Why "Rude Awakening?" #2

                                        Why "Rude Awakening?" #2


 

                       
 

 

Let's go back and apply, as it were, a second coat of paint to the territory we've covered so far. This is in order to deepen, consolidate and integrate the learning and experiential nature of what we're discussing. Learning without integration and experience is just an exercise in mental masturbation, and God knows we have enough of that!

An experiential way into rude awakening is to do something different than the way you usually do it, it can be anything; putting on your left shoe first when you usually put on your right, get up on the opposite side of the bed, write with your non-dominate hand, be intentionally quite in a meeting, eating less than you usually do, etc. This is a conscious and intentional act that will elicit some kind of response. What you are doing is proactively applying a mini shock to your system, granted it's not that big of a deal to put a different shoe on first, but it will give you some information and bring consciousness to something that has become an unconscious habit.

You may also notice how robotic and automatic you were in your usual routine and how alive and aware you are when you change it. From a biological perspective, we are adaptive organisms that get selected and reinforced for automatic behaviors that require little to no meta awareness. This is because doing things in a predictable, rote manner uses less energy and becomes optimally efficient. Hunting and gathering in the same way that produces relatively quick and easy food is an advantage to survival. If our ancestors had to think, discuss and have meetings to share and reach consensus on these issues they wouldn't be our ancestors.

However, as our frontal lobes evolved, we developed more and more capacity to reflect, consider alternatives, strategize, question, and become more and more curious. These human traits evolved our ability to be more and more conscious, more civilized, more cooperative, and able to observe our processes and see if they are helping or hindering our well being.

There is still a big push in our modern world to keep us on automatic pilot, mechanical, compliant, and purely on digital approach/avoidance mode. So when we interrupt our conditioning and start doing things differently we will get a shock that will rattle the automatic nature of our daily existence. Try to embrace some simple change in your habits and see how much awareness this engenders.

 

When I'm working with people trying to quit smoking I get them to do everything with the opposite hand; i.e. get the lighter and cigs out with opposite hand, hold the cigarette in the opposite hand, light with opposite hand, light the lighter and hold for count of 5 before lighting, etc. It's amazing to see how this really messes with a person's ritual, it basically ruins the whole experience! This is because the usual ritual is an unconscious habit that is enjoyable because it is so unconscious. When a person is forced to think, observe, and feel themselves going through these mechanical habits they awaken to a level of awareness not accessed previously. This is unsettling, but mostly liberating!

Integral

                                                                  Integral

                          

                                             

                                    Happy are those who find wisdom….

                                  She is more precious than jewels,

                                and nothing you desire can compare with her….

                                Her ways are ways of pleasantness,

                                and all her paths are peace….

                               Get insight, get wisdom: do not forget

                                       (Jewish Torah, Proverbs 3:13, 17, 4:5).

Let's return to our definition of synchronicity as “Awareness of One Integral Whole.” The word integral is integral to this definition so let's flesh it out, integral- 1) necessary to make a whole complete; essential or fundamental- games are an integral part of the school's curriculum, 2) included as part of the whole rather than supplied separately- systematic training should be integral to library management, 3) having or containing all parts that are necessary to be complete.

I am greatly indebted to the work of Ken Wilber, who in my view is one of the greatest thinkers/writers/teachers of the late 20^th and 21^st century. His work is an Integral Model that includes the most dimensions from the most sources, it is a model that is comprehensive in it's scope. My work, theories, and practice are certainly heavily derivative of his and the many followers that take the Integral vision into new and higher vistas.

What I try and contribute to this Integral work with my clients is what Jung called being a gnostic intermediary. Jung used this term for Evans-Wentz's in his translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is because Evans-Wentz was able to convey the wisdom, subtlety, and spiritual knowledge of this work much more than just the information and rationality. A gnostic intermediary possesses a deep understanding of, and practical skill in responding to, the central existential issues of life. Greek philosophers referred to this understanding as sophia, and to this practical skill as phronesis (Sternberg & Jordan, 2005).

Knowledge is something you have, wisdom is something you are. My work with clients is that of translating them to themselves, I will also help introduce kids to their parents; “Mr. Jones, let me introduce your son Bobby…,” Parents are notorious for thinking they know their kids. People come to therapy because they are stuck, suffering, and have blinders to themselves, I am, as it were, an anthropologist arriving in foreign territory, seeking to understand, and reflect back to see if I'm getting it right. This process creates inspiration, ah ha moments, builds healthy relationships, and catalyzes new behaviors and perspective. It's as if a person is rediscovering themselves and remembering who they are, it is always fulfilling, yet certainly has a degree of pain and rude awakening.

Heart

                                                          Heart

The language of the heart is very different than the head. Western culture, and now more and more of the world, worship rationality, there is a long history of these origins from Greece, the Enlightenment, industrial, information, and attentional revolutions. It is summed up in Decartes phrase “I think therefore I am.” This has influenced us in a way in which we have identified who/what/how we are through thought. In psychology this is the realm of cognitive behavioral therapists, rational emotive therapy, and a whole host of others.

The heart is infinitely more powerful than the head (50x's if you're measuring bio-electrical energy), but the heart is more than our physical organ, just as our mind/consciousness is more than our physical brain.

The language of the heart is through feelings, intuitions, metaphors, symbols, dreams, art, sensuality, eroticism, and the wisdom of the body. Poetry is part of this language, take the opening of Sharon Old's poem “The Knowing;”

Afterwards, when we have slept, paradise-

comaed, and woken, we lie a long time

looking at each other.

She's using words in a different way, with a different energetic frequency. It affects us beyond our brains, we can see, feel, smell this scene. She continues;

I do not know what he sees, but I see

eyes of surpassing tenderness

and calm, a calm like the dignity of matter.

She continues about seeing, but this is a sight of the heart feeling tenderness and calm. She brings out the intermingling of soul with matter that creates dignity.

Continuing with sight and sensuality, she writes;

I love the open ocean Bluegrey-green of his iris,

I love the curve of it against the white,

that curve the sight of what has caused me to come,

when he's quite still, deep inside me.

She connects this seeing into his instrument of sight, his iris, and how seeing this deep leads to orgasm and a deep stillness. It is important for us to learn, speak, and “think” with the language of the heart, pure rationality has caused the world a lot of suffering. Make sure you look up and read (from the heart) the rest of Sharon's beautiful poem! I've left it incomplete on purpose!

Synchronicity

                                                               Synchronicity

                     

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone.”

                                
Charles de Lint

C.G. Jung described synchronicity as meaningful coincidents, I have extended that idea to include “Awareness of one integral whole.” This is a concept that I am never far away from both in my personal and professional life. I find this concept and practice immensely useful. Let's unpack this idea.

Everything begins with awareness, I will often describe my approach as a personal trainer of awareness. Building awareness is the way to building power, freedom, and fulfillment in our human life. Because we are organisms that have adapted the ability to reflect, interpret and observe ourselves in our many endeavors and processes, we have access to a meta awareness that other organisms don't have. This meta awareness is attentional currency that builds upon itself when exercised and becomes a storage of potent psychic fuel.

The way that awareness is inflected is crucial, as predators in the animal kingdom we have an “orienting response,” which is an evolved capacity of attentional awareness to respond to novelty. This means that when something comes across our radar screen of awareness that is new and unexpected, there will be a part of our attention that “checks it out”, just like if you wave a twig in front of a cat. All the technology companies know about this and are mining our attention treating us as if we were cats compulsively following a moving piece of yarn. But if we practice focusing and maintaining our attention, which the practice of meditation is all about, we can inflect our attention where we want it to go.

One of the best places to inflect your awareness is on the unity of reality, the oneness of all creation. You can reference this experience by the oneness you've felt in nature, making love, getting lost in music, art, a movie, playing with a child, or communing with your dog. This unitive state of mind is a hallmark of enlightened beings such as the Dali Lama, but is becoming more and more the purview of quantum physicists that know, from a scientific perspective, about the oneness of reality. When you start looking for unitive reality you will begin to experience and see it at every turn.

When a client comes for a session, I “know” that whatever they bring up for discussion will connect to their whole life. I help them connect the dots, and this brings about greater awareness and relationship of the parts of their life to the whole. When we are thinking of someone we haven't seen in a long time and out of the blue they call, we see and feel a connection to these seemingly unrelated events. What we generally miss is that these connections/synchronicites are happening all the time, we just aren't aware enough to make out any particular connection, but I assure you it's there! Carlos Castaneda said; “Everything is an Omen!”

Begin to play with the idea of ultimate connectivity and the oneness of all creation, not merely as a concept, but as a felt experience and a process of awareness. Look at events, circumstances, and encounters as unfolding unity through the guise of diverse and “accidental” cause and effect. Know that you are playing your part perfectly in the drama of existence and you are always at choice as to how you want the next scene to go.

Summary

                                                              Summary

                                        



It's time to summarize, consolidate, and integrate what we've covered so far, I will do this periodically as I do for client's to whom I have been a kind of historian of their therapeutic process. As I've mentioned before, it is a very healthy practice to check in with yourself, your spouse, your dog, etc. and ask; “How's our relationship going?,” “Are we on track here?”, and “What's working/not working?” This is a good way to check your navigational equipment so to speak and see if you're having a good time on the journey!

An overarching theme of our journey together is the name of the Blog-Rude Awakening. I explained in the beginning that it is a somewhat painful, uncomfortable shock to the system when one does begin to awaken from a previously stuporous state. Awakening jars the system that was previously complacent, in denial, and avoidant of facing the reality of something. Taking the time and energy to invest in what it is for you to live fully as a human being will be unsettling in some ways as well as richly rewarding, without this investigation we will continue to live in the illusion that we are free.

The good news is that there is hope and that humans are basically good if we're given the chance and have sufficient help and resources. Instilling hope is something we all need, and need to give to others. It is useful to assess where you are on the map of your journey and accept this so you can take the next step, this builds hope. There is also the need to have human-to-human relationships that are based on equality, this is healthy and therapeutic and helps each person figure out in their own way what they need and how they feel vs. someone telling them. This helps people to become a full/whole person.

Ironically letting go of compulsive control issues is a way to gain more power and freedom. When there is enough safety and resources, people relax and let down their defenses and need for control, this frees up one's system and the energy can be used more consciously. While this freedom from control is happening, be cautious of polarity within the mind and psyche. We are conditioned to always be in a judgmental vigilance of good/bad, right/wrong, black/white thinking and this creates conflict and stress both within and outside of us. There is a state of non-duality in which both polarities live and breath without being conflicted.

Themes that I've found useful for myself and others include; 

 

1) We are all One

2) There is unity in diversity

3) The Universe is entertaining, informative, and absurd

4) We are players on a stage

5) Because there is only One, synchronicities abound revealing infinite interconnection and space/time warping

6) Life is mysterious and paradoxical-embrace it!

7) Change is the only constant.

8) Don't assume you know what being human is-ask lots of questions!

9) Everyone has gifts for you and you have gifts for them

10) Creating contexts to give your gifts is most fulfilling

Adolescents are cool and need our help desperately! They are lacking elders and mentors to initiate them into the mysteries of life, they need to know they have; Mastery, Belonging, Freedom, and something to contribute by Giving. Adolescents represent one of many modes of consciousness. Robert Bly's book “The Sibling Society,” states that the U.S. is a society of adolescents. Higher consciousness includes the capacity to take multiple perspectives in life, learning for its own sake, an orientation towards integration of complex systems, change seen as a welcome part of the process in organizations and life, characterized by systems thinking, and an orientation to how parts interact to create a greater whole.

Being an “epically normal” human being is a good place to set the bar for life, claiming and focusing your attention in this manner will produce profound results and others will recognize that there's something “different about you.”

This will lead toward greater empowerment and freedom which is a quality given a lot of lip service in our culture.

                                

Freedom

                                                               Freedom

         

“Let me warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party...It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles animosity of one part against another.”

                             George Washington (in his farewell address)

In celebration of the 4^th of July, let's take pause to consider some of our history and the nature of freedom. Freedom has come to have a connotation of me, my team, my views, and my company getting our way, winning, crushing the opposition, getting a million 'likes', getting elected, etc. There is a long running history of this warped and pathological perspective of freedom.

George Washington's prophetic words hold true to this day, they are a commentary on the enslavement of polarity and the limits that we place upon ourselves in the name of freedom. Real freedom is a solidarity of mind, body, spirit and community. In the Buddhist tradition happiness and freedom are independent of circumstances and perspective, freedom and fulfillment lay in the recognition of oneness and a skillful response to the present moment...chop wood, carry water, when hungry eat, when tired sleep.

The election of 1800 was a turning point in American history and set the stage for political parties and ideology to become the contentious, self-interested polarities that they are today. In republican ideology, political parties were dangerous and undesirable, and by their very nature they purposely promoted discord. This is because a party, or any party line by a group is self-interested at the expense of the greater good, it does not bode well with opposition, critique, and questioning. By necessity the party must incite rancor and discord to rally their supporters.

In 1800 the election between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson represented a level of enmity that makes modern mudslinging mild in comparison. The Federalists, which Adams represented, believed in a strong centralized federal government: Republicans, represented by Jefferson, argued that such a government endangerd republican liberty. They both are right! But according to the rules of party politics, you can't both be right, and you must have an enemy. Talk about a danger to democratic freedom!

One of the many sychronicities of the very frail beginning of our republic and what's happening today is that Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Act raised the residency requirement for immigrants to become citizens from 5 to 14 years, and empowered the president to expel aliens deemed dangerous (think President Trump). The sedition act empowered the government to fine or imprison anyone who opposed “any measures of the government, aided any insurrection, riot, unlawful assemble, or combination and wrote, printed, uttered or published...any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” that disparaged the government (think Julian Assange).

All violent revolutions eventuate in civil war; America, France, Russia, to name a view. This is because the pendulum of polarity will always swing the other way, due to the force of social gravity. What is demonized today will become popular down the road, what is considered oppressive in one faction will be the very essence of liberty in another, in the 60's Ram Dass wrote "Hippies create police, police create hippies."

The liberties and freedoms we are privileged to engage and express in our country should be embraced and skillfully used for the greatest good. The diversity that exists in opposition to any particular view is a good thing, and our freedom is not dependent on rallying a campaign of hate (even if what we're campaigning against is hate). There is a dialectical process that brings truth to the surface if it is engaged without attachment to the outcome, this is the nature of a democratic dialogue. Trying to understand first before you are understood is the hallmark of compassion and enlightenment. This is all a tall order to live and practice, but I believe it is the true cost of freedom.

Epically Normal

                                                            Epically Normal


                           

A client recently told me I was “epically normal,” I take this as a very high compliment. To be normal on an epic scale is what I'm going for both personally and in my professional helping of people to be fully human. As bizarre as this sounds, it is becoming somewhat foreign to be a normal human being, our world is so dramatically hyperbolized that everything is bigger than life, to such an extent that real life is becoming more and more abstract. Simple human encounters such as going for a walk, eating a meal, having coffee with someone, driving, etc. are becoming productions that include texting, being distracted, instigraming, Facebooking what you're eating, and being enraged at the idiot driver in front of you!

The recent Argentine-Spanish black comedy film “Wild Tales,” written and directed by Damián Szifron takes simple modern day experiences like road rage, getting a parking ticket, getting married, being a waitress, carrying a grudge with your ex, etc to the level of Greek tragedy. The film is certainly a commentary on modern life and the feelings that are just below the surface of contemporary “normal” everyday life.

We are living in a cultural crisis that is strongly challenging our humanity at every turn. We live in an attentional economy, an economy built upon getting people's attention, a system presenting the world to us through representations and images. Life is becoming an imitation of the theories that govern a market economy, and driven by technologic devices that garner attention, because attention these days equals revenue. Very different than an information age, we are living in an attentional age, our human experience is highly engineered and manipulated much like a good movie, and one in which we are having a virtual, vicarious experience of our own life.

Being normal has taken on negative connotations these days, because everything is about intensity, extreme, upgraded, cutting edge, etc., being just regular, average, normal guy/girl doesn't cut it. We certainly see this with kids who are the targets of much advertising and manipulated attention that results in their not feeling good enough or on par with the images being broadcast to them 24/7.

The remedy for all this is of course the most obvious, the least popular, and the most radical, which is to be the “square” that is relearning how to just be a normal human being doing normal human things like walking the dog, having coffee with a friend, and eating a meal without staging it to broadcast on Facebook. Try not to try being more than human or less than human, and to find people that you would say “That's a real nice normal person!” and hang out with them. Depending on the degree and time that your attention has been hijacked and co-opted you will have to go through some de-tox/withdrawl of how jacked up your nervous system has been, this is not unlike recovery from addiction, in fact it is recovery from addiction.