Body Politics: The Source Of McCain's Odd Body Language, And The Gift It Brings

Never mind that when John McCain smiles, it looks about as warm and inviting as a moonlit New England country graveyard.

Never mind that he exhibits more twitches, tics and jaw-clenches than the night shift at a meth lab.

Never mind that he's started having prison-camp flashbacks such as addressing the citizens of a rally as "My fellow prisoners."

A long campaign and economic uncertainty can stress out anyone, whether he's a 72-year-old presidential candidate or just some average retirement-age guy who's trying to keep nine houses and a dozen cars running in tough economic times.

However, when he came out with his recent macho swagger about fear, we felt it was time to intervene. Specifically, he gave a prescription for fear that is dangerous. It's a method of dealing with fear that will drive you nuts if it doesn't kill you first. If you missed the actual quote, he said, "I know what fear feels like...I know what hopelessness feels like. I felt those things once before. I WILL NEVER LET THEM IN AGAIN..."

Straight-Talk Expresso
We feel compassion for him and the circumstances that brought him to make the fateful choice to seal out his emotions. It's a serious problem for him health-wise, but when he seeks to inflict it on the rest of us, it's time to set him straight. Here's a shot of straight-talk expresso for John McCain: When you won't let yourself to feel your natural, organic feeling of fear, you get out of touch with reality. If you won't acknowledge the existence of fear, you can't tell the difference between what you're really scared about and what you think you're scared about. You don't have a clue about what's going on inside you. You don't know whether there's a real threat out there or just something your mind is making up. You think life is dangerous, but the reality is just the opposite: you're dangerous to life.

Being driven by fear forces McCain/Palin to run a campaign based on fear. Their goal is not to convince people that they have a better plan for the future, but to make people scared to vote for the other guy.

There are a lot of things people are scared about right now:
•They're scared about losing their homes.
•They're scared about losing their jobs.
•They're scared the Republicans are going to steal the election. In fact, we've heard several people say that they're praying for a landslide, because otherwise the Republicans will find some way to steal it. If you think that's slightly paranoid, you're probably not a Democrat.

McCain/Palin want us to forget about our real fears and focus on something unreal. McCain/Palin want us to be scared about what they want us to be scared about. They have an advantage, because the things they want us to be scared about are a lot more fun than the things we're really scared about:
•McCain/Palin want us to be scared that Obama is "the other,"
not like us, not a real American.
•They want us to be scared that Obama might secretly worship another god.
•They want us to be scared that Obama pals around with terrorists and gets his spiritual counsel from an America-hating minister.

It's more fun to be scared about those things because it gives you the opportunity to blame somebody else for the fear. When you point the finger at someone else, it relieves the pressure inside you. If we're scared about those things, maybe we'll forget about what we're really scared about. McCain/Palin are saying: it's a jungle out there, folks, and let's make sure we keep it that way.

As budding psychotherapists 35 years ago, we were taught the essentials of how to help our clients deal with fear. The key principle can be stated simply: what you resist, persists. If you hold fear at arm's length, if you seal it out of your awareness, you sentence yourself to living every moment in a prison of fear. The more you try to seal it out, the more it pervades your life. The stonewall barrier McCain has proudly built to keep out his fear makes him a prisoner inside his own arrogance. His stubborn unwillingness to let in the normal human emotion of fear makes him propelled by it. In the Pink Floyd phrase, he's "blown on the steel breeze."

This much we can tell you from working up-close with more than twenty thousand people: The only real solution to fear is to let yourself acknowledge it and feel it until it dissipates. Fear is natural. Your body spent hundreds of thousands of years perfecting it. It's there to tell you important things like these:
There's a potential threat--pay attention.
There's a problem I don't have a solution to--look for one quick!

When you're scared, look to see if there's a real threat. Figure out what the problem is and get creative about solving it. Get good at distinguishing between real threats and imaginary threats we make up in our minds. Don't use the McCain Prescription for fear, by shutting it out of your awareness. For the sake of his health and for the safety of the rest of us, he should take counsel from another war hero, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf: "Any man who doesn't cry scares me a little." That's a piece of useful wisdom, and it points to why John McCain scares a lot of people.

If we could counsel John McCain at this moment in history, when he has squandered much of the honor and good will Americans used to grant him, we'd embrace him, look him in the eye and say this:
"Go ahead and let yourself feel scared. It's normal, it's human and it helps you connect with the rest of us. When you feel scared, let yourself feel it. Breathe with it. Dance with it. Above all, don't tempt the universe by shaking a fist at fear and saying that you will not acknowledge its existence. Doing that puts you on a collision course with the forces of nature, like shaking your fist at thunder and saying you're never going to listen to it again. Instead, let your fear in. Speak about it to the ones you love. If you're out in public, speak about it to them, too. Ultimately, love is the best cure for fear. If you really want to have a great relationship with yourself and other people, love your fear just as it is, and watch the miracles that unfold as a result."

What happens when you let yourself feel your fear is that it opens up a direct connection to your creativity. The more you're willing to open up and embrace your fear, the more creativity flows through you. We would never have believed that remarkable fact until we experienced the truth of it ourselves and saw it work its magic on many other people.

An Integrity Problem
Being cut off from fear or any emotion puts you out of integrity with yourself. As one our mentors, Jack Downing, M.D., put it, "Integrity glitches cause body twitches." The source of John McCain's odd display of twitches, jaw-clenches and chilly grins is a fault-line gap of integrity at the center of himself, a place where he has cut himself off from fear and the rest of us. He wants to become a super hero, The Man Without Fear. That's not a bad idea for a cartoon, but in real life it would be a disaster. In real life, we need real heroes, people who are willing to acknowledge fear and look within it, to the gift it brings.

The gift fear brings is the opportunity to love it and thereby grow our capacity for love and creativity. Sometimes our fears get so great that love is the only thing that will put those fears to rest. We all need to become experts at dealing with fear right now. We need to let ourselves feel our fears in a spirit of loving acceptance, so that our willingness to embrace our fears opens the floodgates of creativity that we will need to solve the problems we all face.

There's a lot of fear in the air right now to deal with. To make matters worse, the McCain/Palin campaign is working overtime to increase the amount of fear in our lives. McCain/Palin's handlers know that the more scared they can make people, the more easily people can be manipulated into voting against their own interests and good judgment.

John McCain has been roundly criticized of late for sowing seeds of fear and hate. It's going to be hard to talk him out of that tactic, though, because it got George W. Bush elected twice. We don't know yet if McCain will change tactics again and try to convince us that the pit bulls he's unleashed are actually nice puppy dogs. We should be skeptical of this tactic, though, because as the old saying goes, you can take the lipstick off a pit bull, but it's still a hockey mom underneath, or something like that.

Follow Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GayHendricks

Comments

[Luisa 528]

The Hendricks article was acutely interesting from an academic prospective. But I found equally important my own visceral sensations as I watched McCain in the three debates. One need not be a clinical psychologist to see the discomfort with which the Senator from Arizona attempted to get a grip on what is the "reality" out there, and how isolated he is from that reality.
As the Hendricks said, "Integrity glitches cause body twitches." And this makes my skin crawl to watch.
My desire is for a world of proximity rather than divisiveness. A world where we are truly aware of our common source. Let us make the right choice this November.

[faster]

Fear has to be overcome. But to overcome it, you must face it, head on. Not dealing with it at all lets it go deeper and fester - then it gets worse, often worse than is realistic. Overcoming fear is difficult. It is not, however eliminating the fear, or smothering it in a remote corner of the brain, or denying its existence. It's there. It will exist. But if you overcome it, its paralyzing effects on you can be handled, once you know the extent of the fear, its cause and nature, and have proven to yourself that you CAN live with it without it controlling you or your life decisions. You can still look at it without timidity, roll it around in your mind, feel its dimensions and limitations, but its worst effects on you are no longer in ITS control, but in yours.

It isn't that we should deny our fear exists, as McCain does; he not only denies it to others, but to himself. This has prevented him from facing it, man to man, so he can take steps to overcome it. He never faced his fear. It festered, and got married to hate. The two, together, led to obsession. And one of the worst things about obsessions is that people who have them usually cherish them.

[Firehorse]

A brilliant article! Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us all!

[bodo]

McCain's body language in the second debate, the so-called town hall, is priceless. It should be shown again and again. The audience seemed actually afraid of him. People were shrinking back when he tried to approach them. His strange wanderings about the stage were peculiar, and Tom Brokaw actually had to repeat a question McCain had failed to grasp.

[Marnie1]

McCain is very much like my own dad was, He has built his own reality, his own universe and is profoundly uncomfortable when he has to deal with the Martians who occasionally land inside his protective shell and make him deal with the rest of reality.
He wandered around in his own fog bank. You could tell he had no sense of his "presence" or appearance outside of his limited reality.

In all the debates you could tell he had no sense of how he appeared to his audience. They existed for him to talk to. Not that he was there for them to weight and judge.

[VoteForObama]

Excellent article! You speak to the very essence of John McCain and why a McCain presidency would be extremely dangerous to our world, not to mention the Palin prospect.

[JLH68]

"In fact, we've heard several people say that they're praying for a landslide, because otherwise the Republicans will find some way to steal it. If you think that's slightly paranoid, you're probably not a Democrat."
I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but I am a Washington State resident. Our current Governor - a Democrat - "won" her (stolen) election four years ago, so yes, I'm slightly paranoid about the outcome of this year's presidential race, without regard to whether Obama or McCain "wins". I fully expect both parties to pad their numbers using every possible method; ACORN's latest shenanigans are perfect examples.

[sychodelix]

ACORN's shenanigans? Fraudulent voter registrations DO NOT equal fraudulent votes on election day. The Repubs are trying to equate the two, but the fact is out of all the voters probably less than 2-3 might get away with something fishy.

It's a lot scarier when Repubs decide to try flushing out voter registrations at the last minute after nobody will have the chance to correct any problems with them.

[Mugzi]

And there is another, election fraud with hackable voting machines by pro Republican companies, i.e., Diebold (or whatever they call themselves), Sequoia, etc. Regardless of who wins we definitely some election reform. No eligble voter should have to go through the gauntlet to vote! All eligible voters, regardless of race, creed, monetary worth, should be be treated equally with dignity and respect. Voting machines need to go! They are subject to hacking, not reliable..Our Canadian neighbors have paper ballots, pencil with counters oversight by both (all) parties and have the result by midnight! I can almost guarantee, we won't! The counters can be chosen like jury duty...

[jashu51]

Oh, that's right---those liberals in Seattle stole the election from Dino Rossi. Dino Rossi? Wasn't he a lounge singer in Tumwater?

[JLH68]

jashu51: I ran web searches for references to Dino Rossi performing as a lounge singer; the only remarks that came up were both yours, on this web site. Posting links to stories about his background as a lounge singer would be helpful here.

Before painting with a broad, sweeping "Repubs" or "liberals" generalization brush, one should understand where I'm actually coming from. By absentee ballot, I've already voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden; I also voted against Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire (D) for the second time. Out of twelve partisan races I'm eligible to vote in this year, I chose seven Republicans and five Democrats.

Since I became old enough to vote in presidential elections, I've selected Dukakis, Clinton, Dole, Bush, Kerry, and Obama. I was deeply dismayed by the fiasco in Florida in 2000, even though I'd (regrettably) voted for Bush; I was similarly dismayed by the way the 2004 Washington gubernatorial election was conducted and re-conducted.

The current Washington Voters' Pamphlet explains that policies and procedures have changed during the last four years, which indicates to me that there's a need to try to reassure a significant number of Washingtonians who believe the results of the 2004 gubernatorial election were questionable at best. I'm one of those, and might be labeled a "Repub" for the sake of convenience, but certainly not accuracy.

[rowzeer]

Repubs always decry voter registration fraud and yet say nothing about voter suppression which is MUCH worse.

People are paid by form for registering people so in order to make more money they fill out more forms. Acorn BY LAW is required to turn in all forms whether they suspect fraud or not. They themselves were the ones who flagged many of the forms as questionable.

Don't you think it's much worse to purge voter rolls? How do you lose your right to vote? Or try to keep people in foreclosure from voting? or sending mailers to military personnel with hispanic or black sounding names that come back undeliverable and using that to take them off the rolls?

Deliberate voter suppression and purging of eligible voters is much more rampant and much more despicable than some half hearted volunteer registering Donald Duck to vote. Now if Donald Duck shows up then I think we have a problem until then...NOT

[joelcomment]

McCain body language speaks of himself, who really he is and i think he need Psycho treatment to refine his gestures. (He's running for the President, hello!) There's something in him that he's struggling about, it shows in almost all of his appearances and campaign. anger, lies, temperament, fear of maybe of losing no matter how he tried not to be... but it is most likely to happen when you are really incapable to be "the one". It really shows!

[mfidelman]

I can honestly say that the McCain campaign has made me very afraid of a McCain presidency.

[jimidee53]

i'm with you re: a republican steal--somehow they pull a state out of the hat and win--makes me sick but strengthens me to back Obama even more

[suerudd]

McCain did NOT Twitch or look Strange at the Al Smith Dinner Speech when he could feel comfortable, not have to lie, and say what he wanted to....and maybe was not afraid?

See Second (lower) Video at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/al-smith-dinner-obama-mcc_n_135455.html

Unfortunately we never know which McCain will show up as President.

[rowzeer]

He DID look uncomfortable but not as much as he did during the debate.

[Andoy]

I'm glad to see this issue of McCain's twitches, blinking etc.are being discussed. It sends out signs that he is not comfortable with himself, and that raises concerns. We need a calm, rational person in that office. Perhaps these body signals are persuading many voters that it is something to factor in their decision.

[PShell]

have you read the article in Rolling Stone? Read it--it tells a lot about McCain--with only supported facts--no innuendo, no lies. It is on the internet and REALLY worth the time! I used to think, like many, that I liked the pre-2000 McCain. Now I understand he is the same old McCain he was in his youth, young adulthood, his old age--he is the most self-centered person who ever existed! It truly is McCain first, everything else after. He found a comrade in Palin. Frightening!!

[JohnNJ]

The Rolling Stone article is a must read for anyone planning to vote in November. It truly opened my eyes to who McCain really is - not a bad person, but certainly not someone you want in the White House. He's driven not by vision, but by narcissism and a feeling that the presidency is owed him. That, I believe, is the anger you see when he's face to face with Obama - 'how dare anyone try to deny me what is rightfully mine'.

[sychodelix]

He's thinking the same thing that Hillary thought about Barack. A certain HONEST minister summed it up very well..."There's a black man stealing my show!"

I still think that line is both hilarious and true. Unlike all the "offended" people, I have a sense of humor.

[PatrickforO]

This is very scary, to think this poor man might win the election. I've watched him degenerate physically and mentally over the course of this campaign, and not only does he not have the temperament to be President, but I do not believe he has the stamina either. Something seems about to break within him. It saddens me, but all the more reason to flock to the polls and vote for Obama.

[Snag]

Could it be a medical problem? If you have to gag your tongue out of your mouth it's not a good sign. This should make Palin even scarier to a lot of people. Did anyone mention it right after it happened?

[LightningJoe]

It's absolutely NOT paranoid, to think the Republicans are planning to steal this election. They had plans at one point, to send poll-watchers into predominantly Democratic precincts, armed with foreclosure lists, to make sure that recently foreclosed Democrats lose their vote as well as their home. Once their plan was outed, they said they "won't do it," but how far does anyone trust a Republican strategist?

They've also started preparations for stealing the NEXT election as well, setting up stories like the one about ACORN, implying (no, scratch that -- SAYING) that a few false registrations (that could never result in false votes!) are "voter fraud." Mickey Mouse may have filled out a voter registeration card somewhere in the country, but it's a sure bet that Mr. Mouse will never show up at a polling station.

The Repuglicans' ONLY hope for a resurgence in 2012 is to build the myth that the 2008 elections were "stolen" by the Democrats; and now is the time to start that disinformation campaign.

Republicans will not go quietly into that good night. They'll need some help with the door.

[klandish]

Shows how much John McCain "feels" for those Joes out there who might be getting foreclosed on. Take away their vote until he supposedly bails them out as president. That doesn't compute.