| "You must live in the present, launch yourself on every | | | | reason why "positive thinking"-type efforts seldom |
| wave, find your eternity in each moment." - Henry | | | | produce true, lasting change and transformation. The |
| David Thoreau | | | | mind alone cannot "open" it's own closed system. |
| Daily we're bombarded with new books, news, and | | | | Think of the moment you wake up. That split moment. |
| research about why folks behave irrationally - even | | | | When perhaps you hear the birds communing, or |
| when they "know" their behavior is not rational, why | | | | notice the sky, or hear the rain, or really smell the |
| affirmations don't lead to change, why change is so | | | | coffee - that split moment before "thinking" kicks in. |
| difficult when the brain is supposed to be so "plastic," | | | | That's the place where true change and |
| etc. Why is true and lasting change and transformation | | | | transformation takes place. That's the place where we |
| so challenging? Here's one perspective. See how it | | | | are an "open system." Here we are not conditioned by |
| works for you. | | | | past experiences. We are completely present to our |
| Visualize the "gutter", the ball return "groove," next to a | | | | experience, right here and right now. No brain to |
| bowling alley. Assume at one time it was completely | | | | interrupt, to interpret, to link our present moment to |
| flat. Visualize that, with guide barriers on either side to | | | | past experience. Once "thinking "begins, almost all |
| keep it in a straight line on the flat surface, the ball | | | | (change) bets are off. |
| moves from the far end of the alley to the near end | | | | As soon as we allow this moment to become |
| where it returns to a ball-holding area. Over minutes, | | | | influenced by memory, conditioning, and past |
| hours, days, weeks, months, and years, depending on | | | | experience we slide right into the old "grooves" and |
| the frequency and intensity of each individual ball return | | | | are taken over by past perceptions, judgments, |
| action, see the ball begin to carve out its own | | | | thoughts, beliefs, etc. - back to the old ways of "I am |
| pathway, no longer needing any guide barriers to | | | | this" and "I am that." We futurize our past. Our history |
| control it. The ball now follows it's own self-created | | | | take over. Our present is experienced through our |
| pathway - day in and day out, night in and night out, | | | | past. We are clinging. |
| over and over, with never a change in direction. The | | | | As soon as we begin "thinking," then all the old feeling |
| ball seemingly has a mind of its own. | | | | and emotional patterns related to our thoughts also |
| Think of the initial guide barriers on either side of the | | | | arise. The clinging process is mental, cellular, neuronal, |
| "groove" as your parents or primary caregivers, your | | | | emotional, psychological and physiological as all our old |
| siblings, relatives, playmates, teachers, clergy, etc. - | | | | patterns, urges, needs and desires arise, often |
| those who "guided" you from infancy to about the age | | | | unconsciously - just as the ball habitually returns to its |
| of seven. | | | | starting place. Clinging that reinforces our |
| And think of that "groove" as the neurological | | | | closed-system inner reality, our old, habitual self. |
| pathways, neurons, and synapses in your "mind" and | | | | "They always say time changes things, but you |
| your brain - each representing an "habitual ways" of | | | | actually have to change them yourself." - Andy Warhol |
| doing, be-ing, and thinking (i.e., self-image, self-concept, | | | | Clinging is the basis of resistance to change. Clinging is |
| and other personal and world related assumptions, | | | | a survival strategy that emanates from deep, deep |
| premises, expectations, worldviews, beliefs, etc.). | | | | down in our core. In every "new" situation, we keep |
| So, now, even with all the neuroscience research | | | | "re-birthing" our old, fixed self and in the process our |
| touting "brain plasticity," and popular books annotating | | | | familiar, protective ways of defending our old, familiar, |
| how irrational we are in spite of our protestations to | | | | resistant self also arise. This process is our "way of |
| the contrary, etc. we have a glimpse of why many | | | | life." |
| folks cannot or will not change. | | | | A process that leads one to a conscious, deeper |
| "All appears to change when we change." - | | | | awareness of these dynamics, a process that |
| Henri-Frédéric Amiel | | | | supports one to move into presence (where identity |
| In order for true, real and lasting change to occur, one | | | | with "grooves' is non-existent), where there is no need |
| of two things has to happen: (1) we have "sand-paper" | | | | to defend, where there is no attachment to "I am this" |
| down the original grooves and/or (2) create new | | | | or "I am that" is one possible way to experience true |
| grooves representing new ways of do-ing, be-ing, | | | | and real shift and change. The "mind" alone cannot |
| thinking. Either way, both of these tasks require | | | | foster such change and that's one reason we read so |
| concerted time and effort. And here is why | | | | many examples of "irrationality." |
| "recidivism" of a sort haunts most folks who want | | | | The challenge is to choose to move away from |
| change. | | | | "things mental and rational" into "things spiritual" (not |
| What prevents most folks from carving out new | | | | religious or theological, but spiritual) where we shift |
| grooves is that they're wired to hang on to their original | | | | from identification and the need to proliferate our |
| groves. They are "clinging." | | | | conditioned self, but towards an attunement to our self |
| Most folks live in a "closed system" - a loyalty to our | | | | as we are in that moment when we wake up, in that |
| own internal reality - resistant to change. We become | | | | present-time experience, before "I"/"me" kicks in. |
| in the present what we became in the past. In Buddhist | | | | True and lasting change is an eminent possibility. But it |
| terms, we are attached to this inner reality, constantly | | | | takes time, consciousness, striving, honesty, |
| reconditioning to itself. The brain also continually | | | | steadfastness, courage, strength, will and lots of love |
| generates this closed internal representation of our | | | | and compassion for one's self - qualities that for many |
| outer world, seeing and relating to it the same way, | | | | in our culture seem to be in short supply. |
| over and over again, even if, IN REALITY, the outer | | | | We can smooth out our old grooves, the "gutter" of |
| world is changing. We are stuck in our "grooves." It's an | | | | our past, the "irrationality," and create new grooves - |
| emotional and psychological necessity, survival, for us | | | | but just not by 9:00 tomorrow morning - a sad |
| to keep it the same. "I am this" and "my world is | | | | realization for many enmeshed in our |
| such-and-such." | | | | microwave-oriented, Twitter-connected, 15-second |
| This orientation to our world is how we were as | | | | sound-bite, seeking-immediate-gratification culture. |
| infants, then children, then as adolescents and now as | | | | "It's not that some people have willpower and some |
| adults. We are our earliest "grooves" even as adults. | | | | don't. It's that some people are ready to change and |
| The good news is that this "stability" helped us survive | | | | others are not." - James Gordon, M.D. |
| and make sense of our world as infants and children. | | | | So, some questions for self-reflection are: |
| The bad news is that it locks us into seeing and | | | | On a scale of 1-10, what number describes your |
| reacting to our world and experiences in similar ways | | | | general feeling of impatience? |
| over time, i.e, we are hardwired to be resistant to | | | | Do you ever reflect on how you came to be who you |
| change. | | | | are, what you think or why you act the way you do? |
| The key to true and lasting change, from the | | | | If so, what do you see about yourself? If not, are you |
| perspective of some psychotherapists, and from a | | | | curious as to why not? |
| Buddhist perspective, for example, is to open the | | | | Do you feel enslaved by your electronic life? Is this by |
| closed system in such a way that we do not view our | | | | choice? |
| self as a calcified, reified structure but rather as a | | | | What "old grooves" would you like to sand down and |
| "process" - often why many folks who do deep | | | | eliminate? What new groove would you like to create? |
| personal work say they are "works in progress," not | | | | Are there obstacles that prevent you from doing |
| as an "entity" or "thing." They no longer need to say "I | | | | either, or both? How so? |
| am this" or "I am that" but see themselves simply as | | | | Do you ever behave "irrationally" - do-ing or be-ing in |
| "being" (in the process of sandpapering down the old | | | | ways you know you shouldn't? If so, why? |
| grooves, and loosening the hard, rigid identification with | | | | What of your past do you cling on to? Why? |
| one's self, i.e., "who I think I am" or "who I take myself | | | | Can you envision a world where you feel free in most |
| to be.") and creating new grooves. | | | | every moment, where you can let go of notions of |
| An important point here is that such change most | | | | how you "should" be and dis-identify with "I am this" or |
| often cannot be done through the mind, i.e., "cognitive" | | | | "I am that?," where you're not a fixed entity but a |
| efforts, alone. True change needs to be processed | | | | process? |
| through a conscious mind-body-spirit process - one | | | | |