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Day: 27 June 2021

The Art of Contradiction

Recovery

27th June 2021
1 Comment on The Art of Contradiction

15 mins
3 years
2,114 words
4

The Art of Contradiction

What I like about contradiction is that it allows me to view the world from the opposite point of view …

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When I was learning co-counselling, the one intervention which I really liked and which I still use often is “contradiction.” In a nutshell, this is when the counsellor will offer to the client the option to contradict or turn around something which they have just said, usually a belief or message they have given themselves. As with all co-co interventions the client is free to choose whether to go with the contradiction or not – but I usually did, and had some great insights from it.

For example, if I was to say “she really hates me”, the counsellor might offer the contradiction and then it would be up to me to consider the options. I could say “she really loves me” or “I really hate her” or even “I really hate me.” Just to see where that would take me in my thinking. No interpretation is right or wrong and it is up to the client to be creative with this.

Road sign saying "Slow Pheasants in road." — I don't think I have ever seen a slow pheasant!

I was reminded of this intervention when I first came across the work of Byron Katie – which is actually called “The Work.” She uses four questions to get clients to look at themselves and one of these is the ‘turnaround’ as she calls it, which is very similar to contradiction. Some of the other questions her method poses are, ‘do you know that that is true’ and ‘how would your life be without that thought.’ I have again found this useful in those negative messages I give myself such as “I am no good at learning languages” or “I will never be well again.” Which I know are not necessarily true, but if I keep repeating them to myself, I go into a downward spiral of giving up and not looking into the possibilities of learning and healing.

Another type of contradiction which has worked in my own life has been the glad game, as played by Pollyanna in the eponymous novel. This is the story of a young (and probably annoying) girl who tried to cheer people up by getting them to focus on what the good was in any situation, often by seeing it as a challenge that needs to be overcome. I am working hard on this at the moment to see travelling with bowel and bladder problems as a challenge rather than something which is going to limit me. There is some criticism of this approach (and that of Byron Katie) to suggest that staying with positives in situations helps people to accept them, rather than fighting for change. BK hits back that it is only by having a clear mind that you can see what needs to be done and then you have a non-subjective choice about what to do about it, which might include campaigning for change. Her argument is that if you are bogged down in depression or addiction you are not in the right place to try and force any structural changes anyway. Similarly, the Pollyanna approach of being positive about everything does not take away the possibility of change and, indeed, seeing that things could be better might be the first step on the campaigning trail.

When I look at some of the things I wish I could change about this planet, such as hunger, disease, homelessness, pollution, etc. I know that these are huge issues which for me as an individual to tackle look daunting. I am gladdened that at least some of these issues are getting better (fewer people were starving in 2019 than at any time in our recent history for example) and that although a lot of work needs to be done, there are technological innovations which may bring change. As a metaphor for my own bodily illnesses, what use would being down and depressed about things be anyway. It seems that the way forward would be to do more research on what can be done, look out for new remedies and implement the solutions (if any) in the best way I possibly can.

Grafitti of a fist — Love punch in Liege, Belgium.

In the one area I know something about, compulsive gambling, there is a huge contradiction in what happens to people. In many cases (though by all means not all) there is a motivation to make ‘easy money’ and yet what happens is the opposite: more and more debt ensues. Equally in many cases (and I would include myself here) the motivation is more about escape and enjoyment and yet the outcome for most is more pain and worry.

Worry is a mostly useless enterprise. It’s only intention is to tell me that something is wrong and I know that anyway. I soon learned that to counteract worry I needed to contradict it, in other words to see what things would be like if I no longer worried about them. Usually this led to me doing something to stop the worry, using different techniques. The one that works best for me is mindfulness where I stop my internal dialogue by concentrating only on the sounds, sights and smells of the immediate environment. This works best when I am in a nice place – so I use it on my daily walks. One thing I have noticed though is that the technique becomes more difficult the more I need to use it. When I am not worried it feels relatively easy to do, when I am really worried then it’s far more difficult, and I was really worried when my debts were high and I could see no easy way to pay them off. Another difficult period was when the house was sold but not emptied and I struggled to see how that could happen in time. (Of course, it all worked out in the end.) Now my biggest worry is my health and the contradiction there is that my health, particularly my bowel health is made worse by worrying about it!

As worrying seems to have no purpose, I wonder if there is some mileage in the contradiction of the positive aspects of worrying. What is the “worrying” trying to say to me. There is another technique in co-counselling which is to put aspects of myself “on the cushion”. Using a cushion or another handy object to talk to out loud, you ask “what are you trying to say to me?” If worry could talk what would it be saying?

When I worry about my health, I sometimes ask myself what is the worst that could happen? Of course the usual answer is death, which is going to happen at some point anyway and is therefore not worth worrying about. Pain and suffering? Well I have enough of that as it is and if it got much worse I am sure I would be up in hospital with industrial-strength painkillers that would get rid of the pain (and leave me in some sort of blissful state). Do some people commit suicide because the pain of worrying is so immense? There is some evidence for this and of course the rate of suicide for compulsive gamblers is such that the two things are often linked in responses to the problem. But that might be a post for another time.

No use in worrying!

Is it a contradiction that someone who wants to travel the world is prohibited from doing so because of his gut health? Is it possible for me to get the treatment I want in another country? I am not even sure what country I want to go to for this or indeed what the right treatment might be. All I do know is that things are not right with my guts and it is making me worried about travelling to certain countries and of course worrying troubles my gut – so the situation becomes a bit circular. I am aware of people who are travelling the world with much bigger health problems such as the deaf and blind traveller, Tony Giles. Here is a link to his recent video for the BBC on his trip to Ethiopia.

Another contradiction is that I need to take the time to get rid of all the clutter in my storage unit and yet that time could be shortened by just throwing it all away, however if I take the time to sort through it, I might be able to make some money from the clutter itself. There is a time / money dichotomy. Do I spend my time trying to make money or do I spend my money on freeing up time for myself? Part of the problem (and this has been with me for a long time now) is not really knowing the worth of money. I know compared to many people I know I am ok financially, but there are others who have far more than me and yet seem to be continually working or worrying about the future; so I wonder if I should be worrying as well.

Long straight road South Scotland — Who knows what is down the road?

I guess the turning point for me was deciding that worrying about things was more of an issue than simply sorting things out. This came in stages. The first stage was that my boiler broke down. Luckily this happened in the early summer, but as the cold weather approached, I knew that I would not be able to face the winter without heating. I had to confront my worries about letting someone into the house to assess the situation and to quote for a new boiler. This was a worry because it meant confronting my hoarding problem – letting people have access to the radiators in each room and of course facing the shame I felt at not tackling the problem. The next stage, having had the quote, was finding the money to pay for the boiler and the work to be done and then the worry of whether the people I had found to do it would actually do a good job. Once all those fears were faced (and they weren’t as bad as I had feared) the next stage was to try and work on the hoarding problem. I tried on my own, but it was soon clear to me that I needed non-judgmental help and after talking to a few potentials on the phone I managed to engage Heather. I got to the point where I felt comfortable enough to go for the biggy, which was have some estate agents come in to give a valuation on the property. Then of course when I had signed up to one, the real challenge came next: to allow complete strangers into the house to make a decision whether to put an offer in or not. The estate agent decided to have a whole two days devoted to this and there were 12 viewings in all. I went away for the weekend so I would not be triggered by all of this. Later on, other viewings happened as some people wanted to come back with friends / family and eventually I had to choose between several offers. I guess what I am saying is that by taking the first step and finding that the world didn’t end (and I had a new boiler installed and was nice and warm in the winter), it meant that I could go on and push for what I really wanted when doing nothing would have perhaps been more stressful. I think the contradiction is (for me) that I think if I do nothing it will be easier than doing something, and of course this is often not the case. An obvious example of this is my need to keep planning my travels in advance. I know that I cannot stay in my current digs after my time runs out in 3 weeks. If I did I would have to be evicted and may not find anywhere to go to, which would be a lot more stressful than planning in advance where I am going to be.

It does seem a rather circular situation. What I like about contradiction is that it allows me to view the world from the opposite point of view, so what would things be like if I had no money at all – or if I had won the lottery yesterday and bagged £111 million… Of course I don’t play the lottery so I can never win that amount of money. Now that I feel I can do some good with it instead of just wasting it with more gambling, there seems little likelihood of my ever having it – and that could just be the biggest contradiction of all.

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