WHY SITTING STILL IS SO DAMN SCARY
How often, if ever, do you just sit in silence with your own thoughts? For many of us, the answer to this question is "Never."
Why it is so damn scary to sit still and go within and just see what arises? I’m going to share three general themes that I hear with my own patients when we first start to practice mindfulness, sitting still and just noticing what comes up in our minds and bodies.
The first theme I most often hear is shame. Shame is the emotion we feel when we believe we are not good enough, we have failed or there is something fundamentally wrong with who we are. Shame is probably one of the most painful emotions we can experience. It is important to clarify the difference between shame and guilt. I’ll talk more about guilt next, but guilt is the emotion we feel when believe we have done something wrong, whereas shame is the emotion we feel when we believe that we are wrong.
Brene Brown is one of the world’s leading researchers on shame, so if you discover that you have an interest in exploring the nature of shame in more depth, I would highly recommend you read some of her books such as The Gifts of Imperfection, a classic book on this topic.
Many of us walk around with this undercurrent of shame, a very low level of this emotion that can get triggered easily by any situation in which we feel incompetent. Chronic shame can come from a history of shame-based parenting. For example, when your child drops their plate and it scatters, a parent could lovingly say “everyone makes mistakes, let me help you fix that” but shame based parenting would look more like “what is wrong with you? How could you be so stupid? You are so selfish and don’t appreciate our things.”
In order to prevent shaming my kids for their mistakes, one of the rituals I used to do with my own kids when they were small is to sing the “everyone makes mistakes song” by Big Bird and sesame street. (Youtube it if you are Gen Z er). I adored Sesame Street when I was a kid because all of the characters are so kind and loving and non-shaming. They focused so much on reinforcing for the child that they are worthy.
In order to escape chronic shame, many of us keep ourselves extremely busy. By being an over accomplisher, an overachiever, always on the go and never taking a minute to stop, it keeps those feelings and thoughts or memories at bay. It's as if busyness becomes our shield and prevents us from feeling the shame. However, all emotions are really just a form of energy. Energy needs to be released in some way. The more you shove it down, it will likely be expressed in other ways like depression and anxiety or even bodily like stomach distress or physical pain.
If we have a chronic level of shame, then it is going to make it very challenging to sit in solitude and be aware of those feelings, thoughts and images because it can be so painful. The longer we have avoided it, the more difficult it might be. One of the reasons why I really encourage my patients to practice mindfulness in very short increments is that not only is it just hard to do, but it’s important to go slowly and gently with the underlying emotions. I’m not a huge proponent of flooding or overwhelming someone, like jumping off the diving board into a cold pool. With emotions, I tend to be more of a "let's put one toe in the water and then your foot and go slowly". Yes it will take more time for you to get adjusted to the temperature, but it will be much less painful and overwhelming.
If you are aware that you have experienced a lot of shame based parenting in your life or you just know that for whatever reason you carry a lot of feelings of unworthiness, that you aren’t good enough or something is inherently flawed or wrong with you, then sitting quietly, going within and listening for that inner wisdom will be very scary at first, but I do believe that in time, with lots of self compassion, you can do it.
We have to challenge those shaming messages and replace them with mantras like “I am enough”, I am worthy, I love myself no matter what. You don’t have to believe those mantras yet, that’s ok. If you want to believe those mantras, then that’s all you need. Start there and over time, practicing non-judging in your every day life will help you build that self-compassion muscle. Remember, if you judge others harshly you will invariably judge yourself harshly. Learning how to observe without judgement is a skill just like riding a bike, you can do it.
The second theme I hear is guilt. Remember, guilt is feeling bad for what you have done, so its similar to but different from shame. There are two kinds of guilt, there is Appropriate guilt and Inappropriate guilt. Appropriate guilt is the emotion we have when we do something that is out of alignment with our values. So if I value my friendship and I do something that hurts their feelings, say I forget to show up to an important event in my dear friend's life, that is appropriate guilt. I engaged in a behavior that is not aligned with my value of my friendship. When we experience appropriate guilt, the thing to do is to own it, acknowledge it and apologize and see if there is a way to make a repair.
Inappropriate guilt is when we feel guilty for doing something that is still in alignment with our values but we just feel guilty anyways. So an example might be, I miss my friend's birthday because I got in a car accident on my way to the birthday party and had to go to the hospital. I can feel disappointed that I didn’t get to go, or sad that we weren’t able to share this time together, but guilt would be inappropriate because I didn’t do anything wrong.
If we struggle with chronic guilt, then it will be very hard for us to sit still and go within because most likely all of the memories and the details of what we believe we have done wrong might surface. If there are things in your life you have done that you actually feel guilty about, it would be very beneficial to talk those issues out with a therapist to help you tease out how much of the guilt you are feeling is appropriate or inappropriate. Remember, guilt is a useful emotion…we need guilt to signify to ourselves if we have done something wrong. People who live without guilt are called psychopaths. We don’t want that in our society. Guilt is necessary for our society to function, but for you personally, you might be feeling guilty for things that are not yours to carry. And if you have done things that you believe are wrong, then you could explore how you can own it, and try to repair it and then let it go. That’s the key part of healing from guilt is to be able to respond to yourself with kindness so that you can truly let it go and not carry it around with you like an anchor tied to your ankle, weighing you down.
The third issue that often prevents us from looking within is anxiety and perfectionism. Anxiety is rampant right now, I’m seeing more patients with anxiety than I ever have before in the last 25 years. Anxiety presents itself as worry, feeling tense or on edge, having fearful thoughts of the future like alot of what if thoughts. We can also feel anxiety in our bodies with stomach distress or pain like headaches and jaw clenching.
When we are anxious our brains are triggering a fight or flight response. When we are in fight or flight it is very hard to just sit still. Oftentimes we just want to do something with that energy, we want to act to move to run and so sitting still is often the last thing our bodies want to do. If you struggle with high anxiety, then mindfulness is definitely going to be your best friend, but you have to be willing to practice it as a skill because it will feel very unnatural at first.
Anxiety’s sister is perfectionism. Perfectionistic thinking leads us to feel very anxious because it is an all or nothing kind of thinking. When we tell ourselves that we anything less than perfect is not acceptable, then of course, we are going to feel anxious. Its not possible to be perfectly mindful.
Remember the puppy analogy, it is normal and expected that our minds are going to wander, that’s just what minds do. There is no possible way to observe without judgment perfectly, because perfect is a judgement. To give yourself space to sit and go within, you will have to practice letting go of the perfectionism. That starts with just noticing your all or nothing thinking and seeing if you can use mantras like “good enough” or “perfection doesn’t exist” until you have internalized them. Remember, you don’t have to believe those things at first, all you need at first is to want to believe them. The rest will follow with practice
So to summarize, there are many many things that make it difficult and scary to pause and go within and to listen to your inner experience. What I notice is that shame, guilt and anxiety are the 3 most often described feelings that come up for my patients when we first start practicing mindfulness. If you can see yourself in any of these description then know that you are not alone. A trusted therapist can help you address all of these issues so you can slowly learn how to sit quietly, for longer periods and just notice what arises within you. We talked about using mantras that help guide you to where you want to go. And we also talked about the importance of going very slowly and gently and kindly with yourself as you begin this process.
