Put it all Down

“When your past calls, don’t answer. It has nothing new to say.”

Our pasts haunt us, especially those of us who tend to experience depression. It is the nature of the brain to remember. It is also the nature of the brain to predict so there are those of us just as haunted in the present by the future. Anxiety is the territory of those lost in prediction. Neither directional focus, however powerful, represents reality accurately. 

I remember a scene from my distant past. My twin brother and I, at age 5 or so, were sick. It was influenza according to my memory; the “old-fashioned” kind with respiratory problems and body aches. Fortunately there were two parents. My mother was tending to Frank and I was sitting on my father’s lap. I remember us being in the kitchen. I remember myself feeling exhausted but warm and safe wrapped in Dad’s bear-like arms. There was a fireplace in the kitchen and I was facing its glow; not too close, not too far. Just right. I remember the back door opening and my paternal grandparents entering just for a minute so as not to be exposed too much. They carried teddy bears and I eagerly clung to it, resting against my father’s strong chest, gazing at the fire…

…except there was no fire or fireplace. There was a space heater. 

Our minds fill in blank spaces in our memories and there are many, many of them. Our memories are not accurate in all their details. We may embellish the details of our memories either with things that are more comforting, beautiful, soothing, ideal or the opposite. My patients have nearly all experienced some form of abuse and if not actual abuse then real and equally destructive neglect. But the details? Not all of the details are remembered accurately. In these cases the negative “fillers” can be even more destructive than the facts. 

The accuracy of the details is not that important to me in the therapy office (I am not a detective) but often, as the therapeutic process develops, stories begin to change. For some who could not remember anything positive about their pasts, now positive memories arise. For some, the horrors of their memories are moderated or softened. Some simply learn to accept what they remember and release it so they can live.  Whichever path is taken the fact remains--The narratives of our lives can dictate our feelings in the present and our expectations of the future. 

A princess once came to ask the Buddha for meditation instruction. She had brought with her fine sandalwood incense and rare jewels and other stuff that she thought would make an appropriate offering to such a famous teacher. She wanted to present all of this to the Buddha personally, so instead of having one of her servants carry it (which is what she normally would have done) she carried all of it herself.
When she came to the Buddha she had both arms full of these expensive and exotic goodies. The Buddha looked up at her and asked her why she had come. She said that she wanted him to teach her how to meditate. The Buddha then said simply "Put it down." So she put down one arm-load of her offerings - right at the Buddha's feet. Then the Buddha said again, "Put it down." So she put down the rest of her offerings at the Buddha's feet. Then the Buddha said "Put it all down."

To expand the thought a bit further there was a famous Korean Zen Master named Seung Sahn - he was very fond of this teaching phrase "put it all down." He said it all the time. Sometimes it seemed like it was all he ever said! One time a student asked Zen Master Seung Sahn, "But HOW do I 'put it all down'?" Zen Master Seung Sahn replied, "Put THAT down, too."

How do we “put it all down”? Simplistic sounding isn’t it? And I suppose it really is. Many times what we would desperately like to put down and never pick up again simply won’t stay down. Perhaps we struggle to put it down because we have been trying to avoid it. Avoiding facing things is a great way of ensuring that it won’t go away; like trying to ignore an elephant in the living room. Perhaps we have been engaging the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and experiences in a fight to the death! Well, that is a sure-fire way to NOT let go of it.  Perhaps we need to explore it some more and allow our brains to integrate what we have been fighting or avoiding so it may lose its power. And the latter is really the trick here. 

We cannot put things down by pushing them away or wrestling with them. We can really only release them, paradoxically, if we approach them and open ourselves to the experience. This does not mean that we want to do or become the thing we have been fighting. It simply means that our observing mind can lose its fear and anger towards what we perceive as the enemy. And that the treasure hidden often in our worst moments, the good desire that got conscripted by an impulse for clinging or aversion or a false narrative, can be uncovered and accepted. Often, the attempt to avoid or fight memories of experiences we do not like, becomes a fight against something in ourselves that ought to be redeemed. 

Carl Jung said it very well:

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.” 

― C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

So how to set things down? By first picking it up courageously and compassionately…whatever it is. 

This we don’t simply do with our minds. Our bodies must also engage in the acceptance and release. This can be accomplished by opening our bodies tight and tense with anxiety, as if we are going into or are in a fight, by consciously relaxing the muscles as if there ISN”T something to fight.  We may have to do this over and over and over until we finally get it. At this point when the thought or feeling returns, and it will most likely, it will not hurt so much or stay very long. Observation, acceptance and investigation if needed, responding with compassion, and physical release is not a recipe but a process to work through. Mindfulness and meditation can be essential to the process. Eventually you might just find that you may become free just with the paradoxical notion that to be truly free we should not try to be. That is what it means to put down even the process used to become free. We can even put down the process of putting things down. 

In this way we may effectively live relatively free from hatred of the past and fear of the future. Not completely free but free to surf the tides of changing thoughts, feelings, and sensations. And this is freedom indeed. 

Observing Mind, Thinking Mind

“Between stimulus and response there’s a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response, in our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Victor Frankl

There once was a young man who lived with his wife and two young children out in the country. His wife was a nurse and had to get to the surgery suite early that day so he was responsible for getting his 6 year old daughter and 18 month old son up and ready to go. The little girl would go to her first grade class in the nearby town.  The toddler would go to his sitter’s home in a town some 30 minutes away in the other direction while he then went to work in the same town as he.

 The morning was not going according to plan. And he would be late to work regardless. It got later and later. 

The children, being children and necessarily attention-challenged, were not terribly interested in the schedule of events for the morning. Instant packages of oatmeal did not appeal to them. Wearing clothes at all was not the boy’s preferred attire even on a good day. Today, as far as he was concerned, he would go very casually. For some reason the pony-tails (a mystery to our hero) would not line up just right and red and purple, at least these shades, did not match. Not that the dad cared that much whether the pony-tails were perfect or that the clothes matched but he knew that his wife would.   So, they struggled and he got angrier and angrier. His words were not entirely inappropriate for children but his tone made up for that. 

“Hurry up! Eat your oatmeal! Put your shoes on! Get your teeth brushed! Etc, etc.  And by the time it was all done, as well as it was going to be done, and the children were safely secured in their car seats in the brand new used Dodge Caravan (which he in his great wisdom purchased without his wife’s input) he breathed a sigh of relief. But, as he pulled out of the garage into the rain he quickly noticed that the right front tire was flat! 

He put the van into park, jumped out of the minivan, kicked the tire, and shouted a few inappropriate words. Aaaargh! He stomped and fussed and grimaced. Just then his daughter rolled down the window and calmly said, 

“Daddy, if you’re late to work will they fire you?”

And then,

“Daddy, if I’m late to school we’ll just tell them we had a flat tire.”

And then,

“Daddy, tires get flat…you just fix them.”

It took a matter of moments for the little girl to do therapy on her daddy and I proceeded to take the children into the house and calmly fix the tire. (She loves when I tell that story.)

Normally, we humans act on automatic pilot based on previous experience. This acting on impulse can be a very efficient, effective and helpful use of energy and cognitive power…if you’re dodging bullets or a Mack truck. If, however, the matter before you is more complex, such as the one above, perhaps a more subtle response would be in order. 

The fact is there were a variety of possible responses available to our hero. The one he initially chose was an impulse based in fear/anger. The impulse was strong, the physiological flow of adrenalin and corticosteroids required some reaction or response, but my behavior, while automatic, was not inevitable. A six year old child short-circuited it for heaven’s sake. But thinking before we speak and act requires the development of the ability to pause between stimulus and action. That we CAN do this does not mean we will.  

There are a variety of theories used to explain this phenomenon, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. Some are religious e.g. we are “sinful” people or it was the result of a demonic being. Some are philosophical i.e. the problem of evil. Some are scientific i.e. an imbalance among limbic, prefrontal, and higher cortical functions or perhaps introjected aspects of the family system. Regardless of which view you espouse there is a scientifically based solution and it is adaptable to any religious or philosophic tradition. Practicing in any form, secular or religious, leads to the same neurological results. 

The mind has two overall general functions. These are often called, again very generally, the “thinking mind” and the “observing mind”. The former we know quite well and live in it more often than not. The “thinking mind” judges, analyzes, reasons, constructs scenarios, tells stories, and attempts to make sense out of things. The “observing mind” simply watches. It does not engage in judging, analyzing, story telling, etc. It is simply aware. With nurturance we can become better at it but our mind resists staying in this mode. The “thinking mind” is our default mode. 

Mindfulness builds the power of the “observing mind” as one practices simply watching. From there one can begin to develop the mind/brain in one’s preferred directions, but it is necessary to begin here. The benefits are numerous emotionally, psychologically, and physiologically. For one, there is ability to step back, pause, and consider the consequences of one’s behavior before acting. My daughter agrees.