"For what shall it profit a man if he should save his whole face, but lose his butt?"  Almaniacs III:16

 

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FeelGood Manual  by Pip Wilson of Wilson's Almanac www.wilsonsalmanac.com        Chapter 13 This town ain't big enough for two Supermans Preface: Feel better, think better, act better Precept 1:   Progress, not perfection Precept 2:   I'll trust myself Precept 3:   What do I feel, not how do I feel Precept 4:   This world is all mine Precept 5:   I am like an Etch A Sketch Precept 6:   "What sucks" with me today? Precept 7:   Snap out of it! Precept 8:   Take feelings off the shelf Precept 9:   I place no conditions on my happiness Precept 10: Thirty minutes to feel and heal pain Precept 11: I will find choices beyond Yes and No Precept 12: I'll cultivate an attitude of gratitude Precept 13: I'll have the courage to ask for help Precept 14: I'll use thoughts for leverage Precept 15: I will keep reducing my self-obsession Precept 16: I will hold on tight to faith every day Conclusion: Elvis has left the building

 

One of my big mistakes along the way (and I nearly paid for it with my life) was that I was unwilling to ask for help.

It was arrogance, really, and similar to the way in which, when we are afraid of looking foolish,  we pretend to know something that we don't. I am all for self-reliance (in my youth I read Ralph Waldo Emerson's masterful essay, Self-Reliance and it's still one of my favourite works), but my own survival has required that I learn where to draw the line – about two thousand miles this side of the morgue makes sense to me now.

 

 

 

The fact that you are reading this page tends to indicate that you don't suffer as badly from Superman Complex as I did. Congratulate yourself for that. But let's look at how we can develop this idea.

 

Spread it round

What I had, in fact, was a terminal case of trying to be Chief Executive Officer of the Universe. However, bit by bit, my life was becoming smaller and smaller, at times without my even knowing it, and I was feeling worse and worse. How smart was that?! I felt like a piece of crap, but the piece of crap around which the Universe supposedly revolved! 

(The Universe doesn't revolve around me, nor you for that matter – though we all have that illusion. It will get on just fine without our running it. That's not a call to "exit, stage left!" It means we can live here on Earth but not carry everything on our shoulders. What a relief!)

The obvious thing for me to do was to get support, but I don't think that I'm alone when it comes to being unable to ask for help. These days, I'm not only prepared to ask, I'm grateful that there are people I can ask. Frankly, I don't do it often, but I do it as often as I need. I even do it when I start to see the tell-tale first signs of needing it: starting to feel bad; losing energy; getting irritable; getting overwhelmed with things; losing optimism; losing creativity.

I spread this technique around, as well. I usually find that by sharing a little bit of misery across the board of a number of people who I trust will listen, I neither overburden them nor make myself feel like a total loser.

However, these days I would prefer to look like a loser than a cool corpse. 

Getting genuine help from friends is a great way to get fresh ideas on old problems. Even this very day, I told a friend some of my circumstances, some things that bothered me, and asked for a different perspective, and got it. 

Now, I think that all my life I have been reasonably able to share with my friends much of what I'm thinking and feeling, and I have been able to allow myself to be vulnerable to a certain extent. However, my big mistake in the past was that I would not share my whole truth when the chips were really down. As I said above, this folly stemmed from a kind of arrogance: I didn't mind you seeing me vulnerable or weak, but there was no way I was going to let you see me completely messed up. So, up went my masks and facades.

The image we try to maintain can bring us undone. I can't save my face and my butt at the same time. Terminal cool kills.

 

Who can help?

This chapter is different from the preceding ones. In those, I emphasised individuality, self-reliance and the cultivation of personal awareness and strength. What I'm saying now, I feel, complements and doesn't negate what we've looked at previously. In coming chapters we'll look at further simple, effective tips and techniques for feeling good, but I would be remiss if I didn't highlight our human need for the help of others.

"No man is an island," wrote the English poet, John Donne, in a famous work, Meditation XVII. Indeed no man or woman has to do it alone, no matter what our personalities, no matter what our strengths or weaknesses, no matter what our virtues or flaws of character, no matter what our circumstances. We do not have to do it alone, and it may be said that we shouldn't even try do it alone, because we affect and are affected by all those with whom we come in contact. You might even be robbing someone who needs to help another human being.

Who can help? Who can help us feel happier? That's what we're here for, isn't it – to feel better? We might not be suicidal, but we want to feel better, we want to feel happier.

I have given the example of spreading concerns around among a number of trusted friends. To be able to do so, you and I have to have trusted friends in the first place. If you don't have a number of them, may I suggest that you cultivate friendships where this kind of communication is the norm? If this is a new concept to you, or even if you have the concept but your friendship network could do with more of Precept 13: I'll have the courage to ask for help, then I respectfully recommend immediate work in that department.

To have the kind of friends who will be there for us when we feel blue, and who will not be too busy to listen and perhaps lend advice, will require a commitment that we will be able to return the favour. I trust that with practice I'm improving at this – not just for my own sake, but for theirs. It's a two-way street. Being the kind of person to whom my friends can confidently tell the truth about their feelings, is now more of a goal for me than ever before. For that, I need to listen more and bucketmouth less. And that's hard for me, I don't know about you.

Another advantage of cultivating this quality is that it helps me shift from toxic self-centredness, which is very often the actual cause of my feeling lousy. More of this later (I bet you can hardly wait for that chapter).

 

your problems

When we need support and help, our first resource is usually our loved ones. Use them at such times, and let them use you. Use the telephone: that's what it's for.

Next in our toolkit are the telephone directory, and the Internet. Yes, I know it doesn't sound very herbal, but I leave that for the gurus. Does it help if I write it in amethyst?

When we feel bad there are often matters in our lives that need attention. I've learned that there are many resources available in my own city, or online, that are valuable in such times. At my lowest ebb, a little less Superman Complex, a lot more humility and a short time searching for help would have made sense.

We are extremely fortunate to live in these times; there is so much help around, and much of it free. We all know how to use a phone directory, and most of us know how to search on the Internet. A very good search engine is www.google.com – just type in search words that relate to your problem. The chances are you can find very real help. In 1998 I could have typed in suicide, resources, Sydney, help.

None of us can be perfectly happy regardless of the circumstances of our lives. Could you be happier if you related better to your teenage child? Use the phone and Net to find people or resources to aid you. With a search engine like Google, you could type in words like teenager, parenting, problems, advice, and so on, and the name of your town or state.

Are you drinking or drugging too much? Pot screwing your brain up? Serious substance abuse problems? Look for drug and alcohol services and fellowships, which abound throughout the world. Most hospitals and doctors can help as well. Try googling Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and so on. There are fellowships, too, for overeaters.

Do you have a business that's on the rocks? Perhaps you need to stop being Superman or Superwoman and admit that you might need fresh ideas – phone a financial adviser, or use the Net to search for specific advice.

Remember, not everything we might need to do is to be found in one's own thinking or meditation, nor even well-meaning manuals like this. It's entirely possible that some of your feelbad situation simply needs some input from a specialist who can impart expertise that you and your friends simply don't have.

 

 

Then there are support groups. It's really quite amazing how many are out there. Would you be happier if you just could grow better orchids? Use the phone book and the Internet and join an orchid-growers' group. Are you suffering from a disease of body or mind? It would be silly to think that you knew all there was to know about that illness, so find others who are also dealing with it. Many of them will have more experience than you, and be able to offer a map for what lies ahead, and how to deal with it. Meeting people with similar interests and problems is a great way to build up that network of caring friends discussed earlier.

Perhaps you're just bored, or have too much time on your hands. This often leads the best of us to wallow in negative thinking, self pity and feelings that just get worse over time. Your phone book and the Internet (and let's not forget community centres, local notice boards and local newspapers) will provide a host of resources for you to get out of your rut. Get out of the armchair and join a club, meet new friends and gain from the new perspectives they will impart. Just the act of shifting your behaviour will also shake up your Etch A Sketch and shift your feelings, so give it a try.

There are just a few chapters to go in the Manual, and in coming weeks we won't stray far from our initial precepts that form the basis of all that I'm writing: that we can make ourselves happy and it's an inside job. However, sometimes we do have to work on the externals as well, and there are one or two things to come that I will share on that score.

 

Coming to a Manual near you

For now, I hope it's been useful in this chapter to look both inside and out at the problem of trying to do it all alone. Just to recap: firstly, we can get into very toxic attitudes and behaviours if we think that we are the CEO of the Universe and refuse to admit defeat, fault or weakness. 

Secondly, if we have the maturity and humility to admit that we don't possess all the answers to our problems, we'll find thousands of people and resources out there willing and able to help. You're not an island, so reach out if you need a hand.

And whatever you do, don't push the superhero thing too far, OK? Even Clark Kent must have had to talk to someone when things got tough.

 

Abundance and gratitude,

Pip

 

The FeelGood Manual is now available as a printed book

 

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© Copyright, Pip Wilson, 2002-now

 

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