The key to spiritual growth is developing the ability to withstand the powerful pull of our egos that constantly yank us down the rabbit hole when we feel slighted, angered or a whole host of other negative emotions. The problem, as most of us mortal Earthlings know, is that staving off that pull is really hard.
Why? Because our egos are shrewd, alluring and one of the most formidable forces God/nature/The Universe has created. The logical question to ask, then, is what can we do to help prevent ourselves from running headlong into the talons of our voracious egos?
What needs saving
Let’s start by defining what entity actually needs saving. It’s our consciousness. Our awareness. Our true self. That is what accedes so easily to our beckoning egos.
A big problem is that our consciousness is amorphous, unseeable and intangible. That being the case, I say we give it an image that can help us keep it centered and out of the egoic rabbit hole.
Which leads us to the seat of self, a phrase used by many spiritual teachers including my favorite, Mickey Singer. As Mickey puts it:
“Persistently centered consciousness is the seat of Self. In this state, you are always conscious of being conscious. There is never a time when you’re not totally aware.”
I take that to mean it’s as if we’re sitting in a chair, inside our heads, completely centered in the present moment; that is, centered in the seat of self. It’s that image that I’m focusing on in this piece.
Because I find that when my ego gets stirred — by a provocative remark from my wife, for example — it can be difficult in the moment to locate my consciousness and thereby will myself into relaxing and not diving down the egoic rabbit hole. Why is it hard to locate my consciousness? As I said, our consciousness is amorphous and invisible.
Imagining being in the seat of self
So what I’ve been practicing is, when I get poked, I go to the image of me sitting in that seat of self in my head. I then get that person (my consciousness) to immediately relax. Then get him to say,
“No. I’m not leaving this seat. I’m staying here. I’m not getting on that train to my lower self.”
We can use this image for all of our waking moments, not just the challenging ones. It’s a way of staying centered, that feeling of strength and stability, of being moored to the Earth, rather than the opposite, unstable state so many of us experience when we feel like a helpless pinball being randomly shot around by the pinball machine of life. Throughout our day we simply imagine ourselves sitting in that seat, calm, peaceful, strong.
The takeaway
I know this all may sound a little wacky, but my attitude is that we need to throw the kitchen sink at this profoundly important challenge of refusing the ego’s invitations. I’ve been trying imagining myself sitting in the seat of self and it’s been working.
If it makes sense and resonates with you, give it a try.
My wife turned fifty last week. Her dream present was a family ski trip to Colorado. I’m not Jewish, but a two-letter word immediately came to mind when she first laid this idea on me a few months ago:
Oy.
Why? Because I’m not big on skiing. For one, I’m terrible at it. My skis are always way too far apart. Friends and loved ones have said I look like a drunken sailor as I plod my way down the mountain. Worst of all, I always feel like I’m two seconds away from tearing my ACL.
But fifty is a big birthday so I sucked it up and off my wife, three kids, my daughter’s friend and I flew to Denver. A huge plus was we got to spend the week with my best friend from college at his beautiful town house in Winter Park. Major bonus there.
So, what mindfulness challenges arose? Where to begin…
Adventures in ski rentals
Since I led with the skiing, let’s start with that. First up was getting the kids going with ski school. That meant getting up at the crack of dawn in order to get all the rental equipment set.
A quick digression here about an aggravating factor in all this — altitude. We went from sea level (literally, we live a few miles from the ocean) to 8,500 feet in a few hours. I drank tons of water so as not to get dehydrated, but I still got PHS (Pounding Head Syndrome — yes, I made that up) and HPD (Huff and Puff Disease), where I breathe heavily after taking three or more steps. Bottom line is that I’m dealing with all this kiddie rental rigmarole while my entire respiratory system is on strike.
Ski boots from hell
Here’s just one vignette. My six-year-old gets her ski boots on and immediately claims they’re too tight. They hurt. She starts bawling her eyes out so, in order to get her to the ski school area, you-know-who picks her up and carries her the 150 yards so she doesn’t have to walk in the boots. This of course throws my PHS and HPD into overdrive. Needless to say, Daddy was not a happy camper.
Once there, an instructor checks out her boots and says they’re new and that’s why they’re so tight. Sooooo…I pick her up again and walk back to the boot guy who gives me a sheepish “Oops,” then sets her up with a pair of old, comfy boots.
How I managed it
What was my mindful strategy for dealing with this mental and physical challenge? I did my best to stay in each moment and not allow thoughts of “Oh, great, this is what this whole trip is going to be like. One long torture session…”
Nope. Just each moment. Sure, lots of those moments were uncomfortable, but that’s life. It happens. The key is to accept those moments and not allow them to metastasize into a sob story.
With Boot-gate resolved, my wife and I rented our gear and headed for the gondola. After a few hours of skiing with my Princeton pal Danny, he left and my wife and I grabbed some lunch and a beer.
Then it started snowing. Heavily. We thought Winter Park would shut everything down, but they didn’t. It’s 2:15 and ski school ends at three so my wife says, “Let’s go for a few more runs! It’ll be fun!” NOT!
So we take the gondola up and have a nice ski down…to a trail ending in a chairlift. We missed a turn that would get us to the bottom, our guide Danny no longer able to lead the way for us.
The chairlift to outer space
We had no choice but to take the chairlift up…up…and into the stratosphere. Which would be great if it were sunny and 40. But it was snowing and colder than a witch’s you-know-what.
Mind you, it was getting later in the ski day and because of the weather, the slopes were pretty barren. So not only were we freezing on our interminable lift to the North Pole, but once we got there, we weren’t confident in our ability to find our way to the bottom. So all the way up we battled with the two big F’s: freezing and fear. Not a fun combo.
What did I do? I stayed with my breath as best I could. And, like before, tried to stay in the moment. One moment of cold is totally bearable.
What’s much harder is when we allow our minds to take over and say, “Holy crap, I’m freezing! And this lift ride is going to take forever. I’m going to freeze to death!” No. Just one moment of cold. Then the next moment of cold. Then the next…
We finally did make it to the top and a nice couple gave us good directions to make it down.
3 quick kvetches
I could write 3,000 words on all this so I’ll gloss over 1) how impossible it is to take off ski boots (I’m a decent athlete in good shape and I swear it took every ounce of energy I had to pull them off…literally); 2) how expensive skiing is ($239 for a lift ticket? Really?); and 3) our takeout Indian food order that, upon our arrival, we were told would be 25 minutes later than they initially told us, which we finally got and took home…only to find out they’d given us the wrong order, so back we went.
Again, breathe… Don’t let the ego go to, “Just my luck. I’m hungry as hell. My head is pounding and the idiot gives us the wrong order! What else could go wrong?”
No. Just stay in the moment. Each moment isn’t so bad. Breathe…
Abused by my kids
Let’s move on to the parental abuse I suffered at the hands of my kids on the trip. First up, my precious, adorable six-year-old. She didn’t love the skiing so the two of us went tubing on day two. I held her as we flew down the hill at what seemed like 120 MPH. It was beautiful and we both had fun.
We then headed down to a café where we had the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. Tons of whipped cream, the whole deal. Everything was perfect until…
She asks if we can play “I spy with my little eye…,” a game where you look around, find something of a certain color, then ask if the person can guess what it is. Here’s how it went:
Me: “I spy with my little eye something pink.”
Violet: “My ski jacket?”
Me: “Yes!”
Violet: “I spy with my little eye…something yellow.”
Me: “Hmm…I don’t know. What is it?”
Violet: “Your teeth!”
Me: Stunned silence as my soul struggles to breathe, like a smallmouth bass flopping on the dock…
We have a great time tubing then the best cup of hot chocolate she’s ever had and that’s what I get. Brutal, right?
Later that night my 12-year-old daughter entered the Who Can Be Meanest To Dad Sweepstakes. She’s watching The Hunger Games moviewith her friend as I enter the room with two glasses of water that they requested. After receiving said liquid, my daughter looks at me and, apropos of nothing and out of the blue she says,
“Dad, are you pregnant?”
Both girls giggle uncontrollably. My response echoed Marlon Brando’s final words at the end of Apocalypse Now,
“The horror. The horror.”
While I do have the makings of a Milwaukee Tumor, what we native Wisconsinites call the unofficial medical condition of a man with a bulging belly (it’s the beer capital of America, mind you), it’s not massive. Truth be told, I could stand to lose fifteen in my midsection, but that’s for a different article.
I’m sure my son slammed me too, but I’d rather not comb the recesses of my traumatized memory bank any further.
Snowshoeing in the woods
On the bright side, we did do something really cool: Danny, Steph and I went snowshoeing in the middle of the woods. I loved it.
This is where I put my mindfulness muscles to work to enhance a positive experience. Instead of constantly stopping and commenting and conceptualizing on how cool the whole thing was, I drank it in. The peace. The beauty. The quiet.
I’ll wrap this up by copping to the fact that I’m sure I come off as a whiny a-hole in this piece. After all, I spent a week with my family in one of the best places in the world to ski. And stayed at a beautiful house with a fantastic human being who’s been a steadfast friend since 1982.
I’ll confess that part of it comes from the most important writing tip I learned in my 18 years in Hollywood: Without conflict, a story will bore audiences to death. In other words, there’d be no story if I related how everything came up roses on the trip.
On the other hand, it is true that I physically felt not-so-great all week because of the altitude and that I truly am not a fan of skiing. And also that my mindfulness came in handy on multiple occasions.
The takeaway
What to take away? First, that mindfulness, the ability to remain anchored in the present moment, helps in all manner of life experiences. From trying to remove impossible-to-remove ski boots and freezing on a chair lift headed to outer space, to dealing with your boyfriend breaking up with you. Do your best to remain present, whatever the situation.
Second, unless you’ve got skin as thick as a rhinoceros, never play “I spy with my little eye” with a six year old. At least not this one…
I write frequently about the importance of letting go of our egos. Why? Because it’s the central plank of the spiritual path.
As such, I’m always on the lookout for creative articulations of how best to achieve that letting go. Because the better we understand this critical dynamic, the better-equipped we’ll be to achieve the desired result.
Today’s gem of understanding comes from the great Ram Dass, author of the 1971 classic Be Here Now and one of the most influential Western spiritual teachers of the past half-century.
The master communicator
Ram Dass’s most valuable skill lay in communicating deep metaphysical concepts, mostly from the Hindu tradition, to Western audiences with little to no background in these weighty matters. I’m one of the millions in that audience who has benefited immensely from his eloquent articulations.
Which brings us to Ram Dass’s pearl of wisdom regarding letting go of our egos. He compared this process to that of a snake shedding its skin:
“You can’t tear the skin off a snake. It has to molt. It has to fall off naturally.”
This is incredibly important. Why? Because many on the spiritual path, when they become aware of the primacy of letting go of their ego, go into attack mode.
“I’m going to slay this dragon if it’s the last thing I do!”
In other words, many try to ‘tear off the skin.’ How? When their ego is stirred, they address the situation as they would, for example, a work project.
“My wife just said something that really poked my ego. Let’s go inside and get rid of that feeling…Like now.”
It doesn’t work that way. The ego is not a dragon that can be slayed.
Like a snake’s molting skin, letting go of the ego takes time. And patience. And it is not accomplished by “attacking” the ego and the feelings it generates.
Awareness is vital
So what is this subtle, indirect process for letting go of our egos? The first step can be summed up in one word: Awareness. Without becoming aware when our egos are stirred, we will never succeed in letting it go.
I made this my resolution for 2023. What exactly is this resolution? It’s not letting go of my ego. It’s this sentence that I have taped to the top of my desk:
“Focus awareness on when you need to let go.”
Things happen so fast in our daily lives that we rarely realize, in time, that we’ve been poked. By the time we do, we’ve already exploded at our spouse or leaned on our car horn at the idiotic driver that just drifted into our lane. It’s too late.
How do we work on becoming aware when we get poked? We make it a priority. We use our will to be vigilant on this. That’s why I made this my new year’s resolution. It’s that important to me.
Relax, lean away, watch and let go
Once we’ve noticed we’re about to get sucked down into our lower selves/egos, we take a page from the book of Mickey Singer who teaches to relax immediately — in our heads, shoulders, chest, trunk…everywhere. Then we lean away from whatever ego-created feeling has arisen — anger, jealousy, annoyance…And we watch it. We don’t push it away. We just watch it…
And let it go.
We do this every day of every week of every month of every year for the rest of our lives.
But unlike snakes, who gradually shed the entirety of their skins, most of us mortal and fallible humans won’t shed all of our egos. But that’s okay. We put in the work and we do our best.
Because the energy and effort we put in to shedding as much egoic skin as we can is the most important work we Earthlings can do.
I got an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) from Georgetown University in 1993. What motivated me to get an MBA? I can sum it up in one word: Fear.
How so? I was working in Washington, D.C., first as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill and then running my own lobbying firm.
My fallback MBA
But if the Washington/politics thing didn’t work out, wouldn’t it be smart to have an MBA as a backup? If I got knocked flat on my butt someday, wouldn’t it be “prudent” to have that business credential in place?
The answer to both questions, in hindsight, was and is a resounding no. Going to business school was a complete waste of time, money and energy. What it revealed was a lack of confidence I had in myself.
And so it is with so many in our society today. Do parents want their kids to go to the best college they can because they truly believe that will give junior the best chance at happiness or because they think it will give him the best chance at not starving to death someday, alone in an alley?
Fearful parents
Do these same parents convince their kids to major in business instead of history, which is what they have a real interest in, because they think that is their road to Happyville or because it gives them the best chance at avoiding the poorhouse?
Fear, fear, fear.
What these parents really reveal is a total lack of confidence in their kids. They helicopter mostly to alleviate their own anxieties, not out of devotion to their kids’ best interests.
Fearful athletes
It’s embedded in society. Look at many of our great athletes. I hear so many of them say something along the lines of, “I can never relax. I can never stop. If I do, somebody somewhere is going to gain on me.” And the response by society, at least here in America, is:
“Now that is one solid guy/woman. Always looking behind their shoulder to see if someone is gaining on them. That’s the way of a true champion!”
But in the end, what it is is working hard out of fear. And for most who do it, it’s crippling.
Hard work is great
I am of course not denigrating hard work. I love working hard and being disciplined. It’s energizing and fulfilling to exert effort.
But I also work hard at not working hard out of fear that if I don’t work hard some awful fate will await me. I take the opposite tack that I work hard because it’s exhilarating to produce, in my case, these articles about life and spirituality.
What it boils down to is a question of confidence — in ourselves and in the Universe/God/Life or whatever metaphysical force you believe in. If we have confidence in ourselves and in life, then we don’t need to fear anything.
The ego loves fear
So why does fear rule the roost for so many of us? Because virtually everybody’s life is dictated by their ego. And the ego’s best friend is fear.
And why do our egos guide our lives? Because that is what has been handed down to us, generation after generation.
Eating brown bananas
My parents came of age in the Depression in the 1930s. What did that mean for their offspring, specifically me, their sixth kid? It meant you ate brown, bruised bananas, you ate everything on your plate and you went to business school to hedge your bets. It’s no coincidence that all six of us Gerken kids got graduate degrees.
My parents’ behavior, and their parents’ behavior, and on and on, makes sense. They had to scrape by in tough times as kids. Of course that’s what they’re going to teach their kids.
But just because this fear-driven way of life has been passed down to us doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. It isn’t.
That’s a main reason I’m writing this: To offer an opposing point of view to all these parents who want their kids to go to Harvard and athletes who always look behind them to see who’s gaining. Because as it stands, there is no opposing view. This is the hard truth:
Society accepts, condones and pushes living life in fear.
I say we change that. How?
Let me back into a solution by diving into neuroscience. The human brain’s fear center is called the amygdala. People with active amygdalas are anxious worriers, which is most of humanity. The part of the brain that exerts an inhibitory influence on the amygdala, i.e. calms it down, is called the prefrontal cortex.
Meditation shrinks the Nervous Nelly
Which leads us to meditation. Studies from Harvard have shown that regular meditation can actually shrink the amygdala and make it less active. These same studies show that meditation causes a thickening of the walls of the prefrontal cortex.
In short, meditation strengthens the “cool peaceful cucumber” part of the brain and weakens the “Nervous Nelly,” fearful part of the brain.
Throw in mindfulness practices and any others that promote the quieting of the ego (yoga, prayer, qi gong, walks in nature…) and we are on the road to a massive paradigm shift from fear-based to stillness-based living. Where we march to the tune not of our fearful, neurotic minds, but to the divine being inside us that can only be heard when the cacophonous Nervous Nelly shuts the heck up.
It’s a long road. And the reason I’m doing what I’m doing is to try everything in my power to shorten that road as much as possible.
The takeaway
The more I meditate and practice mindfulness, the more I realize that I have nothing to fear. And it feels great.I hope you too will work on getting quiet inside. And eventually get to that place where you no longer run your life based on fear, but are instead guided by that beautiful, still, compassionate place that doesn’t just love you.
My wife is a good gift-giver. For my 50th, she surprised me with tickets to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. Tickets are notoriously hard to come by, but she found a way.
This year she came through again. Yes, I got some nice clothes and books and other cool knick-knacky items. But the best present I got was the license plate frame she got me.
As you can see from the photo above, the top reads:
“I’d Rather”
While the bottom reads:
“Be Here Now”
The phrase comes from Ram Dass’s iconic book Be Here Now which took America and the West by storm in the early 1970s. It heavily influenced the likes of Steve Jobs, Wayne Dyer and former Beatle George Harrison who went as far as titling a song Be Here Now.
A counter-culture phenomenon
The book served as a guide for millions of mostly younger, counter-culture hippies on the Hindu path to becoming a yogi. If you haven’t read it, get it and do so! It will blow your mind, in a good way. Here’s the Amazon link. Also, check out this article I wrote about the book.
Back to the license plate frames. I don’t know if you have these where you live but growing up and to this day I see license plates with frames that read “I’d Rather Be Fishing.” Or bowling. Or hunting. Or skiing. Or playing golf. Or any number of things.
Which is great. I love to fish. And play golf. And tennis. And read. And cook. And play Word Cookies. And ride my bike.
But the point of all those license frames is that they’d rather be doing something other than what they’re doing at the moment, which is driving.
Be here, now as a life mantra
Which is why I absolutely love my new license frame. Those five words could serve as the sole mantra for an entire lifetime.
And I’m not even being hyperbolic. If we literally did nothing but remind ourselves to ‘be here, now,’ every single day, we would reach the highest levels of consciousness.
Why? Because being here now, ‘in the moment,’ is the only portal through which consciousness can enter the world.
Is it any coincidence that two of the most influential spiritual books of the past fifty years, Be Here Now and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, feature the word nowprominently in their titles?
Now is where everything happens. As you read this sentence, realize that each moment is all that exists. It’s always been that way and will always be that way.
The takeaway
So I hope by now that you’re not surprised by how thrilled I was to get this cheap piece of plastic that cost $12. Because every time I get in my car now I’m going to be reminded of the most important endeavor in spirituality: To be in the moment.
If you want to get one yourself, go to this link. They’re sold by the Hanuman Maui Sanctuary, a group that preserves the house in Maui that Ram Dass lived in the last fifteen years of his life.
I’ve touted the brilliance, eloquence and beauty of Ram Dass many times and I’m going to do it again today. The guy was just a total stud.
Today it’s about a teaching of his that is central to personal growth. Here’s what he said:
“A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there’s work to be done.”
This is so important to understand. Why? Because if you don’t, you will continue to march to the beat of your ego. Here’s why.
It’s all about ego
Aversions and attachments almost always originate in ego. Let’s look at some examples to illustrate.
Just for kicks, I’ll use examples from my life, before and after I dove into spiritual practices.
Example #1: I used to be strictly attached to working out almost every day. Why? Because exercise helped me manage stress, anxiety and depression.
Now, I’m not so extreme about it. If I have to miss a few or several days, either because I’m sick or circumstances warrant it, I don’t freak out about it. Why? Because I know I can handle it. I may not feel as physically well as I would had I worked out, but I do fine. I’ve loosened my attachment to it and I feel better for it.
Example #2: I used to have strong attachments to certain things, like sentimental paraphernalia. Now, not so much. For instance, I went to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, in 2015, and had a blast. I bought tons of shirts, hats, etc., that can only be bought at the tournament.
One of those items was a beautiful mug with the Masters logo on it. It was my go-to mug for six years, meaning it was the one I put in the freezer and used for my post-workout seltzer water with lemon or for a beer at dinner time.
Around a year and a half ago, I retrieved the mug from the freezer, put it on the counter, then proceeded to get my seltzer and lemon. I had done this same thing literally hundreds of times before.
But this time, the icy part on the bottom of the mug caused it to slide off the counter and…smash into a hundred pieces. Bye, bye Masters mug.
My previous self would have been bummed about this. Because I’d have developed a strong attachment to it. The new-ish me? “Dang, my Masters mug broke. We had a good six years, my friend. Sorry to see you go. Life goes on.”
And that’s it. It was gone and I didn’t look back. That’s not to say that I was happy it broke. Far from it. I really liked that mug. I just never allowed an attachment to develop with this inanimate object.
Example #3: I had a strong “feeling of aversion” toward writing this article today. This particular aversion goes straight to my core issue of feeling compelled to produce and “do.” It comes from being part of a family of Type A’s who were always on the go, achieving big things. This is clearly all about my ego telling me I need to measure up.
In the old days, I would have let this aversion fester to the point that I’d shame myself into gutting out this article, come hell or high water. Not so this time. It took me a few days to get it done.
This time I did when Ram Dass teaches: I saw this aversion for what it was and knew there was work to be done.
That leads to the $64,000 question: What is that work that needs to be done? Any of you who’ve read my previous articles can probably guess the answer by now…
The work is about letting go of those attachments and aversions.
How? You simply become aware when those attachments or aversions arise, then relax, lean away and let them pass. The hard work is in not succumbing to the allure that these attachments and aversions elicit. In other words, we work on not “taking the bait.”
It’s life. Things happen. Things come. Things go. Relationships, jobs, houses, cars, cities we live in. They come and they go.
The key, as I said, lies in becoming aware when “…a feeling of aversion or attachment” arises. Because as Eckhart Tolle so wisely said:
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
If you don’t notice that some feeling has come up, you won’t get the “…clue that there’s work to be done.” I’ve noticed that this very thing is a big, big problem for many people, including some that I have counseled.
I’ll have told people multiple times about what I’ve written above and then I’ll see them do things like:
-Literally start shaking from being so infuriated at some stupid thing the mailman had done.
-Stridently arguing to me about how “right” they are and “wrong” someone else is in some conflict. On this one in particular, Eckhart is right on when he says, “Any time you find yourself arguing that you’re right and someone else is wrong, it ALWAYS emanates from the ego.”
-Come at a marital dispute 100 percent from the place of, “This is what I need! I have to have it this way!” In other words, they have a titanium strong attachment to their needs.
In all these instances, they needed to do what Ram Dass taught: Become aware of this aversion or attachment, realize they need to let it go, and then let it go.
The takeaway
In sum, Ram Dass’s teaching is about becoming aware when we’ve been poked by an aversion or attachment, then letting it go.
This one is so important and so simple we should all cut it out and tape it to our desks…
“A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there’s work to be done.
There’s another pandemic that’s been raging in recent years, and it isn’t COVID. It’s anxiety. I won’t go into the ‘why’ of it all, except to say that the advent of social media is definitely high up on the list of culprits.
You must be living in a cave if you don’t know somebody who’s struggled with anxiety. I have good friends and family members among the stricken.
And when I hear their tales of woe, I understand what they’re talking about. Why? Because I’ve dealt with it myself.
My battle with anxiety and depression
I got hit particularly hard with anxiety-based depression during my first few years in college. It was absolutely, gut-wrenchingly awful.
Luckily, I haven’t had a bad bout in many years. Why not? I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that it’s because of the meditation and mindfulness work I’ve done these past ten years.
The JAMA study
Which brings us to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) this past November. A group of psychiatrists from Georgetown, Harvard and NYU conducted a randomized clinical trial of 208 people with diagnosed anxiety disorders.
The participants were placed into two groups: one that was given the SSRI medication Lexapro and the other that took an eight-week program called Mindfulness Base Stress Reduction (MBSR).
What is MBSR? I know a lot about it as I took the course five years ago. It’s a 2 ½ hour class once a week for eight weeks where several issues surrounding mindfulness and meditation are taught, performed and discussed. Participants also do 45 minutes per day at home of some kind of meditation and/or mindfulness exercise. There’s also a half-day silent meditation retreat.
Results of the study
At the end of the eight weeks the participants’ anxiety levels decreased in both the MBSR and Lexapro groups…by very similar levels. In other words, the MBSR practices proved equally as useful in treating anxiety as the SSRI Lexapro.
What should we take from this? I am absolutely NOT recommending that people stop taking any anti-anxiety medication they’re on. First of all, I’m not a doctor so I’m not qualified to venture into those waters.
But as someone who has benefited immensely from practicing meditation and mindfulness, I CAN recommend that people with anxiety problems give these techniques a try. I know for certain that they have helped calm my inner waters.
Anxiety can be so painful and debilitating that my personal opinion is to throw the kitchen sink at it. Which means medication, meditation, mindfulness, vigorous exercise and anything else you can think of.
The takeaway
If you’re interested and are looking for a place to get started, go to my website at davidgerken.net and check out my free meditation program. I developed it for regular people with an emphasis on making meditation as easy as possible.
Meditation and mindfulness are profoundly beneficial for most people who practice them. This study shows that they significantly help in relieving anxiety. They also help sharpen focus, deal with chronic pain and help with depression, among other benefits.
I hope you’ll give these practices a try. Deciding to take the plunge on this ten years ago is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
I’ve read the books, listened to the talks and thought long and hard about this spiritual stuff for several years now. What I’ve learned is that there are many ways to describe the central thrust of it all.
One of those ways is the concept of witness consciousness. What is witness consciousness? Let me explain.
By the way, doing so will kill approximately three billion of my brain cells and/or cause my head to explode. So I wouldn’t object if any of you want to organize a Go Fund Me campaign to pay a neurosurgeon to reassemble my brain.
Defining witness consciousness
That said, let’s get this party started. Witness consciousness is a way of describing that there is you, the witness, and then everything else, what the witness is conscious of.
That can also be expressed as subject, the witness, and object, anything and everything the witness experiences.
Like what? You name it.
-A car drives by and honks its horn. You, the witness, experience the sound of the horn, the object.
-You watch a beautiful sunset. You, the witness, experience the sunset, the object.
-You see your girlfriend laughing as she talks to a handsome guy at a party. You feel jealous. You, the witness, experience the feeling of jealousy, the object.
-While meditating, you become aware that you’re having thoughts about what you want to have for lunch. You, the witness, experience the thoughts about lunch, the object.
Most people understand the first two examples. We hear the horn and we see the sunset, but we aren’t the sound of the horn or the sunset.
What they don’t get is that they aren’tthe feeling of jealousy or the thoughts about lunch, either.
We are the witness
In all of these cases, we are the witness of these things. We are the consciousness that experiences them.
The problem plaguing humanity is that our egos, which manifest as thoughts and emotions, are so powerful that they overwhelm the witness, and in doing so lead us to believe that those thoughts and emotions are who we are.
The spiritual path in two steps
The spiritual path, then, can be whittled down to these two steps: 1. Realize that you are the witness and not the egoic thoughts and emotions; and 2. Strengthen the witness in its ability to remain in the seat of self and not get swept up in thoughts and emotions.
Many of you may think I’m saying we should deny or push away our thoughts and emotions. Not so. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Witness consciousness is about placing our fullest attention on those thoughts and emotions as they arise, as we would with anything our witness experiences.
The key is that we merely observe these sensations. We experience them. And then we let them pass. Just as we let the sound of the horn and the beautiful sunset eventually pass.
Don’t go down the rabbit hole
What we DON’T do is flee the witness and fly down the rabbit hole of our thoughts and emotions. That, of course, is precisely what our powerful egos want us to do.
Which brings us to step two on the spiritual path: Strengthening our witness to the point that it is strong enough to withstand the pull of the ego. How do we do that?
In other words, how do we prevent ourselves from accepting the ego’s invitation 99 percent of the time when it beckons us to…ruminate in the car about how we much we hate our boss, get pissed off that we hit our third red light in a row, yell at our spouse for forgetting to put the garbage cans out on the street and 5.2 zillion other examples?
Strengthening the witness
I’ve written extensively on that subject. One way to strengthen the witness is to work on quieting the egoic insane asylum that is our minds. Meditation is the most direct way to do that. Practicing mindfulness also works wonders. Physical exercise helps. There’s also yoga, prayer and many other spiritual practices. So do those or anything else that promotes inner stillness.
A practice to strengthen your witness
Today I also want to offer a specific practice that can help strengthen the witness. Because when emotions or thoughts arise within us it often happens so quickly and powerfully that we are unable to keep our witness in the seat of self.
Here’s a little helper for you to use in the heat of the moment. It’s real simple. It’s:
“I’m here. It’s there.”
That’s it. Let me explain. Let’s say you’re hungry as you drive home from work and…you guessed it, you hit another red light. That annoyed, exasperated feeling arises.
Right then, what you do is say to yourself, “I’m here. It’s there.” Who’s here and what’s there?
Who is here is the witness. That’s the “I’m here.” I locate my witness in the upper back part of my head. So that’s where I place my attention when I say, “I’m here.”
In this example, what is “there?” It’s the feeling of exasperation that just arose. Most of my feelings arise in my belly area. So I’m here (back part of my head) and it’s there (in my belly). I’m here, it’s there. I just picture those two areas.
It’s all about separating ego and witness
What this technique does is facilitate the separation of the two basic elements of our existence: the ego and the witness/consciousness/presence/awareness (they’re all the same). Achieving this separation is yet another way to sum up the entirety of the spiritual path.
Why? Because the domination of ego over witness/consciousness to the point that most people don’t even realize they have a witness is the central malady plaguing humankind.
I hope this is all comprehendible. Witness consciousness is a big subject, but I hope you get the drift of it.
The takeaway
Try it. Simply look at every experience you have as the witness experiencing some object — a sound, a sight, a feeling, a thought…anything. And with the tough feelings or thoughts, go to “I’m here. It’s there.”
Doing so will place you squarely in each moment, which is, of course, the only place where life happens. It behooves all of us to do whatever we can to inhabit that place of witness consciousness.
Because we, and the world, will be better off the more presently we live.
P.S. — Describing witness consciousness wasn’t as brutal as I thought it would be so need for the Go Fund Me campaign. 🙂
As many of you know, I’m always on the lookout for ways to help goose people along the spiritual path. Sometimes it’s words or phrases that can be used as mantras. Sometimes it’s analogies.
And sometimes, like today, it’s images. This piece is about using the inner image of hands to aid in your spiritual growth.
Let me explain. I believe that letting go of our egoic baggage is the central work of the spiritual path. That “stuff” is all the junk we’ve accumulated and held onto from our earliest years and throughout adulthood.
Buddhists and Mickey Singer
The Buddhists would call this letting go of our attachments. My favorite teacher, Mickey Singer, simply refers to it as letting go.
Whatever you want to call it, at its core it’s about freeing yourself from “stuff” that is holding you back; that is blocking your energy flow. If that sounds too “woo-wooey wacky” for you, don’t worry. You’ll get what I mean shortly.
How do we let go?
The central question then is, how do we get rid of/let go of all this baggage? The answer is that when it comes up we: 1. Become aware that it has come up; 2. Lean away from the feeling/energy, wherever it is; 3. Relax, and 4. Let it go.
The big kahuna, obviously, is #4, letting it go. So once we’ve become aware, leaned away, and relaxed, how best to let it go?
That’s where the hand’s visual comes into play. How? The best way to explain this is through using the Buddhist concept of resisting and clinging.
Resisting and clinging
When we experience something we don’t like we resist it. If it’s something we like, we cling to it. In both cases, those experiences become lodged in our lower selves as energy that blocks the natural, upward flow of our chi/shakti/prana energy, as it’s known in different traditions.
Let’s use examples for both resisting and clinging and how the hands thing comes in. You were a lousy athlete growing up and were always picked last for any team. Thirty years later, you’re a partner at a law firm. Eight of you get together at a high school gym to play basketball. You get picked last. Ouch.
This brings up those feelings you had all those years ago. Why? Because you held onto them and they stayed inside you.
Picked last at the pickup game
Fine. So 45-year-old you are standing there in your gym shorts, feeling like crap. What do you normally do when anything like this happens? You resist the feeling by pushing it away. The result? That feeling just nestles right back into your lower self where it’s been living for decades.
Let’s take a closer look at what you did. You “pushed” that feeling away. You get what I mean. We all do this when we don’t like something. We say, without actually saying it, “Get out of here. I don’t want you. Go away.”
So here’s what a 45-year-old lawyer you could do to help let this old feeling go. How do we push something away? We put our hands on it and push.
So in this case, you close your eyes and visualize inside your hands pushing away/resisting the lousy feeling. Then you make the conscious decision to pull your hands away from the feeling. You stop pushing it away and just leave it alone. You visualize letting it go.
As for clinging, let’s say you won your club golf tournament last year. You were thrilled by this. While playing in this year’s tournament you find yourself nervous and moody. Why? Because you’re clinging to the good feeling you had a year ago and are worried you won’t get to feel that again.
Letting go of the trophy
When those feelings of fear come up while you’re playing, relax and go inside. Imagine your hands holding onto last year’s trophy. Then imagine yourself pulling your hands off the trophy and letting it go…
Overlaying this whole concept is one macro idea about life: We are meant to experience things and then let them go, whether good or bad. The golf tournament winner doesn’t need to renounce his win. He just doesn’t store it inside. He lets it go.
It’s the same for any of the millions of experiences people have that they don’t like. It’s okay, natural, and normal to dislike any number of experiences. But it is not natural, nor healthy, to hold onto these experiences.
Letting go is hard
The problem with this letting go thing, as most of you know, is that it is NOT easy. It’s hard.
Why? Because our “stuff” comes up all the time. Every day. And most of us have developed a deeply ingrained habit of either clinging to or resisting that stuff. In fact, most people don’t even know there is an alternative to clinging or resisting. That’s their only reality.
My attitude on the whole matter can be summed up in this equation:
Letting go is hard + Letting go is central to spiritual growth = Find/do anything that helps you let go
And that is why I wrote this article. Using your hands as a visual to see yourself letting go inside is simply something to use to make this vitally important but difficult process easier.
The Takeaway
So if this hands thing resonates with you, do it! When something comes up that upsets you in some way, just imagine your pushing or clinging hands letting go of that feeling they’re grappling with. And just let that feeling go.
Here’s another one from the Eckhart Tolle vault. It’s about a recent talk wherein he tells the story of the Zen master and his disciple watching an archery competition.
One of the archers was extremely skilled but was shooting poorly. The disciple asks his master why the accomplished archer wasn’t doing well. The Zen master replied:
“His desire to win deprives him of power.”
So true.
Let’s dive deeper into two parts of the Zen master’s quote. First, the “desire to win.” Second, the “power.” What do those things mean?
Process over outcome
The archer’s desire to win is a clear example of focusing on outcome rather than process. How does that manifest? When he pulls the string back with the arrow on it, he trains his eyes on the target. But if anywhere in his mind he’s thinking about winning, he is NOT placing all his focus on the target.
I know this from my own experiences playing competitive tennis since I was nine years old. Here’s but one of hundreds of examples I could give.
Playing against a tennis star
I was eleven years old and playing in the 12 and under division at the tournament in La Jolla, California. My opponent was Jimmy Pugh, a junior phenom. He was ranked number one in Southern California in our division and I’m pretty sure he was number one in America, too. I think I’d even seen a special news segment on television about him. Bottom line, he was Mr. Big and I was not.
So we start the match and I win the first two games. WHAAATTT?! That’s exactly what was going through my head. I couldn’t believe it. I was beating Jimmy Pugh. And that’s all that was going through my head.
What was I NOT doing? Playing tennis. Concentrating on my shots. I was too busy thinking about the fact that I was beating my junior tennis idol.
So how did the match go? Not well. He won the next twelve games in a row and beat me 6–2, 6–0.
The Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s most sacred texts, is crystal clear on this point. Krishna tells Arjuna:
“Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working.”
This isn’t about acting virtuous, either. It’s about doing everything you can to maximize performance. And the absolute best way to do that is to remain present and place all of your focus on the task at hand, whether that’s swinging a tennis racquet or firing an arrow.
The power of presence
The second part of the Zen master’s comment deals with what we access when we remain present and focused on the task at hand: Power. It’s no coincidence that Eckhart named his blockbuster book The Power of Now. Because there is enormous power to be accessed when we quiet down inside and live in the now.
Athletes often refer to that place as the zone, where everything is flowing and we do things that amaze even ourselves. I’ve hit shots on the tennis court where I’ll say to myself, “How the hell did I do that?” That never happens when I’m stuck in my head thinking; only when I’m tuned in and present.
People who truly want to win do everything in their power to remain present in the heat of battle. Tiger Woods is famous for his relentless concentration and focus on each shot. He never gets ahead of himself or worries about the last shot. Just the shot in front of him.
The takeaway
The moral of the story? Whether it’s a presentation at work, a tennis match against a junior phenom or an archery competition, stay focused on what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, and you will maximize your performance.
In other words, if you want to do well…Be here, now.
