What is the purpose of our existence? Perhaps it is simply to be machines that propagate our selfish genes. Some say it is to be pious vehicles of God’s will. Others that there is no reason; life is purposeless. I believe the reason is in order to improve our emotional health: to be living more in the present, more authentically and insightfully; to have more fluid, open relationships with others; and to be more playful and vivacious. But how can we meet the challenges to improvement?
Because success can only ever be partial, it helps not to set the hurdle too high. Focussing on happiness as a goal is destructive: it is unattainable. The same goes for mental health: there are no completely mentally healthy people. Improved emotional health is much more realistic. Nobody reaches the top of the tree of emotional health, but you can hope to achieve incremental small steps along your branch. These little movements will gradually take you back to the trunk and upwards; in terms of emotional health, that is good enough.
You do, however, need to know which branch you are on to start with – it is hard to go forwards until you know which way you’re facing. But even more important is understanding why you are on this particular branch. Finding ways to change how your childhood is impacting negatively on you today is crucial.
How did you get here?
A 58-year-old man wrote to me as follows:
I was rejected by my 25-year-old mother in the early weeks after an emergency caesarean and then treated as ‘an object’ by her for two or three years after that – a tool for her use. My particular ‘way in’ to this self-knowledge came via the discovery of the ‘shame’ that had lain undetected within me for many, many years. Now that I have uncovered it, the shame of not being loved is slowly fading, but it is a hard nut to crack and my task has not been made easier by the general ignorance of it amongst therapists and counsellors, and how to ‘treat’ it.
Here is a man who has accepted that there are no shamans, no wizards, no idealized experts who can provide him with The Answer, but who is working hard to use what help can be provided. If you do go to a therapist, or a priest or the like, do not let the fact that they often get things wrong worry you. Of course, if they are nearly always wrong, and fail to ‘get’ you, you should have no compunction about going elsewhere, but if they are even partly helpful, then fine – you must not expect too much.
The man went on to write:
Not long after my son was born twenty years ago, when my mother was in her late fifties, she visited us. During a discussion, quite loudly and openly, she said of my young son: ‘Isn’t it nice to have a toy to play with?’ My wife and I were speechless. That remark shows both the extent of the childhood ‘neglect’ by her own parents and her complete lack of self-awareness.
But sadness and rage towards a parent can be followed by forgiveness and understanding. The man concluded:
It took me forty-five years or so to work out (with the help of your books and some others) what had happened and what effect it had had on me, and by the time my mother died some ten years later I had managed to talk to her about it on a few occasions. While never actually admitting to what had happened, she never denied it either. Her attitude, which I actually learnt to respect her for, was to say: ‘If the things you say happened, happened, then I am sorry. I meant you no harm.’ One of the lessons that I have learnt is not to take the ‘abuse’ too personally, the fact is that she would have done (or failed to do) everything she did to any son who had been born to her at that time. So, ‘nothing personal’!
Take stock of what you have
Another place to start your journey is with an appreciation of what you have, as well as what is lacking. There is nearly always good as well as bad in what our parents provided. What is more, the vast majority of people living in developed nations simply have no idea how lucky they are. Unlike much of the rest of the population of the world, we have sufficient food, electricity, healthcare, education, and freedom to do pretty much what we want – with the aid of any number of devices we take completely for granted (mobile phones, cars, computers and the internet). If only we could be satisfied with what we have got, materially, we could start to focus on the other stuff, which is so integral to emotional health: our intimates, our friends, our communities and hobbies, as well as more profound experiences, like enjoyment of the arts, or spending time in beautiful natural places, or spiritual pursuits – in fact, whatever rocks your inner boat.
Sleepwalking through life is not a new problem. Perhaps its most powerful literary evocation is Leo Tolstoy’s short story The Death Of Ivan Ilyich. A judge in the Russian ruling elite, he discovers he has cancer. With exquisite skill, Tolstoy takes Illytch on a journey back through his life. Agonizing honesty makes him realize that it has been a futile farce. As he faces the bankruptcy of his relationships and aspirations, he feels nothing but horror at his wife’s shallow concerns and pretensions; even his children seem distant and pointless. His friends have no real empathy with him. He has achieved nothing of worth in his career, having been a mere functionary in a corrupt and exploitative ruling class. It might sound as if he has simply developed a clinical depression, but in fact, through making this journey, he achieves a rebirth on his deathbed.
A significant proportion of emotionally healthy people have been through a similar journey. It seems to take something as extreme as the threat of actual death – or at least social death – to wake many people up. It can happen at almost any age. A woman in her early thirties had had a mother who was given to wild ideas, frequently deciding on the spur of the moment to set off in their car around America, a chaotic itinerant. The mother was frequently quite crazy; as a 5-year-old, the woman had often had to be the adult just in order to make sure they survived. Whilst her childhood left her feeling insecure, it also meant that, however much money she earned, she always appreciated having enough food in her cupboard. Even today, she keeps it well stocked and gains succour from the thought that she will not starve. With the help of a considerate and loyal family friend, and subsequently a good therapist, she turned into an impressively emotionally healthy person.
Another example is that of the workaholic man who noticed that his wife seemed to be spending a remarkable amount of time hanging out with his best friend. Asked if they were having an affair, she denied it. Two years passed before he realized that they were indeed having an affair, and a divorce followed. So did a nervous breakdown. He told me, ‘I went to the bottom of the hole, I’d had it. I felt dreadful, certainly suicide crossed my mind.’ However, in the contemplation of his end came a beginning. With the help of a counsellor, he reappraised his whole life. ‘A lot of people are just grinding their lives out. It was only because I got to the bottom of the hole that I started to climb my way out.’ He saw his counsellor weekly for a few months and she encouraged him to read a book on meditation. Using that book, rather than through any direct teaching, he developed a daily meditation routine, which could also be employed at any time he felt distressed. Today he is an alive person, with a sparkle in his eyes, always doing his best to be alert to what is going on around him socially and psychologically, a vibrant presence. Practices such as meditation, which increase mindfulness of our moment-to-moment feelings, thoughts and bodily states, as well as those of others, can be a huge help in shifting us out of our tendency to live second-hand, at one remove from the present.
Is a catastrophe such as the breakdown of a marriage or the threat of death the only way to become emotionally healthy? For some of us that may be so. Some people are so far along the lower branches of the tree of emotional health that it will take an event of this kind of severity in order to move them upwards. But for most of us it does not have to be so extreme. There are innumerable ways that we can make a more gradual shift. Hopefully, reading this book, and thinking about the subjects it discusses – insightfulness; sense of self; fluid, two-way relationships; authenticity; and playfulness and vivacity in your life – will have got you started.
To build on this, you can perform a simple exercise.
Exercise
Write down all the aspects of your life which you feel deplete you. These may be negative traits like being bad-tempered or lazy or feckless, but also, perhaps, things that you feel you do not appreciate enough – your partner, say, or your children. Now you need to find a place that you can think of as your symbolic grave. It could be a quiet corner of a field, if you live in the countryside; or perhaps somewhere in your garden, if you have one. Or it could just be a place in your house, like a floor in a peaceful room. Now lie down in that ‘grave’ and imagine the worst possible scenario.
Picture yourself as having died, looking up from the grave in which you have been lain, and imagine that you have completely squandered your life, wasting your talents and all the goodwill that those who love you offered. Looking down on you are all the significant people in your life, from partners to children to parents to friends to valued teachers to colleagues. Now imagine that they are expressing all their fury and resentment at the terrible waste that your life has been. They feel not a shred of pity or regret at your death, only outrage at your foolish failure to make the most of what was there. Listen to their voices, picture them screaming and shouting at your dead body, as you lie there. Imagine precisely what they would be saying. Your child might be shouting, ‘How could you have spent so much time working when you could have been playing with me?’, your partner might be saying, ‘You would never let me know what you were thinking; it’s too late now, you fool!’, your valued teacher might be berating you for ‘all that wonderful skill you had in writing essays, squandered by dissipating drink and drugs’.
Only when they have given full vent to this frustration should you let the sound die down. In its place, start to picture the vows you will make to yourself to do the things that will prevent it being like that when you truly die. Write down at least five things, and every morning for the next month, before you start your day, read through them and vow to live by them: promise to start loving yourself, attending to others, and all the other things that most of us fail to do.
Picture yourself in a place that you can think of as your symbolic grave. It could be a quiet corner of a field if you live in the countryside.
Beyond this book
Of course, simply reading this book and doing an exercise may not be enough. Alas, merely willing oneself to be different does not take account of the extent to which our customary patterns are ingrained as an established, habitual set of brainwaves and chemicals. To deal with that, it is unavoidable that you retrace the steps along the branches that led you to this place. There are a host of ways of doing this. There are countless self-help books that provide invaluable opportunities for people to examine their emotional history. Many novels are also tremendously helpful and I have suggested some further reading in the Homework section that follows. Indeed, books can occasionally be a sufficient revelation on their own – although for people who are prone to intellectualizing their problems, reading can merely be a cerebral escape, which does not convert into actual changes in behaviour or quality of experience.
For others, there is no doubt that spiritual practices are enormously helpful. As I mentioned earlier, people who have a weekly observance are significantly less likely to be mentally ill than those who do not. That does not necessarily mean they are emotionally healthier, but it can be the case. It does not matter which religious or spiritual practice or ethical code you follow, what seems to be important is that you have one. In the case of alcohol or drug abuse, for example, there is a practical level at which organized religion can help teenagers. Quite simply, if their religion prohibits use, and they are devout, they are not at risk. That does not mean they will be emotionally healthy; indeed, religious devotion can leave people feeling very inhibited and oppressed. But refraining from substance abuse increases the chances of mental health. By implication, you can see that having a particular code of ethics could help you to avoid making self-destructive choices when it comes to hedonism, for instance (having affairs or compulsive gambling, for example). Nor should one scoff at good habits such as a healthy diet, regular exercise and ensuring sufficient sleep. Accompanied by relaxation techniques like yoga and meditation, some people can use these habits as building blocks for a better life.
All of which begins to equate emotional health with a Spartan goody-goody-ness. Of course that is mistaken. There is nothing wrong in itself with excess, with the enjoyment of bodily pleasures – be they food, sex or chemically induced moods and sensations. The problem arises only when these pleasures become compulsive. So long as volition is operating, almost anything goes. There is no moral code shared by all emotionally healthy people, the key thing, as I have said, is that they have a set of values with which they regulate themselves, based not on what parents and society insist is right, but rather their own experience.
Serious help
For some, professional help may be what’s needed. This could include short periods of taking medicines like antidepressants. If you choose to go down this route, you should never forget that antidepressants have side-effects (such as reduced libido) and undesirable effects on your psyche (such as a blunted response to beauty). Furthermore, the great majority of the effect these medicines have is achieved by the individual’s wish that they will have the desired effect, known as a placebo effect. Not that this means antidepressants should be dismissed; so long as they reduce your depression, then they are valuable as a short-term expedient. But inmost cases you should not need to take them for more than six months at a time.
Good habits such as a healthy diet and regular exercise, accompanied by relaxation techniques like yoga and meditation, can be the building blocks for a better life.
There are also non-chemical temporary reliefs, like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which may help to keep you from falling off the tree altogether. These treatments entail using thoughts to control feeling, a sort of hypnotism. By constantly challenging your negative thoughts and offering more positive ones instead, you may be able to gain a fragile and superficial optimism. That is better than nothing.
Where drugs and the likes of CBT can be immensely damaging is the tendency of some proponents to explicitly prohibit patients from looking back to the childhood, where the problems began. Those prescribing the drugs may tell you that your problem is caused by genes. I don’t believe they are deliberately lying when they tell you this, merely that they are not yet aware of the powerful evidence from the Human Genome Project, which shows that this is simply not true in the vast majority of cases. In order for emotional health to happen, the early years must be understood, and the lead of maltreatment converted into the gold of insight.
The most obvious way of achieving this is to seek out therapies that focus on the past. There are short-term methods which can make a huge difference:
• For depressed people, the Hoffman Process is a week-long residential dive into your childhood, and can be a revelation. It is often not sufficient on its own, but it can be an excellent place to start.
• Likewise, sixteen sessions of Cognitive Analytic Therapy take you through your early years before using that knowledge to address a specific problem, such as a tendency to chase the wrong sort of partner, or falling out with your boss.
• Group therapies can help with specific problems, like addictions and shyness.
• Transactional Analysis (or Transpersonal Therapy) can be enormously rewarding, taking you back to childhood and offering rich redemption.
Beyond that, there is the more intensive and long-term help provided by psychoanalytic therapists. In this case, much depends on the personality and emotional health of the therapist, which are perhaps even more important considerations than the theories that govern their work. Whatever kind of therapy you pursue, you do need a therapist who explicitly agrees, at the outset, that the task is to understand how your past exists in the present. If you go to someone who professes to represent any of the schools listed above, you should challenge them at the outset to demonstrate this clearly, and if they provide ambiguous answers, you should look elsewhere. You should listen to your initial feelings in picking a therapist. If the person just does not seem very warm or intelligent, or right for you, you need someone else.
In the end, there is no ideology which will result in improved emotional health, be it religious, philosophical, psychological, medical or, for that matter, political. Emotional health is every individual’s daily challenge. As I have indicated, there is no point at which a human being solves the problem: ‘Sorted – now I’m emotionally healthy’. Complete emotional health is a state that we can only strive towards.
My mother was a fine example of this. She had a difficult childhood, to say the least. Her mother was a cold woman and my mother was cared for by a nanny, a woman who was effectively her mother, but who – despite being loving – was also often harsh, hitting my mother. My mother’s father committed suicide when she was fourteen, her favourite brother was homosexual and also killed himself, shortly before the birth of the second of her four children. She found caring for us a struggle – not surprising, given that at one point there were four of us under five. In middle age, and before the death of my father, I would say that she was never very contented, although she often displayed some emotionally healthy features, like vivacity and playfulness. However, after the death of my father, she lived a further ten years and blossomed. Her tendency towards depression receded. She became a good listener, judicious in her suggestions, lively and engaged. She was more than dutiful to her friends, yet never sentimentalized her relations with them. I would say she was emotionally healthy, in many respects and for much of the time in this last period of her life.
Improved emotional health is open to all of us, all of the time. True, there are many challenges, perhaps the greatest of which is the position our childhood leads us to occupy on the tree of emotional health. But with goodwill – and always remembering my mother’s motto: ‘hope for the best, expect the worst’ – we can, with insight, carve out healthier relationships and more authentic, vivacious, playful and first-hand living.