Category: Psychology

Who Are You today?

by wfheidenreich, posted in Faith, Psychology

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I do a ten minute meditation every day, guided by Sam Harris on his online site, Waking Up.

A constant theme is how everything in our life is sensed in the consciousness generated by our neurologic system. This is easy to comprehend when you consider how the bird hopping on the grass outside the window exists outside of oneself. It is sensed in its color and movement through light stimulating nerves in the retina with neurotransmitters activating nerves in the occipital cortex and, most importantly, the mind paying attention to it at the integrative level of consciousness. The color and movement may be stimulating the cortex but you might be ignoring it aware instead of the music playing and concentrating on plans you need to make.

But what about the thoughts you might have about going to a movie tonight. Which one? Where? Really tonight? Isn’t this part of your intellect and will, two aspects of Aristotle’s soul. Sam Harrison would challenge you to convince him that there is a self, a homunculus somewhere in the “self-central command center” pondering these questions. Instead he would prompt you to look at the thoughts and emotion of uncertainty as an event or occurrence that floats into you consciousness. You can think of it as one of those statements that float up into the window of a toy eight ball which you can ask questions of like, “Is my team going to win today?” All your memories have been lain down in your cortex and processed in the amygdala (emotion) and the hippocampus (memory). These thoughts and emotions happens to be those that “come to mind” or intrude on your consciousness. You did not control this from the “self-central command center.”

Being open to this ever-present process is variously named Awareness, Being Mindful and Being Awake. It calls for emptying your thoughts of all the distractions of preoccupation and focusing on what you are sensing at the present instant, including looking at the thoughts that come to mind and gently setting them aside. Engaging in this process requires Being Intentional.

I love mediation. These concepts are very fundamental to meditation. If I say meditation is a tool that is “useful,” I believe I might be corrected by sensei Harris -though I might be wrong here. Meditation is not a tool to make you feel better, but rather it is entering into reality, of waking from the dream we create of what our life is.

All we have in being alive is the now. We do have our memories of our past. They are lain down like the data in a ROM. But they are not our present, unless they come to mind. It is true that when these memories come into our consciousness they will illicit current emotions of joy and sadness, of agony and ecstacy, of pride and guilt. We can dwell in them and often do. But as for being alive, they are not the present in which we exist, other than being the present in which we dwell in our past. Or in the future. But one can step back and embrace that this is not who you are living in the present. They can be looked at and held onto in the present or put aside in the present which is the only life we have in the now.

Many of us live with guilt. I know I do. For me, some of the guilt is over things I have not admitted to anyone. Sometimes I wonder if I could even admit them “on my death bed.” I know they do not totally define who I am, what my life has given. But I sure can go back to the memories, dwell in them, and sometimes say my life is tainted by them, an area of malignancy. It is pretty easy to think in the present that this is who I am.

Faith can help relieve guilt. If I cannot forgive myself, I have faith God can. The Being behind the Big Bang is so much more powerful than I am and concerned with greater things. But meditation offers the opportunity to contemplate the current reality that is more real than the nightmare of dwelling in actions and inactions for which you experience guilt.

Live in the now. The moments you are given in your life is all you have. Be open to the now for that is the ground upon which you are able to act, to be what you aspire to be. This is not to forget or to excuse yourself. But it is to put the past in a proper place. The past is not what you are now. What you think and the actions of the now will become part of the past that lives next to all of your past. Don’t give up the opportunity to live now.

I think of it as an uncoupling of the past from the present. One can gaze on the cars receding into the past. You might choose to think about it, to look at it and turn it around in your hands as if you were holding something. In fact, you are holding the thoughts in your consciousness. But they are thoughts that have floated up to the window of the now. They can be set down and you can move on to actions in the present.

This is a spiritual discipline to be worked at and worth committing to. You do not experience a lightning bolt completely and permanently purging you. You need to work at with regular intentionality. But the nightmares can be set aside as you wake up to who you are today. And sometimes that may seem like a lightning bolt.

I am “Not that”

by wfheidenreich, posted in Psychology

“There are no sides in this one.  They simply do not exist.  This is not the kind of thing that has a top and bottom, a right and left, a front and back,”…

“Sounds like Zen,” I said.  “Interesting enough in itself as a system of  thought, but not much good for explaining anything.”

from The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

An exercise in zen intentionality is to dig deep to find your core self.  This exercise is done by stepping away from yourself, outside of your ego, and examining  all of the facets of your self-identity.   We cling  onto our self concepts since they help define ourselves to ourselves.   This discipline is based on being able to accept that you are, “Not that.” Keep contemplating who you really are by shedding the contextual construct of what you do/did (or not), what you have achieved (or not), what others think of you, etc.  Keep moving your self identity out of context until you are left with the essence of self.  I think this used to be called the soul but that term is not used much any more.  Maybe a “ghost” inside a shell will be the newest concept.

So then, who are you and where do end up?

Who you think you are is usually based on your role in life. Student. Doctor. Parent. Married. Single.  Winner. Loser.  Important. Irrelevant. etc.  Can you think of yourself without thinking of what you do and where you are in life?

“Centering prayer” is a similar discipline.  The action is emptying your thoughts, shedding all of the things you are thinking of.  Trying it is amazing as all of the things you are thinking about, worrying about, keep coming back to you.  You may be close to the center, pretty close to simply “I am” when the thought comes, “How long have I been doing this?  Isn’t it time to take a shower?”

.. and along comes Data Analytics.

The computer revolution of the 20th Century replaced workers in factories with robots. The Leinenkugel’s Brewery in downtown Milwaukee is manned by a couple of people.
The revolution of data analytics and its growing A.I. will replace white collar information workers next. The day will come when only one of you is needed where once eight were needed.  Data analytics have begun to know you better than you know yourself.  Know what you want and what you will do before you think of it or act.

Mankind is at an existential decision point and will have to redefine itself. What about the billions of people who need to do something to have self-identity, be doing something that is valuable,  important work?  This will take an incomprehensible amount of “job retraining.”  And what will the other 6 billion of us do?

Whole societies have been faced with this before. What environmental disruptions pushed early mankind to leave Africa to migrate to Euroasia.  How about the displacements with true revolutions?  “Three families could live in your comfortable apartment!”  Or the new life called for amidst the rubble of war.

And as individuals, we are faced with this redefining our lives at different points in our lives. Sometimes predictably. We graduate from school.  No longer a student.  Maybe unemployed?   Sometimes the need to redefine occurs unpredictably. We lose someone at the center of our lives. Our health.  Our “job.”  We are forced to ask, “Who are we now?”

It’s actually easier to imagine “I am Not,” the world after you are no longer alive.  It goes on and you can wonder who will remember you.

Oh, I digress.  Back to trying to find the center of “I am, Not that.”  I can keep it up for about thirty seconds before I start thinking about the memo I need to write.  Or the worry of big data making my own insights trivial.  But once in awhile one can get to the wonder of simply, “I am.” It is your own personal Big Bang.  What am I doing here!  Why does this nidus of conscious energy float in this universe?

It is a mystery.  No way you will figure it out.  But it will help you see that you are “Not that” but something more.

This reflection captures a conversation with the author and speaker, Richard Thieme, on October 7, 2016.  It represents notes from and reflections on our discussion of the challenges of our times.

Vision, Relationship, and Creative Action

by wfheidenreich, posted in Psychology

The zen of vision.  As with zen spirituality it is a force of the possible, of creativity.  But it flows from “what is”, grounded in a reality that is more than perceived but experienced.  The visionary is not outside of the world but fully within it and the great ideas, visions that others may celebrate, come to the visionary because they have fully given themselves up to what is. Out of that they see what could be.  Getting into one’s own head and falling in love with your ideas without knowing the limitations of the situation and of people involved is a non-starter.

The tao of relationship.  “Leaders inspire others to engage with their vision.”  Well, not really.  First a leader will act on and affect the people they lead. Then, and only then, a leader will nurture engagement with their vision.  NOT!  Let’s turn this on its head.  First the Leader engages with her/his colleagues, and as colleague with a complete respect for where they are and who they are.  Their potential is the ground of the vision.  Their potential is understanding what is possible from who they are.

Without the tao of relationship there is no action in the vision.  The engagement of the Leader generates the vision because it creates it within the individuals “being led”.  It is reciprocal.  Like some sort of quantum theory, the led lead and the leader is led.  Inspiring comes from the inspiration of the possible in other and engagement comes from surrendering to engagement in the other.  Leaders truly care about others.  Every discussion I have ever (and I mean EVER) heard about managerial leadership has always left out the little thing about, if in the end, you do not really care about the employee first, as a person and where they are, it is luck if they care to engage in your vision!

Creative action.  Is this all bullshit?  I think not, though I may not have it articulated well.  It is not bullshit because in the end it has to be based on reality and action within relationship.  Inertia is acted upon, moved, accelerated  and redirected.  The Leader acts on vision by living it first.  There is no vision without living in the reality of obstacles and limitations and experiencing that which IS so that the possible becomes part of living.  The vision becomes real in the relationship with others based on the reality of who they are.  One cannot be real in relationship unless one is open to caring about the person who will live and become the vision.

The paradoxes now become:  Vision exists within relationship and action.  Action finds meaning in relationship and vision.  Relationship is grounded in the action of vision.

Vision is possibility and so creative action on vision must include finding the possibility in others and having their vision of themselves feed the vision.  So all employees are part of the vision.  One does not know what they are capable of unless they are freed or “empowered” to become part of the vision and in relationship contribute to your own engagement in the vision.  Leadership is not only about others being engaged.  It is about the leader being engaged with others.

Emotional Management System by Murakami

by wfheidenreich, posted in Psychology

One concept that is popular today is the concept of “Zen.”  We are encouraged to be mindful, live with intention, and center ourselves.  It is fascinating to study what “zen” means because it seems to have many nuances.  One of its elements is to get out of one’s mind.  In other words, stop thinking about what it all means.  The Urban Dictionary describes it as “a way of being. It also is a state of mind. Zen involves dropping illusion and seeing things without distortion created by your own thoughts.”   http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zen

The last concept is of interest here. Recognize illusion and see things as they really are.  The illusions of one’s own life grow while processing life events and encounters in the context of feelings about self.

Haruki Murakami is a popular Japanese writer whose work is poetic and reflective.  In the novel, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, his narrator describes how he handles the emotional distress of contact with unpleasant people. He is able to uncouple the emotions others elicit and set aside an encounter for later consideration.  It strikes me as one example of “zen” as defined above.

Toru Okada is unemployed with a failing marriage, trying to figure out what to do next.  He is a bit lost and strange people keep entering his life.  Like a high school aged girl who persuades him to accompany her one day to work for a wig manufacturer.  He helps her record the number and type of bald men on the street near a subway entrance.  A typical day for Toru as he waits to discover what he is supposed to do next with his life.

Reflecting on how he handles people in his life he muses:

A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long.  I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different realms. It’s a kind of talent (by which I do not mean to boast: it’s not an easy thing to do, so if you can do it, it is a kind of a talent – a special power).  When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unpleasant feelings to another domain, one having no connection with me.  Then I tell myself, Fine, I’m feeling bad, but I’ve put the source of these feelings into another zone, away from here, where I can examine it later in my own good time.  In other words, I put a freeze on my emotions.  Later when I thaw them out to perform the examination, I do occasionally find my emotions still in a distressed state, but that is rare.  The passage of time will usually extract the venom from most things and render them harmless.  Then, sooner or later, I forget about them.

He takes some pride in this “emotional management system” as it keeps his world in a “relatively stable state by avoiding useless troubles.” 

What an ideal system for dealing with the frustrations of life.  But it is not perfect for Toru and he goes on to admit how it will not function in regard to his brother-in-law, Noboru Wataya.  He

knew what kind of man he was [a famous author and media personality].  And he had a pretty good idea of what made me tick as well.  If he had felt like it, he could have crushed me until there was nothing left.  The only reason he hadn’t is that he didn’t give a damn about me.  I wasn’t worth the time and energy it would have taken to crush me.

How much could he despise his brother-in-law?  Toru had set up a lunch meeting with Noboru to inform him of his devotion to his sister, Kumiko , whom Toru then announced he planned to marry.  Noboru said nothing during the entire lunch and then at the end could only say,

To tell you the truth, I can neither understand nor care about what you have been telling me…  To state my conclusion as concisely as possible, if you wish to marry Kumiko and she wants to marry you, I have neither the right nor any reason to stand in your way… But don’t expect anything further from me, either.

An emotional management system is strained and may fail when the stress is effective in threatening one’s sense of self-worth.  Toru always felt as if Noboru Wataya lay just around the corner in the the known world.

Ok, let’s face it.  [He] hated the guy.

From Murakami, H. (1977). The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. New York, NY: Vintage Books.