ON BEING ONESELF

“Today you are you, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is you-er than you.”
….Dr. Seuss

The curious fact is that it’s not always easy to just “be yourself”, nor even to know precisely who that is.   

 “Who Am I?” is one of the most basic questions we can ask in deep meditative inquiry.  This question first appeared in my awareness somewhere around the age of 3, and it is still alive in me.

We can address this question at various levels of depth, both intellectually and experientially.  I can convey some basic points of my understanding by describing the experience I had several decades ago at a contemplative inquiry retreat. The inquiry took place in a dyadic dialogue format.   In each 45 minute segment,  one partner simply gave the prompt: “tell me who you are”, while the other partner contemplated, answered, and then contemplated some more.   We reversed roles.  Then we changed partners.  For a total of 54 hours. 

Of the many things that happened for me during this profound retreat, one vivid element I recall was the sensory experience of the collective voices in the room.  The first night was marked by the sounds of lively chatter as everyone told their story:  (What I do for a living, who I’m married to, what I studied in school, what I do for fun, where I live, etc.)   By the second day, the collective mind of the room had become very much more settled.  There was a lot of silence in the room, and a palpable sense of meditative presence.  (Similarly in my own mind:  a lot of stillness, with empty space between thoughts).

While it was interesting in its own right to observe the content of what came up for me in response to the prompt, eventually it all seemed to  boil down to the feeling of “blah, blah, blah”:  a kind of boredom I felt about the oft-told story of myself (or maybe even a certain boredom with self itself.)  I gained a deep appreciation of a truth articulated by the psychoanalyst Roy Schafer:   The self is a story; it is the story that there is a self to tell a story to.

At the same time, it was also clear that behind the story of Who I Am — beneath the layers of identity and personality — there was a felt experience of what it is like to be me.  (Who am I?  I’m me! )  This felt sense was ineffable, but somehow constant behind fluid and continuously changing subjective experience.   I felt a profound sense of realization regarding the truth of Heraclitus’ well-known aphorism “you can’t step in the same river twice”.    (It wouldn’t be the same river, nor would it be the same person.)  And yet, there was also an indisputable experience of sameness within the subjective diversity: a sense of ‘me’.  This subjective experience is what we call the psychological self (the being of which is the topic of this discussion.)

Looking back from my current vantage point, several decades later, my sense is that becoming myself has been a lifelong process of deepening authenticity.  Though difficult to define,  authenticity refers generally to the congruence between what we say/do and who we are.  Simply put, I am authentic when I am being myself (so at this point the definition becomes circular).   Nonetheless, broadly speaking, authenticity is reflected in how we inhabit ourselves; how comfortable we feel in our own skins; by our spontaneity and freedom of expression. It also carries the meaning that we are fulfilling our innate potential. 

In contrast, we are inauthentic when we show up in a way that forfeits individual meaning in favour of the habit of trying to please and accommodate to the wishes of others.  In this case, the natural, spontaneous expression of “who we are” gets coopted.   “False Self” supplants “true self”.

The ability to authentically be oneself is reflected by how we show up in life.  It has to do with how we relate to ourselves as well as with our ability to be vulnerable and intimate with others.  It is an evolving dimension of being increasingly comfortable and natural, as expressed by the following great quote:  “I used to be different, now I’m the same.” ^*
  
The quality and depth of being which is engaged when I am being myself is the quintessential thing.   The ideal state of being entails an experience of flow as well as a sense of being optimally tuned and responsive to what is going on both internally and externally.  We feel alert and aware; subjectively cohesive, alive, and integrated. This is what I call, for want of a better phrase,  “true subjectivity”.   In some moments, this experience may deepen into stillness, a sense of mystery or even awe: ultimately, the ineffable experience of being itself.  In such moments, we come home to ourselves.

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*Title of film which documents Erhard Seminars Training (Werner Erhard, 1978).

INQUIRING DEEPLY ABOUT HOW WE CHANGE

 Many – most — things that cause suffering are beyond our control.  But even those circumstances in which it appears we do have some choice may be stubbornly persistent, hard to manage, or intractable.  Life has a momentum which tends to carry our problems forward into the future for reasons both seen and unseen.   We suffer from the tendency to repeat old patterns over and over again, reenacting painful events or putting ourselves in situations where the same dreaded outcomes are likely to happen again.

Sometimes we bear our struggles and miseries with an added sense of shame and the perception of our own unworthiness.  Nonetheless, within us there is potentiality for change.  Freedom lies in the wise awareness of alternatives and of the ability to choose.  How can we cultivate this freedom?

In order to come to terms with our problems, it is helpful to have some place to “put them”:  a positive context/ frame of human understanding within which the situation can be held and integrated.   Problems entail any number of dysfunctional, ego-centered assumptions, but they also direct our attention to what we need to see.  When we can be deeply present with what is happening, we can see the situation more clearly and discern what is wanted and needed; what is wise.  Very broadly, we need to understand what we think needs to change, and probe the reasons why.   These dimensions of support allow us feel into the problem or difficulty.

In the framework of deep self-inquiry,  we can approach stubborn difficulties by “living in the question” of them. Somewhat analogous to the Zen idea of “koan”, this means that we endeavor to sit with the question; be with it; and repeatedly ask the question as a means of inviting a transformational shift of view. 

This idea first came to me in the form of an epiphany in which I recognized that the problem was the problem!  The very notion that there was a problem supported the idea that there must be a way out, a solution;  which in turn led me down a rabbit hole of trying to figure it out.   It was also clear that the process of struggle was counterproductive, distracting attention away from the feelings at the core of the emotional difficulty.  Moreover, getting stuck in trying to figure things out often turned into a problem in its own right.   In contrast, living in the question of something often revealed to me that “the problem” and “the solution” were two sides of a single coin.

Short of waiting for illuminations and epiphanies, there are strategies and practices that we can engage to cultivate change:

• Clarify your intention. “Inquire deeply” within about what you are trying to change, and why.  What result are you trying to produce?   What are you trying to be, do, or have?   What are you resisting or avoiding?  Who are you trying to become?

       Endeavor to see your intentions clearly.

• Clarify the obstacles. “Inquire deeply” about how you may be getting in your own way.  

 In addition to what seems to be in the way, notice especially how  you are being with whatever is happening.   What attitude(s) are you carrying?  How are you inhabiting yourself?   What are you embodying?

Endeavor to soften into your experience.

• Contemplate: are you willing to be changed by change*?

Change is facilitated when we understand what is at stake for us.  The following questions are helpful:

• How would you be different if life no longer contained this problem or challenge?
• Who would you be if there were no problem to solve?

The ability to change rests upon our wise and compassionate awareness of the matrix of meaning in which we live and construct our personal experience.   We need to cultivate the awareness and self-reflection that will make this possible.

*Moffitt, Phillip    www.dharmawisdom.com

                                        “We don’t know who discovered water,                                                                                                                   but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish ”                                                                                                                   ….. John Culkin

The Need To Know

Patterns of thinking are held in place, in part, by the need to know. 

In the face of any negative experience—when we are anxious or threatened or in pain— we instinctively try to think our way out of the situation.  For many people, this becomes a basic strategy for solving problems: “figure out” what to do.  Over time, we become reliant on this effort to know. This strategy solidifies into an unconsciously held and deep belief that knowing is essential to safety (or at least the illusion of safety).  We cling to knowing as a primary source of security.  It allows us to feel more in control.

Alongside this attachment to knowing, we can also observe the tendency to defend what we know (or what we believe we know).  We can notice that we cling to what we believe, and that we attempt to prove to ourselves that our views are right.   At deeper levels, we can also see the extent to which particular views and beliefs come to be invested with a sense of self.

At a yet more fundamental level, we can see how we identify with the faculty of knowing: we become the knower, never noticing, much less questioning, the assumption that who I am is the one who knows.  Indeed, the function of knowing is a basic aspect of the conscious mind, integrally involved in giving rise to the sense of self.  So, whatever it is I take my self to be, the ability to know is at the core of it.   

This kind of self-identity rests on several false assumptions.  Self-as-knower is based on what we have come to know in our lives along with all of its associated beliefs and assumptions.  It may readily become a closed circuit that limits our thinking, our relating, and our way of being in the world.  When we inquire deeply about what we know, we can begin to see that what we think we know keeps us from seeing what we don’t know, which is nearly everything[1]. 

When, in contrast, we are able to let go of needing to know and can relax into not having all the answers, we can begin to access a domain of deeper awareness that is based not in what we know but in the simple experience of being.  Such open and authentic experience of the present moment allows the emergence of insight and creativity.   As we learn to locate ourselves in the experience of not knowing, we can begin to transcend limiting identifications with the self as knower.

Not-knowing is the hallmark not just of this inquiry, but of any true inquiry.

As Socrates said, true wisdom comes to us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

[1] Quote from Gregory Kramer, 2007   Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path To Freedom.   Shambhala Press, Boston.

Inquiring Deeply About Self-Reflection

Self-reflection may be broadly defined as the process of examining our own experience in order to become aware of our thoughts and feelings. The word “reflection” itself evokes the idea of the mind as a mirror.   We may become aware of many different kinds of images in the mirror of the mind: what we see and hear, what we feel, what we think.   And, we also have the capacity to turn our attention back to the surface of the mirror itself.  This is the self-reflexive capacity of awareness. 

Self-reflexivity is built into the very structure of the human mind.   At times self-awareness operates in the background of our experience, giving rise to a vaguely felt sense of being.  At other times, it may move into the foreground of our attention, amplified through intentional focus (as in meditation) or by virtue of emotional reactions (e.g. social anxiety; embarassment) or interpersonal events.   Regardless, we can never become aware of ourselves from outside of our experience, only from within.  So self-reflexivity is always both subjective and objective;   it weaves together mind and body, thoughts and emotion, as it integrates both the observational and experiential dimensions of awareness.

Although an inborn potential, self-reflexivity is not a fixed capacity, but rather one which expands and deepens along with other aspects of psychological development.  It is organized in relation to our understanding of our own minds as well as the minds of others.  Moreover, because some aspects of ourselves are essentially invisible except in the mirror of another, our capacity to know ourselves is a function of our connection with others.

Interpersonal experience is an important domain for the development of self-reflection.   Conflicts between ourselves and others call our attention to possible discrepancies between how we see ourselves and how we are seen. Such disruptions invite us to de-center from our own point of view and consider the impact we may be having on others. They also galvanize our attention to what would otherwise remain unseen in ourselves. 

For all of us, psychological defenses in the mind are engaged in order to obscure vulnerable aspects of ourselves.  We may deny or disavow realities which are painful, attribute qualities of ourselves to others, or find other ways to avoid knowing the truth about our feelings. 

What we are blind to in ourselves is the limiting boundary of our freedom. 

Self-reflection is arguably the central integrative element in psycho-therapeutic exploration and psychological growth.   Reflecting on our experience and behavior either by ourselves, or in conversation with others (including psychotherapists), can help us to become aware of how we are relating to our experience.  In seeing more clearly what we are doing, how we are feeling, and the way that we react to things, we create a greater capacity for choice.  In this way, self-reflective awareness may be likened to a “clutch” which allows the mind to shift gears so that new points of view can emerge.

Self-reflection is an evolving dimension of our subjectivity which can be intentionally cultivated in practices such as meditation.   Mindfulness meditation amplifies self-reflection through the intention to notice what one is aware of from moment to moment and through the ability to shift awareness from the content of experience to the context of background awareness which surrounds and contains it.  This enhances the clarity of what is seen in the mirror of self-reflection and creates greater access to somatic, psychological, and relational layers of the mind. 

Last but by no means least, with the cultivation of mindful attention we can become aware of awareness itself.  This transcendent dimension of self-reflexivity is conveyed by the statement that mindfulness is the state of mind in which you realize that you are more than your state of mind.   This deepening of self-reflexivity allows us to see more and more deeply into the body/heart/mind and into the nature of self.   

In the words of the Sufi aphorism, “What you are looking for is who is looking”.

CONTEMPLATING THE NEW YEAR

“I call the moment when you fully know that a change is achievable realizing the imaginative possible.  When you are able to envision that an alternative is real, you experience a sudden energetic surge toward actualizing it, which becomes self-reinforcing.”

……Phillip Moffitt  (2012)  Emotional Chaos To Clarity

The New Year holiday is a natural time to reflect on the cycles in our lives – the beginnings and endings, the losses and renewals, the ongoing narrative themes that weave in, out, and through our life story.    In the ritual of new year’s resolutions,  we also have an auspicious opportunity to contemplate our aspirations and intention as we go forward into the unfolding future.  

For more than I decade, I have had a personal new year’s practice of reflecting on and then writing about my goals and intentions for the new year.   I distinguish between goals and intentions.  Goals express our preferences for future;  what we want to accomplish;  what we want to bring into being.  They provide inspiration and direction as well as determine how we allocate our time and resources.  Intentions, on the other hand, are statements about how we would like to actually think, act, and speak in any given moment as we move forward towards our goals.   Together, goals and intentions describe our purpose—  the forward thrust of our energy going forward.  They can function as a blueprint for the “imaginative possible” (to use Moffitt’s phrase from the opening quote).

Because intentions are what ‘incline the mind’ in one direction or another, it behooves us to be conscious of what our intentions are. Having clear intentions is a soft form of “thinking from the end”: the fundamental idea that consciousness has a shaping impact on awareness going forward.  In new age psychology, this idea is captured in the phrase “energy follows thought”.   If we think of the past as a push and visualization as a pull, push and pull come together in the present moment by influencing how we interpret and respond to events in an ongoing fashion. In the act of bringing new awareness to the present moment, the next moment is already changed because of the alteration in view.

Without resorting to metaphysics, the concept of intention in Buddhist psychology elegantly illuminates the complexity of this process. Everything that happens, the Buddha taught, begins with our thoughts; for good or ill, our thoughts are the foundation of what arises. Intentions are an important dimension of thought because what we intend directs our energy and attention. The back and forth movement of attention lights up the process of ‘minding’ that is the unseen background of experience as it arises. Intentions frame our interpretations and determine how we hold things in mind.

When we form a conscious intention, this then becomes an integral part of what unfolds next. Attention and intention light up experience and support living from the inside out.

When our purpose is clear and coherent, we are on course towards a particular outcome. Moreover, intentions keep us centered in the moment by keeping our attention focused on what is important, and that helps us stay optimally responsive to what is unfolding.

Clear seeing and clear intention segue into strategies for action. Once we are clear about what the goal is, we are poised to take whatever action is appropriate and indicated. (And conversely, our failure to see or understand important aspects of the current situation keeps us blind to important possibilities). Intention leads to constructive action in the spontaneous unfolding of the journey forward. It remains only to commit to what we most deeply value and stay on the path defined by putting one foot in front of the other.

Wishing us all a safe, healthy, and vital new year.

Mindfulness of Conversation: The Dance of Speaking and Listening

Since we spend a large part of our lives talking to people, engaging in conversation can itself be a dynamic and fully engaged mindfulness practice.  Just as we can explore the internal world of the body and thoughts in sitting practice, we can explore the external world of language in vocalized words, gestures and spoken interaction.   This focus of attention helps open the senses, heart, and mind to receive the present moment more fully. 

Mindfulness of conversation begins with the embodied experience of speaking and listening. However, far more than simply denuded  ‘present moments’ of mindful awareness, there are many other layers of the experience of conversation that reflect what is happening in the ‘relational moment’.  Some of the layers have to do with what is being conveyed— communication— and others with the how— the connection between us conversation.    In the framework of Buddhist meditation practice, all of this falls under the heading of relational mindfulness.  

The experience of conversation provides a window into the relational moment, a stage for observing the theater of the mind.   Mindfulness of conversation allows us an up-close and personal experience of basic psychological phenomena and relationship patterns enacted in real time.   We can observe how we show up in the relational world and we can discover a great deal about who we take ourselves to be.  We can investigate what we enact with others (and what they enact with us);  we can inquire into the psychological sources of those relational patterns; and we can reflect on the narratives we use to frame our experience.  In all of these ways, we can gain understanding of our relational dynamics:  our interpersonal reactions and their emotional roots*.   

Each of these dimensions provides a variety of opportunities to observe how we relate to others in the dance of conversation.  We can observe what happens at the intersubjective intersection:  the intimacy or distance we experience moment by moment; our comfort or discomfort; whether we lead or follow;  the energy, tempo, and flow of what we say.

In addition to the interpersonal domain, we can mindfully observe the conversation that takes place within our minds.  Inner speech may manifest in words or phrases that catch our attention; at other times, it can be elaborated into ideas we want to express.   We may notice replays of actual conversations we have had with others.   Our minds may host soliloquies or arguments, or fantasize entire interactions.     These narrative themes shed a lot of light on our actual interactions with others.  

To summarize, there are at least three interwoven strands in mindfulness of conversation: communication with others, our inner narratives,  and the felt sense of our symbolized experience.     Through mindfulness of conversation we can discover many different voices, many different layers of knowing and cognizing within.   There is value in becoming aware of the entire process. 

Most importantly, mindful attention to the process of communication entails potential for change in both participants.  This is especially true because communication reflects the underlying stories we tell ourselves (consciously or unconsciously) about self and other.  It provides an opportunity to observe both our biases and our intentions.  And, it creates an opening to practice the Buddhist principles of wise speech.

 One of the most exciting aspects of the dance of speaking and listening is the realization that communication is a generative act;  no one knows in advance what will transpire.  It is as much (or more) an event that happens to us as it is something we ‘do’.  Conversation invites something to “emerge” between ourselves and another.   This potential is what the writer Ursula Le Guin “the calls beauty and terror of conversation, that ancient and abiding human gift.”   

A longer version of this essay appears in Wise Brain Bulletin,            vol. 12.5:     “Speaking and Listening:  The Intimate Dance of Communication”.                                                http://www.wisebrain.org/tools/wise-brain-bulletin/volume-12-5. 

REFERENCES

** Schuman, M.  (2018) Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis:  INQUIRING DEEPLY

Picture credit  Edgar Degas,  The Conversation.

INQUIRING DEEPLY NEWSLETTER
November 2018

Inquiring Deeply About Emptiness

There is a not uncommon experience people allude to as “emptiness”, meaning a deep sadness, yearning, or inner sense of something missing.  It often connects to a felt sense of deep deficiency or unworthiness.    This psychological emptiness is quite different in meaning from the Buddhist concept of the same name, which refers to the reality that things do not exist in the way we suppose that they do;  that life is empty of anything which is inherently substantial or permanent enough for us to hold onto. 

A good way to think about the psychological experience of emptiness is in terms of parts of us which have been lost from awareness.   What has been lost from consciousness leaves a vacancy, a place which feels empty.  Sometimes emptiness is a hole in our lives which comes from the loss of someone or something.  It may arise in relation to something we want very badly but despair of ever finding/having. Psychic holes in the mind may also come about as a result of traumatic experience or something else barred from memory.  

We can begin to explore emptiness by inquiring into the holes we find in our own lives.   What is missing?  In what way(s) do we feel insufficient?  What emotions do we not want to feel?  What in the balance of mind, body, and heart gets too little of our attention?   

We can also explore emptiness by paying attention to what we do to ‘fill’  the holes we feel within:  our addictive attachments to substances, activities, and people.  Ironically, our improvised ‘solutions’ to pain most often result in new, worse problems!  By exploring the strategies we use to block the feeling of what is painful,  we can deepen our awareness of the underlying feelings.

When we turn our attention to exploring empty places within,  often we may find memories of hurt feelings and conflicts that block our natural ability to connect to others.   Our most habitual and powerful feelings and thoughts define the core of who we think we are.  When we are caught up in a sense of being unworthy, the universal sense that ‘something is wrong’ turns into the feeling that ‘something is wrong with me’.  This felt sense keeps us on the run, driven by desperate efforts to get away from these bad feelings.

In a different vein, the experience of emptiness can sometimes be illuminated by contrasting it with its psychological opposite, aliveness.  We can inquire about the experiences in which we have felt most whole and complete, most authentic, most at peace with ourselves and with our world.   What has blocked these channels of vitality and aliveness?

In my view, our empty places, our ‘holes’, can ultimately only be filled by connection: both connection with others and better connection to ourselves.   Healing relationships (including psychotherapy) help us through deep listening both to what we say and what we don’t say (and may never even have thought!).   Deep empathic listening connects us heart-to-heart and cultivates our ability to extend compassion and tenderness towards what is wounded within us.

Mindful awareness of the experience of emptiness is a useful place to begin on the path of healing.  If we have the inclination and/or interest, we may also find it useful at some point to contemplate the nature of emptiness itself.  In a philosophical/spiritual sense,  emptiness is the Everything/Nothing from which all manifestation arises.   From this perspective, paradoxically, emptiness is a vast reservoir of unrealized potential. 

In the words of the Taoist sage Lao Tzu, it is the emptiness within the cup that makes it useful.

Picture Credit:  Farshad Sanaee