I've been thinking recently about how we protect ourselves psychologically. Leo Baubauta talks about it, along with the necessity of doing hard, challenging things to face our fears. Tara Brach talks about it in terms of how we escape or numb ourselves. I'm thinking about it in terms of Charlotte (and Henry) and how they choose to ignore and shrink into smaller circles. From other readings, I know that binge eating or binge 'doing' (or cubing or gaming) are ways we distract ourselves from facing things we can't face. Recently there was an article I saw in NextDraft that linked to a piece about Trump as a narcissist who can't face the fact that he lost the election. Instead, he creates alternate narratives (election was rigged, mass conspiracy) to explain what he needs to be the truth.
In Present Over Perfect, Shauna Niequist says "People only really change when the pain gets unbearable." (An online search attributes that quote to approximately everyone.).
Pema Chodron, in the audiobook From Fear to Fearlessness, she talks about how this self-protection can turn into cruelty.
The cruelty we are capable of is the result of our inability to feel. Our inability to reach out, our fear of pain. that we become cold and cruel because of our fear of feeling the pain. Mostly initially I think the pain of who we are. And so other people's suffering tragically evokes in us an coldness and cruelty which is not really based on fundamental cruelty but based on the soft spot being felt then shutting down around it very hard.
Chodron goes on to say this you can realize that it's not you that are reacting with cruelty, but others who are inexplicably being cruel to you. She talks about the realization
that whether its about ourselves or not it based on this soft spot. which you simply can't bear to feel and you harden against it and you harden against others and you strike out and there's a viscousness that comes. cruelty that we receive is based on this.
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