#752 Returning to Being

     I strongly suspect that the vast majority of us constantly feel “driven” to do something, to be someone else, to be somewhere else, etc. If we have 5 seconds of "down time" don't we immediately fill it up with distraction, no matter how meaningless: check social media, text someone, have a coffee ± snack, smoke a cigarette, pop a pill, etc? And those who are severely traumatized, marginalized, and perhaps suffering from other psychological handicaps may even act out with irrational violence. We're rarely at ease, rarely OK with who we are, where we are, just being (instead of furiously doing).

     As we age, our ability to maintain this pace of trying to escape just this, right here & now, progressively diminishes. And guess what? Our world, as they say, gets smaller & smaller. We’re forced to contemplate, spend quality time with who we are & just this, right here & now - something we've desperately tried to avoid since we were kids. No wonder meditation isn't for everyone - we do our utmost to avoid being peacefully aware of reality. Of course, putting it that way, suggests that many of us could benefit from psychotherapy, and at the very least mindfulness training. Wisdom is a rare & precious commodity.
     More about this: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2018/04/may-you-live-with-ease.html

     Can you imagine being perfectly comfortable, equanimous, and deeply at peace with having: nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one else to be? This is stripping ourselves of all our conditioning, all that's extra, all that's not really who we are. Aging, as well as suddenly finding out that one has a very short time to live ("post-traumatic growth") tend to speed up this evolution of consciousness or maturation process, where we drop all our habitual bullshit and focus on loving well & living meaningfully.

     “Happiness is not found in things you possess, but in what you have the courage to release.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

Christi Belcourt "Revolution of Love" christibelcourt.com

#649 A Sudden Hunger, and then ...

     We often feel a tad over-extended; just outside our comfort zone; just short of coping - in a word, stressed. Nothing major needs to trigger this: our sleeve gets snagged, yanking us back when we're trying to "get ahead"; an inexplicable pain appears; even a brief period with nothing going on, so we're "bored". And sometimes it's not at all clear why we feel "off" or "out of sorts".
     Basically, when we sense that nothing's stoking our fire, we get scared! Will our fire go out? Yes, but please, not now! We start to see that our sense of self (ego) is like an idol that crumbles unless continuously propped-up with positive strokes. We foolishly depend on the solidity of this imaginary idol to feel relatively up, unafraid, oriented, peaceful.
     And how do we typically respond when the idol fails to be catered to by other people and circumstances? A visceral hunger arises - as if our energy were suddenly critically depleted. Annoyance / irritability / anger (born out of fear if we really look closely) may suddenly arise to energize us to bulldoze past life's speed bumps. Then we "get busy", with anything - any distraction will do - the most potent being addictions: junk food, caffeine, prescription meds, busy-work, smartphones, cigarettes, mindless fun, etc!

     Since life does NOT revolve around me (or you), it's actually normal for our individual egos to get random shares of positive, neutral & negative strokes. Though it's not at all personal, we often react as if it were.
     So for practical purposes ie sanity & quality of life, we need to work on letting go of such self-centeredness. If life does not in fact revolve around me, then I should learn to fully accept that, and not take anything personally. Sometimes the sun shines, sometimes the weather's ugly, & sometimes the climate is bland. There's nothing whatsoever personal, when we're getting soaked by rain, beautifully suntanned, or fried by a lightning bolt! 
     A wise meditation teacher once advised: "Only have no preferences!" Of course we usually do have preferences, but what if we hold these very lightly, in a huge container, and seamlessly accept the fact that things mostly turn out differently than we'd like, or even expect! Can we simply be curious, rather than desperately hope that "luck" is "on our side"? Whether we're "lucky" OR "unlucky" this time, does it say anything at all about next time? So perhaps we're not "special" regardless?

     The journey from egocentricity toward allocentricity is the ancient, well-travelled hero's journey towards wisdom and mature happiness.

#491 Holding Things Lightly in Awareness - Observing Change

     Meditation is often said to be "simple but not easy." When we first start to meditate, we're advised to sit still, yet we notice that we often suddenly move to scratch ourselves or make our legs more comfortable. Initially we tend to (mildly) rebel against this instruction & rationalize our not following it by arguing that one simply has to move, because ... Then quickly we may suddenly conclude "I'm no good at meditating."
     So even this tiny, initial fragment of sitting meditation practice provides a fascinating mirror by which to observe ourselves. Yet this mini-challenge, along with everything else, will change.
     The trick is not to struggle against it (against yourself), but hold it all lightly, in awareness.

Elena Shumilova  http://www.flickr.com/photos/75571860@N06/11874722676/

#490 A Safe Learning Environment

     We now appreciate the need to feel safe to be able to learn as well as to behave like civilized mature members of society.
     Stress impedes both learning, and the ability to make mature judgments. However, learning is inherently stressful in so far as the student (& we're ALL students) is never quite sure about what's going on - uncertainty, ambiguity, liminality is uncomfortable yet omnipresent - learning always comes with "growing pains"! 
     But as a society, we have a largely unexamined, yet very powerful aversion to discomfort. This learning / discomfort combo often results in emotional reactions. Teachers / instructors / professors & students blame each other for the discomfort.
     Of course teachers / instructors / professors also experience stress & its negative effects. They often care deeply for the material they teach, and may resent a perceived lower level of interest on the part of students. Teachers' memory of themselves as students tends to become idealized over the years. Teachers are also aware that course evaluations are important to their career and that students whom they discipline or give low marks to, will likely retaliate with harsh course evaluations. So teachers may also, at times - also out of fear / stress - react inappropriately to students. Such behaviour, though caused by fear, tends to be interpreted as "bullying" because of the power differential. Most bullying is probably at least partially fear-based.
     Students & teachers - everyone - can & needs to cultivate alliances rather than adversarial relationships. Individuals must clearly recognize when they're stressed. Self-awareness is critical, since one cannot care properly for another human being, as called for by an alliance, while one is afraid, angry & stressed out. A warm caring attitude cannot be faked nor mandated. It can only happen when fear & anger are gone. It's a shared responsibility, among individuals & groups, to cultivate caring, civilized environments fit for quality human life.
     Stress impairs judgment. Recognize & let go of fear & anger BEFORE you say (email, text) or do anything. This requires mindfulness practice, making mistakes, accepting rather than denying the mistakes, more mindfulness practice, making fewer & smaller mistakes, accepting rather than denying the mistakes, more mindfulness practice, making fewer & smaller mistakes, ... on & on for life!
     By becoming increasingly mindful, we cultivate a safe learning environment for ourselves & others. 
     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/11/blindspots-ethics-evolution-of.html
     and: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/04/316-fear-reactivity-mindfulness-mature.html

Safe Learning Environment?

#391 Comfort-seeking Moves and our Full Human Potential

     Sitting meditation is an ideal laboratory for studying ourselves. Under these controlled conditions of (external) stillness and relative (external) peace & quiet, we clearly observe a stunning array of inner activity.
     We see how we're continuously exerting energy to seek comfort. This constant automatic striving shows the pervasive dominance of the brain stem reflex. 
     The most obvious sign of this during meditation is the inability of most people to sit completely still for even short periods of time. They feel that it's impossible. As soon as they become uncomfortable, they "have to" move to a more comfortable position. When their nose gets a tickle, they "have to" immediately scratch it to become more comfortable. They assume that there's no choice in these matters - if one feels discomfort, one immediately has to react - brain stem reflex.
     A less obvious, but equally pervasive sign of this constant automatic striving towards comfort is the compulsive habit of "living in the past" or future. A large part of the time when we're (supposedly) awake, we're actually in the past - dreaming of the good old days, or wallowing in some miserable past experience; or in the future - fantasizing, or catastrophizing. Wallowing and catastrophizing are less obviously comforting than daydreaming about positive experiences, but these nevertheless do seem to provide something that's hard to let go of. 
     Perhaps the present moment is never perfectly comfortable - physically or emotionally (hedonic concept of happiness), and therefore our brain stem judges it unacceptable to inhabit continuously. So escaping the present moment is reactive, automatic (brain stem reflex) rather than a conscious decision.
     There are huge reasons for choosing to be fully conscious: to explore, embody & enjoy our full potential as evolved human beings (eudaimonic concept of happiness); and to avoid repeating & try to repair the horrors (wars, genocides, ecological devastation, Ponzi schemes, etc, etc) we've been inflicting on each other, animals and the rest of the universe in our long history of behaving far below our potential. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/09/hedonism-eudaimonia-important-concepts.html
     Sitting still in meditation, observing our urge to move, scratch, or otherwise react to a wide variety of mild discomforts, we practice accepting these without acting on these primitive urges. As surely as steadily practicing a musical instrument invariably produces a competent musician, meditation practice gradually and progressively rewires our brains so that we become less & less reactive, and increasingly conscious wise human beings.
     

Balzac's Cafe, Toronto, Distillery District, 2013

#333 Paradoxes & Head-scratchers during Mindfulness - Cognitive Dissonance

     "cognitive dissonance is the discomfort experienced when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel 'disequilibrium': frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc. 
     ... people have a bias to seek consonance between their expectations and reality. ... people engage in ... 'dissonance reduction' ... achieved in one of 3 ways: lowering the importance of one of the discordant factors, adding consonant elements, or changing one of the dissonant factors. This bias sheds light on otherwise puzzling, irrational, and even destructive behavior."     http://en.wikipedia.org

     As we become increasingly mindful ie more & more aware of what's actually happening all around us and within, we realize that we've been doing an awful lot of 'dissonance reduction' in order to distort reality to fit our naive ideas of safety, comfort, convenience, happiness etc.
     The puzzling statements about mindfulness that we initially discounted - "no, they can't mean that" - we increasingly realize accurately depict reality, but at the time, we literally could not - were not ready - to see it. Learning is iterative & experiential.
     As our practice matures, we become increasingly "more real". Reality is far less harsh than we feared, and the quality of our lives becomes better than we had hoped for.

     See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/06/intellectual-glass-ceiling-it-most.html

Dale Chihuly   http://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/

#297 Processing Obstacles to Meditation Practice, Cognitive Defusion, Attitudes, Moods

     After practicing sitting meditation for some time, one notices that the power of various apparent obstacles to this practice progressively, markedly diminish. Tickles, stiffness, muscle aches, mind chatter, obsessing over time, all gradually lose problematic intensity, and fade into the background, barely noticeable.
     Anything we perceive or think of, then focus on, and then quickly identify with, can become all-consuming, huge. This is exactly what we do by default, when we start to meditate, and this is precisely why most people stop meditating. Some people are simply not ready for cognitive defusion - letting go of identifying with transient attitudes & moods. To do so requires one to physically process (interoceptive exposure) ie sit still with & observe the temporary discomfort associated with not running from demons, nor chasing after magical solutions. Yes, it is very much like an addict undergoing detox.

     “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.” William James

     "An attitude is an expression of favor or disfavor toward a person, place, thing, or event." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_%28psychology%29

     "A mood is an emotional state. Moods differ from emotions in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event. Moods generally have either a positive or negative valence. In other words, people typically speak of being in a good mood or a bad mood." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_%28psychology%29 

http://stevemccurry.com/

#48 Engagement

     As we grow older, we increasingly encounter the complex real-life existential challenges of constant change, aging, sickness and death. We're repeatedly forced to choose our response: some form of avoidance (shutting down) - OR - full engagement (opening up).

     Avoidance behaviours are very common, easy, and lead to psychological difficulties. Engaging with reality is uncommon, challenging, and leads to a peaceful, deeply satisfying life.
     A major component of mindfulness training is noticing and accepting our own cognitive, emotional and physical resistance (avoidance) to even simple projects eg sitting still for 5 minutes. Under the laboratory-like conditions of this training, we learn experientially that it's our resistance, not discomfort, that causes most of our suffering. Acceptance of temporary discomfort, not judging it negatively, but developing a scientific curiosity about its changing characteristics, and persisting in the activity (eg sitting still for 5 minutes) becomes progressively easier, and more peaceful.
     Through mindfulness we learn to remain fully engaged, with valued current action, despite discomfort, (initially) to achieve long-term valued goals. With practice, the present moment expands, we learn to rest in the process, yet quietly, goals also are met. Mindfulness appears to be a training in full (mind-heart-body) engagement - wholeness - itself.

Photo Sonia   www.dpreview.com