When can ‘faking it’ be helpful and when does it lead to difficulties? Are we faking it when we practice positive psychology and gratitude meditations?
With the current media interest in mindfulness & ‘brain hacks’ these are important questions to consider. Does this strategy help us make changes so that we can live more meaningful lives, or is it simply a way to paper over the cracks? Well, the answer isn’t simple.
Take the ‘smile’ practice for example. Most of us are familiar with this practice which has its roots in ancient Buddhist meditation. Quite simply we allow a soft smile to be present on our lips and focus on feelings of tranquillity, peace, calmness etc., despite how we might be feeling before the meditation. And what generally happens is that the mood lifts and by the end of the practice we are feeling happier than when we started. This is partly due to the mirror neurones that send messages to the emotional centres when they detect smiling happening, and partly because we will have moved our focus away from worries and anxieties and will have started to remember that there are pleasant things going on for us too. If we keep practicing, then over time we should become more contented and less anxious.
Sounds great right? But what if we are simply fooling ourselves? What if we are simply pasting on a veneer to cover up what is really going on. Not just hiding it from the world, but from ourselves too?
Psychologists say that we spend most of our lives pretending. Pretending that we are OK when we aren't or that we don't care when we do. We pretend that something didn't hurt us when it did or that we are full of confidence when we really want to hide in the nearest toilet.
These are strategies that can be very helpful in the short term and, if we don't fall into the trap of it becoming a long-term behaviour, faking it can help us to do things that we might be nervous about, or cope in a social situation that we find difficult. Without this ability, we would avoid every situation that made us feel potentially uncomfortable and would never widen our horizons or test our ability to manage new experiences. If we have a real intention to be more confident for example, then sometimes acting as a confident person helps us build those skills until they become part of who we really are.
We might decide to behave in a friendlier way to our co-workers to foster better relationships at work and although it may seem unnatural to begin with, after a while we may find that we really are developing the relationships we desire.
But when we start pretending to ourselves, or we can't stop pretending to those who are closest to us, that becomes a problem.
So, the trick is to learn when pretending is helpful and when not so.
For example, there’s a difference between emulating someone at work who represents the kind of person you would like to be and pretending to be someone or something you are not. In the first instance emulating someone we look up to encourages us to adopt some aspects of their behaviour that will help us become the employee/r we want to be. But pretending we have skills that we don’t possess can land us in all sorts of trouble, as can the strain of living up to a persona that really isn’t ours. If the pretence starts to take over, then there will be a price to pay. I follow other meditation teachers whom I admire to learn from them, but it would be wrong of me to pretend that I had their experience or qualifications, or to adopt a style that isn’t right for me.
Likewise, in our personal relationships this strategy can sometimes work if we are trying to change our behaviour to improve ourselves. Psychotherapists sometimes encourage clients to act ‘as if’ they are having a specific feeling so that they can grow the confidence to allow the real feelings to be there.
Can we fake it to make it with our meditation practice?
This is where I think the strategy becomes really unhelpful. And I’m not talking about fake teachers – we can all see the problems that would cause – I mean our personal practice. Just as psychologists warn that we can only fake it on the outside and not within close relationships, if our meditation practice is meant to encourage a deeper relationship with the self, then there is no room for pretence.
Sometimes in our practice we choose to use positive statements, such as affirmations, to motivate ourselves to change in ways we can and want to. We might use our imagination to visualise ourselves being well and happy, or at some point in the future achieving a goal or ambition, and we know that these visualisations are very powerful since, once we have imagined that ‘future self’ it encourages the belief that it is possible so we are more likely to take the steps needed to make it happen.
Take the ‘Smile’ meditation – it really works, it has been clinically tested to show how and why it works, and there are many other practices that spring to mind where we consciously choose to adopt an alternative thought or feeling to the one we might have got stuck with. But the trick is to know when we are using a strategy, and when we are simply pretending to ourselves.
It is much easier to say ‘I love and accept myself as I am right now’ than it is to change our inner dialogue to be friendlier to ourselves, or to change our job, relationship, lifestyle to one that is kinder and more supportive for us. The statement ‘I love and accept myself’ needs to be followed by love in action – otherwise it is simply ‘bypassing’ what needs to be faced as we fool ourselves into thinking that we are meditating our way out of it.
Studies show that if we emulate happiness, we are more likely to find ourselves in situations where we feel genuinely happier. We are more likely to engage with others and this helps to make us happier. This lifts our mood when we are feeling a bit low, but if we fake happiness when we really feel frightened, sad or lonely, we will not get our needs met.
Gratitude meditations are an important practice, but not helpful if we adopt a ‘Pollyanna’ approach and use them to ignore what needs changing. It is lovely to focus on flowers and beautiful sunsets, but sometimes there is hard work to be done alongside this and then the gratitude may be more along the lines of appreciating what will help us do that work rather than avoiding it altogether.
Mindfulness is about being with what is really here, with compassion and curiosity; as Louise Hay said, ‘If you are going to clean your house you need to first know where the dirt is’.
This is the hard work of mindfulness. Honest appraisal, curious exploration and true compassionate acceptance, sometimes followed by what Kristen Neff calls ‘Fierce Compassion’ – the kick up the backside we sometimes all need to do what needs doing.
Paul Gilbert makes a clear distinction between affirmations and Metta practice. Unlike affirmations which can be a distraction, Metta phrases are more like intentions, e.g. ‘may I be well’, ‘may I love myself’, or even just, ‘may I feel friendlier towards myself’.
So, if you want to try an alternative strategy, psychologists suggest trying some of these phrases instead of ‘fake it’:
Be the change you want to see
Practise makes perfect
Face it ‘til you Ace it!
And I’d like to suggest a New Year’s Intention that we take steps towards the changes we want to see, treat every meditation as a practise and face our difficulties with a healthy dose of self-compassion. May we all be happy, may we all be well, may we all feel safe, loved and loving.
Happy New Year!
With love,
Natalie x
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