The Second Arrow

January is one of the hardest, longest, most frigid months of the year.  After the sunny celebrations, festivities, and goal setting that comes with the holiday season, things quickly slow down and become impossibly murkier, colder, and all around bleaker.  After a mere week or two January notoriously begins to lose momentum:  Resolutions run off the rails, seasonal affective disorder starts to set in, and that looming feeling that can only be described as “January funk” begins to lead you down a long, twisting path to nowhere. 

Indeed, January can be infamously difficult.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s taken a lot of introspection, reading, and relentless practice, but through personal experience I’ve found that simply naming this inevitable reality about the first month of the year can actually be immensely helpful.  So here it is:

January can be rough.  In fact, it actually kind of sucks.

As with most of our emotions, giving language to how we feel and why feel that way plays a significant role in creating the foundation we need to process things differently and make a necessary change.  Does naming something necessarily fix it?  Well, no:  Just calling January a crotchety curmudgeon doesn’t make the days any less dreary or the nights any less cold and infinite. 

But do you know what naming January as sucky does do?  It gives you power to recognize what’s specifically bothering you, it lends you language to identify and validate your emotions, and it provides the foundation you need to start thinking through possible alternate ways of being.

Because I’ve long ago labeled January as challenging, I’ve intentionally set myself up for success and prematurely identified solutions to barriers I know will prove challenging.  For example, winter in Minnesota can be particularly brutal, and without the bright lights and innate cheer of the holiday season, January can quickly begin to feel dark, empty, and devoid of greater meaning.  But, because I’ve recognized this trend in myself and named this tendency, I am better able to fortify myself against its deleterious effects. 

So, what are some of the tools I consistently turn to in my metaphorical toolbox when I find myself feeling stuck?  Well, for starters I always make sure I get outside (even if for just a few breaths of fresh air!), move my body, and stimulate my brain. 

While the first two items are pretty self-explanatory, for me stimulating my brain mostly takes the shape of reading, watching, or listening to something that gets me thinking in new, unprecedented ways.  And because I have a growing puppy that is always brimming with energy, I’ve taken to religiously listening to podcasts on our many walks, jaunts, and excursions.  As I’ve shared before, Brené Brown’s two podcast series are some of my favorites, but I’m also particularly fond of Glennon Doyle’s We Can Do Hard Things.  Glennon and crew are always thoughtful, honest, and painfully self-aware, and the various topics they discuss and advice they give is often exactly what I need to hear. 

This was the case earlier this week when I listened to Glennon’s podcast with Dr. Laurie Santos, beloved professor of Yale’s now legendary “happiness course,” The Science of Wellbeing.  The class is Yale’s most popular course in over 300 years and has been adapted into a free Coursera program that has been taken by over 3.3 million people to date.  With good reason, too:  Everyone ultimately wants to be happy, but the vast majority of us don’t even know where to begin.  Dr. Santos, an expert on human cognition and the cognitive biases that impede better choices, defines, deconstructs, and reframes what happiness is so she can better situate her students on the path of making wiser choices that ultimately lead to a life of increased awareness and fulfillment. 

This podcast is incredible and contains multitudes of wisdom and real, tangible suggestions geared towards taking action:  I highly recommend it to any and all who are willing to give it a listen.  However, one of the concepts I found most striking – and that resonated with me most strongly – was an idea Dr. Santos introduced around the parable of the second arrow.

The parable of the second arrow posits that we actually have more control over our reality than we think, and it helps us navigate negative emotions in a healthier, more productive way.  It goes a little something like this:

One day Buddha was talking to his followers, and he asked them their opinion on the following.  “If you’re walking down the street and suddenly get hit by an arrow, is that bad?”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his followers responded with a resounding “Yes!  Duh.”

So then Buddha asked, “Okay, so if you actually got hit with not just one arrow but two arrows, is that worse?”

To which, again unsurprisingly, his followers responded:  YES, Buddha! Duh.  Are you okay, man?!”

Buddha, ever the wise analogist, goes on to say that the first arrow is something you can’t control:  It represents the circumstances that inevitably happen and hurt you in life.  Whether you lose your job, experience a bad breakup, receive a life-altering medical diagnosis, or live through a global pandemic, life is filled with countless “first arrows” that simply happen to us and fall squarely outside our realm of control. 

The second arrow, however, is your reaction to that first arrow:  It’s how you choose to respond, show up, and continue to either dwell in the pain or use it as an opportunity to learn and move on.  The good and bad news with this is that while Buddha says the first arrow is outside of our control, the second arrow – again, our reaction –sits squarely on our shoulders as something we are directly accountable for.  In other words, the second arrow is on us, and we are often painfully jamming ourselves with it for no good reason.

Think about it for a moment:  This happens all the time.  For instance, envision you have a coworker who makes a mistake or does something that upsets you at work.  Perhaps it’s frustrating, maybe even debilitating in the moment, but it’s squarely outside your control:  This is the first arrow.

But then suddenly it’s six hours later and you’re complaining to your family about this coworker at the dinner table, airing your frustrations like dirty laundry and going into painstaking detail about how they’ve wronged you beyond repair.  Instead of being present in the moment and enjoying a nice meal, you’re intentionally self-sabotaging your reality; rather than walking down the street and getting hit by one arrow, suddenly you are getting hit by two.  (Which, as you may recall, we’ve all unanimously agreed is bad.  Duh.)  Indeed, rather than getting hit and moving on, now we are intentionally dwelling in the hurt and stabbing ourselves with the second arrow, over and over again.

Ouch.

Just as there’s value in naming January as difficult for you, there’s equal power in recognizing when you’re actually stabbing yourself with your own second arrow.  Because, guess what:  When we know better, we do better, and when we name the things that don’t serve us, we ultimately give ourselves permission to be free and move on.  Instead of trying to deny or fix our experiences, we empower ourselves to allow, recognize, and inevitably get unstuck.  With this approach, suddenly we’re more equipped to identify what we’re feeling, sit in the discomfort for a moment or two until we’ve processed what we’re feeling, and then move forward instead of allowing ourselves to wallow in the perceived injustice of what just happened to us, doubtlessly marring our days – and likely others’ too – in the process.

Powerful, right? 

So, whether it’s naming January as the obnoxious little bugger it is or recognizing your second arrow so that you’re not repeatedly stabbing yourself with your own ruthless form of self-sabotage, I truly believe there’s power in giving language to what we’re feeling so we can honor our experiences and reimagine what could be possible in our next steps. 

As for me, I think January sucks.  And I also believe that the future is bright and I’m fully equipped to make the most of it.

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