TED | 你不必要强迫自己积极向上

中文讲稿

00:13

大家好。Sawubona。我来自南非， 「sawubona」是祖鲁语里的 「你好」。背后有一个有力而美丽的意图。因为「sawubona」字面翻译是， 「我看到你，因为过见你， 我感受到彼此的存在。」 想像受到如此的欢迎是如此美丽。 

但是，我们如何看待自己呢？如何看待那些帮助我们在这个日益複杂和焦虑的世界里茁壮成长的想法、情绪和故事呢？

这个至关重要的问题是我一生工作的核心。因为我们如何处理内心世界会驱动著我们的一切。我们的一切所爱、如何生活、如何为人父母，及怎样率领他人。

传统的观点认为情绪有好有坏， 有正面有负面， 看似死板。以僵化的态度面对 错综複杂的问题是有害的。我们需要更大限度的情感灵活性 来支持生命的韧性和茁壮成长。

我的使命不源于神圣的大学殿堂， 却扎根在杂乱与温柔的生活中。我在南非种族隔离时期的 白人郊区长大，一个常常被忽视、被否认的国家和社区。这个否认，使 50 年后的种族主义立法成为可能，而人们却相信自己没有做错任何事。然而，我第一次真切体会到被否认的破坏力，远在我明白自己出生的国家正在发生什么事之前。

我父亲在一个星期五去世了。当时他 42 岁，而我 15 岁。在返校前，母亲低声对我说，去和你的父亲最后道个别吧。于是我把背包放下，走过一条通道，去到屋的中心，那里躺著因癌症而病危的父亲。他的眼睛虽然闭上，但他知道我在那里。在他面前，我总可感觉到被看见。我告诉他我爱他，说完再见，开始了新的一天。

当父亲从世界上溜走的时候，我在学校裡，从科学学到数学，从历史学到生物，从五月过到七月， 七月过到九月，九月再到十一月，我都是带著平常的笑容渡过。与之前没有什么大的分别。

当我被问到最近怎麽样时， 我会耸耸肩说：「我很好。」我的坚强受到表扬。我太善于假装「我很好」了。但回到家里，我们就得挣扎维持生计。

在爸爸生病的期间，他无法一直维持他的小生意。母亲因失去了生命中的爱人而悲痛万分，因为往后只靠她一个人了，还要设法抚养三个孩子，而且债权人还追上门来。我们的家庭遇上了经济和情感的灾劫，我开始飞速地坠落深渊和感到孤立。开始用食物来麻醉自己的痛苦。用暴饮暴食来淨化内心。拒绝接受沉重的悲痛。

在一种鼓吹无情文化的社会中，没有人想知道我的故事， 我以为真是没有人想知道。但是有一个人， 并不相信我刚强的外表。她是八年级的英语老师， 她用灼热的蓝眼睛盯著我，拿出一本空白笔记本给我。她说，「写下你的感受。要说实话。只写给你自己看。」就这样，我被邀请真实地表达我的悲伤和痛苦。这是一个简单的行为， 但对我来说却是场革命。 

自这本空白笔记本开始的革命， 始于 30 年前， 塑造了我一生的工作。隐密而无声地自我沟通。就像体操运动员一样， 我开始超越内心冰冷的痛苦，来到了我现在所要说的话题，那就是获得拥有生命力的感情。生命的美丽与脆弱连在一起。我们还年轻，终有一天我们不再年轻。我们迷人地走在街道上，终有一天，我们意识到别人看不见我们。我们唠叨著孩子，终有一天意识到那个曾经沉默的孩子，现在正面向著世界。

我们是健康的，直到被诊断出疾病而受挫。唯一的确定就是不确定，但是我们未能成功地、永续地驾驭这种脆弱。世界卫生组织告诉我们 抑郁症现在是全球导致残疾的主因之一，超过癌症，也超过心脏病。

在更加复杂的时刻里，在前所未有的技术、政治和经济的变化中，我们看到人们倾向于强化严格控制情绪的反应。一方面，我们或许痴迷于我们的感情， 执著于脑中， 自以为总是正确的， 或者被某些新闻所伤害；另一方面，或许我们把情绪推到一边，只表现出那些看似正常的情绪。

在最近与七万多人进行的调查中，我发现我们当中三分之一的人，有三分之一的人，认为自己有所谓的「坏情绪」，像心情糟糕、愤怒甚至悲伤；或者主动推开这些感觉。

我们不仅对自己这样做，对我们所爱的人做， 像对我们的孩子，我们可能在无意中羞辱他们，将他们的情绪视为负面的，急切地跳入解决，而没帮助他们体认到 这些情绪本身的价值。正常而自然的情绪 现在被分为好的和坏的。

道德正确的新形式是积极的态度。癌症患者被自动要求应该要保持积极的态度。女人被要求别那么生气。例子实在是不胜枚举。

这是一种暴政。这是一种正面的暴政。是残酷的、 刻薄的，而且效果不佳。我们约束我们的情绪， 和我们约束别人的情绪。倘若忧郁、禁闭和虚假的正面有个共通点， 那就是它们都是僵化的回应。

如果我们从种族隔离政策无可避免的崩溃能学到一个教训， 那就是死板的否认起不了作用。那是不可持续的，对于个人、家庭， 及社会都如此。

我们看到冰盖的融化对这个星球来说是不可持续的。抑制情绪的研究表明当情绪被推到一边或被忽视时，就变得更顽强。

心理学家将这种放大效应看作像是放在冰箱里的美味巧克力蛋糕，你越试图忽略它..…（笑声）馋嘴的你就更加忍不住。

你可能会认为，要控制情绪，忽略它就可以了，但实际上它们会控制着你。内部的痛苦总要释放出来。

总是。谁要付出代价？

我们付代价，我们的孩子付，我们的同事付，我们的社区也付。

不要误解我的意思，我不反对幸福快乐，反而喜欢快乐。我是一个非常开心的人。但当我们抛弃正常的情绪拥抱错误的积极性时，我们就失去培养应对技能来处理现今这样的世界事务，不是我们所希望的世界那样。

有数以百计的人告诉我 他们不想要什麽样的感觉。他们这样说：「我不想尝试，因为我不想感到失望。」 或者「我只想让失望的感觉消失。」

我对他们说：「我明白，」 「但是你的目标也是死人们的。」 

只有死去的人，永远不会感受到不必要或不便。（笑声）只有死去的人才会没有压力，永远不会伤心，永远不会面对失败带来的失望。

情绪的困扰是我们与生活契约的一部分。没有一个有意义的职业、养家糊口，或让世界变得更美好不需要面对压力或苦恼。苦恼是获得生活意义的代价。

那么，我们如何消除顽固的本性并拥抱机敏的情感？作为那个年轻的女学生， 当我靠近这些空白页面时， 一开始我是为了摆脱我的感觉和我应该经历的东西。后来变成开始对自己真正的感受打开心门。痛苦、 悲伤、 失败， 和遗憾。

目前的研究显示， 唯有学会根本地接受我们所有的情绪，包括混乱、艰难的情绪，才能重获成长的基石，才能获得真正的的幸福。

情感上的敏感性不仅仅是单纯接受情绪。我们也知道准确性很重要。

在我自己的研究中，我发现那是必不可少的。

我们经常用方便且简单的标签来表达我们的感受。我最常听到的是「我感觉压力大」。但压力和失望来自于不同的世界。或因「我从事错误的职业」而感受到恐惧和压力。当我们准确地识别我们的情绪时，我们更能够辨别出造成我们感受的确切原因。

正如科学家们所说，大脑中的准备潜力会被激活， 让我们采取一些具体的步骤，不是任意的步骤，而是正确的步骤。因为我们的情绪是数据。我们的情绪包含著我们关心事情的闪光。我们往往不会感到强烈的情绪，当面对那些在我们的世界里没有任何意义的东西时。

如果你看新闻时感到愤怒，那愤怒是一个路标，或许你重视公平和公正，它是指向可以采取一些积极的措施，能在那个方向塑造你的生活的机会。

当我们面对困难的情绪时，我们能够产生与价值对等的回应。但是有一个重要的警告。情绪是数据，它们不是指令。

我们可以挖掘和显示情感的价值而不需要听从它们。就好像是我可以在我儿子因为他的小妹妹而受挫时出现并陪伴他，但我不赞成他的想法，把妹妹送给在商场看到的第一个陌生人。

我们是情绪的主人，情绪不是我们的主人，当我们的智慧与内在的感受调合，我所做出的行动与价值观一致时，我们创造了通往最佳自我的途径，通过我们的情绪。

那么，实践生活是怎么一回事？

当你感到强烈和僵化的情绪时， 不要快速地为情感找出口。

先从心中的日记触摸情感的轮廓。哪些是感情告诉你的？尽量不要对「我很生气」或「我很伤心」回应「我就是」。你说「我就是」使你等同于情感一样。而你就是你，情感是一种数据来源。

而是试著注意它是什么感觉：「我注意到我感到难过」，或者 「我注意到自己感到愤怒」。对我们来说，这些是必备的技能， 对我们的家庭和社区， 对工作场所很重要。

在我的研究中，观察人们如何展现最好的自我时， 我发现强大的关键在于个性化的考量。

当人们被允许感受自己的真实情感时，参与度、创造性和新观念会在其中蓬勃发展。

不单人类具有多样性，人的内里也是，包括情感也多样化。最敏捷、具韧性的个人、团队、 组织、家庭和社区建立在对人类正常开放的情感上。这让我们能够说：「我的情绪告诉了我什麽？」 「哪一个行动会使我能达到 我的价值标准？」「哪一个行动会使我 偏离我的价值观？」 情绪敏捷是指 能够以好奇心、同情心， 特别是勇于採取与价值相连的步骤 来表达自己的情感。在我小时候，晚上醒来会有害怕死亡的想法。父亲会轻轻拍著安慰我和亲吻我。但他绝不会说谎。他会说：「苏西，我们全都会死。」 「害怕是很正常的。」

他并没有试图创造一个缓衝区，在我的想法和现实之间。我花了好一段时间才能明白 他如何引导我度过 那些惶恐夜晚的力量。他向我展示的是， 有勇气并不是没有恐惧， 勇气是在恐惧中行走。我们都不知道在短短的十年时间裡 他会死了。那个时候对我们 每个人来说都太珍贵、 太短暂了。

但当我们的时刻到来时， 面对著我们的脆弱， 在那最后的时刻， 它会问我们：「你情感敏捷吗？」 「你情感敏捷吗？」 让你在这一刻 毫无保留地回答「是」。与你自己的心终生沟通而产生的「是」。看你自己。因为透过看自己， 你看到对别人亦然：在脆弱而美丽的世界裡， 情感敏捷是唯一可永续的途径。 

Sawubona。谢谢你。

The End

英文讲稿

00:13

Hello, everyone. 

00:15

Sawubona. 

00:20

In South Africa, where I come from, "sawubona" is the Zulu word for "hello." There's a beautiful and powerful intention behind the word because "sawubona" literally translated means, "I see you, and by seeing you, I bring you into being." So beautiful, imagine being greeted like that. But what does it take in the way we see ourselves? Our thoughts, our emotions and our stories that help us to thrive in an increasingly complex and fraught world? 

00:50

This crucial question has been at the center of my life's work. Because how we deal with our inner world drives everything. Every aspect of how we love, how we live, how we parent and how we lead. The conventional view of emotions as good or bad, positive or negative, is rigid. And rigidity in the face of complexity is toxic. We need greater levels of emotional agility for true resilience and thriving. 

01:23

My journey with this calling began not in the hallowed halls of a university, but in the messy, tender business of life. I grew up in the white suburbs of apartheid South Africa, a country and community committed to not seeing. To denial. It's denial that makes 50 years of racist legislation possible while people convince themselves that they are doing nothing wrong. And yet, I first learned of the destructive power of denial at a personal level, before I understood what it was doing to the country of my birth. 

02:01

My father died on a Friday. He was 42 years old and I was 15. My mother whispered to me to go and say goodbye to my father before I went to school. So I put my backpack down and walked the passage that ran through to where the heart of our home my father lay dying of cancer. His eyes were closed, but he knew I was there. In his presence, I had always felt seen. I told him I loved him, said goodbye and headed off for my day. At school, I drifted from science to mathematics to history to biology, as my father slipped from the world. From May to July to September to November, I went about with my usual smile. I didn't drop a single grade. When asked how I was doing, I would shrug and say, "OK." I was praised for being strong. I was the master of being OK. 

02:58

But back home, we struggled -- my father hadn't been able to keep his small business going during his illness. And my mother, alone, was grieving the love of her life trying to raise three children, and the creditors were knocking. We felt, as a family, financially and emotionally ravaged. And I began to spiral down, isolated, fast. I started to use food to numb my pain. Binging and purging. Refusing to accept the full weight of my grief. No one knew, and in a culture that values relentless positivity, I thought that no one wanted to know. 

03:39

But one person did not buy into my story of triumph over grief. My eighth-grade English teacher fixed me with burning blue eyes as she handed out blank notebooks. She said, "Write what you're feeling. Tell the truth. Write like nobody's reading." And just like that, I was invited to show up authentically to my grief and pain. It was a simple act but nothing short of a revolution for me. It was this revolution that started in this blank notebook 30 years ago that shaped my life's work. The secret, silent correspondence with myself. Like a gymnast, I started to move beyond the rigidity of denial into what I've now come to call emotional agility. 

04:38

Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility. We are young until we are not. We walk down the streets sexy until one day we realize that we are unseen. We nag our children and one day realize that there is silence where that child once was, now making his or her way in the world. We are healthy until a diagnosis brings us to our knees. The only certainty is uncertainty, and yet we are not navigating this frailty successfully or sustainably. The World Health Organization tells us that depression is now the single leading cause of disability globally -- outstripping cancer, outstripping heart disease. And at a time of greater complexity, unprecedented technological, political and economic change, we are seeing how people's tendency is more and more to lock down into rigid responses to their emotions. 

05:42

On the one hand we might obsessively brood on our feelings. Getting stuck inside our heads. Hooked on being right. Or victimized by our news feed. On the other, we might bottle our emotions, pushing them aside and permitting only those emotions deemed legitimate. 

06:04

In a survey I recently conducted with over 70,000 people, I found that a third of us -- a third -- either judge ourselves for having so-called "bad emotions," like sadness, anger or even grief. Or actively try to push aside these feelings. We do this not only to ourselves, but also to people we love, like our children -- we may inadvertently shame them out of emotions seen as negative, jump to a solution, and fail to help them to see these emotions as inherently valuable. 

06:45

Normal, natural emotions are now seen as good or bad. And being positive has become a new form of moral correctness. People with cancer are automatically told to just stay positive. Women, to stop being so angry. And the list goes on. It's a tyranny. It's a tyranny of positivity. And it's cruel. Unkind. And ineffective. And we do it to ourselves, and we do it to others. 

07:33

If there's one common feature of brooding, bottling or false positivity, it's this: they are all rigid responses. And if there's a single lesson we can learn from the inevitable fall of apartheid it is that rigid denial doesn't work. It's unsustainable. For individuals, for families, for societies. And as we watch the ice caps melt, it is unsustainable for our planet. 

08:09

Research on emotional suppression shows that when emotions are pushed aside or ignored, they get stronger. Psychologists call this amplification. Like that delicious chocolate cake in the refrigerator -- the more you try to ignore it ... 

08:30

the greater its hold on you. You might think you're in control of unwanted emotions when you ignore them, but in fact they control you. Internal pain always comes out. Always. And who pays the price? We do. Our children, our colleagues, our communities. 

09:01

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-happiness. I like being happy. I'm a pretty happy person. But when we push aside normal emotions to embrace false positivity, we lose our capacity to develop skills to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. I've had hundreds of people tell me what they don't want to feel. They say things like, "I don't want to try because I don't want to feel disappointed." Or, "I just want this feeling to go away." 

09:41

"I understand," I say to them. "But you have dead people's goals." 

09:58

Only dead people never get unwanted or inconvenienced by their feelings. 

10:05

Only dead people never get stressed, never get broken hearts, never experience the disappointment that comes with failure. Tough emotions are part of our contract with life. You don't get to have a meaningful career or raise a family or leave the world a better place without stress and discomfort. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. 

10:39

So, how do we begin to dismantle rigidity and embrace emotional agility? As that young schoolgirl, when I leaned into those blank pages, I started to do away with feelings of what I should be experiencing. And instead started to open my heart to what I did feel. Pain. And grief. And loss. And regret. 

11:09

Research now shows that the radical acceptance of all of our emotions -- even the messy, difficult ones -- is the cornerstone to resilience, thriving, and true, authentic happiness. But emotional agility is more that just an acceptance of emotions. We also know that accuracy matters. In my own research, I found that words are essential. We often use quick and easy labels to describe our feelings. "I'm stressed" is the most common one I hear. But there's a world of difference between stress and disappointment or stress and that knowing dread of "I'm in the wrong career." When we label our emotions accurately, we are more able to discern the precise cause of our feelings. And what scientists call the readiness potential in our brain is activated, allowing us to take concrete steps. But not just any steps -- the right steps for us. Because our emotions are data. 

12:10

Our emotions contain flashing lights to things that we care about. We tend not to feel strong emotion to stuff that doesn't mean anything in our worlds. If you feel rage when you read the news, that rage is a signpost, perhaps, that you value equity and fairness -- and an opportunity to take active steps to shape your life in that direction. When we are open to the difficult emotions, we are able to generate responses that are values-aligned. 

12:41

But there's an important caveat. Emotions are data, they are not directives. We can show up to and mine our emotions for their values without needing to listen to them. Just like I can show up to my son in his frustration with his baby sister -- but not endorse his idea that he gets to give her away to the first stranger he sees in a shopping mall. 

13:05

We own our emotions, they don't own us. When we internalize the difference between how I feel in all my wisdom and what I do in a values-aligned action, we generate the pathway to our best selves via our emotions. 

13:24

So, what does this look like in practice? When you feel a strong, tough emotion, don't race for the emotional exits. Learn its contours, show up to the journal of your hearts. What is the emotion telling you? And try not to say "I am," as in, "I'm angry" or "I'm sad." When you say "I am" it makes you sound as if you are the emotion. Whereas you are you, and the emotion is a data source. Instead, try to notice the feeling for what it is: "I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad" or "I'm noticing that I'm feeling angry." These are essential skills for us, our families, our communities. They're also critical to the workplace. 

14:08

In my research, when I looked at what helps people to bring the best of themselves to work, I found a powerful key contributor: individualized consideration. When people are allowed to feel their emotional truth, engagement, creativity and innovation flourish in the organization. Diversity isn't just people, it's also what's inside people. Including diversity of emotion. The most agile, resilient individuals, teams, organizations, families, communities are built on an openness to the normal human emotions. It's this that allows us to say, "What is my emotion telling me?" "Which action will bring me towards my values?" "Which will take me away from my values?" Emotional agility is the ability to be with your emotions with curiosity, compassion, and especially the courage to take values-connected steps. 

15:07

When I was little, I would wake up at night terrified by the idea of death. My father would comfort me with soft pats and kisses. But he would never lie. "We all die, Susie," he would say. "It's normal to be scared." He didn't try to invent a buffer between me and reality. It took me a while to understand the power of how he guided me through those nights. What he showed me is that courage is not an absence of fear; courage is fear walking. Neither of us knew that in 10 short years, he would be gone. And that time for each of us is all too precious and all too brief. But when our moment comes to face our fragility, in that ultimate time, it will ask us, "Are you agile?" "Are you agile?" Let the moment be an unreserved "yes." A "yes" born of a lifelong correspondence with your own heart. And in seeing yourself. Because in seeing yourself, you are also able to see others, too: the only sustainable way forward in a fragile, beautiful world. Sawubona. 

16:36

And thank you. 

The End