Applying Wise Effort In Your Meditation And Your Life

In this bonus live talk and guided mediation, Dr. Diana Hill explores the concept of Wise Effort from a psychological and Buddhist perspective. Wise Effort is one step in the Eightfold Path of Buddhism (along with the wise view, wise intention, wise speech, wise livelihood, wise action, wise mindfulness, and wise concentration).

Transcript

Hi everybody,

While I'm away for the next couple of weeks,

I want you to take a moment to listen to one of my talks and meditations from the More Life in Process series that I'm offering.

This talk is on wise effort as one of the components of the Eightfold Path and something that I'm going to be focusing more on in the seasons to come.

I hope you enjoy the talk and the meditation.

And if you want more talks and meditations like these,

Become a More Life in Process member.

It's $5 a month,

It's $50 for a year,

And it's a way to support the podcast,

Keep it going,

And it is a good use of your effort,

Maybe a little bit of wise effort on your end.

I hope you enjoy this talk and meditation.

It's good to be back.

It's good to see new faces.

Welcome.

I'm Diana,

And I am a clinical psychologist here in Santa Barbara,

And I was actually talking to Luca.

We were on the bus on the way back from Costa Rica,

And I was saying,

You know,

Luca,

I'm not really a meditation teacher,

I'm a psychologist.

I mean,

I bring so much meditation into my,

Thank you,

Into my work,

But you will find that when you come here,

You're going to,

I can't help it,

You're going to get some psychology.

So today is one of those days.

I can't contain myself.

And I gave everyone a note card,

If you don't have one,

I have note cards and pens for you all.

And if you're at home,

Hi,

It would be good just to grab a piece of paper.

I just brought note cards because they're small and they're convenient.

But we're going to be using these today because we're exploring and talking about this concept of wise effort.

And I was talking with Rick Hansen yesterday,

And it's a good check-in on my life and what's happening when I talk to him.

And the theme that he has brought up multiple times to me,

And that came up again yesterday,

Is what he says is,

You're being nibbled to death by ducks.

And I think that we can experience that feeling of being nibbled to death by ducks in terms of our tasks of living,

The never-ending emails,

The never-ending text streams,

The never-ending,

You know,

The dog needs to get fed every day.

And then you're out of dog food and the chickens and that,

You know,

All the ducks that need But we can also be nibbled to death by ducks in our minds,

Right?

So when we're driving somewhere or we're in our meditation,

Our own mind can eat away at us with little things,

Little criticisms,

Little judgments,

Big things,

Big worries.

And so I like to think of this as a way of being nibbled to death by ducks.

And so I like to think of wise effort and this concept of wise effort is what do we do about the ducks?

And how do you get your ducks in a row?

And how do we approach life,

Given that there's going to be a lot of ducks in our mind and ducks in our life?

And how do we choose where to put our energy?

So this concept of wise effort is one of the steps or components of the Eightfold Path in Buddhism.

So in Buddhism,

There's lots of numbers,

Right?

Six Paramitas and the Four Noble Truths.

And I actually kind of like it because it keeps me organized in my brain.

But you think about the Four Noble Truths that life has dissatisfaction to it.

There's a cause to our dissatisfaction and that freedom is possible.

And then the last Noble Truth,

The Fourth Noble Truth,

Is that there is this path that Buddhism offers.

And what I like about the Eightfold Path is that it really has a lot of mirroring and mapping onto psychology and some of the principles that we look at in terms of what is beneficial for us in terms of our psychological wellness and how we act in the world.

So this concept from the Buddhist perspective,

Wise effort is one of these eight things,

Right?

And the eight things,

Some people separate them into categories.

So one category is the category of wisdom.

So things like right view or wise view.

Are you seeing clearly what's in front of you?

Are you really seeing what is?

When you're being nibbled to death by ducks,

Are you seeing clearly which ducks are important,

Which ducks are not so important?

And are these really even ducks in the first place,

Right?

And having that ability to see clearly with wise view.

Then with wisdom,

We also have a wise intention.

So another component of this Eightfold Path is what is your intention here?

What is not only the life that you want to build,

But what is the world that we want to build?

And what is your intention for your practice as you sit down and you come here and you spend this 45 minutes on a Friday morning?

Why are you here?

What is this about for you?

And then you have a category of the Eightfold Path that has to do with our actions.

And this is what I really like.

Actually I think of Buddhism as very,

Especially engaged Buddhism,

Is a very active approach to living.

It's not just sitting on your mat.

It's wise speech.

How are you using speech and language and what you're saying to another person?

It's wise livelihood or right livelihood.

What are you doing with your life?

And is it contributing to the betterment of your family or the betterment of the world?

How are you using money,

Making money,

All of that?

And then there's also wise action.

So I haven't even gotten to right effort yet or wise effort,

But I'll get there.

So then we've gotten through,

What is that?

Six of them?

Five of them?

Five of them?

And then we move into actually wise effort is under the category of meditation,

Which is kind of interesting.

Like you'd think it'd be in the category of action,

But it's under the category of meditation.

And that category includes things like right mindfulness.

Are you aware and conscious of what's happening in the here and now?

Are you being mindful?

Are you present?

Are you enjoying the depth?

And then right concentration is your ability.

So if mindfulness is being aware,

Concentration is purposeful dedication of that awareness.

So you will be,

Are you able,

And we do practices in our meditation to both be aware and then to have concentrations.

We may concentrate on our breath.

We may concentrate on a mantra.

We may concentrate on lots of different things.

Okay,

That's seven of the Eightfold Path.

The last one is wise effort.

And that's what this note card is for.

So in the Buddhist perspective,

Wise effort has to do with,

Are you dialing your efforts in a way that's not too loose and not too tight?

There's a story of Sonia,

The flute player,

Who was like,

His feet were bare because he was practicing so much,

A lute player,

Not a flute player,

So much meditation and so much trying,

Trying,

Trying,

Trying to become a monk.

And he went to the Buddha and said,

I'm trying so hard and I can't do it.

And I just want to give up.

It's like the Buddha said,

It's like your lute.

If the strings are too tight,

It's not going to sound good.

And if the strings are too loose,

It's not going to sound good.

So there's an element of wise effort of knowing how to dial your energy.

But there's also an element of wise effort of knowing where to put your energy.

And so where psychology comes in or where I view this is the balance of values and effort.

So you have a little note card.

And what I'd like for you to do in your note card is draw a line across the horizontal,

A horizontal line across the note card with two arrows.

Two arrows.

I promise we'll meditate at some point.

And if you imagine there's a little you,

Put a little circle in the middle.

There's me in the middle.

So the arrow going to the right is when you're moving in the direction of your values.

When you feel like you are aligned with the type of person you want to be in the world,

Maybe right speech,

Right livelihood,

Right action,

Right concentration,

Right mindfulness.

This is me aligned with my values.

And the arrow to the left is away from your values.

So we have away and towards.

Values.

For those that are ACT practitioners,

They may think I'm doing something called the matrix,

Which is I'm not about to do that.

I'm doing something different.

So then you have another line that goes up and down on the vertical,

The Y axis.

And that line has to do with the dialing up,

The tightening of the string of your effort or the dialing down.

So this line is about effort.

High effort at the top,

Low effort at the bottom.

And now we have these four quadrants,

Which this is where it becomes very interesting to start to look at being nibbled to death by ducks.

Because we have in the bottom quadrant low effort and towards values.

Low effort and towards values are things that come easily to you.

They're your strengths.

They're also the things that you enjoy and you find rewarding.

This quadrant is what I call the savor quadrant.

Enjoy it.

So it may be like for me,

Low effort and towards my values is sitting down with my son and playing a game,

Playing chess or listening to him practice on the piano.

It's really low effort for me to listen to him practice on the piano and it's very much towards my values to give him attention.

So you can think about that for yourself and you could even,

After this meditation,

You could fill in some of the things.

What are the things that you want to savor more in your life that are about building the life that you want and the world that you want that are actually low effort because we need to have rest?

Then the top corner has to do with high effort and towards your values.

And I would call that wise effort.

This whole right side is wise effort.

But if we savor the bottom,

Wise effort are the things that you do.

I was talking with a client this week and who has social anxiety and their homework for the week was after they drop their kid at preschool to linger.

Stay for 10 whole minutes and talk to somebody.

And they were like,

Oh,

I don't want to do that.

That sounds so hard.

That sounds impossible.

I'm going to be so uncomfortable.

Tell me what questions I should ask.

That lingering for this person is wise effort because lingering is connected to this person's values of wanting to build a community around having children,

Having children and community.

So it doesn't always look effortful,

Always on the outside,

These things that are wise effort for us,

But we know inside this is something that I want to build and I want to put my energy there.

In meditation,

High effort towards values is the return.

I'm catching myself.

My mind is going there.

I'm choosing to return back to the present moment.

And that actually requires some degree of effort of tightening the strings,

Tightening your concentration.

Okay.

So we want to spend some time on this right side of wise effort of moving in between effort and rest,

But being in direction of our values on the left hand side is where we often spend a lot of time.

The bottom left hand corner,

Low effort and away from your values.

You can think about what would go in that category,

Scrolling,

Social media,

If,

If your social media is not values based.

So I actually participate in social media.

I create stuff for social media and it's values based stuff.

It's intentional thinking about how is this going to impact or help somebody.

What's not helpful to us is when we're just scrolling and comparing ourselves to others,

Right?

Low effort away from our values.

Maybe we really want to go to sleep and we're watching Netflix and that one more show comes up and we like to stay there,

Right?

So much less effort just to stay there.

Low effort.

I interviewed Katie Bowman this past week in Costa Rica and she talked a lot about just how we tend to hold our bodies to the least effort possible,

Right?

So we'll jet our hips forward,

We'll lean back and we'll kind of do this kind of like curved thing because it's less effort,

Right?

And actually a little bit more effort,

A little bit more alignment.

It requires some attention.

And then the really,

So I would say the left bottom side is the not worth it quadrant.

It's just not worth it to watch one more show or it's just not worth it,

You know,

To stay on this social media a little longer.

The top one,

Top left,

High effort and away from our values is burnout.

When you're putting a lot of energy into something that is not aligned with the person that you want to be in the world or the world that you want to grow.

And that can change over time.

Like all of this is moving,

Like something that may be in one category can move to a different category for you.

But you can think about that for yourself.

Where am I putting a lot of effort that's actually not in line with my values?

For some of us,

We can put a lot of effort into avoidance behaviors.

You know,

The parent at preschool who doesn't want to linger actually is putting a lot of effort into getting out of there fast,

You know,

And so you can think about that for yourself.

What,

Where am I placing my energy that's depleting me?

And when you get clear,

When you fill out this quadrant,

I hope you will take some time to fill out this quadrant.

It gives you a little bit more of a understanding of if you are being nibbled to death by ducks,

Which ducks do you want to pay attention to?

Which ducks do you want to tend to?

Which ducks do you want just to like,

Let all pass on by?

I'm not putting energy there.

And what is the life you want to build?

So we're going to practice this today with our meditation.

And I wanted to keep it really simple because we're talking about wise effort with beginning with some breath work because breath work is actually a great example of wise effort,

Of how we can put some intention into our breathing.

And then we can also let go a little bit with our breathing.

This meditation begins with the simple box breath and then is a very simple meditation focusing on being present in the moment.

Fair warning that about a quarter of the way into the meditation,

Somebody starts hammering and they hammer throughout.

So this is not the most relaxing meditation that you will do,

But it's a really good practice of how to stay present even with a hammering sound going on.

If you are not up for hammering right now,

And you do not want to practice that type of meditation,

I would recommend you go to Insight Timer and listen to one of my other more pleasurable meditations that are quite relaxing and lovely.

But if you want to take on the challenge of focusing your mind on the present moment,

Even when there are sounds and irritants around you,

This is a good one to practice with.

And at the end,

You'll hear a little bit from the audience that was there about their experience with it.

All right,

Let's practice letting go with our meditation.

So we're going to begin with something,

A very simple breath called the box breath,

Which is an inhale for a count of about four,

And then you hold it at the top for a count of four,

And then you exhale for a count of four and hold it at the bottom.

There's lots of benefits to this type of breath and this type of breath retention in terms of activating your vagus nerve,

In terms of slowing your breath down,

In terms of concentrating your mind.

But I want us to really focus on when we're in that hold space at the top or the bottom,

How are we holding it?

Are we holding it in a way that's like,

I'm holding my breath and I hate this,

Or are we holding it with wise effort that you could hold your breath in just the right sort of like tender,

Gentle way.

And I'm going to guide you for the first couple of them,

But then I want you to find your pace because just like,

You know,

Sort of why separate in life,

Everyone is individual in what works for them.

After we do that breath work,

We will move into just a very,

Very simple meditation practice where we're just going to allow our mind to be about 20,

30,

40% focused on our breath.

That's our anchor.

And then the rest of us is just present with awareness.

This sounds very simple,

But it actually can be quite challenging.

We'll use our mind,

Our breath to come back to our bodies,

Our natural breath,

And then we'll just sit in awareness,

Awareness of being present in the here and now,

Maybe doing a little bit of savoring so that we're moving back and forth between towards values,

Back to the present and savoring the present moment.

Okay.

I hope that all made sense.

It made sense in my way of understanding things.

Let's begin with some breath.

So go ahead and get yourself into a position that is both alert,

Awake,

But also relaxed.

So you're not holding or forcing the position of your body.

You're allowing your body to rest in its alignment,

The alignment of the neck and the spine,

Allowing gravity to just settle your body down while you gently lift the crown of your head up.

And you can take some slow,

Long breaths to start just to make contact with the you that is breathing,

Expanding your inhale,

Letting go with your exhale.

And one more long inhale,

Long exhale so that we begin together.

And we begin with the inhale,

Inhaling for a count of one,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Hold it at the top.

Relax.

Hold.

Three,

Four.

And then exhale completely.

Release.

Let go.

Find emptiness at the bottom and hold.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Take it all in with an inhale.

Two,

Three.

And expansive at the top and just hold.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Let it all go.

Two,

Three,

Four.

And then hold it at the bottom.

Hold it gently.

Three,

Four.

Repeat on your own with the inhale,

Finding your own pace to inhale.

And when you hold it and retain it at the top,

See if you can release a little,

Relax around that hold.

When you let go on the exhale,

See if it can just wash over your whole body to release completely and be empty at the bottom.

Repeating at your own pace.

And complete one more round with that balance of effort and surrender.

And when you've completed that round,

Take some nice,

Long,

Slow,

Soothing breaths,

Just enjoying and savoring the breath.

Low effort,

High value of enjoying our breath.

This indicator that we are alive.

We are here.

Feeling the after effects of that breath work in your body.

Taking a few moments just to savor and enjoy this breath.

As you are breathing here,

I just want you to acknowledge all the ducks for you.

So you can even just imagine them,

The worries that are in your mind,

The to-dos that are about to happen in your day,

The stuff that you haven't completed,

The dreads,

All of it,

All these ducks.

And I want you just to acknowledge them as sort of going across your mind,

Quacking,

Quacking,

Quacking ducks.

And that for the next 20 or so minutes,

You are giving yourself a break to just be here.

And it requires some degree of effort to bring your attention back to being here with this breath.

And the ducks will call you.

Guaranteed,

They will call you away in the next little bit of time.

And that is okay.

That is the practice.

The practice is to acknowledge that and turn your attention,

Your effort,

This gentle,

Wise effort,

Back to the present moment.

Because here in the present moment,

By doing this practice,

You are cultivating,

Calm-abiding,

The ability to abide in the here and now.

The ability to be present for yourself so that you can make clear decisions around what you want to put your energy towards.

So you begin just by letting your breath become natural.

Your body is breathed.

You don't have to do much to breathe.

Your body knows exactly how to breathe.

Allowing your body to be breathed.

And you may notice that there's tension or holding in parts of the body.

There's areas that feel uncomfortable or tight.

And in the service of wise effort,

You can adjust.

You can adjust your position.

You can lie down.

You can grow a little bit more aligned.

You can find those areas and you can let go of them.

Let go of tension or holding around them so that you can just be here and breathe this miraculous breath.

You are alive in this moment.

I'm going to give you a few moments just to focus on your own breath and notice what happens when you're pulled away and notice that you can catch yourself and linger.

You can stay a little longer even if it's uncomfortable just for a few minutes.

So if your mind begins to wander,

It gets a little bit loose,

You can tighten up the string with attention to the breath.

And if it feels too tight,

Too tense,

Like you're trying too hard,

You can loosen it up a little bit by just bringing awareness to the present moment.

The breath being part of the present moment.

Expanding awareness around you.

Dissolving edges between you and the outside world.

And you can also welcome the opportunity to savor if there's something about the here and now that's worth savoring.

Allow yourself to savor that.

And to anchor on it.

So when outside distractions,

Whether they're distractions in your own mind or distractions around you,

Happen,

It's such a beautiful opportunity to remember that you can anchor in your breath in the present moment.

It's just more decks.

And that the purpose of meditation is not relaxation per se.

It's a training of the mind to stay,

To observe.

So you can observe your own mind making judgments or wanting something to change or go away.

Or wanting something to stay.

And the wise effort practice is just to notice that and to stay present with your breath as it is right here and right now.

You can expand your awareness to include sort of like open arms,

Loving open arms,

And just that includes that which you do not want.

And relax and release and make space for it all.

And you can get curious about the current experience.

Noticing your grippiness,

Your tension,

Or your desire to check out,

To go somewhere else.

But with a calm abiding,

A compassionate abiding,

You stay.

And you drop the rope of wanting things to be different or needing to control.

This is the practice.

Take in a long slow breath and allow that breath to wash up and over your body.

As you exhale,

Let it wash down your face,

Your shoulders,

Your belly,

Your feet.

Take in a long slow breath.

And allow that wisdom to wash over your face and your shoulders and your belly and your feet.

Wisdom is a knowing of what's right for you based on your life experience.

Wisdom is also learning from others who've walked the path before you,

Reputable sources.

Wisdom is also a bodily knowing,

A knowing inside of you.

Your body knows so much that your mind does not even register.

And so Galbraith Pushe writes in the Tibetan book of Living and Dying,

You will find,

In fact,

That you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide,

Because he or she knows you through and through.

Since he or she is you,

Your guide can help you with increasing clarity and humor,

Negotiate all the difficulties of your thoughts and emotions.

Your guide can also be a continual joyful tender,

Sometimes teasing presence who knows always what is best for you and will help you find more and more ways out of your obsession with your habitual responses and confused emotions.

As the voice of your discriminating awareness grows stronger and clearer,

You will start to distinguish between its truth and the various deceptions of the ego,

And you will be able to listen to it with discernment and confidence.

And so,

It was perfect.

I don't know if you all heard that.

I'm curious about the meditation,

But I'm also curious about the quadrants,

What fits into your savoring and wise effort quadrants for you,

But also anything you want to say about the meditation before we close up.

It was hard for me to relax,

But even with the,

Because like you said,

That's life,

And our,

And go through that to that little beautiful bubble,

We create ourselves anytime,

Anywhere.

Right.

And that's something I'm ready for giving back.

Yeah,

It is hard when there's the sound of a hammer,

And many of us would prefer that sound to if I put another sound out there,

The sound of someone that you don't like screeching or a political figure's voice as you're going in to get your sandwich and certain news channels on,

Right?

And it's how do we,

That can throw us off,

And we can get so onto like,

I don't like that,

I want to go away,

And then it's hard for me to relax.

But that is the practice,

Like that is actually the perfect practice,

And that we don't have to actually be relaxed,

But we can be present and open with it.

Because sometimes it's not relaxing.

And if we're around somebody that's difficult,

Or if we're around content that is disturbing to us,

I actually don't want you to be relaxed.

I want you to make,

Take wise action and do something about it,

Right?

And so,

But you do need to be centered and be acting from your center,

Not from I want this to go away.

And that's a real distinction in act,

Is are we acting from our values,

Or are we acting from just trying to get rid of something that we don't like?

So,

When you can get centered,

Then you can make that discernment,

You can make that choice more effectively.

Any other thoughts or comments?

Yes.

How are you?

I opened my eyes at one point,

And you were like giving the death glare of the person.

Okay.

What is that?

Yeah.

What is that?

Yeah.

Because you work here.

Yeah.

It's the leaf blowers,

Though.

Sometimes those happen early in the morning.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that you used the word bracing,

Because we do all sorts of,

In act,

We call experiential avoidance,

All sorts of things that we do to try and avoid the present moment.

And some of them are super subtle that we don't even know that we're doing,

Like jaw clenching,

Holding our breath,

Bracing our bodies,

Trying to think about something else,

Trying to plan out,

How am I going to talk to that person,

And then maybe I at least will go talk to him,

That's what I'm doing.

You know what?

I'm caretaking all of you.

You know,

I was trying to do all of that in my own mind.

And that really,

The wise effort is just to let go of trying to avoid what is,

And just be with what is.

And that takes some wise effort.

It takes some degree of trust in the present moment.

It was a good lesson.

It's a good lesson.

So we can all say thank you to the hammer outside.

Thank you for this opportunity.

We can say thank you to any irritant in our life as an opportunity to practice.

We don't want to pave our lives so that they are without pebbles,

Because then we have very little ability.

We will trip and we will fall when we come across a rock.

So some pebbles are good.

Pebbles are strengthening.

For the rocks that will come to all of us.

Okay.

Thank you.

See you all next week.