Some days we can feel completely buried by the responsibilities and obligations we carry. For some of us, when we get in this place, rather than acknowledging the magnitude of our burdens we can become self-critical and beat ourselves up for our perceived failure to "man up" (a phrase I hate, by the way).

The acronym RAIN is shorthand for a simple method to deal with overwhelm and self-criticism.

Recognize what is going on;
Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
Investigate with kindness;
Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying with the experience.

Tara Brach is a well-known spiritual teacher and the author of several books and audio teachings, including True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart (2013) and Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha (2004).

Feeling Overwhelmed? Remember "RAIN"

Four steps to stop being so hard on ourselves.

By Tara Brach | Mindful Magazine


Illustrations by Michael Woloschinow
When I was in college, I went off to the mountains for a weekend of hiking with an older, wiser friend of twenty-two. After setting up our tent, we sat by a stream, watching the water swirl around rocks, talking about our lives. At one point she described how she was learning to be “her own best friend.” A wave of sadness came over me, and I broke down sobbing. I was the furthest thing from my own best friend. I was continually harassed by an inner judge who was merciless, nit-picking, demanding, always on the job. My guiding assumption was, “Something is fundamentally wrong with me,” as I struggled to control and fix what felt like a basically flawed self.

Over the last several decades, through my work with tens of thousands of clients and meditation students, I’ve come to see the pain of perceived deficiency as epidemic. It’s like we’re in a trance that causes us to see ourselves as unworthy. Yet, I have seen in my own life, and with countless others, that we can awaken from this trance through practicing mindfulness and self-compassion. We can come to trust the goodness and purity of our hearts.

In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves. To help people address feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, I often introduce mindfulness and compassion through a meditation I call the RAIN of Self-Compassion. The acronym RAIN, first coined about 20 years ago by Michele McDonald, is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness. It has four steps:

Recognize what is going on;
Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
Investigate with kindness;
Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying with the experience.

You can take your time and explore RAIN as a stand-alone meditation or move through the steps in a more abbreviated way whenever challenging feelings arise.

R—Recognize What's Going On
Recognizing means consciously acknowledging, in any given moment, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are affecting us. Like awakening from a dream, the first step out of the trance of unworthiness is simply to recognize that we are stuck, subject to painfully constricting beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations. Common signs of the trance include a critical inner voice, feelings of shame or fear, the squeeze of anxiety or the weight of depression in the body.

In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves.

Different people respond to the sense of unworthiness in different ways. Some might stay busy, trying to prove themselves valuable; others, fearful of failure, may become discouraged or even paralyzed. Still others may resort to addictive behaviors to avoid facing their shame and fear. Any of these strategies can lead to either defensive or aggressive behavior with others, or unhealthy attachment.

Some of us are at war with ourselves for decades, never realizing how our self-judgment and self-aversion keep us from finding genuine intimacy with others or enjoying our lives. One palliative caregiver reports that a key regret of the dying is not having been true to themselves. Rather than listening to and trusting our inner life, most of us try to live according to the expectations of others, which we internalize. When we inevitably fall short of the mark, we condemn ourselves.

Though it may sound depressing or overwhelming, learning to recognize that we are at war with ourselves is quite empowering. One meditation student described the trance of unworthiness as “…the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing.” As he became increasingly mindful of his incessant self-judgment and feelings of inadequacy, his aspiration to free himself from his painful inner prison grew.

A—Allowing: Taking a Life-Giving Pause

Allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations we have recognized simply be there. Typically when we have an unpleasant experience, we react in one of three ways: by piling on the judgment; by numbing ourselves to our feelings; or by focusing our attention elsewhere. For example, we might have the sinking, shameful feeling of having been too harsh in correcting our child. But rather than allowing that feeling, we might blame our partner for not doing his or her part, worry about something completely different, or decide it’s time for a nap. We’re resisting the rawness and unpleasantness of the feeling by withdrawing from the present moment.

We allow by simply pausing with the intention to relax our resistance and let the experience be just as it is. Allowing our thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations simply to be doesn’t mean we agree with our conviction that we’re unworthy. Rather, we honestly acknowledge the presence of our judgment, as well as the painful feelings underneath. Many students I work with support their resolve to let it be by silently offering an encouraging word or phrase to themselves. For instance, you might feel the grip of fear and mentally whisper yes in order to acknowledge and accept the reality of your experience in this moment.

Victor Frankel writes, “Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in this space lies our power and our freedom.” Allowing creates a space that enables us to see more deeply into our own being, which, in turn, awakens our caring and helps us make wiser choices in life. For one student, the space of allowing gave her more freedom in the face of urges to binge eat. In the past, whenever she felt restless or anxious at night, she’d start thinking of her favorite food—trail mix—then mindlessly consume a half pound of it before going to bed, disgusted with herself. Learning to recognize the cues and taking a pause interrupted the pattern. While pausing, she would allow herself to feel the tension in her body, her racing heart, the craving. Soon, she began to contact a poignant sense of loneliness buried beneath her anxiety. She found that if she could stay with the loneliness and be gentle with herself, the craving passed.

I—Investigating with Kindness

Investigating means calling on our natural curiosity—the desire to know truth—and directing a more focused attention to our present experience. Simply pausing to ask, what is happening inside me?, can initiate recognition, but investigation adds a more active and pointed kind of inquiry. You might ask yourself: What most wants attention? How am I experiencing this in my body? Or What am I believing? What does this feeling want from me? You might notice hollowness or shakiness, then discover a sense of unworthiness and shame masked by those feelings. Unless you bring them into awareness, your unconscious beliefs and emotions will control your experience and perpetuate your identification with a limited, deficient self.

Poet Dorothy Hunt says that we need a “...heartspace where everything that is, is welcome.” Without such an attitude of unconditional care, there isn’t enough safety and openness for real investigation to take place. About ten years ago I entered a period of chronic illness. During one particularly challenging period of pain and fatigue, I became discouraged and unhappy. In my view I was terrible to be around—impatient, self-absorbed, irritable, gloomy. I began working with RAIN to recognize these feelings and judgments and to consciously allow the unpleasantness in my body and emotions to just be there. As I began to investigate, I heard an embittered voice: “I hate living like this.” And then a moment later, “I hate myself!” The full toxicity of self-aversion filled me.

Not only was I struggling with illness, I was at war with the self-centered, irritable person I believed I had become. Unknowingly, I had turned on myself and was held captive by the trance of unworthiness. But in that moment of recognizing and allowing the suffering of self-hatred, my heart began to soften with compassion.

Here’s a story that helps to describe the process I went through. Imagine while walking in the woods you see a small dog sitting by a tree. You bend down to pet it and it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. Initially you might be frightened and angry. But then you notice one of its legs is caught in a trap, buried under some leaves. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern. You see that the dog’s aggression sprang from vulnerability and pain.

This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful, reactive ways, it’s because we’re caught in some kind of painful trap. The more we investigate the source of our suffering, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart toward ourselves and others.

When I recognized how my leg was in a trap—sickness compounded with self aversion— my heart filled with sorrow and genuine self-care. The investigating deepened as I gently put my hand over my heart—a gesture of kindness— and invited whatever other feelings were there to surface. A swell of fear (uncertainty for my future) spread through my chest, followed by an upwelling of grief at losing my health. The sense of self-compassion unfurled fully as I mentally whispered, It’s all right, sweetheart, and consciously offered care to the depths of my vulnerability, just as I would to a dear friend.

Compassion arises naturally when we mindfully contact our suffering and respond with care. As you practice the RAIN of Self-Compassion, experiment and see which intentional gesture of kindness most helps to soften or open your heart. Many people find healing by gently placing a hand on the heart or cheek; others, in a whispered message of care, or by envisioning being bathed in warm, radiant light. What matters is that once you have investigated and connected with your suffering, respond by offering care to your own heart. When the intention to awaken self love and compassion is sincere, the smallest gesture—even if, initially, it feels awkward— will serve you well.

N—Natural Loving Awareness

Natural loving awareness occurs when identification with the small self is loosened. This practice of non-identification means that our sense of who we are is not fused with any limiting emotions, sensations, or stories. We begin to intuit and live from the openness and love that express our natural awareness.

Though the first three steps of RAIN require some intentional activity, the N is the treasure: A liberating homecoming to our true nature. There’s nothing to do for this last part of RAIN; we simply rest in natural awareness.

The RAIN of Self-Compassion is not a one-shot meditation, nor is the realization of our natural awareness necessarily full, stable, or enduring. Rather, as you practice you may experience a sense of warmth and openness, a shift in perspective. You can trust this! RAIN is a practice for life—meeting our doubts and fears with a healing presence. Each time you are willing to slow down and recognize, oh, this is the trance of unworthiness… this is fear… this is hurt…this is judgment…, you are poised to de-condition the old habits and limiting self-beliefs that imprison your heart. Gradually, you’ll experience natural loving awareness as the truth of who you are, more than any story you ever told yourself about being “not good enough” or “basically flawed.”

A friend of mine was sitting with her dying mother while she was in a coma. At one point the mother opened her eyes, looked at her daughter with great lucidity, and said “You know, all my life I thought something was wrong with me.” She closed her eyes, sank back into a coma and died shortly thereafter. For my friend, her mother’s words were a parting gift. They inspired her to dedicate herself to the mindfulness and self-compassion that frees us.

We each have the conditioning to live for long stretches of time imprisoned by a sense of deficiency, cut off from realizing our intrinsic intelligence, aliveness, and love. The greatest blessing we can give ourselves is to recognize the pain of this trance, and regularly offer a cleansing rain of self-compassion to our awakening hearts.

* * *

~ Clinical psychologist Tara Brach is the author of True Refuge: Finding Peace & Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart. For guided meditations and talks, visit Tara Brach's website.

• This article also appeared in the August 2014 issue of Mindful magazine.
• Subscribe to Mindful's print edition or digital edition.

Michael Boyle - Only One Body

From Mike Boyle's Strengthcoach.com blog - a little reminder that this body is our only body. I bet many of you spend more time and money taking care of your car or your house than you do your body.

Only One Body

By Michael Boyle

( the following is reprinted for a third time. Back in 2009 I might get a few hundred views. This time I might get a few thousand. I’m not sure where I posted it first by this is the third time on this site.)

Imagine you are sixteen years old and your parents give you your first car. They also give you simple instructions. There is one small hitch, you only get one car, you can never get another. Never. No trade-ins, no trade-ups. Nothing.

Ask your self how would you maintain that car? My guess is you would be meticulous. Frequent oil changes, proper fuel, etc. Now imagine if your parents also told you that none of the replacement parts for this car would ever work as well as the original parts. Not only that, the replacement parts would be expensive to install and cause you to have decreased use of your car for the rest of the cars useful life? In other words, the car would continue to run but, not at the same speed and with the efficiency you were used to.

Wow, now would we ever put a lot of time and effort into maintenance if that were the case.

After reading the above example ask yourself another question. Why is the human body different? Why do we act as if we don’t care about the one body we were given. Same deal. You only get one body. No returns or trade-ins. Sure, we can replace parts but boy it’s a lot of work and it hurts. Besides, the stuff they put in never works as well as the original “factory” parts. The replacement knee or hip doesn’t give you the same feel and performance as the original part.

Think about it. One body. You determine the mileage? You set the maintenance plan?

No refunds, no warranties, no do-overs?

How about this perspective? One of my clients is a very successful businessman. He often is asked to speak to various groups. One thing he tells every group is that you are going to spend time and money on your health. The truth is the process can be a proactive one or a reactive one. Money spent on your health can take the form of a personal trainer, massage therapist and a gym membership or, it can be money spent on cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and plastic surgeons. Either way, you will spend money.

Same goes for time. You can go to the gym or, to the doctors office. It’s up to you. Either way, you will spend time. Some people say things like “I hate to work out”. Try sitting in the emergency room for a few hours and then get back to me. Working out may not seem so bad. Much like a car, a little preventative maintenance can go a long way. However, in so many ways the body is better than a car. With some good hard work you can turn back the odometer on the body. I wrote an article a while back ( Strength Training- The Fountain of Youth) that discussed a study done by McMaster University which showed that muscle tissue of older subjects actually changed at the cellular level and looked more like the younger control subjects after strength training.

Do me a favor, spend some time on preventative maintenance, it beats the heck out of the alternative. Just remember, you will spend both time and money.

RicK Hanson - Lower the Pressure

This blog comes from Rick Hanson, Ph.D., neuropsychologist, author, founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, and meditation teacher. It is reprinted here with permission.

Rick is author of the best-selling book Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom.

See Rick's workshops and lectures for therapists and the general public.

As usual, Rick offers a good approach to leading a more balanced life - check out the series of practices at the bottom of the article.

Just One Thing: Is it truly urgent?


The Practice
Lower the pressure.


Why?


Things come at us with so much urgency and demand these days. Phones ring, texts buzz, emails pile up, new balls have to be juggled, work days lengthen and move into evenings and weekends, traffic gets denser, financial demands feel like a knife at the neck, ads and news clamor for attention, push push push PUSH.


On top of these external pressures, we deal with internal ones as well. These include all the inner "shoulds," "musts," and "have-tos," like: "I gotta get this done today or my boss'll get mad." Or: "I must not look bad." Or: "I can't leave the house with dishes in the sink." A pushy sub-personality prods us to be better, do better, and have more. Harsh, often unfair self-criticism cracks the whip to keep us going and avoid its lash. Also, we form rigid ideas - often unconscious - of what we just have to have to be successful, look good, own the right car, etc. We develop similar kinds of insistence about how it needs to be for others or the world (e.g., how one's children must do in school, how the country has to be run).


Whether the pressure comes from outside or inside us, it activates ancient motivational circuits that use the neurotransmitter, dopamine. In a nutshell, dopamine tracks expected results (e.g., emails finished, sales goals attained). If the result actually occurs, dopamine rises, which helps us feel relieved while other neurotransmitter systems such as natural opioids give us a sense of pleasure. But here's the catch: on the way to that desired result, dopamine levels sink some, which brings an unpleasant sense of stress, unease, pushing, and pressure . . . and if we meet delays or roadblocks or flat-out failure, then dopamine plummets, which feels like disappointment, frustration, even despair. To avoid the pain of dopamine dropping, we drive hard toward our goals, caught up in wanting and desire.


This dopamine system - and related but more evolutionarily recent and sophisticated emotions and thoughts layered upon it - was very effective in keeping our ancestors alive in the wild. And it works well today to keep us motivated during emergencies or necessary marathons of effort, from finals week in college to long runs of advocacy on behalf of a loved one.


But even at best, there is an inherent collateral damage in being motivated by need, urgency, and pressure. It narrows focus to a particular goal in the cross-hairs of tunnel vision. It feels tense, contracted, and uncomfortable - and usually triggers the stress-response system, whose chronic activation has many negative consequences for long-tem health and well-being. Many goals are just not reachable - so we feel bad if we are fixed on attaining them - and even if we do get the desired result, its gratifications are often less than promised, and in any case they fade eventually from awareness like sand slipping through the fingers of consciousness.


And at worst, inner and outer pressures drive us to pursue goals and desires that are bad for us and others. There we are: trying to live up to unrealistic standards, comparing ourselves to others, feeling like we're falling short, putting the work-life balance on tilt, looking for love in all the wrong places, being hard on oneself or others, pushing to the edge of capacity, and sooner or later running on empty.


Whew. Enough already. Time to ease off the pressure!


How?


(There are lots of ways below to take the pressure off. Just find one or two that you like - there's no pressure in dropping the pressure!)


Remind yourself that you can act in competent, honorable, and successful ways even when there is no sense of pressure. You can give yourself over to wholesome aspirations, letting them carry you along with resolve and passion, staying true to your own North Star without straining and stressing along the way. You can be prudent, love others, rise in your chosen work, and nurture our planet without feeling like there's a stick at your back.


When things come at you - phone calls, wants from others, a fevered pace - try to get a sense of a buffer between you and them, a kind of shock absorber, like you are seeing them through the wrong end of a telescope. Slow things down a beat, a breath, a day. Offer yourself the gift of time - time to figure out if this is really a priority, and when it really needs to get done.


Listen to your body. Are you getting that pressed/squeezed/driven feeling again? Listen to your heart, like it's a wise sweet being who loves you: what's it saying?


Be aware of the "shoulds" and "musts" muttering - or shouting - in your mind. Are they really true? And are they really you rather than an internalized parent or other authority figure. What would happen if you dialed back one bit, slowed down by one step, or got one less thing done each day? Let it sink in that there'd be no disaster at all. In fact, probably no one but you would ever notice!


Be easier on yourself. Lower your standards a smidge - unless you're doing brain surgery or something similar, you can likely afford to lighten up a little.


Be realistic about how long things really take, and how often there's a slip 'twixt cup and lip in the affairs of mice and men. Try not to make commitments that will be hard to fulfill; don't write checks with your mouth that your body can't cash.


Remember that you are a fundamentally good person. Even if you lower the pressure and a few things get done more slowly or not at all, you are still a good person.


Keep coming back to this moment - in which things are probably usually basically all right. Not perfect, but consider the Third Zen Patriarch's teaching that enlightenment means (among other things) no anxiety about imperfection. In this moment, you are likely safe enough, fed enough, and loved enough.


You can lower the pressure.

Secret Lives of Men - The art of flourishing; Jeffrey Rubin

In this episode of the Secret Lives of Men, Chris Blazina interviews Jeffrey Rubin on the topic of flourishing - how we can live our best and most productive lives. Rubin's book is The Art of Flourishing: A New East-West Approach to Staying Sane and Finding Love in an Insane World, and it's really a handbook for conscious self-care, something we all could a little more of in our lives.

The Art of Flourishing - Jeffrey Rubin

In this original and deeply revealing exploration of the self and relationships, Dr. Jeffrey Rubin brings the art of flourishing to life. The idea is startlingly simple: self-care is the foundation of intimacy, and intimacy is the culmination of self-care. The Art of Flourishing provides the reader with the tools necessary to thrive, to live a life of meaning, passion, and fulfillment.

An expert on both Eastern meditative and Western psychotherapeutic traditions, Dr. Rubin draws on the best practices of each to create a new and accessible path to living authentically. His unique synthesis provides a remarkably lucid guide for handling our emotions wisely, discovering our purpose, and uncovering barriers to intimacy—the hidden emotional weeds that kill passion, such as conflicts over communication and power, boundaries and sexuality. Drawing from case examples and personal experiences, Rubin explains how to remove these obstacles to nurture empathy and mutual respect. Creating and cultivating a garden of love enables us to grow as individuals and nourish our connections with others. It widens our horizon of possibility, deepens our humanity, and helps us flourish, which is a priceless gift to the world.

Listen to internet radio with Secret Lives of Men on Blog Talk Radio

Tags: Secret Lives of Men, Chris Blazina, The art of flourishing, Jeffrey Rubin, men, happiness, self care, health, thriving, meaning, intimacy, relationships, communication, power, empathy, emotional weeds

Susan Piver - How to Open Your Heart

We all need to learn to do this better and more often. By the way, Susan Piver is a wonderful author and teacher - check out her blog and books.

In this post she talks about the wisdom and compassion in opening our hearts - not to others, this time, but to ourselves. How often are we gentle and compassionate toward our own lives and experiences? The less we judge ourselves, and the more gentleness we can find for our own pain and fear, the easier it is to extend those gifts to others.

How to Open Your Heart

By Susan Piver

May 13, 2011

What is meant by a “contemplative view?” Rather than probing your thoughts and feelings for a storyline (i.e., what does this mean about me, my past, you, our relationship?), you simply see your thoughts and feelings. Observe them. Take them in. Allow them to be as they are without seeking to manipulate them at all. You’ll see some stuff you like and some stuff you may not, including your habitual patterns and the anger, depression, or doubt that are locked up within them.

However, with a contemplative view (rather than—or in addition to—a psychological view) of these patterns, you see that rather than being emblematic of your failings, they are indications of your genius. Just below anger is crystalline clarity; just below depression is sadness, which is gentle, tender, and entirely workable; and just below doubt is a profound kind of questioning intelligence.

In this way, you cultivate one very, very important quality, without which, no matter how well-reasoned, most efforts to find happiness fall apart.

That quality is gentleness.

Toward yourself.

I’m sure you have felt gentleness time and again for those you love or admire: your child, lover, a hero of music or politics, even your pet. You think of this creature and your heart melts. You feel how deeply you wish for their ease, and not because they “deserve” it. There actually is no reason at all for this feeling, beyond love. Your heart is simply open.

When have you ever felt this toward yourself? It is very, very important that you look at yourself in just this way. Please, starting today: soften toward this precious and irreplaceable being: YOU. All you have to do is notice her. She is like no other and has gifts to give that cannot be sourced elsewhere.

From here, you are able to feel this way for everyone, not just those you already love. In this way, by opening your heart, first to yourself and then to all beings, you can change the world.

Tags: How to Open Your Heart, Susan Piver, psychology, spirituality, compassion, empathy, contemplative view, contemplation, gentleness

Video: The Highly Sensitive Person

I am an HSP, or highly sensitive person. I don't like loud noises, bright lights, crowded noisy places, and lots of other things that most other people do not even notice, and maybe even enjoy. About 15-20% of the population is like me.

Here is some info from Dr. Elaine Aron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person on what exactly a highly sensitive person is:

In defining the Highly Sensitive Person, Dr. Aron provides examples of characteristic behaviors, and these are reflected in the questions she typically asks patients or interview subjects:

• Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby?
• Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?
• Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows?
• Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation?
• Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?
• Do you notice or enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, or works of art?
• Do you have a rich and complex inner life?
• When you were a child, did your parents or teachers see you as sensitive or shy?

Dr. Aron explains that in the past HSPs have been called "shy," "timid," "inhibited," or "introverted," but these labels completely miss the nature of the trait. Thirty percent of HSPs are actually extraverts. HSPs only appear inhibited because they are so aware of all the possibilities in a situation. They pause before acting, reflecting on their past experiences. If these were mostly bad experiences, then yes, they will be truly shy. But in a culture that prefers confident, "bold" extraverts, it is harmful as well as mistaken to stigmatize all HSPs as shy when many are not. InThe Highly Sensitive Person, Dr. Aron reframes these stereotyping words and their common application to the HSP in a more positive light and helps HSPs use and view these aspects of their personality as strengths rather than weaknesses.

Sensitivity is anything but a flaw. Many HSPs are often unusually creative and productive workers, attentive and thoughtful partners, and intellectually gifted individuals. According to Dr. Aron, HSPs could contribute much more to society if they received the right kind of attention - and her national bestseller proves that this 15 to 20 percent of the population is eager to get off on the right foot in asserting their unique personality trait.

Doesn't sound very masculine does it? Imagine growing up this way with all the messages we normally get about what it means to be a boy or a man. It's not easy. But it doesn't make us any less masculine. So if you too are an HSP, you are not alone.

Video: The Highly Sensitive Person

Wednesday August 26, 2009

Categories: Video Posts

If you have ever wondered why you don't fare well in noisy places, why it takes you so much longer to adjust to change, or why your feelings are so much more intense than your friends, you will appreciate this video. I explain what it means to be a highly sensitive person, as defined by Elaine Aron in her bestselling "The Highly Sensitive Person."

I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I won't say anything more before you watch the video.

To view my YouTube video, click here.

To read more Beyond Blue, go to www.beliefnet.com/beyondblue, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.

Tags: The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron, BeliefNet, masculinity, self care, psychology, HSP, emotions

Real Men Don't Like Spas?

This article appeared in the Times UK the other day. I don't have a "valid" opinion on this, having never been to a spa. However, I don't like to be pampered, to get a facial or any other type of spa treatment - hell, I don't even like to get haircuts, so I do them myself (easy, since I have very short hair).

This article is actually a bit of humor piece, making fun of the masculine uneasiness with being pampered, and also taking aim at the "spa experience," from the made-for-women gowns, to the music, to the fear of public arousal.

But, the author is a bit of an expert, and he actually likes some of the places he has been.

There really is nothing wrong with a bit of self-care from time to time. I do like a good massage, as long as it's not like the one described here - "some failed hairdresser rhythmically tickles away at my flabby parts as if petting a consumptive hamster." Sounds wrong.

Why real men don't like spas

Ill-fitting gowns, whale songs and lavender candles... no wonder many men struggle with the spa experience

Simon Mills

It's the incessant, cod-monastic whispering I can't stand. “If you'd like to come through ... would you mind turning over ... is that pressure OK for you?” What? What? Speak up, woman, for heaven's sake! This is not a church; it's a treatment room. We are the only two people in the room. Nobody will complain if you adjust the volume from snooker commentator to, say, cocktail waitress, will they?

Why is it that the average spa's music system playlist is firmly stuck in the bad early-1990s, during that preposterous “new age” period after the acid-house boom but before the upscale scented candle boom? Why do we always get massaged to the bleating, aural kapok of Enya and Enigma and those ubiquitous, Peruvian sodding panpipes? Why don't they see that it's a man lying face down on the upholstered slab and give us some Elgar, Beethoven, Chopin or Ryuichi Sakamoto? Why not a selection of Bowie's instrumentals from his Low/Heroes period? Why not William Orbit or Kraftwerk? Why not the sound of newborn babies gurgling, the soporific white noise of an unattended hotel telly, or Scarlett Johansson softly reciting passages from Proust?

Then there's the overwhelming feeling of disappointment and pointlessness that comes when you get a masseur who doesn't work your soft bits hard enough. You know this from the very first touch when his/her pressure is akin to a tentative stroke of a friend's new puppy. Great, you think. Now I am going to have to lie here for the next hour, with no trousers on, basted like a Christmas turkey, bloody Enya simpering away in my ear, while some failed hairdresser rhythmically tickles away at my flabby parts as if petting a consumptive hamster.

I don't think women have this sort of trouble when they spa. (The word “spa” has become a verb, joining “summer” and “party” - dreadful). They just cruise into a pre-ordained spa sisterhood, completing a business-like introduction at reception, and changing into the provided dressing gown before wafting through into the warm womb of planet pamper beyond.

Why don't men know how to spa? Well, we feel awkward, adiposal and clumsy. We feel vaguely absurd, incongruous and, frankly, rather appalled that we have surrendered to that chink in our masculinity that is required to get us through the door of one of these establishments.

If we sign up for treatment at a mixed facility, the experience is never anything less than sweat-inducingly humiliating. The girls on the reception desk appear to be making fun of us as we fill in the health questionnaire, the throwaway sandals are at least four sizes too small, and the gown is comically short in the leg and arm. We don't have the nous to say exactly what we want because we don't want to appear overly expert in such arrant girliness.

It is almost impossible to make things pleasurable for any man who isn't a spoilt, self-serving, over-indulgent Premier League footballer. The environment is skewed towards the type of narcissism that makes most men squirm. We simply do not know the form, and to cover our arses (quite literally, in those shorty gowns), we start to act like nervy, cowed saps, doing as we are told and never asking any questions.

We certainly can't relax. If it's a massage that we are in for, we are concentrating so intently on not farting or entering a state of visible arousal that our bodies tense up like England footballers during a semi-final penalty shootout. That is bad enough if the person doing the massage is a woman. If it's a man's fingers on us, the tension is trebled.

I tell you all this drawing on some not inconsiderable experience. As a former editor of a health and fitness magazine and a former male grooming columnist for a newspaper, my reflexologised, pedicurised plates of meat have spent more time in disposable flip-flops than I would care to admit, and for a worrying period in my mid-thirties I was clocking up about three treatments a week.

Some of it was actually good fun. Some of it was even vaguely beneficial. At Champneys health spa in Tring, I spent a highly amusing afternoon in the company of Ian Wright and Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne (a physically bipolar sort who adopted the train/cane method of intensive boozing followed by intensive detoxing). Both men appeared to be living at this old-school health farm full time and sneaking glasses of dry white wine into their rooms to wash down the alfalfa sprouts and mashed yeast lunches on which they were forced to subsist. Wrighty was particular unhappy with the arrangement. “I don't really like vegetables,” he told me. Then again he also appeared to be as fit as the proverbial meat vendor's canine.

At various spas around the world I had colonic irrigation (disappointing), had my feet encased in benign ski-bootee things attached to a Heath Robinson-ish hydraulic device (why? Search me). I had my eyebrows threaded (not bad - I looked, oooh, several weeks younger) and I had lots of facials ... most of which seemed to give me spots. Two young women manipulating me, in carefully choreographed syncopation, for a four-handed “Hawaiian Wave” massage was a definite highlight, but the memory of the afternoon when I fell asleep by a deserted pool in Cologne hotel spa bed only to wake up half an hour later surrounded by naked pensioners apparently on some geriatric, naturist happy-hour deal, haunts me to this day.

What I found most frustrating about spa life was this: given that we occupy a world where lifestyles are increasingly homogenised, why hasn't the global spa fraternity come up with some form of standard operating procedure (OK - poor choice of phrase, but you know what I mean)?

Is it undercrackers on or off when a chap goes for a massage? Should we tip our therapist or will that make her feel like a zipless hooker? Are there any countries where it is acceptable to request the mythical “happy ending”?

Each spa is a law unto its pampered self. Once, for example, I had a massage in a Honolulu hotel where Polynesian spa protocol insisted that customers avoid eye contact with the masseur. Obediently, I entered the treatment room alone, lay face down with my face squashed into that padded-hole thing, while a female (I think) walked in and began to deftly drape my bare bum with a cotton throw, oil me up and begin her skilled pummelling.

When I turned over, she held the cotton sheet up above her face to protect my modesty and placed a warm mask over my eyes. After some more kneading she whispered her farewell and I heard the gentle hiss-click of the door closing. It was weird, a bit like being massaged by a pervy, faceless character from that useless Stanley Kubrick film with Tom and Nicole.

But do you know what? I loved it. This was a treatment with mystery, intrigue and an unseen hand. The hem of her crisply laundered trousers provided an astringent and gently erotic thrill. Read into this what you will, but I liked being told what to do. I liked the idea of there being rules and a strict code of behaviour.

At the beginning of Ian Fleming's Thunderball, M tells a haggard-looking 007 that he is out of shape and has to go off to a health farm - “place called Shrublands near Washington, Sussex ... Very up-to-date equipment ... even has its own herb garden.” Bond is indignant. He holds it together while he is in M's office, but when the door shuts and he is face to face with Moneypenny, the usually cool agent loses it. “I'm damned if I'm going,” he protests before threatening to give her such a spanking that she'll have to do her typing “off a block of Dunlopillo”. Mmm.

But when he gets to Shrublands, Bond rather enjoys the experience ... and you can see why. It's a slightly institutionalised, vaguely Teutonic facility with lots of girls in taut, sexy uniforms. Bond does as he is told and gets the odd “invigorating rubdown”. He is treated like somebody who wants to be rejuvenated and spruced up instead of someone who wants to smell like Coleen Rooney's knicker drawer and flounce around in a girl's housecoat.

The closest thing to a James Bond-style rubdown that I have come across recently is available at Gentlemen's Tonic, a men-only grooming spa with branches in Mayfair and at Selfridges. At reception a man in a black tunic put me at ease by talking to me about my bicycle. A nice, no- nonsense woman took me on a brief tour of the individual haircutting and wet-shave rooms. There was no robe to put on and I was told to keep my pants on. I was massaged using a tried-and-tested “Swedish” technique - no Hopi Indians or scented candles here.

Best of all, Gentlemen's Tonic is in a smart cobbled mews that is also home to the bespoke tailor Timothy Everest and, best of all, directly opposite the Guinea Grill, a nice posh boozer that is known for its award-winning steak-and-kidney pies. I am pleased to report that your male grooming hack's post-massage pie and retoxing pint went down an absolute treat.

Tags: Real Men Don't Like Spas?, Times UK, masculinity, great men, self care, pampering, Simon Mills, humor