Showing Up for Life
by Jackie Kosednar
We live in our heads, missing what is happening
in the moment.
Most of us spend our time resisting life. There
are many ways we turn off and tune out, especially
in this time of advancing technology and world drama.
Stress can creep up on us, building in the nervous
system and causing problems in the physical body.
All diseases are caused by stress. Another word for
stress is fear. Stress can build in reaction to what
we see around us or to our thoughts about what is
going on around us — real or imagined. A healthy
body is a body at ease.
From mass pollution to collapsed economies, the world’s
massive problems keep us fearing the future. We want
to escape the stress of what might happen as the drama
increases. Fear of the future can make us spend many
precious moments being worried, anxious and depressed,
or feeling frozen about things we have no control
over.
The paradigm of linear time can also control us.
Time seems to go faster and faster. Our culture is
preoccupied with the past yet urges us to have every
moment of our day planned. We can then, ‘utilize
our time more effectively’ to get ahead.
We are all conditioned to strategize and plan for
the future. We become like rats running around in
circles, trying to stay one step ahead of an uncertain
future we think we can somehow control. At the same
time, we also try to distance ourselves from the past,
where all our emotional pain is stored.
The growing amount of drug, alcohol, and food abuse
in the world reveals how many people want to escape
the stress of future uncertainty or painful unresolved
pasts. Addiction is always an attempt to keep pleasure
from disappearing. Pleasure signals the brain that
all is well so it can stop creating fear and discomfort.
We escape into food and over-consumption to feel the
relief of pleasure; we have a wide choice
of prescription drugs to control our fears and discomfort.
Pleasure is fleeting though; only happiness is lasting.
Both happen in the present moment. But how do you
get there sober, when the truth about life feels uncertain
and unpredictable?
The biggest problem is that people think the voice
in their head is their voice, so it is true.
It acts like it is you. But our brain is a computer.
It organizes all incoming information and stores it.
The brain then feeds it back to you, making it appear
as though there is a person inside, with your voice.
There isn’t. The brain can’t really say
what is true and what isn’t. It doesn’t
operate that way. It is a machine.
The brain’s voice often imitates people you
have known: the abusive parent, the logical adult,
etc. Your brain doesn’t care if you are upset.
It will keep feeding you fear thoughts until you’re
in a panic — all because you believe your brain.
But it is just a computer you are believing, a pile
of organized data. You can never believe your brain,
even if you are the most honest person in the world.
Yet, we live in our heads, listening to the computer
voices, obeying them and missing what is happening
in the moment. Our brain creates the chemicals that
make us feel good and the chemicals that keep us unhappy,
depending on what we are thinking about. There are
also triggers: life suddenly turns out to be different
than what we expect, possibly worse. The mind, jolted
out of the present moment pleasure of bliss, creates
fear chemicals that trigger the adrenalin system.
That jolt triggers old memories, or stirs up unconscious
fears, which then get re-enacted. We suffer the consequences
of the mind struggling and arguing with its self,
trying to make sense of something we haven’t
even finished experiencing. Yet the suffering has
already begun. The only thing that makes us suffer
is our own mind.
You may argue and say you are stressed because of
your boss or your bills or your kids, and on and on.
But it’s not them. It is the thoughts you entertain
about them. Our brains are geared for survival. The
survival part of the brain is always scanning for
enemies and danger. Its job is to make us safe —
at any cost. To do that, it has to keep us on guard.
There is no doubt; we need to learn to control, guide
and direct our minds.
If you are a spiritual seeker you probably know about
the practice of ‘mindfulness’ or ‘being
present’. When you are present you become an
observer. The brain then goes into a different mode,
a learning mode. The brain loves to learn and is,
in fact, designed to be a learner, a witness, an investigator.
It then produces happy chemicals that make us feel
comfortable and pleasant with no feelings of threat.
The bliss only happens, however, when the brain is
learning what it wants to learn.
Life is interesting. You can train the brain to stay
in the present moment and become a learning witness.
Your presence, which is your ability to be present,
will grow and so will your personal power. Notice
someone who has a lot of personal power (positive
or negative). As that individual walks into a room,
his or her presence seems to dominate. The totality
of that person’s being is present, including
the mind that is watching. If you are scattered, so
is your power.
Learning to control your brain is the first step
in stress reduction and staying in present time. Your
thinking creates all your stress and unhappy feelings
that pull you into the past or future. As you practice
being present and observing life instead of getting
caught up within it, your mind calms and life is a
very different game. The moment is always a pleasure.
Feelings and emotions are as fleeting as pleasure.
That is when you are present with them. The lie your
brain tells you is that the hurt will last forever.
It doesn’t. If you keep feeling the hurt, continually
noticing all the fuss your brain wants to make about
it but not taking it seriously, the hurt dissolves
and doesn’t build up. In other words, what we
resist persists. In psychological language it is called
detachment. You just stay present and don’t
allow the brain to create meaning.
Don’t fool yourself, it is not easy to stay
in the present moment. It is a life practice. It requires
a gentle, consistent willingness to let life unfold
at its own pace, in its own way. It requires you train
yourself to be an observer, a learner. It requires
acceptance, letting things be, going with the flow.
It requires you to feel your emotions and let them
move on. Happiness happens along the way and increases
over time.
When we reduce our suffering by managing our thinking
and become more present, we see suffering is not personal.
It is a part of the human condition. It is just the
way the human brain works.
Can we be present all the time? It's easier to be
present when life flows smoothly and when things are
going our way. But there is one guarantee in life:
nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Returning to
the present is what the practice is really about.
This is the road out of stress into happiness, no
matter what the future may bring.
