How Thoughts Block Us From Being Fully Present

How Thoughts Block Us From Being Fully Present

Boots-on-the-ground mindfulness: removing the obstacles to being here, now.SHARE

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If just one word were to go in a time capsule to represent our society right now, the word would have to be “mindfulness.” Mindfulness is in every book title, workshop, conversation, idea, and everything else we now encounter.  We’re a society obsessed with mindfulness.  So what is this thing we’re all talking about and presumably trying to create? And how do we do it—be mindful? 

Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, and without judgment, according to Jon Kabat Zinn, a leader and teacher in the mindfulness movement. While we can easily define it, it seems that being it is not so easy. Despite all our talk of mindfulness, studies indicate that most people are only here, paying attention in the present moment, 50 percent of the time. That said, we miss out on half our life, with our attention somewhere other than where we are. 

Rather than take the usual, culturally-accepted model and suggest another thing to go out and become, get, do, study, buy, or otherwise accomplish in order to attain mindfulness, perhaps it’s wiser to turn our attention into ourselves and investigate what gets in the way of our being present.  What are the obstacles to being here, now?

The first and most obvious obstacle to being present is distraction. We’re in a constant state of motion, busyness, and getting to somewhere else—using our devices, substances, entertainment, chatter, and anything else we can find to avoid here, now. Doing is our first line of defense against being present. 

The most treacherous impediment to mindful attention however, even more than busyness and activity, is thought. The mind, maker of thoughts, is forever chattering, distracting us, telling us stories, beckoning us to not be where we are, but rather get involved in the tickertape of plot twists it's creating.

When it comes to avoiding the present moment, we tend to employ a handful of habitual thinking patterns. First, we separate ourselves from now by narrating our experience as it’s happening. We essentially follow ourselves around, incessantly commenting on our own experience. “Oh look, I’m having a good time here, this is going well, they seem to like me” and so it goes, the voice over of now—soundtrack to our life. All day and night we tell ourselves the story of ourselves, story of our life. Sadly, we live the voice over but not the life itself. 

Similarly, we continually package our experience as it’s happening, preparing the story that will later tell the tale that is our life. As the present moment is unfolding we’re preoccupied with transcribing the now into a summary or narrative, ever-readying the present moment for some future explanation or presentation for others, or perhaps just ourselves.

And then come the big three: the thought programs that are always running in the background of mind, subtly or actively pulling our attention away from here. 

—Why is this present moment happening?

—What does this now say about me and my life?

—What do I need to do about this now?

Our tendency is to experience the present moment through at least one and usually more than one of these thoughts. Rather than being where we are, we're busily attending to the who, what, where, when and why of where we are.

So too, thoughts are a way the mind tries to manage its fear of and lack of trust in the present moment. Rather than risk diving into now, into the river of life, we stay on the shore, using our mind to manage, control and make linear sense of our present experience, in the hopes of steering now in a direction we design. The mind doesn’t believe that we can relax into the unknown of the present moment, show up fully where we are, take care of our now without controlling where it’s headed. It doesn’t trust life to take care of us, but instead imagines that it must make life happen, and direct our path with tight reins. 

In reality, the present moment doesn't need the mind to make it happen; now is unfolding without the mind’s help. When we live the present moment without thinking it, the mind is left without a task, without something to do, figure out, or make happen. It has no bone to chew on. For this reason, the mind vehemently rejects the now, using this moment to generate ideas and issues that will require their own attention and input.

Furthermore, the mind subsists on the past and future; it alternates between turning now into a projection into the future and a narrative on the past. The now, however, is a space poised between the two locations or concepts, past and future. The present moment is a gap between the two. In truth, it’s always now; now is forever inviting us into a vertical eternity. When we dive fully into the present moment, we step out of the linear timeline altogether. We're liberated from the shackles of time. In response and rebellion, the mind grabs hold of now, through thought, and places us back into a timeline, thereby re-orienting itself in a way it can understand. 

It’s often said that we avoid the present moment to avoid ourselves. But in fact, when we dive fully into the present moment, are fully engaged in our experience, as in the flow state, what we discover, paradoxically, is that we lose ourselves. We disappear, and that’s precisely what makes it so delicious and makes us want to return again and again. In full presence or flow state, we don’t experience ourselves as separate, as the one living the experience; there is only the experience of which we are a part. 

We’re always running from the present moment, not to escape ourselves, but to escape the absence of ourselves. The battle with the present moment is an existential battle for the mind; the flight from now is its fight to exist.

Being in the now, without a narrative, requires a death or at least temporary letting go of mind. When the mind stops talking to us, there’s nothing there to remind us of our own existence, we’re left unaware of ourselves, in a state of void.  That said, the mind abhors the present moment just as natureabhors a vacuum. 

But in fact, when we have the courage to drop out of mind and into the present moment, what we find is the opposite of a void.  We find wholeness, an experience without an experiencer. We encounter ourselves as presence inseparable from life, rather than a person who is living, directing, managing, and controlling this thing called life. In the process, we discover liberation and something as close as I’ve ever found to the end of suffering.   

To begin practicing this paradigm shift, start small. Every now and again, glance around your surroundings and just look, see what’s there without going to thought or language to understand or name what you’re seeing. Experience your environment without using mind to translate what your senses are taking in. Simply allow your awareness to be aware without interpretation. So too, if you ever meditate or spend time focusing on your breath, try paying attention to the spaces between breaths as well. Feel the sensations occurring in the gaps between the inhalation and the exhalation. This simple practice can offer a direct taste of the present moment without the interruption of thought. And finally, every now and again, invite yourself to stop and drop. Deliberately unhook from the storyline going on in your head and shift your attention down below your neck into the silence and presence in your own body.  Experience being as its own place, without thought.

These and other simple pointers can escort us into a radically new experience of living; they can be used as portals to a serenity that the mind, no matter how much it wants to be involved, cannot figure out or create. When we’re fully present, living now directly rather than the mind’s interpretation of it, a palpable peace unfolds—a peace that surpasses all the mind’s understanding. 

Just Because Our Thoughts Make Sense Doesn't Mean They're Real

Trying to find peace with the mind is like trying to open a lock with a banana...

Carol came to see me with a serious agenda.  She and her husband had had a disagreement the evening before our session and Carol wanted to explain to me why her husband had said what upset her, and specifically, what in his personal psychology and history had made him decide to hurt her. She also wanted to lay out her theories on what was wrong with her husband in a more general sense and how she was going to explain it to him so that he would understand and be different.  Knowing what she knew about him, she was sure that once she laid out her case and helped him understand what was wrong with him, he would become different—and as a result, she would be okay once again.    

My client had come up with an intricate, psychologically sophisticated and comprehensive narrative about her husband’s intentions, resentments, methodology, and shortcomings, and tying in his familial history, present psychology, and relational style.  Carol’s presentation was a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, and multi-generational storyline. Most developed in her narrative, interestingly, was her theory about her husband’s strategy and intention to hurt her. 

Carol was suffering and I listened empathically as she constructed her clear case for why the experience with her husband had happened. And simultaneously, what she needed to do about it or explain to her husband so that he would understand why he was wrong, and would never do this kind of thing again.  I felt her pain and frustration; I also felt how her words and ideas were trying to keep her from feeling her pain, give her some protection from her heart’s hurt, make her pain manageable. And, I felt how desperately those words were failing her.    

Everything Carol said made perfect sense. In court, she would have won her case.  At the same time, I have been listening to her theories on her husband for many years, and also keeping her company in her suffering, as none of her well-crafted theories and/or action plans have changed how he behaves or how she feels about it.  I’ve watched as none of her theories and action plans have brought her happiness or peace. 

On this day, I felt we were ready and so I asked Carol to consider a few new questions in relation to her story and her experience. “What if none of the thoughts and intentions you’ve assigned to your husband are actually true—for him?” I asked.  And, “What if your thoughts only exist in your own mind but don’t really exist anywhere else?”  And furthermore, “What if your narrative, no matter how true and real for you, is of no value whatsoever in making you feel better?”

It was a risk to pull Carol out of her story.  At the same time, she had been telling me her theories on her husband for a long time and I trusted that she knew my re-direct was coming from a desire to help, and also that we’d given enough space and attention to the storyline of the moment, enough so that she would be willing to pull the lens back and examine the story-making itself.  I have learned from experience that asking someone to move out of their story before it’s received its due process is not useful or kind, but Carol and I were in a place to take a new turn in our journey. 

Just Because Thoughts Make Sense Doesn't Mean They're True

Trying to find peace with the mind is like trying to open a lock with a banana.

Posted Nov 06, 2018

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Carol came to see me with a serious agenda.  She and her husband had had a disagreement the evening before our session and Carol wanted to explain to me why her husband had said what upset her, and specifically, what in his personal psychology and history had made him decide to hurt her. She also wanted to lay out her theories on what was wrong with her husband in a more general sense and how she was going to explain it to him so that he would understand and be different.  Knowing what she knew about him, she was sure that once she laid out her case and helped him understand what was wrong with him, he would become different—and as a result, she would be okay once again.    

My client had come up with an intricate, psychologically sophisticated and comprehensive narrative about her husband’s intentions, resentments, methodology, and shortcomings, and tying in his familial history, present psychology, and relational style.  Carol’s presentation was a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, and multi-generational storyline. Most developed in her narrative, interestingly, was her theory about her husband’s strategy and intention to hurt her. 

Carol was suffering and I listened empathically as she constructed her clear case for why the experience with her husband had happened. And simultaneously, what she needed to do about it or explain to her husband so that he would understand why he was wrong, and would never do this kind of thing again.  I felt her pain and frustration; I also felt how her words and ideas were trying to keep her from feeling her pain, give her some protection from her heart’s hurt, make her pain manageable. And, I felt how desperately those words were failing her.    

Everything Carol said made perfect sense. In court, she would have won her case.  At the same time, I have been listening to her theories on her husband for many years, and also keeping her company in her suffering, as none of her well-crafted theories and/or action plans have changed how he behaves or how she feels about it.  I’ve watched as none of her theories and action plans have brought her happiness or peace. 

On this day, I felt we were ready and so I asked Carol to consider a few new questions in relation to her story and her experience. “What if none of the thoughts and intentions you’ve assigned to your husband are actually true—for him?” I asked.  And, “What if your thoughts only exist in your own mind but don’t really exist anywhere else?”  And furthermore, “What if your narrative, no matter how true and real for you, is of no value whatsoever in making you feel better?”

It was a risk to pull Carol out of her story.  At the same time, she had been telling me her theories on her husband for a long time and I trusted that she knew my re-direct was coming from a desire to help, and also that we’d given enough space and attention to the storyline of the moment, enough so that she would be willing to pull the lens back and examine the story-making itself.  I have learned from experience that asking someone to move out of their story before it’s received its due process is not useful or kind, but Carol and I were in a place to take a new turn in our journey. 

In this moment, as sometimes happens, grace graced us and Carol had an awakening moment.  Her paradigm shifted and it suddenly dawned on her that what she had considered to be the truth, not just for her, but for her partner too, might not be the truth.  She saw that her narrative could make utter sense to her, could be un-challengeable, and yet could have absolutely nothing to do with what her husband was experiencing. 

Her mind opened to the possibility that her idea (and certainty) as to why her husband was intentionally hurting her might be false, for him, or just an idea in her head.  In an instant, Carol literally unstuck from her most tightly held thoughts, she surrendered to the freedom of not knowing what’s true for anyone else.  Carol realized that just because she had a thought didn’t mean she had to believe it, even if it made perfect sense in her own head. 

It’s revolutionary and profoundly liberating when we grasp that our version of the truth, which not coincidentally always places us at the epicenter of what’s motivating everyone else’s behavior, may not and probably is not the truth for anyone else.  Tragically, in an effort to help ourselves feel better and make sense of our pain, to know and be able to control what hurts, we construct elaborate stories on why others are doing what they’re doing to us.  We lock in a truth, one that applies to everyone and everything, and no matter how painful that truth might be, we hold onto it, believing that knowing is far safer than not knowing. 

The narrative we are living and suffering however, is unreal and unnecessary.  It’s made up by our particular mind, with its particular wounds, conditioning, experiences, thoughts, and everything else we’ve ever lived.  In the end, we suffer alone, trapped in the certainty of our story, the story of what’s inside everyone else’s head—inside a pseudo-reality of our own damaging design. 

It’s also remarkable to discover that our theories on why what’s happened to us has happened, and what we need to do about it, that none of them, none of our beautiful, logical works of mental art, will ultimately lead us to peace.  If peace is what we want, our mind and its theories will not take us there.  Trying to find peace with our mind is like trying to open a lock with a banana.  The mind is simply the wrong instrument if peace is what we desire. 

That said, the next time you find yourself convinced of and grasping onto a storyline about how you’ve been wronged or any such thing, ask yourself, What if all my ideas on what’s true for this other person, the world, or whatever else is the protagonist of my narrative of the moment, what if they’re not actually true—for the other, not true outside my own mind?  What if my truths are only true for me?”  See if it’s possible to loosen your grip on the "big T" Truth. 

Paradoxically, when we give ourselves permission to not know what’s true, to turn in our badge as master-interpreter of everyone else’s behavior, surrender our throne as judge and jury of universal truth, blessedly, we discover the very peace we believed we could only find through our storylines and certainty. 

We get there when we get there, but usually, with enough mental fatigue and smart storylines under our belt; when we’ve tried long and hard enough to find peace through the mind’s gymnastics and found ourselves again and again at pain’s door, suffering within our brilliance and certainty, knowing so much but not how to be happy, we start to recognize our banana without having to shove it in the lock for too long. 

When We Can No Longer Silence Our Truth

This week something remarkable happened—change happened. When a long-present way of feeling or behaving transforms, I view it as a miracle, a gift of grace. 

Two months ago, a dear friend, someone I consider family, asked to borrow money.  I’m working a lot these days (thankfully) and therefore could provide the help. My friend told me that she would pay me back by the end of February. Before writing her the check, I asked her three questions: 

1. Could she, realistically, commit to refunding me by the end of February? 

2. Could she repay it without my asking for it?  

3. Would she inform me if she was not able to, again, without my having to ask? 

Essentially, would she take ownership of the loan she was requesting? Her answers were yes, yes and yes.

Just to know, this is not the first time this friend has asked me for a loan. And, she has not, ever, paid me back when promised. But she does pay me back… eventually. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I do know the problem with doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  But here’s the thing, I didn’t expect a different result, and for many reasons not relevant to this post, I decided to lend her the money anyway. 

On the last day of February, I awoke to radio silence: no text, email, phone call or other communication. My friend had not repaid the loan nor contacted me to let me know it wouldn’t happen. 

In the past, when confronted with this same situation I would say nothing, at least not for several days, weeks or months. I would sit in resentment, anger, and make-believe okay-ness. Or, find some backhanded way to allude to the unpaid loan but without directly addressing it. Because of my intense fear of what I faced in expressing it—defensiveness, aggression, anger, and attack, a rage on why I was despicable and spiritually bankrupt for wanting and expecting to be re-payed, I would tuck away my truth, my experience of being unpaid, unappreciated, unacknowledged and uninformed. I would disappear, paradoxically, to save myself.

But on this recent occasion, I knew that no matter how frightening the situation, I was being presented with a great opportunity—to practice living from my truth and actually being on my own side. And indeed, I chose to take the opportunity the universe offered, or maybe more appropriately, the universe chose to take me, and lead me somewhere new. It was as if I were extending my hand into the handshake of forward-movement that grace provided. 

On that very day, I asked my friend directly if she was going to pay me back and honor the promise she had made—to me.

As expected, she was not going to pay me back, not yet anyway. But the contents of this story are irrelevant. What matters is that I asked my friend for the loan back, on the day it was due. And, that at the moment when my friend would have ordinarily launched into her attack, I stayed still and faced her, eye to eye, to remind her of her promises, and ask her when exactly she would be able to take care of this loan I'd offered. I stood in my own shoes inside the actual moment.

I’m so grateful that my friend didn’t pay me back. It gave me the chance to change, the opportunity to speak up in the face of fear—to choose myself and the truth over the certain conflict it would create and even the possible loss of the relationship altogether. It gave me the chance to practice planting my feet in the truth and trusting that no matter how bumpy the ride, the solid ground of the truth is a place that I will be (and already am) okay.

I write a lot about playing on our own team, expressing and supporting the truth of our experience. In this particular relationship, I would have argued (until recently), that saying nothing and letting it go was taking my own side, because it resulted in keeping the relationship intact, which is what I really wanted and thought I needed.  But as time passed, I grew and my heart broke, for itself. It became clear that being on my side, in this way, also required abandoning myself, not speaking up for myself, and even joining my friend’s blaming of me. 

Even though I knew, intellectually, that I had rights, nonetheless, after years of being blamed, something in my gut had lost its conviction that I had the right to ask for the money back because I didn’t need it financially. Or, that I had the right to be informed or upset that something I’d been promised was not going to happen.  Or, for that matter, the right to be able to trust my friend's word. I was not on my own side in this relationship, not only because of my fear of the aggression that would come at me in response, but also because of my own handshake with blame, both hers and mine.

Taking the step that is joining our own side, finding the courage to face whatever comes when we speak our truth, is a profound shift in a human being.  It doesn’t happen in one fell swoop but rather in little moments and small challenges (that can feel gigantic). In order for this change to happen, we have to have had enough of the suffering that comes with not being on our own side, remaining silent, abandoning ourselves, or accepting blame for having a truth that another person doesn’t like. Our own heart has to break—for ourselves—for what we’ve actually been living, and believing. We have to stop self-blaming and forgive ourselves for needing what we need—for our truth. When this happens, it’s no longer possible to turn our back on ourselves, disappear, in order to keep the peace or status quo.  

The moment comes when we say enough, not from our head, but from our deepest guts. We are done, not as an idea but as a profound knowledge. 

This process can feel like an act of grace, like something far larger than just our personal self has intervened, offering us the strength and clarity to change how we’re living and who we are. At last, we find ourselves holding our own heart.

Furthermore, the courage to speak our truth involves a shift in allegiance or purpose. Our goal transforms from maintaining the situation/relationship—at all cost—to living from the truth—at all cost. But in order to find this courage, this reverence for and trust in the truth, we have to get okay with anyoutcome that might transpire, including the one we’ve most feared.  We must be willing to let it all burn up in the fire of the truth.

To do this, we have to release the belief that the only way to keep ourselves safe, keep our life proceeding as it needs to, is to control our experience and thereby create a certain outcome. It’s a process, really, of turning it over, truth’s will not my will, trusting (or at least being willing to try trusting) that the truth will take us where we need to go, even if it’s not where we think we should be going. At the deepest level, what I’m describing is an experience of awakening and surrender—knowing that we can’t keep abandoning ourselves in the service of taking care of ourselves.  And, that it’s safe to let go of the reins, that the truth will take care of us. And ultimately, that the truth is the only real safety we have.

What Does it Mean to Be a Spiritual Grown Up?

For many (dare I say most) people, spending time with parents can unleash some pretty strong emotions. No matter how grown up we are, our original family can put us in touch with deep hurts, primal longings, unmet needs… a tsunami of feelings. If we want to challenge every ounce of peace, wellbeing, compassion, wisdom and strength we’ve earned over a lifetime, we need only spend a weekend, day, evening, hour, few minutes, or maybe just say hello with the person who is our parent. 

Jane, a woman in her 40s, recently had an experience with a parent that set off a strong and somewhat unexpected reaction in her. She met her father for a meal and he behaved the way he always behaved, asking her no questions, acknowledging nothing about her, completely invisibilizing her, while simultaneously demanding that she act as a mirror to reflect his own grandiosity. It was an experience Jane knew intimately and one she had been living for decades. But on this particular day, sitting across a table from this man she called her father, a man who had never shown Jane the kindness of acknowledgment or curiosity, it all broke—the dam that had protected her from her actual experience was gone. Without warning, Jane discovered that she could not keep pretending this kind of interaction was okay. Even if she had wanted to continue the same relationship with her father, her body had decided otherwise: being unseen and unknown, receiving nothing, inauthentically playing the role of the loving validator, was no longer possible. 

Midway through the meeting, Jane took off the hat she had been wearing her whole life; she stopped confirming her father’s importance, and also stopped playing the role of the grateful daughter, who would happily enjoy the glow of his greatness while remaining forever invisible. She even went so far as to suggest that something he had said about himself might not be true, a first. The encounter ended abruptly and with obvious prickliness. While no words were spoken about the tectonic plates that had just shifted between them, it was clear to both father and daughter that their usual way of interacting was suspended, if not finished for good...  

Read full article... http://nancycolier.com/when-we-shame-ourselves/

How to Quiet the Little Voice Inside Your Head

Did you ever notice the little voice inside your head that’s constantly running the play by play of your life—to you, the one who’s living it.  Did you ever listen in to your inner narrator, the one who’s unceasingly packaging your life, verbally preparing your experience for transmission to another unidentified listener?  I just went on an eight-day silent retreat and apparently my inner narrator didn’t get the memo that it was to be silent.  For the first five days, the little voice in my head didn’t stop talking, not even to catch its imaginary breath. With obsessive precision, it explained to me what I was doing, how I had transformed, and what spiritual lessons I had learned. Over and over my inner narrator repeated my experience to me, prepared it for sharing, and made sure I had everything wrapped up as clearly and understandably as possible. 

It’s an odd thing really: as we're having an experience, the little voice in our head is simultaneously describing, explaining, and commentating on the experience, providing a summary of it before, during and after its unfolding. 

Often, the narration of our experience is so integral to the experience itself, so uninterrupted and merged with it as to make us wonder if there could even be an experience without the accompanying report. If an experience happens without simultaneous inner acknowledgment, thinking about, and commentary, does it actually happen? 

It’s also interesting to notice that the little voice in our head is not without its own characteristics.  It has a certain language, style, and tone; it does its storytelling and commentary with a certain thematic and textural consistency. Like a Hollywood screenwriter, our inner voice tends to write in a particular genre, for example, tragedy, comedy, drama, film noir etc. Our commentator is a character with an identity of its own.

Did you ever wonder why our mind is telling us what we’re doing while we’re doing it, as if we didn’t already know? And, why our mind is so adamant about getting the story of our life figured out, written and packaged?  And finally, why we need to rehearse the tale of our life before we actually need or want to convey it to another person?

The mind believes that we are made of mind and mind alone, and that without its felt presence, we and all else would cease to be. If the narration were to stop and the mind was not experiencing itself through the act of thinking, then there would be nothing—oblivion.  A mind off duty, experience without the thinking about it, is tantamount to non-existence. The mind creates the story of an I; it creates an I as an object in our consciousness.  In so doing, it maintains both the experience of a self and the experiencer of a self, which it believes are needed to ensure survival.

In relentlessly narrating the story of ourselves (to ourselves), the mind is also attempting to make life, and us, into something solid, knowable, and constant.  By creating a main character called me (played by mind) who’s living something called my life, the mind attempts to transform the ephemeral, groundless, ever-changing nature of being into something that can be understood, managed, and in theory, controlled.  It takes what is really one unified process, life, from which we are inseparable, and splits it into two different things, a me and a life.  We then become the liver of this thing called life, and in the process, seemingly distinct and real.  We literally think our self into existence. 

And so, the questions beg: first, is there a downside to living with this inner narrator, and second, do we have to live this way, is it part and parcel of the human condition? Is there no alternative to a second-hand version of life, knowing experience only through the mind's description and commentary? The answer is a resounding yes, and no. 

Yes, there is a downside and no, we are not condemned to live this way forever.

The small downside to living with the play by play of your life ceaselessly running in your ear is that it can be intensely agitating and distracting. There exists constant noise in the background and foreground of your life, no silence to be heard, like having a mosquito (or buzz saw) resounding in your ear, one that you can’t silence and can’t ignore. 

But on a more profound level, the downside to the inner narrator is that it stands in the way of your actually getting to experience life first hand, in all its richness. You're relegated to living through your narrator’s description, which is really just a mental representation of the real thing, like getting a postcard of the Grand Canyon in place of being there, or a description of chocolate instead of a taste. The little voice goes on then to offer commentary on the narration, which is a representation of a representation, and you are now two layers away from the direct experience of living.

You might also notice that the voice in your head presents its version of your life as a truth. It reports your life story as if it were the actual reality existing in the objective world. It’s liberating, however, to realize that the narrator’s account of what’s happening is all going on inside your own mind and only in your mind. It’s not real in some objective sense, but rather another story about a story which begins and ends inside your own consciousness.

The good news is that you don’t have to live this way, with your inner narrator acting as a middle manager between you and life. If you’ve ever been deeply involved in an activity, you might have experienced what’s referred to as flow state.  In flow, we're so engaged in what we’re doing that we cease to be aware of our self. We're no longer the one doing the activity, but literally absorbed into the experience itself. We become the experience; we become life rather than the one who’s living it, and all notion of time and a separate Idisappears. And, while the mind has convinced us otherwise, what we discover is that when the mind is not there self-referencing, reminding us of our self, we still exist. We do not in fact disappear; the mind might temporarily, but we do not, which suggests that we are indeed more than mind. Awareness remains even when we lose the felt sense of our self as the one doing our life. And, interestingly, such experiences, the ones in which awareness of our self disappears, when there is only experience but no I doing it, are the ones that we later describe as wholly satisfying, blissful, and even divine.  The experiences in which we are gone are the ones that we most crave. 

The remedy for the little voice in our head is three-fold. First, we have to exhaust of it and become so fed up with the play by play as to decide that we’re not willing to listen or live by it anymore. Once that’s happened, we must start noticing our narrator and become aware of its voice as an object appearing in our awareness. And finally, we set a clear and fierce intention and desire to experience life directly, through our senses, now, and not just receive a report on it. We commit to diving deeply and directly into the ocean of life. 

Listening to the little voice in your head is a habit, granted a habit with deep roots, survival instincts, and lots of practice time, but nonetheless, a habit. With desire, willingness and intention, a habit, any habit, can be changed. Each time you catch the voice in your head describing or commentating on your life, practice a new habit, the habit of directly experiencing your actual experience. Each time you hear your little voice, first pause and celebrate a moment of awareness; the fact that you’re hearing it means that there’s another part of you, which is not merged with the narrator, who’s awakening—the you whom the narrator is narrating to. Next, intentionally shift your attention from your head (which is where our energy is usually focused) down into your body.  Invite your body to consciously relax. Take and feel a deep breath. From there, run a sense loop: see what you’re seeing, hear what you’re hearing, feel what you’re feeling, smell what you’re smelling, and taste what you’re tasting. Experience each, one at a time. And finally, sense your own physical presence, the feeling of aliveness in your body (not your mind). With this practice, the little voice in your head will grow quieter and less relentless, and the living will become more vivid, satisfying, immediate, and ultimately, real. 

When You're Lonely Inside Your Relationship

The Buddha taught that life includes suffering. The same is true for relationships. We think of loneliness as a condition that exists outside of relationship but sometimes we feel the loneliest inside an intimate relationship. That said, it is essential that we learn how to take care of ourselves, connect with our own heart, regardless of what’s happening within our partnership. It is our intimate relationship with ourselves, ultimately, that determines our wellbeing, and our compassion for our own experience that allows us to weather, with equanimity, the suffering that is... 

Read full article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inviting-monkey-tea/201709/when-youre-lonely-inside-your-relationship

IDO Podcast: Is your partner cheating on you with their phone?
http://idopodcast.com/nancy-colier/

Teens and Texting: A Recipe For Disaster

Michelle Carter is a teenager who was part of a deadly texting relationship, one that ended in the suicide of her then boyfriend, Conrad Roy.  Michelle Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, wanton and reckless conduct, for encouraging Conrad to kill himself, bullying him via text to follow through with his suicidal thoughts, and not doing anything to stop him when she knew he was dying.  Last week she received a sentence of 15 months.  She was 17 at the time of the crime,

Source: Unsplash

he was 18. This tragic case has gotten me thinking a lot about teens and texting and what’s really happening to our children when they conduct online relationships. 

Michelle and Conrad called each other boyfriend and girlfriend despite the fact that they had only met in person a few times over their more than two-year relationship. They communicated almost exclusively through text messages, over a thousand of them in just the last week of the boy’s life.  Conrad was depressed and had tried to kill himself once before he met Michelle Carter.  Michelle, while socially popular, had also struggled with depression and had a history of cutting and anorexia. 

In the beginning of their relationship, and at other times throughout it, Michelle encouraged Conrad to get help for his depression and was supportive of his hopes and dreams for moving forward in his life.  But as time went by, Michelle became more callous, and chillingly aggressive in convincing him to commit suicide.  She even went so far as to tell him that she would look like a fool, after all this effort, if he didn’t kill himself.  She said, “You always say you’re going to do it but you never do” And when Conrad was scared and got out of truck once it had started filling with carbon monoxide, saying that he didn’t want to die, Michelle told him to get back in and do it.  When he worried that his suicide would cause suffering to his family, Michelle Carter told him that his family would get over him after a couple weeks, and that she would take care of them. 

So how does something this terrible happen, and why?   How does a good kid like Michelle Carter become someone capable of such emotional violence?  And does technology have anything to do with why this tragedy happened?  Is there something about the texting relationship that causes this kind of behavior and dysfunction?  It is critical that we consider such questions now as our teenagers’ relationships have become, for the most part, text-based; kids are communicating less and less in person and more through their devices, experiencing one another via abbreviated, isolated and often terse words on a small screen, without any of the necessary components and triggers for empathy and emotional connection. 

When Michelle Carter met Conrad Roy she seemed to care about him and expressed kindness and concern. But over time and text, she grew colder, less empathic, and more involved in what his suicide would mean for her, how it would get her what she wanted, namely, attention.  Towards the end, as she convinced her boyfriend over text to take his own life, Michelle requested that Conrad tag her in a last post before he died, to memorialize her as his greatest love.  So too, immediately after his death, she began posting on Facebook about her profound loss and suffering.  What we notice is that Conrad, for Michelle, had ceased to be a person in his own right, and rather, had become just an object for her, something that could provide or deprive her of her needs.  Over time, she seemed to stop caring about him or seeing him as a person truly suffering.  She stopped caring about what was in his or his family’s best interest.  Interacting solely with her screen, as opposed to a real-life human being, Michelle Carter seemed only able to feel what would benefit her. 

The texting relationship is missing three profoundly important relational elements, and the essential ingredients of connection and empathy.  Specifically, the sight of someone’s face, the sound of someone’s voice and the language of someone’s body.  Without these three elements, it’s extremely difficult to develop or maintain a sense of empathy for another person.  Texting relationships, if they are not supplemented with real time together, face to face, eventually, can and do lose a sense of empathy and even reality.  The texting teenager shifts from being in relationship with another person to being in a relationship with just themselves.  Without visual and auditory cues, the relationship is with their own words and the screen on which they appear. Teenagers are narcissistic by nature, it's normal;  they need more cues - not less - to resist turning every experience into something about themselves. Teenagers need to see, hear, and experience another person in order to remember that the words coming across their screen indeed belong to someone else real, separate from themselves, with real feelings.  

Furthermore, the texting relationship adds rocket fuel to a teenage mind.  Texting makes it possible to record and manifest every thought that appears, and so, whatever is present in the adolescent mind will be ignited and strengthened.  Because of the possibility that texting creates, teens pay extra attention to their thoughts and are encouraged to listen to and formulate their every idea.  In the past, perhaps ninety eight percent of a teenager’s thoughts might have simply passed through her mind without much attention, without even being remembered, but now such thoughts are celebrated and exacerbated in the process of turning them into texts, formulating the unformulated, and thus feeding the wild teenage mind. 

In addition, texting gives the teenager an un-interrupted audience for her every thought; it offers immediate feedback and attention. Teens today crave attention at a level that’s unprecedented.  It is paradoxical really; on the one hand, teens behave as if their every thought is fascinating and worth recording, and yet, they don’t seem to be able to maintain a sense of self-worth unless continually validated, attended to, and reflected through likes, followers, and constant online attention.  Texting makes it possible for teens to receive that attention 24/7, which is in part why it’s so addictive for the adolescent mind.    

So what is a parent to do?  How can we keep our teens from becoming the next Michelle Carter or Conrad Roy?  Many people judge parents who are unaware of what’s happening in their teen’s online life. But in truth, even the best parents can be duped when it comes to their teen’s texting relationships.  Undoubtedly, teenagers need to individuate, to keep secrets and have private spaces that their parents can’t access.  But before technology was central to a teenager’s life, parents could, to a certain extent, control their child’s access to secrets spaces.  For one thing, the private encounters had to happen outside the house, outside a parent’s earshot and view, and also in between activities like school, sports and the like.  Now, because teens are communicating with peers around the clock, outside the earshot and sight of their parents, the secrets and private encounters exist everywhere and all the time.  As a result, our teenagers’ private lives are impossible to control and difficult to know about, even by the most well-intentioned and loving parent. 

In this new world of nonstop texting teens, parents need to be extra vigilant, to pay serious and focused attention to what their kids are saying, doing, and feeling, and the silences between the words.  If your teen is becoming more withdrawn, angry, sullen, distracted, or is spending more time on her phone, more time out of sight, it’s critically important to inquire into what’s happening in her online life. And don’t just talk to your teen, talk to the parents of her friends as well, about what they are seeing and hearing.  It takes a village to raise a child, and now that their social life goes on outside our reach, we need that village more than ever.  As a parent these days we need to be relentless in discovering our children's virtual universe, and specifically, the relationships they are playing out on their screens.  We must keep open, or if need be, force open the lines of communication with our teens.  Simply trusting and turning the other way, in this new virtually relational world, is no longer an option.    

How to Be a Good Parent in a Digitally Addicted World: 9 tips for parenting confident and happy children

I write and speak a lot on digital life, what it’s doing to us psychologically, spiritually, socially and as a society. What we can do to create a sense of wellbeing and freedom in the midst of what often feels like a world gone mad.  Regardless of where I am or to whom I’m speaking however, the question I get most from my audiences is this: How do we raise healthy kids in this tech-addicted society, when we’ve all drunk the Kool-Aid and we’re all in on this condoned addiction? 

We the parents of today’s kids are true pioneers.  We’re facing a situation that no other generation of parents has faced.  People often say that previous parents had to deal with the television and telephone, and that every generation struggles with some new invention that changes everything, and that the Smartphone is really no different than anything that came before it. But in fact, where we are now, with the explosion of technology into every aspect of our lives (and our children’s lives) and our complete dependence upon it, is fundamentally different than any other time in history. Technology is a revolution and not like any other previous invention. 

For one thing, the television and telephone didn’t come with us everywhere we went.  We had to be in the world without them; the television and telephone were an addition to our lives, not the center of it.  In addition, the telephone and television were not used for every aspect of our lives, work, social, information, planning etc., as the Smartphone now is.  So too, we didn’t defer our authority and agency to the television, telephone or any other invention, asking it to make decisions for us.  We didn’t hand over our human skills, thinking and tasks to our televisions, rendering us helpless to its knowledge.

Furthermore, the makers of televisions and telephones were not employing neuroscientists and addiction specialists as they are now with the purpose of getting our kids (and all of us) hooked.  Addiction is good for business and our kids are the targets of very smart and strategic plans, by very informed experts, to make them dependent, so they can’t or are too anxious to live without their devices. Never before have our kids had legal access to something so addictive as the substance that is technology.  We’re giving our kids the equivalent of cocaine at a time in their lives when their front brains are not even developed, and they don’t have the skills, discernment or internal resources to be able to manage the drug of technology.

What we know from neuroscience is that using technology floods our brain with the feel-good chemical dopamine. Dopamine delivers pleasure and feeds the reward center in our brain.  This sets up a compulsion loop; we want more of this pleasure and thus want to engage in the activity more. What happens next however, is that each time we have a thought of using or hear or feel a notification come in, our adrenal glands send out a burst of the stress hormone cortisol, which sets off the fight or flight response and we become anxious.  We then opt to get back on our device to calm ourselves down.  Those who are addicted are, therefore, living in a constant state of fight or flight and saturating their bodies with cortisol, which besides causing chronic stress has also been linked to lowered immune function, increased sugar levels and weight gain.  It’s not a good thing.

Today’s moms and dads are stumbling down an untraveled path. More often than not, we don’t know what we’re doing.  How could we know, we’re in new territory, raising addicts in an addicted world.  Day by day we’re trying to understand how to maintain a loving connection with our children when the pull towards technology is so seemingly irresistible. We’re trying to figure out how to do our real job: to help them become happy, confident, grounded people in a society that feels increasingly anxious and untethered. 

First, it is important that we honor our intention to help our children and families stay emotionally connected and intact.  We have to be willing to work hard at this endeavor, to be good parents, because it profoundly matters. In some ways, our society depends upon it.  When the family crumbles, all else crumbles.  But also, because we want to deeply know our children, to spend time with them without a thousand other distractions, look into their eyes without the reflection of the screen inside their pupils.  As families, we don’t want to simply brush past each other at the charging station in the kitchen.

9 Tips for Good Parenting in a Digital World

1. Model It

Live the behavior you’re preaching. If you’re on your device constantly then your guidance is of no value, your rules are irrelevant.  If you don’t walk the walk, your kids won’t either. Limit your time on your device, particularly when you’re with your kids and partner.  Show your kids what it looks like to be engaged in activities that don’t involve technology. And absolutely do not leave your devices on or in sight during family meals. 

2. Make a Plan/Set the Rules Ahead of Time. 

If you want to make God laugh, make plans. If you want to make God roll on the clouds with laughter, make plans with kids and Smartphones.  And yet, we still have to set the rules ahead of time with regard to our kids’ usage. It can be a good idea to do this together as a family.  Write down specifically (and have everyone sign) what hours and under what circumstances device use (and what kind of use) will be acceptable.  For example: first half hour after school: full use including social media.  Next three hours: only computer use for homework, all social notifications off.  Half hour before bed all devices off. Whatever the rules you as parents decide on, make them specific, written down on paper, and hung up where they can be seen.  When the conflict (and screaming) begins, you will be able to point to these established rules without any hesitation or confusion.    

3. Create a Context.

Don’t just tell your kids they can’t use their devices, explain to them the larger intentions behind your rules.  For example, share that you don’t want them anxious all the time, and explain the effect that cortisol has on their growing body. Express that you actually want to know them and that technology gets in the way of that happening. Tell them perhaps that you miss them, miss talking or taking walks with them, and that it’s just that simple. Whatever the larger and more loving intentions are behind your rules, share them with your child. Create an open dialogue so the conversation can go deeper and become more connective, rather than simply arguing over screen time.

4. Ask Your Kids About Their Experience with Technology

Be curious about, specifically, how your kids experience their lives in the midst of this technology.  What it’s like for them to be kids in this kind of environment.  You might ask how it feels to be with a friend who’s constantly texting and snapchatting other people when they’re with them.  Or perhaps to be at a party when everyone is staring into their device and there’s no one there to really talk to. Ask what it’s like to have a boyfriend they text all day but feel incapable of talking to in real life. Whatever the issues that they’re pretending are okay, ask about them.  Turn these difficult experiences into something they question rather than just assume is normal.  Remember, there’s still a young person in there who’s probably feeling lonely, insecure, confused, anxious and overwhelmed by all of it.  Invite that young person to the table and give them your full attention.

5.Get Your Kids into Tech-Free Activities

It’s increasingly important to expose your kids to activities that don’t require technology and also allow them to connect with people and themselves in a different way. We need to show them that they can still enjoy experiences (like sports, music, nature) without their devices, and that there really is life outside their Smartphone. 

6. Emphasize (with Gusto) the Importance of Hard Work and Time Invested

Kids are now growing up in an age of immediacy and ease.  We value the quickest and easiest route to wherever we’re headed.  The problem is that by accepting immediacy and ease, we’re depriving our children of the invaluable rewards of hard work and time invested.  When our child lands on the top of the mountain by helicopter, he doesn’t reap the same confidence or inner strength as when he’s walked and struggled the path to the top.  As a result, he ends up feeling like imposter.  Encourage, again and again, the importance of putting in time and effort for building a confident and strong inner self, so ultimately, they will know that they can rely on themselves.

7. Be Fierce

A lot of parents these days say that the horse is already out of the barn and it’s a losing battle this technology thing.  When these parents give their kids the device, they claim they’re just giving their kid what he wants.  This is not good parenting.  As parents, we often need to take the harder path, the one our child doesn’t want, make the choice that creates more conflict, but ultimately, is better for our kids and our family.  We need to be able to hold our ground when our child is ranting and raging.  We need to dig deep, be fierce, stand our ground, and remember why we’re choosing this harder path, what’s really at stake.

8. Teach Your Kids Basic Meditation Techniques

Every child, no matter the age, can learn basic meditation practices.  Try teaching your kids the following techniques: 1. Breathing. Notice and feel your breath. Don’t control it, just pay attention to it.  Remember to breathe deeply, particularly when you’re anxious.  2. Body scan: bring your attention into each body part, one by one, and notice the sensations inside. As you go through, invite each part to relax.  3. Run a sense loop: bring your attention to each of your senses, one at a time.  Notice what you are hearing, seeing, feeling in your body, smelling, tasting and the sixth sense, thinking.  4. Visualize an elevator ride from your head down into the bottom of your belly.  Feel yourself getting calmer as you descend, floor by floor, into the stillness of your own presence.  5. Ask yourself if you’re actually here, paying attention to where you are. Notice/Feel what your own presence/here-ness feels like.

9. Bribery

As a last resort, never underestimate the power of bribery or more scientifically, cause and effect.  For every hour, afternoon or day your child stays off their device, consider gifting them with a non-tech related reward (it doesn't have to be big). The pleasure or pain they associate with their behavior will affect that behavior. Sometimes it might be the only thing that works and it’s not cheating to use the oldest trick in the book.    

Parenting these days is not for the faint of heart.  Although I don’t think there’s ever been a time that parenting was easy, the presence of these devices in our children’s lives makes now a particularly challenging and frustrating time to raise children. We’re living with addicts and they’re the very people we love the most and most want to be happy and well, the very thing that addiction prevents.

We parents have to be kind to ourselves too.  Sometimes we allow our child the device even when we know we shouldn’t, because we also know that it will make them stop whining or bitching (depending on their age) and because we desperately need peace and don’t have anything left in our own tank.  And that’s okay.  We also have needs and are not perfect. But what’s most important is not that we’re perfect, but that we keep trying.  And, that we stay in touch with what really matters to us, and behave in a way that’s in alignment with our deeper priorities. Our children and our families are what’s at stake here, and it doesn’t get more important than that.

And finally, in this distracted and addicted world, there’s something we can do in every moment, and it may be the most important piece in this whole conundrum.  When we’re with our kids, we can really be there, be with them, present. Our grounded, undistracted presence is the ultimate antidote to the anxious, untethered, disappeared world in which they are living.  Land in the moment when you’re with your children.  Give them the experience of what it’s like to be with someone who cares about them.  Remember what they tell you about their lives and ask about it.  Create continuity in a world that appears and disappears faster than memory can grasp.  Be the light in the darkness, the sanity in the insanity.  Love means presence and in that, we, blessedly, have complete control.