The Inner Self vs. The Outer Self

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Yesterday I listened to a podcast while painting a bathroom. This is the great thing about podcasts — they make you want to write blog posts. This particular one was “On Being” with Krista Tippett, and for the bathroom-painting episode, she was interviewing Seth Godin, who is hugely popular in certain internet circles, especially for his ideas and writing about authentic marketing.

Seth and Krista were chatting about how to get your message out, and who to connect to, and what makes that connection meaningful. If you want to know all the details about this, I recommend listening yourself. The super boiled-down version that I took away was: it’s not about how many people you connect to. It’s much more about connecting with the right people, with your tribe, and feeling part of that community.

This is not a new idea for me. I doubt Seth invented it (if he did, bravo!), but it’s at this point it’s widely dispersed on the web, and I’ve even written around the idea before. But something clicked for me this time. An analogy, or parallel, or metaphor (oh, the power of metaphor!), that I’ve experienced personally with the disconnect between the inner self and outer self.

Basically this: so often, we do work because we’re good at it, or because we think more people will like it, or like us. I do this all the time. All the time. And on the surface, it’s useful. It makes it easier for people to like us, it makes us relatable. These are great things! They contribute to meaningful relationships. But this bending of ourselves also has negative aspects to it. Over the long-term, it wears us down. It keeps us from intimately knowing our deeper selves. It allows us to repress things we don’t think will mesh well with everybody else, and I would argue, from developing a strong sense of character.

And for me, sometimes I do feel like I lack character. I worry that I’m boring. That by being some kind of meditation/mindfulness guide, I’m not supposed to have strong opinions about things, or at least not express those feelings. I love guiding meditation and leading mindfulness workshops, but I worry that I give the impression of being chill and passive all the time. Don’t worry friends, I am not always chill and passive!

Here are some things about me that are not encompassed by this mindful/deliberate internet persona I’ve somewhat intentionally created:

  • I love long, intellectual novels. Infinite Jest is my favorite book even though everyone says it’s pretentious. Anna Karenina and War and Peace are tied as my favorite Tolstoy novels, and I think Proust is a baller.
  • I’m often pretentious and arrogant. I think I’m right about a lot of things, even though I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself I’m not right about everything.
  • I’m a huge fan of Bernie Sanders, and consider myself to be a socialist. I think capitalism is evil, and exploits humanity’s most base tendencies.
  • Sometimes I care a lot about money and capitalism.
  • I don’t meditate everyday, and sometimes I go weeks without doing it at all. I do notice a difference in my life (things aren’t as good) when I’m not meditating regularly, but that isn’t necessarily enough to get me to get back in the routine.
  • I exercise a LOT (ideally twice a day), and believe that that is the number one most important thing we can do for our mental and physical health. Way more than meditating.
  • I keep meaning to see a therapist, but keep avoiding it.
  • I like getting absorbed in board games, and I’m good at them. Some combination of being competitive and good at math.
  • I’m good at math.

As you can see, this is kind of a silly list and the things are not a big deal. I doubt any of them are going to cause me to lose my “tribe.”

So, let me pose a question. What are the things about you that you repress, or don’t like to bring into the public eye? Why is that? Is that something you want to change? It’s not necessary to do so, but I think it’s a good thing to acknowledge and be aware of. There’s the mindfulness coach talking again…

Crisis of Values vs. Crisis of Inspiration

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When embarking on any great endeavor, there will always be setbacks and doubts. Whether it’s traveling, a new job, moving across the country, or following our dreams, there will be moments when things don’t feel right.

I’ve experienced this over and over again this past winter and spring. First, with writing a book. “Is this worth doing?” “Am I ever going to finish?” “What am I doing with myself??” Etc. And again later on with starting my business. “Is this a valuable creation?” “Will people pay for mindfulness training?” “What does this mean about who I am?” I still feel it sometimes.

When the doubt really gets going, it can start to feel like a crisis. Everything feels wrong, and we begin to question what we’re doing with our time and our lives. Have you ever felt this way? I’m guessing you have.

In my experience, this self-doubt is a result of one of two separate things: either a crisis of values, or a crisis of inspiration. They both feel really bad. Bad enough to derail a major project, even if it’s almost completed. But they mean different things and should be treated differently, so we have to be able to differentiate them.

The crisis of values happens when we begin to realize that we’ve changed, or our work has changed, and what we’re doing no longer aligns with who we are and what we believe in. This is a deep, existential struggle, and it demands a full shift of perspective to be able to see clearly.

We may need to redefine the values in our lives, to regain a sense of ourselves through conversations with loved ones and old friends, or perhaps to take a long trip to clear our heads and get some distance from the day-to-day. I experienced this a few years ago when I decided to leave my office job to pursue writing and art, and eventually yoga and meditation.

The second is a crisis of inspiration. This typically happens when things are hard or moving slowly. Perhaps there is no end in sight for a particular project. Things may feel stagnant despite the constant slow churn of effort.

This can happen at a traditional job, but I’ve experienced it more with big personal projects. They are ideas I still strongly believe in, creations I want badly to bring into the world, but I’m tired of them. They feel like Sisyphean tasks. The projects have demanded a huge amount from me, but are not yet bearing fruit.

This crisis does not require the major life-altering decisions to fix. It may demand a shift of perspective or a reinvigoration of values. Most of all it demands inspiration. This can come from an outside source, or it can come from inside.

External sources such as friends, personal development blogs, and books on the subject are all excellent places to start. Getting back to the important parts of life can also do great things: exercising, spending time with friends and loved ones, cleaning the house, finishing up some other lingering projects.

The thing to avoid, however, is mistaking one crisis for the other. If we treat a crisis of values as we would a crisis of inspiration, we’ll find ourselves continually trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. It just won’t fit. Best case scenario, we’ll eventually realize that and treat it for what it is. Less-best case, we’ll build up lots of resentment and eventually something will break.

The other situation is more dangerous. If we treat a crisis of inspiration as a crisis of values, we may end up abandoning a cherished project, job, or business too soon. We may not give it time to grow and be nurtured, to truly come into its own. If I had a nickel for every book half-written and every business idea abandoned, I would need to rent storage space to store all my nickels. Paying nickels to store nickels does not sound like an awesome business strategy, so I would rather avoid this.

Next time you’re feeling doubt about a big project, take a step back and ask yourself what you need the most. To change your whole life? Or to find new sources of inspiration?

Meditating Buddha

Strategies for Dealing with Discomfort

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I’ve written before about sitting with discomfort. It’s a big piece of the puzzle that is “mindfulness,” and something I think about a lot. As Americans (not to exclude everyone else, I’m sure this happens everywhere), we tend to view discomfort as this untamable beast that will destroy our picture-perfect lives if we let it show its teeth.

But discomfort is a fact of life. It’s going to part of our experience no matter how hard we try to protect ourselves and our loved ones from it. And it goes further: discomfort is where the most of our personal growth happens. It’s not even a bad thing. If we are to expand our boundaries and comfort zones, we have to accept that discomfort is a part of life and even embrace it at times.

There are five main strategies we have for dealing with discomfort. We can either try to avoid it in the first place, ignore it and push through, sit with it and observe, deal with it ourselves, or ask for help. My experience with mindfulness is that it has shifted how I respond to discomfort from avoiding and ignoring to observing and healing.

I made this awesome pie chart to how regular contemplative practice can change our experience with dealing with discomfort. This data is 100% made up, but the colors are great and having a chart on a blog makes it look so real. SO REAL! Check it.

Discomfort Chart

Let’s take a quick look at each one.

Avoid it. Classic move. Here we don’t even get far enough to admit that the discomfort could be a possibility. We go to great lengths to avoid it, in all likelihood creating more discomfort (or else building up internal shame and repression) along the way. This is generally bad news. There are certainly some discomforts that we should avoid (Life Pro Tip: Get a good mattress. Long-term back pain is not worth the cheaper alternative.), but for small, natural discomforts, it’s better to just face them and get some good practice dealing with it. Sore from going to the gym? Learn to love it!

Ignore it. Again, this is a favorite of the success-driven world. Power through! Haven’t gotten enough sleep for a few nights (or weeks)? Drink more coffee! Energy drinks (eww)! This is a big one in relationships. We ignore the difficult conversations we need to be having, and instead opt for business-as-usual. Ignoring discomfort tends to allow it to build up until it reaches some kind of breaking point, which won’t be pretty. Sometimes we need to do this for short stretches to meet deadlines, create meaningful work, and provide for our families, but we should always be aware of what’s happening and keep in mind that it should be temporary.

Sit with it. This is the main point of the post I linked to earlier on. By sitting with discomfort and just observing it, we learn to be comfortable in more challenging situations. This allows us to grow and develop a deep sense of happiness.

Deal with it. Some discomforts aren’t good to sit with for a long time, particularly if they are related to an injury (physical or emotional) in the body. Often when I’ve been neglecting my yoga practice, my body feels discomfort in the form of tightness and aches. I’ve learned that this is a sign that I need to get back into it and deal with those discomforts. Right now I’m icing my hamstring for a minor strain. I know I’ll feel better about everything if I clean my house. Take action!

Ask for help. Oh boy, this is a hard one. Sometimes we need a good friend, and sometimes we need a professional. We can’t do everything for ourselves all the time, and we’ll run ourselves into the ground if we try. Western medicine has taken an approach of only focusing on the extreme cases where something is obviously damaged. Most of the time we’re not in this situation, but we may still need healing or help. Seeing a therapist is always a good idea, regardless of how positive we’re feeling. Acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, meditation, reiki, and whatever else you’re into, can all help us go beyond our baseline feeling of “not injured” to feeling great (they can also deal with some of those injuries!).

Once we recognize these different approaches to discomfort, our contemplative practice will begin to provide us the wisdom to know which is the most appropriate route, or combination of routes, to take at any given time.

The Four Basics Needs

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Plato said that Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But in Greek. This is a friend of mine from college’s favorite quote, and I think about it fairly regularly. I’ve become more convinced of it the older I’ve gotten (my friend must have been wise beyond his years). And I hope that if you’re a regular reader, on some level you also agree with the sentiment. Introspection is key to success and happiness.

It sounds so simple, but when we really bring this idea into practice, it can get a bit hairy. Okay, so we’re supposed to examine our lives. Cool. So I guess I’ll just sit down and… think? Maybe. But, think about what? My life? Okay, that’s a lot. Maybe too much.

So how can we think about life in a practical way? What works, and what allows us to understand things in a way that will also allow us to improve them? There are all sorts of great ways to categorize life in this way, including the Life Pie (basically, you rate yourself on six different categories and see how that changes over time. These change depending on who makes the chart, but they are basically: Work, Friends, Love, Health, Spirituality, and Adventure) and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

The four basic needs are even simpler, and focus on our emotions. They were described by Dr. William Glasser, and this is also referred to as “Choice Theory.” These needs are the ones that are beyond our basic survival: they are our most fundamental emotional needs, and a lack of any will disrupt our whole life.

Of course, as with any psychological theory, there are criticisms and whatnot, but for all practical purposes this description is great. Way easier to think about than Maslow. I’ve used it on wilderness trips with youth, and it provides a wonderful platform for learning to talk about and understand our own emotions. In my own life, it has helped me clarify what I’m missing or needing at a certain time.

Love and Belonging

The biggest, most fundamental need we have is for love and belonging. This can include familial love, romantic love, friendships, being part of a community, the whole shebang. Humans are social creatures, and no matter how introverted we may be, we still need relationships in order to feel complete and healthy (okay, maybe excluding a few reclusive monks/hermits/gurus). Whenever we’re feeling bad, this is a great first place to look to see if there’s something we’re missing.

Am I feeling excluded? Am I feeling lonely, or separated from my people/group/family? Have I been isolated by working too much, by skipping social engagements, by being in bed sick, or anything else?

The importance of this basic need is the reason social media is so popular. Facebook, Twitter, etc, all give us a sense of being connected to each other even when, I would argue, most of those connections are superficial and don’t satisfy the true need for love and belonging.

When love and belonging are lacking, we need to make a special point to get out in the world and connect with the people who mean the most to us. This can be hard, as loneliness can create a vicious cycle of not wanting to see people and feeling more isolated.

Power and Self-Control

Power and self-control refers to having agency in one’s life, and being able in some way to direct its flow. It is connected to freedom (which is next), but it is about being empowered to make big decision happen. For most people, having power and self-control correlates to some kind of stability, perhaps through being able to support one’s self financially.

When we become disempowered, we begin to lose faith in ourselves and the systems around us. Our self-worth may be connected to our power and self-control, as society has taught us that having a good paycheck is a sign that we’re good people. This may not be true, but it can certainly feel that way.

We can also become empowered through education, and by feeling validated in the endeavors we take on in life. Much of the intention of this blog is to help us all become more empowered in our lives, and take control over the negative influences that are all around us.

Freedom

In some ways, freedom can be a manifestation of empowerment, but it does deserve its own category. Someone with a high-paying job who has to work 80 hours a week may be empowered, but lack freedom. Someone who is unemployed may have the freedom to go take off on adventures every week, but lack the power (financially or emotionally) to actually go out and do it.

Freedom is about being able to explore the world and our dreams. This doesn’t necessarily mean we have to go travel abroad every year. It is about being in a place that nurtures our growth, and that allows us to have choices about which direction our lives go.

If we’re lacking freedom, we may lash out at the people or systems we feel are limiting us. Often our perception of what is limiting us is not what is truly responsible. For instance, we may build up resentment toward a partner about something that could be resolved by talking about what our needs are and how they are not being met. Better to express the need for an evening with friends once a week than to feel stifled for years without mentioning it.

Fun

This is the best one. What’s the point of life without a little fun now and then? Even with all our other needs are met, if we don’t have some fun once in a while life will seem dry and monotonous. This can take whatever form we like, but it’s important to have enjoyable experiences. Even better if they help create a sense of love and belonging, or take advantage of some freedoms we have.

With an understanding of these four basic needs, we can begin to examine our lives in a useful way. “What is lacking?” “What is strong?” “What can I do to make things better?” By framing these questions around our needs, we can create concrete plans for improving our lives and taking the next step in our own personal development.

Low on love and belonging? We can call up some friends. Lacking power and self-control? It might be a good time to take a look at our job or living routine. Missing freedom? We can create small acts of spontaneity even in a busy schedule. Not having any fun? Let’s go play some games, pick up an old hobby, or try out a new activity. It’s a great way to frame the question, and leaves out the philosophical angst of trying to figure out how to live an examined life.

Demystifying Meditation: The Three Basic Types of Meditation

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What’s the deal? What is meditation, anyway? I’ve been working on a short E-guide which I’ll be publishing in the next few weeks here called “How to Kickstart Your Personal Meditation Practice.” Writing this has made me realize that there isn’t a wide understanding about what meditation is. Of course, it’s a vast topic, and at the same time it’s supposed to be the simplest thing there is. Just sitting? This should give some basic insight into what’s going on up there when we’re quiet.

Meditation activates (and deactivates) a variety of brain regions, and different kinds of meditation actually do different things. I’m not going to get too deep into the neuroscience, but I want to describe the three main types of meditation. Nearly all styles and traditions of meditation fall into one of these categories, or bridge more than one of them.

Presence

Presence meditation is all about developing attention and concentration. It often involves the breath or focus on a single object. It might be called “present-moment awareness,” “anapanasati” or “attention-focusing” meditation. This is a hugely helpful technique to practice, as it brings awareness and concentration to all our actions.

Presence meditation is also the foundation for most other meditation techniques. Before delving into the mind or emotions, we must be able to pay attention to what we’re doing. This doesn’t mean it should be discounted as less advanced than other techniques — some people practice exclusively presence meditation, and it is extremely rewarding. It might be the best tool we have to fight against the attention-drain caused by all our devices and tech.

Perspective

What is the mind? Perspective meditation includes all techniques that involve observing one’s own mind. This means watching one’s thoughts, cultivating an understanding of how and why they arise and pass away, and beginning to see through the illusions the mind creates around us. This is also called “meta-cognition,” which is an awesome word.

The more perspective we gain on the self, the more we understand that the ego is a construct of the mind, and not something which truly separates us from the rest of the universe. This style of meditation moves us toward an experiential understanding of the oneness and interconnectedness of the universe. It can be a bit heady. With regards to achieving traditional enlightenment, this is probably the fastest route (but don’t expect to get there in this lifetime!).

Affective

Affective meditations focus on developing certain positive qualities or thoughts. The most common forms are “loving-kindness” or “compassion” meditations. It is less about achieving a transcendental state and more about cultivating a life that’s worth living while we’re here. It is an extremely effective method for training our emotions and generally feeling good about life.

Affective meditations typically involve some kind of visualization, which allows us to experience certain feelings, such as love and gratitude, and strengthen the neural networks that are responsible for them. This brings those experiences to the fore, integrating them into our lives as a whole. Compassion is the most common elevated experience we practice through affective meditation, as it is universally perhaps the most valuable characteristic we can possess. Theoretically, you could practice any emotion, though.

Each meditation style affects the brain differently, lighting up different brain regions under fMRI. By activating those regions, the neural networks become more dense and used to working together. This brings the lessons we learn while meditating into the rest of our lives. It is a slow process, and the results are often not tangible, but if we are committed to the practice, they are undeniable.

Only with regular practice over a long period of time do we begin to notice that we are less stressed, more open and compassionate, and more understanding of our own thought processes and emotions. Just because meditation is hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it — in fact just the opposite. As any meditator will tell you, a consistent meditation practice is one of the most important things we can do with our time and energy.

If you’d like to get going on your own meditation practice, keep an eye out for the E-guide I’ll be publishing here in a few weeks. Or just take a few minutes to sit quietly and see what happens! It’s amazing what the brain will do.