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Closure and Contentment

This post isn't going to be about research as much as philosophy I've drawn from my experiences and observations.

Though we tend to reserve the word closure for relationships, closure is, in my opinion, the most important concept in someone's quest to overcome life-struggling. To see why, we have to consider what causes struggling in the first place.

The Source of Struggle and Contentment

You can approach struggle (or dysfunction) from a lot of different "zoom-levels" and angles. A biologist zooms in far and see genetics and chemistry as being responsible. A sociologist might see struggle as a result of unevenly allocated resources. I prefer to look at human experience the way it's felt.

There is some struggle that's a natural part of life, but this isn't what I'd call struggling. Struggling is the result of disconnection from ourselves. We disconnect when we get inappropriately lost in our thinking, our worries about what might happen, and our past. When we disconnect, we lose touch with our inner-awesomeness: our kindness, our talents, our insight, our joy, our peace, and our levity. These are all aspects of the same experience. Only if we're self-connected can we form a connection to another person, otherwise it's like trying to have a conversation with someone who's phone is off. For that reason, inner-awesomeness is also the root of intimacy and belonging.

The inner-awesomeness is contentment.* The state of contentment -- which is a state of mind, not a lasting possession you acquire -- opens up new ways of dealing with tricky situations that normally would suck us back into the trance of thought. Not only will you have self-connection, but you will improvise ways to maintaining that connection in the face of new or familiar challenges.

The Role of Closure

There are many self-help gurus and teachers, most of whom have earned by utmost respect, who teach methods of withdrawing from thinking and reinhabiting the body in its present state. The practice is called meditation and while it comes in different forms -- breathing, kindness, mindfulness of a certain aspect of your experience, insight/vipassana -- it always shares the same common denominator: let go of your compulsion to think and analyze and see what's already here.

This is hard for people, me included, to do. We're addicted to thinking and believe that with enough thinking, we'll work our way out of our problems. Sometimes it works, because your thinking can help you compare experiences and arrive at the conclusion that your thinking is the culprit of struggle, rather than the solution. In this way, thinking can self-cannibalize. Most of the time, though, you find that people are deep into their thinking. If it's a trauma, they're lost in their past, replaying memories and continuously reviving their emotional pain. If it's fear or mistrust, they're lost in the future, worrying, paralyzed by their expectations. Either way, the person slowly loses self-connection and inner-awesomeness as thinking overwhelms them and starts to grow lonely.

A good counselor might advise this person to start practicing mindfulness by surrendering the need to think and to start watching what's already here. But there is another way to surrender the need to think: closure. That's precisely what closure is, a device used to interrupt a pattern of habitual thought (or behavior triggered by thought) and surrender to the current situation. It is the event that convinces a person to end habitual thinking. Closure is condensed meditation and requires an equal degree of surrender.

Closure allows a person to make major life transitions and climb out of spirals of shame, grief, guilt, anger, worry, fear, obsession, and loss. Fostering it is an crucial tool in an Amateur Psychologists kit.

Recipe for Achieving Closure

Common sense tells us that there's no right way to get closure. There is no trick or special forumla to produce it. The most important thing is that the event (a letter, a discussion, burning something) is significant for the person. If it is not significant, it won't convince the person to surrender their habitual thinking. For that reason, a good guide should suggest ways to achieve closure but ultimately put it in the hands of the person seeking relief.

A second consideration is make the closure lasting and memorable with something ceremonial. The ceremony can involve 2 stages. The first stage is related to the trauma or issue the person faces and is a symbol of surrendering the old patterns. If they lost a loved one, they can gather belonging together and wear them, or make a website dedicated to the person, create a collage out of their best pictures and memories, or create a personal momento. The second stage has to do with creating a new, fresh path. To accomplish that, they might dye their hair, change their room, or change their wardrobe. These changes symbolize a new direction in life and offer the seeker an alternative to the old patterns.

A third consideration is to remind the seeker that revisiting the old thought patterns is a normal part of the closure process. Closure doesn't mean the old ways will suddenly evaporate. The thoughts may continue, but in a less severe manner, and should be viewed as a relic from the past rather than something to freak out about.

Final Thoughts

This is the reason I don't knock New Age-type therapies. It's not that I believe in them, but the consumers do. That's all they need to take a troubling issue, find closure, and move on.

If you think about your life, you can probably recall moments where you achieved closure. It feels freeing. Here's a picture where I had it. You can see how the face is relaxed and the eyes and soft and calm. There's a smile waiting to erupt. As you can see with my brother, sometimes it does.

* Fuck the word "happiness" and avoid it at all costs. It sounds like someone no one can ever get without a book deal, good teeth, and a job that pays more than whatever you're already making.

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What is Mindfulness?

Unless you're deaf or live in a cave, you've heard the word mindfulness. The term has started creeping its way into psychotherapeutic vernacular. Originally an Eastern mystical exercise, it has now forms the cornerstone of some major Western psychotherapy techniques including Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness Psychotherapy. What is it? How do you practice it? Why won't the Dalai Lama shut up about it? What will it do for you?

Mindfulness is a technique that concerns the way you respond to the content of your mind. When you are mindful, you watch the contents of your mind with a curious, innocent nature, rather than an analytical and judgmental nature. To really understand what mindfulness is, you have to understand what it isn't. To do that, lets examine our day-to-day mental life.

We go through most of the day somewhat oblivious to what's going on inside of us. We analyze, worry, prioritize, and plan one thing to the next. When we get bored, anxious, or sad, we respond by thinking of ways to relieve that feeling. If I'm bored, I think about what I can do for stimulation. If I'm anxious, I start telling myself not to be anxious and plan out ways to gain an upper hand in the situation. If I'm sad, I might start analyzing the crap out of my life, looking for something I can correct to alleviate the sad outlook. There is a snap, automatic judgment that occurs in between the unwanted thoughts and feelings and our reaction where we say: I don't like this; I want something better.

This automatic resistance to experience is normal. It's what keeps our species going. For example, if I'm lonely, I look to solve that loneliness by meeting someone. If I'm concerned about my status and appearance, I do something to help boost that status. When I'm horny, I call up your ex girfriend/mother. This is how our ancestors pushed forward, found ways to survive, and deposit their genes in you.

The trouble occurs when you realize that contentment and satisfaction aren't the aim of evolution. Following your "genetic destiny" by resisting and reacting doesn't guarantee happiness. Why? Well, why should it? The "aim" of evolution is survival. It's tricky, because our biology and psychology coaxes us into believing that if we follow the plan our genes have designed for us, we'll be happy and content. "Keep fighting for money, love, status (generally, "security") and you'll be happy! I promise!*"

Mindfulness is a different way of responding to mental content. Instead of being stuck in our heads, planning, thinking, dwelling, worrying, resisting, and reacting, mindfulness tells us to STFU and wait. In mindfulness, we look at our experience with curiosity as it unfolds and morphs from one thing to the next. When you're bored, you look at the way boredom feels. When you're anxious, you see how your back is all tense and twisted and your mind cluttered with thoughts about what might happen. It's interesting. Strange. When you're depressed, you see how your moods and interpretations are gloomy. Hm. Okay. Not the greatest feeling in the world, but interesting.

All of this is accomplished with relaxed attention. You aren't trying to force yourself to do something special with your thoughts or perception. You aren't trying to see the world as all rosy and full of rainbows and love. You're just looking at what's already here without being a dick to yourself.

Mindfulness slowly collects you and puts you back in your body. You don't automatically stop thinking, and when you first start, your mind starts to wonder and analyze content, but over time, you start to analyze less. You stop thinking about your thinking, which has the overall effect of minimizing the clutter in your head. You can kind of think of it like frogs mating. When your mind is reacting to content, you generate new thoughts, and then new thoughts about the new thoughts. Each generation doubles in size. Before you know it, your mind is full of frogs**. (Wait, what?)

When you practice mindfulness, you stop generating new thoughts about your thoughts. Over time, the original thoughts pass and your mind starts to clear up. When your mind clears up, strength and joy start to creep in. You find that you're able to work through difficult feelings, situations, and stages without resorting to automatic resistance and reaction. You find alternative, wiser ways of responding to things that help create long-term rest and harmony.

Your perception begins to crystallize a bit too and you can see things just as they are. Buddha and his posse taught that with that clear mind, you can look at your own identity and realize that it's not made of anything independent. There is no "I," no actual thing called Edahn. Edahn is just an idea I represent in my mind as having certain attributes, stories, and aspirations, not an independent thing that needs to be defended. It isn't something in the universe; it is the universe. Not the whole thing, but connected with it in a very intimate way. This is the point where all resistance to experience (karma) stops.

If you want to try it out, just see what's going on with your right now. What does your body feel like when it breathes? Do you feel any tension in your shoulders? What kinds of thoughts are youo having? Take a look and see if you can answer those questions. Pretend like I gave you a quiz with those questions and your job was to present the answers not in the form of words, but in the form of an experience. Show me the experience of breathing, feeling, thinking, hearing, touching, pain -- whatever is going on.

*I wouldn't deny that there's some truth behind those promises, but it occurs because of a confusion of terms, mainly, the term "love" which comes in the form of romantic and platonic love. I'll explain this another time.

**I've been informed by one of my loyal readers that frogs produce more than 4 offspring together so each generation multiplies by a factor great than 2. You're right. I assumed, naively, that each pair would have 4 kids, so each generation would double from 2 to 4 to 16. I was wrong for assuming this and I apologize, sincerely.

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Transference in Online Relationships? (user submitted)

Dear AmateurShrink,

What are your thoughts on transference and countertransference with particular regard to online friend/relationships?

Attentively yours,

Lustful in London

~ ~ ~

Dear Lustful,

Lets quickly define the terms tranference and counter-transference. Webster's defines transference as "a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, esp[ecially] of childhood, and the substitution of another person ... for the original object of the repressed impulses." In other words, I was mad at my father, but I'm taking it out on you, or, you were afraid of some guy, and now you're afraid of me. While transference implies a patient projecting feelings onto a therapist, counter-transference contemplates the reverse situation.

Transference is interesting, but not as interesting as it's hot sister, erotic transference. Erotic transference happens when patients fall in love with their therapists. Remember that this idea is Freudian, so we have to start from infancy, where you only had five major psychological disorders. The sequence goes something like this:

1. Baby needs mother's attention to survive.

2. Mother gives baby attention. Baby becomes attached to mother and fixates on her.

3. Baby craves mother and feels "love."

4. Mother has other things to do in her life and must occasionally neglect baby's needs.

5. (Cry)Baby is distraught and represses traumatic breach with mother. Wah!

6. Baby grows up, gets into several dysfunctional relationships, starts smoking crack, becomes a prostitute, and changes her name to Trixie.

7. Trixie visits Therapist seeking advice.

8. Therapist is attentive to Trixie's feelings and needs.

9. Trixie is reminded of the attention she received from her mother, back in 1-3.

10. Trixie transfers the feelings of love she felt for her mother onto Therapist and now begins fixating on him.

11. Therapist says "it must have been hard to be disappointed when you were a child" to coax Trixie into releasing the trauma incurred when she was disappointed by her mother in 4.

Interesting, huh? I don't buy it, but it's interesting. I think it's more likely that we evolved certain fixed emotional "programs" to help us cling to our caretakers, and that these program are executed when we meet new caretakers. But I don't really think that we're thinking about our mothers when we meet these people, and I don't think we need to rehash past traumas. That only reinforces and validates weak, needy living. Instead, tell the person that their feelings make sense, but that real love is something that grows out of independence, not neediness.

Okay, finally, lets get back to your question. Can transference happen in online relationships? It probably happens in all your relationships in some mild form. If you've been rejected by a guy, you'll transfer some of your hurt and fear onto the next guy you meet and perceive him as untrustworthy. Same goes if you're angry.

And what about the erotic type? Look, if you're attracted to me, just say so.

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Venting makes you MORE angry?

Have you ever had a friend/girlfriend/homeless person ask you if they could just "vent" for a minute about something that bothered them? Have you ever heard someone say they're going to the gym to hit a punching bag for a while to get out some frustration?

We commonly call these behaviors "venting." The idea behind venting is that by expressing anger at some other target, we discharge whatever anger is there and are free to go about our day, collecting butterflies and petting toy poodles at Starbuck or whatever it is we do when we're not on the verge of killing someone. This idea comes courtesy of Freud and his ideas about catharsis. Catharsis is the theoretical release you feel as dispelling a feeling that returns your body to homeostatis.

That's a cute theory, but does it seem realistic? When it comes to anger, we can confidently say NO. It turns out that expressing your anger actually makes you more prone to be aggressive after your supposed "catharsis." It makes sense, too: when you practice being angry and aggressive, you're more prone to use aggression later on, just as having a lot of sex will make you more lusty, or partying a lot will make you more likely to party more (lest you get a disease or a hangover, or both).

The next time someone says I'm going to [have sex/get drunk/party hard/beat up an old person] to get it out of their system, you can look at them skeptically and say something incredibly clever like...

...

oh really?

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Why can't I cry? (user submitted)

Dear Edahn,

Why can't I cry? I get close, but I just get choked up.

Sincerely,

Choking in Chile

~ ~ ~

Dear Choking,

Crying is kind of like an orgasm except you don't feel guilty afterwards. If you are too self-conscious, you'll be tense and your awareness absorbed in your mind rather than in your body. I'm going to assume safely that as you approach the crying-threshhold, you get excited and become aware of the fact that you might start to cry. You might get so excited that you try to draw it out, mentally. That's the point where you're becoming self-conscious and tensing up.

The solution is to give up the self-consciousness and over-thinking, but of course that's tricky, because the way we're used to accomplishing things is through thinking and controlling our thouoghts. If you try and apply that to crying, having an orgasm, or anything that requires sponteneity (e.g., humor, creativity, empathy) you're essentially using your thoughts to try and stop thoughts. That's kind of like disseminating a chain letter encouraging people to take a stand against chain letters. Take action before it's too late! Fwd this to 100 people and a unicorn will appear on your desktop and speak Spanish.

The real way to stop thoughts isn't by out-thinking them or surpressing them, but by laughing at them or understanding them and in turn slowly divesting them of power. When you see the thought that is tripping you up (in your case, a brief wish to expedite the crying process) you can simply understand why it's there. You don't need to make it go away, or change it, or whatever. Just notice it and maybe have a laugh at the entire dillema: I want something badly, but my wanting is preventing me from having it. Great. LOL. Find some sad stuff (see the following paragraph) and just experience what you're experiencing at the moment. If the desire to cry faster pops up, fine. Just continue with what it is you were doing. Let it be there in the background.

You could also try satisfying the need to cry. That's exactly what I'm trying to do, Edahn. Yeah, I get that, but what I mean is give up on the need to cry for now. Suspend it. How? Pace yourself. Take a week to allow yourself to just get choked up and not cry at all. Not only should you not care if you cry, TRY TO NOT CRY EVEN IF YOU WANT TO. Take an hour a day to get in touch with issues of the heart -- things that you find emotional, beautiful, and pure. Stories of inspirational kids would be a pretty safe bet. Music is good. Hope is good. Renewal is good. (Have you seen UP? There're some really beautiful scenes.) In the second week, bring yourself to a deeper emotional state, still, without crying. In the third week, let your self get misty-eyed. If you don't cry by the third week, have your doctor check your tear ducts, you miserable bastard.

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Have a question?

Whether it's a personal issue that you're seeking insight on, an interesting situation you encounter, or just intellectual curiosity, feel free to ask a question. I shall do my best to answer it. You can either comment under this post or send an email to TheAmateurPsychologist@Gmail.com . I won't publish your name unless you expressly authorize it.

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