Alan Watt’s Backwards Law And 3 Ways It Can Help With Your Mental Health

“When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float’ and that ‘insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.”

- Alan Watts

I’ve been rereading some Alan Watts. If you don’t know who Alan Watts is, I suggest you read or listen to his many books or talks.

One of his more famous thoughts is the “backwards law,” which is nicely summed up in the quote above. Essentially the more you try and grab a hold of something, the more it slips through your fingers.

His “backwards law” is not an original thought by any means. Its origins come directly from the Tao Te Ching or Zen Buddhism. But like a lot of famous white male philosophers of recent times, he has made it more understandable to a Western audience.

So how does this apply to mental health? I can think of several ways:

1) Happiness- Many people’s parents tell them “I just want you to be happy.” I know parents mean well, but it can create an unrealistic impression for a lot of us and a source of shame. It means that if we don’t feel happy, then we feel shame because that’s all anyone has ever wanted for us, and yet we can’t achieve it still. We become failures.

I see this a lot with many of my patients… the constant striving to be happy and how that continually makes the patients unhappier. I think what the Tao or backward law can teach us is…