Ever feel like when you get there, there isn’t any there there?
Month: August 2015
we are merely part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe…
I watched a BBC programme the other day on the ancient world and the philosophies of Buddha, Socrates and Confucius. This episode followed the life and ground breaking thinking of Buddha.
One moment stayed with me.
A part of Buddhist philosophy says … “We are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe”.
What an interesting and beautiful idea.
The programme showed that our sense of self, the notion of “I” does not begin with birth. We exist in the womb. We exist in the genes of our parents, and they in the genes of theirs. Our ancestors literally make us. Our version of “I” is constantly evolving, influenced by culture, society, experience. In this way the self is merely an imagined entity, manifested from your journey. It existed before you were born, evolves through your living and doubtless continues in your children and the legacy you leave in the universe.
I am not religious but I am attracted to this philosophy.
As the programme hypothesised – Buddha was espousing cognitive psychology twenty five centuries before it emerged. But for me also this connects to another interest of mine – the systemic constellation – the notion of the significance of the system and our relationship to other parts in that system.
Buddhism offers wisdom and compassion as a way forward. Not wisdom in the conventional cognitive, intellectual, knowledge sense but in the old Sanskrit sense of awareness, discernment, insight and consciousness.
That with compassion for yourself and others makes sense to me.
So… maybe bringing into awareness, into consciousness, with insight and compassion your sense of who you are, is a good step forward?
… maybe bringing into awareness your relationship to the rest of the universal system you belong to, is a good step forward?
… maybe having an emerging sense of why you’re here and what your legacy to the universe will be, is a good step forward?
Be your own lamp.
Illuminate yourself.
does this make sense to you?
We experience life through our senses. We see, hear, feel, smell and taste our experiences.
Our brains code them in this way. Our memories are accessible through our senses and, when recalled, we experience, represent or rather ‘re-present’ them through our senses.
If you recall now something that happened to you last week, you will be doing so either by seeing the situation in your mind’s eye, or by re-feeling how you felt then, or by hearing the conversation again, maybe even smelling something…
This process works both ways. We ‘think’ of a memory and re-present it through our senses. Or, we have a sensory experience today and that triggers another memory where the sensory experience was similar. Have you ever had the experience of a smell taking you back to a childhood memory?
This process also works for the future – imagined future experiences are presented to us through our senses. We can imagine our holiday or that difficult conversation we have next week and we can create images, feelings, internal dialogue predicting that future experience.
We all have favourite senses to use for this. I wrote about this some weeks ago when I asked How do you think? and hypothesised that without our senses we have no experience.
We often have a primary sense, for many that is visual, but might be auditory or feeling, backed up by one or two other senses that create our experience. Some senses are less available to us in this process.
Our language reveals our preference. It shows on the outside, the way we are coding our experience on the inside.
“I hear what you say” is different to “I see what you mean”.
There are many idioms in English that we use to signal our sensory preferences for coding our own experience. Often we’re not consciously aware, nor are those around us. But it can be useful to know.
Do phrases such as these appear in the way you describe things? “Let’s get a different perspective” or “Let’s take a closer look at this”? These might be examples of a visual storage system. Whereas, “That doesn’t sound right to me”, “This really speaks to me” or “Once we get into the rhythm of the meeting” might suggest an auditory preference. Those who work with feeling, or kinaesthetically, might say “I need to take the pressure off” or “I’m aching to get on with this”…
This will be a recurring theme on this blog in coming weeks, so be curious about your practice and about what makes sense to you.
if you could shop for emotions, what would you get more of?
I need to shop for food today. Saturday isn’t a normal shopping day for us – too many people in the aisles. The aimless people. I’m a list shopper. Odd really as I never make lists for anything else. The list has to be in the right order for the route I will march purposefully along with my trolley. It provides a structure. I’ll deviate from it, of course… the list. I like deviating from a plan. In fact I don’t plan normally either – too much structure.
Anyhow, it occurred to me, what if I could shop for emotions? What would be on my list? What do I want more of and what do I have enough of in the cupboard?
Do I want more joy? More caring? More trust? More serenity? Do I need a little more sadness? A big pot of empathy? Do I need to refill my anger? Maybe I would like to take some lonely back to the shop?
Am I baking a relationship cake and need some extra courage? Some more selfishness, a little daring, some strong, rather than medium fun, a big box of compassion, a soupcon of adventurousness and a large tin of hurt?
Maybe I’m about to change role and I need to stock up on thrilled, thoughtful and excited, buy a refill pack of embarrassed, but also purchase some ashamed and not good enough seasoning?
Or maybe I’m being forced to change role and need some hope, a little vindictiveness and a splash of inadequate to go with the large supply I have at home of feeling used?
What would be on your emotions shopping list?
do we ever stand still?
Driving to the station this morning, I passed joggers, cyclists, walkers and of course other cars. I’m on the train now speeding to London.
All around me are people. They’re not physically moving. They’re sitting, standing, temporarily they’re trapped, encased in this rocking rolling glass and steel box, mounted on wheels, planted on rails, transporting us all to work or to some other activity.
As I observe my fellow passengers though, they are still moving. Mentally they are all moving. Books, iPads, laptops, papers, thoughtful looks, animated conversations, all indicators that they are moving, planning, preparing, reflecting, thinking…
On my iPod I’m listening to Rolling Stone by Passenger. The lyrics go … ‘I’m always moving. I never notice because I never stand still’
So true.
When did you last stand still? Just stop? Think of nothing? Do nothing? Just be? Notice only you, your physicality, your breathing, all parts of your physical body – your presence in the world. Your very existence.
It’s an amazing thing. Try it.
image credit: taylormmeredith.com
what you do, is not who you are
What you do, is not who you are.
A friend of mine recently made a decision; a decision that has had significant ramifications for people in their life. It was a hard decision, not easily reached. They have been much criticised by those around them. Judged. Labelled.
Sometimes people view our actions, what we do, as a proxy for who we are. Maybe the smaller actions or behaviours go unnoticed, unacknowledged, but often the larger decisions or actions get assigned to our identity, through judgement. “He is a liar…” or “She is untrustworthy …”
In fact we are so much more than one choice, one decision, one action. There is so much more complexity, subtlety, richness in our humanity, in ‘the self’.
We can do this to ourselves too. Maybe you have done something and then reflected that wasn’t me, that was a bit out of character? Maybe you have done something and then judged yourself with a label too … “I’m stupid…” or “I’m a bad person…”
Making a mistake doesn’t make you stupid. Hurting someone doesn’t make you a bad person.
These judgements ignore context, they narrow our identity to one action, they lessen our humanity and they limit our potential. None of us is perfect, yet we are all perfectly human.
What we do, isn’t who we are. We are always so much more than one behaviour, action or choice. Sometimes we confuse these two. Separate them. Notice what you do and be curious about your motivations and rewards. But also notice who you are; the breadth, depth, richness and magic of you.
learn to unlearn you must
Your brain is a meaning making machine. The greatest meaning making machine we know.
It works through patterns. Once learned, those patterns repeat, time and again. Once meaning is learned, it is adhered to relentlessly.
Most of this is out of consciousness. Some estimates suggest that the unconscious mind is as much as 95% of brain activity. Trigger … response, carried out automatically without what you might consider as ‘thinking’.
The challenge is that most of these patterns are shaped in childhood. Experiences early in our lives create emotions and child-like cause and effect reasoning; meaning making which creates our sense of self, our rules of the world, our beliefs about our place in the world and how to belong in it, all at a time when we are very unworldly. A necessary process for the very survival of our ancestors – the ability to learn quickly and create strategies, crucial.
This process continues today though, and patterns and strategies learned in childhood repeat, over and over, as we progress into adulthood. Often the patterns no longer have relevance in an adult world, or the meaning has changed, or maybe was simply misinterpreted originally by the seven year old?
Running on automatic with patterns, strategies and meaning which disable rather than empower, limit rather than enable, constrain rather than offer choice, is at the heart of our struggle to reach our potential. These are limiting beliefs.
So, unlearning patterns of thinking, patterns of feeling, patterns of doing could be the most important learning you will ever do.
The first step is to become conscious of the pattern. Then explore its origins – where did it start, what’s your earliest memory of believing that? Is that belief or strategy relevant now? Does it serve you? What are you distorting in that memory? What has been deleted? Where is today’s evidence and what gets generalised in your thinking?
Start now, be curious, what needs to be unlearned?
where is your future?
Where is your future?
I don’t mean, is your future in finance, or owning your own business, or getting your boss’s job. I don’t mean a little villa in Spain, or retiring at 45, I mean where is it? In relationship to you, now.
Point to it.
So where did you point?
Now try pointing to your past.
Did they both have a direction? A direction that was pretty obvious to you?
Isn’t that weird? We appear to have a sense of time – past and future – in relation to our physicality.
You may well have pointed in front of you to indicate your future. Maybe straight in front, maybe a little to one side, the right perhaps, as if pointing to one o’clock with midday straight ahead?
If you did point ahead of you, it’s possible you then pointed behind you to indicate your past.
Alternatively, your directional map may have been very different … you may have pointed to your right to indicate your future, sort of 2, 2:30 or 3 pm if straight ahead were 12 noon. Your past may then be to the left, maybe between 9 and 10:30? The past and future may be connected in a curve or a straight line.
Maybe you have another configuration?
Check out where ‘now’ is.
Right in front of your eyes, inside your head, where you’re standing?
Welcome to your timeline. An ‘unconscious’ orientation to your past, present and future. A guide to how you process time.
If your future is in front and past behind, you could be called ‘in time’; that is you are standing in your timeline as it were, journeying towards your future. Sometimes ‘in time’ people can be very focused on their next goal – they can after all ‘see’ it in front of them. They may not be inclined to make longer term plans or lists though, as those are ‘obscured’ by shorter term futures. They may use language such as ‘looking back’ or even wave their hand over their shoulder when talking about the past, thereby signalling the way they hold time.
If your future is to the right and past to the left, you could be described as ‘through time’. You can see through time, a little like a diary planner, with recent past events just a little to the left and older memories further left, whilst your near future is a little to the right of centre, with longer term goals further to your right. Sometimes ‘through time’ people are good planners and good timekeepers – they can see their timeline laid out like an open calendar.
Be curious about your orientation to time. Be curious about the hand or body movements and any language that suggests your orientation to time. Be curious about the patterns of other people too.
Time and the way you unconsciously hold your relationship to it has more impact on your life than you may ever have realised.
the hidden value of sadness
How can sadness be useful?
When we are sad we seem to be somehow diminished. Absorbed with the source of our sadness. Distracted. Unable to function fully in that moment; emotionally and mentally disabled. Our emotions drive our behaviour and our physiology – sadness may well lead to crying, a desire to be alone and to be introspective.
I’ve just seen the film Inside Out from Pixar. What a delicious film! Pixar at their best. Go see it.
The film charts the development of Riley, a little girl from Minnesota. Her emotions, portrayed as little characters in her head, ‘operate’ Riley. Together joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust shape new memories and apply her existing memories, including her core memories, to inform her choices. These core memories from childhood create and reinforce her ‘islands of personality’. The film beautifully shows the importance of emotions. The cognitive brain is to all intents and purposes absent, and Riley’s actions and behaviours are driven by a cocktail of her emotions and her memories.
Our emotions, the meaning associated to them and our instant responses when they are triggered are worthy of exploration and portrayal in this way. They are a fundamental part of our humanity.
There is growing psychological and neurological evidence linking emotions, especially the core emotions of fear, anger and disgust to the limbic system and particularly the Amygdala, a small almond shaped part of the brain, at the brain’s core. Here we seem to hard code situations warranting the emotion and its associated meaning. Research for example shows that damage here can impact our ability to recognise angry or fearful expressions in others, and recent studies have started to show problems with social and emotional judgement. Evolutionarily speaking, this part of our brain is old, preceded only by our ‘reptilian’ brain which controls breathing, heart rate etc. These brain systems are designed to run on auto-pilot. It’s no good having to think to breathe, or having to think whether to run away or freeze when faced with danger. There is growing evidence that the limbic system has a role to play in our other emotions too.
The way Pixar capture these complexities and portray them in a touching, yet amusing film is testimony to their art. The metaphor the film uses to suggest the make-up of our personalities as islands, shaped by our core memories from an early age, is a useful reminder of the impact early life experience has, encoding much of our world map – who we are, how the world works, how we fit in that world, what is right and wrong, what is important to us etc.
For me though I took one key insight from this wonderful piece.
The hidden value of sadness.
Sadness allows us to access deeper older memories. Without sadness we are somehow less human. Sadness provides connection and love just as much as happiness and joy do. It also tells us about loss. Sadness tells us about meaning and what matters to us. Sadness can provide real learning. It can help you be more resourceful, as well as less. The key with sadness is balance – balancing sadness with other emotions, as demonstrated in the film.
The next time you are sad, embrace that sadness and the learning it brings. Thank your body for speaking to you so clearly.
you can’t tell your story if you don’t know it…
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.
If someone took the time to notice you, to see you, to want to read the dust jacket of your story, what would they see, hear, feel and read?
If you could be who you are and say what you feel, what would people experience? What would that experience be like for you?
Do you know?
illuminated dandelion 