How To Cope With Axiety In Uncertain Times Of COVID Pandemic

If you don't like meditation but want to expand your view of it and its place in the modern-day world, ask yourself why people panic, why science won't give us meaning or why our spirit is always present, take on this journey with Richard Grannon, a psychologist specializing in CPTSD and trauma recovery. Richard is helping people to call their self back into being with psychology and philosophy since 2012.

Transcript

So today I'm gonna be talking to you about meditation. But this is a meditation drill for people who think that meditation sucks. People who don't like meditation. Why? I think now is a good time, Now people have a bit of time, And you are at home, To learn how to do this. I mean, As a life skill, It can really see you through a lot of things, It can help you to make better decisions, It can give you insight into situations that you are facing, Any challenges you've got facing, It can really, Really help you to deal with it in a way that you would want to deal with the situation. I think as well, For coping, It's great. It's a fantastic tool to help people to cope in a difficult time. Everybody's gonna have to display patience and resilience and calm, Calm's gonna be a real asset. So that's one reason. Sorry, There's two reasons. Number one is, You've got the opportunity to learn it, So you may as well, And number two is, It's useful for you, Especially now. In terms of maintaining sovereignty, In terms of maintaining and protecting your own emotional state, And in terms of being somebody who is, You know, Has agency with their emotions rather than having other people have agency over their emotions, It's a good technique to learn. So meditation, For people who think that meditation sucks. I'm sat on a couch, And I like to do this in a position in the Japanese called Seiza, Which is just Japanese sitting, And if you've got the knee flexibility, To me it's the most comfortable and it's the best position for me to do it in right now, Because I'm recovering from an ACL surgery, I just sit, But I'm sitting on the edge of the couch. According to the text of the Chinese article, The Yi King, One of the side notes was that it was believed that if you sit still and support your own weight with your back straight and your head aligned over your spine, So don't be, You know, Mobile phone position with the neck. You wanna be up and straight. I have quite bad posture since childhood, Because I was weirdly tall when I went to boarding school and it got me coughed a lot, So I could do that. It's a bad habit, So you wanna, If you've got bad posture like me, It's a good time if you're doing meditation to practice your posture, So you bring your chest forward and your shoulders back and your chin down and you bring your head back. So you want your physical position is something that's really, Really easy to control and it's a good starting point for people who struggle with meditation. I was trained in the Zen tradition under Ezra Sensei of the Komiokan Dojo in Birkin Head, And so we would, The mudra that we would hold would be this with the thumbs together. You don't have to do that. You can just put your hands flat, Palm down on your thighs. You can hold them together. It's quite nice to have the fingers touching each other. Depending on your faith, You might be like, Oh, This is comfortable for me. Palms up, You might wanna be here, It's fine. The hands in a position where you basically would feel comfortable not moving for a period of time. So you want, What the Yi King said is, If you're supporting your own weight and your spine is erect and you slow your breathing, That actually the ego dissolves. And if you give it some thought, That kinda makes sense. It sounds like a rather extreme statement, Like ego dissolution, My God, That's something that you can only do after 20 years, You know, Sitting around in your undies on a cold mountain top going om, Every day and eating like one grain of boiled rice every three days, Right? But actually the ego dissolves fast, Not slow. What the 20 years of om is about is your ego not coming back. So it'll come back really quickly, But it dissolves quickly and it comes back quickly because it is a manifestation of the unconscious and because it's only a projection anyway. It's not really an intrinsic part of who you are, Which is why a lot of like the psychologists and the mystics of different religions, They came to the same place and they'd be like, Don't cling to your ego, Don't hold on to this sense of self especially when it hurts you. As I said in my last video, The persona, The mask, It's a Greek word for a mask, A literal physical mask that Greek actors would wear. If it gets old and stinky and stale, It really hurts. And so you don't wanna hold on to something that's old and stinky and stale. You wanna be able to change it, You wanna be able to move it. Sometimes you need to remove it completely so that the unconscious can breathe. So the ego will dissolve quickly, But if you're not disciplined, It comes back because we live in a material world. We're not living in a world of spirit. So people are not talking spirit. They're not like, You don't just go down the shop or see your mate and go, Hey, How are you doing? I'm really good. What have you done today? You know, I totes meditated and I just basically like aligned with the stars. Oh my God, I did that too. Today, No, It was last night, But I did the same thing. Just, I was flying through the Milky Way. Oh, That's awesome. That's really cool. That's not how we live. That's not where we're at. It's a very, Very materialistic world. And this is why we're seeing problems right now and a source of a panic in this particular moment is because if you penetrate the narrative, What we're being told is there's not enough. We're in a world of massive abundance because we're so clever with some of the things that we do, Which is the nature of ego. It's really clever. It's really ingenious. So clever, So ingenious. It's got multiple ways of sneaking back in. Ask anybody who's done meditation or that type of work for a few years and they'll be like, Yeah, Ego just goes, Ah, This is what we're doing. And it constructs a new thing and it comes back in. It's a builder, It's a craftsman. Interestingly, The creator of the world and the Gnostic tradition, The Aldeboth, Was known as the artisan, The craftsman. And I sometimes wonder when I'm thinking about the Gnostic worldview, But from a Zen perspective, I'm like, I wonder if that's like another metaphor for saying the ego. Because he created this world and this world is not good. This world is kind of malfunctioning and it's more like a prison in the Gnostic worldview. And I was like, I wonder if that's a metaphor or a different way of arriving at the same conclusion that the ego is a cunning craftsman, A cunning craftswoman, And what they're good at is world building and then finding cunning little solutions in that world. So even as we live in a world of tremendous abundance and activity and solutions and technology, We're being told there won't be enough doctors, There won't be enough nurses, There won't be enough beds, There won't be enough ventilators, There won't be enough food, There's nothing on the shelves, There's no toilet paper left, There's no guns left, There's no ammo left. I was like, Is there any oxygen left? No, We sucked it all out, It's gone. Are there any walks left? No, We walked all the walks. You walked all the walks. I swear, I take two walks a day right now because I'm recovering with my ACL and somebody's gonna arrest me for it. The police, I've never seen so many police driving up and down, Just looking at people walk. It's great. So there are multiple messages here, But one of them that we're receiving a lot of is that there's not enough, Which actually taps into a different part of the brain, The reptilian brain, The reptile complex, The R complex. This comes from the triune theory of the brain from the 1960s that was developed by a guy called Maclean. And it's not widely accepted now. Most of the, Like, There's a left brain and the right brain. I'm like, No, It doesn't really work like that. There's three brains, And it doesn't really work like that either. But it's an interesting way of looking at the situation because certainly we can come from a primal, Dumb, Less evolved response, The reptilian response, Which is materialism, Power hierarchies, Ego, Pleasures of the body, Pleasures of the flesh, Versus coming from other states. And the reptilian side of the brain is for dealing with, In our evolution, A very hostile, Savage environment with only a few resources left. We're constantly starving. We're constantly dying of disease. People are dying not of old age. They're dying in human history and the evolution of us as mammals of, You know, Disease and hunger and, You know, Bad situations where there's not enough resources. So it taps into a very, Very primal part of the brain. And it gives us a very, Very raw, Primal response that makes us combative because the R complex, The reptilian response of the brain is non-conscious. And it's, Okay, Let's go, Or quickly run away, Or quickly buy all the toilet paper. And then you go home and you look at your toilet paper and you think your wall that's just covered and you feel guilt and shame. And then you think about the old people who can't. Now, I look at the paper and you think, Why, Why, Why can't, I'm not taking it back. I'd feel silly. Why did I do that? And oftentimes when people do bad things, I mean, Literally, No joking, Like crimes, It's done from the state. Usually most criminals who are banged up, They did something from a state that was non-conscious, That came from the reptile part of the brain that was disinhibited by drugs and alcohol. You look at violent crime, Speaks of people who were banged up for violent crime, It will be a rare occasion you'll find that there wasn't some drugs or some alcohol involved because it disinhibits, You know, You've got, In the triune theory of the brain, You'd have the mammalian brain and the human brain in there going, Don't kill the person who's vaguely irritated you for standing on your new sneakers. But the reptile brain goes, Don't kill him anyway. But if you're sober, You would stop. You'd be like, No, Because the consequences are bad. If you're not sober, You're not sober with drugs and alcohol then you'll just snap into reptilian mode and you'll respond in a bad way that has terrible consequences for the other person, Terrible consequences for you, For their family, Your family, Ecologically, Tribally, It's awful. We can become drunk on panic. We can become drunk and high on ideology. We can become drunk on propaganda. And people have gotten very, Very angry with me recently and I don't think it's because they're not hearing me. I'm like, Why are they not hearing me? I'm like, No, Probably what's happening is you're getting a panic response. And then everything from that reptilian brain is combative. It's territorial. So they wanna, Combative means they wanna fight or run away. Where the fawning and response is a later, So in the 4Fs idea of trauma responses, Fawning is later in evolutionary development and it probably is a later response in the development of a little child from being a caveman or cavewoman to a human. So you end up with this runaway or kill it response. It's very, Very primal and it's very binary. Yes, No. And I'm like, Can we get some nuance on this? No nuance, Kill the nuance, Kill the bringer of nuance. Burn the witch, Burn her. Can I just ask a question? No, No questions, Death, Death to questions. And you go, Okay, This is probably not good because now we're drifting off into a place where people will get hurt and we'll lose sight of potential solutions that are there. I'm not saying there's not a virus. I've never said there's not a virus. I've never said it doesn't hurt people. The only thing I've questioned is what's the response and what's a smart response that hurts the least number of people and does the most amount of good. But when people are coming from that reptile complex, They can't do that. So this is where we wanna create space. We wanna create gaps. We wanna create boundaries, But these are internal boundaries between the feeling and the response so that we can know as adult human beings, A thought is not reality. A feeling is not reality. And if we are getting lost in that reptilian response, The fight, Flight, Combative, No, I must protect my territory response. This is my team. This is my tribe, Which is now with the internet becomes this weird broad gaggle of people that you align with. You're on the other tribe. There's not enough resources here. We must kill you. And so you demonize the other. This has been coming a long time. This is not, Coronavirus didn't do this. The coronavirus was way before the coronavirus kicked off. It's just, It's human nature and it can get hacked and it can get exploited. So back to meditation. The meditation brings you back to the higher levels of who you are and what you are. If you can accept the idea, If it's not contrary to religious beliefs, And we can say, Look, We seem to be manifest as flesh, Right, We can observe that we are flesh. We are physical entities, We're manifested as physical entities that require food. And we have this hard, Hardwired drive in us to reproduce. So we have lust, We want love, We want to pair bond, We want to feel safe, We want cover, We want roots and protection and warmth and food and these things. So we're material. That's, All of that comes from the material, But we're also more than that. We're also of spirit. We're also manifestations of spirit in flesh. It's not a scientific point. It might become a scientific point one day. I think where if you're a hardcore scientist, The way to align this is, You know those parts of science where we have to throw our hands up and say, We don't know, Because you have to do that all the time in psychology. It's just like, We don't know. Don't know, Don't know. Why do we do that? Don't know. More research required, Larger sample size required, Give us another 20 years and we'll squeak forward that far. Because we can't really be answered by the scientific method. The scientific method is wonderful. The scientific method is necessary. The scientific method gives us all the stuff and the abundance and the technology and the ability for me to talk to you now like this. Wonderful. We're so lucky to live in these times. So, So lucky. We should never forget that. This is a fantastic time to be alive and we should all be really, Really grateful for that. Ability to live in these times. That ability to communicate and connect. But not lose sight of the fact that there is mystery at least. And in that mystery, We have to say, Okay, Well, What does that mean? What is it that causes me to talk? Science can't answer that. Where did I come from? Where will I go to? We don't know. That's beyond knowledge. Where is consciousness coming from? Is it in the meat of the brain? Is it in the body? What motivates it? We don't know. Why are we here? Science can't answer that. I am not anti-science. The way I see myself is like, I have a lot of sympathy for that medieval period where in Southern Spain, You had the Christians for brief periods. I'm not saying it was like a utopian paradise and that there wasn't religious persecution, But there was periods in the workplaces where Christians, Jews, Muslims lived side by side and were harmonious for periods. The mathematicians came together, The poets came together, The astronomers came together, The physicians came together, And they would say, Wow, Here's the world. We are all people of faith. We all believe in spirit. We're all praying to one God, And we believe it's the same God, Though with different methodologies. And we want to further an understanding of the world at the same time. There wasn't this binary split. You're either a scientist or you're somebody who's spiritual. That's really weird. Like, Why does it have to be that way? Why don't we just say, This is really good for this. This Wellington boot is fantastic for walking through a muddy field. It's a really crap receptacle for your cornflakes in the morning, Though. So this tool is fantastic for this, But for this thing over here, We actually need something else. Coming back to spirit is gonna be really, Really important. Understanding our place in the cosmos is gonna become really important. It always was, But we drowned it out with the stuff of the material world. We managed to suppress all of that with the stuff of the material world. The problem with it is it's a wretched place to live. It's a wretched state of existence. Humans cannot live without meaning. And what we had done is through technological advancement that crushed religion through wars, That crushed religious belief through basically the march forward, Our progress through history. It's nobody's fault. It's not. I don't think it's part of some big agenda. I think this is part of our evolution. If you pull back the focus, You just go, This is where human evolution is going. This is a blip. This is a dip. This is a thing and it's gonna pass and something new will come after it. But the way we can look at this, We go, Okay, Technology, Great. Did we get a bit obsessed with the shiny things? Yeah, Because airplanes are really cool, Because cars are really cool, Because factories are really cool. And they can also be used to bring hell into the world and they can also be used for heavenly purposes. So they can be used in a way that is for good, To use, What's good. They can be used for things that are life-affirming, Creativity-affirming, That bring us up, That are uplifting, Or they can be used for terrible things as well. Did we get a bit too obsessed with it? Yeah. Did we get a bit carried away? Yeah. Do scientists and people working in the scientific field, Do they develop an ego problem sometimes? Yeah, Of course they do. All humans do if they've got power. It's tremendous power to know things, Especially when you know something that the other monkeys don't. Some people hold the power of life and death in their hands. There's not many human beings I would trust with that, Under any circumstances. Soldier, Policeman, Doctor. There's not many, There's not much evidence I've seen of where we're up to in humanity, Where that power wouldn't be on some level corrupting, Where the ego wouldn't overgrow its boundaries without discipline and without clipping. Meditation is actually very, Very easy if you shake up your world view, Which is why I've been talking for 20 minutes, Instead of showing you how to meditate. I need to get you on the same page in terms of the world view. Ego will dissolve within seconds. Your spirit wants to ascend. It wants to move upward. It's the material world that holds it down. It's not like spirit needs to flap really hard to move. Its natural motion is up, But if you block it with the various habits we have for trying to deal with the pain of having lost meaning, Because it's extremely painful, The scientific world view is a horrifying world view. If you put your Wellington boot where your Corn Flakes bowl should be, It gets really messy, Because the scientific view is there's no meaning. We're here because of random chance. We're floating on a rock. We're extremely vulnerable. There isn't enough room. There isn't enough stuff. We're all gonna die, And when we die, Our lives didn't mean anything. Our families' lives didn't mean anything. Our children's lives, It's horrifying. It's a horrifying way to live, And I'm not saying I have an answer, But I'm saying that's a problem. I'm allowed to say, Guys, Girls, Can we agree? That's a problem. Living life without meaning, As we have been, Is misery-inducing. It makes us miserable, Cranky, And agitated. We need meaning, And that meaning can't come from the material world, And I don't believe that science can give it to us. I think that they've tried. I think psychology has tried. Psychology's tried to fill in the gaps where philosophy and spirituality and religion couldn't. How do you think psychology's done? I don't think it's done a great job. People still need more. So meditation gives you a chance to go from the material world and to let it go. That's all you're doing. That's all you're doing. You breathe, You sit. Now, If you're trying to take your mind to some place and trying to force an enlightenment, It'll be miserable, But if you just sit and let what happens happen, It's an enjoyable, Pleasant experience that will offer you a lot of comfort, A lot of insight. You don't have to have silence. You just want space. So you talk yourself down. You breathe more slowly. You come back into your body and you just sit. If you're scared of the silence or you're scared of the just sittingness, Just set your timer for two minutes. You're probably watching this on a smartphone that has a timer on it. And just sit for two minutes and let it be a pleasant experience of just sitting and just letting go. You will feel that spirit side of yourself come forward. Quite naturally, It'll start to just come forward and you'll feel yourself start to both ascend and connect with everything that is. It doesn't take weeks, Months, Years. You don't need to perambulate all the way around the house to get there. Just let it happen. Just let it happen. We have the time and the space to do that now. So this seems like it would be a good use of our time and our space. My advocacy is sit as I have been sat for the last 23 minutes now with my back unsupported, Which it hurts a little bit. Shows I need some back strength. Doing all those pull-ups, Doing all these dumbbell crock rows, But can't sit up straight and support my own weight. That says a lot, Doesn't it? That's activity, That's materialism, Because I'm investing in the body, The material, Rather than taking that time and investing in spirit. So it shows you where my priorities are. So sit with your back unsupported. If you can do, Say, Zap, Which is you just sit kneeling. I think that position is better. If you need a cushion or a pillow under your bum, Then so be it. If not, You do what I'm doing now. I'm sat on the edge of the couch. I'm supporting my own body weight. My hands are either on my knees flat, Or I can hold them together, Or you can do this if you choose to. You can use this mudra. There's plenty of different mudras you can use that have different purposes, But just keep it simple. Breathe, Slow down, Think about what I've said. Your spirit is present already. Nothing needs to be added to you. What needs to happen is things need to be taken away. The world, The things, The urges, The addictions, All of these addictions, All of these urges, All of this activity is us trying and failing to deal with the pain and the fact that we've disconnected from spirit, And we've disconnected from meaning. So we don't know why we're here. And so life becomes a hell of nihilism and meaninglessness. Of course, Narcissism will replace that because if there's no meaning, Why not just eat as many Cadbury's creme eggs as you can? Because there's a momentary pleasure in a Cadbury's creme egg. I haven't eaten one in years. I don't know why I said that, Maybe because Easter's coming. I think I read something yesterday, I know why. I read something yesterday that said the police are telling shops they're not allowed to sell Easter eggs because they've misunderstood the commands of the government that said stop people from doing things that are non-essential. So some police went into shops and said, You're selling non-essential items, Stop selling Easter eggs. You have to laugh, You have to laugh. This is gonna pass, This is gonna pass. Some people I think are gonna have that moment after this, Where they sort of come round, Where they've been drunk, They've been high on ideology, On propaganda, And they're gonna come round and they're gonna have a hangover and be like, What the hell did I do? What was I thinking? Why would I say that? Why would I do that? Why would I think that was an appropriate thing to do or that was an appropriate thing to say? It's fine, It's fine, It's a process. We're all in a process. Individually, On this channel, People are trying to recover from trauma. They're trying to move forward, They're seeking to ascend. I've never really spoken much about meditation because I know it's a trigger for people in the same way. No, Forgiveness is a trigger for people. However, Both of these things are necessary and at some point we are gonna have to start dealing with them. So the meditation that you're gonna do is you're gonna seek spaciousness within yourself. You're gonna let go of the things of this world, The material world, Just for a moment, Two minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, Doesn't matter, Time, Whatever, Whatever works for you. Let your spirit be present as it already is. It's there right now. It's there right now, But if you're suppressing it with cigarettes and alcohol and caffeine and junk food and the Kardashians and too much Instagram and porn and online gambling and all of the distractions that we're all using to try to ameliorate the terrible pain of disconnection and it all becomes unnecessary when we reconnect. Just need to reconnect. That's a perfect opportunity. So see this as a few moments of you plugging back into the cosmos, Of you plugging back into spirit, Of you letting your spirit be there. You don't have to do anything. Don't do a weird visualization. You don't need to go anywhere. You don't need to force some supreme enlightened state where there's no thought. I don't think I've ever experienced that in my life where there's literally no thought, But I've got plenty of benefit from meditation whilst never ever experiencing complete motion, Complete thoughtlessness. You get massive benefits from, Say there's really noisy, Anxious, Angry, Emotional flashback, Primal response mind, And then there's motion, Which apparently exists, And we just get halfway along the scale. Whoa, That's easily enough. We're doing so well. You get halfway or you just get halfway to halfway. Your mind was slightly more quiet than it was before. Great, Well done. 10 out of 10. Gold star. So, It's time to attempt to re-find our place in the world and to bring meaning back to the world because this is where faith comes from. This is where connection comes from. This is where living a good life and living a life that has meaning comes from, Is this. Is this. And that's the gift here, Is we can see a lot of the institutions that we trust, The big ones, The archontic, Lords above us, People with letters after their name, They've got special uniforms, Some of them have big hats, Some of them wear capes, All of this kind of groovy stuff, Man. It's really cool, But it's just monkeys. It's just monkeys. Just monkeys. They don't know anything more than, They know more than you, But they're not more connected than you are. That's collapsing, Struggling. It won't collapse. I shouldn't use the word collapse. It's struggling. It's moving out of its hierarchical zone towards a collapse. And the gift in that is for you to go, Oh, Oh, They don't know more than me. They're not more than me. They're not bigger than me. I can choose to go along with what they say or I can choose not to. There is no implicit command there for people not to be obeying the rules about social distancing and no contact. Do it. Do it. If you want my opinion about where to rebel, I'd say when police and other agents of government start taking control that they shouldn't take on the basis of a national emergency, That's where we need to be very vigilant and we need to be very careful. So, Why don't you try it now? Just try it with me now. Get into the right position. 30 minutes of unsupportedness on me back. Get into the right position. Put your head on straight. Breathe, Breathe normally. Don't use any special breathing techniques, But do breathe. Make sure you fill your lungs with oxygen. Begin to find space between your thoughts. Put your consciousness back into your body, Into your feet, Into your hands, Into your back. Feel everything that you can feel. Breathe. You need to do that. That's necessary. You will be facing a very severe physical emergency very rapidly if you stop breathing. Let yourself breathe. Notice what you can hear. Notice what you can see. And accept it. Accept what you can see. There it is. It's all right. Notice what you can hear. Accept it. Notice what you can feel. And accept it. And as you enter the moment, The present moment, And you feel the present moment entering you, Let yourself be present and that spirit be present. Let it take over to what it wants to do naturally. Let it expand, Let it ascend. And if your ego just died a little bit, You'd be, Oh, That's awesome. That's really cool. That's as easy as it is. It doesn't really die. It's only a ghost anyway. It's just that the ghost in the machine goes offline for a few seconds. You get a little rest from that jabbering voice. So this is it. That's all you do. And don't make it foreign. Don't make it weird. Don't make it exotic. Don't make it about shaved heads and robes and people with funny names. You are spirit manifest. It's as much you as it is anybody else, Which is a message you would get from Buddhism particularly. This very body, The Buddha, This very moment, The Buddha, There's nothing else. There's just this. And if you can accept this just for a minute, Maybe we did two minutes, Three minutes there, If you can accept this and you drop down into it and you accept it, You ascended. Not all the way. You came back. You still got your socks and whatever your plans are for today, They're still there. But just for a minute, Your ego goes offline. Just for a few seconds, You ascend. And in that moment, You're present. And in that presence, You can connect. And you can think, Oh, It's okay. It's okay. It's reassuring when you're reconnected to spirit. You get the sense of everything is okay. Everything is gonna be okay. Everything is just as it should be. Breathe. Let's have a little straighten the spine. Just for a second, Everything disappears. So if you accept it, Let it be where it is. Try it three or four times a day. Whatever it is you're gonna do, Do a bit of this first. If people are hoovering, Stuff's going on, Just accept it. Just let it be where it is. Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for your time and attention. If you went right the way through to the end of this, You were giving me very high quality attention at the end. So I'm super grateful for that. Please be grateful for everything that you do have. Please be conscious, Please be aware for everything that's going on right now. And we'll look forward to speaking to you soon. Cheers.

Reviews

Very interesting and enjoyable talk. Thank you.

Very nice and helpful. Thank you 🙏