The Ultimate Paradox

The types we have been exploring who promote a certain image or position are the ones with nothingness just over their shoulder. The ones who have been attempting to reject the troublesome meaning they find in their world are the ones staring at nothingness, knowing that behind them lies the possibility of joy. They turn to see the beauty but are tugged back just the same.

Heres the ultimate paradox: Neither group can overcome their problem unless they step out of their paradigm. They must transcend. But the route to transcendence is to embrace their paradigm. Many religions, religious leaders , and philosophers have been making similar claims. For example, some Christians say if you give yourself to Jesus, then salvation is yours. There is a resignation required to gain admission. Some Buddhists say that to move past the pain of sitting in prolonged meditation, one must just continue to sit. Instead of changing positions , the meditator must move into the pain. The pain of sitting is a metaphor for the suffering of life. The temptation is to relieve the suffering, and the solution is to embrace it.

One has to climb over walls of self-protection to find release. But it doesnt have to be a religion that provides the boost. It may not have to pertain to God. It might simply just be about owning your fears recognizing that they drive your primary troublesome behaviors, recognizing that you have understandably been resisting those fearsand then finding the courage to accept that the fears are a part of your life.

˜˜It hurts, said Bertrum. ˜˜I dont want to move into that space. Bertrum had come to see me because he was a prisoner he was periodically taken captive by anxiety. A senior account person for a large telecommunications company, he was responsible for the big sales of the organization; his average transaction value was $250 million.

We spent time considering the possibility of his accepting that anxiety was a part of life. He was very reluctant. So we made a pact. The next time he was struck by his anxiety, he would call me and we would work it through together. He warned me that I might find him at the other end of my phone at an odd hour of the day. Thats fine, I told him.

The phone rang at 6:30 P.M. as I was sitting down for dinner with my family. It was Bertrum.

˜˜This is it, Ive got it right now, he said. ˜˜Are you free? ˜˜Sure, I said. My daughter held the phone while I went to the family room to take the call. She hung up when I came back on the line.

˜˜What happened ? I asked. ˜˜Well, Im home right now. Before having dinner I called my voice mail to check for messages. I got one from a huge prospective client. He was complaining about how some of our engineers behaved when they were doing some research today. Apparently they were rude to some of his staff. He suggested that if thats how our team behaved, things might not work out.

˜˜And then what happened? ˜˜Well, I felt that tightness in my chest and decided to call you. ˜˜Good. I said. ˜˜Are you alone right now? ˜˜Yes. ˜˜Okay. I want you to close your eyes and tell me what you feel. ˜˜I feel that tightness. ˜˜Put your hand there. And press down a bit, just to really get connected to your body.

˜˜Okay, Im pressing. ˜˜Can you tell me what emotion you feel? ˜˜Im scared, he said in a cynical kind of way, as if the hand thing was a bit much. ˜˜I really need this deal. Weve been through such hell over the last while. You have no idea. Im sick and tired of all the ups and downs . This will probably work out, but its a vulnerability. Do you know what I mean?

˜˜Yes. Tell me more about how you feel. The next thing he said went not to the potential of a lost sale but to his fear of the anxiety itself. He was reporting his resistance to move into his dark space.

˜˜It hurts. I dont want to move into that space. ˜˜Go there, Bertrum.

I could hear him kind of grunt at the other end of the phone. And then he said, ˜˜Im so tired of the fight.

˜˜What are you fighting against? ˜˜Im so afraid.

Now he was really getting it out. I gave him some time.

˜˜Im afraid its all going to fall apart. And then Ill be nothing. Absolutely nothing. After another pause, he said, ˜˜They wont love me. And it wasnt my fault. All that Ive built will fall apart. It hurts so much, Art. This is it. The tightness is my fear of failure. My fear of losing my position. My fear of starting from scratch.

˜˜Bertrum, I said, ˜˜I would like you to hold on to that fear for a short while. Right now. With me on the phone. I want you to know that you have this fear in you all the time. Usually its tucked away somewhere, but its in there. In fact, I would suggest you work so hard because of this fear. You spend all of your time protecting against it. And when it looks like its coming out, you tighten up. I want you to know that this deep fear is the same fear that I have and that your wife has and that even that customer has. It is human fear. Own it. Dont push it away. Consider for a moment how it motivates you; how it drives much of what you do. Do you know what I mean?

˜˜Yes, I think so, he said in a calmer voice. ˜˜It is inside my sentences when I talk. It is in my head when Im up late at night working on spreadsheets. It is in my voice when Im presenting. It is my hard work. Its like everything I do is somehow the outbound flow after an explosion. You know how when a bomb goes off, things fly away from the center of the explosion?

˜˜Well, only sort of, but I think I know what you mean, I said. Bertrum understood his anxiety. His fear was deep. It charged him up and flowed out through his day-to-day life. In one sense it motivated him. In another he was hiding from it. It was just behind him, always peering over his shoulder.

When he heard the message prior to calling me, the thing he was hiding from was actually coming straight toward him. It was terrifying.

˜˜Were not done yet, Bertrum, I said. ˜˜We really do need you to incorporate your understanding into your awareness, so that you are less vulnerable in the future.

˜˜How do we do that? ˜˜Well, were seeing each other in a couple of days, right? ˜˜Yes. ˜˜Between now and then, I want you to keep a little diary that you access every hour or so. Enter into the diary the things you were doing over the previous hour, and in point form indicate the way in which they are a manifestation of your fear. I want you to learn about how that fear is a driver and how it is very real and a part of your life. When we see each other next, well review the diary and talk about how to accept the fear.

˜˜Okay. I knew what would happen when I saw Bertrum next. It almost always happens with this exercise. He would show up with regular diary entries for the first several hours and then sporadic entries after that. The dying out of entries would not be because he got lazy or bored. It would be because the entries were becoming redundant. Bertrum would (and did) start the session with a statement or two about how it became very obvious to him that, in a sense, he was fear. And that it was somehow okay.

Bertrums object-level thoughts on the night he called me had gathered information from the voice-mail message. His meta-level thoughts had rapidly drawn links between this information and possible outcomes , and he had projected a worst-case scenario. He judged the data to be very undesirable. He identified himself with his fear. His body experienced the fear response: muscle tightening and probably an elevation in pulse and blood pressure. His worst fears might come true.

To work through the core fear, he had to become comfortable with the notion that everything would be okay even if the worst case did happen. Rather than hiding from the fear, he had to confront it and relax with it. He had to spend time with it and make peace with it and himself. Accepting a fear can simply equate to allowing yourself to feel it for a while, slowly learning that the worst-case scenario, though undesirable, is livable, and acknowledging that fear is part of life. It involves a kind of resignation.

However, accepting fear does not mean to give in to it per se. Resignation does not have to mean losing. It only calls for realizing that a battle has been waged, that one has been immersed in the battle, that the battle is normal, and that the battle can be observed without the judgment of whether it is good or bad.

By learning to accept his worst fear, Bertrum relaxed . It was not an overnight transition, however. Im sure he is still at it, infusing his awareness of the shakiness of his foundations into his day-to-day consciousness. But he got better and better during the course of our relationship.