Finding The Magic Bullet. Sort Of.

Part Two of In Search of The Magic Bullet doesn’t begin with Ron White and The Stepford Wives because I realized even as I was writing Part One, that if I had “crossed over,” it would have taken me ten seconds to cross back. No amount of anything—success, love, exalted experiences—would have changed how I felt about myself because I was in thrall to a set of conclusions I’d made before I was seven years old.

I’ll never measure up.

I’m not enough.

I can’t do it.

I don’t matter.

On some fundamental level, I’d given up on myself without realizing it.

The externals of my life were (and what a privilege to say this) satisfying but all the while, like a whisper or invisible gas, the atmosphere was infused with “Nah.” And so I woke up day after day, ashamed that with all I had, I was still discontent. Still believed I wasn’t the right person to be living my life.

When I met Coco, the mentor I wrote about in LOVE, FINALLY, and was introduced to The Six Steps, it was like finding myself on the other side of a door upon which I’d been knocking for fifty years. They were (and still are) the so-called Magic Bullet. But only sort of because it’s not really magic; it’s a process. Still. (Note: For those of you who know about The Eating Guidelines I’ve been teaching for a gazillion years and that I still espouse, I finally understand why it’s so difficult for some people to follow them. They are entranced by their conclusions and if they succeeded, the discomfort of challenging those conclusions without first feeling what’s at their base would be like me crossing over at Ron White’s retreat and then popping back to my familiar mantras of “I can’t do it. I’m damaged. I’m not enough.” This is the reason I now write about and teach The Six Steps at my retreats or anywhere at all.)

Just last night, I went to a gathering with people I love and feel loved by. One of them, a close friend, exclaimed she hadn’t seen me for a while, wanted to know how I was. I responded by patting the seat next to me, saying, “Sit for a few minutes. Let’s talk.” But she’d turned her head and was talking to someone else. Then another, then another. I felt dismissed, abandoned insignificant. Yeah, I know those are strong words for any old night at any old gathering, but these wounds are deep and strong and even the littlest slight or perceived rejection can evoke them. Before I could say Six Steps, a milky-grey mood had descended and I wanted to leave the party, go home and do my version of sulking (i.e., feel lonely, moan silently, watch Endeavor on PBS for the nine hundredth time).

After about an hour, I realized, “Oh, I’m triggered. Time do The Six Steps,” but I wasn’t done blaming my friend. I wanted her to pay for rejecting me, just like I wanted my mother to pay for hitting me. More than that, I liked the perverse satisfaction of being right about being wronged. After the episode of Endeavor ended, I thought, Ohhhhhhkaay, it’s time to do the damn steps.

I knew beforehand that I was knee deep in my familiar “I don’t matter” and “I am insignificant” conclusions, which I know are based on my interpretation of my mother offering me something—time spent, a necklace, a weekend with her—after which she changed her mind and took back what she offered. The best I could do in those situations was cling to being right about being wrong. I built a whole identity on the perverse satisfaction of being a victim.

But knowing my conclusions isn’t the same as feeling them—and moving from my mind into my heart is what dissolves the hardness around my heart. The insistence on being right. Doing The Six Steps is a way of dropping into my heart. Of being the one I was waiting for.

Here they are:

Step One: Acknowledge the Trigger. The current upset. It could be a slight irritation or a big wave of anger. The litmus test is that it robs you of peace. We often override this step by normalizing it with a shrug and saying, “Of course I’m upset. That person left me/lied to me/excluded me.”

It took months—I’m a slow learner—for me to realize that my response/trigger comes from my personal history and is not about the event or situation.

Step Two: It’s About Me (It could also be called: It’s Not About Them. Bummer), which is when you realize what the upset is really about: the conclusions through which you are seeing yourself, your children, your partner, current events and every single thing you can name because, here’s the jewel masquerading as the bummer: you only ever see what you believe about yourself. And until and unless you are clear about what that is—that basket of conclusions you made before you were seven (and sometimes as early as four years old)—you will be seeing through them. You will be treating yourself as if they are true. You will be seeing the so-called world out there through your own projections. Through the reality that you made up when you were four—which is a distorted lens. It is so humbling to realize that you don’t see the world as it is, you see it as you saw it as a four year old.

I’ve died a thousand deaths on the sword of this step. Eventually I accepted that change was only possible when I turned my outward-facing gaze to the cause of the wound—my own beliefs and conclusions. Which I made up. This is the true meaning (I think) of “you create your own reality.” Because whatever you see comes back as what is seen. As viewed so appears, as Paul Levy says.

Step Three: Name the Feeling. Oy. I excel at thinking my feelings. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve made up a heart with my mind. When I was a kid, feeling angry, sad, lonely was unbearable and so I pushed it all down. But, as I wrote in LOVE, FINALLY, you can’t heal what you won’t feel. (I stole that from someone but now I can’t remember who.) Until I or we feel what’s there, we are merged with it. We become sadness or loneliness without realizing it. When I name the feeling, I can witness it with awareness rather than merging with it and getting swept away by it.

Step Four: The First Time You Felt This. This is another one of the steps I resist. Back to childhood? Again? Do I have to? No thank you. Not going there again…

But going back allows me to see myself as I was. The first time it happened, I was so busy reacting to it that I didn’t actually feel it. I pushed the confusion or rage or rejection away and developed a series of adapted behaviors—being tough, being bossy, being obstinate—that allowed me to survive. This, and the next step, are the steps that allow me to melt the resistance to that chubby, crooked-banged girl. To feel what she felt. This step almost always melts my heart.

Step Five: The Conclusion(s). When my mother took back what she gave me (as it felt as if my friend did at the party), I believed I was insignificant. Didn’t matter.

When my friend was effusive about wanting to know how I was and then turned away, I felt the same conclusions. Insignificant. I don’t matter.

In this step, you ask yourself: What kind of child deserves to be given things and have them taken back. What kind of child has the food taken out of her mouth by her mother?

And in comes that basket of conclusions:

I don’t matter.

I’m too much.

I have no value.

The Sixth Step: Forgiveness. I’ve never liked the word forgiveness because I thought it meant condoning reprehensible behavior. Also, I built an identity on holding grudges, on saying no. On, as I wrote above, on being right about being wronged.

I hear the word forgiveness and think: I’m supposed to forgive my mother for being mean? For lying? Forget it. But according to The Six Steps, I am not forgiving her for hitting me, lying to me, criticizing my body. I am forgiving myself for believing that what she did meant I was reprehensible. And this, my lovelies (I’m talking to you) is where kindness comes in. Where compassion comes in. Where love comes in. What two or three or seven year old is worthless, irreparably damaged, has no value?

We made up that conclusion. It was an interpretation of what was going on around us as it related to our own value. But it was a lie.

It seems that the distance between being happy and being miserable is made of the lies we tell ourselves. And the way to see through our mind-made conclusions is to name and question them, beginning with the awareness that we are making them up. The Six Steps are not the only way to dissolve wounded conclusions, but they are the most direct and effective way I’ve found.

As for my conclusion about being insignificant: has it dissolved? No. Has it become more and more transparent? Yes. Do I see that there wasn’t much else I could do in those early years but cling to being right? Yes. And when I feel this, there is great tenderness for that chubby child.

Sometimes a conclusion will need to be revised tens of times. We’ve been living with and as that conclusion for decades without questioning it or realizing that is robbing us of peace. We’ve become so accustomed to a base level of anxiety and discontent that irritations and triggers don’t seem unusual. It takes patience to keep questioning the lies we’ve told ourselves. But what else do we have to do besides dissolving what keeps us miserable and ashamed? I can’t think of a better way to spend a life.

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