Robin Sharma is often quoted saying our mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master (if you really want to see a wonderful commencement speech by David Foster Wallace who discusses this quote amongst other things about the mind and thinking, go here). Think about it for a second. The mind brought you to where you are, like it or not. Yes, it’s the bringer of anxiety and depression for a lot of us, but, without it, where would you really be? I mean, if you suffer from depression or anxiety, the reasons are likely rooted in your past, in your childhood, and if that childhood wasn’t perfect (whose childhood is perfect? I don’t want to be friends with such people… ;) - I will take a wild guess and say that your mind was likely the one to save your hide in many circumstances that could have gone a lot worse. True or false? And yet, we really don’t like our minds for driving us crazy with internal chatter and incessant thoughts. But why do they keep on doing it in the first place?
Let’s take a trip back in time, say a few thousands of years. Perhaps a couple of tens of thousands. Your great great great grandfather and grandmother were roaming the great plains of the African savanna and what is known today as the Sahara desert. And they weren’t alone. They shared their habitat with a whole bunch of nasty characters which were out to feast on your grandparents’ flesh. Leopards, tigers, bears, lions, eagles, crocodiles, other primates, you name it. In short, your ancestors were not at the top of the food chain. Arguably, we got to the top of the food chain entirely by happenstance (Terence McKenna proposed the Stoned Ape theory as one possible explanation). Not gracefully evolving to occupy the top spot over millennia like lions, crocodiles or sharks… So while today we are at the top of the food chain, our brain’s evolution hasn’t quite caught up with the new situation. Is’s still every bit as paranoid and ever-preparing to save us from impending doom as it was back in prehistoric days.
So, let’s imagine that you’re standing outside of your cave, or below the canopy of the tree you spent the night on, and there’s a rustling sound in the bushes. Which response from your mind will yield better survival chances? Pick your choice: 1) It’s a deadly creature - run for your life!!! or, 2) It’s nothing to worry about, keep chillin’ like a villain. Yes, the mind that went for option 1 was more likely to live to tell the tale of how he or she escaped from the claws of the leopard that jumped them from behind. And the ancestor who chose option 2, well, let’s just say that if he or she lived today they would be good candidates for the Darwin awards.
So, you can see, how for a primate living dangerously in the middle of the food chain, a negatively biased, suspicious mind is an asset in the preservation of the gene pool. But of course, nowadays, there’s a rub. We are no longer in the middle of the food chain, and, civilization as a whole has gotten a lot more civilized in recent decades so that the risks to one’s life and well-being, at least in this part of the world, are entirely minuscule in comparison with what our ancestors had to endure. And the mind doesn’t know that, and doesn’t appreciate being unemployed. So it’s still very busy as if you are in the savanna. Only now, leopards, lions and other carnivores have been replaced with taxes that need to be paid, e-mails from the boss that need to be addressed, power point presentations that need to be prepared, and of course, perceived threats to our fragile egos from friends, acquaintances, partners and spouses. Our minds will take the inputs just as they did back in Africa and will process them with a negative bias. “If you don’t pay your taxes on time, you will be fined, or worse, jailed.” - and if you really allow yourself to investigate this thought it all the way through, you will see that what the mind really does is just a shortcut pointing to the ultimate fear: death, preferably alone. Here’s how it goes. If you don’t pay your taxes, you will be jailed, your wife will leave you, you’ll end up penniless on the street and eventually die of cold and disease with no one to care for you. The mind only needs the starting point of this story to imagine quietly in the background where it all can go in an instant: abandonment and death. What’s the result? Fear. A lot of fear. And of course, lots of fears, lots of anxiety.
Now, the mind can only pull such stunts because we leave our thoughts and internal chatter uninquired. In fact, our entire life, says Byron Katie, our entire identity, had been built on the trust and uninquiring innocence of a child. The mind counts on you not ever inquiring to continue to reign supreme without interruption. The Work™ of Byron Katie provides one way of inquiring after your thoughts. There are other ways of course and even more teachers than there are ways. But make no mistake, without inquiring, you are bound to live in a world made up by your mind from very elaborate constructs of thoughts, beliefs, stories, judgments, that may at times have very very little to do with reality.
Now, without awareness, there’s not much you can do. So, first step is to cultivate awareness. Learn to pick up on the clues that tell you your mind is telling you a story. Hey, if it’s a thought, it’s a story. Not all stories are wrong, but, learn to spot when a story is being told. If you are aware enough to catch yourself telling yourself a story, whether in real time (better!) or post fact (still, good!) - inquire. Is it true? Is what my mind suggesting real? And more importantly, since it likely isn’t, are there other ways of seeing this situation? (Byron Katie does that piece using the her “turn it around” portion of the method)
Here’s an example. A driver just cut me off on the highway. Negatively biased mind: “What an inconsiderate prick! They must think they are better than everyone else or that their time is more important…” however, what about option B? “Wow, this person must be in a terrible rush. Perhaps they have a child in the hospital that they really need to rush to?” there, now you’ve wiggled that casual judgment in its socket, it’s not as firm anymore. They are no longer pricks, and you are no longer holding on to the judgment. How does this make you feel in the moment? You’ve still been cut off on the highway of course, but perhaps it was for a good cause? Now, you might think this was a very benign example, however most of our judgments day to day, moment by moment are benign. My daughter forgot the door open and our dog came in the house and ate a piece of pizza that was left on the table (my dog has IBS so gluten is a very very bad idea for her, besides, that pizza was for me) - how inconsiderate of her! In other words: “my daughter is inconsiderate, or, she doesn’t take my needs into consideration.” Is this the only option here? No, but that’s where our minds often go. How about, my daughter was simply unaware that there was pizza on the table and she was actually being very considerate, of our dog, in letting her in. She is attuned to our dog’s needs and didn’t know about the pizza or my hunger for it, but I can see she is in resonance with the dog and with others’ needs. There, a different way of looking at the same situation. How do you feel now? See, with all these moment to moment judgments, you decide in what world you are going to live in. If it’s a world inhabited by pricks and inconsiderate people, or, by people who are trying to do good, be kind, not intent on hurting you. Remember my post about the world of mirrors? You create these mirrored images with your judgments, moment by moment. How about you write a different script for the likely scenario next time your mind decides to tell you a story?
I am going to conclude with a quote from Mark Twain that points out the obvious negative bias of future thoughts, aka worries. Worries are thoughts about the future that have a negative skew to them. I am sure that in this age of Covid-19 panic, you may be experiencing some right now… well, are they the only script you can write in your head? Maybe there are other options? Name a few. Anyway, Twain said: “I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” - what’s it like for you? Does this resonate with you too? If so, time to get up and do something about it. It won’t change by itself, it has no interest in doing so. And again, I highly recommend watching this speech by David Foster Wallace. Learn how to think better. You are the teacher and you are the student.
Love,
Noam
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