Asha is a psychotherapist and life coach. We had a
very pleasant chat that covered everything from psychotherapy, philosophy, our
respective childhoods and families as well as the intended topic of millennials.
Since there is so much to cover here, I have decided to separate my posts and
publish at a later date the article that deals with millennials and current
political issues. Instead, I will focus here solely on my interview with Asha
whose thoughts, work as well as practice I would like to feature and showcase.
Parenting of millennials and our own
personal experience
Before we delved fully into the topic and as a kind of
icebreaker, I asked Asha, why she had added the subtitle Everything Your Parents
Didn’t Teach You and hence put some emphasis on the parents of millennials.
She explained how in many ways parenting, alongside wide-scale and rapid social
changes, influenced and shaped the mindset and circumstances of the
millennials.
This was not necessarily an issue of parents
withholding information or refusing to guide their children nor was it
intentional, but there were two factors involved. First off, due to economic
situations and circumstances, parents would have to work more. This did not
only apply to single-parent households but in many families, both parents had to
enter the workforce and work longer hours.
This led to the situation that many millennials did
not have direct parental access when growing up. Since parents were out of the
home, in some cases, they would be raised by their grandparents. Moreover,
growing up in a period of fast development, the advent of rapid technological
progress with the Internet and Social Media, led many of them to grow up with
screens of televisions, computers, and iPads. This robbed and impeded them from
actively participating in games as well as outdoor activities.
Moreover, without parents at hand to guide and teach
them and even more importantly, to care for and nurture them, these children
lacked not only discipline and structure growing up, but they did not have
sufficient confidence-building activities. This led them to experience high
levels of anxiety and restlessness.
In fact, there were many lessons that millennials missed
in their childhood. This impacted and impeded their relationship both with
themselves as well as others. There are a lot of things that they have not processed,
digested or fully settled into, which is why Asha describes her clients as
young and brilliant minds with anxious bodies.
This is mainly because millennials did not learn nor
discover important lessons and strategies about themselves. They are not clear
about how the world works or how to build relationships, and they lack
knowledge about themselves. Moreover, growing up in a fast environment, they
tend to look for quick results and solutions.
In their impatience, millennials want to learn lessons
quickly while at the same time avoiding, evading, and circumventing difficult
and challenging situations. The problem is that it is indeed the hardest
lessons that are the best ones: They teach us resilience and strength while putting
everything into perspective.
The other issue is that since millennials do not want
to suffer, they carry and hold onto the expectation that you can live this life
unscathed, which is a myth and is detrimental to psychological and emotional
growth and well-being. As Asha put it quite well, you need to allow yourself to
fall but not to fall apart. Not everything is a failure, but even
failure can be used as fodder and as a means of exploration and understanding
of oneself and others.
When it comes to mishaps, we could look at what went
wrong in those cases while analyzing the situation and asking ourselves relevant
questions. The most important part here is to be curious and to be willing to
learn from experience instead of trying to avoid them or to shift blame and
responsibility.
Both Asha and I agreed that our own difficult
circumstances growing up has in many ways led and shaped us to not only
understand ourselves better but to be able to have compassion, empathy, and
understanding for others. Nobody wants pain and suffering, but when we
encounter and confront them, we can grow much more as a person and that makes
them invaluable teachers in and for our lives, something we can then share with
others.
Anxiety, Impostor Syndrome and
Perfectionism
In the meantime, anxiety is on the rise. It is visible
everywhere one goes, and we can see it in people, on the news, and on Social Media,
and often, we experience it ourselves. It is manifested in different ways,
ranging from apathy to aggression, from violence to silence. Add to that, the
political climate, social unrest, and a rapidly growing pandemic that has
brought the world to its knees, and you can better understand the reasons for
the madness that is happening at this moment.
Anxiety can also be manifested in two other ways, both
of which we touched upon in the interview, namely impostor syndrome, and
perfectionism. Impostor syndrome or phenomenon is fueled by the feeling or the
nagging doubt that one is simply not good enough. It leads you to feel like an
impostor, a fraud, and that any success you achieve is due to luck and
circumstance and not because of your own efforts or work.
We may have all experienced moments of impostor
syndrome at some point in our lives. I myself am guilty as charged but Asha
pointed out two things to keep in mind about impostor syndrome. First off, it
is a syndrome and not an illness. In fact, when it is a cluster of syndromes
that affects our lifestyle, feelings, and beliefs, it becomes maladaptive and
can cause harm to our self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth. Over time,
and if avoided and unprocessed, it can create trauma.
Although it is a serious issue, it can also have its
benefits. In fact, it can drive people to become better or to strive to
overcome limitations. It is the inherent motor and drive for self-improvement.
Since anxiety is essentially a similar feeling to excitement, we can put this
anxious energy to use by using it to our own advantage.
Perfectionism, on the other hand, is the result of
trauma. It is often connected to early childhood experiences, which can lead to
maladaptive symptoms. It is compulsive behavior as it pushes people to overwork
themselves, and it is a form of suffering that is akin to obsessive-compulsive
disorder.
The best way to deal with perfectionism is to trust
yourself while knowing and being aware of your limits and limitations. It is
good to do your best work and to strive for excellence but not for perfection.
It is also a matter of honesty and transparency with yourself: You need to be
honest about yourself, understand your flaws, and keep reminding yourself
that nobody is indeed perfect.
The Role of Psychotherapy
In terms of psychotherapy, we talked about various
topics related to the methodology, practice, and perception of it. As someone
who loves, practices, talks, and writes about psychology, I was most curious to
know her approach. In my experience, some practices are simply better and more
effective and productive than others. My concern was that she would be using
CBT (Cognitive-behavioral therapy), an approach that I like and appreciate, but
one that does not solve traumas as efficiently and deeply as psychoanalysis,
for example.
I was most pleased to hear from Asha that she not only
tends to have a more eclectic approach but that she is also a supporter of
psychoanalysis and its many benefits to health and well-being. Her background
included object relations theory, which I find rather fascinating. Over the
years, she has come to use and practice a mindfulness-based version of CBT,
which sounds quite interesting to me.
What is even more important, encouraging, and promising
is that she has used that very same approach on herself for some years now. It
has helped her to relax more and to breathe and pause when stressed. She is
also aware that it is necessary to dig into one’s past to uncover and reveal
past trauma as many of us have a trauma history even if we are not aware of it.
This necessary and vital focus is to some extent thanks to her training as an
analyst and has been part and parcel of her work for more than two decades
of professional experience in the field of mental health.
In Asha’s own case, her experience was also enriched
by and through philosophy, another one of my own passions as evidenced in this
blog. In fact, philosophy inspired her to question everything. Like many of us,
she noticed that curiosity is not always promoted or encouraged, and this
resistance would come from those who claim to foster it, such as parents and
teachers. It tends to occur in restrictive households and environments that do
not allow much room for doubt or for questioning God and religion, while it
could also be stifled by parents who do not want to, refuse, or fail to talk
about feelings with their children.
Psychotherapy has the potential to give people that space
to grow and to know and find themselves. It is a place of confrontation, not in
the negative, hostile, or frightening sense but rather as a space of direct,
honest talk and conversation. This directness is often missing and lacking in
our daily life.
For instance, we are often indirect with ourselves and
with other people. We do not want to be asked direct questions but prefer to
present an image of a false self and project a fake persona. Nowhere is this
more prevalent than in Social Media, but we do the same in face-to-face
interactions as well when we pretend that things are great and that we have all
the answers.
First off, that is untrue. Yet, more importantly, it is
counterproductive to self-development. We are blocking and limiting ourselves
instead of being open to exploring who we are. This complacent and narcissistic
type of person is not at all interested in finding out things that they did not
know about themselves but they operate on the false assumption and delusion that
they are fully in control of themselves and their life; over time, this can
lead to a crisis of identity.
When people choose psychotherapy, they are often
expecting quick results, which is also something that is not feasible or
helpful. Years of trauma cannot be undone within a few sessions and this can certainly
not be achieved via medication only. Many also do not want to do the necessary
legwork and soul-searching and do not want to find answers;
instead, they want to be given solutions. The aim of
psychotherapy is to give you the tools and understanding but you would have to
apply them to yourself for it to work.
One should always discover things and be open to
learning. One of the most startling realizations is that there is not a fixed
self nor a real you to speak of. When you talk about yourself, you are having
an idea of yourself that is fixed in time and space alongside fixed and frozen
ideas about the world. But, in reality, everything is in flux, and we constantly
change through our feelings and experiences.
This is an important, essential, and necessary insight
for the millennials that Asha works with. It is a process, a kind of unraveling
of who they thought to be as well as the person others wanted them to be. They
wish to feel stable and understood, but first, they would have to become open
to experiences and respond to life more authentically, that is, by
being more honest and spontaneous without overthinking things.
Social Media and Overcoming
Groupthink and Intolerance
Social Media is not the solution but part of the
problem itself. In Social Media, everything has to be loud, big, and critical. It
is like a room of people who are all shouting at the same time, each of whom
craves and wants your attention. It is also a place that feeds intolerance and
tends to deplete and undermine critical thinking and open dialogue.
The moment someone disappoints you or says something
that you disagree with, you want to cancel them. But you are not aware that
this is harmful to people’s psychological health as you are essentially
debasing others when they disappoint you. At the same time, your action is
often based on distorted, fragmented, or incomplete information and facts.
No matter what the goal and intention, it is harmful
to tell people what to think instead of allowing and encouraging people to be
critical thinkers themselves. This is apart from the fact that people choose to
offend and personalize others instead of showing compassion, empathy, and
understanding, traits that are most important and lacking in today’s
society.
On various occasions, Asha herself has refused to jump
on the bandwagon to debase others. Instead of making quick, righteous, and
self-important judgments about others and instead of being pushed or triggered
to cancel those individuals, the focus should be on more important goals and
issues, such as canceling poverty, racism, sexism, and ageism. Unfortunately,
many have lost sight of those goals and use Social Media to elevate themselves
and to debase others while shutting down the conversation or the opportunity
for any dialogue or discussion to take place.
We also want to avoid prematurely and naively seeing
and expecting others to solve all our problems. This was the case with Obama
who many believed would solve racial tension and problems and, in a way, it is
also occurring with Kamala Harris. First, one needs to be aware that she has not been elected yet, but also that she will not be able to fix racial problems by
herself and on her own. It is an important and historical event, but it should not
lead one to a sense of false security. We would need to remind ourselves and be
aware that she will have her own agenda, and like all of us, her own share of
flaws and missteps along the way.
This trauma response, over-attaching oneself to
something quickly without giving it time or reflection, is exacerbated by a
lack of patience and tolerance among millennials and tends to foster groupthink.
This is contradictory to freedom due to its lack of exchange of ideas and it
would only lead to more division and segregation. Unfortunately, it is tied to
and connected with propaganda and it could lead to dangerous, divisive, and
hateful political and social unrest.
For healing to occur, we need to think and work as a
community. We would need to take action and be responsible and accountable for
our actions. At the same time, the goal should not be to attack others but rather
to protect them. For instance, burning others for a perceived lack or an
insufficient amount of activism especially while a pandemic is raging and
ongoing is not in the best interest of one’s fellow beings.
Whether this is achieved through mindful activism, such as using safe measures like phone calls, writing letters and emails, signing online petitions, or by following social distancing measures and wearing a mask, we want to show that we care for each other. In fact, healing is two-fold and interdependent: When you help others heal themselves, you will also heal yourself.
You can find the podcast here: "Anxiety, Impostor Syndrome and Perfectionism: Parenting and its Effects on Millennials with Life Coach Asha Tarry"
And here's the YouTube video of this interview: "Arash's World Interview with Psychotherapist & Life Coach Asha Tarry on Social Media and Millennials"
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