#756 How and Who am I - Right Now? and Now? and Now?

     It's critical to keep tabs on ourself - often. Why? Because we drift & get lost - a LOT!

     "… studies on attentiveness show that people are only briefly & unpredictably attentive. Attention habitually diverts to unrelated thoughts & feelings, leaving any task at hand to be managed 'on autopilot.' These studies suggest that mindlessness ('mind wandering,' 'zoning out,' 'task-unrelated thought') is 'one of the most ubiquitous & pervasive of all cognitive phenomena' and that it often occurs unintentionally, without awareness, occupies a substantial proportion of our day, and leads to failures in task performance." Lovas JG, Lovas DA, Lovas PM. Mindfulness and Professionalism in Dentistry. J Dent Educ 2008; 72(9): 998-1009.
     And that doesn't even mention wallowing & catastrophizing - our addiction to the re-runs of the never-ending-story-of-me!

     So, CHECK IN - often & regularly: 

1. Where am I physically - right here & now?
This is to actually "land" from thought-world, to reality. 

2. How am I feeling - Stressed or Peaceful?
If stressed, is this beneficial (functional) in any way, or just conditioning? If your current situation is more appropriately handled peacefully (almost always), can I accept & gently release stress with self-compassion?

3. Can I shift into Authenticity?
Of course you can, no question. As soon as you let go of being stress - not feeling or having stress, but stress-as-an-identity - you return to being authenticity. Authenticity - who you are & have always been - is still, silent, at peace, and spacious enough to hold any & all of life's challenges, including your young frightened part ("poor,  hurt, needy me"), with unshakable equanimity & grace.
     This young part is a very small, temporary part, that reflects the effects of traumas & conditioning. It's nowhere near your actual identity, which is inconceivably vast. Don't take your young part so personally, so seriously! Hold it lovingly BUT lightly. Your authenticity is vast, fluid & completely untouched by life's inevitable ups & downs: gain & loss, status & disgrace, censure & praise, pleasure & pain. 
     Your authenticity can be compared to a wise, loving, nurturing grandparent or wise elder. Your young part can be compared to a three-year-old grandchild. The two have vastly different depths, scopes & capacities.  
     Who you really are is spacious enough to easily hold your young, beat-up part in safety & unconditional love. BE authenticity.

     “Inner peace doesn't come from getting what we want, but from remembering who we are.” Marianne Williamson

 

#608 Fearing the Shallows & Depths

     This morning, in a local jewellery store, I saw a collection of clay wall hangings, each with a woman's face on top, and a slogan, meant to be funny, below. On one of these was written:
          "Deep down, I'm really shallow!"

     This is dark humor - trying to deal with something that's actually terrifying. I think a large proportion of us, women and probably more so men, go to great lengths to remain constantly distracted so as to avoid seeing clearly who / what they are deep down. They fear that their own character / psyche / soul is at best shallow, at worst wicked. This is a hangover from the dark ages of clerics terrifying people with burning in hell forever unless they pay clerics to pray for them. How could, or indeed why would we live meaningful, dignified lives if we believe that we're "rotten to the core"?
     All the world's wisdom traditions have intelligent, educated, well-meaning, civilized representatives. Also, all have shrill representatives who've miraculously evaded a thousand years of human evolution, and misery loves company.
     Meditation practices are avoided at all costs by those who fear getting to know themselves (as well as those who gain by propagating this fear). In meditation we do directly experience the "shadow" aspect of ourselves - the less flattering aspects of our personality that everyone else clearly sees, but which otherwise remains hidden from us. But seeing & understanding our shadow has nothing to do with encountering "the devil". Becoming aware of this part of our subconscious helps us mature and behave as responsible, civilized adults.
     Fortunately, meditation also lets each of us directly experience the very best of human nature. Each of us, fundamentally, is kind, spacious awareness. This wise, mature, civilized aspect is amply able to hold the relatively small, transient shadow aspect.
     Mindfulness practices, which are all forms of meditation, are ancient, time-proven practices, specifically designed to foster human evolution of consciousness. In other words, we CAN intentionally promote our own psychosocialspiritual maturation - but ONLY IF we can overcome fear-based avoidance.

Bess learning from Gretel

#569 Clear Objective Self Awareness

     Everything we think, say and do has, or had, some perceived benefit in our life. Even the vilest, most reprehensible forms of human behavior have, or had, some perceived benefit in the perp's life.
     Mindfulness training helps us see, with increasing clarity, what we're thinking, saying and doing now, and whether our current way of being is appropriate to our current circumstances.
     The "momentum of our life" has a lot of momentum! But inevitably, our old ways of thinking, speaking and behaving become "old", losing both their charm and effectiveness. Objectively looking at these, compassionately letting go of what clearly was beneficial in the past, but is no longer, and trying better approaches makes perfect sense. Of course there will be things that we're already doing effectively - great, we can do more of these. 
     See clearly; be kind; do less of what doesn't work; do more of what does. Sounds reasonable.

Fort Beausejour by Robert Rutherford (2013)  www.fogforestgallery.ca

#540 What is Energizing me - Right Now?

     As soon as we wake in the morning, if we pay close attention, we can feel our mind & body come back to "full steam ahead", especially when we have something pressing or exciting to do. We can feel our mind-body revving up like a racing car immediately before the race. We 'get' this part.
     What takes a lot longer to realize, is that though it seems like we're always energized TOWARDS activities or people, in fact, much of the time the real motivation is AVOIDING more challenging aspects of our life. 

     It's immeasurably useful - healthy - to reflect on what we're running from whenever we find ourselves running.

     We do an awful lot of running, but "a life unexamined" is not an intelligently chosen life-long path.

          “Your vision will become clear when you look into your heart.
          Who looks outside, dreams.
          Who looks inside, awakens.”                             Carl Gustav Jung

#432 "I try, and I try, ... but I can't get No Satisfaction"

     "The desire for a more meaningful and authentic existence may be experienced as a vague sense of longing that cannot be satisfied by the attainment of external ego goals. Once the transitory nature of egoic satisfactions has been recognized, whether they are in the realm of material possessions, personal achievement, or interpersonal relationships, attention may be turned to inner development in a search for deeper meaning.
     Carl Jung suggested that the first half of life was appropriately devoted to external accomplishments and the development of ego, while the second half should be devoted to the inward journey and letting go of ego. Although healthy ego functioning may precede confrontation with existential issues in healthy human development, it appears that the process is not necessarily chronologically sequential. Ego development may be satisfactorily completed in early childhood, and a call to inner development can be experienced at any age. It is no longer necessary to make a choice between devoting oneself exclusively to outer or inner development. On the contrary, it appears that optimum well-being demands both. Perhaps if the inner life were not so badly neglected in the educational system, there would be less need for remedial work in psychotherapy in order to redress the balance between inner and outer development.  
     When inner experience has been ignored or repressed throughout adolescence & early adulthood, it can become a source of considerable pain, anguish, & existential despair. 
     If, on the other hand, existential concerns can be acknowledged in conjunction with one's work in the world, one may discover inner resources for guidance, inspiration & deep satisfaction that transcend the boundaries of isolated individual existence."

        Vaughn F. The Inward Arc. Healing in Psychotherapy and Spirituality. iUniverse.com Inc, Lincoln NE, 1995, 2000. 

     See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/10/408-deterioration-and-improvement-both.html

tko   www.dpreview.com

#375 Self-development, Self-knowledge, Wisdom & Overcoming Self-centeredness

     "Quests for self-realization, self-actualization, maturity, & autonomy, and even the quest for wisdom might initially be motivated by a desire for a stron­ger self, yet it is precisely through the process of self-development & self­ knowledge that people start to realize the illusory nature of the phenomenal self. 

     The self is not a substance, an unchangeable essence, or an "individual," but a construct that is created through social interaction. According to the liberative model of adult development, the self may be thought of as a construct of attachments & aversions, which need to be transcended. Self-transcendence can be achieved through nonattachment, patience, and in particular self-observation and self-knowledge. A person in search of wisdom will eventually come to the realization that what is conven­tionally called the 'self,' the 'I,' or the 'ego' is an illusion that enables one to construct a stable image of oneself. It is the attachment to the self that creates the ego. Through the practice of self-examination, self-reflection, & mindfulness the ego grows quiet, which allows a glimpse into reality beyond the self and consequently results in greater wisdom.

     It should be noted that wise people's selflessness is not equivalent to low self-esteem or low self-confidence. Maslow even maintained that 'the best way to transcend the ego is via having a strong identity'. A dialectical relationship exists between selflessness and self-knowledge insofar that only individuals who know who they are can over­come their self-centeredness."

         Ardelt M. Self-development through selflessness: The paradoxical process of growing wiser. in Wayment HA, Bauer JJ eds. Decade of behavior. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, 2008.

     More from Ardelt's chapter: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/07/wisdom-awareness-self-transcendence.html

 

#373 How Free is our Free Will?

     In the introduction to his short book “Free Will” (Free Press, 2012), Sam Harris writes: 
    “The popular conception of free will seems to rest on two assumptions: 1) that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past, and 2) that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions in the present. As we are about to see, however, both of these assumptions are false. 
     But the deeper truth is that free will doesn’t even correspond to any subjective fact about us – and introspection soon proves as hostile to the idea as the laws of physics are. Seeming acts of volition merely arise spontaneously (whether caused, uncaused, or probabilistically inclined, it makes no difference) and cannot be traced to a point of origin in our conscious minds. A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write.”

     When we devote no more than the odd moment to contemplate who we are, and how we relate to our environment, Harris is correct, we do remain locked into being thoroughly conditioned by our past history, genetics, etc. Conditioning powerfully, predictably programs specific responses to specific stimuli. Our default mode is indeed primitive conditioned reactivity - we live much (ALL according to Harris) of our lives on autopilot. Sadly, most of us behave based on the complex cocktail of causes & conditions of our past - our future 'set in stone' by our past - with no chance of creatively carving out new, qualitatively better possibilities. 

     The timeless exhortations to "Know Thyself!" and "A Life Unexamined is Not Worth Living" point to the power of conditioning to enslave, BUT ALSO to the fact that there is A WAY OUT of an otherwise pre-programmed, robotic existence.
     Einstein said, "We cannot solve the problems of today at the level of thinking at which they were first created." Since our "normal" level of thinking is conditioned, it cannot solve the problem of conditioning. Contemplative practices such as mindfulness meditation are designed to free us from the prison of conditioning by cultivating a more evolved level of awareness that leads to wisdom.
     "Wisdom is a function of deep insight into, and mature understanding of, the central existential issues of life, together with practical skill in responding to these issues in ways that enhance the deep wellbeing of all those who the responses affect." 
       Walsh R. The varieties of wisdom: Contemplative, cross-cultural, and integral contributions. Research in Human Development 2011; 8(2): 109-127.

eaglevshawk   www.dpreview.com

#334 Odd Statements, Self-knowledge & Addiction

     Many suggestions and statements in the mindfulness literature may - initially - sound odd, intriguing, puzzling or just plain irritating. We measure all information based on our current worldview and self-concept. If new information does not fit with our current worldview and self-concept, there's cognitive dissonance, which is uncomfortable. 
     We don't like being uncomfortable. So instead of creatively approaching novel information, we try to avoid new data that threatens the status quo: ignore it or reinterpret (distort) it to fit our preconceptions. Only as a last resort, do we elect to grow as a person, mature - upgrade, remodel & expand our worldview & self-concept to better fit reality. 
     There's an addictive quality to our opinions, concepts - including self-concept, and worldview. They have a magical spell quality to them - like a "lucky coin" we feel we have to carry in our pockets at all times - or else!!! We identify with these - we think that we are literally composed of these ephemeral "things". We fear ego-death when we contemplate upgrading our self-concept or worldview. But of course we don't disappear or become diminished in any way when we change our minds about any or all of these. In fact, we become more at home in the universe, the more we open up to reality as it truly is. It's a progressive unburdening to drop old superstitions and evolve as an intelligent mature human being.

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

#270 Interpersonal Conflicts - Inevitable Learning Opportunities

     "outbreak of interpersonal conflicts may originate from personal factors like cognition, perception, emotion, non-conscious needs, and communicative skills, or cultural factors, real differences, social and physical environments or the quality of the message given in the communication process. Conflicts among individuals are naturally inevitable, as they differ from each other, in every aspect of these factors. 

     Conflicts are a normal segment of daily life. Yet, to many, conflict is considered to be negative, as it causes disagreements, stress, social chaos and violence, and moreover, the most significant indication of a good relationship is accepted to be the absence of conflicts. ... positive aspects of conflicts are; it helps the individual in knowing themselves, enhancing their awareness about others’ characteristics, noticing the relationship problems that they need to solve, and encouraging change, increases energy and motivation for problem solving, making life more interesting, and help find small problems that are perceived as big issues. After all, it is obvious that conflict, can induce constructive results both for the conflicting person, and the person or the group that conflict is about. 

       Dincyurek S, Civelek AH. The determination of the conflict resolution strategies of university students that they use when they have conflicts with people. The Behavior Analyst Today 2008; 9(3-4): 215-233.

                    "Our deepest fears are like dragons
                     guarding our deepest treasures"                 Rainer Maria Rilke

Photo: fulviavecchia   www.dpreview.com