The watcher becomes the guardian

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Last weekend, my shaman was back in town to lead some ceremonies aimed at helping participants connect with their hearts in order to learn things about their nature that are buried deep beneath the surface. Last ceremony I participated in with her (click here to read about it), I had two key insights; one about the white knuckle grasp that I have on the reigns of life; and the other about the importance of turning inwards before focusing on making a difference in the world. This ceremony, the intention that I set was to connect to my heart in order to see what places of fear still exist within it. I try my best to operate from a place of love and openness, but I know that old wounds exist that lead me to close into a ball of fear instead of opening and risk being hurt. I no longer want this to be a part of me. The re-love-ution is grounded in love afterall.

As the ceremony began and progressed, I kept coming across an emotional blockage that would not let me through. Try as I might, I kept shutting down emotionally, much like I can tend to do in “real-life.” Frustrated, I turned to the shaman for advice. She told me to concentrate on the blockage, and to call it forward in order to see it for what it is. Instead of reacting to or shying away from it, I was advised to literally pause and bring it to the surface with a calm determination. I’m not going to get into what I saw about myself when I applied this approach – maybe some other day when I’m ready to share – but let me tell you, her advice totally worked. And it also brought about an epiphany about how calling an emotional blockage forward applies to the quieting of the mind.

The mind is a powerful entity that tends to dictate most people’s day-to-day experiences. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The first step to getting back power over the mind is to start consciously observing your thoughts. Literally just paying attention to what you’re thinking, especially when it comes to judgments about yourself or others. An approach that I find to be effective (click here for my more in-depth explanation of it) in making me conscious [of the nature] of my thoughts is to think of thoughts in terms of “white marbles” (thoughts that serve; i.e. non-judgments, thoughts of love, thoughts of kindness, etc.) and “black marbles” (thoughts that don’t serve; i.e. judgments; criticisms; hostility; anger, etc.). Once you start to be aware of the thoughts that you think, you can start shaping them to reflect the nature of the character that you wish to have. But how exactly do you do start exerting more active control over the nature of your thoughts? It’s a question that I’ve been struggling with.

For a while now, I’ve been trying to shoo-away thoughts that don’t serve me. But as the saying goes, what we resist, persists… and just shutting down or turning my back from things that I did not want to think creates feelings of aversion within me that just seem to give fuel to the thoughts. No, this isn’t the answer. Well, what if instead of reacting to thoughts with a [figurative] turning of the back, I pause to call them forth and actually take the [uncomfortable time] to see them for what they are? Now this is relatively easy in many instances – “I’m annoyed because I’m stuck in traffic. *Pause. Reflect* I really dislike just sitting and waiting like a sheep. I’m being brash. This is out of my control. *Act* Instead of stewing in annoyance I’m going to turn on some Neil Young and sing along to Old Man to pass the time in light-hearted fun.”

Where I find this approach gets trickier is when the thoughts are more closely linked to my sense of Self. You know the thoughts – “I can’t believe I just said that. Oh gawd I probably looked like a fool.” “My boss is totally not responding to my email because she hates what I sent her. It must have been crap.” “I shouldn’t ask this question/share this idea because it’s probably stupid.” “I’m not good enough.” These thoughts are the uncomfortable ones we complacently accept as truth and allow to negatively affect the way we see ourselves. But we need to face them because they’re just like those annoying ghosts from Mario Brothers – they keep following Mario the moment he turns his back to them, but the moment he looks at them, they freeze in their tracks. We’re all more than good enough. We’re all perfect, whole, and complete, especially when we let go of guilt, drop our pretenses, and just be the beautiful balls of love that we are. And the key to doing this is to start loving ourselves with the unconditional love that we extend to those that we hold most dear.

So now when these thoughts arise, I’m going to focus a beam of consciousness on them and call them forward in order to reflect on their message and to look for the truth underlying them. Are they tied to an insecurity? If so, they don’t serve me. Did I try my best in the situation? If so, there is nothing more that I could have done and the rest is out of my hands, so these thoughts no longer serve me as well. Do I know I could have done more or that the way I [re]acted was not reflective of how I really want to be? Well then let me briefly reflect (not dwell – but dissect, reflect, move on) on what I can do differently in the future. Now that the lesson has been seen, dwelling serves no purpose, and so these thoughts no longer serve me as well. Do these thoughts come because an action is needed from me? If so, what are the next steps and what is the most immediate action item? Now that I have a plan, swimming in these thoughts no longer serves me as well.  And so the watcher becomes the judge and the judge becomes the guardian of the thoughts. And so we disassociate ourselves from the thoughts and parts of ourselves that lead us to stand in our own way. The biggest thing that keeps us from being the person we want to be and having the life that we want is the way that we view and treat ourselves. How do thoughts dictate the way you see yourself and your surroundings? How do your thoughts rule your life?

“To observe the thought, the first movement then is to step back and look at it, to separate yourself from your thoughts so that the movement of the consciousness and that of thought may not be confused… [then] we must ourselves learn how to distinguish thoughts that are good from those that are not, and for that you must observe… like an enlightened judge – that is to say, as impartially as possible. Once the enlightened judge of our consciousness has distinguished between useful and harmful thoughts, the inner guard will come and allow to pass only approved thoughts, strictly refusing admission to all undesirable elements.”

~ Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth

Who/what am I?

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… ordinary human life, such as it is in the present world, is ruled by the mind… everything proceeds from the mind. In all things the primordial element is mind… therefore, the most important thing is to control one’s mind… to observe, to watch over, to control, to master…

~Living within – the yoga approach to psychological health and growth

Last month I attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat (Vipassana). Just like it sounds, the better part of my days were spent meditating – from the first sit at 4:30am to lights out at 9:30pm, with three break periods in between, and an hour (or so) long discourse at night. Holy tomolie! I know. Nothing else to do other than to close my eyes and try to observe what’s going on in and around me. “Concentrate on the sensation of your breath as it flows in and out of your nostrils and onto the area just below the nose.” Easy enough. Right? Wrong. For the first good while, a lot of my sitting was divided between floating among the thoughts going through my head and [sensations and thoughts of] pain – turns out that sitting in the same position for the better part of the day is even more uncomfortable than it sounds. “Concentrate on feeling the sensation of your breath. Don’t get sucked into focusing on your thoughts.” Sounds like a great plan, but thoughts sure can be enticing – memories of the past, thoughts of the future, old woes buried deep down, the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing and flashbacks to those sweet, sweet dance moves in those fabulously tight pants from the 80’s… and then there’s the thoughts about the present – feelings of agitation related to pain; edginess and boredom; questions about why, after working for >12 hours/day for the past 2-3 months, I had chosen to spend my “time off” here, instead of on a warm beach or deep in the forest playing in nature; thoughts about packing up shop and running for the hills… thoughts of giving up. But slowly, slowly, the more I made an effort to pay attention to the sensation of my breath, the more I became aware of my ability to separate myself from my thoughts.  “You must learn to let your thoughts float past you, as though you are sitting at the bank of a river, watching the water flow past.” With time, concentration, and sheer will, the ability to dissociate myself from a lot of the feelings of pain came as well – especially after we were taught a new meditation technique.

“Scan your body from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. Slowly, bit by bit, part by part. Feel. Don’t judge. Don’t react. Just observe. Just feel. Notice the transient nature of it all. Just as thoughts come and go, so do the sensations throughout your body. Nothing is permanent.” The more I concentrated on just feeling the sensations throughout the different parts of my body, the more I began to come to the realization that I have an identity that’s separate from my body. By not reacting to sensations and just letting my consciousness drift to other parts of my body, I could detach from the sensations within me. Then I realized something even cooler – when I was able to detach from my mind, it would eventually quiet. Then, as I let go of the tension in my body, I could fix my attention onto a sensation, just “look at it” and “feel it” with my inner eye and then it would begin to pulse and heat up and then sometimes it would just disappear completely. Neat. But bizarre. What’s going on around here?!?

The body is a part of me, but I’m not my body. I’m not my mind either. There exists a place of quiet and still within me, within all of us, that is separate from the mind. It processes things differently. It watches the mind but has its own way of communicating that has a much different feel than the mind – and can coexist as the mind is chattering and the body is feeling.

What am I? I’m… a consciousness of sort… a watcher that is affected by and part of, yet also distinct, from the mind… and the body. This realization unlocked a whole new plane of meditation (and way of being) for me… but it also sent me reeling not only for the remaining portion of the retreat, but also in the weeks since coming back. I’m not my body. I’m not my mind. I’m this consciousness that exists at a still point within my Being. How do I continue to tap into this facet of me? Into who I truly am?  Meditation is one of the fundamental ways. To tame the mind and open the heart – opening, glowing, cultivating loving-kindness and compassion until every ounce of my Being emanates love. Replace the places of fear within me with love. The five-fold path.

“The ordinary man does not distinguish himself from his thoughts. He does not even know that he thinks. He thinks by habit. And if he is asked all of a sudden, “what are you thinking of?”, he knows nothing about it. That is to say, ninety-five times out of a hundred he will answer, “I do not know.” There is a complete identification between the movement of thought and the consciousness of the being.”

~Living within – the yoga approach to psychological health and growth

I’m not my mind. And neither are you…

Think, wait, fast

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“Listen, Kamala, when you throw a stone into the water, it finds its quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything, without bestirring himself; he is drawn and lets himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal… It is what fools call magic and what they think is caused by demons… everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait, and fast.”

~Siddhartha

Off to my first 10-day vipassana.  Send me thoughts of love, insight, and perseverance my friends.

White marble, black marble and how we see the world

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“Long ago there was a Brahmin called Ravi who examined his mind at all times. Whenever a bad thought arose, he would put aside a black pebble, and whenever a good thought arose, he would put aside a white pebble. At first, all the pebbles he put aside were black. Then, as he persevered in developing antidotes and in adopting positive actions and rejecting negative ones, a time came when all his piles of black and white pebbles were equal. In the end he had only white ones. This is how you should develop positive actions as an antidote with mindfulness and vigilance, and not contaminate yourself with even the smallest harmful actions.”

~Words of My Perfect Teacher

Two summers ago, I first read this story as I was beginning my journey of mindfulness and awakening and it really resonated with me. I liked the idea of using a simple but effective reminder to bring awareness to thoughts that didn’t serve me. I recounted this story to one of my closest friends, and then he and I spent the summer saying “black marble” (somehow the pebble got warped into a marble) whenever we’d catch ourselves “running our mouths” about situations or people, making fun of others, losing our cool, or thinking or voicing things that did not come from a place of love. I’ve always considered myself a fairly nice person, but when I actually began to tune in and listen to myself think and speak… well, lets just say that maybe I wasn’t as nice as I thought.

Now I have had many a person say to me, “So what? So I like to make fun of others. So I run my mouth. It’s not like the person hears me in most cases. Big deal. It’s funny.” Ummm… I guess?!? But do you know what I think is even more funny and fun? It’s seeing the beauty in others. It’s accepting people and things as they are and not feeling the need to criticize them in order to feel better or somehow make myself look better. It’s recognizing when a situation or person is toxic and then choosing to remove myself from that situation and into a positive one instead of lamenting about it. It’s seeing the wonders and joys in the world and letting that fill your heart with a warmth that spills over into a quiet and loving mind. It’s seeing the hobbit hole because you’re looking for the magic that always there, only even though it’s sometimes harder to find. Where and how we focus the lens dictates the picture that we see. So just try out this idea for an hour a day for a week and see what happens. Just play. Just play awakening.

Now it’s two years in and it’s safe to say that my white marble stack towers over the stack of black marbles. And while I try to accept everyone as they are, the people that I can choose to spend my free time with also have towering stacks of white marbles… many shining lights focusing on similar objects makes for a bright world. I’ve also begun to draw awareness to my thoughts in another way. But I’m going to save this part of the story for another day, after I’ve given you a chance to play white marble, black marble.

Poems – the quiet of the raindrop

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A little raindrop
Suspended in a tree
Rain is coming down all around it
But there it stays
Just suspended
In a tree

Water flowing
Individual speckles
Of loosely combined
Yet tightly held
Droplets of particles
All unique and their own entity
Yet coalescing together
Into a flowing
Moving
Breathing
Body of
Cleansing
Wetness

But not this drop
This one hangs still
Suspended in time
A reminder of
The inner quiet
Among the chaos
The still
Within
Among the extraneous circumstances
And constant flow
That is life.

Conflict? Try some compassion and tranquility

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“So what should we do [when conflict arises]? If you always keep a compassionate heart, and a peaceful state of mind, when you run into problems you’ll handle them well because it will give you space as a buffer.”

~ Turning the Law Wheel

Peaceful mind. Loving heart. Allows you to act in accordance with your True Self, instead of re-acting from a place of fear. Interesting way of thinking about the benefits of cultivating compassion and calm. I like it!

The magic of the happy list

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As I was heading out for a hike yesterday morning, I ran into the lady from my floor that I had blogged about before. In brief, she has been facing recurring bouts of depression for almost 20 years now, and I have had some thought provoking and moving conversations with her about this over the last few months.

“Guess what?!?!?” she excitedly exclaimed the second she saw me. “I made my list.”
“You made your list??? Your happy list?!?!?!!!!”
“Yes,” she beamed.
“Oh my gawd, you don’t even know how happy that makes me.”
*beaming* “You should come over and see it sometime.”
“Oh my gawd that’s so freaking awesome!!! I’m so happy for you right now. You bet I will.”

And with that we parted ways. Elevator door closed. I was still traveling down to the parking garage. Only now I was grinning from ear to ear, instead of from eyeball to eyeball. The wonder of the happy list strikes again!

What is the happy list, you say? Well, it’s quite literally a “happy list.” A list of things that make you happy. I got the idea of the “happy list” this December, when I kept pulling a tarot card that instructed me to take the time in the next month to pay attention to what makes me happy. Who thought that something so seemingly simple could have such transformative effects.  Parsimony.

So. Come. Play. What is it that makes you happy? Just generally speaking, what three, five, ten things come to mind?
When was the last time you did each one of those things?
Now think about your day-to-day. What regularly made/makes you happy? When was the last time you spent the better part of the day feeling happy? What were you doing?

First step is thinking about these questions. Next step is to grab a notebook and write the answers down. Don’t worry if you draw a blank. Just write down what you can. Now that you have a foundation, no matter how big or small, set the intention to tune into what it is that makes you happy for the next while. It doesn’t have to be a month, but do it for at least a week. Write things down as they come up, or just reflect on what made you happy that day at a set time each day. Set the intention. Then follow through. You’ll be surprised at what you come up with when you shift your focus to tuning into what brings you happiness.

Now that you have the beginnings of a “happy list,” begin applying it to your every day life. Right now, free time is a premium for me. I have maybe 3 hours of it each weekday. And that’s ok because it’s temporary. And more importantly, it’s ok, because I have set the intention to spend those free hours doing at least one thing off my happy list, on 4 out of 5 weekdays. And while half of Sunday is spent doing work, I block each Saturday off to play – no work, no thoughts of “responsibilities” – just me and whatever it is that my heart wants to do that day. It’s amazing the difference that doing this has made in my life.  I don’t feel as burned out… and I’m validating my Will’s call to be heard and fulfilled. In the past, as soon as I start getting extra busy with work-school, the first things that I would let slide would be those things that I do for me, that make me happy. But life is about balance. And I think that life is about being happy. Because happiness is contagious. And a deep-rooted sense of happiness not only feels good, but it allows you to open up to a place of peace, gratitude, and loving-kindness that you can then reflect outwards into the world.

So make your happy list. Remember that it’s dynamic and ever-changing, just like you, but its essence is always the same. If you’re extra busy right now, prioritize the contents of the list and concentrate on one or two things for the time being. For me, it’s yoga and meditation.  Then, with time, work on freeing up time to make room for doing more things off the list on a daily basis. And keep adding to the list. Then, slowly, slowly, as you keep tuning into what makes you happy, and actively start making decisions based upon fostering the happy… well, I reckon that you’ll start to build a life that’s based on doing the things that you actually want to do, because they’re in line with the ball of happy that is you. And then you’ll have anything and everything that you’ve ever dreamt of and then some, because you’ll be aligning yourself with who you truly are… not with what you feel obligated to do. Hmmmmmmm. Glowing balls of happy. Each and every one of us. And it’s all within our reach. It really is. How nice.

Happiness is... going to a drum circle.