Lesson # 1. From Rock Bottom
Don’t take how people and the world treat you as a reflection of your worth.
When we are young, especially when we are children, we have no stable sense of self, no ego, no sense of our separateness from other people and the world, no boundaries between us and the world, no concepts or ways of reasoning or understanding our own emotions let alone those of others, no space between stimulus and response. We are spread out, scattered, taking everything to be a kind of extension of ourselves. This is the primary narcissism of children. An example given of this is the observation of a child starting to cry because he or she saw another child fall and cry. When we are young, we take the world to be a mirror. We look for ourselves, a sense of ourselves in and through others. And if one was fortunate enough to have stable, emotionally intelligent parents who respect the separateness and individual needs of the child, they can meet that need for mirroring, the child’s inescapable need and dependence on others to understand himself or herself, his or her experience and emotions. Adults are supposed to be smarter, stronger, braver, wiser. Ideally speaking.
What the child doesn’t know and what is easy to forget even as we grow older is that the world is not an accurate mirror. Other people are not accurate, objective mirrors. People who lack self-awareness and empathy and have narcissistic tendencies or personalities, who can’t see beyond their appetites and ego definitely aren’t. But even normal people have their preferences, biases, moods, mental illnesses, traumas, fears, limitations cognitive distortions that color the way they see the world. They are not YOU. And then there are requirements and distortions imposed overtly or covertly by the time and society we live in. Our true self, our authenticity can get buried and lost as a result of all this noise and pollution from the outside world. Children have very few recourses and defenses against the arbitrary demands, expectations, judgments of the outside world and other people. This is not to say that the child or young adult doesn’t make mistakes or that he or she doesn’t have things they need to learn and get better at. But the world is less keen on helping and prefers to judge, blame, shame, reward and punish to get compliance, to mold people into what is good and profitable for that environment, family system, society. It deforms people. Common reactions to this deformation and pollution of authenticity is mental illness. Depression and anxiety are actually signs of health, signs that this socialization and deformation isn’t taking well. It’s your emotional immune system, your authenticity fighting back. Unfortunately, people sometimes interpret this as something wrong with them because they don’t fit society’s mold or, if they do and even succeed by its standards, they aren’t happy or fulfilled since they suppressed or sacrificed themselves, chopped off parts of themselves to fit into something that wasn’t meant for them. Often times, it takes catastrophe, destruction, implosion, hitting rock bottom for all of this to become clear. Take heart if you are going through rock bottom. This is creative destruction that will help clear out the noise and sludge so your authenticity can breathe and grow and make itself known again, so that the noise dies down so you can finally hear your own voice again. That is, if you’re willing to listen.
