Last article we talked about how in a toxic relationship you’re forced to choose between your need for attachment and your need for authenticity.

I admit that this might sound touchy feely and cheesy. I mean, we obviously need food, water, and shelter, but do we really need attachment and authenticity? Authenticity sounds more like the luxury pursuit of rich white women on Instagram than a genuine need, amirite?

Given the amount of eye roll-inspiring hackery that exists in the mental health field, I don’t blame anyone for being skeptical. Still, though, in this article I hope to use the insights of evolutionary psychology to show how the suppression of authenticity in the name of attachment has profound consequences for your mental and physical health.

At the end of the day, having to choose between authenticity and attachment is basically the relational equivalent of being forced to choose between air and water. Here’s why.

Ever felt like you were losing your fucking mind in a relationship?

Like you tried everything to keep the peace, but it was never good enough? Like the other person never took responsibility for themselves and always found a way to blame you? Like you were always giving and the other person was always taking? Like you were crazy or horrible for feeling hurt, frustrated, uncertain, or angry?

Let's talk about why you're feeling such a lack of motivation right now, why it's so hard to concentrate, and why the days are dragging on. Let's also talk about what you can do about it. And while we do, it would be great if all you Instagram influencers out there could take some notes.

When I was 24, I left everything behind to go live in a monastery. I still remember my first night there: alone in my little room, with no distractions, no entertainment, and no people, the silence and solitude were so profound it felt as if they would swallow me whole. It seemed as if my every insecurity suddenly loomed before me. I seriously doubted my decision to be there, and I felt a loneliness unlike anything I'd ever experienced. That was precisely the moment at which I would have reached for something to take the edge off - a phone call to a friend, a sexual encounter, a TV show - except there was nothing to reach for. I was just stuck with it.

For thousands of years, yoga has been known to unite body, mind, and spirit through a combination of poses, breathwork, relaxation, and mindfulness techniques. For the past few decades, yoga has become widespread in Western culture and is commonly known to calm a busy mind and mitigate stress.  There are many reasons why practicing yoga and meditation could be beneficial to your well-being. Read on to learn the various ways these practices could help you. 

Name an emotion, and it has a function that’s been handpicked by millennia of natural selection. Unfortunately, our culture’s view of emotions is pretty unsophisticated. We tell people that having emotions is weak or shameful, which is about as dumb as telling someone that eyesight is weak, or that you should pretend not to have a sense of smell, or that using reason is something only sissies do. 

A part of me dies every time someone asks if my job is just to sit there and “listen to people talk about their problems.” That’s actually not what therapy is, but somewhere along the line, people got the wrong idea. It’s probably mostly Hollywood’s fault, although some blame can be placed on therapists who actually do just sit there slack-jawed for an hour and then take people’s money as if they’d just provided a valuable professional service.

For the first 20 years of my life, I stayed safely within my comfort zone. And, after gathering two decades’ worth of data, I can conclusively say that it was an awesome strategy for keeping myself miserable.

If you’re a human being with a pulse, the chances are pretty good that you’ve been overwhelmed by sadness, anger, or anxiety at some point. And while it’s not possible to just avoid negative emotions, there’s a lot you can do proactively to reduce your chances of being overwhelmed by them. 

I wrote before about understanding the nature of suffering, and so I thought the logical progression would be then to talk about its complement, the thing we do want – happiness.   If we accept that suffering is made of resistance, it holds that happiness is the lack of resistance.  If you look closely, you’ll see how true this is. 

Most people I meet seem to think that practicing acceptance will make you either a guilty bystander who colludes with injustice, or a slack-jawed couch potato with drool running down your chin. When I use the word “acceptance” in session, my clients look at me with wide-eyed terror as if I were suggesting they just roll over and die. Clearly, I have some explaining to do.

Like the proverbial frog on the stove, most people don’t realize they’re in a toxic relationship until things have gotten very, very bad. Unlike in a healthy relationship, where conflict gets resolved through open communication, conflict in a toxic relationship triggers destructive, child-like patterns of aggression and passivity, which tend to get worse over time.

As a kid, the holiday season meant opening lots of presents. As an adult, it means opening lots of childhood wounds during tense, awkward interactions with loved ones. I don’t know which is more interesting, but I definitely got more stoked about the presents.

Eckhart Tolle says “addiction begins and ends with pain.” More specifically, addiction is a compulsive attempt to escape from pain through a behaviour that brings short-term relief, but over the long term actually adds to the original pain and thus creates more need for the addictive behaviour. This pattern is called the addictive cycle. And it is tremendously destructive.

Dating is basically like a job interview. Except it can last several years. And either of you can just get up and leave at any time without explanation. And there’s sex involved. And unresolved childhood issues. Now that I think of it, dating is actually way more frightening than a job interview.

Imagine a partner who puts your needs before their own. A partner who demands very little of you, always does what you ask, and doesn’t bring up problems in the relationship. Sounds great, right?

Being human is hard. So hard, in fact, that the very first thing the Buddha had to say about life was that “existence is suffering.” That may sound like a downer, but it’s also a fact. Given that a big part of being human is to suffer, it’s pretty important to understand what suffering is — and how to deal with it.