Taking Risks: The Path To Growth

We grow by taking risks, and we stagnate by staying safe. That doesn't mean we shold be become reckless, but that taking strategic risks slowly builds courage and the conviction that we'll learn no matter the outcome. Keep your eye on the goal. Take risks in relationships and your judgments, and by becoming vulnerable.

Transcript

Hello,

Everybody.

Welcome to mindfulness live.

This week,

We've been talking about taking risks as the path to growth.

And today I want to talk about some very specific risks that we can take,

Especially in our relationships,

Risking the judgment of others risking exposing ourselves.

But we don't have to risk everything.

We can start small.

So that's what we're going to be looking at.

First of all,

Make yourself comfortable.

Just allow yourself to let go of all the urgency and the stress,

Pressure,

Neediness,

The fear,

Not getting things done or doing them wrong.

You're no longer caught up in that.

This is a break.

And for half an hour,

You just sit,

Do nothing,

But pay attention.

Feeling inside your body,

Feeling encapsulated in your body,

Or another way of putting it,

Feeling embodied.

And everything you know,

Starts in the body.

Every sensation,

Every sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

And touch.

So be there,

Paying attention,

Feeling your breath come and go.

And you can see your breath,

You can visualize it in your mind.

And you can hear your breath.

If you're very quiet,

You'll hear the passage of air.

Sometimes you can smell or taste your breath.

You can always feel it.

Feel the movement in your body,

The friction,

The temperature of cold air coming in,

Warm air going out.

So through your senses,

You know your breath,

You know your body,

You know this moment.

And this is before you even use your mind,

Before the feelings become clear.

The feeling of the breath,

The feeling of this breath.

How do you feel?

Good,

Bad,

Comfortable,

Uncomfortable,

Sad.

In every moment,

You are feeling something like this.

And you're practicing now so that during the day,

During your life,

During your busyness,

You'll pay attention to how you're feeling.

See how things impact you.

This is the key to understanding yourself.

Recognizing your reactivity,

And what triggers it.

Not what event,

But what feeling triggers this reaction or that anger or frustration.

What did you feel first?

And come back to the breath.

Back to the feeling.

And the breath comes and goes.

And your attention is fixed.

Just on the breath,

On the body,

On the thoughts that carry you away.

And when you're carried away,

You know,

Wait,

My breath.

And so you go back.

And when you feel your breath,

You ask,

How do I feel?

What's my mood?

Is it strong?

Is it weak?

Mild?

Is it angry?

When you know your feelings,

Your emotions,

Your moods,

You know yourself.

You learn your triggers and your patterns.

You learn to objectify it,

To put it at arm's length.

So there's a gap between the trigger and the reaction.

You make space in your mind,

In your heart,

Because these are all feelings that trigger you.

And here you become familiar with the movement of the breath,

The stillness of the heart,

And your ability to sit quietly,

Noticing,

But not reacting.

And now taking three more breaths,

Open your eyes.

So the number one emotion that is involved in taking risk or not taking risks is fear.

Fear doesn't have to be absolute sheer terror.

Sometimes it's just a sort of a twitch of,

Oh no,

I don't want to do that.

And that's enough to turn our minds in a certain direction,

Turn our minds away from a certain direction,

And close the door on possibilities.

This is most common in relationships,

In close relationships,

The people that we know best,

The people,

They're the people with whom we've created the largest number of patterns.

We have all sorts of behaviors which tend to play out again and again.

And keeping your eye on it can be very difficult because this is such a familiar situation,

But it's with the closest people to us that we form those patterns and that with whom we can see most clearly the way that we react.

So when you see that,

Well okay,

First of all you have to see that fear,

That aversion,

Call it what you want.

Let's just call it aversion because it's less than fear,

It just means,

Oh I don't want that,

I don't like that,

I'm avoiding that.

And we want to recognize that feeling as soon as it comes up because it tells us,

Oh there's a reaction coming up.

And it's very hard.

I've mentioned this before,

You know,

Many many times you've,

I've spoken to people and asked them,

Well you know,

What were you feeling at that time?

Oh I didn't have any feeling,

I don't feel,

I don't really have emotions.

People actually believe this and it's wrong,

Of course they have emotions,

Just the fact that they say it in such a way is already emotive,

Isn't it?

But the point is that we,

We tend to think of ourselves as being in control,

Should be in control,

And I don't like these emotions so I'm not going to have them,

Okay?

So when I feel angry I put on a face which says,

I'm okay,

I'm not angry,

Okay?

Of course Caroline can take one look at me and say,

Oh Stephen's pissed off,

What's happening?

It's obvious to everyone else except yourself.

So this idea that we can,

That emotions are optional is absolutely absurd.

This is where the mind comes from.

First of all in the body we touch things,

We feel them,

We see them and they create impressions on our retina.

And slowly all these different impressions,

These sensory impressions,

Get processed and the first way in which they're processed is,

How is,

What's this feel like?

Is this good or bad?

Should I go towards this or should I retreat from this?

That's the basic message that's being sent to us by our nervous system and this is common to all animals,

Perhaps all life.

This is common,

This is the behavior of amoebas,

Single-celled organisms.

They have the ability to come into contact with something and know whether it's edible and they go for it or it's toxic and they retreat from it.

It's exactly the same.

This is the foundation of mind.

Remember mind as a process.

Mind is not a thing,

It's not just a container,

It's an ongoing process and it starts in the body,

In the brain stem and finally it becomes fully cognitive.

We're able to talk about it and express it and describe it but that's after all this stuff has happened.

So we want to get in touch with the feelings,

That's why we practice it like this in this formal setting,

Not because,

And it's awkward sometimes,

How do I feel?

I don't know how I feel.

I feel okay,

I'm just sitting here doing nothing,

You know,

It doesn't seem like a big deal but that's not the point.

The point is when I'm out there,

How do I feel?

And so when that feeling comes up that,

Well I don't really have any feelings so I don't want to show my feelings,

I want to be aware of that.

Oh I'm suppressing my anger,

Right?

Because,

You know,

Translation,

I'm suppressing my fear.

Okay,

So when we're in touch with that,

That's the opportunity to take a risk.

Okay,

So you have to be there first,

You have to be in the place where you can say no I'm not going to do that,

I'm not going to do what's familiar,

I'm not going to my comfort zone.

So,

When you have conflict,

Conflict is really the easiest to identify and you feel threatened.

Okay,

That's a certain sort of fear.

You know that you might be defensive and you need to know what your defensiveness is because it's not the same as mine.

My defensiveness might be to go and punch somebody on the jaw,

Yours might be to go completely silent and leave the room.

They're both defensive acts,

So the trigger is the same,

The trigger is the fear.

And I don't want you to think that the trigger is the person,

It's not the person.

This is important to understand,

The trigger is your emotion,

That's what sets off that particular cascade of events,

That emotional psychological pattern which you play out,

Your comfort zone.

Okay,

It's triggered by the feeling that you get,

Not by the other person because you can change the way that you react to the other person,

You can change the way you feel,

But not at that moment,

It's an ongoing process,

You change the way that you feel about being insulted because you don't take it quite as personally anymore because you understand that this person has got their own baggage and they're acting from there.

So this understanding builds little by little,

So what you do,

You don't take this huge risk and suddenly instead of being completely silent,

Which is what you normally do,

Suddenly you come out with this big outburst,

You don't need to do that,

You just say well I don't know,

Let me think about it,

Maybe I disagree,

Or just make a very small move,

A small change in your situation and that will give you feedback.

You know,

People get so surprised,

You know,

They're spouses,

They've been living together for decades,

Okay,

And suddenly one of them makes a little change,

Speaks up,

Says you know I really don't like it when you speak to me like that,

It's like you're so stressed and you're trying to pass your stress off on to me and it makes me really uncomfortable and I haven't said anything because I feel bad for you,

But actually I feel bad for myself and I want to speak up now.

When people say something as simple and small as that,

What happens to the spouse is what?

They're shocked,

They don't know what to do,

The pattern is broken,

They have to step outside of that comfort zone themselves,

You're forcing them because the comfort zone is no longer there,

This is unfamiliar territory now and this is how we move things along,

This is how we make changes in our relationships,

But it's not about changing the relationship,

Well it is about changing the relationship in the long term,

But in the short term you have to focus on yourself,

It's about you being honest with your feelings,

That's the risk you're taking.

If I risk feeling bad or stupid or unwanted,

Well what's the outcome?

Let's try,

Let's find out,

How bad is it going to be?

There's no other way,

This is how we learn.

I know we go to school for years and years and years and we memorize all sorts of stuff and we have all this information in our head,

But you know when you go for the job interview no one cares how much schooling you've done,

They care what your experience is,

They want to know what you can do,

What comes naturally to you and what you're naturally good at.

So this other theory doesn't really,

Yeah it helps,

Yeah it's a good starting point,

It points you in the right direction,

But it's a change in this way to understand how your fears work,

What triggers them,

To identify those feelings,

That's when you have the opportunity to make a change,

To take a step back and say no,

No I'm not going to be angry,

I'm going to be silent,

Or no I'm not going to be silent,

I'm going to speak up.

Now I can't tell you what to do because I don't know what your reaction is,

Only you know that,

That's the point,

That's why you have to meditate,

You have to sit here for a little bit,

Just becoming familiar with those emotions here so that when we're out there,

When it's busy and fast and stressful,

That you know we start to notice those emotions out there too and we start to see the patterns that come from them,

We start to see the consequences of those patterns,

The price we pay,

You know when I don't speak up for myself,

I find I speak up in my,

I'm having that conversation in my head,

I'm talking to the other person and I'm having a great conversation because I say all the right things right,

I don't mess it up and I have this conversation in my head with the other person again and again and again and again,

Can go on for years,

This is wasted brain space.

So we want to grow,

That's what we're doing here,

You can't grow without taking risks,

You can't grow from theory,

You can grow only from experience,

That's how it works and you understand your experience and you take little risks,

So try it,

Try it,

Notice those feelings,

See when you get,

Well what's the main thing that you get,

Angry,

Frustrated,

What is your thing and when,

What emotions trigger it,

Just pay attention to that,

I want you to think about that for the next week or so or actually for the rest of your life and just build your understanding of that and this is not an understanding in your brain,

This is an understanding of experience,

It's a familiarity with yourself and with your moods and with your reactions and especially pay attention to this thing.

I had a long conversation with Caroline yesterday,

We've had this conversation before because it gets very confusing,

We always think well it was him,

That's what made me react that way but no,

It's not him,

It's your emotion,

It's the emotion that that person triggers in you that then initiates the reaction.

So try and notice that because we want to blame the other person,

We want to focus on the outside because it's easier than trying to understand the inside but we want to make this distinction,

It's this person that created the event but the feeling I got,

That's what triggered that particular cascade of behaviour and that's why I got angry or why I went sad or why I went silent,

Whatever it is.

This is the central work,

The most important work of mindfulness is to understand in real time,

That's when it's happening,

What we're feeling.

Sounds simple,

Eh?

Well,

It takes time.

When it happens,

It is,

It's very simple,

Oh I feel this but there's so many ways in which we cover it up and avoid it,

So watch out for the fear,

Watch out for the avoidance and spend a little time each day sitting with your mood just to know,

Just to get familiar with that,

How am I feeling?

And not being afraid to answer.

Okay,

Make yourselves comfortable.

Take a nice breath and let go.

And just think about fear,

Fear of what?

People calling you names,

People thinking badly of you,

These are real fears,

They motivate us,

They sound silly but we don't ignore them.

So what are you feeling now?

Maybe simply content and quiet.

So you stay with the breath.

And as the breath comes and goes,

You know that sometimes you feel good and sometimes you feel bad.

It depends on the bigger picture,

Sometimes what's going on in your day,

In your week,

In your life.

Sometimes there are thoughts that stir up emotions,

That magnify them,

Memories of conversations,

Memories of being hurt or insulted or humiliated,

Shamed.

Remember those feelings,

Remember what they feel like,

Be ready to identify them as soon as they reappear.

So you can say,

Oh I feel frustrated and when I feel frustrated,

You know what you do.

And now you can choose to do something else.

So you stay with the breath,

Stay in the moment,

Visualize yourself right here and now,

Feel yourself here and now.

And know that you are a process,

Always changing,

Morphing,

Quite often returning to familiar patterns triggered by feelings.

Now you're going to put those feelings,

You're going to connect them to the patterns.

This is the most elementary knowing of yourself and knowing how to change.

By understanding your fears,

They become less fearful.

Staying with the breath and with the moment and with the feeling.

This is what I feel now,

Here.

And breath comes and goes.

And you know now that your emotions are quiet,

Subdued,

Manageable,

Because you're sitting alone in a quiet room.

But at other times they won't be unmanageable,

They won't be manageable,

They will carry us away.

So watch out,

Look for the fear,

The fearlessness,

The aversion.

And imagine very small risks that will change the narrative,

Change the story,

Change your relationships and start to make those shifts to wake you up,

To help you grow and to help your relationship grow.

And now taking three more breaths,

Open your eyes.

Reviews

Love this. Perfect timing for the Mbsr group that I’m running at the moment, intertwining the being with difficult emotions and the interpersonal.
Thanks! Adele

I am risk averse in relationships. Therefore I become a people pleaser. In this process I get hurting myself. This is an awesome lecture on how to modify my behavior in order to grow. Request: there are spots in which you swallow your words and can’t hear them properly