In my work as a psychotherapist, I often present the idea of external-internal feedback loops. I find it helpful to understand how these loops begin and are maintained.
To illustrate what I mean by feedback loops, let me share a story. When I was a kid, I was rather nerdy. (OK...still am.) I was smart but physically awkward — at least, when it came to sports. My friends, by contrast, were athletically gifted.
Throughout elementary school, I was usually picked last for teams. I
couldn't play baseball, soccer, or basketball as well as my peers. Through
repeated experiences of striking out or dropping a ball or missing a goal,
I concluded that I was indeed deficient as an athlete.
Over time, sports became a source of intense anxiety. I would often become so nervous that I would strike out at softball or miss an easy fly ball. My confidence plummeted. The more I played sports, the more of a failure that I felt. An external-internal feedback loop had formed. My sports gaffes (external) eroded my confidence (internal); my lack of confidence led to more gaffes.
Things went on like this for years. Then, when I was fifteen years old, I took a trip to Utah for a wilderness Outward Bound trip. It was one of the first times I had stepped outside of my New York environment.
While I was on the trip, a fascinating thing happened. One day, someone referred to me as a "jock" (slang, at the time, for an athlete.) I was floored by this, and questioned the person. He saw me as an athlete? Yes, he did. So did some others. In fact, I learned that almost everyone on the trip assumed that I was a team captain or something of that sort.
What a shock! What were they seeing?
The experience began to break the old feedback loop. My mind began to shift and consider new perspectives. Perhaps I wasn't very skilled at baseball and basketball. But I could hike and rappel and navigate a set of whitewater rapids pretty well. Perhaps I wasn't a failure at athletic things after all!
Shortly after returning from that trip, I met someone in my high school who introduced me to lacrosse. Soon thereafter, a friend and I set up our high school lacrosse program and became co-captains of the team. I gained confidence in my abilities (however moderate they might have been), and worked to build them. A new feedback loop began to form.
As the years went on, I found athletic activities that I enjoyed — rock climbing, hiking and scrambling, tossing around a lacrosse ball. I'm probably still quite poor at baseball...but I have confidence that even in that area, I could likely develop my skills with practice. The old feedback loop has been replaced to a large degree.
A Shift of Vision
Now, in that case, feedback from other people helped me to break that old feedback loop. But what happens when we can't find other people to hold a new vision of us? Or what if everyone around us simply reinforces the old cycles?
In those cases, we ourselves can weaken the feedback loops by looking within. This takes some practice. It is not always easy. But it can produce powerful results.
A Course in Miracles teaches that within us is a treasure-trove of spiritual strength, warmth, and inspiration. No matter what has happened to us in the world — or what is happening to us in the world — our inner treasure is unaffected. A thousand strike outs do not diminish this treasure. A hundred relationship failures don't affect it. No matter what we have — or have not — done in our lives, our inner treasure is intact.
Because of this, it is a powerful practice for us to shift our vision (at least for a moment) from external, worldly things to this inner, always-present gift. As we shift our vision, we begin to break up the self-defeating feedback loops that have formed in so many areas of our lives.
When I was fifteen, I had no idea that I had the potential to become a co-captain of a sports team. The idea would have been laughable. But then some other people looked within me, and saw my potential. Their vision helped me to shift mine.
We can do this for ourselves, even if there is no one around to support us. The key is to recognize when we're caught in a feedback loop, and make that shift of vision.
If you find yourself looking back at a relationship that didn't work, or a creative project that floundered, or a work challenge that didn't go well — and you realize that you're evaluating your worth or potential based on that — you might want to stop and say:
This worldly event does not affect my inner treasure.
I am a child of God. I have so much within me.
I have so much to give away.
And then give yourself a few moments to touch that inner treasure. As you connect with the gifts within, the old, self-defeating feedback loops will begin to weaken. What are a few lost pennies to a philanthropist? The pennies are meaningless before the philanthropist's reserves.
We too have great reserves — inner reservoirs of wisdom, inspiration, and spiritual warmth. These reservoirs can be hidden at times, but they never truly diminish.
Shifting our focus from the outer to the inner — even for just one "holy instant" at a time — is all that it takes to begin the flow. The more we practice this shift of vision, the clearer our treasure becomes.
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For those who would like a more-structured approach to accessing these inner gifts, I can point you to a recent newsletter article titled The Power of Perspective. The last section of that article, called "One Approach" pulls together several practices from the Course. And needless to say, there are countless other methods for accessing the gifts within.
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Shifting our focus from the outer to the inner – even for just one "holy instant" at a time – is all that it takes to begin the flow.
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