Hi,
This is Ron Levine from Mindfulness in Blue Jeans,
And this talk and guided meditation is part two of the Calming Your Inner Control Freaks series,
And it's called Stop Poking the Bear.
For those who might not be familiar with the term,
I'll describe what I mean by poking the bear.
Have you ever picked up something like a hot potato and immediately dropped it,
Maybe before the full pain of it even registered,
And then had no desire to pick it up again?
Have you ever noticed that we're not quite as good at that,
With emotions or thoughts?
We seem to be unable to drop things that cause psychological pain as easily as things that cause physical pain.
We seem to keep coming back to these things again and again,
For no apparent reason or benefit.
It's like a sleeping bear that we keep poking until he wakes up.
And even if we leave him alone long enough to fall asleep again,
We'll be back to poke once more.
Why do we do this?
Even when we know that we're doing it,
And know that it's not helping.
We do it for the same reason we do anything.
Motivation.
We have a motivation to do it.
I'd like to share something that I read a while ago that can help illustrate this.
In an online forum a couple of years ago,
When Uber first started instituting surge pricing,
Such that the cost of rides increased as demand went up,
Someone wrote this in response to people who were angry about this change in the pricing structure.
I don't get the hate for surge pricing.
It feels to me like a cry for education.
For example,
An Uber where I live costs around half or less that of a regulated taxi.
Some of my friends complain like crazy when the surge modifier is like 140%,
Not realizing that it's still cheaper to have Uber around than use the old system.
They then suggest a remedy for surge pricing that is basically moving back to something closely resembling the old system.
Essentially,
Their proposals would result in a constant 100% surge pricing,
Just to have predictable prices.
As soon as I read this,
I thought about poking the bear.
Based on what he said,
The friends of the author of this comment don't really have a problem with Uber's surge pricing.
What they're unwilling to experience is uncertainty.
Their underlying motivation is to have predictability.
When we find ourselves poking the bear,
What we think is the problem is very rarely the actual problem.
The irony is that by trying to solve what we think is the problem,
We actually cause more pain.
For example,
If this proposed remedy for the Uber situation was actually put into effect,
The author's friends may have achieved some level of predictability,
But at a greater overall cost.
But in Buddhist terms,
I would consider that to be an unskillful avoidance of uncertainty.
Similarly,
When we engage in mental constant surge pricing,
We're continuously grabbing and holding our mental hot potato,
And we feel a certain level of ongoing pain.
We come to prefer this kind of self-induced chronic pain instead of dropping the potato,
And feeling better more of the time,
But being vulnerable to a sudden but discrete spike of pain on the occasions that the imagined scenario happens to actually be presented,
If it ever is.
It's a terrible plan long term,
As we end up trading happiness for predictability,
And we still don't really end up with all that much predictability.
When we poke the bear,
The mere fact that we are coming back to the same thinking over and over again without making any progress means we're not getting to the root of the issue.
So when we find ourselves poking the bear,
The question becomes,
What are we actually trying to accomplish?
If we think back to part one of this series,
We talked about the totem pole,
Where what we think is bothering us at the top of the totem pole,
And our current example,
Uber prices,
Is rarely the actual issue,
In this case,
Unpredictability,
Uncertainty,
Control.
Even trying to solve the problem at the top leads to unskillful action,
Like constant surge pricing,
Or chronic pain,
A higher overall cost.
The skillful action is to focus on the actual underlying issue,
Our aversion to uncertainty,
Unpredictability,
A feeling of lack of control.
When you find yourself narrowly focused on replaying a troubling thought continuously,
Widen the focus and inquire at a deeper level.
Let's take this into a guided meditation,
Where we work with this lower level in a very literal way.
If you're seated,
Please have your hips elevated higher than your knees.
You may imagine a string hanging from the ceiling attached to the top of your head,
Grounding you in place,
Such that you're sitting up straight,
But any part of your body that isn't holding you up can relax in its own time.
Let's begin with a bit of grounding.
Feel whatever part of your body is in touch with some kind of surface,
Whether it's a chair,
The floor,
Perhaps a part of your body that's on another part of your body,
Like your hands on your lap.
Notice the felt sensation of that contact.
We may do a brief body scan,
Looking for any pockets of tension,
Perhaps in the jaw,
The eyebrows,
Shoulders,
Stomach.
Not trying to make any changes,
Just observing what we have to work with right now.
Now,
Without trying to make any changes,
Let's slowly bring our attention to the breathing.
Whatever breath we find is fine.
There is no meditative breath.
It doesn't have to be long and slow and deep.
It's fine if it is.
But whatever breath we have right now,
As long as we're paying attention to it,
Is our meditative breath.
Let's watch it for a moment and see what we have.
And notice if anything changes,
Or not.
Now,
I mentioned that we were going to work with this practice in a very literal sense.
Again,
If we think back to the Totem Pole from Part 1 of this series,
As we worked from the top to the bottom,
We were working from an external situation to our perceptions,
Our concepts,
Our feelings,
And our reactions to our feelings about it.
As we went down the Totem Pole,
We were getting deeper and deeper into ourselves.
This can be analogous to our physical body.
The top of the Totem Pole could be sticking out of the top of our heads,
Out in the world.
And then as we start moving down,
We get into our head,
Our thoughts about it.
And we get down into our heart,
Our feelings.
And then down into our gut.
Our reactions to our feelings.
You may have a poking the bear type of thought that you've been working with lately.
If so,
I invite you to physically work your way down the Totem Pole.
We spend most of our time up in our head,
And we rarely find the real answers there.
I invite you to bring your attention downward.
Breathe into the heart area.
Let's spend a few minutes focusing our attention there,
And see what we find.
Thank you.
1 you you you you now let's take things to the bottom of the totem pole let's send the breathing and our attention into the stomach where our most visceral reactions and our deepest and most primal feelings reside just feel listen and notice you may receive a rush of messages from an area that's been neglected and not heard you may find nothing perhaps because we're just learning how to listen and we're out of practice whatever we find or don't find is fine we're just spending some time and making some space let's breathe there for a few minutes you you you you you you in these last few minutes notice what shifts might have taken place if any is there perhaps a new relationship that you're feeling with the bear is there some new clarity is there new confusion when we listen to ourselves we don't get to choose what we hear but whatever it is it's allowed to be heard as we take this practice out into the world and our daily lives I invite you to come back to the question when you find yourself poking the bear what am I actually trying to accomplish is this thing that I think is the problem really the actual problem or is there something deeper going on if we listen at that deeper level first we may find that that sets the conditions for more skillful action instead of choosing our own chronic pain out of fear this is Ron from mindfulness in blue jeans and thank you for sitting with me you
