Escape the Pity Pot
When I was having my private meeting with my writing teacher a few weeks ago, I uttered the phrase, “Oh, I am the anti-victim-energy person!” I long ago made the conscious decision not to ride the powerful waves of victimhood — it was the primary impetus for producing the event, To Tell The Truth: Incest and Sexual Abuse Survivors Speak Out, that CNN covered and turned into a one-hour documentary back in the early ‘90s. We did not want to be seen as damaged goods! We wanted the same opportunities as others who hadn’t experienced this form of trauma. [Sidebar, I might have been a little naïve… stay tuned!]We (the survivors who put on this event) saw that while having people feel sorry for us felt good to the inner child, and compassion is better than the lack of compassion, too much pity was not useful to the adults we wanted to become. That mantra, “Why me?” finds its way to all of us at times, generated by slights large and small. But as I’ve inferred here before, the “why” questions I’ve found to be the least helpful and most unanswerable. Not to mention an impediment to “accepting what is” (ahh, Buddhism) and taking a proactive stance in one’s own life. There is a time for grieving, and, time serves us better in my experience when we turn these sour lemons into sweet lemonade.
Asking Effective Questions Gets Us Off the Pity Pot
What is an effective question? It’s one whose answers empower us, enlighten us, and illuminate the tools that will get us out of whatever current mess we’re in or move us in the direction of clearer self-actualization. I love to write them on sticky notes, as that visual reinforcement and repetition can stay in dialog with the unconscious mind to surface solutions my main brain doesn’t know about. I loved this episode of the Hidden Brain podcast with Psychologist Ken Sheldon on this (Who Do You Want To Be?) Hint: Mindfulness practice is an effective way of accessing this deeper knowledge we all possess. (1)One of my favorite questions to ask when it feels like things are going wrong or not according to plan, or generating discomfort is:
What if everything that happens is supporting me?
I’ve learned this is a portal to a goldmine of additional helpful questions:
Do I do this irritating thing, too? Can I stop? Is it necessary?Can I get the benefit another way without so much suffering?What’s the insight I’m not seeing?On a scale of 1-10, how important is this, really, for me, for now?Can I use this to let go of some baggage, now that it has my attention?
If you’ve studied any psychology, you’ve learned that the things that irritate us in others are often napping quietly inside our own shadow selves. Or, as many in 12-Step communities say, “If you spot it, you got it!” Perhaps not always exactly or literally true, but surely some nuggets of truth can be found.I’m always looking, and I’m always asking questions.— Anne Rice
Effective Questions Are Kind
This is one of the secret ingredients to asking effective questions. Ineffective questions are demeaning, harsh, accusatory, and serve to weaken us not empower us. That’s one of the ways you can detect if your questions are here to tear you down or give you tools to build yourself up.Many of us were raised with ineffective questions, I think out of ignorance more than anything. “Why the hell did you do that?” is not effective but it is a quick, unconscious response designed to troubleshoot a problem. Did you feel the contraction in your own body when you read that? Contraction shuts us down and/or builds up defensiveness, which both of which block creative solutions and insights. We can’t stop others from launching a barrage of them at us, but we can learn to stop asking them ourselves.
Asking Questions Takes Courage
Were you reluctant to raise your hand in class? In a meeting? We have a fear of being put on the spot. The uneducated monkey mind thinks asking questions makes us look stupid. No! It’s a sign of curiosity, not ignorance. It’s how we learn. It’s. How. We. Learn. If your cup is already full, well, learning becomes unavailable and it’s why the Zen Buddhists remind us so often to start with an empty cup. Acquiring knowledge and insight is awesome until it blocks the ability to learn new things, or prevents us from updating our database about any topic or belief system.Being able to ask effective questions is a skill worth building if you seek to know yourself better and want to exist in society without it frequently tripping you up. Fortunately, this is a learnable skill! (Search “effective questions” for an endless scroll of further information.)
For some people, questioning comes easily. Their natural inquisitiveness, emotional intelligence, and ability to read people put the ideal question on the tip of their tongue. But most of us don’t ask enough questions, nor do we pose our inquiries in an optimal way. (2)
If You Only Ask One Question:
How does this support me in being more true to myself?
Taking it one step further, assuming that whatever is happening is subjectively FOR ME, I find really empowering. And let’s just admit it here and now, I like feeling powerful. Do you? If so, start not on the pity pot but instead by embracing effective questions. Then, of course, remember to listen to the answers from the wisdom within, not the monkey on your shoulder who is carrying the flag of victimhood, pushing you to fit in, repeating the voices of the masses who have no idea how magically brilliant you are.I believe our answers are available to us, but they do take effort to uncover. This work of building self-knowledge and self-acceptance is not easy and I would say many people are not interested in pursuing it. It’s not required. To be sure, as Abraham Maslow established so clearly, these questions at the top of the pyramid are not that helpful when one’s basic survival needs are unmet. But knowing they are, intuitively, can guide us to making more effective decisions by entertaining more effective questions. Graphic: (3)
Ineffective Questions
Before we end today’s mindset insights, I’d like to list a few questions that are not helpful and in fact, can undermine you. This “don’t do” can be as helpful and maybe even easier to start with! No getting your case, please, this is how we learn. Staring at the uncomfortable truths on the screen is its own form of consciousness-raising. All of these avoidable questions have nuggets of usefulness hiding in them. We can tap into that usefulness by cleaning out the voices of pity and powerlessness. Note they start with why instead of how or what.
Why bother?
It’s such an energy drain! Instead, how about “Is there enough in here that’s worth my while?”
Why is this happening to me?
This is straight from the voice of self-pity. And, it’s often helpful to troubleshoot when things go awry. How about “What can I learn from this so it doesn’t repeat?”
Why can’t I [fill in your blanks here]?
Again, troubleshooting can be instructional. So let’s replace it with “What CAN I do to get closer to my goal today?” I like this one because it’s small and digestible, it is happening here and now in the present, and it doesn’t attempt to solve everything everywhere all at once.Do you have some favorite questions that do the heavy lifting of awareness for you? Or ones that do the opposite? I’d love for you to share them with me. Free subscribers can reply to the email! Let’s feel better together.
Thank you for reading. The bulk of this post (above) is available to all subscribers however I did add an in-depth postscript with personal commentary for those who are paying subscribers. I’m experimenting with the tools here and also with my own vulnerability. ~ Rox
- Hidden Brain Podcast by Shankar Vedantam with Ken Sheldon
- From Harvard Business Review
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
This may sound silly, but I recently became aware that I wake up many/most mornings feeling depressed. I had somehow tried to isolate that in my brain to “only occasional instances” but in reality, it happens rather frequently. Because I have built rigid habits that are known to address this, it was easy to ignore. For example, I exercise with my dog, Mama Sita, first thing after getting out of bed. Going outside, no matter the weather, and walking for 1-2 miles, feeling nature on my face, invariably starts my engine. My mind may continue to sputter a bit, especially if I indulge in reading Twitter while eating breakfast after the walk. But at least there is forward momentum and another day goes by where the answer to the recurring question of “Why don’t you just go back to bed?” is once again, “No.”Truthfully, I am terrified of doing that. (A highly disciplined life of ignoring “weakness” has kept me alive but not built as much trust in myself as I would like to have.) Though of course, now that I’ve outed this fear to myself, perhaps I should do it just as an experiment, for science, haha, to see what might happen. But “not today, Satan” is the semi-serious, semi-comical response I typically give to myself. I’ll be sure to let you know if I gain the courage to go back to bed on any of these upcoming days.I decided to share this postscript only with paying subscribers. It’s not as if I want to hide this nugget, but I’m exploring the energetic difference between giving and taking, between who is entitled to my most intimate thoughts and feelings. I still struggle with feeling ignored and under-appreciated and also confused at how some people can take so freely without so much as a thank you.This sort of emotional accounting is rife with frustrations and wrongdoings (many of them my very own) but I suspect you may have experienced some, yourself. So I, the artist and writer, can be the one who speaks the miserably embarrassing truths. Because that is one way we share our humanity. I am learning to do this in my write-a-memoir-in-12-months class, and am increasingly drawn to the brutal honesty that is necessary for us to accept ourselves and connect deeply with each other.Thank you for sharing your financial and intellectual energy with me and supporting me as a writer. I am so very grateful to you.xorox