unthought known

why it matters to learn who you are

Moons ago, I was in a bar in New York, three sheets to the wind and not in an adorable way. My in-laws and I were on a holiday trip and somehow my mother was invited and she actually made an appearance. This was not good news for me and my animal-body knew it well before my cerebral cortex, so in the early afternoon I started doing what many people do when nervous systems are dysregulated and awful feelings are just below the surface, and that is to get tanked. The bar was neon-lit and smoky, with low ceilings and sadness, and I ended up sitting next to an older British gent also working hard to feign holiday mirth. I decided he would be my very own Norm from Cheers and after a few niceties I started talking about family dynamics and how vexing they are. The man nodded and drank and pretended to listen, and then he issued one of those irritating platitudes we often hear from people severed from emotional life. Something along the lines of get on with it or stiff upper lip or the allegedly-wise but usually-dismissive: Keep calm and carry on. I scowled and squinted at his social ineptitude, thus inspiring him to punctuate his path from insult to injury. You Americans. You always want to talk about your feelings.

At that moment, my imaginary friendship with Norm changed. This was not the first time I’d run into an emotionally-anemic person while in a tender state, and multiple impulses bloomed in my brain all at once. First, I wanted to inform Norm that he was an underdeveloped troglodyte clearly unfamiliar with the research around emotions, a dinosaur who didn’t know what he didn’t know. Then I wanted to clarify that I wasn’t a drunken buffoon but instead a grizzled veteran of battles so emotionally complex they would fell even the sturdiest of men, so if he had any sense he’d take advantage of this rare opportunity to learn from an illuminated being. Then I would astound him with my encyclopedic knowledge of emotional intelligence and blast open the windows to his soul with my Care-Bear stare, thus restoring him to his fundamental state of goodness. The final stroke on this masterpiece of bridge-building would involve jaw-dropping cautionary tales of nations torn asunder, generations of people unnecessarily and gravely wounded because those in power were too afraid to deal with the unfinished business of the heart.

Life-strategy advice from my barfly “friend.”

Alas, I was too drunk to respond intelligibly so I mumbled something that approximated English and slid off the barstool to find the hotel doorman, who surely had a cigarette and a more equipped emotional system. When I sobered the next day, I was fuming. I knew Norm wasn’t responsible for my reaction to his behavior (that belonged to me), but the collision with blunt-force ignorance wrapped in undeserved smugness laced with sarcasm, all of which went unanswered, plunged me into a grander sorrow. For me that morning, “Norm” was exemplary of an entire Western culture gone wrong, a real-life Don Draper who managed to be idiotic and self-important at the same time, blithely waving a flag for one of the most incorrect and dangerous ideas pervading our world today - the idea that people can numb, ignore or suppress pain without paying a price, a heavy one that’s predictably thrust onto the backs of others, as well as ourselves. On my less generous days, I think of people like Norm as cavemen, relics of an era that should by now be bygone. But when I’m resplendent with compassion and boundless with curiosity, I’m present to the deeper matrix from which all idiosyncrasies emerge, and I see why we look away from personal emotional data, even though doing so corrodes romantic relationships, friendships, intimacy, vitality, ethical formation and creativity. There are so many reasons to resist.

1. It’s dark in there. Even if we do make the Inward Turn - that perceptual shift from outward observation to inward - most of us can’t see shit anyway. Certainly not at the beginning. We quickly give up or bow out.

2. If we do turn on the inner lamp, what we see at first typically sucks. We see a cacophony of inner critics, a vortex of unmet needs, a whorl of exiled emotions, a host of memories we buried for VERY GOOD REASONS at the time.

3. Our brain interprets emotional pain similarly to physical pain and, just as we learn to snatch our hands from fire, we also back away from feelings that hurt. This is the most natural thing in the world, and to do anything different requires awareness, energy, a way to approach, and a compelling invitation.

4. We don’t know what to do once we’re in there. Even IF we gather information from our internal systems, we don’t know what to do with it. Drown in it? Dwell on it? Exalt it? Few of us are taught how to recognize, understand, label, express, or regulate our feelings. We’re generally taught not to feel them and to do whatever it takes to keep not feeling them, or we’re taught to feel them intensely and take them seriously all the time. In Western culture, there is precious little wisdom around our relationship with emotion, and few spaces made for contemplation. We’ve also abandoned time-tested social rituals for metabolizing intense feelings.

5. Most of us carry decent-sized loads of disturbed energy. Complex emotions arise less often from catastrophic incident and more often from the little-t traumas of everyday life. To be alive is to experience persistent violations and stressors - relational, societal, medical, financial, etc. These frictions generate unpleasant energy, much of which goes unprocessed. For some people, those initial Inward Turns can be more than we bargained for.

6. Our brain is chiefly concerned with biomass perpetuating itself. I don’t love this either, but the human brain doesn’t prioritize well-being through self-discovery. It sets a pretty low bar around what it means “to live,” which essentially = don’t die. The brain isn’t designed to help us thrive or flourish. It considers a good day to be one that didn’t end in disaster.

7. We’re already overwhelmed energetically. Maintaining any physical body is metabolically taxing and for many of us, it’s hard enough to keep it all in motion - to rise from slumber, raise our children, get to work and back, and do it over again each day. We’re tired, and we don’t see how this mindfulness mumbo-jumbo could help.

8. Few of us have established friendships with ourselves. Raise your hand if you are able to gaze upon your full, messy self with respect, compassion, and benevolent regard. Right. I see there are two of you.

9. Modern life provides endless opportunity for distraction. If we want to actively avoid knowing anything uncomfortable about ourselves, well, we’ve come to the right place. Today’s world serves up a dizzying array of shiny objects, and we can go from cradle to grave in an absolute stupor of self-delusion.

That same morning, as I ate a day-old bagel from the pocket of my hotel bathrobe and contemplated these forces not our fault nor in our favor, I understood that Norm is normal. Norm is you and me and everyone we know, just trying to hold on for another day. This remembrance awoke my compassion, and I made a vow for the thousandth time to show up, do the clumsy work, share good information about personal-development, and support other people walking in that general direction. If you’re reading

Nothing in the Way

, some part of you must be interested in thriving because that is what we learn here, but after I detailed nine forces working against self-discovery, my hunch is that I should conclude this post with clarification around why I’m advocating the exact opposite of Norm’s worldview. Lest this isn’t crystal clear, I’m advocating that we observe and embrace all emotional information, pleasant and painful. I’m inviting us to purposefully and repeatedly make the Inward Turn and work to see clearly and compassionately as many facets of ourselves as possible. I believe our lives, the lives of those we love, and the lives of people we will never meet, are best served by emotional insight, honesty and skill. Why that matters, well, I’ll let Rebecca Bunch take it from here. Only Crazy Ex-Girlfriend can provide a musical-comedy allegory that parodies what can happen when we refuse to take the Inward Turn. Her song and dance may look like fun, but if you pay attention, you’ll see that Bunch’s character is ultimately miserable. Her mental health is poor; her relationships are superficial; she wrecks the experiences of others; she constantly self-destructs. In this pitch-perfect sketch, my favorite character in television history portrays why forcing a stiff upper lip - à la Norm’s advice - WILL NEVER BE A PATH TO FLOURISHING. With that, I invite you to watch 2.5 minutes of underestimated genius:

I’m Not Sad. You’re Sad.

Love,
Sun

P.S. In the second installment of unthought known, I’ll introduce a visual-thinking game for making that Inward Turn (I’ll also solve the mystery of what unthought known means.) In the meantime, consider participating in the poll below. It will help me get to know you better so I can design more games for collaborative work and a liberated life - what this growing community is about.