Embracing Simple Joy by Overcoming the Mind's Sunk Cost Fallacy

Greetings,

The darkness is lifting and the equinox is eminent! Being human means that another challenge is on the horizon, however. This month I have been contemplating the frenzy of spring. Birds! Bees! Flowers! Sunny and dry one day. On the next, a heavy, wet snow storm. The emergent activity of life can feel overwhelming creating anxiety or causing us to freeze in inertia. A big aim in therapy is taking that which is overwhelming and complex and simplifying our understanding to elements that are the most relevant. Thus we are able to guide our actions, focusing on the few things that create the greatest outcomes.

Walk in the liminal space with us in this issue as we cover:

• Beyond the Mind's Conundrum: Rediscovering Simplicity in Body Awareness

• New Posts over at the Philosophy and Education Blog

• Hopes, Fears, and Salves: The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Beyond the Mind's Conundrum: Rediscovering Simplicity in Body Awareness

The body knows about the simple underneath the complex. 

The mind may label a million things that are happening including the “anxiety” in the body. The mind schemes how it will navigate the complexity, get its needs met, save face, and get all the work done. The mind thinks of the past and creates a future sometimes full of dread.

The body feels buzzy in the belly and tense in the chest, arms and legs. The body wants to be felt and acknowledged. 

The mind works frantically to “solve” the body. The mind wants to fix the feeling, to analyze it, name it, interpret it, and make it so that the feeling never happens again!

The body wants presence of mind so the cycle can complete.

And on and on the tension between the mind and the body continues. The body needs the mind and the mind needs the body. They are on the same team. But the ball is in the court of the mind.

The body is instinctual. It reacts to the world in a predictable manner. The mind, especially the modern mind, is constantly on the hunt for absolutes and shortcuts. “Never again will I feel this feeling!” “Have total inner peace with this one weird trick available for the low price of $19.99.”

The mind must realize that none of that will work, that the only path forward is to…feel within with dual awareness. Dual awareness refers to the ability to feel feelings and observe yourself feeling feelings at the same time, i.e. not being totally swallowed by the feelings but not stopping the feelings either.

That’s it. That’s all. 

It's so simple and the mind has committed itself in a conundrum so complex it faces the sunk cost fallacy. “If simplicity is the answer, have I been wasting my time with complexity? It can't be! How regretful.”

Of course, the path to simplicity is not easy. Essentially the mind must get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Individuals have varying degrees of challenge and complexity of defense systems that must be grappled with if they are to arrive at simple joy and contentment.

Ultimately, the conflict I describe is a sign of a house divided. The wounded child feels that it is her body who betrayed her and not the caregivers who lacked emotional competence (due to their own neglect in childhood). To recover from this split, the mind must learn the ways of the body and how to trust the messengers within.

This only becomes possible when we are ready to acknowledge that we have been operating with a false view of the world; that we may be prolonging this view to spare ourselves a period of feeling regret from not being able to change sooner. The sooner we allow regret and grief, the sooner we can step in to harmony with reality.

What’s New at the Blog

This month I felt inspired by philosophies and frameworks. I explored the many schemas that color my lens as a therapist. Frameworks in the therapeutic context allow us to discover alignment with what makes life flow with gratitude and fulfillment versus what interferes with that flow. When there is something in us that interferes and we become aware of it, we have the opportunity to transform that which interferes. When there is something outside of us that interferes, like illness or oppression, we must figure out how we want to relate to the reality of an existential obstacle. That could look like engaging in activism to provide a sense of agency or grappling with existential themes like death, the unknown, or that which we is truly outside of out control.

• THINGS APPEAR: PHILOSOPHY AND EMPIRICISM IN SOMATIC THERAPY

• LEATHER ON YOUR FEET

• TYPES OF MENTAL HEALTH PRACTITIONERS

• UPPER LIMITS AND COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: WORKING THE EDGE

• SURVIVOR BIAS: A HIDDEN OPPRESSOR

• TRIGGER LOGIC: IT JUST FEELS SO REAL

• TYPES OF DEFENSE MECHANISMS

• THE PAST REALITY INTEGRATION TRAUMA AND DEFENSE MODEL

• OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY:  A CLASSICAL CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATION FOR UNDERSTANDING MODERN ATTACHMENT THEORY

• COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS: SIGNS THAT A PART IS ACTIVATED

• CYCLES OF EXPERIENCE AND BARRIERS TO ALIVENESS

Hopes, Fears, and Salves: The Sunk Cost Fallacy

The sunk cost fallacy is when people make decisions based on the amount they have already invested, even if continuing the investment is not logical. It happens when emotions like regret influence decisions more than future benefits and costs. The fallacy arises because individuals focus on unrecoverable past investments instead of making rational choices for the future. An example is persisting with a failing adaptive strategy or defense mechanism just because a lot has already been invested in that behavior.

A common unconscious “investment” with which people attempt to persist is trying to “fix” or eliminate the feelings in the body. I do not make light of this. Sometimes trauma dynamics occur that create feelings in the body that are tied to extreme events. When someone feels the body feeling that reminds them of that event, the body feeling is interpreted as threatening.

One day, usually after a lot of work, someone finally realizes that the feeling in the body is just a feeling and not a threat. Then the person enters a grief process. They realize that they have essentially been free all along but that they have been mind-trapped in the extreme memory. This mind-trap caused them to live a less fulfilled and meaningful life than they could have during all those years and decades.

People sometimes avoid this realization because they do not want to feel grief and regret, thereby prolonging the investment in the unhelpful mode of being. I know this one well because I experience this dynamic too.

Hopes:

• That I become aware of places that I avoid improving my life because I want to avoid regret.

• That I commit to the here and now through presence and gratitude.

• That I become aware of the few things that make the biggest difference instead of being mislead into thinking that complexity will solve my feelings.

Fears:

• That I will feel regret.

• That I will be vulnerable to attack if I end my rumination and hypervigilance.

• That being direct and clear will expose me to disappointment and grief.

Salves:

• I can tolerate the sensation of regret and create a better story from lesson learned.

• Presence and gratitude are ends in themselves that feel so much better than constant rumination. I can handle myself in hard situations.

• It is better to tolerate momentary disappointment and grief than to live inauthentically.

No matter how far down the wrong road you’ve gone, TURN AROUND!

In Support and Reverence,

Liz Long Rottman, LPC, LMT