Resisting Reality

This is from the Insight Timer Live Part 2 Life Shouldn't Be This Way. We all have trouble accepting the reality of life's struggles and pain. It feels unfair and overwhelming. This is a guided inquiry and practice of releasing resistance and making friends with what is. Part 2 of 4: Finding peace through seeing clearly and accepting life as it is.

Transcript

The real foundation of these kinds of inquiries,

The mindfulness,

Somatic,

In the body-based inquiries,

Is to really stay present in your body so that you can stay present in this moment in time.

All of the tools that we use,

Like looking around the room that you're in for cues of safety,

Noticing your breath,

Being in touch with your breath,

Doing box breathing,

Longer exhales,

All of those are to let our nervous system know that we're here in this moment,

And in this moment we might have some very alarming thoughts in our mind,

And we might have some really difficult memories of things,

And right now in this moment,

What's really here is we're doing a practice,

An inquiry practice and a relaxation practice.

So it's good to be in touch with that reality as well.

What's happening right now,

And do you feel safe in your physical body?

So take a few deep breaths,

And even just to notice,

Does it feel okay to take a few deep breaths?

What happens in your body when you do that?

And sometimes what happens in our body when we take a few deep breaths is that we notice how tight our gut is,

Our stomach,

We might be holding our gut in.

We might feel like it's too much,

It's too intense,

Or it kind of disturbs us somehow.

Those are really common responses,

Especially if we're in a state of freeze.

We talk about the nervous system and our survival responses of fight,

Flight,

And freeze.

And freeze is a really deep sense of immobilization,

Of things are too much,

I can't handle what's going on,

And we just kind of curl in and hide.

So if we interfere with that by taking some deep breaths,

That can feel uncomfortable.

So that might be one of the things that you notice when you take some deeper breaths.

The really wonderful thing about taking some deeper breaths is that it signals to the nervous system,

This non-verbal signaling,

It signals to the nervous system that we're actually safe.

Let's just tune into that for a minute or so.

Notice what it feels like to breathe.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And let your whole body be in your awareness as you're doing that.

What does it feel like to be in your body right now?

And sometimes it helps to focus on a specific thing,

Like can you feel your feet on the floor if you're sitting that way,

Your seat on a chair.

What are the sensations of your breath?

You could hold your own hand.

It's a good way to stay connected with ourselves,

Sometimes just to move your hand around a little bit to feel the warmth and the strength of your own hand.

So whatever it is that we need to do to stay in this moment,

So that's what we use these tools for.

There's a lot of utility in keeping our eyes open as well.

So just to even be not looking around frantically,

But just kind of noticing what's here as we go through the inquiry or kind of fix your eyes softly on something.

So if you were to come into a couple of moments of reflection about what is it in your world right now that you really wish was a different way?

And there's probably a lot for all of us.

Right now,

Especially,

Many people are really in a state of fear and anxiety and our nervous systems are in a fight-flight-freeze response a lot of the time.

I think it's really clear that many of us are not operating from our best selves.

So whether we're talking about situations with COVID or with September 11th or other things that are happening in our personal lives,

It's really hard to be stable,

Emotionally well-regulated,

Mature.

There's more of an impulse towards being irritable or lashing out.

We're just not as stable as we might be if we weren't under so much pressure.

So as you're bringing to mind things that feel really unfair or wrong,

There's so much that's causing suffering.

Let yourself notice what it feels like in your body as you're bringing that to mind.

You might be feeling angry,

Despair,

Shame,

Sadness.

There's a lot of possibilities.

But notice how it feels physically in your body.

What are the sensations?

Did you notice that you just got all tight?

Take a couple of deeper breaths,

Relax your shoulders,

Your mouth and jaw,

Your whole body,

Head to toes.

There are a lot of things in the world that are really hard to take.

So one of the first things that we could do is acknowledge that that's true.

So instead of the advice of whoever told you life would be fair,

Which is basically shaming us for being frustrated with the way life is,

It's not very helpful.

Just acknowledge life is not fair.

There are a lot of things that happen that are really scary and that are harmful and that cause great suffering.

And that's the truth.

And we have a lot of wonderful things that happens too.

One of the things that our nervous system does is it has a negativity bias in the primitive brain where we're always looking for what's wrong or dangerous in order to try to keep ourselves safer.

So when we look at or we bring forward what's wrong in the world,

What is unsafe,

What is unfair,

What really bothers us,

It's really easy to come up with a lot of things.

And then we could tune in and really let ourselves feel that.

I really hate it that this is the way it is.

Why can't people take responsibility for themselves?

Why can't they?

And we all have that voice going on in our head.

And sometimes there's more of a curiosity or a,

I'm puzzled why people act the way they do.

Our nervous system really likes to understand the threats so that we can mitigate it.

So just let's continue to watch and see what it is that's coming forward right now.

There's a saying,

Hurt people hurt people.

And I know we've all experienced that as well.

Why is that person acting that way?

And some of these are very personal,

They're in our personal lives.

Others are part of this larger cultural experience that we're having.

And on September 11th,

One of the things that comes to mind is a friend of mine who was traveling from India to Canada.

He's from India originally.

And he landed in Vancouver and they held him for no reason.

He wasn't Muslim,

He was Hindu,

But he had brown skin and he looked like he might be a problem.

So they held him for hours in the airport in Vancouver.

Went through all these things.

It's such a small personal example,

But it was really scary when it was happening.

And you look at that and you go,

Well that's not fair.

And all of the people of color who were really targeted after September 11th as well,

It's not fair.

It's not right.

And Muslims who had nothing to do with terrorism are being targeted and colored by that same brush are also experienced a lot more racism and a lot of hate crimes.

And we see that all the time as well.

So depending on where we are personally located in the environment that we're in,

Our experience is different.

And then of course there's all of the people who died,

All of the people who knew people who died,

And the collective grief and fear.

20 years later it's still very much alive in our bodies,

In our nervous system.

So let's just really stay present as we're looking at this.

What is it that's here?

Take some deeper breaths.

And let's just regulate for a moment before we move on.

Let's do a little bit of box breathing.

So as you inhale,

Just take a deep inhale.

And then hold your breath.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Breathe out.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Hold your breath.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Breathe in.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Hold.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Breathe out.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Just let your breath come back to a continuous smooth rhythm.

And check your body if you're holding,

You're tensing up.

See if you can relax a little bit.

You might want to move your body around even.

And then let's come back into seeing what are the thoughts that are here.

Reality can be really hard.

And we can be very hurt.

And what is it that if I was to completely let in reality as it is,

How does that feel?

Does it feel like that would be a good idea?

Are there some things that it's okay but other things,

I don't know about that.

Let's notice if there's resistance.

If you were to say,

I'm completely open to seeing clearly,

To seeing reality just as it is.

To allowing the world,

Other people,

My life,

My health,

The situations that I'm in,

My relationships,

I'm completely open to letting them be exactly as they are.

And when you're looking at that,

Oftentimes there's a no way that happens in our body,

In our mind.

We're kind of arguing in our mind with the way things are.

So notice if that's happening.

And if it is happening,

What is it happening about?

Is there a specific thing?

Are there some things that feel like,

I don't really like that,

But I'm okay,

I can handle that.

And then there might be other things that are like,

No,

I can't,

I can't get over that.

I can't have it be that way.

So just notice what is it that comes up for you.

And maintain your awareness of your breath.

And notice what happens in your heart.

It's your experience emotionally.

We have the heart,

The heart center,

And our experience with energetic sensations,

Feelings.

If we're feeling heartbroken,

It's a very different energy in the heart center than when we're feeling empathetic joy,

For instance.

So notice what happens right now in your heart center.

What is the feeling there?

And some emotions are easier for us than other emotions.

Sometimes a thought will come into our mind and we'll go right into a big shame storm.

And then that's a really immobilizing kind of experience.

We might even notice that we're kind of curling in on ourself.

So check your posture as well.

Sit up straight.

Take some deeper breaths.

This kind of body-based inquiry,

We're really just looking.

What is it that's going on?

What do we feel?

What's here right now?

Part of what we're doing is we're watching to see what the thoughts are in the mind.

And a reverse inquiry like,

I'm completely open to having everything be as it is,

Can help to kind of solicit out of our unconscious what is it that in fact we're not okay with it being as it is.

And some of that's very personal.

It's our own personal life.

And others of it is,

It's affecting us personally,

But it has a broader cultural context.

So notice what's coming through your mind and remain as a witness to your thoughts in your mind.

If you were situated kind of just behind your head and you were watching as thoughts are arising,

Notice how they come in as words or pictures.

Pictures might be like a drawing or a still photo,

A video clip.

Words might be like they're in somebody's voice.

Just notice kind of the details or the nuances for a moment.

What is it?

What are some of the variations of what comes in as you're watching your thoughts in your mind?

And we can always do some tapping.

Put a couple fingers on your forehead and just tap gently.

If thoughts are really compelling or you're starting to go down a rabbit hole of compulsive thinking or catastrophic thinking,

It's a really great idea to just kind of pause,

Do some tapping,

Bring your attention into the sound and sensation of that on your forehead instead of letting yourself continue to go down that road.

Or put it in a frame,

Put it on the other side of the room.

Put it in a frame,

Notice the space around it.

So we have these tools that we can use to help ourselves stay in the present moment.

But for the most part,

With a mindfulness practice,

We're not trying to silence the mind,

Especially with an inquiry practice.

We're bringing forward something that we're looking at.

Right now we're looking at can I be okay with reality as it is?

And of course the answer to that is not an unqualified yes.

There's so much that feels wrong or disappointing or we've been betrayed or we've been hurt.

So we're not looking for a kind of to rise above everything.

We're really looking to have a reality of what is it that's going on for me right now?

What are the thoughts in my mind?

And then as you're noticing the thoughts in your mind,

What is your response to those in your body?

So some thoughts that come in,

We just kind of hold our breath.

Other thoughts that come in,

We notice that we're clenching our teeth or we've tightened up.

So as part of this mindfulness practice,

We can just let ourselves relax and soften.

We have our eyes open maybe,

Looking around the room,

Noticing these are thoughts that are in the mind.

They're not actually coming in as reality.

They're just coming in as these are the thoughts that are coming in.

Words and pictures.

This is the response in my body.

We often don't give ourselves enough time to just kind of sit with this.

Let ourselves really connect with what's here.

Sometimes what's here is thoughts and other times often it comes in as well as some really deep emotion.

Hurge or sadness,

Betrayal,

Sometimes it's anger.

So just to let ourselves feel into this for another minute or two.

Keep attention on your breath.

One of the things that we see when we're doing an inquiry like this is that our idea about what life should be and our idea about what our particular life should be is very different often from what our life is.

And part of this is our cultural conditioning.

The Hallmark Channel,

The Disney Channel kind of a life.

And that's not really something that's real.

That's a representation or a fantasy of what life is.

And we all know that life can have moments like that.

But that's not really a full life.

We have a lot of pain and a lot of difficulty and struggles in our human lives.

We have our fragile mammal bodies,

Our primitive brain that generates all kinds of anxiety and fear.

We go off into fight,

Flight,

Freeze.

And we also have this amazing humanness in us.

We have our higher level brain development.

We have our capacity for love and connection.

Let yourself sit with all of that for a moment,

Just all of that complexity.

Stay connected in your whole being.

And as you're breathing out,

Let your body soften,

Let your body settle.

And then notice you could bring your hand to your heart or one or both of your hands to your heart if you want,

Just to notice,

Could you offer yourself some compassion?

So it's so common that when other people,

People we care about or sometimes even strangers,

When we know that they're having a hard time,

We have so much compassion for them.

And yet when it's ourselves,

We often don't allow ourselves to have that.

We just have that kind of rigidity of,

Well,

You know,

If I hadn't done that or if I had done that or,

You know,

If I was better at this,

Then I wouldn't have had that problem.

So see if you're shaming yourself.

And if you are,

Notice what that feels like in your body.

It could be an inner critic,

Some kind of a hardness or cold heartedness.

And then bring your attention into your heart and let yourself experience your own good wishes and your own goodwill.

Life is really hard.

And for some of us that are doing this practice right now,

It's really difficult right now.

There might be a real overwhelming experience right now,

Grief or sadness or pain of some kind,

Loss.

Could we be kind to ourselves?

Could we offer ourselves some comfort and some acknowledgement to come back to how we started near the beginning?

Could we acknowledge to ourselves at least that life is really hard a lot of the time?

And a lot of the things that are happening are very unfair and we hate it.

We don't want to be in this kind of a life where people are walking around with these huge fight responses or,

You know,

There's all of this that's going on that's so hard to deal with.

And why can't people just try to be kinder and why can't this and why can't that and why can't that person driving ahead of me go the speed limit and all of these things that come up.

And then take some breaths and just let yourself be a human being.

We all have these responses.

We all get irritated with other people.

And we all have this huge capacity for love and kindness as well.

Taking a few more deep breaths.

Open your eyes,

Look around.

Before we finish the practice,

Just to notice what is it that came up?

What did you notice during the practice,

During the inquiry?

One of the things we notice is certain kinds of thoughts make us hold our breath or tense our body and then we have a chance to come back into relaxing again.

What did you notice,

Especially when you were doing that reverse inquiry of I'm completely open to life as it is right now?

What did you notice came up as no,

I'm not okay with that?

And then just to see,

Maybe that's something to work with going forward a bit more.

And sometimes we need to make a change.

We need to change a relationship or get out of a relationship or maybe stop being so hard on ourselves.

What's the difference between meditation and mindfulness?

So partly it's mindfulness is paying attention to what's here.

One of the keys of mindfulness is to be here in the present moment.

And when we're in fight-flight-freeze,

Which we go into when we're feeling unsafe or threatened,

Then we can't really be here in the moment because we're getting dragged back into the past or into the future with catastrophic thinking.

So mindfulness,

A lot of mindfulness is about witnessing,

Being present,

Using all these tools we have like being aware of the body and the breath to stay here in this moment.

And to not try to control what's happening in the moment either,

Just to really be an observer of it.

So we're not disengaged,

We're engaged with it,

But we're not looking for peace or stillness or anything in particular.

We're just noticing,

Letting life kind of show up as it is.

And then meditation is a practice of going more into the stillness of the mind.

And one of the things that I noticed is that when our fight-flight-freeze response starts to settle,

Then we have a lot more access to the stillness or the quiet in the mind.

So you know if you're ruminating about something and you're just kind of chewing on it,

You don't really have any capacity to let that go.

Often it's hard to let that kind of thing go.

And our whole mind gets taken up with that and our body gets tight.

And so meditation is more of a letting the waves in the mind settle and then letting our attention go below the waves in the mind,

Letting it go into a deeper part of the mind that has the stillness and silence.

So mindfulness and meditation are very linked,

But mindfulness as a practice is more just to really be present in this moment and see what's coming and going.

So there's a lot of practices and what they really all do is help us to come into a system that's more regulated,

A little bit more of a regulated nervous system.

So don't try to force yourself to do something that doesn't feel right.

If it doesn't help,

Then there's tons and tons of other things that we can do that will help.

So there's a lot of ways that we try to make ourselves feel more stable.

So all of those are completely normal.

And sometimes people go into some kinds of addictions or something as well.

So all of these are an attempt to get our feet back on the ground and to start to feel like we're safer.

And so these practices that we do of looking,

Just to look around the room and notice that right now there's no danger to my body.

I'm safe here right now.

That can help our nervous system to come into the moment again.

We need to always be trying to come back into this moment.

Reviews

I gained a lot of great insight through this. Thank you 🙏🏿

Thank you 🙏