A Way Beyond the Rainbow

#42 - On Self-Awareness

July 05, 2021 Waheed Jensen Season 4 Episode 2
A Way Beyond the Rainbow
#42 - On Self-Awareness
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this episode, we begin our series on healing and recovery work by covering the basics of conscious self-awareness and mindfulness. We discuss how most of our time is spent on auto-pilot mode and how we can bring our minds back into the present moment through simple daily practice. We also talk about the importance of knowing ourselves and our histories, as well as what to expect on the journey of healing and recovery.

Why do I feel stuck on my journey and how can I overcome this? How will mindfulness, meditation and conscious awareness help me overcome my trauma and challenges? How can I overcome moments of self-pity and self-involvement? These and other questions are discussed in this episode.

References used and resources mentioned in the episode:
- How to Do the Work by Dr. Nicole LePera
- The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-) Therapy for Homosexuality by Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg
- Insight Timer app
- Future Self Journal: get your PDF file here; and learn how to use it here.
- The Van den Aardweg Questionnaire
- The Self-Observation Questionnaire and Exercises

Waheed 00:37
Assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh, and welcome back to “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, this podcast series dedicated to Muslims experiencing same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and Islam. I'm your host Waheed Jensen, thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. 

In the last episode, we touched upon a model that describes the layers of personality, at the core of which is the authentic self. With wounding and trauma, the authentic self gets buried under layers of fear, anger and pain, as well as “false selves” that we create in order to survive. With healing and recovery work, we begin to peel those layers, one layer at a time, and allow the pain to be grieved and the wounds to heal, so that the authentic self is given the chance to manifest itself. 

In this episode, we discuss a major stepping stone on the road to healing and recovery, and that is self-awareness. The more I read books, dived into therapy and counseling, and attended support groups, 12-step meetings and learned about sexual recovery, the more I discovered that self-awareness and mindfulness are absolutely crucial to understand, internalize and practice. That’s why I’ve included this topic at the very beginning of this entire season which is dedicated to doing proper healing. We will look at the notion of being stuck, and then what it means to practice conscious self-awareness. We will also discuss some realizations, character traits and expectations along the journey of healing and recovery. This episode is a synthesis of relevant chapters from Dr. Nicole LePera’s book, How to Do the Work, as well as Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg’s book, The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-) Therapy for Homosexuality. There’s lots of practical work in this episode with downloadable material in the episode description, so make sure to check these out. So let’s get started, inshaAllah.

02:43
Many of us want to change, and we recognize the need to change our lives, through creating habits, learning new behaviors, letting go of bad habits and ways of thinking, shifting things outside of ourselves, or changing a dynamic with other people we care about. Many of us want and need to make both internal and external changes. A lot of us, no matter our backgrounds and experiences, feel stuck in bad habits, damaging behaviors, predictable and problematic patterns, and it makes us feel lonely, isolated and hopeless. Many of us worry about how this feeling of being stuck is perceived by others, and many of us actually obsess about the many ways people in our lives perceive us. There is this consistent inability to sustain change, which reflects evidence of deeper intrinsic damage or unworthiness that we may feel about ourselves. Some of us are able to identify our problematic behaviors, and even visualize a clear path or plan to change, but few of us are able to take the first step from knowing to doing.

The ones who can see a way out express a feeling of shame about our falling back into patterns of unwanted behavior. This feeling of knowing better but still not being able to do better. A lot of us go to therapy, join support groups, read self-help books, etc. and all of these transformative experiences and activities that we do can only take us so far along the path of healing. To truly actualize change, we have to engage in the work of making new choices everyday. In order to achieve mental wellness, we must begin by being active daily participants in our own healing. 

I’m going to ask you seven questions right now to see if you feel stuck in your life. Try and reflect on them while also exploring the reasons why you may feel stuck in those areas. For instance, you may be able to identify patterns in your thoughts, emotions and behaviors that keep you repeating these unhelpful patterns. It may help to explore these in a journaling exercise. You can refer to these questions using the transcript of this episode. 

  1. Do you often find yourself unable to keep promises to yourself, attempting to make new choices or create new habits but always falling back on your old ones?
  2. Do you often find yourself reacting emotionally to events, feeling out of control, and even ashamed about your behaviors after the fact?
  3. Do you often find yourself distracted and/or disconnected from yourself and others and/or from the present moment itself, maybe lost in thought about the past or the future or feeling ‘somewhere else’ entirely?
  4. Do you often find yourself feeling overwhelmed and torn down by internal critical thoughts, making it difficult to tune in to your physical, emotional and spiritual needs?
  5. Do you often find yourself struggling to express your wants, needs, beliefs and/or feelings in relationships?
  6. Do you often find yourself feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope with stress or any (or all) of your feelings?
  7. Do you often find yourself repeating past experiences and patterns in your day-to-day life?

If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions, you are likely feeling stuck as a result of your past experiences and conditioning. It may seem as though change is not possible, but that is not the case, inshaAllah. The first way to create change is to begin to practice imagining a future that’s different from your past and present realities. 

Some people argue that we’re born with a specific set of genes and we’re wired that way for life, change is not possible no matter how hard you try. That is not accurate. Yes, we are dealt a specific set of genes, but having a set of genes that make you at risk for specific diseases or particular behaviors or habits, etc., is not a dead end or a death sentence. Scientific evidence tells us that genes that we inherit are not fixed, they are influenced by their environment. This starts in-utero and continues throughout our lives. This has been the groundbreaking discovery of epigenetics, which tells us a story about our ability to change. We can make choices about our sleep, nutrition, relationships, the ways that we move our bodies, what we experience in our daily lives on a daily basis every moment of every day, all this influences our gene expression. 

This means that we can be active participants in our own well-being. This goes for our physical health and the risk for developing diseases such as diabetes and cancer, as well as our mental and emotional health.

The idea that genetics are not destiny involves a profound realization, it gives us tools to reframe our perception of our own bodies. Yes, we may have inherited certain propensities from our families, but that doesn’t mean we have to become them. Of course, some environmental factors are beyond our control, we can’t choose the circumstances of our childhoods, let alone the circumstances of our families, etc. But many factors are within our control. We can provide ourselves with the nurturing we may not have received as kids. We may learn to give ourselves secure bonds and the ability to create a sense of safety. We can change what we eat, how often we exercise, our state of consciousness and the thoughts and beliefs we express. We can and should heal our minds and bodies to create wellness for ourselves.

This is actually a game changer, when we realize that there is a connection between mental and physical health. Learning that we actively participate in our mental wellness or the lack of that, with every choice, this realization inspires us to learn about our potential for full-body healing. This is what Dr. Nicole LePera refers to as “holistic psychology”, which addresses the mind, body and soul of the person, all of the aspects of what makes you you. And this is precisely the approach we have adopted in this podcast, which aims at understanding and dealing with same-sex attractions from a bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach. We’re not one aspect or one thing; focusing on one aspect and neglecting others is going to create an imbalance. We are human beings with minds, bodies, hearts, souls and a need for connection. And that is actually the proper Islamic approach, which is a holistic approach that creates a balance across all these dimensions and allows the fitrah, or the authentic self, to be present and at peace.

As such, we recognize that healing is a daily event. You can’t ‘go somewhere’ to be healed, you must go inward to be healed. This means a daily commitment to doing “the work”. You are responsible for your healing and will be an active participant in that process. Your level of activity is directly connected to your level of healing. Small and consistent choices are the path to deep transformation. Though many things are beyond our control, others are within our control. We have the power of choice, and choice enables healing. 

Holistic healing tools, which we will cover throughout this season, are very practical and approachable. Change can and often still feels overwhelming. This is because the main function of your subconscious mind is to keep you safe, and it is threatened by change. We experience this ‘pull towards the familiar’ in the different discomforts we often feel as we change. The practice of making consistent, small, daily choices through these push-and-pull resistances helps empower us to maintain change. Taking responsibility for our mental wellness, though intimidating, can be incredibly empowering.

11:43
The very first step on our journey of healing is to become aware: to become aware of ourselves, to bring forth what is known as the “conscious self”. The reality is that a few of us have any real connection to who we really are, yet we want others to see through all of our layers of self-betrayal and into our core selves. Remember the diagram of layers we talked about in the previous episode: the layers of the false self that cover anger, shame and guilt, and at the core is our core authentic self. We all want to be a better version of ourselves. But our attempts to do that have failed, because we don’t understand our own minds and bodies. We don’t have the practical tools to understand how to create the changes we seek to make. We can’t expect others to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

When we talk about the path to healing, many of us want to dive right in and work on wounds and traumas, meet our inner child, start the reparenting process, do the ego work, and so on and so forth. It’s like seeking a quick fix. But that does not work, because underneath that is a quick attempt to end the discomfort of living with these wounds. But it’s important, just like we discussed in the previous episode, before we get to these layers, we have to start peeling one layer at a time. We have to gain the ability to witness our internal world. It’s very fundamental to do that. Everything that follows after getting to know your internal world, the conscious self, is grounded in awakening your conscious awareness.

So what is meant by consciousness here? Consciousness, in general, refers to the state of being awake. But the state of consciousness in reference to a holistic approach to healing actually means being in a state of awareness, an open awareness that not only allows you to witness yourself and the life around you, but it also empowers choice. 

It is only when you are conscious that you are able to see yourself, a process of self-awareness that can suddenly reveal so many of the previously hidden forces constantly at work moulding you, manipulating you and holding you back. You can’t eat better, sleep better, stop negative habits, be more present in your relationships and work, or improve yourself in any way until you become transparent to yourself. Because if you intuitively know what you need to do to change for the better - why don’t you do it? It’s not a moral failure, it’s because you’re stuck repeating these more or less automatic behavioral patterns. 

For a lot of us, this situation sounds very familiar: we head to work or we go to school more or less the same time every day, and the routine to get out the door is more or less memorized. For example, we wake up, pray, shower, brush our teeth, prepare and eat our breakfast, go to work/school and so on. It’s like we’re on auto-pilot, we don’t have to think consciously about these things. They’ve been done frequently, our mind is on auto-pilot. How many times have we actually traveled to work or to school and wondered, “OMG! How did I even get here? Like, I wasn’t even paying attention!”

When we’re running on auto-pilot, a primitive or subconscious part of our mind drives our reactions. Astonishingly, our subconscious stores every single experience that we ever have. This isn’t just a storage house for facts, figures and experiences, it’s actually emotional, reactive and irrational. Every moment of every day, our subconscious mind is shaping the way that we see the world. It is the primary driver of most of our (often automatic) behaviors. Anytime we are not fully conscious, our subconscious mind is hard at work being “us”. How we think, speak and respond, all of this comes from the subconscious part of ourselves that has been conditioned by thoughts, patterns and beliefs that become ingrained in our childhood through a process called conditioning. 

When we run on autopilot, it’s a function of our conditioning. Most of us are stuck in subconscious programming. Research has shown that we operate only 5% of the day in a conscious state (i.e. being aware of our surroundings, what we do, how we experience the present moment, etc.). So up to 95% of our time, we are in the subconscious auto-pilot mode. This means that we are making active choices during only a small part of our days and letting our subconscious run the show the rest of the time.

The subconscious pull is what makes it hard to change. When we try to push ourselves out of that subconscious, out of that auto-pilot and become conscious, there is a resistance from our mind and our body. This sort of resistance is because our subconscious mind loves to keep us in the comfort zone. There is a safety in that comfort zone, because it’s familiar and predictable - our minds hate the unfamiliar and the unpredictable. The habits or behaviors that we repeatedly return to become our subconscious default mode. Our brain actually prefers to spend its time in auto-pilot, because it knows what to expect, and therefore, our habits and routines feel very comforting. So whenever we try to change our lives and disrupt our routines and habits, we feel it’s very unsettling, even exhausting to do that. The problem is, following our conditioned routine keeps us stuck in that routine. 

Everytime that we make a choice that is outside of our default programming, our subconscious mind will attempt to pull us back to the familiar by creating that mental resistance. This can manifest itself as mental or physical discomfort. It can be in the form of cyclical thoughts, such as “I can just do this later” or “I don’t need to do this at all”, or physical symptoms like agitation, anxiety or simply not feeling like yourself. This is your subconscious communicating to you that this is uncomfortable, it’s new territory, “I don’t want that”.

So how do we break that cycle and train ourselves to step out of that conditioning and subconscious? It is by cultivating the power of conscious awareness. By focusing on bringing back our attention to the present moment, before we dive into the usual knee-jerk reactions to which we’re used. A lot of people do breath work, meditation, and physical movement such as yoga, which hone the attention muscle that is so key to consciousness. 

The more you train in those mindfulness practices and whatever helps you in this, the more conscious you become. And what happens is that the brain also changes at the physiological level. When we learn new habits, unlearn old habits and put in the effort, a process known as “neuroplasticity” takes effect, which is a concept that has been introduced in the last 50 years. Researchers discovered that our brains are structurally and physiologically changeable. We used to think that change at the brain level doesn’t happen, that by our twenties, we’re stuck with whatever neural pathways we have - that’s simply not true. Brains are subjected to change our entire lives. The brain is able to reorganize itself and grow connections between the nerve cells, or neurons. Research has shown that practices like yoga, meditation and other mindful practices help us to focus our attention on the present moment, and they are especially powerful in restructuring our brain. We can extrapolate this in our daily prayers as Muslims, if we are mindful in our salat, experiencing every word we utter and every action we perform, being in the present moment and living the prayer as a vivid experience, we can cultivate conscious awareness multiple times per day actually. It takes practice and commitment to be able to do that. Khushoo’ as we know has many layers and stations.

So when new neural pathways are formed, we are able to break free of our default patterns and live more actively in a conscious state. From this foundation of consciousness, we can then begin to witness the conditioned patterns in our thoughts, beliefs and relationships. This honest self-awareness shows us our pathway towards change and ultimately healing.

20:45
So you might ask, how can you practice being more in the conscious rather than the subconscious state? It takes daily practice. Let’s try a few exercises that will help you access this consciousness. It will be helpful to use these prompts for a few minutes every day, because in order to allow change to happen, you will need to create a routine that you stick to, a small daily promise to yourself that you can practice keeping for yourself during your healing journey. You’ll notice that, as you begin this practice, there may be a lot of discomfort. This is because the mind is screaming, “Hey, wait! This is uncomfortable! We want to operate on our familiar programming!” This may manifest as some form of agitation. It may be helpful to try to practice breathing through this, and try to not judge your experience. If this becomes too intense, then give yourself a break and acknowledge to yourself that this is your limit and it’s OK. Rest, of course, and know that you can return to practice the next day. This may feel awkward and silly at first. Stick with it. This consciousness building exercise sets the foundation for the work that follows.

Start with one or two minutes a day where you can practice being focused on and truly present in whatever you’re doing. This could be while you are doing the dishes, folding laundry, or taking a bath. It could mean stopping on your walk and looking up at the clouds or taking a moment to really smell the aromas of your work space throughout the day. Make a conscious choice to witness the entirety of your experience in that moment. Say to yourself, “I am in this present moment”. Your mind may respond with a steady stream of mental resistance, because it’s being taken out of its conditioning and is being watched and observed. All sorts of thoughts may come up in your mind. This is okay, just practice witnessing them. 

Ground yourself in the moment. Our senses allow us to leave our chaotic mind and find a deeper connection to the present moment. Use your five senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch. For example, let’s say you’ve chosen to do this exercise while doing dishes. Feel the soap on your hands. See how the soap bubbles cover your hands, feel the slickness of the dishes in the skin, smell the scent of the air. This will enable you to stay in the moment without your mind commanding you out of it. Doing this will become more and more comfortable with practice. 

After practicing this for one to two minutes, acknowledge that you gave yourself this time. This will allow your mind and body to understand how it feels and give you a moment to thank yourself for the time you took to do the work. Then, repeat this exercise at least once a day. As you get more comfortable, you’ll begin to notice more moments when you can repeat the practice.

Those of us who practice meditation are familiar with this practice. There are lots of meditation playlists out there that can help you with this. One app that I recommend is called Insight Timer which has lots of amazing guided meditations, courses and playlists for a variety of themes and purposes. I will add a link to the app so you can download it if you like. Many meditation exercises work on cultivating this conscious awareness, by focusing on the five senses, being in the present moment, allowing the mind to come to a calm place without judgment or tension. Many of us on the journey of healing and recovery have found these exercises to be foundational, and I encourage you to try them out. Baby steps, 5-10 minutes per day is all you need. And then you may find yourself enjoying the work and reaping benefits from it, inshaAllah, such that it becomes part of your daily life if you’re up for it.

Another exercise that I would recommend is something called the “Future Self Journal” that Dr. Nicole LePera has set up, which I’m going to add to the episode description as well as a PDF file that you can download. The Future Self Journal is a daily practice aimed at helping you break out of your ‘subconscious autopilot’, i.e. the daily conditioned habits that are keeping you stuck repeating your past. You can begin to move forward by consistently engaging in activities which allow you to witness the ways you remain “stuck” in your past conditioning, set a conscious daily intention to change, set small and actionable steps that support daily choices aligned with a different future outcome and empower these daily choices despite the universal experience and presence of mental resistance. Too much to take all at once, I know. But Nicole explains it beautifully and breaks it down step-by-step in the document, so make sure you download it and go through it when you get the chance. I promise, it’s worth it, inshaAllah.

The goal from here is to practice making this new choice throughout each day. To help me remember my consciously set intention, I set reminders for myself on my phone for random times throughout the day. Each time my reminder goes off, I check in with myself noticing where my attention is. I discover very quickly that it isn't in the current moment. Usually if I am not reliving the past, I am worrying about future issues that could cause me stress. This practice has helped me become more in tune with the present moment.

26:35
In addition to creating conscious awareness as part of being more aware of yourself, another layer of awareness involves self-knowledge and understanding, which involves getting to know your character or personality, i.e., your motivations, attitudes and habits. It is the knowledge of ourselves others would have if they knew us well. It is much more than knowledge of our subjective emotional experiences. To understand ourselves better, we have to know our psychological history and have a reasonably clear picture of how our character and psychological dynamics came about.

A powerful tool to help you gain a deeper understanding of this has been developed by Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg. You may remember van den Aardweg back in season 1 when we spoke about the genesis of SSA. He developed an “anamnestic questionnaire” which he included in his book, The Battle for Normality: A Guide for Self-Therapy for Homosexuality. The intention of this questionnaire is to bring about self-insight into one’s psychological history and the present self, one’s present habits, emotions, and motives that are related to one’s homosexual tendencies. The questions address one’s relationship with one’s parents during childhood, adolescence and the present time, one’s siblings, friends, play and interests during childhood and adolescence, as well as one’s mood and perception of one’s physical appearance during childhood and adolescence. The last part of the questionnaire addresses one’s psychosexual history as far as it related to one’s homosexual tendencies, like one’s infatuations, fantasies and sexual practices.

I have included a link to the questionnaire in the episode description, so make sure to check that out when you get the chance. The best method to use the questionnaire is to write down your answers, in order to make your ideas on yourself as clear and concrete as possible. Look at your answers again after a few days and correct what you think needs to be amended. We often figure out particular patterns and notions better after having let the questions sink into our minds for a while. Process this with someone who is working with you in your journey of healing, growth and recovery, be that a therapist or counselor, a mentor or sponsor, or a close friend.

This part of self-insight is essential, as we get to learn about our present self: present habits, emotions, and, most important of all, motives that are related to our particular tendencies. It is important that we try to see ourselves in an objective light, as another person who knows us well would see us. Observations by people close to us are important, especially when they come from people who share our normal daily activities. They may open our eyes to habits or attitudes of which we may not be aware or to which we would never admit. This would be the first method of acquiring this self-insight: collect and carefully consider remarks made by others and see how they genuinely apply to you (of course, we’re not talking about hurtful comments or attacks, but rather points of observation or even constructive criticism, for example).

Another method is called self-observation. This primarily focuses on inner events—emotions, thoughts, fantasies, motives/drives—and secondarily on outward behavior. With regards to outward behavior, we can try to represent how we behaved, as if we were looking at ourselves from another person’s lens, objectively, from a certain distance. Of course, inner self-perception and representation of our behavior through the eyes of an onlooker are interconnected processes.

So how do we do that? Here, again, van den Aardweg developed another questionnaire related to self-observation at the level of thoughts, feelings and behaviors as well as at the level of morals. The questionnaire dives deep into one’s unpleasant thoughts and feelings, one’s social and verbal behaviors, one’s attitudes towards one’s self, parents and partners. Sexuality, fulfillment of gender roles as well as daily work are addressed as well. As far as self-observation at the level of morals, we observe ourselves from a psychological-moral viewpoint and recognize the behavioral patterns that are moral or immoral according to our value system. A link to this questionnaire has also been added to the episode description, so make sure to check it out as well. 

For these self-observation and reflection exercises, it is recommended that you devote around one or two weeks and take notes of these observations regularly, though not necessarily every day, only if there is something of importance to note. Use a special notebook for that purpose and make a habit of jotting down your observations, as well as questions or critical reflections. Writing increases the sharpness of observations and insights. Moreover, it enables you to study them some time later, which many experience as even more revealing than noting them at the moment of their occurrence (or soon afterward).

Now, the questions is, what can we expect along this journey of healing and recovery? Growing self-insight is the first step in any change. As we embark on this journey of self-discovery, seeking support, learning, growing and healing, self-insight continues to grow, along with personal improvement. Hope starts to emerge, which can make problems much easier to handle, and it provides us with a healthy outlook on life. Of course, since many of the previous foundations and old habits are still there, there will still be ups and downs, “relapses” and so on. And that’s OK. Hope must be cherished throughout the process of growth and healing.

Hope is based on realism: no matter how thoughts, feelings and habits may present themselves, no matter how often we may give in to them, as long as there is a constant effort to improve, one will see positive achievements, inshaAllah. Moods of despair are part of the game, at least in many cases, but we must try our best to curtail them, keep calm, and go on. “Realistic hope is quiet optimism, not agitated euphoria,” as van den Aardweg describes it.

The next step that comes after self-insight is indispensable, and that is self-discipline. For the most part, this concerns things that we consider trivial, like waking up on time, keeping regular habits in taking care of our body, our meals, clothing, hair, etc., putting a reasonable order into the small affairs of everyday life and work, not delaying works or business that deserve priority; planning one’s day, including studies or work, amusement and social life, and so on. If there are points of shaky or absent self-discipline, note them and begin working on them. 

Many of us have difficulty with some form of self-discipline. To disregard these problems, hoping for an “emotional cure” that will solve everything else, is unrealistic. No therapy, support or counseling can succeed if this dimension of daily self-discipline is neglected. But then again, we don’t do everything at once. We start with baby steps.

Invent simple methods for your characteristic weak spots. Start with one or two areas where you find your self-discipline isn’t that great. Once these areas improve, the rest will follow more easily. Sincerity here is very important. Sincerity to yourself, in the first place. This means training ourselves to pay attention to what is going on in our mind, to check in with our motives and real intentions, including the instigations of our nafs (self). Sincerity means not arguing away or ignoring our perceptions or intuitions when it comes to what we see as our “better self”, but rather trying to put these thoughts and perceptions in straightforward, simple words so as to become maximally aware of them. Make a habit of writing down important thoughts and self-perceptions about who you are and who you want to be. The what is and the what could be.

Sincerity also means taking courage to communicate our weaknesses and failures to another person who is there to help. That person could be a therapist, coach, mentor or trustworthy friend who has earned the right and privilege to hear our story. We all have the tendency to hide certain aspects of our intentions and feelings, both from ourselves and from others, yet it is not only liberating to overcome this matter, but it is also indispensable for our growth and progress. Again, it’s not like airing our dirty laundry or advertising each and every thing to each and every person, but rather opening up about specific matters to a few people who are there to help us on our journeys. Also, to the requirements of sincerity, we would also add sincerity towards God, in our prayers and du’aas, with our niyyahs, as well as the things we say and do on a daily basis.

We will talk more about self-discipline towards the end of this season with lots of practical steps. But for now, the idea is to pick one or two areas in life and focus on them. Baby steps, slowly but surely. Once you master them and become disciplined in them, you’ll notice that it’ll start seeping into other areas of your life, inshaAllah.

36:58
The more we grow in self-insight, we begin to see aspects of ourselves that may seem quite childish in behavior. We will talk more about inner child work this season as well, inshaAllah. But a few points are worth mentioning here when it comes to an aspect of ourselves that indulges in self-pity and complaining like a child. Many of us may begin to recognize momentary or more chronic manifestations of the “inner complaining child”; in other words, feelings, words or behaviors that we display that are all about complaining and engaging in self-pity.

Van den Aardweg has a lot to say about this actually. His recommendation is to imagine this “poor me child/teenager” standing before you in the flesh, or imagine that your adult ego has been replaced by the “child ego”, so only your adult body is present. Then, mentally represent this “child” as acting or reacting, or just thinking and feeling, in the concrete situation in which you find yourself. This recognition of your inner and outward behavior as a “child” can be easy if you can say, for instance: “I felt completely like a little boy (who was rejected, criticized, not valued; who felt lonely, humiliated, fearful in front of an authority figure, or angry, rebellious, and so on).” It can also be easy for someone else who observed the person’s behavior to tell him/her: “You kinda behaved like a child there. What was going on?”

Of course, acknowledgment of this is not easy. You may resist seeing oneself as merely a “child”. “My feelings are more serious and worthwhile than that”; “Perhaps I was somewhat childish, but I actually had good reasons for feeling agitated and hurt...” While that may be true, there are elements of pride that come in the picture, so sincerity and humility are very helpful companions in this case.

Another challenging element is that emotions and inner reactions can often be confusing. We may not clearly differentiate between what we’re really thinking, feeling, or willing, and it may also be unclear what element of the situation or others’ behavior provoked the inner reaction. In this case, reflection, analysis and reasoning will help. Make a note of these reactions, use the self-observations questionnaire and discuss your points with your therapist, coach or support person. Their observations or critical questions may be of value. If this doesn’t solve the problem either, it is best to drop the incident for the time being. In the course of self-analysis and self-reflection, the more aware we become of our inner child’s typical patterns of reaction, the less frequent the confusing inner child situations will become.

However, in many cases, you will realize that just recognizing the “poor child” is enough to create an inner distance to your childish feelings and self-pity. The unpleasant feeling doesn’t have to disappear completely for the situation to get more manageable anyway. In particular instances, as van den Aardweg recommends, it is appropriate to see the irony of the “poor me”, for instance, by saying to the “inner child”, something like, “Oh, how sad, how pitiful!” or “Poor you!” If it works with you, this method sheds light on the pity with a little bit of humor, and you can modify this according to your own individual taste and sense of humor. Make little jokes at your childish self, or laugh at this with other people you trust. This helps dissipate a lot of the self-pity and complaining going on that stems from that childish part of us.

With stronger and more obsessive complaints, especially those associated with rejection, such as hurt childish pride, feelings of worthlessness, ugliness, and inferiority; physical complaints, such as tiredness; or distress over injustice suffered or adverse circumstances, van den Aardweg recommends applying the method of hyper-dramatization devised by Arndt, another psychiatrist. Hyper-dramatization consists of exaggerating the tragic or dramatic aspects of the childish complaint until it becomes ridiculous, until one reacts by smiling or even laughing at it. This method was used intuitively by the famous seventeenth-century French playwright Molière when he suffered from bouts of obsessive hypochondria. In response to his own obsession, he produced a comedy with a hero who so exaggeratedly dramatized his sufferings and “imagined illnesses” that it made the public (and himself as well) laugh out loud.

Laughing is a very good remedy against our irrational and drastic emotions. But it takes courage and some practice before you can say ridiculous things about yourself and to your childish ego, make ridiculous representations of yourself, or purposely make faces at yourself in the mirror, imitate yourself, behavior and voice comically, make fun of yourself and your hurt feelings. The ego takes itself very seriously and takes its complaints tragically. Mind you, the point of hyper-dramatization is not self-deprecation or making fun of yourself for no reason, demeaning yourself or adding more fuel to the fire, but rather an attempt to distance yourself from the childish ego and laugh at the absurd thinking and behavior stemming from it, to the point that you get over it and move on. In other words, not taking oneself too seriously, particularly when the impulses are ridiculous to begin with.

Of course, hyper-dramatization is part of self-humor, and you may think of other forms of self-humor that you can use. In general, humor serves to reveal how relative it is when we feel important or tragic. It also helps us counteract complaining and self-pity, so that we can better accept what is inevitable and deal with our issues without complaining, regardless of how big or small they may be, just the way they are. Humor also helps us become more realistic and see the true proportions of ourselves and others, that is, to come out of our excessively subjective or imagined perception of the world and of others. Again, the bottom line is, don’t take yourself too seriously!

So how do we do this? For example, I imagine the “child me” standing in front of me, and this child is engaging in self-pity because of unfriendly treatment or some kind of rejection. I might say something like: “Oh, poor you, they’ve treated you so harshly, eh?! They beat you up and tore your clothes, haven't they?” If there is hurt childish pride, one might say something like, “Oh you poor thing, that golden statue of yours has been taken down!”. A funny example is given by van den Aardweg himself with regards to self-pity over loneliness, which is a highly frequent complaint among many of the “homosexual” clients he worked with, and it goes something like, “Such agony! Your shirt is wet, even the windows are steamed by your tears, and the sheets of your bed are dripping, saturated with your tears; a pond of tears is forming on the floor; fishes with an intensely sad look are swimming aimless circles in it!” Again, these might actually seem absurd, and that’s the point. They’re not intended to hurt or make fun of one’s pain, but rather to get out of the absurdity of self-pity and overfixation on ourselves and be real for a change.

Use whatever may seem humorous to you and invent your own brand of self-irony. Some people might hear this and object that these are silly or childish things, which they are, but a lot of these objections themselves come from an inner resistance to laughing at oneself. The advice is to start with small, innocent jokes about frustrations that are not particularly serious. Humor can work well, and, although this is childish humor, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is also childish emotionality that is being targeted with this trick. The use of self-irony and self-humor presupposes to some degree insight into the childish character of these reactions. The first step is recognizing the childish attitude and self-pity and admitting it. It’s worth noting here that self-humor can actually be seen in humble and psychologically healthy people, and that’s great.

Mind you, we’re not saying that people should be positive all the time or avoid expressing their frustrations, and just laugh at their problems. That’s not what is intended here. There is nothing wrong with expressing sorrow and everyday frustrations to friends or family members if it is done maturely, with the proper perspective and intention, and trying to deal with the matters as adults. Normal negative emotions and thoughts don’t have to be denied or suppressed by exaggerated “positive thinking” or ignoring them. That’s not healthy anyway. The problem we’re referring to here is, again, the childish self-pity alone, the “poor me!” part of us. We can actually tell the difference between normal expressions of grief and disappointment and childish whining, harping, lamenting. The most important thing is to work at this steadily, one day at a time.

It’s also important to realize that we can complain mentally or verbally. A good exercise is to note our words during a conversation with friends or colleagues and mentally register every time the urge to complain comes up. Try not to satisfy this urge: change the subject or say something like “It is difficult (or mean, unjust, and so on), but it’s okay; we must see how we can make the best of it.” Conducting this simple experiment now and then can reveal how strong the tendency to complain about our fate and frustrations really is and how frequently and easily we give in to it. It is also a good practice to withstand an urge to “co-complain” when others are complaining, expressing their indignation or discontentment. This takes time and practice, but it’s all worth it.

47:53
Finally, as we work steadily on self-observations and grow in our self-insights, we begin to cultivate the virtue of patience. We become patient with our failures and with the gradual progress we are making. We’ve spoken a lot about patience and patient forbearance back in season 2, involving patience with trials and tribulations, patience as we cultivate self-discipline and work on our attachments, patience with surrender, patience with uncertainty, vulnerability and moments of weakness, patience in overcoming our own desires, lusts and whisperings, as well as patience in keeping steadfast with our religious obligations and life’s priorities.

Impatience is something that’s characteristic of children, as we know. A child does not easily accept his/her weaknesses, and when he/she wants to change something, he/she feels it must happen overnight, and if it doesn’t, there goes a tantrum. We’ve all experienced this feeling of discomfort and agitation, right? On the other hand, healthy self-acceptance, which is quite different from the indulgence of our weaknesses, means doing our very best given our circumstances while having tawakkul on Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and calmly accepting ourselves as limited creatures in relation to Allah’s limitless potential.

In other words, self-acceptance entails humility. Humility is central to a mature personality. It is an objective reality that each person has his/her frailties and considerable imperfections, be they psychological or moral. When we exercise humility, we are challenging the ego, as well as the inner child who seeks attention, behaves impatiently and claims importance (i.e. being the center of the universe, “me, myself and I”).

Children are by nature ego-centered and thus feel important, the center of the world. Therefore, they are inclined to (infantile, because they are children) pride. Remember back in episode 8 when we talked about the concept of the “inferiority complex” according to van den Aardweg, where a person feels inferior to his peers, not on the same level, not good enough. In a sense, in any inferiority complex lies an element of hurt pride, and the inner child cannot accept his/her “perceived” inferiority. What happens after that is overcompensation. “Actually, I am special and better than the rest. I don’t need them!” And this fuels further the cycle of excessive self-affirmation, role-playing, and the tendency to be the center of attention and sympathy. Deeply hurt self-esteem is affiliated with delusions of grandeur. We shift from one extreme to another.

You may remember when we spoke about narcissism back in episode 9. Many men and women experiencing SSA demonstrate this over-compensatory arrogance. From feelings of inferiority, the childhood complex of “not belonging”, many developed feelings of superiority along the lines of: “I am not one of you; actually I am better than you, I’m special. I have a superior nature: I am specially gifted, especially sensitive. Especially tragic.” Again, notice the focus on the self, the attention given to “me” as the center of the universe.

In combination with feelings of inferiority, arrogance makes us vulnerable to criticism and we feel easily insulted. Many “out and proud” men and women who have decided that their desires, behaviors and lifestyles are “natural” often equate their being different with being superior to others. “Pride” sums up the lifestyle in many cases. Just look at the word and imagine the ripple effects. And what’s the opposite of pride? Humility and submission. When one is in a position of “pride”, it becomes difficult to see the normality of things, the weakness that we have as humans, our need for submission to the Creator, our need to be vulnerable, and so on.

Learning humility is liberating. We learn that by discovering thoughts, expressions, and impulses of vanity that we have, any signs of arrogance, superiority and boasting, as well as moments of hurt pride and unacceptance of well-intentioned criticism by others. Once we recognize these matters in us, we can refute such thoughts we have, we can make fun of them and diffuse the whole situation, or otherwise simply reject those thoughts and impulses and submit to being humble. In the process, we build a new self-image, an image of the real self that has capabilities, but its capabilities are limited in nature, and that, at the end, we are modest human beings, not superior to anyone or anything else. In the eyes of God, what makes us better? Having taqwa, which means God-consciousness and piety.

53:30
And with this, we have come to the end of today's episode. I hope that you have enjoyed it and learned from it, inshaAllah. In the next episode, my friend Aadam is joining me again in a 3-episode series on understanding and healing from complex trauma, inshaAllah. Those upcoming episodes are incredibly important for our healing journeys, I hope you guys find them eye-opening and beneficial. Until then, stay safe and healthy. This has been Waheed Jensen in “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh.

Episode Introduction
On Feeling "Stuck"
On Consciousness
Simple Exercises
Knowing Your History
Expectations on the Journey of Healing and Recovery
Moments of Self-Pity
Patience and Humility
Ending Remarks