Meditative Listening
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Inquiring Deeply Newsletters
Mindfulness of Conversation
Mindfulness of Conversation: The Dance of Speaking and Listening
December, 2018
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 About Emptiness
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
Inquiring Deeply About Praise
Inquiring Deeply Newsletter,
October 2018
Inquiring Deeply About Praise
The famed German novelist Thomas Mann apparently experienced quite a bit of anxiety about how his work would be received. He quipped that he suffered from a “P vitamin deficiency”: chronic hunger for praise.
I personally resonate with the idea of P vitamin and its implied meaning: that approval fills deep needs and is an essential psychological nutrient. It is quite evident that the need for approval is a driving force in human behavior, as well a basic regulator of self-esteem. We are motivated to be seen in a myriad of different forms. Praise and approval— as well as its close cousins mirroring, recognition, validation, and positive evaluation— are all very high in Vitamin P! Praise is an upper. On the other side of the coin, the failure to receive praise which is wanted, needed, or expected is emotionally upsetting.
So, what is this about? When we look into how the need for praise shows up in our experience, we confirm what Heinz Kohut postulated in psychoanalytic Self Psychology: recognition and approval are self-delineating and life-affirming. We seek validation for who we take ourselves to be and in order to feel a vital connection to our core experience of self. In Buddhist psychology, the primal motivation is thehunger to be; to exist.
When we do not get sufficient Vitamin P from important relational others—when we fail to be affirmed as valuable, special, worthwhile, and/or lovable— our incapacity to sustain a coherent sense of ourselves shows up as emotional turbulence. While each person’s experience is somewhat idiosyncratic, the general tenor is usually anxiety, depression, or similar. What I find in my own experience is a sense of deflation: negative mood and self-critical ideation. The general idea of contraction seems to capture it.
The hunger to be seen is a primal relational desire: the need to exist in the eyes of the Other. This deep relational need stems from the fact that humans need other humans to survive. To be abandoned as a helpless baby means certain death. Psychological survival, too, depends on being seen. This reality was dramatized in the classic novel of the late 80’s, “Clan Of The Cave Bear”, in which a female character was psychologically exiled for nonconformity to the tribal rules of her Neanderthal brethren. No one was to make eye contact with her. This was a brutal form of punishment.
Self is brought into being in relationship. The prototypical moment is the one that occurs in the first moments after birth, when the new baby looks into the eyes of a mother who is looking back. As Kohut put it, the self at birth is a virtual self, a self which develops in the process of being seen and responded to by(m)other. This is true in earliest psychological life and remains so throughout the life span. What is not validated by others will tend to be repressed or will simply fail to come into being. In other words, if we are not seen, we cannot be fully alive.
So, the wish to be seen is quite understandable. But how can we understand thefear of being seen? In psychological terms, we find at its core the fear that we are not worthy of being seen. In Buddhist terms, this too is connected to a fear of non-being.
Our fear of being invisible connects both to our elemental fear of death and of existential emptiness. The fear of not being seen joins together with the fear of being alone. This can become a futile quest to fill our empty places with other people.
So it is useful to inquire deeply into both the wish and fear of being seen. We need to find within our own experience all the ways that, directly and indirectly, we seek P vitamin; all the constructive as well as dysfunctional ways we seek attention and approval. A compelling example from contemporary life is how people relate to getting “likes” on social media, which can assume the proportions of an actual addiction! According to some, ‘thumbs up’ stimulates little bursts of dopamine in the brain. (Maybe that is Vitamin P!)
In any event, when we inquire deeply, what we can also find is that recognition is not love. Our deepest desire is not for praise or approval, but for connection with others.
* Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Inquiring Deeply
Routledge Press, 2017. https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01N24V17T
Wise Understanding of Emotion
Wise Understanding of Emotion
One of the salient qualities of inner peace is equanimity, defined as the ability to maintain mental and emotional balance in the midst of whatever is happening. For human beings, emotional turbulence is a major source of challenge. Emotional balance, like walking a tightrope, requires both skill and practice. It rests on a foundation of wise and compassionate understanding of emotional life.
- Make explicit your intentions, aspirations, and goals in regard to your emotional life. The main intention is to be with the experience of being upset. Other possible examples: to learn to sustain your experience of being centered (physical balance is a great analogue of this skill); to deepen your understanding of some particular emotional state — (e.g., the experience of being disappointed.)
- The most basic observation is, “being emotionally upset is like this.” * Then, inquire deeply about what you are feeling; what it is connected to; what is beneath that.
- Bring mindful awareness to the somatic experience of emotional activation and have the intention to relax into the experience. Emotion lives in the body. We process experience through the very act of bringing conscious awareness to it.
- Notice how you are relating to the experience of being upset. The goal is to not hold onto experience, push it away, or escape from it, but rather to simply be with, open to, and receive it.
- The primary goal in relating to emotional experience is for feelings to be felt more completely so that release and letting go can happen. Mindful awareness of emotional experience is key, but at the same time it should be understood that letting go is not something that happens all at once. It occurs in stages through a process called “working through.”
- It may not be skillful to just name emotions if in so doing you relate to your emotions like symptoms of a disease you are trying to cure or problem you are trying to get rid of. The frame in which you hold emotional experience is important!
- Emotional reactivity is grounded in our interpersonal (relational) matrix of connection. It is not possible to deeply understand Self without also understanding Other. Psychological understanding of the dynamics between us is also very helpful.
- “Inquiring Deeply” about your emotional experience means to consciously engage your experience (on and off the cushion) with the attitude of delving into it, feeling whatever it is more fully and inviting it to reveal itself. More than simply mindfulness of the moment, deep inquiry explores the meanings and messages conveyed by your emotional experience.
Ultimately, emotional equanimity is about “going with the flow” of experience. It rests on the broad foundation of our ways of being; what we may call our “life balance”. Thus, at the psychophysiological level, for example, equanimity reflects our capacity to relax and rest; the balance between being active and being receptive. At the interpersonal level, it rests on the balance between being with others and being alone, plus our ability to be in harmony with others. And finally, at an existential level, equanimity is related to our energetic state. This includes the way we animate ourselves, our pace of life, and our capacity to be centered and present with What Is.
Practice finding mental and emotional balance in the midst of whatever is happening– perhaps especially when things are other than we wish them to be. This maximizes our ability to find the wisdom and compassion that is available in every moment.
* This is a cornerstone of the teachings of Vipassana master Ajahn Sumedho. Sumedho, A. (2007) The Sound of Silence. Wisdom Publications, Boston, MA
Problems As Path
Inquiring Deeply Newsletter
August 2018
Problems As Path
A central tenet of my book, INQUIRING DEEPLY*, is that problems are a basic organizing principle in psychological life. Consider, for example, (as every reader can certainly notice) the fact that everyone has problems. In my view, problems have a role in our minds analogous to the role of pain in the body; they call attention to what we most need to see.
Beyond the particular circumstances, we need to address the underlying view that having problems is itself a problem; as if life could be without problems or that having problems is an indication of deficiency or failure. Instead, problems can be seen as opportunities for growth.
The goal in a mindfulness-informed approach to problems is not to disappear problems (which of course is what most people hope will happen), but rather to deepen our awareness of them in lieu of overthinking them. The central premise is that solutions to problems emerge as a function of how clearly we can see where we are stuck. From this perspective, problems and solutions can be seen to be two sides of a single coin.
The path of problems follows along in the slipstream of our concern about a problem.
Problems are configurations or patterns in the mind which are organized around a nucleus of something too painful to be fully experienced . Such “nonexperienced experience” may be thought of as a logjam in the free flow of mental energy in the mind. Such patterns comprise the traumatic core of problems, which over time calcify or rigidify into a kind of ‘scar tissue’ in our psychic structure, including character.
Bringing mindful and self-compassionate attention to the network of our associative connections gradually untangles the knots of pain and trauma in the psyche and helps to reveal aspects of our innate wisdom.
In INQUIRING DEEPLY, I delineate ten headings or “stepping stones” on the mindful path of problems: ten component factors in psychological change. The first tasks have to do with clearly identifying the problem and conceptualizing the leading edge or horizon of change which the problem represents. A related task involves deconstructing the experience of the problem; unpacking the problem into component elements of sensation, perception, thoughts, and feelings. Because problems crystallize around relational wounds, inquiring deeply about our relationships with others is primary. Together, this deep inquiry leads to the development of insight, clarity, and deep emotional understanding.
* Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Inquiring Deeply
Routledge Press, 2017. https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01N24V17T
To Think Or Not To Think: That Is Not The Question
Inquiring Deeply Newsletter
July 2018
As is often said, the mind makes thoughts like water makes waves. So to think or not to think is not the question! The more appropriate question is how we relate to the process of thinking.
In my view, thinking in meditation is not merely the unwanted source of ruminative distraction it is often painted to be. To the contrary, there is transformative opportunity in paying attention to the content of the conversations that take place within our minds during meditation. The word “conversation” is useful in this context because it highlights the fact that thinking itself is a relational process. By paying close attention to inner dialogue, we can discover a great deal about our different “voices” or part-selves and can gain insight into the way we relate to ourselves.
Inner conversation is revealing. We may notice replays of actual conversations we have had with others, showing us what remains unfinished or where we have gotten emotionally snagged. Our minds may host soliloquies or arguments, even fantasize entire interactions with others. Inner conversation, like our communication with others, has many layers, interwoven with emotions and the bodily sense of our symbolized experience.
The themes represented in our mental narratives say a lot about how we “show up” in our interpersonal lives. We have an opportunity to get in touch with the stories we tell ourselves (consciously or unconsciously) about self and other. Our inner dialogues reveal our interpersonal assumptions, the interpretations and projections we tend to superimpose on others when we talk with them.
One important and often neglected dimension of the thinking mind in meditation is awareness of the mind’s relationship to itself. We can begin by noticing the judgments and thoughts that we have about thinking. There is often a bias to view thinking as a kind of stepchild in the inner family. We may implicitly feel shame about the amount of mental band-width devoted to “story-teller mind”.
Apart from the content of our mental narratives, there are also subtle aspects of our inner conversation that can be revealing. Do we feel ourselves to be Speaker? Listener? Neither? Both? Do we create sufficient space around what we say to ourselves to feel into the meaning of our inner conversation? Do we feel pushed around by our minds, driven crazy by our thinking? Do we rely on a kind of “thought police” to stifle our inner voices rather than to kindly investigate them? To the extent that we view our job in meditation as managing and controlling the thinking mind, we may unwittingly enact a power struggle which is a form of self-violence.
It is ultimately the climate of our relationship with ourselves that allows transformative change to come into being. Any thought which we must not think often represents a part of ourselves which has felt rejected, disappointed, frightened, ashamed, or otherwise hurt. Alternatively, when we make space in the mind for the process of thinking— when we can be present with thoughts and bring self-acceptance, compassion, and wisdom to investigating them— that creates the possibility for deep healing.
* For more on this topic, see Ch. 7, “Reflections on Thinking”, in Schuman (2017) INQUIRING DEEPLY https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01N24V17T
Relational Inquiry
Human beings are relational beings. We spend the majority of our lives conversing and interacting with others against a complex backdrop which includes the culture of our social connections. In a multitude of different ways, we are continually mixing minds with others (including in cyberspace). It is not an exaggeration to say that we are made of relationship. Relationship is the way we inter-be with others.
Relational inquiry can be defined as the investigation of experiences that occur at the surfaces of our connection with others: the “relational field”. But there are many layers in the complex dance of human connection. We can delineate several different components of relatedness that fall within the scope of relational inquiry:
- Interactions are the behavioral events that occur between self and other. Some dimensions of interaction are explicit— what is said or done—and some are implicit or nonverbal. I liken the implicit dimension of interaction to the music of connection, behavior to the choreography of the dance.
- Relational Mindfulness is the moment-to-moment awareness we bring to our experience of engaging with or interacting with someone. The essence of relational mindfulness is simply noticing what is happening between ourselves and another. Drawing from the paradigm of mindful awareness in Buddhist practice, relational mindfulness involves deliberately paying attention to the elements of thought, feeling, and body sensation that arise for us in the relational field and holding these experiences in nonjudgmental awareness.
Relational mindfulness consists of layers of meaning organized around a felt sense of what it is like to be with a particular someone else; our embodied, whole person response to being with the other. Felt sense consists of the somatic and affective dimensions of experience.
Emanating from that core felt sense, perceptions of the relational moment are elaborated based on our attachment history with others. For example, in some moments with others we may feel well received while in other moments the connection between us falls flat. Such interpersonal responses have deep roots in our past experiences. They are rooted in our needs for contact and connection as well as on our defensive needs for safety. Relational mindfulness provides a window of view into the basic interpersonal and psychodynamic dimension of relationship.
- Relational Turbulence
It is informative to make a study of the things that upset us and that we are emotionally reactive to. Our psychological vulnerabilities are revealed most clearly in events that engage primal emotions such as anxiety, despondency, and shame; anger and blame; jealousy, envy, and competition; sexual attraction and lust. By intentionally paying attention to moments when we get interpersonally ‘hooked’ or caught up in something someone did or said, we can glean valuable information about our unmet psychological needs; what we need to wake up to and where we need to grow.
- Speaking and Listening: the dance of communication. Because we spend so many hours of our lives talking to other people, conversation provides an especially rich opportunity for relational mindfulness. In conversation, we have the opportunity to listen to ourselves as well as to the listening of the other; to observe our relational patterns. We can see what we choose to say about ourselves and what this reflects about who we think we are. And, we have the opportunity to observe our reactivity as it happens.
There is a mysterious interpersonal chemistry that happens when we interact with others and “mix minds” in the relational field. Through the practice of relational inquiry, “inquiring deeply” about our interactions with others, we can become aware of how our particular minds are organized around relationship and the issues which get in the way of our feeling free, spontaneous, and authentic with others. Exploring how relational inquiry can be a foundation of dharma practice will be discussed in the next issue of this Newsletter.
Ultimately, relational inquiry enhances our self-understanding and our capacity to be intimate both with ourselves and with others. It supports us in staying present, open, and compassionate as life unfolds moment by moment. And, in so doing, it deepens our experience of being with others.
Introducing INQUIRING DEEPLY NEWSLETTER
Inquiring Deeply Newsletter
May 2018
This newsletter is my first one. It is created out of my desire and intention to share my work. I begin with a question that underlies many others: WHAT IS INQUIRY? [see below]
Inquiry is the subject of my 2017 book “INQUIRING DEEPLY”. As the title suggests, the book is about the method of inquiry. ( “Inquiring Deeply” is actually an abbreviation of a longer and more ponderous title). It reflects, in part, the strategic use of awareness practice in the investigation of personal problems.
As a psychotherapeutic approach, Inquiring Deeply can be described as the use of mindfulness practice to unpack and amplify subjective experience. It is a therapeutic framework which blends relational psychoanalysis and Buddhist wisdom into a single coherent frame.
While INQUIRING DEEPLY is (I hope) a deep book with many interesting things to say, I recognize that not everyone wants to take the time nor do the ‘heavy lifting’ the book requires of its readers. So, more recently, I have been distilling the essence of what I have to say into a series of simple blog posts, and I will be sending out one each month to those who have signed up to receive them (free).
INQUIRING DEEPLY available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01N24V17T
WHAT IS INQUIRY??
“Inquiry” is an attitude of mind. It means to live in the question of something, to consciously engage our experience in a way which invites it to unfold. When we ‘inquire deeply’ into a problem or concern, we approach our experience with the attitude of delving into it, feeling whatever it is more fully, and inviting it to reveal itself. Through this practice of awareness, presence, and self-reflection, we become more Real; more fully who we are.
Looking Ahead:
On Tuesday May 2 and Thursday May 4, I will be giving a dharma talk on “Mindful Conversation”under the auspices of One Dharma Sangha. (Tuesday 6 p.m. at MacVeagh house, Museum of Nat’l History Santa Barbara; Thursday 6 p.m. at Sacred Space in Summerland).
On Saturday May 19th I will be presenting a workshop sponsored by LAISPS ( Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies): MINDFULNESS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: Deepening The Conversation. May 19, 1- 4 PM, De Neve Plaza/UCLA.