What Do You Need to Unlearn?

In January a colleague asked, “So, are you making any resolutions or setting intentions for the new year?”

“No.” I immediately replied. Actually, “Hell no.”

It’s mid-February now, and apparently this is the time when most of our resolutions sputter and fail. My past resolutions were solitary, ego-directed endeavors to change parts of myself or parts of my life that I didn’t like based on judgmental, comparative and critical thinking. In other words, my inner critic determined the resolution. So inevitably, by March or earlier, my resolve would turn to defeat.

A while back I wrote about how practice makes permanent, not perfect. If we have learned something incorrectly, repeating what we’ve learned will not help us. It can hurt us. Letting my inner critic direct my life was a practiced pattern that worked for a while. It worked really well during my 20s and for most of my 30s.

Until it stopped working and started hurting me emotionally and mentally; hindering me professionally and personally.

Quick story to illustrate my point. The first guy I was involved with after getting divorced was not interested in a long-term commitment. He told me this in a variety of ways that I ignored. I was very good at ignoring what I did not want to see in my romantic relationships, believing partnerships were about changing or fixing behaviors in other people to meet my needs. I had learned that growing up and I had practiced it in my marriage.

It ended in divorce, so I learned that didn’t work.

But I needed to keep unlearning it. I was scared of being alone. I had been in a relationship since college (!) I’d been around plenty of people in unhappy relationships, but at least they were in a relationship. Which is what my inner critic reminded me was more important, all the time.

It was a scary, vulnerable and slow realization to begin to believe that it would be better to be on my own for an unknown period of time.

When the break-up was happening I remember arguing my position and pleading my case, why we should stay together even though, as he’d said, he didn’t want to. When, all of a sudden, something inside me said, “Hey, Arianne, this script isn’t working for you anymore. Stop talking. Let it go. None of this is what you want.”

And that is exactly what it felt like. Like my words were from a script I knew very well, but the dialogue didn’t fit anymore. The unlearning was literally happening in real-time. I knew I was on the brink of something new, a new practice, a new way of “doing” this whole relationship thing.

In spiritual-speak we might call this, ‘waking up.’ It hits you that what you’ve been doing, familiar and rehearsed as it is, does not work. “Wait a minute,” you say, “I don’t want to do this anymore. Because I know exactly where this will lead. I am ready for something new.”

The Daring Way™ is Brené Brown’s methodology for unlearning patterns of behaving and thinking that are not supporting our values, the belief in our inherent worthiness, and learning new ones that will. It is not the only methodology for doing so. Thankfully there is a rich variety of perennial wisdom out there to support us in this endeavor.

Awareness coupled with some curious examination is what opens us up to learn and integrate healthier and more loving ways of being.  Here are some of the areas where I have had to do this which might resonate with you:

• I have had to unlearn and relearn what therapy is and how it works.

• I have had to unlearn and relearn what work is and how to integrate it with healthy living.

• I have had to unlearn and relearn what love means. The difference between romantic love, friendship love and “real love” (thank you Sharon Salzburg)

• I have had to unlearn and relearn what religion means, specifically Christianity.

• I have had to unlearn and relearn what being alone means.

• I have had to unlearn and relearn preaching and what being an ordained person means. That’s about much more than what I do for living. It has to do with unlearning the influence of our perceived identities and learning to be who you are.

When you unlearn something, it doesn’t leave you. We transcend and include. It is a process of evolving and maturing. It is, surprise, a process of becoming.

What patterns of behaving and thinking do you want or believe you need to unlearn? What thoughts and actions influence your feelings regularly enough that you recognize the same result happens despite your good and hopeful intentions?

It’s not about changing who we are – it’s about seeing who we are and exercising our ability to determine, be the author, as Brené says, of our stories.

Courageous curiosity and self-examination are practices I resolve to lean into daily. Not as resolutions but as part of my desire towards wholeheartedly living. And I believe when we share our stories of what we learn and unlearn as we practice, we shine light into the world. A good and sacred thing to do. Here’s to you shining yours!