Recognizing Our Shared Humanity

Have you ever noticed a pattern in your interactions with others where you consistently misjudge a situation or miss an important detail? In the Buddhist tradition, this is referred to as "avidya," which comes from the Sanskrit roots "a-" meaning "not" and "-vidya" meaning "to see." A more accurate translation of avidya is "not seeing," rather than "ignorance." It refers to the concept of blind spots, which are areas of our understanding or perception that are incomplete or flawed.

A blind spot is a part of an individual's visual field that cannot be seen, even when using both eyes. In the context of driving, a blind spot refers to areas around a vehicle that are not visible to the driver when using the mirrors. In interpersonal relationships, a blind spot can refer to a flaw or weakness in our understanding or perception of ourselves or others.

For example, someone might have a blind spot about their tendency to be overly critical of their colleagues or subordinates, which could cause strain in their working relationships. This critical behavior may be unintentional, and the individual may not be aware of the impact it has on others. Blind spots can prevent us from seeing the full picture of an interaction and can lead to negative outcomes, such as a negative work environment or decreased morale and productivity.

We often have blind spots in our interpersonal relationships. One common blind spot is a lack of awareness of how we are interconnected and dependent on others. We often see ourselves as isolated and disconnected from others. We might sometimes feel like we’re surrounded by people, but there’s somehow a barrier or wall that’s separating us.

According to the mindfulness tradition, we often view ourselves as separate and disconnected from others, failing to recognize the ways in which we are interconnected and interdependent. This misunderstanding is like a blind spot that prevents us from seeing our connection with others and all of life. However, in rare, transcendent moments, such as during deep meditation or profound emotional or sexual intimacy, we may feel a sense of merging with others or the wider cosmos. In these moments, we feel more whole, more connected, and more alive.

Interbeing

This experience of unity or oneness with others is known in Sanskrit as shunyata, which translates as emptiness. However, the term 'emptiness' can be misleading, as it might be understood as a kind of void or nothingness. But the experience of unity, even if it is rare, suggests that emptiness is not void or empty at all but is instead filled with wonder and mystery.

This is why I prefer the Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation of shunyata. He calls it “interbeing.”

About thirty years ago, I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading because we cannot be by ourselves alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.

"Interbeing" refers to the interbeing of all things and the idea that everything exists in relation to everything else. It suggests that everything we experience is interconnected and dependent on other things for its existence.

For example, a person is not an isolated entity but rather is interconnected with and dependent on other people for social support, resources, and a sense of belonging. They are also dependent on the natural world for resources such as food, water, and shelter and on the social and economic systems in which they live. Emotions, too, are not isolated entities but rather are interconnected with and dependent on the thoughts, experiences, and circumstances that give rise to them. Emotions can also be interconnected and dependent on the emotions of others, as our own emotions can be influenced by the emotions of those around us.

We are not just individual selves but are made up of a complex network of relationships, experiences, and influences. As Lewis Thomas writes in his book "The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher," our human bodies are "shared, rented, and occupied" by countless other tiny organisms without whom we could not move, think, or feel. In fact, there are more non-human cells in our bodies than human cells. Thomas emphasizes that no being exists in isolation on this planet and that we are all interconnected and rely on each other in a symbiotic relationship, much like the various parts of a single cell. The planet is one giant, interconnected organism.

Everything in the universe is interconnected and relies on one another to exist, including stars, clouds, flowers, trees, and people. We constantly influence one another's moods, thoughts, beliefs and values. We even affect one another's hormones. Seeing someone else in a stressful situation or hearing about their stress can also trigger the release of cortisol and adrenaline in our own bodies. When we are around someone who is experiencing strong fear, we may feel fear ourselves to some extent. This is known as emotional contagion, which is the ability to "catch" emotions from others. We are interconnected and interdependent on one another, and our interactions can influence not just our emotions and thoughts but our very biology.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the image of Indra's Net is used to symbolize our interconnection with all other beings. It is depicted as a vast net with countless jewels hanging from its threads, each jewel reflecting all the other jewels in the net. Each jewel is said to contain within it the reflection of all of the other jewels in the net, just as each of us is interconnected with and dependent upon everyone and everything else. The image of the net is used to encourage us to recognize the ways our actions and choices have an impact on every other being.

The Cost We Pay for Believing Ourselves to be Separate

When we remember our interbeing, we see that what we do and say matters. Our own well-being is deeply connected to the well-being of others. If they suffer, so do we. It’s impossible to be completely at peace knowing or sensing the suffering in the world. Interbeing helps us to understand that our own spiritual progress and well-being is interconnected and interdependent with the well-being of all other beings. We cannot truly awaken and reach our full potential unless all other beings also have the opportunity to awaken and reach their full potential.

Although we may sometimes have a sense of our interconnectedness with one another, it is easy to forget it in a culture that values and celebrates individuality. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok often encourage users to showcase their unique qualities and achievements, and we are often drawn to celebrities, success, wealth, and personal freedom. It can be easy to focus on our own needs and desires rather than recognizing how much our actions have on others.

When we do not recognize and value our interbeing with others and the natural world, we may prioritize our own needs and interests over those of others. This can have negative consequences, such as increased isolation and loneliness and a tendency to view others as separate or distinct from ourselves. This can lead to dehumanization and a lack of empathy, making it easier to harm or discriminate against others. Additionally, a lack of appreciation for our interdependence with the natural world can result in environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity, as well as negative impacts on the climate.

Self-Awareness

There's a profound cost to our blindness, but if we can bring attention to how we are self-centered and lack empathy or self-awareness, we can make a difference. No matter how small we are in the big scheme of things, we are each a jewel in Indra's net. Our actions matter.

One day, a man was walking along a beach covered with thousands of starfish that had washed ashore. As he walked, he came across a young boy picking up the starfish one by one and tossing them back into the ocean. The man asked the boy what he was doing. The boy replied that he was trying to save the starfish from dying on the beach. The man chuckled and told the boy that there were too many starfish. The boy couldn't make a difference. But the boy picked up another starfish and tossed it back into the water, saying, "I made a difference to that one."

It can be easy to fall into pessimism about the state of the world, particularly when we focus on individual actions or events rather than recognizing the larger interbeing of things. This is the basic avidya or lack of understanding we will be trying to wake up from in this module. We will attempt to wake up to our interbeing, recognizing that what we do, think and feel in our relationships with others matters. Whether we realize it or not, we are all connected. To break this spell, we will explore how we dissociate from the people in our lives, how we delude ourselves, and how we wake up from the fantasy of our disconnectedness.

Summary:

• We carry fundamental ignorance that we are disconnected. 

• The Buddhist concept of emptiness suggests that we are interdependent and interconnected.

• In this module, we're attempting to wake up from the ways we delude ourselves into thinking we are alone and separate.

Mind/Body Foundations Interview

Outline

Introduction 0:00

Life Coaching vs. Psychotherapy. 3:00

The body holds a plethora of wisdom. 4:35

The parable of the neighbor and the farmer. 10:24

Beginner’s Mind 11:48

How to deal with anxiety and stress. 15:00

The kids on the bus & their vulnerability. 19:51

The sacred wound 23:00

Sharing your heart makes you accessible to everyone. 26:05

Clouds and sky metaphor. 31:11

Listening to your inner self. 33:51

How to overcome fear? 37:23

Taking advantage of the gift of life. 44:36

What is the bigger picture here? 47:33

When We Feel Like We’re On Our Own

Are you constantly feeling burnt out from always having to support and help others? It may seem like your loved ones, friends, or team members are always leaning on you for time, energy and attention. It can be tough always having to be the one in charge, making decisions for everyone, and being the go-to person. It would be nice for once to have someone else be the go-to person and not always have to be in charge. Being the main one to guide and direct can be both tiring and unfulfilling.

Take Sara, for example, she runs a successful venture capital firm, but she's feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work and decision-making that comes with being the boss. Despite having a team, she finds it hard to trust them and delegate tasks. She feels like she's the only one who can make things happen, and everyone depends on her. It's not just at work, though. She feels the same way in her personal life too. Her kids, husband, and family members are always asking her for advice and opinions on everything. It's like they can't make a move without her say-so. It's understandable that she's feeling the stress, and it's taking a toll on her health.

It's normal to have doubts about other people's abilities and to wonder if we can trust them. But when these doubts become so strong that they prevent us from trusting anyone, it can be a problem. At work, we might start to think that our colleagues aren't smart enough, experienced enough, motivated enough, or dedicated enough to do what we need them to do. At home, we might secretly start to wonder if our loved ones are selfish, unsupportive or just inept.

Deep down, we might wonder if this is just how things will always be - that we will forever be expected to focus on everyone else's needs. It can feel like a heavy burden, almost like carrying a ton of bricks. When it seems like we can't count on other people, we tend to believe that we're alone and that nobody's got our back. Instead of feeling like we have a team or a family of support around us, it feels like we're the only ones doing all the work.

The Dangers of Underestimating Others

Sara tends to treat her team members as if they were children rather than capable adults. She consistently micromanages them, preventing them from making mistakes and making decisions on their own. Her team members feel unable to make decisions independently and are afraid that if they do, they may face repercussions.

This tendency to micromanage and lack of trust in others also affects her personal life, particularly in her relationship with her husband. She finds it difficult to relinquish control and delegate household responsibilities to him, which leads to her dissatisfaction with the outcome when he does take charge. Furthermore, she worries that he may resent having to do the work in the first place, which preemptively makes her feel guilty.

When we underestimate the capabilities of others, we may treat them like children instead of adults. This behavior is not intentional, but it stems from a lack of trust, which leads to excessive interference, nitpicking or taking over. When we don't have confidence in their ability to handle tasks effectively, we may disregard their opinions, ideas or assistance. As a result, individuals who we expect to develop and grow are not given the support they need to do so.

Additionally, when we don't trust others, it can create an environment where they may be hesitant to express their doubts or admit to mistakes. They may fear that they will be seen as incompetent or that their mistakes will be met with negative consequences. This lack of trust can lead to a lack of communication and a lack of open dialogue. Furthermore, it can lead to a lack of confidence and cooperation among team members, which can negatively impact the overall performance of the team.

Uncovering the Root of Our Mistrust

If we don't investigate and initiate the process of healing the source of our mistrust, we may never be able to overcome it.

When Sara was a girl, she had to act like a grown-up and look after her dad, who was an alcoholic and her mom, who was a narcissist. Her parents depended on her to make sure her dad's drinking didn't get out of control, and her mom's need for emotional stability was always taken care of.

Growing up, a lot of us had to take on grown-up roles when the adults around us acted like kids. Maybe our parents had an addiction, mental health issues, or tough backgrounds. We might have had to step up and take care of our siblings, manage the household money, or manage our parents' emotional instability.

We often find ourselves taking on the responsibility of our siblings or filling in for our parents to ensure that our family is stable and functioning well. We may feel like we have no choice but to step up and take charge to maintain a sense of normalcy in our lives. The alternative is chaos, and there may not be anyone else to turn to. We take on these responsibilities in order to prevent things from getting worse. Without stepping up and taking control, our lives may have spiraled.

The Perils of Being a Caretaker

As a result of not being able to rely on others, we may develop an unhealthy view of ourselves, thinking that we are only valuable when we are constantly taking charge and doing things for others. This can be especially detrimental when we have to take on adult responsibilities and care for others at a young age. It can lead us to believe that our worth is solely based on our ability to focus on and take care of others and that taking care of ourselves is somehow wrong or selfish.

We may feel like we are being selfish or neglecting our responsibilities if we take time for ourselves. This can manifest in various ways, such as feeling guilty for taking a vacation or taking time to pursue personal hobbies or interests. This can cause us to constantly put others' needs before our own and neglect our own self-care or personal growth.

It's tough to find people we can trust and connect with when we're not used to trusting others. It can make it hard to pick out who we can rely on and who shares our values. This can make building healthy relationships and making good decisions about who we let into our lives difficult. It can also make it hard to be open and vulnerable in relationships, which is so important for building trust and intimacy.

We might also have trouble setting and sticking to boundaries.

In her personal life, Sara finds it tough to turn people down. She's always putting her family first - her kids, husband, sister, mom, and extended family - even if it means she doesn't get anything in return. That can make her feel taken advantage of and unappreciated, which eats away at her self-esteem.

Giving and not getting anything back in relationships can make anyone feel like they're being taken advantage of and mess with their self-confidence.

It's natural to be suspicious of other people's skills and reliability, but when that suspicion is all-encompassing, it's important to remember that these doubts usually come from our own insecurities, not from them. Our trust issues usually come from when we were kids and had to do more than we should've had to, like taking care of others when our parents couldn't.

When we're young, it's easy to go along with what other people want, but as grown-ups, it can be exhausting and make us feel like we're being taken advantage of if we're always helping out. It's important to get to the bottom of why we have trust issues, especially if they stem from our past. Once we recognize and understand these issues, we can start to work through them and create healthier relationships down the line.

Summary:

• Doubts about others' abilities can be normal, but when they prevent us from trusting anyone, it's not good.

• Trust issues often stem from childhood experiences, such as having to take on responsibilities beyond our age.

• Acknowledging and understanding these issues can help us build healthier relationships.

Sh*t Happens: Dealing with Discomfort and Change

Let’s get real. You need to be optimistic and hopeful if you want to lead others, but if you are too Pollyanna you won’t be able to deal with challenges that come your way. 

There will be heartbreaking disappointments. People you thought had your back will let you down. You will do the right things, give it your all and still come up short. Your efforts will be thwarted, your plans dashed, your goodwill abused. You will get in over your head.

You will experience fatigue and doubt. Despite your best intentions, you will do things you later regret. You will make mistakes and judge wrongly. In moments of high tension, you will be flooded with such overwhelming emotions that you won’t want to get out of bed. 

There will be lots of mundane, chop-wood-carry-water moments when you soldier on without any visible reward. Sometimes this will feel comforting, sometimes boring. 

There will also be glories. People will surprise you with their kindness and capability. Your hard work will pay off. Victories large and small will be won and celebrated. You will experience love and joy. 

The thing to know is that everything—the ups, the downs, the in-betweens—all of it is temporary. Change is a constant—sometimes it happens quickly, like a tornado, sometimes it’s imperceptible, like the change of seasons. Sun will give way to clouds. Storms will come, but they won’t rage forever. 

We all weather a variety of conditions. How do we make the most of our circumstances? How do we deal with the shit? How do we manage change? 

We Are Wired to Avoid Discomfort

You can try to control your circumstances. On dark days, you will want to move heaven and earth to bring back the sun. On glorious days, you’ll want to lock in the sunny skies.  

You may think that if you can’t make good things happen, there’s something wrong with you. You may have heard that the power to manifest lies solely in your own hands. If you aren’t able to get what you want, some spiritual books say it’s because your own beliefs are blocking you. 

It is true that you have more power than you realize. Your greatest power as a human is to align … with your own soul, with others, with energies greater than you. This is the source of your brilliance. But there is much that is beyond your control. To be wise is to know the difference, to do what you can and be patient enough to wait for things to change without losing the balance of your mind. 

The wise leader’s path asks you to stay present and weather discomfort. Your natural drive will be to avoid, fight, tune out and attempt to change things that make you feel bad. When we are in mortal danger, discomfort snaps us into action like a ninja—and this might be a good thing for our survival. But most of the situations that get our hackles up day-to-day are a far cry from life or death.

When someone criticizes the choices you’ve made, or you’re laid low with food poisoning, or no one sees things your way, or when you don’t get what you want: these experiences suck, but they’re not life threatening. It’s human nature to want to feel safe, but until you learn how to befriend uncertainty, you will limit your power.  

Peace Within the Storm

Change and discomfort: it’s going to happen to you. It happens to all of us, all of the time, and it’s stressful. Want to pile on more stress when something yanks your chain? You can panic. You can deny reality. You can lash out. You can eject and go into free fall. You can eat a pint of Haagen Dazs. But why heap on more misery? That’s what all these reactions to stress will bring. More misery. 

When stress knocks on your door, it’s much nicer to be able to give it a cup of chamomile tea, listen to it and put it to bed rather than let it ransack your home. 

Here’s where the “even keel” mindset comes in. It’s looking to ride out twists and turns with equanimity. It says, “Everything changes, there’s lots beyond my control, the best I can do is to remind myself not to get my knickers in a twist. After all, this too shall pass.” It doesn’t seek to escape the storm—because that’s not possible. It finds peace within the storm, knowing that it’s temporary and trusting that you will come through the other side stronger and wiser.

To be clear, this is not a glass half-empty worldview where you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. That’s pessimism. It isn’t a passive resignation to more powerful forces. That’s a recipe for depression. Nor is it putting on a stiff upper lip where you deny what you feel. That’s dissociation. 

No, the “even keel” mindset rolls with the conditions and seeks to regain center when it’s knocked off balance. When everything is whirling around you, it is possible to tap into a place of composure inside yourself. A place that isn’t reacting to the upheaval and upset.  A place that gives you a little breathing room so that you can keep your hands on the wheel and steer the ship rather than spin out. 

If you’re like most people, you tend to regard storms as error, but they have gifts to give you. If you’re willing to ride it our, you might gain a new understanding of what is most important to you. It might be an understanding of and empathy for others. It might be a clearer sense of how to proceed. It might be a deeper appreciation for your ability to weather storms. Storms are great teachers and wisdom makers. 

Tool: Deep Breathing

To maintain an even keel, you need to be able to calm yourself without turning away from discomfort. When you are under stress and strain, when you’re scared that danger is just around the corner, the body and mind tense up. They’re bracing for impact. 

Learning how to calm yourself will help open your mind to all the possibilities and give you a cushion to experience the discomfort without needing to react to it. Our bodies have a built in relaxation system. When it is activated, we feel calm and steady. Thousands of years ago, yogis recognized that to be able to maintain the kind of concentration that leads to higher levels of awareness, they needed to stimulate the body’s natural relaxation response without putting it to sleep.

By experimenting with different breathing techniques, the yogis noticed that they were able to stimulate either calmness or agitation just by mimicking—and even exaggerating—the breathing patterns that naturally occur in these states. Shallow and rapid breathing led to an agitated, irritable, and unfocused mind whereas full, slow and rhythmic breathing led to a calm, awake state of mind grounded in the present moment. 

It may seem hard to believe that anything special can happen by breathing consciously, but scientific research supports the findings of yogis. In a study including 21 soldiers (an active group of 11 and a control group of 10), those who received a one-week training in mindful breathing techniques showed lower anxiety, reduced respiration rates and fewer PTSD symptoms. 

This practice is so effective we teach it to all of our clients. It’s a powerful relaxation tool. Just 15 minutes of deep breathing in the morning will give you a foundation of calm for the day. In short order, you will have embodied the practice so that you will be able to draw upon it in moments when you need calm. 

Calming Breathing Exercise

Try this easy, twelve-minute breathing exercise.

When Your Caveman Brain Takes Control: Learn to Recognize Your Reactions

Sometimes you’ve got this. You’re given a container of lemons and you crush it. You get cut off on the way to work and smile like a Happy Buddha. Your colleague comes to you with some pretty harsh feedback and you’re able to welcome it. Your partner is running late for the eight thousandth time, and it’s no big deal. 

Other times you can’t tolerate what’s coming at you. It could be a matter of volume—everyone has a limit. You might be able to handle a newborn baby plus an economic crash plus an insane deadline, but a whiny colleague works your last nerve. It could be an echo of a past trauma. That thing this person in front of you did right now feels like a carbon copy, rinse and repeat of something else that kicked your ass. It could be that your personal value system gets triggered. You’re a card carrying bootstrap puller and it drives you bananas whenever you see someone kvetch about problems but fail to take initiative. 

There is no dearth of things that can set you off, get your knickers in a twist, wind you up, lay you low, throw you sideways. You have a window of tolerance, a reasonably happy place from which you handle what comes at you. When you’re inside the window, you’re able to think and act like the highly evolved human you are. When you get close to the edge, you get twitchy. And when, for whatever reason, you slip outside the window and your caveman brain takes control. 

Caveman Brain

Your caveman brain is lightning fast in reacting to threats, but it’s far from enlightened. It doesn’t think or empathize or create (that happens in the civilized drawing room of the prefrontal cortex). It reacts. Its job is to recognize threats and keep you safe. It is trigger-happy and heavy-handed, great for when you are facing a tiger, but not so great when the threat is your mother-in-law. 

We don’t often raise a glass to our caveman brain. It’s not nearly as sexy or companionable as the part of our brain that philosophizes, imagines, woos and invents. It’s a bodyguard, waiting in the shadows, constantly alert, ready to intervene when danger appears. Chances are that it’s saved your bacon more than once. And for that, it deserves celebration. 

But your caveman brain gets you into trouble more often than not, because it wasn’t built to address the modern threats that you face every day, which are primarily emotional and social rather than physical. It can’t tell the difference: a threat is a threat is a threat. Embarrassment and humiliation? Caveman brain says, “Nope, can’t have that.” Failure? “Gotta shut that down.” Conflict? “Uh oh.” 

The caveman brain isn’t subtle. You’ll know that it’s kicking into gear because it throws a kill switch on non-survival functions and gives you a surge of energy as adrenaline and cortisol get dumped into the blood. Your breath speeds up, your heart races and blood rushes into your heart and limbs. You don’t think clearly and you lose touch with how you feel. In this mode, you’re meant to act fast, not solve existential problems.

Once your inner caveman snaps into action, it has only four moves: to fight, escape, play dead or appease. You probably have a habitual preference for one of the four. Do you tend to lash out? Do you tend to retreat or avoid? Do you tend to go dumb and numb? Do you tend to try to mollify? It’s important to learn to recognize and understand your reactions.

The Four Reactivity Patterns: Do You Channel a Rooster, Mouse, Opossum or Dolphin?

Roosters: Fight Reaction

The spirit animal of a fight reaction is the rooster: the fiercest boss on the farm. Roosters are aggressive and won’t hesitate to take on another rooster, a hawk or a wayward hen. They are in-your-face masters of intimidation. And they don’t just bluff; they use their spurs like switchblades. 

When your emotions have gone off the rails into a fight reaction, you’ll puff up and attack—maybe not with an uppercut, but perhaps with a glare, a sniping comment, a raised voice or any number of threatening physical gestures. 

If you are a human who tends to have rooster reactions, when you are triggered, you will use your words and body to dominate others. You might cut people off, make sarcastic jokes, raise your voice or repeat yourself. You might notice that you point and jab with your arms, do you clench your jaw or tighten your fists? 

Once your brain turns on the rooster switch, you lose access to the prefrontal cortex, a more modern part of the brain where impulse control, social influence and advanced problem solving happen. Your brain suddenly goes primitive. You’ll get flushed with heat and feel superhuman strength as all the blood rushes from your head to your limbs and heart.

What happens next depends on who you are up against and their level of reactivity. Best case scenario, the other person is able to remain calm and defuse the situation (this is the person in the room we all strive to be). More often than not, your fight reaction will trigger an emotional reaction in the people around you (fight, retreat, freeze or appease). You’ll be seen as an enemy and this can have lasting effects on your relationships.

Jonathan, the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, described the environment where he worked as “a dog-eat-dog world.” He did not feel he had the trust of a few of his direct reports and even wondered whether they were after his job. Because of this fear, he was guarded with them, so much so that he intimidated them. They rarely spoke up in meetings, and their primary approach to interacting with him was to tell him only what he wanted to hear. This frustrated him because he couldn’t get a clear picture of what was happening in their areas of responsibility. 

The less he trusted them, the more aggressive he became. The more threatened they felt, the more they concealed from him. By viewing and treating them as threats, he missed out on pertinent information, which undermined his ability to make decisions.

Mouse: Flight Reaction

The spirit animal of the flight reaction is the field mouse: a small, hardy survivor that knows how to move. Mice are masters avoiders who scurry away from danger and lie low. They blend in, squeeze into tiny places and burrow out of sight.   

When you have gone into a flight reaction, you’ll make yourself small and scarce. You’ll do your best to escape notice and avoid people and situations that trouble you. You’ll hold back from sharing what you’re thinking or feeling. 

If you tend to react like a field mouse, you will find ways to escape. How do you do this? Do you become disengaged? Do you altogether steer clear of interactions where you sense there might be conflict? Do you change the subject when others bring up touchy or awkward issues? Do you hold back rather than give yourself entirely to those people that mean the most to you? It’s helpful to recognize your reactions.

While the rooster tends to move toward an angry and aggressive stance when it gets emotionally hijacked, the mouse tends to become anxious, worried and avoidant. This is an intelligent way to survive a fight you cannot win. 

Kate was a lead copywriter at a design firm and often collaborated with Mark, the lead graphic designer. In design reviews, Mark would defend his work so aggressively that Kate would avoid critiquing it. She would second guess her perspectives, “Maybe I’m missing something genius here. It’s best to let the client decide.” 

Kate tried to focus exclusively on the copywriting part of the projects and give Mark free reign on design and let him take the lead with client interactions. She didn’t like the dismissive way that he spoke with one of their clients, but no amount of feedback changed his tone. When this client fired them, Kate kicked herself for not intervening more forcefully. 

Arguing with Mark was exhausting and Kate felt she needed to pick and choose her battles. Standing her ground was so hard that Kate would prepare for confrontations for days--  hashing out what she should say and all the potential ways he might respond.

Opossum: Freeze Reaction

The spirit animal of a freeze reaction is the opossum: the master of extreme de-escalation. As much as everyone loves an underdog and David vs. Goliath story, opossums know that living to see another day is better than dying a hero. When cornered and facing a serious threat, an opossum becomes something that no big bad wolf would be interested in fighting (or eating) because it looks dead already. 

By freezing, the opossum says, “Move on, there’s nothing to see here” and there’s a chance that it won’t be noticed at all. It’s important to note that opossums don’t pretend to drop dead. They seize up involuntarily and collapse. Their bodies even stiffen like rigor mortis. No poking, prodding or pawing will awaken an opossum on the faux deep six. But once the danger has passed, they slowly come back to life.

As in the wild, aggressors in the workplace tend not to attack people who are unresponsive. It’s not much fun for a bully to kick someone when they’re down.

If you tend toward opossum reactions, your watchword is “overwhelmed.” When you are triggered, you’ll become immobilized and confused. You’ll shut down, go blank and disconnect from your thoughts and feelings, making it hard to speak up. You may sense a curtain of fog dropping between you and the world. You may feel cold, numb, spacey or paralyzed. 

I tend toward opossum reactions. Recently, I was at a dinner party discussing politics when an acquaintance said something that sounded racist. Instead of confronting the bigotry, I found myself completely tongue tied. I could feel heat rising up to my cheeks and the desire to say something, but could not find the words. I totally froze.


Lisa does not know how she feels about her boyfriend, John, and this upsets her because recently he has brought up the subject of marriage. She wants to feel love, gratitude and excitement about the possibility of spending the rest of her life with him, but all she can contact is a vague, numb feeling about him.

Two years ago she was promoted to an SVP role at a multinational tech company. Over the last year, she has been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work that is on her plate, and she feels as if she lacks either direction or support from her boss. By the time she comes home, she has no energy or enthusiasm to bring to her relationship with John. 

When asked how she processes her emotions, Lisa says, “I try to distract myself. I have been going outside and smoking a cigarette when I’m particularly angry, or I come home and turn on the television until I fall asleep.” 

The longer she ignores the frustration, the more overwhelming it becomes, leaving her numb and emotionally shut down. The more she distracts herself from what she feels, the more she loses the ability to feel at all, including how she feels about John.

Dolphin: Appease Reaction

The spirit animal of an appease reaction is the dolphin: the alliance builder. Dolphins live in highly social, interconnected pods where kin, friends and adversaries all mingle together. Resources that are abundant enough to be shared today can become scarce tomorrow, creating conflict. Dolphins don’t have the sharp teeth of a shark or heft of a whale. They survive by building alliances with each other. 

Humans that tend to have dolphin reactions will contort themselves to ally with the people who they perceive to have more power than they do. The key phrase is “play nice.” If you are a dolphin, you will avoid conflict, keep the peace and appease others. 

Larry was a VP of Sales who was charismatic and well liked at a software company that held a dominant market position. For years, he had maintained a warm and easy relationship with his CEO, but things began shifting when his team began failing to meet its numbers. 

There were good reasons for this. The industry which the company served was declining. Several disruptive competitors had emerged at at time when Larry’s company had cut back on product development. His team was fighting an uphill battle with butter knives against broadswords and they were frustrated. The CEO believed that Larry’s team simply needed to fight harder.

When things were going well, Larry was a motivating leader. In these challenging times, he was overwhelmed trying to avoid and tamp down conflict—with his team, with the CEO and with his peers. In executive meetings, he spoke optimistically about the pipeline and mostly laid low. Whenever the CEO challenged him, he acquiesced. When his team expressed their frustration, he used his sense of humor to jolly them into line. 

But the cracks were beginning to show. His CEO was losing faith in his ability to meet the numbers. He lost several team members to competitors. And he was exhausted by the strain of avoiding speaking out about what he really thought needed to happen--the company needed to invest in product development. 

When overwhelmed, a dolphin will placate and mollify even when the other person’s behavior is blatantly egregious. 

In heightened moments where you have gone into emotional hijack mode, you won’t trust that you can stand on your own or stand up for yourself. You’ll believe that your survival is dependent on your ability to acquiesce, conform, and accommodate. Underneath your reaction you’ll likely find a fear of rejection.

Being friendly in a confrontational situation is a perfectly natural survival reaction, but if you habitually hide your own anger or hurt under a facade, it will eat away at your confidence. The more you “play nice,” the less self-assured you will feel.

Maria was in charge of her company’s booth at a big tech trade show. The night of the opening reception, she was standing with the CEO when a member of the board came up and made a comment about the size of the breasts of a woman working in the neighboring booth. “Who let the acorn knockers in? Didn’t she get the memo that anything less that a Double D isn’t allowed in here?” 

The CEO chuckled. The blatantly misogynistic banter completely appalled Maria. But instead of confronting the situation, she laughed and changed the subject. She didn’t want to upset either of the men and risk losing their trust. Instead, she went along with it and tried to forget the comment had ever been made.

Regaining Center

So, we’ve already established that things are going to trip your wires. Be honest with yourself about who you become in these moments. Are you a Rooster, Mouse, Opossum or Dolphin? We all favor one over the others. That’s not to say that you react to all triggers in the same way, but we all have our tendencies. 

It’s important to make friends with your reactivity spirit animal, to get to know its likes and dislikes, to know what it eats, where it roams and when it appears. Learn to recognize its presence in your body: how does it feel when a reaction is lurking and when it has sprung. Recognize its behaviors: what you say and do. Recognize its thoughts: what you latch onto. Track it and study it—not to kill it or to tame it—but to learn from it. Getting to know the early warning signs that you are getting triggered can help you to step back and stay present rather than spiral into overwhelm.  

Your reactivity spirit animal has been shadowing you for your entire life. It knows you better than anyone: your mother, sibling, partner, dog or cat. If you get to know it, with curiosity and respect, it will show you what you need to stand your ground. It will cut you some slack.

To help get in touch with how your body reacts, think of a moment when you were actually in physical danger. Perhaps you were cut off in traffic, narrowly avoided an accident or were threatened by another person or an animal. What happened in your body? Did your heart race? Did you feel light headed? Did your face flush? Did your breath get shallow?

When you recognize that you’ve been hooked into a fight/flight/freeze/appease reaction, the best thing you can do is to stop, take a breath and say hello to your spirit animal. Just acknowledging its presence can have a calming effect. 

If you are in a Rooster or Opossum reaction, you might want to step away. If you are in a Mouse or Dolphin reaction, you might want to hang tight. These aren’t prescriptions, they aren’t even suggestions. There are simply ideas for you to consider and experiment with. Every situation is unique, but if you aren’t in mortal danger, your objective is to stop and calm yourself down.  

Stopping from full speed is never instantaneous. It will take up to 20 minutes for your body to settle and your mind to think clearly. Slow, deep breaths are a great place to start and can help you downshift and regain balance. Movement can help you burn off the wild energy of a Rooster or a Mouse and it can bring the Opossum or Dolphin back to center. 

Some people find that repeating a mantra can help. Research shows that mental focusing is the number one technique for short-circuiting a reaction. It doesn’t matter whether you focus on a breath, a word, a sound, an image or a bodily activity. Go with whatever comes most easily for you. 

Remember, reactivity is a body and mind experience. The more you can feel and soothe your body and the more you can focus your mind, the more easily you’ll be able to regain your center.  

The Power of Attention

If you don’t take in the full lay of the land and what you’re up against, it’s very difficult to make good decisions. And the truth is that lots is hidden from you. In spite of the superpowers that got you where you are today, you’re human; your perception is limited and skewed. 

Most of us acknowledge this essential truth and we can see plainly how this applies to someone else, but when it comes to navigating our own twists and turns, and especially when we most need clarity and awareness, we’re not inclined to believe that we might be missing something important. In fact, we rarely face roadblocks with fresh eyes. Instead, our assumptions and expectations tend to obstruct us from seeing what's actually in front of us.

This is how blindsides and upsets happens. The candidate who all the experts predict to win handily loses to the upstart who has a better pulse on the people. The beloved brand falls out of favor because it focuses on past success and doesn’t pay attention to shifting customer needs. The project that seems to be on track goes off the rails because team members can’t see outside their own silos. A “happy enough” marriage falls apart when a partner meets someone who fulfills longings that have been ignored too long.

We think we know what’s what and so we don’t pay attention. Seeing clearly requires that we approach things with fresh eyes. The simple act of accepting that you’re not seeing everything will open up panoramas.

If you have a beginner’s mind, knowing that there’s always more to know, you can’t help but be curious. Your awareness will expand naturally. You’ll notice subtle signs and signals to help guide your way forward. You probably won’t develop X-ray vision or psychic powers, but you will notice what normally slips under the radar when you aren’t curious enough to pay attention. 

Open your awareness and you might notice a shift in the wind that tells you a storm is coming, a clenching of the jaw that tells you something important remains unspoken or a tone of voice that sounds incongruent with what is being said.  

You don’t need to be blind or asleep at the wheel to miss something important. You might be so rigidly focused on something in front of you that you tune out what’s on the periphery. On the other hand, you might be distracted by a random thought, an incoming message, a shiny object, a slight of hand that takes your attention away like an unanchored kite in the wind.

Distraction

When you are a leader, there’s more to distract you: more input, more noise and more sweet talk (feels good, but beware!). There are more demands on your attention than you can possibly serve. A connected world where we can join with people around the globe to solve problems has lots of upside. But it brings with it an unrelenting buzz of emails, text messages, social media feeds, news headlines and other notifications. And make no mistake, the devices in our pockets are designed to distract us.

Their promise seems so innocuous, so helpful—instant communication, interfaces that delight, uber convenience. Sweetly, so sweetly, we get lulled into slavishly checking and responding to our devices rather than tuning into ourselves and the world in front of us. 

Is it a good thing to be able to be able to dial into your meeting from the car? Maybe. Is it a good thing to text while driving? Maybe not. Have you done it and survived? Probably. Have you split your attention between the person right in front of you and something on your phone? No judgement here; we’ve done it, too. We’re not suggesting that you chuck your phone and live on a desert island. 

But to be strategic, creative and brilliant, you need to be able to recognize a distraction when you see it and choose something else. To nurture the relationships that are important for your career and personal fulfillment, you need to be able to put your phone down and direct your attention to where it matters most … life. 

Noticing

The human mind is designed to notice; it’s necessary for our survival. If you don’t notice the smell of smoke, you risk getting trapped in a fire. If you don’t notice the person you know across the restaurant, you might miss an important connection. If you don’t notice your colleague’s irritation, you lose an opportunity to solve a problem. 

Noticing can lead to an expanded awareness of important people, events and conditions. It can tune us into our own inner thoughts, sensations, emotions, cravings and aversions. We need to be aware if we’re going to discover the kinds of insights that lead to a better tomorrow.

Noticing can lead to distraction. This happens when our attention on something important to us (e.g. a conversation) is interrupted by a random thought, feeling or an activity and we get carried away like a rubber duck on a raging river. 

Most importantly, noticing can lead us back from distraction. This happens when we become aware that our attention has wandered. Instead of zapping ourselves with a cattle prod, this is a moment for celebration. After all, we’re conscious again and no longer adrift in distraction. We get to choose where to give our attention in this next moment.

Choice

Choice is our greatest superpower. When we don’t choose to pay attention, we miss out. It’s not just a matter of productivity. To enjoy a perfect moment—a delicious lunch, an invigorating conversation, a hot date—you need to be fully present for it. If you’re thinking about deadlines, checking your phone for news or wishing you were somewhere else, you’ll miss it.   

Choosing where to direct your attention will allow you to see what’s really there. You’re not always going to like what you see. Really paying attention can sometimes be uncomfortable. It may prompt you to question deeply held convictions, revise a well honed plan or take steps backward when all you want to do is push full steam ahead. 

Remember that your goals are there to give you something to work towards, but they aren’t the destination. They are guideposts for your journey and they will change as you make your way. To reach the kinds of destinations that are worth arriving at, there are no maps, you’ll need to pay attention and make conscious choices all along the way.

It’s impossible to avoid getting distracted. Don’t even think about it. That’s a path to tension, contraction and frustration. Instead, aim to recognize when you have gotten lost in distraction and choose to redirect your attention. This is worth celebration and what the practice of mindfulness is all about.  Slowly, gently you’ll develop and strengthen the kind of attention that makes you more present in your life.

Let’s Talk about What Mindfulness Isn’t

Mindfulness is about choosing to pay attention to what’s happening right now and accepting things as they actually are. It’s something that you can apply to almost everything you do. You can eat mindfully, converse mindfully, move mindfully, shop mindfully, drive mindfully, have sex mindfully. All it means is that you’re fully present for whatever it is that you are doing. 

Are you with me? Because Lord knows, there’s been enough written on the subject of mindfulness. Most of it makes mindfulness sound like Mensa: a club for people capable of reciting 200 digits of pi. Impressive, but dreadfully boring and out of reach for mere mortals. 

Often mindfulness is touted as a way to rewire your brain so that you can become a machine of productivity and calm. These might be happy byproducts of mindfulness, but its true value is that it helps you to feel more alive and discover what’s really here—inside and all around you. It doesn’t make you into something better, it simply awakens you to who you already are.

Let’s talk about what mindfulness isn’t. 

Mindfulness isn’t blocking out distractions. Not only is this impossible, but it is actually unhelpful. You want to open your awareness, not narrow it. Your sensations, feelings and thoughts have important messages for you. If you wall them off or ignore them, you will limit your perception. You will miss important information: a faint whisper that something is wrong, a pale spark of inspiration, an intuition about which path to take. 

Mindfulness isn’t mind control. The mind is like a river—sometimes meandering, sometimes gushing. You can’t control it. You will get carried away by the flow of thoughts in your head and miss what is in front of you sometimes. This goes with the territory of being human. You can’t stop the flow, but you can learn how to recognize when you’re getting carried away before you’ve gone very far. Then you can make a choice to redirect your attention with a quality of gentleness.   

Mindfulness isn’t harsh. If you yank your attention around like a donkey on a short rope, you will get a stubborn, closed mind. Gentleness creates a free, open mind. 

Mindfulness isn’t passive. It’s about choosing. Choosing where to direct your attention and choosing how to respond. Being mindful doesn’t mean that you don’t yell. Shouting at the top of your lungs might be the appropriate response for the situation. A different situation might call for asking a thoughtful question or stepping away. 

Mindfulness isn’t magic. It might have moments that feel like magic. Simply immersing yourselves in the present will make you feel more grounded and even-tempered. That can be pretty surprising. But mindfulness won’t give you special powers. It will give you clarity that’s already in your reach. You will see what is there rather than what you hoped was there or what you think ought to be there. 

Mindfulness isn’t an intellectual exercise. It’s a full-bodied experience. It’s not about analyzing or evaluating, although that has its place. Mindfulness is about perceiving, feeling and choosing. 

Mindfulness isn’t beyond your reach. You had many mindful experiences in your life. Moments where you were fully present and curious. No doubt, your childhood was full of them and you can probably remember some quite vividly. Every moment is an opportunity for you to be mindful to it. It’s a choice you make, a habit that you can develop, more than a skill you need to learn.

Mindfulness is a choice to experience the present moment fully. We recommend it not because it will make you smarter or more effective (it might) or because there’s something wrong with you if you don’t (there isn’t), but because there’s a gift for you in each moment.

Mindfulness can open you to your inner wisdom. It can help you to identify the various inner voices that speak to you and gain understanding about where they are coming from (spoiler: it might not be what you think).

Tool: Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation practice is a shower for the mind. We take a shower to rinse off the sweat of the day and start fresh. We generally feel better afterwards. It doesn’t have to take long and once we’re in the habit of it, we can’t imagine our day without it.

There are many different forms of meditation. The Buddhists, yogis and Desert Fathers of early Christianity each designed meditation practices to help cultivate a calm and present mind so that its powers can be put to good rather than squandered.

Not all meditation builds mindfulness. Just as different types of physical exercise build different muscles and capacities (e.g. rock climbing vs. dance vs. soccer), different types of meditation develop different aspects of the mind. 

• Loving-kindness meditation is especially helpful for enhancing compassion and self-compassion. 

• Visualizations help open the mind to its own wisdom  

• Mantra meditations are typically used to relax the mind. 

• Zen koan meditation trains the mind to open to reality beyond thought by presenting riddles that intellectual reasoning cannot solve.

Mindfulness meditation (also known as Vipassana meditation and Insight meditation) trains the mind to pay attention mindfully. It’s a practice that’s designed to exercise the key elements: opening awareness and directing attention. 

Most of us don’t work out so that we can win deadlifting competitions. We go to the gym so that we can be strong in life. Likewise, meditation is something we do so that we have the capacity to tap into mindful awareness when we need it. 

Just as regular physical movement changes the body, research is showing that mindfulness meditation actually changes the brain. A Harvard-led team at Massachusetts General Hospital studied participants in an eight-week mindfulness mediation program. 

The study showed that aside from the relaxation and stress-reduction benefits reported by the participants, the brain structure itself changed. Regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress showed signs of strengthening.

Starting a meditation practice is a bit like taking up running. You know it’s good for you, but it’s not something you look forward to because it won’t feel good right away. You’ll have a much better experience and success if you start small. You wouldn’t run a marathon out of the gate, you’d start with a 10 minute run. Likewise, don’t start with a 30-minute meditation. You can get tremendous benefit by doing just five minutes a day and building the habit. It’s much more valuable to do five minutes every day than 35 minutes once a week.

If your mind is jumpy (which is to be expected), you might be tempted to think you are “just no good” at mindfulness meditation. We hear this a lot. You sit down to meditate and within two breaths your mind has wandered off. Noticing is cause for celebration, but you might be more likely to beat yourself up. 

Jack Kornfield likens mindfulness training to puppy training in his seminal book on mindfulness, The Path with Heart.  “We put the puppy down and say, ‘Sit. Stay.’ What does it do? It gets up and runs around. ‘Stay.’ It turns around again. Twenty times, ‘Stay.’ After a while, slowly, the puppy settles down. Through practice, gently and gradually we can collect ourselves and learn how to be more fully where we are.”   

There are lots of books and even apps that can help you develop a meditation practice. In our experience, we find that it’s best to learn how to meditate from a “flesh and blood” teacher who can answer your questions and help deal with common obstacles. 

Don’t forget that the objective of mindfulness meditation is to pay attention to the present moment without judgement. It is not to turn off your mind.

When I first started meditating, I was determined to develop a laser-like and unwavering focus that silenced all distractions. I tried to achieve a state of “not thinking.” At some point, it dawned on me that being at war with my mind was not helping and that there was never going to be a day when my mind would stop wandering. In fact, even after 25 years of meditating, my mind can still be as active as when I first started.

Mindful Body Scan

Here is a very simple mindfulness practice that you can do anywhere, anytime. It will help you get in touch with your body and return to the present moment.

Direct your attention to the top of your head. Slowly scan your attention down your body to your neck, arms and hands, back up to your shoulders, down your torso and legs, all the way down to the feet. Connect with each place on your body with curiosity and gentleness. You are running your mind’s eye over your body to see what sensations are present and welcome the wisdom they have for you. 

Just paying attention will awaken sensations: tingling, warmth, tension, pulsing. It’s all good. 

As we learn to receive the body's information, however uncomfortable it might be, we find that we can more easily let go of what we are partial to think and ultimately arrive at a more accurate conception about the situations, one that is less disguised by our biases. Over time, we develop a more flexible way of seeing the circumstances we face, one that is less informed by past models, and more consistent with a here-and-now reality.

When you learn to work with the tension that you hold in your body, you also work with your mind. You body contracts to protect itself 

When something happens that contradicts the reality we want to believe, the body habitually contracts as a way of protecting us. By non-judgmentally feeling the contraction, we face the thing that we naturally turn away from. By turning toward it, we are able then to accept the information, however, contradictory it may be with our beliefs or assumptions.

Peeling Away Layers of Our Onion

Just when we think we have completed a body of personal work like overcoming shame, self-loathing or chronic insecurity, it can sneak back up on us. The tendency is to think that we've regressed and that all the previous work we'd done is null and void. This perspective can leave us feeling hopeless.

What's happening is that we had learned one side or aspect of what our pain was attempting to teach us. The realizations we previously came to were useful, but as we evolve, and life around us changes, our previous breakthroughs don't always hold up.

That we revisit old, painful patterns isn't a step backward but an opportunity to come to understand ourselves at a more profound level. Emotional pain calls us into a deeper relationship with ourselves. It's as if we have peeled away one layer of an onion, only to discover that there is another layer. We mistakenly believe that there will come a day when we will no longer have layers to peel away.

The sooner we come to grips with the fact that our wounds never go away, but instead are like sirens calling us into a deeper accord with ourselves, the less we will resist them. The point isn't to eliminate them, but to learn to accept them as a doorway to our next level of evolution.

Dismember to Re-member

Collectively we are all being forced to reassess what's important and what matters. Shelter-in-place is forcing many of us to look within, to find out what we're made of, what's driving us. This virus is forcing us to remember, to remember our dreams. In a way, we are being dismembered in order to re-member. We are being disintegrated in order to reintegrate.

Are we going to try to go back to the way things were? We so easily forget what it was actually like only a few months ago: the striving, the pressure, the speed and intensity, the addiction to being busy. Most importantly, we overlook the twin misconceptions afflicting our collective consciousness: the fallacy that we are never enough as we are and that something outside of ourselves will pacify this emptiness we feel inside.

We aren't skinny enough, aren't young enough, aren't smart enough. Our rampant materialism has been an unconscious attempt to cover up this subtle feeling of inadequacy and dissatisfaction. Material things can never fill this void. What we desire exists only in relationship to ourselves, to another, to others and to spirit.

As we consume more than we need, we lose touch with our interdependence with one another and to this earth. Our disconnection upsets what truly matters. We upend the balance of nature, which we are utterly dependent on for our survival. Our waters become poisoned, and our earth is scorched to feed our insatiable greed. We can see its effect in our own homes as we watch our children growing addicted to video games and drugs.

Nature has been poking us to remember for some time, but we have been ignoring her calls in the form of natural disasters, mass killings and lying politicians. The more we ignore her, the more we can see how it affects not just ourselves but everyone around us. It's hard not to see today that this fundamental choice to come back home to the heart and to remember what matters effects everyone.

We don't like to feel confined in our homes, but sheltering in place is the perfect excuse to drop in and confront our ego's delusion of not enough-ness. We will never find what we are looking for through our consumption. Until we figure this out, nature will continue to humble us, to remind us that we are of the earth. We are related to all life and to The One Life. This moment is dismembering us so that hopefully we can re-member.

Four Kinds of Blind Spots and Strategies for Working with Them

Lettuce in your teeth: it’s no big deal, but it sucks to find out after that important meeting where everyone else saw it while you yammered away, blissfully unaware. Why didn’t anyone tell you? Because most people want to be nice to their fellow humans.  We’ve been told, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”  Pointing out someone else’s flaws, foibles and embarrassing bits feels uncomfortable and scary. 

Considering how hard it can be for people to alert you to a little greenery in your smile, imagine how rarely you’ll find someone who will tell you that you’re marrying the wrong person or are on the wrong career path. And honestly, you don’t want to hear this from someone else. What do they know, anyway? No, these are things that are best realized for yourself, hopefully sooner rather than later. 

Here’s the thing. The signs are always there and you often can see them clearly in retrospect. The no-good, selfish partner was the same person who stiffed the server on your third date. The soul-sucking, 80-hour a week job started with interviews that asked for 108 examples of how you go above and beyond. If you didn’t see the signs, it’s not that they weren’t there. It was that you had a blind spot, something got in the way of you seeing. 

The “It’s Gotta Be a Certain Way” Blind Spot

Sometimes blind spots are the result of being attached to having things a certain way.  You’ve been on 50 first dates that went nowhere. This woman is hotter than Austin in August, laughs at all your jokes and learned how to cook from her Sicilian grandmother. She was a little dismissive about your commitment to Crossfit and maybe knows a little too much about whiskey, but she knows how to have a good time and you need more good time in your life. You really want this to be something, so you brush aside, discount and flat out ignore what doesn’t fit.  

The “Self-Image” Blind Spot

Some blind spots arise out of a need to see yourself in a certain way. If you grew up in a chaotic family where your role was to keep the peace, you likely have some blind spots around conflict. Peacemakers often confuse being diplomatic with being good at conflict or they mistakenly believe that engaging in any conflict is pointless. Articulating your own needs won’t come naturally if you grew up taking care of a volatile parent. To engage in healthy conflict, you need to be able to be direct about what you are feeling and want; that runs counter to the role and self-image of a peacemaker. 

The “Ambiguity and Uncertainty” Blind Spot

Other blind spots arise out of the innate human discomfort with the unfamiliar, ambiguity and uncertainty. We like for the situations and people around us to be tidy and easy. Our brains don’t like venturing into the unknown. It’s dangerous territory. Change has a way of stimulating all kinds of difficult emotions: resistance, fear, sadness and anger. We’re wired to resist leaving our comfort zone. We’re also hyper-attuned to signs of danger—this kept our ancestors alive, but it means we can sometimes overestimate risks and negative intent.  

I see this a lot with people who are considering starting their own business. No matter how much due diligence they’ve conducted, as they prepare to leave the security of a paycheck for the unknown, they start ruminating on doubts and all the things they will be walking away from: money, work friends, a favorite lunch spot. A vision of opportunity becomes eclipsed by fear of the unknown. Life begins right outside the comfort zone; it takes courage to step into it.

It also comes up whenever there is a big change, and it doesn’t have to be a “bad” change. Winning the lottery can be as disorienting as going bankrupt. Change creates power shift. I know of a tight knit company that underwent a management change during an economic downturn. When the new boss came in, colleagues who had practically whistled while they worked together began undercutting each other to gain the favor of the new boss. Fear took over: fear of losing status, fear of betrayal, fear of being left behind. There was so much fear, it was impossible for these former friends to see opportunities to come together. 

The “Personal Truth” Blind Spot

Then there are the blind spots created by assumptions and beliefs that go deep into the marrow of your being, so enmeshed with your identity that they are difficult to see. These are the ideas that were imparted to you when you were small and lessons learned in a painful way: bigger is better, hard work creates success and vulnerability is weakness.

Our beliefs and assumptions don’t just create blind spots. They block us from the present moment. In the here-and-now, our thoughts and feelings are allies to guide us. Your ultimate challenge is to see things as they are without judgement, attachment or expectation. 

Take every opportunity to examine your beliefs and assumptions. You must understand which ones are in play both when you are struggling and when you are succeeding. You can’t create or lead if you are operating with a Swiss cheese picture of the present moment. 

My friend Jamie made a hard decision to pivot her business. She got a lot of positive feedback about her vision, but she struggled to sell it beyond early adopters. She pushed ahead full throttle. Hard work, commitment and optimism had always secured success for her in the past. Her ideal was to build a multimillion dollar company that supported a team of full time employees and continued doubling revenue year-over-year for at least the next ten years. She envisioned building a corporate culture that celebrated everyone and set trends. 

From the start, she received enthusiastic guidance and support from an investor who believed in her and her vision. She felt responsible for giving him and her hard-working team a great return. 

But these things were obscuring two important things: what was in front of her and what was inside her gut. In front of her: her target market wasn’t ready for the revolution she was building. In her gut: she felt the right thing to do was to focus on her clients, not build a corporate empire.

She ignored these whispering doubts for a long time. 

She crossed a line where she felt overstretched financially and burned out. It became impossible to ignore that working harder towards the objective wasn’t working. Jamie stepped back and looked at what was driving her. She had always been a Type-A person who defined her worth by measurable achievement: academic, financial and professional.   

If she was really honest with herself, Jamie saw that she harbored a belief that if she failed to attain the specific goals that she set for herself, she would let other people down and it might mean that she wasn’t good enough. She examined this idea of “good enough” — what it meant and how she would know when she achieved it. She realized that “good enough” was a moving, unachievable target and so she asked herself a different question: “What if I were good enough already? What’s really here in front of me right now? And what do I really want right now?”     

By looking honestly, she was able to perceive more and clarify what was coming from where. She realized that her sense of fulfillment came from serving her clients not building a big company. This idea of being a CEO didn’t come from her own true sense of purpose. It came from expectations she had picked up along the way: in school, from her family and the work cultures she had spent so much of her life.   

Finding the Opportunity When Things Fall Apart

Meet Your Inner Critic

What if you really want to believe in your intrinsic brilliance and ability to learn and grow from any situation, but there’s a part of you that just doesn’t buy it? Deep down, you suspect or are afraid or even outright know that you’re flawed in some fundamental way. You’re not smart enough or strong enough or beautiful enough or creative enough or something else enough. 

You have proof lined up and ready to lay out that’s as perfect and indisputable as a royal flush. Exhibit A: a damning chain of failures. Exhibit B: criticism received. Exhibit C: side-by-side comparisons with people who are better. Exhibit D: what could and should have been.

When you’re in your flow, these things don’t bother you. You lose all self-consciousness and are completely absorbed in the present moment. But when things aren’t flowing, you start thinking about what’s wrong with you.

There you go again … You’re so lazy/weak/inept … You’re not enough … Even now, you’re letting your thoughts drag you down. What have you done? … If people really knew what you were about, they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you … You’re so lazy/weak/inept … You’re not enough.

It’s one looping soundtrack with the same grinding thoughts remixed and replayed. These thoughts may run through your mind all matter of fact, ho hum, like a pilot reading coordinates to air traffic control. More likely, they come with a cutting tone and barking insistence. 

Who is thinking these thoughts? They spill forth with such authority that you’ll swear that they are coming from the seat of your inner wisdom and deepest truth. It’s time we talk about the Inner Critic.

Meet the Inner Critic

This sub-personality develops naturally around age five as we are taking our first big steps towards independence. As any parent can attest, children at that age are sponges, absorbing all manner of lessons, expectations and behaviors from the important people around them: parents, peers, teachers, etc. 

The Inner Critic develops to keep us out of trouble by proactively dispensing criticism that we’ve heard before. It tries to get ahead of potential disaster. Its job is to keep us safe—and so far, so good. You’re here. 

But the Inner Critic has a child’s understanding of safety. While it mimics the voice of an adult, it lacks the nuance and maturity that adults bring to problems. This can be a detriment to our ability to rebound from failure and hardship. When you need to dust yourself off and get back up, the Inner Critic is liable to shove you deeper into the mud. 

The Inner Critic tends to become particularly noisy in times of stress and fraught moments, like when you are preparing to do something new or when things aren’t going your way. It tells you that you had better stop being so inadequate and turn things around. In these moments, you may not even be able to hear encouraging words that remind you that nobody is perfect and no matter what you’ll make it through and learn something.  

I’ve worked with hundreds of people, many of whom are considered successful by all external measures: CEOs, entrepreneurs, rising stars. I’ve yet to encounter anyone without an Inner Critic. Even Mr. Rogers, who taught about unconditional loveability to schoolchildren on his show for 25 years, wrote about his struggles with his own Inner Critic after retiring.  

An Inner Critic that has run amok is debilitating. The more it goads you into being better, the more it undermines your ability to rebound. To cultivate resilience, you’ll need to learn how to work with and manage your Inner Critic. 

Lisa was considered a shining star in the technology industry. By age 30, she’d already started and sold two companies. Being a female leader in tech was unusual, but her success was remarkable. People considered her an extraordinary leader and that was how she thought of herself until her husband left her within a year of the birth of their child.

He had been having an affair with her best friend and Lisa had no idea. She was both devastated by the betrayal and overwhelmed by the demands of leading a company as a single parent. Feelings of despair and difficulty focusing are natural reactions to this kind of relationship trauma. But Lisa’s distress was compounded by her Inner Critic. It berated her for missing what had been going on under her nose. It lectured her on all the ways that she had failed in the relationship.

Over the course of a year, Lisa struggled to power through and bounce back, but found it increasingly hard to complete tasks. By the time Lisa reached out for coaching, she had started to wonder whether all of her past successes were just luck. She felt like an imposter and questioned whether she was fundamentally unlovable given the breakdown in her marriage.

How to Work with Your Inner Critic

First, you have to expect that the Inner Critic is going to show up in times of stress and hardship. It keeps tally of all the moments that you’ve felt shame and psychological pain throughout our lives. 

We have a neurobiological bias to give greater weight to negative experiences than positive ones. This is because our hunter-gatherer ancestors regularly faced life and death dangers from predators and competitors. It was critical that they quickly recognized negative situations so they could avoid getting eaten or beaten. It’s not that positive experiences weren’t important. It’s just that if you are living on the edge of survival and you don’t avoid the negative, you won’t be around to enjoy the positive. The primitive “caveman” part of your brain still carries this negative bias. 

The Inner Critic gives voice to this primitive part of the brain that is on guard for negative experiences. When it does show up, your challenge is to recognize it for what it is—a trigger-happy defense system that’s well-meaning, but not very mature. The problem isn’t that it shows up, it’s that its tactics to get your attention creates an echo chamber where the self-judging, shaming, belittling and fault-finding are too deafening to allow you to see yourselves, your opportunities or the problem clearly.

When the Inner Critic tells you that you are inadequate, you believe it. Why wouldn’t you? It’s a voice that you’ve been carrying around almost your entire lives. It sounds like you. You take it to be the ultimate authority of truth, but you would do well to imagine it as a kid with a bullhorn. This view is more accurate and enables you to open up to other perspectives that can help you pick yourself back up and take positive steps. 

Trying to ignore the Inner Critic, fight it or drown it out with positive mantras is an exercise in futility. This part of your brain is as ancient, strong and fierce as a dragon. The more you resist it, the more virulent it will become and the harder it will be for you to regain your footing. 

Applying Mindful Awareness to the Inner Critic

Mindful awareness is a calm and accepting quality of attention that allows you to step back and see what is going on. It lets you take a thousand foot view and look down. By creating some space between yourself and your thoughts, feelings and emotions, you temporarily free yourselves from their blinding and occasionally overwhelming nature. 

Instead of engaging with the Inner Critic, it is better to step back and apply mindful awareness. Just take a breath, acknowledge its presence and inquire into what it really wants to tell you. What is it afraid or concerned about? You may discover other feelings, thoughts, images and inner voices competing for your attention. The idea is to witness what is present, not to judge or make it wrong.  When you open your awareness and give the various parts of yourself the caring attention they need, they have a way of settling your uneasiness and helping you dust yourself off.  

It’s important to understand that your Inner Critic has a positive intent. This may seem counter-intuitive given the way it attacks you, but its aim is to protect you from pain. It employs criticism from the misguided belief that if you could be thinner, stronger, smarter, more perfect, you won’t be rejected or hurt. In an effort to help you belong, “fit in” and avoid being rejected, it corrects whatever it deems weak, imperfect and unlovable about yourself. It believes its harsh and negative attacks will improve your life.

Inquiring into your Inner Critic can be a source of deep healing if you can do so with compassionate curiosity. Doing so will reveal the expectations that you’ve absorbed from others and organized your life around. Inevitably, some of these rules for living are outdated or misaligned with your own deepest desires. You may also uncover feelings that frightened you as a child, but that you can release now that you are an adult. 

The Inner Critic may say, “You’re weak; you don’t deserve to be in this job.” 

Applying mindful inquiry, you might ask what was first happening when you came to believe that you were weak. Who was judging you? What was that experience like for you? How might your Inner Critic be trying to protect you from repeating that experience?

You may become aware that you are afraid of being weak because as a child you saw a parent lose a series of jobs due to addiction. You swore to yourself that you would never need to be dependent on anyone. You may realize that for you, not being weak means sacrificing yourself and being strong for everyone else. 

You may become aware of both a sadness and an anger when at the age of seven, your parent told you that you were the man of the house. You may realize that your self-sacrificing makes you feel alone. You may realize that the Inner Critic wants to keep you safe, but what you want isn’t to be strong or weak, but to be connected.

Resilience demands that you distinguish your own beliefs from those that have been foisted upon you. If you can distinguish them, you can begin to play by your own rules. The more you stand in awareness, the more you can free yourself of the expectations of everyone else—your parents, teachers, peers, society. You are free to live life on your own terms. You shift from attempting to match some external model of success to one that is more authentically your own.

Emotion & Leadership

The old 1950s paradigm that a leader must ignore or suppress her/his emotional urges has been thoroughly discredited over the last 20 years of research. Instead, research shows, time and again, that leaders that are aware of their moods, emotions, and drives, can leverage that competency to drive positive organizational change. While logic and intellect have made our lives easier in many ways—giving us indoor plumbing and high speed internet—they do not motivate people. By placing too high a value on brainpower rather than heart-power, we inadvertently demotivate the teams we lead. Why?

A Leader’s Emotional Field

Because our emotional field acts like an unseen force that either motivates or discourages the teams of people we lead. Our emotions have a profound impact on shaping the perceptions around us. To convey this point, look at the following photo and see if you can answer the question: Which monster is bigger?:

runningmonster

Both monsters are, in fact, of equal size.

runningmonstera

The visual distortions produced by the lines in the background make the monster in the back appear larger. Our emotions are like those background lines. They’re affecting everyone else’s perception of us, but we are unaware of their impact. Maybe we want our team to focus on meeting their numbers; closing a deal; or putting out a fire. The background of emotion we inject into the achievement of tasks and goals acts as a sort of frame that contextualizes our team’s experience.

If, for example, we are scared that our team will not make its quota and unaware of the intensity of our fear, we will inadvertently demotivate. Unless we are aware of the emotional fields we create, we, as leaders, will not be aware of our impact upon those we influence. As a result, we will be powerless to wield these unseen forces and silent messages that shape, not only our teams’ experiences, but, ultimately, the destiny of the organizations we lead.

Emotions are infectious in a way that concepts are not. Unlike like logic or analysis, emotion drives action. Without emotion, we are not inspire. Exhilaration, loyalty, fury, and affection give our work lives vibrancy and purpose. Attraction, desire, and enthusiasm draw us toward people and situations, while fear, shame, guilt, and disgust repel us from others. In all cases, emotions act as an all-pervading guide. Emotion has a way of drawing us into almost immediate alignment in a way that thoughts cannot.

That's why watching movies in the theater can be more powerful than when we watch them at home. We are surrounded by others’ emotional responses. It is also why stampedes form in stadiums when crowds of people are filled with fright or anger. And we all know what it is like to work in environments where emotions like worry, doubt, and cynicism pervade. Emotional fields like these have an incredible capacity to take the wind out of our sails.

Researchers at management the consulting firm, Hay/McBer, have shown that emotional competencies are twice as important in contributing to leadership excellence as are pure intellect and technical expertise . Additionally, the United States Office of Personnel Management oversaw an analysis of the competencies deemed to set superior performers apart from barely adequate ones for virtually every federal job. For lower-level positions, there was a higher premium on technical abilities than on interpersonal ones. As people advanced in their position, interpersonal skills became more important in distinguishing superior from average performance. In other words, it’s more important for leaders to be likeable than it is for them to be smart.

The goods news is that research demonstrates that E.Q. (Emotional Quotient) is learnable. Emotional intelligence is not just something some people are born with and others not, like I.Q. The essential set of skills, the core, in fact, is developed through mindfulness training, which is a simple, age-old, time-tested technique that builds self-awareness and empathy.

Letting Crisis Wake You Up

Covid-19: The Perfect Teacher

This could be a random moment, one grand, human error where a virus jumped from an animal to the human population and where that population was woefully unprepared. That’s one way of viewing this experience we are all in together, a series of fuck ups with enormous ramifications.

I’m not suggesting we dismiss this perspective, but it is only that, one way of viewing this time. And it’s one that leaves me cynical, scared and hopeless, with only three options: being mad, afraid or falling into a pit of despair. These three basic human reactions generate more suffering in the world than is needed.

Another point-of-view-and not necessarily the only one or even the correct one-is that Covid-19 is the perfect teacher. The uncertainty it presents in our lives and the lives of our loved ones might be the ideal curriculum we need to wake up to our purpose, to find our unique path, to give our gift, our medicine. And for each of us, that’s going to be something different. For one person, it might be the calling to step up and lead. For another, it might be about taking a new career path, one that is more aligned with our values.

While humanity has never experienced a pandemic of such proportions, we know in our DNA, how to ride this wave. Crises are not new to humanity. Our ancestors were all once part of tribes, and when tribes got decimated, either by illness, war or famine, the survivors had to reassess. They couldn’t go on in the same way. And what did they do?

They struggled, but eventually, they went inward and touched the fear, vulnerability and grief. Deep below the heartache, they also found a well of hope and possibility, a place where discoveries could be made and where new and unique ideas and approaches could alter their lives and the lives of those they loved and were connected to. That’s one possibility for this moment, not just for the so-called elite or leaders, but for each of us. It might just be the ideal curriculum we need to wake up, to reassess our values and priorities, and to connect ever-deeper with the well of love and connection that exists beyond the rational mind, beyond the fear and hurt we carry.

To know that well, to touch it, requires patience, focus and presence. It requires going inward and wading through the whole catastrophe we are in until we find that spark of insight, of wisdom that we each carry as our birthright. I don’t know what this new time will bring us, but when I hold the possibility that this moment is the perfect teacher, I am profoundly hopeful we will find our way.

Stop! Look! Go!

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

—Victor Frankl

The saying goes that "You reap what you sow," but we are not always aware of the seeds we scatter about. Taking a mindfulness approach to our leadership means that we are taking responsibility for how we influence others. Responsibility is often understood as a duty. Instead, what I am implying by the word responsibility is the ability to respond in any given situation. When we are able to respond, we can choose which seeds we would like to plant and which ones we won’t. Do we want to create a wave of anxiety throughout the workplace because we aren’t close to meeting our year-end numbers, or do we want to motivate with excitement by creating a challenge that causes those around us to step-up?

Having the ability to respond allows us to put mental time and space between a stimulus and an action. Because we think what we feel instead of feeling what we think, from a neurobiological perspective, this space of mind enables the range of possibilities to be considered. Having the ability to respond affords us the choice to be our "wisest self" possible in a given circumstance we find ourselves in, whether it is charged with emotional intensity or not.

I want to share a useful three-step formula from Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk known for interfaith dialogue and his work on the interaction between spirituality and science. He came up with a three-part “Recipe for Grateful Living: Stop! Look! Go!” that he shares in this TED Talk. Brother David designed these steps as a down and dirty gratefulness practice, but it works equally as a practice of engaged mindfulness, of being present enough to achieve a high degree of "respond-ability" in any situation.

Stop!

For Brother David, stopping is about pausing for “the gift this moment offers you.” From the perspective of mindfulness, we stop to come back to the here and now. It is only in the present moment where we can effect change, and we miss it when we move non-stop. We don’t often take a break out of our unceasing momentum, except when we sleep. We tend to run in an automatic, unceasing momentum, thanks to caffeine and the high value our culture places on productivity. Stopping can be particularly difficult, especially when someone hands us a hot potato and we are sent into a fit of rage, or we are asked to make a decision but are not sure how to respond. The only place, though, where we have the power to create, to generate something new, something appropriate is in the present moment.

Developing the knack for breaking motion can be very powerful, as it stimulates the middle prefrontal cortex, the portion of the brain that allows us to move through the world with wisdom, foresight, and level-headedness. Stopping does not require that we always halt for hours or even minutes. A stop can be as short as a moment. It need only be long enough to:

1. Note how does the situation affect the depth and speed of our breath? 2. Note the emotional charge in our body by quickly: a. Locating it b. Labeling the emotion(s) c. Noting sensations

As an example, it comes to our attention that a new employee has mismanaged a longstanding customer relationship, and we notice that we’re triggered: our faces are red-hot and our breath is shallow and rapid.

The more we become habituated to pausing, the less reactive we are. An interesting neuroimaging study by researcher, Julie Brefcyznski-Lewis and her colleagues revealed that when long-term meditators were subjected to negative sounds, like a woman screaming, they showed less amygdala activation compared to novice meditators. The more hours one meditated, the lower the activation. Simply by practicing mindfulness meditation, we develop an innate capacity to pause before we act, especially when we feel strong negative emotion. That way we are not trapped by our autopilot-like ingrained behaviors.

Look!

Once we’ve stopped, that middle prefrontal cortex is stimulated. It will naturally dampen whatever amydgala hijack might be taking place. It will also help us to use the time and space we’ve created to see, as Brother David puts it, “the opportunity available now.” From the standpoint of mindfulness, before we react, we:

1. Look at the circumstances we find ourselves. 2. Consider results we want to create 3. Formulate a response that bridges the gap between our desired impact and the situation we are attempting to effect.

By pausing and looking, we can distinguish between the emotions we feel and the outcomes we want to have. As a result we can tailor a response that meets the latter rather than the former, or we can figure out a way to have both expressed in a way that has positive impact.

In the example above of the employee who has mismanaged a customer relationship, we might initially be angry or frustrated, but by stopping, as we did before, we will become less triggered and cannot help but see that the employee is a novice. It is likely that he or she is not aware of his mistake. So we might consider this breakdown as a training opportunity for the employee.

Like stopping, looking can take time, but not a great deal of time is needed. We may not have endless time to get a subtle read on the internal sensations or mull over lots of options. Sometimes we are so triggered that any answer will be one of reaction. In that case, we are not ready to choose, and so we may respectfully ask for more time. If clarity of action isn’t forthcoming in the time that is allotted, a quick rule-of-thumb is to pause long enough to allow our emotional reactivity to diminish enough so that we can see options that are non-defensive or aggressive. The quality of our mind has a strong impact on the outcome. If we have made a choice from a place of clarity, we will experience more clarity. If we make a choice from a place of unrest, the results will often lead to more unrest.

Go!

But when we are clear, we go. And this is what makes Brother David’s recipe distinct from most contemplative practices. Instead of endlessly staying in the cave of stop and look for the next 20 years, Brother David is encouraging us, “To do something with this precious opportunity!” And when we engage, we give ourselves complete permission to follow the clarity that emerged in the look phase. Mindful action does not mean that we always speak in soft, whispering, pseudo-meditator-like tones. When we are engaged in a mindful way, we bring whatever energy is needed for a given situation. If intensity is needed, we bring that. Whatever the course of action, we do so whole-heartedly. We don’t hold back.

Sometimes we must take strong and forceful action. Maybe someone is being aggressive toward a weaker person. If that is the case, we might sense an obligation to stop him or her. In the case of the employee who does not recognize the mistake, we might previously have paused before reacting and offered our respect by attempting to see his or her perspective. We might even have attempted in mild ways to let them know that we do not agree with them or that they’ve disappointed us. If he or she continues to disregard us, it can be useful to take hard action.

What makes the orientation of Stop! Look! Go! unique is that we do what needs to be done in a given situation, but we do so without losing the balance of our minds. When we must take strong action, we Stop! and Look! By doing so, we notice the quality of our emotions and thoughts. If we are agitated and act from this place, we will only be planting seeds of agitation. If, on the other hand, we are centered and even-minded, the quality of seeds we will plant will most likely result in a positive outcome.

What Buddha Understood But Freud Didn't

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

-Albert Einstein

Wise people across all cultures and from time immemorial have essentially been repeating the same maxim: “Know thyself.” In spite of all the things we do to know ourselves, we remain a mystery to ourselves throughout our lives. We all have multiple natures. If told a secret, one part of us wants to honor the vow by not telling the secret; however, we also experience a little relief by telling someone about the secret we’ve been asked to keep in confidence. We are truly divided: we simultaneously want to grow up and don’t want to grow up; hunger for sexual pleasure, dread sexual pleasure; hate our own resentments but are unwilling or somehow unable to forgive. It is as if we are not one monolithic identity or self but, rather, a myriad of selves with various and opposing drives.

The notion of the unconscious is a term Sigmund Freud used to connote all of the irrational forces that drag us hither and thither, that cause us to act and react in ways that we cannot and do not totally understand, nor can we consciously identify with. The goal of psychotherapy, according to Freud, was to come to an understanding of these subsurface urges through psychoanalysis, which consisted of dream interpretation and talk therapy.

Ultimately, at best, the psychotherapeutic patient, according to Freud, could not be cured of his or her divided self, but, instead, could become reconciled to the fact that he or she was made up of complex and multifarious drives. This simple knowledge would allow the individual to, once again, function as a contributing member of society.

Freud initiated the West’s fascination with the unconscious, but individuals in the Indian subcontinent had been exploring the divided self for thousands of years prior to Freud. People like Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, had been experimenting on themselves as far back as the sixth century, B.C.E. in order to overcome life’s uneasy and sometimes even distressing qualities.

Like Freud, these “self-scientists” saw the suffering that resulted from their divided urges, but the goal was different; in fact, it was more thorough. They weren’t trying to fit into society again. Instead, they sought total freedom; not freedom from society per se, but freedom from the divided self. They sought access to resolving this divide. They sought a kind of wholeness. And their approach was quite different.

Je Pense, Donc Je Suis

In 1637, the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes turned the West’s model of reality inside out when he stated: “Je pense, donc je suis,” or “I think, therefore I am.” What he implied in this statement was that being is conditional upon thinking. This notion that the human was first and foremost a thinking entity set a course for philosophical development in which the mind and body were separated, that the body was of a lower nature because, unlike the mind, it was not rational.

Descartes believed that minds and bodies were distinct kinds of substance. Bodies, he held, were spatially extended substances, incapable of feeling or thought; minds, in contrast, were thinking, feeling substances. Freud’s methodology is a byproduct of this paradigm; only through the use of the rational, logical mind can we come to terms with our divided self.

However, the more complex the thought patterns, the more we become separated from the fundamental problems and conflicts we experience. Thinking, while useful in solving some problems, often begets more problems, more fragmentation, and more complexity.

This is the fundamental difference between Freud and the Buddha: Freud sought to make rational sense of the divided self. The Buddha agreed that the self was divided, fragmented, and, ultimately, a great mystery, but he recognized that the thinking mind could not resolve the mystery. In other words, he couldn’t think his way out of the problem of fragmentation. He needed another methodology, another approach.

At first, the Buddha’s path was pretty extreme. He spent six years attempting to conquer the parts of himself that he didn’t like by trying to overcome the appetite for food, sex, and even comfort. He fasted. He took vows of celibacy. He slept in brambles and exposed himself to extreme heat and cold. In fact, his efforts in self-abnegation through fasting were so fierce that when he found himself near-to-death, he accepted a bowl of rice from a young girl.

Once he had eaten, he had a realization that physical austerities were not the means to overcoming the divided self. Starvation didn’t help. It only reinforced the divide by killing off the physical body. And so, instead of negating the various urges, trying to get away from them, he developed his own methodology of facing them. What he discovered was that when he could observe his body’s frustrations, anxieties, hurts, and longings in a non-reactive way, they lost their hold on him.

The Nervous System

Like Freud, he discovered two minds occurring simultaneously: the conscious mind (the mind of apparent reality) and the unconscious mind (the mind below the surface). While Freud used dream analysis to understand the hidden meaning of one’s unconscious thoughts, drives, and desires, the Buddha made use of an even simpler and more direct tool for making sense and working with the unconscious drive. What he observed was that when he lost contact with a presence of mind, he almost always left his body. If the thoughts were anxious, angry, or stimulating, and he brought his attention into the body, he would also notice his heart racing along with jittery feelings that made it difficult to sit still. If, on the other hand, he touched hopeless/helpless thoughts, thought forms associated with shame or overwhelm, he noticed his heart and breath rates would slow down, that he would feel drowsy, shut down, empty, and cold. He also noticed that whenever these feelings came on, a reflexive patterning of behaviors would ensue, behaviors that would prolong his loss of contact from presence.

Upon discovering this pattern, he devised a path out, a path he called mindfulness. Simply by observing, by staying present, non-reactive and gentle with himself when he fell into various qualities of fight, flight or freeze responses, he could settle his nervous system enough. By doing so, he developed a capacity to settle his nervous system’s reactivity.

Essentially, what the Buddha recognized was that this awareness, this means of knowing that what rests below the surface-the network of nerve cells and fibers that transmit nerve impulses between parts of the body and the brain-always remains inaccessible to us until we slow down and feel. While we have a great deal of training in thinking about the circumstances we find ourselves in thanks to Descartes, Freud, and pop-psychology, we have little to no training in working directly with our nervous systems. When we develop greater awareness and skillfulness when we lose the balance of our minds, we also gain a greater capacity to heal.  

How to Find Yourself

Befriending the Inner Child

One of my clients describes this experience she had in grammar school. Being the chubbiest and slowest of the other kids performing wind sprints in Mrs. Wahlberg's P.E. class, my client would often come in last. Already tired and overwhelmed from being beaten, Mrs. Wahlberg would make her run several more wind sprints on her own while been scoffed at by the other kids. To this very day she pulls out her own Mrs. Wahlberg when the tax bill hasn't been paid; the bags from last weekend's vacation haven't been unpacked; and, oh yes, when she has totally forgotten to write a thoughtful response to that person who emailed her last week. As the "to do's" build up, so does the overwhelm.

The anxiety can be so debilitating that it swirls inside of her, almost like a lava lamp. Throughout most of her day, she anxiously wonders to herself, "What have I let slip through the cracks? Am I doing 'the right thing' at this moment? Am I on the right track?" Secretly she wonders, "Will I ever know what 'the right track' is?"

Instead of gathering her wits about her, my client invites Mrs. Wahlberg and the kids in her class to mock her: "You're chubby. You're slow. You're weak. You're lame." All the while, my client mistakenly believes that this will somehow motivate her to get unburied from the mountain of tasks, known and unknown, that await her.

This may sound like someone else's story, but it's actually all of our stories. We've all come to believe in some particular way that we are weak, slow, defective, ugly, unlovable or just plain, "not enough." We've gathered plenty of evidence that validates our insufficiency. When we find ourselves yet again in situations that confirm our flaw, we beat ourselves up.

Here's the kicker. We mistakenly believe that if we're mean or cruel enough, somehow we will slough off our bad habits. Instead, we're practicing being cruel to ourselves, which stimulates the stress hormone, cortisol, into our blood, sending us into a depression that deepens the hole we're already in.

Below the self-loathing and the accompanying longing that we'd just get this part of ourselves handled is a deep and old wound. It's the kind of wounding that can happen in Mrs. Wahlberg's P.E. class; when dad married the bitch that wished I hadn't existed or; as in my case when my brother took his life and nobody knew how to help.

These experiences leave exquisitely tender marks on the mind, body and spirit. To make contact with these imprints can be like putting our hand on a hot stove. They burn. We don't know how to keep these parts of ourselves company; in fact we've spent a lifetime wishing they would just go away.

There comes a point for many of us, however, when we stop running from them, when we stop attempting to beat ourselves into submission. Maybe someone shows up who can help us, or maybe we end up completely overwhelmed and can no longer keep up the facade. However it happens, instead of running from them, we turn around and look. We find a gentle and tolerable way to keep these parts of us company. When we do, we begin to discover that instead of needing to be excised, these parts of ourselves are actually hidden with treasures of insight, compassion and wisdom.

As my client learns to keep this underlying pain company, to welcome it, to have compassion for herself, she's starting to discover that when she's triggered, she can use it as an invitation to come back, come back to the chubby, little girl being abused in Mrs. Wahlberg's class.

"Above all else," she says, "We don't abuse children. Above all else, I don't abuse myself."

Freeing Yourself from Your Mind

Unlike adults, children don’t get hung up on not knowing the answers. When, for example, they learn to walk, they do not get fixated on looking foolish for having fallen. Their lack of self-consciousness enables them us to keep picking themselves up whenever they fall. They do not let the crippling sense of their ineptitude keep them from continuing to try. They don’t think to themselves, “I hope they won’t see what a fraud I am at this thing called walking?” 

We adults are not so quick to take risks, especially in the areas of our lives where we feel stuck. This reticence is due in large part to changes in our brains as we become grow up. Slowly, as we gather information about the world around us, we develop mental models that prevent us from being surprised or caught off-guard. Most neuroscientists currently operate under the paradigm that an adult brain is a prediction-making machine.

We naturally compare a previous set of experiences to the circumstances we find ourselves in. People remind us of other people we know, and experiences remind us of earlier experiences we have had. This association is how our brain predicts. Our mental models allow the brain to take in as little information as it needs to make guesses about what will happen. These assumptions allow us to forecast and anticipate outcomes using as little brainpower as possible. 

Where these energy-efficient predictions tend to fail us, however, is when we confront circumstances that do not match our expectations, like when all of a sudden, someone we love unexpectedly dies. Such experiences send us into shock. Unfortunately, the mental models we acquire don’t take into account life. As the adage goes, “Humans plan, and God laughs.” When predictions, assumptions and expectations fail us, we inevitably refuse to accept reality; in fact, we resist it.

Avidya

In the language of Yoga, Sanskrit, this denial of reality is called avidya. Avidya often translates as ignorance, but a more accurate one is not understanding. When we are in avidya, we refuse to accept and, in fact, reject the facts when they do not accord with what we want, hope or expect. Avidya is like having a thick layer of gauze over our eyes. It blocks our capacity to acknowledge or even experience what is so. 

In the first of his Four Noble Truths, the Buddha famously pointed out that life can be dissatisfying. That might sound pessimistic, but I think you’d agree that it’s also reality. We’re not always happy. Rarely do we experience contentment or do things go according to plan. Even though we know this, we somehow refuse to admit it. 

We keep wishing the circumstances we find ourselves in would be some way other than what they are. Our refusal to accept reality is what causes us to be so frustrated with life. Whenever we take the facts on their terms, we’re not so bothered by it, but the more we resist something we don't want or like, the more it lingers. 

When we refuse to accept people in our lives as they are, we tend to experience more conflict. When we spend energy trying to fix circumstances that don’t need our fixing, they tend to get worse. When we refuse to acknowledge our own feelings because they don’t accord with an image we have of ourselves, those repressed feelings undermine our lives. 

If, on the other hand, we can learn to find acceptance, to, at the very least, acknowledge reality, we can work with it. We can make changes that accord with our higher nature. Without the resistance of nonacceptance, we see options and possibilities. With resistance, all we see are possible conflicts and insurmountable obstacles.

Limiting Beliefs

From the moment we come out of the womb, we are trained to resist reality, to wish for things to be other than the way they are. Pain and pleasure are our primary teachers. If a parent continually betrays our trust, the pain of that leaves us less inclined to be forgiving. If we felt loved and accepted at our church, synagogue, mosque or other religious institution, we are more apt to want to continue participating in our religion in our adult years   

Not only are we conditioned through pain and pleasure, but we also involuntarily absorbed and adopted beliefs and values about the world from our parents, caretakers, teachers and friends. At early stages of development, particularly before we had a chance to form our own ideas of the world and life, they showed us what life was and what its rules were, either through their example or through language. We learned do’s and don'ts, should’s and shouldn'ts, right's and wrong's, can's and can not's, always and never’s.

• I'll never meet someone who will love me for who I am.

• I want to, but I cannot trust myself.

• I won't be worthy of love until I've lost the weight. 

• I'll always be lost. I'll never know my purpose. 

• If I let someone in, they'll hurt me.

• I'll never figure out what I want or need.

• Who am I to be happy and successful?

• If I offer others my feedback, they won't like me.

• There's no time to wander, to explore, to meet new people, to learn, to plan fun activities, to travel.

Our parents and caretakers imparted these rules because they believed we needed to learn them to survive life. Instead of enlarging our lives, these beliefs and values tend to narrow them, especially when we take them on face value and don’t, in fact, question and explore their validity through our own life experience. When absorbed unquestioningly, they limit what’s possible in our lives. Rather than experiencing the myriad of ways to live, we avoid life altogether.  Our acquired ideas about the way the world is and isn't tend to imprison us in bubbles of predictability and monotony. We rarely take risks outside of the known.

Beginner’s Mind

Kids are not limited in the way we adults can be. They don’t filter reality through concepts and ideas. They experience it directly. When they’re sad, they cry. When they’re angry, they get mad. They don’t think to themselves, “I better not cry. If I do, they’ll think I’m soft.” Instead of wishing that reality was different than it is, they are more willing than we adults to explore it with inquisitiveness. This child-like quality of exploration is what the Zen tradition calls the Beginner’s Mind, which is curious, open for new learning and free of pre-conceived opinions, beliefs and judgments.

Nan-in, a Japanese master…received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. 

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!”"

Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” (1)

When we hold our beliefs as if they are authentic representations of reality, we do not experience life directly. Our conceptual models keep us at a distance from the unmediated experience of life. They are filters through which we judge whether the circumstances we confront as either good or bad, wanted or unwanted. They don't allow us to experience life’s immediacy. Keeping it at a distance prevents us from letting our challenges and obstacles grow and morph us. They are not errors but opportunities that compel our transformation. 

When we let go of the conceptual mind and step into Beginner’s Mind, we are free to use our senses to explore the obstacles we face in a very direct manner. Feelings, emotions, pictures, sense perceptions and memories begin to flow through us. We can pay attention to what the body wants to show us in precise and unambiguous ways. No longer relying on assumptions about right and wrong to guide us, but instead on what the body knows and communicates naturally, we begin to tap into a quality of mind that lies at the core of who and what we truly are. 

Applying Beginner’s Mind

We know we're not in Beginner's Mind when we're upset. That's a tell-tale sign that we are not accepting a situation as it is, that we're resisting something. We might be withholding our love or trust, rejecting someone else's feelings or our own. We might be anxiously anticipating something we believe will happen. We can ask ourselves the following three questions when we are anxious, sad, frustrated or angry:

1. For me not to be upset, how should I or others have behaved differently, or how should the circumstances be different?

   Note: The "should" we uncover in this question will reveal the hidden belief compelling us to resist reality.

2. How is this belief impacting me in this situation and throughout my life?

3. What would I have to feel and experience to be with the circumstances as they are rather than how I hoped they would be or how I think they ought to be?

Footnote
(1) Reps, Paul and Nyogen Senzaki. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. Tuttle Publishing. Rutland, Vermont. 1985.