“Contemplative prayer is not so much the absence of thoughts as detachment from them. It is the opening of mind, body, and emotions – our whole being – to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond words, thoughts, and emotions.”
Thomas Keating, “Open Mind, Open Heart”
“Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.”
May Sarton
“When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help.”
Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”
Dear Friend,
Thank you for subscribing to the Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter! You can create and cultivate self-compassion by learning and practicing it. Engaging with a supportive community usually makes it easier. You signed up to receive this monthly newsletter as part of that effort. I will endeavor to inform and inspire you, and together, we will explore ways to treat ourselves better. Thank you for inviting me to join you on your journey!*
This is my longest newsletter, so far. Please feel free to break it up into several readings.
In the last few months’ newsletters, I’ve been talking about “subtle little buggers”. The name my mentor, Tony D’Souza, gave to the subconscious thoughts and emotions that control so much of our lives, frequently, because we’re unaware of them. I’ve also hinted about transforming the subtle little buggers and the suffering they cause by utilizing them for recognizing mental distortions. If we become aware of the distortions our minds hold, we can realign our thought patterns and behaviors and create our lives rather than react to the craziness life throws at us.
First, what is mental distortion?
My wife has a therapist friend, and he gave me the word "distortion” as a good way to describe the inaccuracies in our thoughts about reality; these inaccuracies often trigger unwanted feelings and behaviors. We are taught, learn, absorb, and inherit mental inaccuracies about reality from our upbringing and experiences. Interestingly, when they arise, these inaccuracies seem accurate and normal to us. These inaccuracies, whether mental or physical, usually occur because we’ve never tested their rationality or logic; we simply accept them because we’ve always accepted them.
A good example of this blind acceptance was given to me by a student of mine several years ago. He said that for the American holiday Thanksgiving, his family gathered at his grandmother’s house, prepared the turkey and other dishes, and ate together. One year, he noticed that right before his sister put the turkey in the oven, she used a large cleaver to remove the tail end, the last 4 inches (10 centimeters) of the Turkey; she then placed that removed 4 inches elsewhere in the turkey pan or threw it away if there was no extra room. Lastly, she placed the Turkey pan in the oven and closed the door. He asked his sister why she was removing so much meat, and she said, “That’s how mom taught me to fix Turkey.” At the time, his mom was napping, and he forgot to ask her after she awoke.
The next Thanksgiving, he saw his mom and sister performing this same back-end removal, so he asked his mom, “Why?” She said it’s how your grandmother taught me. He turned to his grandmother, and she said, “Go ask your great-grandmother.” His great-grandmother then said, “I learned to do it from my grandmother.” My student realized he was easily back more than a 100 years in history, and it seemed that no one knew why they removed so much bird before sticking it in the oven. His great-grandmother then said that his great-great-grandmother told her to do it because it was the only way to get the bird into the oven, since the oven was not very deep! My student realized that because no one had bothered to examine the reason for removing the tail end, this habit had continued for 100 or more years, even though there was no reason to shorten the Turkey as ovens got deeper in the 1940's.
Unconscious or unexamined beliefs are a form of mental distortion: distortions of reality in our minds that haunt us when left untested. They cost us (money in lost bird meat) and, more importantly, unnecessary suffering in our daily lives.
Fortunately, distortions also give themselves away in the negative feelings (suffering) we experience if we pay attention to how we feel.
The Torturer Becomes the Teacher
We all experience negative feelings. The strange thing is, negative feelings are not wrong or bad, even though they feel bad; they are simply our authentic selves telling us we have thoughts that are not based on reality. Thus, instead of allowing automatic reactions to control you, teach yourself to pause and let the fight, flight, and freeze reactions weaken during that pause, and use those negative feelings as a magnifying glass to identify inaccurate or distorted thoughts about reality.
Distorted thoughts are not based on reality. However, our brains hold them as true or accurate and then use that belief as the reason to blame, shame, and punish us when they are proven inaccurate. Counterintuitively, our brain punishes us with negative feelings (suffering) because our brain believes that reality is incorrect; however, our brains don’t punish us for agreeing with the inaccurate thoughts (which is more logical, although it also isn’t self-compassionate). This misalignment between reality and our brain's beliefs about it then threatens our situational peace of mind. To protect us from the threat, our survival mind activates our survival modes: fight-flight-freeze to resist it. The survival mind is frequently very illogical!
This juxtaposition occurs because the survival mind lacks the capacity for logical thought. It generates negative feelings to resist the discomfort it experiences from misaligned thoughts that it produces. But wait! There’s more irony still! Our survival mind can’t tell that it is generating the negative feelings it is experiencing (no logical thought, again), so to resist the added layer of negativity it’s unknowingly producing, it generates more fight-flight-freeze negative feelings to resist the initial negative feelings it generated! It is literally resisting itself! (Psychologically, this paradigm is one form of cognitive dissonance.) This relentless emotional stacking adds up, and we become infected with negativity that seems unstoppable. Finally, after describing this craziness, we reach the consequence of this mental infighting! All of this negativity is a result of distorted thinking!
As a side note, if you’re experiencing chronic negative feelings, please seek professional help to navigate them (I did therapy for 16 months with 4 months of antidepressant in the middle of it). Additionally, check that the negative feelings are not caused by something you’re absorbing or ingesting. For example, shortly after turning forty, I started experiencing extreme depression. One of the first things my therapist asked me to do was keep a food/feelings journal. A food/feelings journal helped me track what I was eating and how I was feeling one to three days after eating it. Within a few months, a pattern became obvious: specific foods I ate were followed by extreme depression for two days. Upon further examination, one common denominator became apparent: if I ate wheat, which is an excellent source of gluten, I experienced extreme depression. At midlife, my body became gluten intolerant. Once I started removing gluten from my diet, I started feeling much better.
For me, a fulfilling life seems to come down to this: Paying Attention! Paying attention to my thoughts, feelings, and body. The more familiar I became with my thoughts, emotions, and body, the more self-compassionate I became.
Stillness, the Place to Practice Self-compassion
As ironic as it may sound, your daily stillness practice is the first and best place to practice self-compassion. Here’s one way to begin practicing: first, you set your intention to be present or aware of a focal point for a set amount of time. Then bring your conscious mind’s attention to that point of focus, such as your sacred word, your breath, the clock ticking, or even the rumble of the traffic from nearby streets. Then, after beginning to focus (and frequently very quickly), your survival mind grows bored and shifts your attention to something more exciting, like remembering last night’s TV show or imagining this afternoon with your best friend. Your daily discipline of stillness is practicing mind management, so as soon as you notice you’re not focused on your intention, refocus on being present again. Lastly, pay attention! In that millisecond between noticing you’re distracted and bringing your mind back to your intention, your brain probably passes some judgment about being distracted; notice it and the resulting thoughts. Maybe it’s a hard judgment like, “You should be focused on your breath!” or maybe the judgment is softer, like a quick frown, possibly even some reaction that’s unnoticeable, a subtle little bugger in other words. Whether hard or soft, noticeable or unnoticeable, that judgment still feels negative somewhere in your brain/body. That negative feeling is suffering, mentally induced discomfort.
So, noticing your feelings is paramount. Fortunately, once you notice judgments, you have an opportunity for self-compassion! Self-compassion is expressed in how you handle the thoughts that generate the negative feelings.
Triggers and Using Survival Modes
Once triggered, part of your brain will automatically engage its survival modes: fight-flight-freeze-grab & hold. Engaging those protection mechanisms is an automatic reaction to a mental or physical threat. In most cases, the threat is the negative feelings that arise from thoughts. It’s okay that this automatic process happens; this is a natural and normal part of survival. However, it may not accurately reflect your true self. Thus, your first choice is between allowing the fight-flight-freeze-grab & hold reactions to control you (which usually feels normal) or allowing those survival modes to exist in your mind and body without giving them control of your actions. If you pause and consciously respond from your authentic self, you are being self-compassionate (even though, ironically, it may not feel very good).
Please note that our brain frequently uses fight-flight-freeze-grab & hold to augment the fight-flight-freeze-grab & hold feelings it activated earlier in reaction to earlier thoughts (this is emotional stacking). If part of your mind interferes with (fight-flight-freeze) or feeds (grab & hold) judgments, try to notice those automatic reactions, and try to acknowledge they exist, even if you don’t like how they feel. Noticing without following the emotions' commands is self-compassion in action! Instead of resisting or augmenting them, allow the thoughts and feelings to exist and watch as they gently shift, change, and eventually lose their power.
Usually, our minds automatically pass judgment on events; it’s a natural part of survival. The unnatural, usually more authentic part of self-compassion is allowing that judgment to exist without mentally or physically resorting to fight-flight-freeze to resist it or grab & hold to augment the positive-feeling parts of it. Survival modes—fight-flight-freeze-grab & hold—are survival tools generated by our survival mind; their concern is survival, not authenticity or compassion. Strangely, our survival mind has no capacity for logical thought, so it can’t tell the difference between a bear attacking us and a thought that doesn’t align with our conditioned values; it uses survival modes no matter what the situation! Thus, acknowledging them and, usually with practice, accepting that they happen are enormously self-compassionate.
One secret to a meaningful life is to use grab & hold, generated by thinking about living our true selves, to push us toward reinforcing the desirable behaviors we authentically want.
Look at the Reward and Live Your Authenticity!
This may seem counterintuitive. Fight, flight, freeze, grab & hold are not bad or wrong; although they can make us feel bad if we use them to protect us from the discomfort of facing reality. The secret is to use survival modes to face reality as it is and build our authentic life based on that reality! Thus, knowing yourself is a critical asset; the more you know who you really, Really, REALLY are and what you really, Really, REALLY want in each experience and situation, the more authentically and easily you’ll navigate most situations. As you discover your authenticity or true self, please use your survival modes as advisors (not commanders) to create your conscious responses and consequently, your reality, a reality that aligns with your true self. In other words, survival modes, especially grab & hold, can be self-compassionate to utilize.
Thus, in daily life and in every action you take, watch for the positive feeling, subtle little buggers that more accurately represent your authenticity and begin recreating the mindset that opened up those possibilities; the possibilities which allowed that still small voice inside of you to be heard. Here is an example from my life.
What do I really, Really, REALLY want?
One August day in 2007, my wife and I were taking a walk when a life goal that had been silently growing in my mind for years surfaced in my consciousness: “I want to be location-independent in my career.” Honestly, I didn’t really know what that meant; I just knew it was what I wanted. At the time, I owned a recording studio, so I was very location-dependent! Yet, the still small voice inside of me wanted me to let that go. My wife asked how I was going to accomplish this “location independence.” I told her I didn’t know; I just knew I had to make sure every decision I made from that point forward pointed directly or indirectly toward location independence, and that is exactly what I did. Every decision that I had to make… (and there were many because we declared bankruptcy and then divorced two years later)… I measured by my “dream” of location independence. Essentially, I asked myself: would this decision help, hinder, or not affect my becoming location-independent? I asked myself that question many times a day during that challenging time.
Over the next seven years, I also began making career adjustments: mainly, I wrote a couple of books and started teaching about self-compassion. In August 2016, nine years after I announced I wanted to be location-independent, I rented out my house and studio and became fully location-independent. In 2017, I remarried and immediately started traveling frequently to Kansas City because my new wife’s mom had health difficulties. The location independence became invaluable because I could teach while on the road using Zoom or Skype.
Did God or the Universe plant the idea of location independence in my head to make future travel easier, or did it just work out that way? I don’t know (I don’t really care, either). I just knew my new wife, and I would have had a very difficult time had I needed to continue working in a recording studio in Bromfield, Colorado. That story leads into the final point of this month’s newsletter.
Have Faith in Yourself, Your Authenticity
I was raised in the Christian faith, and there is a common saying from the Christian apostle Paul in his letter to the first Christians in Rome, “God works all things together for good.” (Romans 8:28 NIV) If you don’t believe in God, just say the Universe instead of God. Interestingly, every religion and most philosophies convey this same concept using slightly different identifiers, such as the universe, synchronicity, mind, etc. Thus, it seems that the experience of life working out well in the long run is part of the human condition. Granted, there are extreme cases where this doesn’t seem to hold true; I am not qualified to discuss them, and they are too far away from the essence of this newsletter (Please go to the philosophy class down the hall to debate this issue). The essence is to trust the still small voice inside of you, your true self, your authenticity. If you stay true to your most profound motivations, you’ll be practicing self-compassion and probably also bless the rest of humanity with your actions. Thank you!
My personal experience.
A few months ago, the teacher of a high school audio production program told me he wanted to retire and asked me to replace him (I ran a recording studio for 24 years). As I’m self-employed, I don’t make much money, and the high school job had a pretty good retirement plan. Thus, I seriously considered taking the job. Over the next two months, I discovered that the teacher who had contacted me wasn’t allowed to choose his replacement, so I’d need to go through the entire hiring process with the school district. I continued to want the job and did my due diligence for the hiring process.
My wife works at the same school and told me she wouldn’t share her opinion to avoid biasing me. Due to some financial insecurity I feel, I believed she wanted me to get the job. Therefore, I committed to her and to myself that I’d go through the entire process and to stay open so I could learn about the job with minimal interference from my survival mind’s reactions.
A month after applying, I had an interview with the hiring committee. Early in March, two nights before the interview, my wife and I had an honest discussion about our desires around the opportunity. I told her that after deeply examining my desires and motivations, I was only interested in it for the retirement, and I didn’t want the job. She asked me what I was going to do about the interview, and I told her I’d still do the interview and let the process unfold.
Part of my mind was predicting a job offer and worrying about saying no, and another part knew that worry was a waste of energy. Thus, whenever an emotion arose about the job, I did my best to refocus on being present to the task I was performing in the moment. Most of the time, I was minimizing the suffering that parts of my mind and body were conjuring. Eventually, I accepted that if they offered me the job, then I’d reconsider and give them my answer. However, inside, I knew the answer was, “No, thank you,” because I want to focus on Self-Compassionate Living. Thus, while waiting, I'd do my best to stay in the present moment task.
Next, my wife spoke, and I braced myself for a difficult discussion about retirement, self-employment, and making some sacrifices for the family. (Can you see my brain was reacting to a prediction there? If your brain does this predictive suffering too, you and I are on this journey of mind management together) My wife then spoke, and I felt palpable surprise when she said, “I don’t want you to do the job because it will distract you from your self-compassion teaching.”
WOW!!!!!
I still did the interview and did my best, and, much to my predictive brain’s surprise, they didn’t offer me the job! It turns out I easily had the most audio experience (34 years); what I didn’t have was experience teaching high school students.
This doesn’t solve the potential retirement dilemma I face. However, I believe all things work together for good, so I will trust life to unfold the best way necessary. I will continue to trust in my deepest desire to teach people methods for minimizing suffering in their lives while saving as much as I can, and let God or life worry about the rest.
Next Month
In next month’s newsletter, I’ll probably discuss attachments, confusing pleasure and happiness, and how self-compassion comes down to managing our mind to minimize our natural ability for suffering.
If you have a particular topic you’d like to see discussed, please reply and suggest it to me.
On a Personal Note: Self-compassion seems to be about energy.
As I mentioned last month, I’ve been watching my brain and body, and it seems that the energy they expend (calories burned) dictates many of my autopilot reactions. Looking at this concept more intently, since I mentioned it, I feel more convinced that I will benefit from examining the concept further. Sai Baba said, “We are stuck in a meat suit, so we’d better learn how to work with the meat suit.” Watching that my body—my meat suit—expends energy no matter what I choose, I find self-compassion often comes down to choosing to expend more energy than survival requires. Obviously, survival resists this “unnecessary” energy expenditure to save calories. So it seems to me that self-compassion is deeply integrated with being my authentic self, and living who I really, Really, REALLY am.
To paraphrase what I say at the bottom of every Self-CompassionateLiving.com webpage: I am committed to offering anyone, in any belief system, tools to help them reduce the suffering they experience and increase the Joy, Peace, and Contentment they feel. I want everyone to create meaning in each moment by managing their minds, so they treat themselves with love and kindness.
Your replies of encouragement, support, and love mean a tremendous amount to me; thank you! I thank God for this community. Each of you has been an inspiration to me. Thank you! As Ram Dass said, "We are all just walking each other home.” We are stronger when we help each other. Thank you for being so helpful!
Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group
2 or 3 days before each discussion group, I send a notification for the upcoming meeting. I want to respect your privacy, so I will not send you notifications about upcoming discussion group meetings unless you ask to be notified. If you would like to be reminded about the biweekly Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group meetings, please write to me here and ask me to add your name to the notification list. This reminder notification list does not sign you up to attend; it only notifies you of the next biweekly meeting.
The Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group has been deeply impactful for so many. Please join us for the next one on Saturday, April 18th, from 10 to 11:30 AM MST.
The next two Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group meetings are scheduled for Saturday, April 18th, from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM MST, and Saturday, May 2nd, from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM MDT. Please join us.
Click this HYPERLINK "https://donate.stripe.com/8x2cMU60meyX4MYdUW3Nm06"link to visit the Self-CompassionateLiving.com webpage to learn more and to register.
In each meeting, after a brief introduction, we observe 10 minutes of silent stillness, followed by a discussion of any self-compassion-related topics raised by participants. I may also spend about 10-15 minutes unpacking the themes that emerge in the discussion.
I humbly ask for a $10- $15 donation per session; however, all are welcome. No one will be turned away for financial reasons.
In Conclusion
By this point, you've probably realized that self-compassionate living is about building a new relationship with your brain, specifically by managing your mind to create your life rather than just reacting to it. Self-compassion begins with mind management, allowing you to live with greater joy, peace, and contentment (JPC) and experience fewer negative emotions. I have learned the information I share in these newsletters from spiritual teachers, philosophers, and psychologists during the last thirty-four years. I'm sharing it with you in the hope it helps you practice self-compassion. Please utilize the material that resonates with you and explore and learn about your mind. You can create the life that you want to live.
See you next month, and may the rest of this month be peaceful.
Thank you for inviting me to walk with you.
I believe in you!
Happy Holidays!
Blair
Blair@Self-CompassionateLiving.com
Self-CompassionateLiving.com
*I have made a glossary for many of the words I use in these newsletters, my classes, and coaching. You can find the glossary here: https://blairashby.com/glossary.html
PS: If you have any thoughts, comments, or questions, please reply to this email. Additionally, please share this email with those you care about. If you were forwarded this email and you want to receive it directly, please subscribe here: Subscribe to the Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter
