Transcript for August 16, 2009 by Ian Lawton

We just arrived back from a family vacation. It was a classic road trip. The kids used all the same lines that I remember using when I was a kid on a road trip. “Are we there yet? When are we going to get there? I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. I’m bored. I need to go to the bathroom.” Have you ever noticed the tendency of children to catastrophize? One of the kids will say, “I’m starving.” I will reply, “Kids in Africa who haven’t eaten in days are starving. You on the other hand, had a sandwich fifteen minutes ago. You are not starving.” Or else, a kid will say, “I’m dying of thirst.” And I reply, “That is highly unlikely but don’t tempt me.” One of our kids, who shall remain nameless hit the jackpot with the most woeful statement and had us all laughing. After several rounds of complaints, this one said, “I’m dying to death back here.” Dying to death! Isn’t that great?

Catastrophizing is normal and natural in kids, although it’s important to help kids think about their language. We’ve tried banning the expression “I’m starving.” It’s proven hard for all ages. It may be normal in kids, but it is tragic when adults continue the practice. I found myself catastrophizing recently. I found a small lump on my body and within minutes I had imagined myself in months of chemo and radiation. I pictured myself bald. Then I day dreamed my death bed scene telling the kids how much I love them and kissing Meg for the last time, wondering if she will remarry, wondering who she would remarry, wondering if it would be someone nicer than me. I worked myself to the verge of tears that Meg had been able to find love again. All of this anxiety was created over what turned out to be a boil. It seems it is easier to lance a boil than it is to dissect the workings of the human mind.

Catastrophizing does not serve you well as an adult. At best, it leaves you depressed and anxious. At worst it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Catastrophizing is a close relative of pessimism. Pessimism expects the worst. Pessimism is striking out in your own mind before you even get to the batter’s plate. Pessimism doesn’t care about the details. It’s just a general negative expectation. Catastrophizing tells the stories that pessimism wants to hear to justify itself. Catastrophizing is sitting in traffic and imagining that the meeting you are missing is the beginning of the end of your career. Catastrophizing is looking at your child’s report card and imagining that he will never get a job or a partner and live at home with you forever. Catastrophizing creates stories with very little basis in reality, feeds the stories with evidence from unrelated situations, spirals in negativity and eventually becomes irrational and closed to conversation.

Unfortunately, some of the recent conversation about health care reform has been peppered with catastrophizing. References to socialism, death panels and rationing are fanciful, and serve to feed a story that is full of unresolved fear. After listening to some of the comments, you could be forgiven for thinking that under a universal health care system, people make it a hobby to visit the doctor just for some human companionship and that the ER is full of people with minor cuts and bruises, and that waiting lines in hospitals are so long that gurneys are lined up out into the parking lot. That has not happened in the many other countries that have had universal health care for a long time. There is no reason to think it would happen here. Some of the conversation has become so outrageous that you could even be forgiven for thinking that Obama will be personally visiting nursing homes with a pillow tucked under his arm deciding who gets to live and die amongst the elderly. The conversation has become absurd. People have stopped listening to reason. I saw footage of one woman who was enraged and asked a question at a Town Hall meeting. She was interviewed later and asked if she felt that her question had been answered. She said that she was so emotional that she hadn’t heard a word of the answer. That’s the problem with catastrophizing. You already have a story in your head and you have stopped listening.

We’ve seen this many times before, on both sides of issues. The passage of the Civil Rights Bill in the 1960s had its own controversial path. There was great consternation and anger, with some suggesting that whites would now be enslaved. Now, 40 years later, we take the Civil Rights Bill for granted. I cant help wondering if in 10 or 40 years time, there will be a universal health care system in America and we will all look back and say “what was all the fuss about?” That’s often the way with catastrophizing. As the predicted dates for the end of the world come and go, we look back and wonder about our fanciful notions.

I don’t intend to make any comment about the pros and cons of the current health care reform bill. That is a good topic, but it’s a topic for another time. What I want to reflect on is the nature of the conversation. What is this affliction of mind and spirit that is so dramatic and angry? Some of what I have seen has to be bad for the health of individuals, and certainly doesn’t help the nation move forward. How have you been responding to the Town Hall conversations? What is the conversation teaching you; about yourself and about the connections between mind and spirit? Where did all this anger come from? I invite you to reflect on times in your life when you tend to catastrophize.

Above all else, I would love to see people come together across different opinions and perspectives and move beyond anger and vitriol. I am excited for respectful conversations and self reflection.

Pre-Existing Condition of Fear and Projection

Well, President Obama’s honeymoon is most certainly over. I suspect that the anger that has boiled over in Town Halls around the country has little to do with Health Care and more to do with a pre existing condition called fear. Maybe this preexisting condition has been in remission for the past six months with all the excitement and anticipating of Obama’s inauguration. But something has resurfaced and it has the smell of fear to it. People seem to be marinating in an anger that is unreflective. They say they are protesting health care reform. The tragedy is that they may be damaging their own health in the process. Anger that has no self reflective awareness is dangerous to your health.

The Buddha described this sort of anger as picking up a hot coal to throw at someone, only to have your own hand burnt. Another teacher described at as burning down your house in order to get rid of a rat. So it is with anger that is steeped in blame and catastrophizing.

Catastrophizing often involves projection. You see outside of yourself the very things that frighten you inside. There’s an old Sufi story that describes projection. It’s a story about the great Sufi teacher Nasrudin. A philosopher made an appointment to argue with Nasrudin. Nasrudin forgot about the appointment and wasn’t home. 

The philosopher waited and waited and with each passing hour he became more angry. Finally, he picked up a piece of chalk and scrawled all across Nasrudin’s front door the words “stupid oaf.” Then he left in a huff.

As soon as he got home, Nasrudin realized his error and rushed to the philosopher’s home. “My dear philosopher,” he said, “please forgive me. I completely forgot our appointment. I only realized my error when I arrived home and saw that you had left your name on my door.”

Expressions of anger and catastrophizing usually say more about what’s going on inside than what’s going on outside. I support open dialogue about issues such as health care reform. If you disagree with the bill, state your case. But when disagreement turns into anger, something has gone wrong.

Religion and Catastrophizing

Unfortunately, religion has often been a bad influence when it comes to catastrophizing. There is a whole genre of literature in the Bible called apocalyptic. It is violent and graphic. It includes stories of beasts with horns and escalating warfare. It has led some to a belief in literal end times, which is the ultimate in catastrophizing. Teachings about heaven and hell grow out of this notion of apocalyptic endings. I saw a church sign on our road trip that said, “Read the Bible. It will scare the hell out of you.” That’s the very reason people are staying away from churches. Fear wont motivate much that is life affirming.

It reminds me of the advertising slogan used by a church with an unfortunate double meaning, “Don’t let worry kill you. Let the church help.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe it was never intended to be that way. Maybe apocalyptic literature is itself a challenge to catastrophizing; hyperbole to show the dangers of hyperbole, showing the absurdity of following your stories about potential disaster to such fanciful conclusions, warning against self fulfilling negativity and violence, and urging people to handle the challenges of life with courage and resilience. Maybe the intent of apocalyptic literature is to state the harsh realities of life but point people to an inner resolve that is unmoved by circumstance.

There is a fascinating story told in the Bible about the Israelites being led into the wilderness, and they are imagining the worst. They shout to Moses, “We’re dying to death out here.”

Here is the actual text-

They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Exodus 14:10-12
 
You can’t really blame them for thinking they are dying to death. They couldn’t flick ahead a few pages to see how it turned out like we can, or watch Charlton Heston save the day in the movie The Ten Commandments.

In the face of their catastrophizing, here is Moses answer to them.

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:13-18

Now this is interesting. Was Moses being optimistic? Because we know the story, we know that it took 40 years, rather than one day, for the Israelites to find freedom. Maybe Moses was not talking about their physical deliverance, but an inner freedom that was theirs to claim that very day.

Moses offers three antidotes to catastrophizing.

1. Do not be afraid and dwell in your imagined disaster.
2. Stand firm. Be patient and allow the situation to unfold.
3. Be still. In other words, stop swirling in fantasy about unknowns and dwell in this moment where everything is as it needs to be.  

Spirituality that Counteracts Catastrophizing

Think of the workings of your mind like a committee. The committee is constantly bombarding you with different voices and opinions. One of the members of the committee is catastrophe, the pessimist who wants to remind you to expect the worst. Maybe some of the committee members are the voices of people who haunt your life with their negativity; a teacher, an ex or a business nemesis. They all have their perspective, and they all bring something worthwhile to the table. But none of them holds all the truth of your life.

The spiritual perspective is that there is a still small voice that stands firm in the midst of all the other voices. This is the voice of your true self, the I am that transcends and includes all other perspectives and roles. It’s a small voice, not because it lacks power. On the contrary, this is your most powerful voice. It’s small because it has no need to raise its voice in anger, or shout irrational obscenities in meetings. It’s small because it wants to hear the answers to its questions. It has no predetermined ideas as to how the future will play out; preferring to urge you to be all you can be in each moment, a work in progress.

It’s a still voice, not because it lacks conviction. On the contrary, this is your most passionate voice. The still voice cares passionately about what happens in the world. It’s still because it doesn’t fight reality. It has nothing to defend or protect and would never turn up at a Town Hall with a loaded gun strapped to its leg. It states its case calmly and respectfully, and genuinely looks for win/win solutions.

Mind Your Body, Mend Your Mind

The intent of spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga, contemplation and so many other practices is awareness so that you know which committee member is ruling your life at a given moment. With this awareness, you can choose to appoint the still small voice as the chair of your mind’s committee. As chair, it can affirm and embrace each voice for what it is, but not be ruled by any one voice. Spiritual practice helps you to tune into the still small voice and live your life with contentment and skilful means.

Let me conclude. There is so much more that could be said. What is the body/mind/spirit challenge for those who are angry, and those who are angry with those who are angry?

The Eighteenth Century Hasidic master, Tzemech Tzedek, was once asked to pray for a seriously ill person. He said to the family, “Tracht gut vet zain gut,” which in Yiddish means “Think good, and it will be good.”

Maybe you find that simplistic or insensitive to those who have suffered tragically. I don’t believe the Rabbi was suggesting that things would necessarily turn out as you imagined or hoped. He was suggesting that in this moment, if you stand firm and be still, all will be good no matter what the circumstance.

Your mind has incredible power to care for your health. Mend your mind, and you will heal your body. Mind your body and mend your mind, and you will be well on the path to a healthy spirit.

The still small voice in me honors the same in you. When we meet in this stillness, conversations can only be respective and productive. Namaste.