Using the rational mind to defeat destructive irrational emotions (such as fear& despair)
A) Fear: If you cannot conquer it, ignore it. If a rational mind knows the fear is irrational, not reflective of true danger, one can simply ignore the trembling. And what an accomplishment that is. No matter that the fear was not banished – it was overcome and that is terrific. And if the fear is reflective of a rational danger, but where there is an idealistic motive involved and the goal is to operate despite the danger, as for a soldier at war or someone coming to the aid of a person in a dangerous situation, one can steel oneself to simply ignore the danger and fear and do what has to be done because one’s agenda is not avoiding danger but rather accomplishing a certain dangerous task despite the danger and fear.
So the first step is a rational analysis of the emotion, to see if it is reflective of an actual danger, and also to determine what is one’s overriding priority or idealistic goal.
Personal example: Fear of the dark, of ‘the boogeyman’, can exist even in someone who absolutely knows that there’s no rational reason to be afraid. I’ve felt it myself, so I know. The fear can be just as paralyzing as the fear of an actual true danger. But I learned as a child that I could simply ignore it. [I once sat in the dark closet that terrified me, and closed the door from the inside, in order to challenge the ghosts. When they didn’t appear after a while, I went back to bed. I was terrified all the time sitting there and even afterwards on the journey back to my bed, and while in it I still wanted to cover my head to protect me, but I didin’t, and ever afterwards I was able to rationally dismiss the danger and ignore any such fear.]
A rational person who is paralyzed by irrational fear is therefore advised to develop the following awareness: The body’s nervous system, or the brain, is likely wired to produce a certain fear reaction in specific circumstances: maybe it was a rational way of ensuring fear of the dark among people in primitive societies where danger did indeed lurk in the dark. A modern person in their dark apartment can feel fear of that dark as a result of sharing the same genes as their ancestor from a primitive society, since it is wired into their nervous system, but at the same time they should of course be aware that the fear they are experiencing is not reflective of an actual danger. That is, whereas there’s some rational basis for the existence of the brain wiring which gave rise to the emotion of fear, for some very rational reason some or all humans are wired to react with this emotions when encountering the situations they encountered, nevertheless the feelings being experienced are not necessarily reflective of an actuality.
Of course the recognition that the fear has no basis in the reality or logic of the situation at hand will not immediately dispel the fear itself but it can help in dealing with the fear, for example one can decide to simply ignore it as much as possible, as one would ignore a cough or a limp, and go on with things.
B) Despair (& Guilt): To dispel these it’s useful to be able to separate reality from imagination.
Two examples of "separating reality from imagination" not in the context of despair:
1. As a child, sometimes when I used to see my image in the mirror I would imagine that there is actually another world “in there” with another “me”. Of course I know that it is all simply an image [1]. Imagining another world was exciting, but it is useful to be able to separate imagination from reality, otherwise one might try to actually ‘enter’ this other world and be both disappointed/frustrated and also cut by glass.
2. Amputees can experience “phantom limb” pain: their brain interprets the pain signals coming in as though they originated in the amputated limb. A rational person does not conclude that indeed their non-existent limb is causing pain; instead they understand that the pain is real but the source is illusion, and knowing this can help to deal with it.
Like the situation with the phantom limb pain, or the image in the mirror or fear of the dark, a person who experiences numbing despair or overwhelming guilt may be feeling these emotions not as a reflection of an actuality but rather due to other considerations (perhaps the wiring of their brain, or how the wiring of their brain interacts with the programming from their culture). A rational person who is paralyzed by fear, despair, guilt or other emotion is therefore advised to develop the following awareness: of course there’s some rational basis for the existence of the brain wiring which gave rise to the emotion, for some reason some or all humans are wired to react with those emotions when encountering the situations they encountered, nevertheless the feelings being experienced are not necessarily reflective of an actuality.
Conclusion: Feeling that there is no hope does not mean there isn’t hope, it is simply a feeling, it is not to be taken as a reflection of an actuality. The feeling is quite real, powerful, but it is a feeling, not an indication of a reality.
In general then, when feeling paralyzing emotions first should come a logical rational analysis of the situation, and a comparison to the implications of the emotional situation, and then the attempt to use the results of this rational analysis and comparison to affect one's behavior.
Example of rational analysis:
Harsh self-judgment: A person can be judged only relative to what they were capable of achieving or deciding, after factoring in all genetic and environmental (upbringing etc) factors [2]. Obviously only God can do this fairly (perhaps even the person themselves is not capable of full impartiality; certainly no one is as forgiving – even of themselves – as God could be.)
Anyone who does everything they could possibly do is completely righteous in God’s eyes (‘a tzadik’); even a murderer can be righteous - if they were raised to be a mass murderer and fought their nature and nurture to the point where they committed only isolated acts of murder not mass murder.
Most people do not do all they can, and are in an intermediate category [‘baynoni’].
In Jewish thought, Despair, the giving up of hope, is often considered as the weapon of ‘the evil inclination (yetzer hara), to stymie a person’s further self-development.
The Rabbis point out that sadness impedes the ability to receive the presence of God (the ‘shechinah’, as with Yakov avinu re Yosef [Jacob a a result of his grief over the seeming loss of Joseph]).
It is simply not true that a person can be beyond redemption (teshuva).
The first step in self-rectification is recognition of error, or of commission of an unethical or damaging act, but this is not the same as he feeling we call 'guilt'. Like despair, guilt too is the work of the evil inclination, it isn’t part of a positive process of growth. It is a warped version of the desire for self-rectification.
So one who experiences despair, paralyzing guilt or other such emotion must first develop the philosophical intellectual awareness that there is no basis for the feeling, it is simply an autonomous body or brain reaction (or ‘yetzer hara’), or a warping of a legitimate feeling. This does not necessarily lessen the intensity of the feeling, but it may allow the person to develop mechanisms to cope with the feelings, and simply ‘ignore’ them in the way one ‘ignores’ or works around any disability as much as one can.
Actions can affect feelings: We are commanded to love and have awe of God. How can we be commanded to feel an emotion? Rambam (Maimonides) states that one should study nature, and this will induce the appropriate emotions. So we are not commanded to feel an emotion, we are commanded to do those actions which will bring on the required emotions.
Smiling for no reason at all, simply stretching the appropriate facial muscles, has been said to cause the release in the brain of neurotransmitters which bring some feelings of joy: the same is true for laughter, particularly for a good reason – clearly if one hears a great comedian who manages to get one to really laugh, then at least for those moments the despair has been replaced as the dominant emotion. Spending time with friends, or family, or open conversation, or deliberately watching a comedian, or taking a brisk walk around the block, or jogging, exercise, can have beneficial effect. So even if one cannot on one’s own overcome an emotion, one can decide to place oneself in a situation in which the emotion will be overcome by another emotion.
One mechanism involves trickery to get oneself to engage in a therapeutic activity. A few times when I was exhausted and decided to turn over and ignore the alarm clock I used the trick of telling myself that I’m getting up for only 5 minutes and then will allow myself to get back into bed if I wish, knowing full well that once I’m up I won’t go back to bed. Also, I’ve tricked myself into starting to work on a project I was totally sick of that day, by agreeing to work on it “only 5 minutes AND THAT”S ALL”! Knowing of course that there was a good possibility that once I was into it I would be able to continue.
Waiting a few seconds before answering in anger, in order to figure out an even more scathing reply is a similar form of trick to gain time, knowing that this will lead to diminishment of the anger and the disappearance of the need to reply at all. Feeling sorry for someone who is obnoxious rather than feeling angry is a technique. People wear watches set 10 minutes fast to trick themselves. And so on.
For example: I was once in a bad mood, I knew that watching a video of Jackie Mason would make me feel better, so I tricked myself saying “who wants to watch that stupid idiot anyway, and why should I feel better, after all I’m an #$%&*! I’ll watch Jackie Mason for a few minutes to prove how stupid he is, how his jokes are so dumb”, hoping that actually it’ll work on me and get me laughing.
A person has to devise tricks that work for them to achieve what needs to be achieved.
And one has to know what to simply ignore. For example, I find that discouraging self-doubt attacks me at a specific time, in the late night when I should be asleep, but haven't yet fallen asleep. I guess I am in a partial-sleep state, and some part of my brain is less active and allows these weak doubts to take center stage. Often I awake in the morning with positive energy and resolve, but a few times when I did so I remembered those bouts of doubt, and eventually wondered about them and then at some point realized that the level of doubt expressed at these points were not rational when analyzed in the light of day. As a result I realized I should to try to make the effort to quash them, and then ignore them. It took time for this self-awareness to be internalized, and to emerge in response to the onset of the doubts, to be strong enough to be activated when needed, but at some point when those doubts pounced on me I was sufficiently aware of what was happening, and was able to give rise to a counter-voice "these are just those doubts which attack late at night when I should be sleeping.... let me try to fall asleep instead of indulging them", and (mostly) it works.
Banishing aspirations of imaginary accomplishments: Getting satisfaction out of accomplishing real goals
We have to focus on real goals, not imaginary ones, and judge things based on real benchmarks not the impossible.
For example, it is often said that there is no ‘complete altruism’, since whatever one does, one does because one decided/chose/preferred to do it. One does good deeds because they make one feel good, or push away guilt, or to gain brownie points (with society, family, God etc). Even self-sacrifice is done for non-altruistic reasons: because one feels one ought to, or one feels obligated etc, and thus the action is carried out due to one’s own desires, or to fulfill a sense of duty or obligation or to get divine reward (for example in 'olam haba' = 'the world to come').
But this does not mean that altruism is therefore tainted, or worthless. Not at all. There’s simply no meaning to “full altruism”: it is self-contradictory to want a person to consciously choose to do an action that they don’t actually want to do (anytime a person has choices, even if all the available options are bad choices, the option they choose is by definition the option they wanted to actualize). So there’s no meaning to the term “full altruism” and so the meaning of ‘altruism’ if it is to be a real word with meaning, must refer to the altruism that is possible - it’s absurd to insist that altruism refer only to that which is self-contradictory and non-existent.
Therefore it would also be absurd to denigrate our universe, our existence, ourselves, our good actions and intent with the supposed excuse that “full altruism” is impossible. Indeed in some sense it is somehow self-indulgent to disparage altruism of ‘the real sort’ out of despair of a world in which the self-contradictory altruism is impossible – such disparagement may be simply a means of attempting to absolve oneself of the need to engage in moral behavior.
Conclusion: One should pursue the good for whatever reasons one is motivated to, even if it is by definition neccessarily 'selfish' - acting 'selfishly' in this way is perfection! And the same regarding all idealistic goals.
Conclusion: Redefining Success: One should contemplate: What is our life challenge or goal and what is an impediment to accomplishing our life goals? When is that which seems like the latter (an impediment) actually the path to the former (achieving a true life goal)? Did Christopher Reeve end up with a wasted life? After all, he was a famous and wealthy actor who now couldn’t act anymore, and had to spend all his money on research for a cure. Or did he rise to the true challenge of his life?[3]
We are not in charge of our life’s situation, we are in charge of how we deal with it. We are not always in charge of setting our tasks in life, or choosing the specific goal, only dealing with the situations we are confronted with. ("Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, velo ata ben chorin lehibotel mimenu”): We are not responsible to complete any given task, the success of a mission is up to God. Of course we have to engage in it in a rational manner; if we then do our best but it doesn’t work, this is as perfect a result as when it DOES work.
In fact, if our attempt does not work as we had hoped, this does NOT mean that God wanted us to fail; no, because we in fact did NOT fail; the task was to make the attempt with maximum diligence - expending the effort, making the sacrifice was the task, NOT the success. Whether or not the project turns out as intended is not our business, that’s God’s business. If we did what all that we could possibly do, then by definition we have succeeded!
Example: Some very bright people have dyslexia, and they CANNOT spell correctly. Some other bright people lack a sense of spatial orientation, they CANNOT draw 3-dimensional figures, some cannot tell left from right. It is not possible that a compassionate God would actually penalize people for what they COULD NOT do as a result of God’s actions.
Some people have difficulty undertaking actions that others find natural; I can do mathematics some people find impossible to understand, while they can find their way unerringly in a certain direction through an underground subway station maze in a way I find incomprehensible. One cannot assume that what one does easily and naturally is something that everyone else can do, and vice versa. It is important to understand that emotional issues fall in the same category: if someone is painfully shy or paralyzed by fears and cannot leave their apartment this means that in their present state THEY CANNOT, not that they ‘don’t want to’ or ‘are not trying enough’. Their responsibility lies in dealing with that situation and trying to overcome, they should judge themselves compassionately taking into consideration their limitations, and consider themselves successful for achievements relative to what they could have accomplished, not relative to what was impossible for them.
Religiously, if someone tries to the best of their ability, that is all that can possibly be required of them, and if they succeed in grappling and attempting, and not giving up on their attempts, then THAT IS SUCCESS, THAT IS FULFILLMENT OF THEIR OBLIGATION.
1 If we truly cannot overcome and accomplish the goal we had set for ourselves then this was not the true challenge designed for us by God;
2 To the extent that we did indeed rise to a challenge and to whatever extent we did indeed succeed (eg we succeeded in struggling, attempting – and we know that we truly tried to the utmost of our abilities) then by definition THIS was the challenge that God sent us, since God only sends challenges that we can fulfill. [And if we struggled ot the maximum of our ability, they we succeeded in this challenge!]
This is the only rational approach; we need to heighten our awareness of this principle, keep it clearly in mind, and internalize it to the extent that it can affect our emotions, so that when our emotions fill us with a sense of failure even though we succeeded in attempting, not only will the rational part of us know that we in fact suceeded, but even our emotions can be affected as well, to feel the success rather than then despair, at least to the extent of giving us the strength to go on attempting.
Redirecting Life-Goals
A person who struggles with deep challenges, achieves self-understanding, and acquires a compassion for themselves has the potential to develop into a great person (especially if as a result they develop empathy for - and acceptance of - others). It is clear that such development can be more significant than the mere memorization of information – even that from holy books – and more even than acquiring understanding via intellectual study.
Struggling with deep challenges can in some cases be of equal significance to the spiritual development of a saintly individual, or the ethical development of one who engages exclusively in acts of chesed (loving-kindness) etc.
It is not for us to decide what the fundamental circumstance of our lives will be, only what we do with those circumstances. A person who intended in 1939 to be the biggest Torah scholar (talmid chochom lamdan) in Poland, and who died in the camps in 1944 would have had to redirect their ambition for achievement maybe eg to be the most compassionate helper of his fellows, etc. Just as Christopher Reeve’s ambition has changed. (Just as the forefathers had to change their goals.)
It is possible also for a person to actually get to their original goal despite having to refocus those goals: let’s imagine that Christopher Reeve [this imaginary scenario was written before his tragic death] desired to be president as Ronald Reagan was [or Arnold Schwarzneger might be] .At some time before the accident when he intended to start his campaign, he would have had to convince people he was worthy, not simply a wealthy movie star, and he’d have had an uphill fight, trying to cash in on the image of him in a superman costume. However he redirected his energies after the accident, gave up on his political ambitions.
He became a very unusual individual; imagine he continues to grow, and that people in 10 years from now appeal to him to run for president - without ever knowing that this was his secret ambition – because he is an extraordinary person by then; he will in the usual way of calculating thins have been considered to have ‘lost’ 15 years, but he would be a much more appealing candidate, and possibly much more likely to achieve his original goal. And he’d be such a better leader, so much more valuable to his country and to the world, a real superman not a Hollywood screen-version.
So it is even possible sometimes to change focus and then discover that one has in the end actually achieved the original goal. For example the person in the scenario of "the 1939 aspiring lamdan" who wants to be in the upper ranks of the Torah world, instead goes through the concentration camps, growing via struggle and self discovery, compassion for self and eventually compassion for others, leading him to greatness; if he is also intellectually gifted and can apply the insight gained in self-exploration and development to help others, it can even result in one becoming seen as a leader, not the greatest halachik authority (posek) or knowing all of Talmud (shas b’al peh) etc, but rather becoming the deepest seer into the human heart, maybe a person to whom others, even the greatest halachic authorities and Talmud scholars would come for advice or even for a blessing (a brocho). So they have achieved their original goal but in a very different way. But in many cases the goal can become redirected and refined, and be even greater.
Conclusion: Struggles which impede one's achievement of intended goals can in fact transform one into an even greater person than would have been the case, at a deeper level (even if perhaps not everyone realizes their level of depth and tremendous achievement), and thus one should not ever be disheartened by detours caused by life-challenges (nor judge people according to their external achievements).
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FOOTNOTES:
[0] This article was written in 2002(?) after a long conversation with a small group of young people who were experiencing the damaging emotions discussed in the article. Please send comments to air1@nyu.edu
I originally wrote this article for Yeshivish-speakers.
[1] created by light bouncing off the mirror surface, there is no light coming from behind the mirror, all the light coming in to my eyes from the mirror only seems to be coming from behind the mirror, my brain is fooled by the reflected light; the “behindness” aspect of the image is an artifact of my nervous system (optic nerve and signal processing in the brain) not of the actual external world.
[2] Eg the concepts of “tinok shenishba” and “nekudat bechira” (Rav Dessler)
[3] there are various morality tales (‘chasidishe meises’) of this genre, invovling someone thinking they are meant to learn Torah or etc, and they consequently ignore some person who asks for help because it involves bitul torah (distraction) and it turns out that helping that person was their life’s mission (oy, is that anti-Litvak propaganda?).
Or one can think that developing into a talmid chochom was the challenge, and then one gets into an accident and needs to spend all one's time on physical therapy, and so waste all one’s time, not realizing that it was the dealing with that situation which was the challenge they were meant to face all along.