Eastern Inner Game Seems to Build Thicker Skin

I wanted to share a recent newsletter form Authentic Man Program, AMP, talking about Bryan's recent break up and how it relates to my last post Spiritual vs. Structured Inner Game:
AMPSource^(TM) Newsletter

*** Warning: This isn't exactly a "cheery" newsletter" ***

Bryan here. I don't think I've ever felt so crushed in my life. My heart is tearing up inside. I've been in a depressed funk for the last month. I'm grieving.

I broke up with my girlfriend. I was together for over a year with this extraordinary woman, but for various reasons it has become crystal-clear that we just aren't a match.

Over the past 3 months in particular, things weren't working between us, so last week we completed the relationship and are gradually separating our lives.

We both still love each other deeply, which makes it even more painful.

The grief comes up at random times - I'll be on the exercise bike at the gym, and all of a sudden, a certain song will come on my ipod, and I'll have an upwelling of emotion, and suddenly I'm sobbing, even as I continue pedaling.

I notice that my first impulse is to resist or try to cover up my pain. I've tried distracting myself by going out and meeting other women, numbing out by gorging on ice cream, or occupying myself with lots of busywork.

But it all feels false. I know that what's most true and healing for me is to just allow myself to feel whatever's coming up for me, without trying to avoid it.

I was sitting in the car just now with Garrison, sharing about what was going on with me (he's been a really supportive friend), and I realized something really powerful.

He asked me to describe what the sensations were in my body, and as I stopped to connect with what I was feeling, something surprising happened: As soon as I began to WATCH the sensations, without resisting them, everything actually felt... okay.

Rich. Full. Sweet, almost.

Almost as if it is DEEPENING me.

They say that after your heart breaks, when it mends, it's bigger than it was before. Isn't that part of why we even go through all of this in the first place?

I'm sitting here at a coffee shop, actually feeling motivated enough to write this.

I realize that the best thing for me right now is to stay in CONTACT with people - my friends, family, and you, my subscribers. So thanks for listening.

Bryan

P.S. I love hearing from you, so if there's anything you want to say about your own experiences or are moving through an intense period in YOUR life, feel free to write me and share:

bryan@authenticmanprogram.com

I think this is an amazing example of how a more Eastern, surrendering approach to Bryan's personal issue helped "thicken his skin" or help mature his boundaries such that he could be okay with losing a partner.

It really struck out to me that at first he tried to avoid the problem. Become passive and just eat ice cream, or mindlessly talked to other women (which in one way could have been a very productive, positive thing; but here approaching women was clearly an escape.) However, with help from close friends, he matured, stopped resisting, accepted reality, and moved onward in his life.

This is not an easy feat. For those of you who went through a big break up, or maybe lost a job you were passionate about, or a family member it is not easy to simple "stop resisting." I really admire Bryan for having the audacity here.

If Bryan were studying a more Western philosophy of personal development, he may have been more step-by-step in his anxiety. Perhaps he would have forced himself to do a daily routine of running every morning, shower with loud music in the background, repeat an affirmation like "Every day, in every way, it is getting better," and do other step-by-step approaches to slowly desensitize the pain.

Again, I think both approaches to relieving anxiety are valid and could work for anyone. Both accomplish the same goal in the end—relief from grief. One goes about it in an accepting way; the other goes about it in a more strategic, round-about way. I don't intend to say "round-about" in an avoidance or rejection context. It's been awhile since I really dug into that style of stress relief, but I think Tony Robbins goes into these types of strategies for his development.

I think the AMP community and even the Ideagasms community would scream at me saying that the Accepting option is clearly correct. Western ideas definitely include desensitization—and that is considered "un-good" in a spiritual sense of the word. I highly respect folks like Tony Robbins, but he who would probably hound at me that the Step-by-Step option is clearly correct. (Maybe? Not intending to put words in anyone's mouth here :)

So I really wanted to post this to point out a big difference in Eastern and Westerns strategies for depression and stress relief. Personally, as of now, I choose the more Eastern option when it comes to building a thicker skin. At the same time, when stress has fully seeped into my life, I choose to use Western, step-by-step approaches in dealing with how my brain is acting up, like Dr. Paul's MindOS model.

I actually don't even know of any specific stress relief techniques from Eastern philosophy—it seems to all be related to just building character, thickening your skin, and staying relaxed as much as possible. But when stress does seep into your life, I don't have a solid answer? Again, even Ideagasms uses an NLP technique in their Approach Anxiety product, which is definitely a Western based approach, with Eastern wallpaper thrown in.

It works if you let it work, just like anything else almost. At the end of the day, any type of Psychology is soft-science, which means it works a bit different for anyone, at any given time. It's not like engineering or physics—where you can produce 100,000,000 micro chips and 99.9% of them work perfectly. In psychology, for 100,000,000 patients, things don't work at the 99.9% range… So find your own truth in this and don't put all your eggs in one basket, but don't over whelm yourself either. Find the balance by following your bliss.