Two women are having a conversation.
And the one woman's telling her friend,
She said,
Oh my God,
I finally had a morning where I had nothing to worry about.
And the other friend was like,
Oh my god,
That must have been amazing.
And she's like,
No,
It was terrifying.
I couldn't figure out what it was that I was forgetting.
So we have this rather strange relationship with worry where it feels like it's keeping us safe,
It feels very protective and so the absence of worry sometimes feels kind of off,
Kind of strange like oh no no I'm forgetting something,
What am I forgetting to keep hold of?
And so it's kind of this feeling that if I'm worrying now,
Then I won't be caught off guard later.
So it feels like it's doing something.
So when we're replaying the day and we're kind of going through an email,
The last email we sent we're thinking about oh did I put everything in the email that I was supposed to address or how did I sound in the email,
It feels safe,
It feels protective,
It feels even responsible.
Like yes,
We're doing something that's really That's good for us,
Right?
We're checking everything.
And so from an evolutionary standpoint,
We did evolve to focus on what could go wrong.
I mean,
It makes sense,
Right,
That we're,
From a survival standpoint,
That we are thinking about the things that need to be done,
That need action,
That need a resolution.
So we can imagine as our our ancestors were back at the cave at night and thinking about maybe a watering hole is starting to dry up or it's no longer safe to go to that watering hole or yeah it's time we better get the blueberries tomorrow or it'll be too late they'll go off or someone else is going to get the blueberries or maybe there's a problem in the tribe and it's like yeah we need to resolve this.
This is all very survival related right survival of the tribe survival of each of the members of the tribe and there's an action that's involved.
In each thing that they're looking to see what could be going wrong,
But there's an action that always follows along with it,
And there's a resolution.
But for the things that we spend our time worrying about,
It's usually not survival.
There's usually no action.
There's no resolution.
We're just,
We're thinking about,
We're replaying the email,
We're replaying some conversation that we had.
99% of the time,
There's nothing to do about it.
There's no problem in there,
And there's nothing that we would do.
And yet we feel just compelled to keep doing it because it feels like it's keeping us safe.
And a big part of why I feel we do spend more time worrying than say our ancestors did is because so much of our lives are on autopilot.
Right?
That when we go about our day,
We're driving down familiar roads,
We're going in familiar stores,
We're feeling very safe.
In our surrounding.
So it frees up our mind to be able to look for problems,
Right?
So we're imagining problems,
We're imagining that we're fixing our problems in our thoughts,
We're imagining we're coming up for these solutions.
And then we just keep repeating.
It's like there's never,
There's an endless supply.
Whatever you send the mind out looking for a problem,
It will find a problem.
I mean,
If it has to go back to a conversation 20 years ago,
Something we said that we still feel embarrassed about,
It'll go pull that out and say,
Now let's think about this.
This is a bit of a problem right now.
So it will always find a problem,
And it seems to be this.
Momentum of our mind,
It's the habit energy of our mind.
To go out.
And look for problems.
But it's not doing it on its own as well,
Because every time we're imagining these problems in our minds,
Our nervous system is reacting as though this problem is real.
So we're thinking about,
Oh my gosh,
That conversation.
Did I say something stupid?
I can't believe I said this.
Should I say something to them?
Should I apologize?
Should I do this?
All this going back and forth and this thinking about,
Oh my god,
This huge problem that we imagine we have that we are most likely never going to say anything about because it's getting blown up to be bigger in our minds.
And at the same time,
Our brain is hearing this and going,
Oh,
Well,
There's a real problem here,
Right?
There's a real threat here.
And so our nervous system is activated.
It's agitated.
It's anxious.
We're stressed.
And so our nervous system is also used to being in quite an agitated state,
Because we spend a lot of time looking for problems.
We're on autopilot a lot.
And so sometimes it's the thought preempts the nervous system response,
But also it can just be that the nervous system used to being in this agitated state,
And then it prompts us to go out and look for a problem to match how it is that we're feeling inside.
So on the one hand,
It makes us feel safe,
It feels protective to do this worrying,
To keep scanning through our lives and where's their problem,
I need to.
.
.
I need to keep check on everything.
I'm somehow holding all this together.
In the one hand,
It feels safe.
But on the other hand,
It's also maintaining an agitated state.
In our nervous system,
In our body,
We feel on edge.
We feel a little bit like,
Oh,
I'm just waiting for the next shoe to drop.
And so what makes this very challenging for us is that It's also very familiar.
Right?
The worrying thoughts,
They feel familiar.
The worry,
The agitation in the body,
It feels familiar and what's familiar also feels safe for us.
It's why we have a lot of difficulty when we're leaving a bad relationship or trying to leave a bad job,
A dead-end job.
Because even though we know it's not making us happy,
We know this isn't the right partner for us,
It may be a really abusive relationship,
But it's so familiar.
It feels more safe.
Than the unknown.
Than whatever the other variable might be.
This is more familiar to us.
So again,
It feels safe.
It all feeds into this kind of sense that no,
We're actually doing something good here.
But what does not feel?
Familiar to us,
What is very unfamiliar to us.
Is presence.
Is feeling okay,
Is feeling safe.
Feeling the openness and the spaciousness of this moment,
That is actually quite unfamiliar to us.
While of course we do have times when we're when we're mindful and we're recognizing that agitation and we come in and we breathe and we feel it and we're like oh yeah I can I can feel just that not even sure of what it is that I'm worrying about.
Just something feels a little bit off.
We're just kind of used to being in that state.
And we come in and we feel it,
And we breathe,
And we go,
Oh,
Wow,
Yeah.
Okay and it starts to we start to feel a little more settled we start to open up to what it is that's here and we go oh yeah it was just just that habit energy again just kind of dragging us along but we recognize it and we and we come into the present moment using mindfulness to help bring us into what it is that's here but then too much of the time.
We're not.
Allowing mindfulness to arise.
We're in fact even keeping that mindfulness at bay because we're thinking no,
No,
No,
No,
No,
What I'm worried about now,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
This,
This is too important to let go,
This really matters,
It's not just a little bit of an uncomfortable feeling,
It's not just a little bit of a disappointment from saying something embarrassing,
Right?
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
This I can't let go of.
It doesn't feel safe.
To even take one mindful breath,
It doesn't,
We don't feel that we could,
We feel,
Excuse me,
We feel that we would be too exposed.
We feel like we would be too vulnerable.
To let go.
Of what it is that we're worrying about,
Let go of what it is that we're fearing to even take one mindful breath.
And so what we need.
In that moment.
Is faith.
Because we are being asked in that mindful breath.
We are being asked to let go.
Of everything that we think is keeping us safe.
Our thoughts that we think are solving some imaginary problem or that are maybe trying to solve some real problem that is happening.
We're being asked to let go of everything that we truly believe is holding it all together.
And to take that leap.
Into the unknown.
Of presence.
What will happen?
If I let go of all of these thoughts for a moment,
I might fall apart.
And I know that faith faith in the modern world,
In a secular,
A mostly secular world,
A post-enlightenment world.
Is kind of a bad word.
Right.
We look at faith and we go,
Oh,
There's no reasoning in faith.
There's no rationality in faith.
There's no intelligence.
There's no wisdom in faith.
Oh my gosh,
Who would just have faith?
But as Paul Hederman says.
You and I have tons of faith.
It's just which vehicle we're putting our faith into.
Because we have an enormous amount of faith.
In our thoughts,
In the head,
In the worrying,
And the anticipating,
And the rehearsing,
And the defending,
And the trying to protect.
We have an enormous amount of faith in that system.
That when we wake up at 2 a.
M.
And we're all of a sudden thinking,
Oh my God,
I forgot to put something in that email.
Oh my God,
I had this conversation with someone and I forgot to mention something.
And we can't let it go.
Because we feel that we're doing something in that moment.
We feel that that thinking,
That stress,
That keeping us up at 2 a.
M.
Is actually doing something.
We have faith.
We just have it in the wrong thing.
And so when we think about.
The.
You know,
The universe.
It's been evolving for billions of years.
Life for billions of years,
Right?
This intelligence of atoms rearranging themselves,
Sometimes as planets,
Sometimes as stars,
Sometimes as mountains.
The intelligence in a little cell,
One single cell,
Knows whether it's going to be a tree,
Whether it's going to be an oak tree or a pine tree,
Or whether it's going to be a human cell,
It's going to be a human heart,
Or it's going to be an elephant heart.
The intelligence of one little cell,
All of this intelligence and these countless conditions that are arising in each and every single moment.
We look at this,
This vastness of life unfolding,
And we go,
Yeah,
I want to trust all this.
Just not until they've returned my text.
I just need to know that everything's okay there.
Then I'll start to trust all this.
So we have faith.
We just have it in the wrong thing.
And I'm not suggesting that this is some kind of magical thinking faith where we pretend that no,
Nothing bad ever happens,
The universe just carries me,
It's all just love and light,
Right?
I'm not suggesting that at all.
Because sometimes there are things that are going on that actually do need our attention.
That do need an action,
That do need a resolution.
I mean,
Maybe there's something,
Our housing situation is a little bit precarious,
Maybe our health is,
There's a looming diagnosis,
Maybe there's a problem with a relationship,
Maybe there's a problem with our job,
And it's something that does need our attention.
And so this is where when mindfulness comes in,
When we let mindfulness arise then.
That first just that mindful breath that just that recognizing the fear is here.
Right once we've made that leap yes there's an immediate kind of ah that sense of yeah it's okay even just that or it just takes off that edge a little bit but it's a big leap.
To that mindful breath,
A big leap.
And yet when we take that mindful breath and we're recognizing fear is here and we're moving closer to it and allowing it to be as it is,
Breathing openly and spaciously and saying,
It's okay that you're here,
Fear.
Maybe we are concerned that we're about to lose our job.
Maybe we have just gotten the diagnosis of some health scare or some diagnosis of a disease.
Yeah.
And we breathe and we feel it.
And we go,
Yeah,
And the fear is here.
And it's OK to feel it here in the present moment.
It's OK that it's here.
So with mindfulness,
When we come into what's here,
We're not doing it to push away what's here.
We're coming in to be with what's here.
The fear.
And as we keep doing this,
And I know we've talked about this a lot of times,
But it's worth repeating this again,
Right,
As we're with the fear and after a minute or two,
We inquire what else is here.
What else is here?
You know,
Maybe some despair,
Some uncertainty,
Maybe some guilt or some shame,
Right?
It's amazing what we keep peeling back the layers as we keep allowing one,
You know,
What starts out with fear because our housing situation is unstable at this moment.
Maybe we don't have a housing situation at all and starts out as fear,
But what we really get down to is maybe the shame that we feel we've made so many bad decisions in life and this is because I have done too many bad things and I've just screwed up and I'm just a hopeless person right and so we kind of we get to the shame or the guilt that the fear is fueling and what happens as we get to really the root cause there of what's really helping or what's really driving all of this.
The dialogue starts to change,
Right?
I mean,
It's already shifted because we're in the body.
But now,
Instead of beating ourselves up,
Instead of,
Oh my god,
I'm hopeless,
And I can't believe that I've done all these things,
And now look at me.
I don't have a place to live,
Or I don't have a job,
Or I don't have a partner,
Right?
And instead of all that worrying that really brings us into a sense of paralysis,
What arises in its place.
Is wisdom and compassion.
The wisdom that says,
Hey,
You've made a few mistakes,
But you're human.
Yeah,
Starts to give some perspective.
Yeah,
You didn't want this to happen.
But yeah,
You had a bit of a run of bad luck.
You're.
You're not hopeless.
You're okay in this moment,
Because then we can even recognize that in this moment,
I'm okay.
And it can give us the strength and the courage to even just take that one step.
That's needed right now.
Because if we stay in paralysis.
Then we're not getting anywhere and perhaps we do need to be doing something.
So it gives us the courage,
It gives us the strength,
It gives us the good advice.
That we need,
It stops beating,
We stop beating ourselves up,
We stop judging ourselves and putting ourselves down and recognize we're human,
We need some grace.
We've made mistakes,
We all have.
We all have.
So we're not left rudderless.
In the present moment.
With mindfulness.
Is wisdom.
That's what's guiding us now.
That's what's starting to give us the advice now.
That's what's giving us the strength now.
And sometimes people call it a higher power,
Or sometimes people use the word God.
Right?
There's all sorts of names for it.
But it's wisdom,
It's compassion,
That's what's now guiding us.
So it's not a question of whether we have faith or not,
We have faith.
We have faith.
In the head,
A lot of faith in that.
And it continues to drive us in ways that that prevent us from living the lives that we do have,
That relatively speaking,
Most of us are quite safe.
We are walking around in fairly safe conditions.
We're not worried about whether we really do have food in the fridge or whether we'll have friends there to support us or whether we can go and buy a bag of oatmeal the next day,
Like most of us really have enough,
Enough.
We're not millionaires,
We're not billionaires,
But we have enough.
And so when we recognize that having faith And again,
When I'm saying the head,
The separate self,
The ego,
Right?
The broadcast,
Right?
Having faith in that has not served us very well.
It sees everything in a very narrow view,
Very myopically,
And we're always to blame.
But when we have more faith in presence,
In our mindfulness practice,
In our meditation practice,
In the Dharma teachings,
In this path,
In our spiritual path,
That keeps bringing us back.
Right,
Having more faith that the wisdom will be there to guide us.
We're not taking this leap of faith into into a vacuum of nothingness.
That in fact,
What's supporting us there.
Is wisdom,
Is compassion,
And the more faith that we have in that,
The more that we are guided in a way that gets our internal conditions to match our external conditions.
But it does feel in those dark moments.
When we're on our own.
And really,
Those thoughts,
They're there.
They're beating us up.
And they're telling us,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No.
Don't take that mindful breath.
We can't wait to feel comfortable.
Before we take that leap of faith.
Because it's not going to happen.
It's unfamiliar.
That first part is uncomfortable.
We're leaving everything behind we think that is holding this together,
That has been holding this together our whole lives.
And that first part is a leap of faith into the unknown,
But with mindfulness.
With the wisdom and compassion that's here in the presence.
In the present moment.
You're supported.
And you're guided.
And you're living your life more peacefully,
More harmoniously.
Faith isn't something we talk about much.
I do bring it up,
You guys know I've brought it up.
I mean,
Many times I have brought up faith on this path.
It's been a very big part of my path here is having faith.
It's not a bad word.
It's not without reason.
It's not without rationality.
As I think this is in one of the Mahayana Sutras,
Faith enters,
Wisdom follows.
Faith enters,
Wisdom follows.
If you want the wisdom,
We've got to be willing to take that leap of faith.
And to see for ourselves,
Are you supported?
It supported you every single time.
Every time we've had a mindful breath,
It's supported us.
It will do it in those times when we are terrified as well.
But we need that little leap of faith or that big leap of faith in that moment and to trust that what we are being guided with is wisdom and compassion at that point.
That's a much better vehicle to have our faith in,
Much better.
