding her mom’s emotional dysregulation with Tara’s own emotional dysregulation.
• Role play with friends and/or other family members more effective ways of communicating. Replay old conversations with her mom to see which things she said were and weren’t effective.
• If the abusive behavior doesn’t end and/or boundaries aren’t respected, then Tara must put the relationship on pause. She can live with her father until the issue is resolved.

Getting to Tara’s destination will require some flexibility of zig-zagging back and forth between extending new bridges (with family and friends) and building new personal boundaries to safeguard against her mom. She will need to do both, a little at a time. It may take months or years. She won’t be “happy” overnight. But her negative emotions will settle and be more balanced by growing positive emotions once her inner elephant sees visible signs of progress.

Identity-Values-Reflection is a therapeutic process where we understand these fundamental choices. We separate out what is controllable and what isn’t. IVR breaks down behavior into three possible sets of choices: Identity, Values, and Reflection. At each step, there is an environment and a choice.

As a next step, I recommend How to build self-awareness.

Bookshelf

Love changes the way we see ourselves and others.  We feel beautiful when we are loved, and to evoke an awareness of beauty in another is to give them a precious gift they will never lose.

John O’Donohue, Beauty

Everyone is striving for something. We all have a purpose for being on this Earth. Figuring out that purpose might be the project of our lives.

How do we get there? How do we figure that out?

We need a general direction. Somebody or something needs to point our way. If you are religious, your minister can’t carry you to the promised land. You still have to walk there on your own two feet. The minister is there to point a direction and guide you.

If you aren’t religious, then you need to find something else to believe in. Something to point a direction and guide you. You could be your own minister, but you still need strong outside influences. And you need a way to go.

We all believe in values. For the most part, these values are similar across geography and cultures (Haidt and Joseph, 2008). Often situations arise that pit one set of values against another. How do we choose which is more important? Should there be one all-important value under which all the others exist?

This Article Contains:

Apex values – What is most important?

To resolve conflict, we have to have some way of determining what is most important. We need some kind of value hierarchy. For instance, if a person is called in to work extra hours on the evening of their daughter’s orchestra concert, which value drives the decision: loyalty to her job or love of her family?

So, what value sits at the very top?

There must be some kind of value at the top of our moral pyramid. We need something under which all the other values exist.

This apex value would serve as our end-goal. It provides us with a needed direction. With that direction, the value also gives us a set of rules to help us to get there. For instance, one of those rules might be that evening time is reserved as family time and shouldn’t be encroached upon by workplace duties. Ideally the rules we would come up with would be simple and straightforward (no loopholes).

We will call this preeminent value the apex value. It sits at the very top. All other values defer to it.

Even for religious individuals, we still need an apex moral (or apex value) sitting at the top. God becomes the person directing individuals towards that moral. For instance, consider love: God directs us to love God and love each other. Or consider happiness: God wants us to achieve true happiness.

So then, what value (or moral) should sit at the top? What should our direction be? Do we each pick our own direction, or should we all agree on something similar?

Because we are human beings living in groups (rather than living alone in the woods somewhere), let’s say that we agree to work together and focus on one goal. What should it be?

If we could set our sights on one goal–one goal only–what should we aim for in life? In other words, which virtue should take precedence over all others? When push-comes-to-shove, when our values come into conflict, which value wins out?

Happiness? Justice? Truth? Serenity? Peace and calm? Balance? Purpose? Beauty? Goodness? Connection? Respect? Love?

Three candidates for apex values: Love, happiness, and balance

What about love?

Many people would answer love. Love beats all.

But there are problems with that common answer. Love has the duality of being both a feeling and an act. Because it is a feeling, love is out of our direct control. We cannot will ourselves to love someone. We can act in loving ways, but we cannot force ourselves to feel love.

Love has other problems. Most people struggle to define it. Without a clear definition, we can’t understand it. Even when we feel in love, we struggle to understand how we got there. And so, we cannot create a reproducible blueprint or even a set of clear principles for others to follow. What if the relationship ends? Can we do the same thing in the next relationship?

What about all those other important relationships in our lives that exist without a feeling as strong as love? Do those relationships exist solely to serve the relationships where there is love? For example, would you break an important meeting with your boss (who you respect, but don’t love) on a whim because your spouse asked you to go play tennis instead? Should everything really defer to love and depend upon it?

What about if someone is abusing you. Are you expected to love them, or should you first work to protect yourself from the abuse? Maybe you will learn to love and forgive them in the future. But what if you decide never to see them again? You may be loving yourself, but you certainly aren’t loving the other person by cutting them off.

Does self-love always trump loving others? Certainly not. One could easily imagine countless scenarios where we love others at our own personal expense. Consider parenting and the self-sacrifices that come with. Consider spouses who often put the other person first to their own peril.

And so, love has it many contradictions and problems. For each contradiction, we would need a great deal of understanding to come up with a solution. Without understanding love, we might instead come up with a complex set of rules for it. The greater the complexity of those rules, the more disagreement and conflict.

What about happiness?

Some people might say that happiness is the penultimate goal of life.

Yet happiness has all the same problems as love. Happiness is a feeling, and again we don’t have direct control over our feelings. We can’t make ourselves happy. We can certainly do things that are likely to make us happy. But often many of the things that we would do come at some other’s expense. We might make ourselves happy by stealing from other people. We might create happiness at the expense of our future selves: borrow money, forgo working out, drink too much, etc.

Clearly with all of these issues, happiness needs some type of stabilizing force. We need to make sure one person’s happiness doesn’t come at the expense of others. Happiness needs balance. How do we achieve that balance?

What about balance?

So, what about balance? Should we strive for that? Maybe that’s the thing we should aim for in life? Put balance as our apex value?

We could balance the importance of different relationships. We could balance our love life, family life, and work life. We could balance present-self happiness vs future-self happiness. We could balance our happiness versus other virtues like respect and not stealing.

Clearly, balance has a lot of merits.

The problem with balance

What’s the problem with balance?

Everybody has different goals in life. One persons’ balance may not work for another.

What if you could take all the pieces of a good life (happiness, justice, truth, peace, purpose, beauty, goodness, connection, love, etc.) and assemble them together like the ingredients of a cake. Could we mix them together and create the perfect existence? Or at least create an existence that we should all strive for?

There are many problems with this cake-ingredients approach. Not only will people disagree about the proportions of each ingredient, it’s also likely they will disagree about what ingredients belong in the first place. One person’s essential value might be completely unpalatable to another. Religion is only one example. What about yoga, music, high-intensity exercise, reading, higher learning, fishing, golf, following the news, social media, etc. How many of these things would be high up on one person’s list and nonexistent on another’s?

Balance has other problems. Each relationship in our lives will require its own balance. With each one would come a set of rules for achieving balance. Consider rules for family, spouses, friendship, the workplace, parenting, etc. Each of these relationships is radically different. The rules for balance would all need to be different.

What other values could we put at the apex?

Justice? Truth? Serenity? Peace and calm? Purpose? Beauty? Goodness? Connection? Respect?

For these other proposed virtues, one could imagine many common situations where those values don’t work. Is there beauty in warfare? Should we remain calm and serene while being attacked? What about connection? Should we expect to maintain connection with someone who persists in hurting us? Because they often don’t work, they’d be absurd sitting at the top.

Some of these values carry such wide ranges of interpretation, it would be impossible to see it at the top. Justice and truth are two examples. One person’s justice is another person’s abuse. One person’s truth can be another’s mistruth.

How do we resolve the conflict when two people’s perspectives clash? How do we understand the problems with each of these virtues?

Understanding – the solution to each conflict

Each of these contradictions, absurdities, and conflicts calls for resolution. With some imagination, we can wiggle our way out of the traps. In each case, the missing piece, it seems, is understanding.

For the lover who expects you to disrespect your boss on a whim, rather than give in to satisfy her, what if you could make her understand how important your job is to you?

Consider the person you are connected to who is harming you. What if we could help them understand the harm they were causing? Even if they refuse to change their behavior, what if we could understand our own contributions to their behavior, so that we might better protect ourselves and create appropriate space–safe space that protects us from abuse.

What about when two people have perspectives that are at-odds? How do we determine what is truth? Rather than getting locked in a battle of sorting out who is “right”–an exercise that is likely to backfire–what if we get get the two people to understand each other? What if, through the process of mutual understanding, a “third story” were to emerge in their collective imagination. Could this “third story” wrap together each of their individual stories into a greater pattern of behavior, one that doesn’t negate or dismiss any aspects of either individual’s story. Could this “third story,” this greater perspective, be what “truth” actually is?

We may be able to love our enemies, but we cannot only love our enemies.  We have to stand up to them also and be prepared to protect ourselves.  Love is a type of bridge.  To work, love requires an effective boundary supporting it.  Love requires a companion virtue.  Because love is incomplete, it cannot sit at the apex of our value pyramid.  Understanding how to make love work together with an effective boundary appears to be the critical step. 

Love cannot exist in isolation.  Neither can happiness, respect, balance, etc.  None of these fits at the apex of our value pyramid.  Most of these virtues require a second virtue to become balanced.  It takes a process of understanding to fit the virtues together. 

Also consider values taken to the extreme. Love, taken to the extreme, becomes problematic. If you love your enemies too much, love becomes weakness in their eyes, and they will take advantage of you. Most other values work the same way. Taken to the extreme, they become absurd. What about understanding? Can you every understand something too well?

Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person’s soul.

John O’Donohue Anam Cara

Understanding – Could it be its own virtue?

With each contradiction and absurdity, understanding appears to be the way out. Mutual understanding allows different values to work in concert.

What if we put understanding at the apex of the value pyramid?  Could understanding be a virtue?

Think about recent conflicts that you have had with family, friends, your spouse, or coworkers.  If you were able to effectively resolve the conflict, how did that resolution happen?  Assuming that all sides were satisfied with the resolution, what worked and what didn’t?

Conflict resolution typically occurs when two sides of an argument are able to talk things out effectively.  Generally, people are not satisfied until they feel heard and understood. 

Resolution does not mean that everyone agrees on every point.  Sometimes resolution involves two sides walking away if the fit is not right.  Sometimes there is an agreement to work together on some points and not engage on others.  However, in each of these cases, when all sides feel heard and understood, everyone can leave satisfied that the best possible outcome was achieved.  There should be no hard feelings or regrets afterwards. 

What happens when two sides fail to resolve their conflict?  In this case, at least one party is left not feeling heard and understood.  When this occurs, there remains a host of bad feelings such as anger, regret, sadness, contempt, disgust, cynicism, etc.  These negative feelings indicate that there is much more work to be done here.  The conflict will go unresolved.  Anyone who is believing otherwise is fooling themselves.

In resolving conflicts, what determines success?

Much of conflict resolution involves setting appropriate expectations for success.  We cannot expect to always be happy after every encounter.  Happiness would be a strong positive emotion.  After all, we can’t expect to befriend or marry a store clerk we’ve just met.  But we can expect to be treated with respect. 

In conflict resolution, while we should not expect to always be made happy, we can expect to have resolution of most, if not all, of our negative emotions.  This can leave us feeling satisfied that nothing was left on the table. 

For instance, if you’re feeling sad, expressing that sadness and having the other person respond with empathy will leave a person feeling heard and understood.  This doesn’t mean that the breakup won’t still occur.  But after feeling heard and understood, we can then trust that the change in our relationship won’t leave us feeling so isolated afterwards.  Some mutual trust persists even as the relationship transitions to something new. The new relationship that emerges will still be one based upon mutual trust. For instance, the other person may still be there for us as a friend and won’t be likely to betray our confidence afterwards.

And so, mutual understanding–feeling heard and understood– is one key indicator of successful resolution.

What if mutual understanding doesn’t appear possible? What if the other person isn’t cooperative? They don’t want to understand our side of things.

At this point, we have a choice.  We can extend another bridge in their direction.  We can try to communicate our desire for mutual understanding in a different way.  We can use other bridging emotions, like appreciation or curiosity, to reach out to them. 

Alternatively, we can reinforce our own personal boundaries.  We can create space between ourselves and the other person.  We can use anger to show that our boundaries have been crossed.  Or we can look inward towards shoring up own blind spots or increasing our own independence.  Reinforcing personal boundaries is especially necessary if we seem to be failing at extending bridges. 

Reinforcing personal boundaries is also a type of communication. We communicate that we need more respect from the other person. If we are effective, they will demonstrate signs of respect, like backing off. This may be another key indicator of success. Eventually, when sufficient respect is built up, the other may extend their own bridges in our direction.

All of these—extending bridges and reinforcing boundaries—are steps that increase understanding.  If we are effective at extending bridges, this creates mutual understanding when both sides begin to listen to each other.  If we are effective at reinforcing personal boundaries, this also leads to understanding.  We understand ourselves better.  The other person understands us also when they hit up against the strong brick wall that is our now-solidified personal character.  They understand it’s now time to back off. They may not be able to see over the wall. Instead, they can see exactly what we want them to see, which may be very little.  We force them to treat us with respect.  In each case, we communicate, and they respond. Our behavior influences theirs.

How does understanding resolve conflict?

Whenever two sides disagree, each side has its own set of feelings, values, and story.  When two feelings are at-odds, it is understanding that helps bring resolution.  We understand that we can disarm anger with compassion, calm, or creating safe spaces. 

When two stories clash, understanding each one leads to the organic blossoming of the “third story,”—the story that encompasses both other stories and more. 

With each contradiction, understanding appears to be the way out.  When one value is brought to absurd excess, we understand which complementary value fits best to balance the situation. For instance, too much love (aka compassion) requires some demand for respect. Too much demand for respect requires some love (aka compassion).

Anytime we have clashing feelings, values, or stories, it is understanding that leads to resolution.  Both sides need to understand each other.  Building towards understanding helps to resolve negative emotions over time.  As we continue building towards understanding, new possibilities may open up. 

We can never have too much understanding. Keep in mind, understanding is not analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis is really just talking things over, too much, absence of feeling. In analysis paralysis, we analyze things logically to the extreme. It becomes robotic. We become a room of accountants and lawyers–too much talk and too little listening. We forget that most of understanding is actually feeling. It is less communication by words and more nonverbal communication. We feel heard and understood.

This is another reason why we say feelings have purpose.  Feelings guide us toward understanding.  For this to work, we must learn to listen to feelings belonging to ourselves and others.  And forget reading people–thinking you know what they’re feeling. You’re better off just asking.

How does understand relate to control?

Another reason why understanding belongs at the apex of our value pyramid is the issue of control vs lack of control.  In life, there are things within our control and things outside our control.  We cannot make someone fall in love with us, but we can extend loving bridges in their direction and also force them to respect our boundaries. 

At its core, understanding is all about separating out the controllables from the un-controllables.  We control which bridges we build and which boundaries we reinforce. 

We learn to understand how our own behavior affects others.  While we cannot control another person’s behavior, we can influence their behavior to a tremendous degree through our own.  Our actions affect their feelings, which ultimately drives their behavior.  We understand through experimentation and listening how this influence occurs. 

Another way of looking at this is to remember that feelings are outside our control. We don’t control what we feel. We control how we respond to those feelings. If we respond appropriately, more than likely the feeling will improve over time. Respond inappropriately, and the feeling will worsen. Anxiety becomes paralysis. Sadness becomes hopelessness. Compassion becomes helplessness.

Putting understanding at the apex gives us clarity of purpose. Understanding allows everything else to settle into place along well-define lines of control. We learn how to respond to our feelings. We channel those feelings into an energy we can use rather than allowing them to overwhelm us.

What’s it like to have understanding as our primary end-goal?

In any social interaction, there is an end-goal.  That goal could be any number of things.  We enter into a relationship with the goal of finding love.  We start a new career with the goal of realizing our purpose.  We work things out with someone with the goal of achieving reconciliation and/or forgiveness.  We parent with the goal of raising independent, happy adults.  We start a family with the goal of creating belonging. 

What if, in each of these cases, we set understanding as the primary goal?  Can we still achieve the same ends?  What does this look like?

• We enter into a relationship with the goal of understanding the other person and being understood ourselves.  If the fit is good, the relationship may progress to greater connection and/or love.
• We start a new career with the goal of understanding ourselves, our abilities, and our potential.  If the fit is good, we may progress and ultimately realize our purpose. 
• We work things out with someone with the goal of understanding them better and being understood.  As mutual understanding progresses, we both feel that we are achieving reconciliation and/or forgiveness. 
• We parent our children with the goal of understanding how to do so.  With many successes and failures, we grow as people.  Our children grow with us and push us to be mature, capable parents.  We all struggle on the road towards becoming independent, happy adults.  
• We start a family with the goal of learning and understanding how to do so.  Through our struggles, we grow together to achieve mutual understanding and belonging. 
• We attend religious services with the goal of understanding our connection to God and to the broader community. We learn to understand God’s purpose for putting us on this Earth.
• After hurting each other, we work things out by sharing our stories. As we understand each other’s feelings, thoughts, and intentions, we achieve mutual understanding and forgiveness.

Another way of looking at this is that trying to achieve love without understanding is a type of cheating.  It can’t be done.  We may feel like we’ve achieved it, for a time.  But without mutual understanding, reality will come back to bite us one day.  We will learn the hard way that mutual understanding is a prerequisite to love. 

In each of these cases, we grow through understanding.  We learn to understand the why, the how, and the what of each endeavor.  Along the way, we determine the fit and course-correct when necessary.  We can alter our expectations or abandon the endeavor once we understand the fit. 

How is understanding both a process and a goal?

We can set our sights on fully understanding any situation.  This makes understanding a primary outcome—a goal.  By working towards that goal, we open up possibilities of achieving other secondary goals like purpose, love, belonging, or reconciliation.  When we don’t succeed in these secondary goals, our feelings remain unhurt because we understand those goals weren’t possible.  The fit wasn’t right. 

Understanding is also a process.  As a process, understanding brings its own set of rules and guidelines.  These rules include things like listening, caring, curiosity, communicating your story, and reinforcing boundaries.  The nice thing about these rules is that they are not situational.  They don’t need to be changed or reshuffled depending on what type of conflict they are being applied to.  Once you start to see how they work, they become intuitive.

You may need to make minor adaptations to each rule for different situations.  For instance, listening to a baby, a small child, a teenager, an adult, someone who speaks a different language, an adult with dementia, a nonverbal child, etc. all require additional skills and experience to accomplish.  But the core concept of listening is still the same.  

The rules of understanding are simple and elegant. The beauty here is that you already know them.  They are common sense and intuitive.  We don’t need a complex formula or advanced degree.  We don’t need definitions to memorize.  We don’t need to parse out similar sounding words, phrases, or definitions. Everything is simple.  We learned it all in elementary school. 

We all learned how to listen, how to care, how to be kind, and how to be respectful.  We learned how to stand up for ourselves on the playground.  We learned how to do hard work.  All of these are kindergarten values.  You don’t have to be skilled or highly educated to get them.  They’re incredibly basic. 

Each one of these kindergarten values represents a potential pathway towards our end-goal.  In certain situations, some pathways may be more efficient, more effective, or more convenient than others. 

If it really was that simple, why is there so much conflict in the adult world?

There are two primary reasons why adults struggle with understanding and its very basic rules.  The first reason is that most adult conflicts involve two competing values (or two competing rules).  Each side wields their value (or rule) against the other.  Look closely at arguments you’ve witnessed or been involved in.  It doesn’t take much listening or curiosity to realize that each side has its own kindergarten value that it’s using to make their case.  Compassion vs respect. Loyalty vs freedom. Belonging vs responsibility. These are common competing values.

The second reason adults struggle is that working towards understanding is difficult.  It is hard work.  It is often inconvenient. 

When people have a choice between two competing kindergarten values, they often will choose the one that’s most convenient to them.  Convenience is key here. Convenience often wins out. It doesn’t necessarily mean that convenient value, the one they chose, is the correct one.  

Finally, if the issue isn’t a matter of direct convenience, then adults choose the value that they know best. For instance, a person really might identify with loyalty or respect. When it comes to voting, they choose the candidate that embodies those values most directly. Even in this situation, we’re still really talking about convenience. Doing this is pure laziness on the part of the voter. Picking the value you like best does not necessarily mean it is the correct one for the situation, just like picking the candidate who embodies that value doesn’t necessarily make them the right person for the job.

The Identities-Values-Reflection (IVR) Project is a process that can help adults determine the correct course of action over time to solve social issues. IVR is a process for determining the correct values to use at the right time. IVR is not slanted to any particular religion, philosophy, political leaning, etc. Instead, it is most closely aligned with other projects in the fields of spirituality, moral psychology, healing and conflict resolution. Achieving mutual understanding is the goal.

Why understanding leads to love

The process of building towards understanding is a process that leads to all those other things we strive for: Happiness, Justice, Truth, Serenity, Peace, Balance, Purpose, Beauty, Goodness, Connection, Respect, and Love.

Consider that two people feel in love only when they both feel understood by the other person. Now it has to be a deep type of emotional understanding. The fit for this has to be right for love. We can also feel understood by a colleague at work, and then the highest level of connection becomes deep mutual respect (not love). Here we see that understanding produces the highest level of connection for the situation, based upon fit. The highest level of connection will be what it turns out to be: truth, justice, happiness, love, respect, etc. Two people cannot be expected to fall in love if their fit isn’t right (if their values don’t line up). When things don’t work out for love, respect or peace might end up being their highest level of connection.

Understanding can also be a restorative process of healing. Understanding can lead to reconciliation, forgiveness, and reconnection. Consider two people that hurt each other deeply in the past. They may now be willing to forgive each other. It doesn’t matter how much they wish it to be so. You cannot choose forgiveness. Even if they say, “I forgive you,” it is a insincere because they do not yet feel forgiveness. They would, in essence, be lying to themselves. To feel forgiveness, they must understand each other stories and past intentions. They must feel each other’s hurts. They must walk in each other’s shoes. This takes a lot of work and additional pain. Only then, when both feel heard and understood, can they finally rest in genuine forgiveness.

Through understanding, we obtain all of these things. We do this through the process of positive cycling. Positive cycling is a process of working towards understanding. Positive cycling puts together all the pieces of Identity-Values-Reflection (IVR). Instead of being complicated, it is actually intuitive. But it does require hard work and it is often inconvenient. These requirements explain why people so often get tripped up.

Positive cycling directs us towards our highest level of connection, based upon fit. Positive cycling is not a quick, linear process. Instead, it is a cycle. It requires repetition. We do the work day-after-day. Over time, understanding broadens. The formula is simple:

time + hard work + understanding = happiness, love, respect, balance, etc.

Happiness, love, respect, balance, and all those other good things come. First, we need a direction. Understanding is that direction. Understanding is our goal.

Unfortunately, though, understanding is a moving target. We must work to understand ourselves, understand others, and be understood. This helps explain why working towards understanding requires cyclical thinking, rather than simple linear thinking. Cyclical thinking requires a person to be flexible, imaginative and curious.

Next: Guide to Positive Cycling

References

Johnathan Haidt and Craig Joseph. (2008). ’19 The Moral Mind: How Five Sets of Innate Intuitions Guide the Development of Many Culture-Specific Virtues, and Perhaps Even Modules. In Peter Carruthers, and Stephen Laurence. The Innate Mind, Volume 3: Foundations and the Future (New York, 2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2008. Download article.