Hey there, fun one this week.
P.S. It’s been a while since I started writing here consistently, if you’re confused why you’re getting these emails or you no longer want to receive the stories, feel free to reply here and I’ll take you off.
Last week, Instagram Josh, our new sales rep, came to visit our home:
We call him Instagram Josh because he’s kinda famous on instagram.
But anyways, on his first day here, he and I were walking and talking when something funny happened…
The new way of meditating
I shared with Josh this new way of meditating that’s been profound for me- like one of the most impactful exercises of my life.
But I could tell it didn’t really impress him.
He didn’t ask many follow up questions and kinda brushed it off as “yeah I’ve tried something similar to that.” So that made me realize I did not do a good job explaining it so now I’ll practice again by teaching it to you.
Maybe it’ll help you, maybe it won’t. But at a minimum I hope it doesn’t sound too woo-woo for you to consider it’s potential.
Some context:
Many people would agree that the subconscious mind is more deep and powerful than the conscious mind.
If that wasn’t the case, the conscious mind would instantly spur us out of addiction and think our way out of depression. But there seems to be something deeper at work. So that’s probably a true starting point and it would be valuable to understand the subconscious mind so you can elevate it.
But the problem is, the subconscious mind is a bit of a black box. We have desires, fears, compulsions that we don’t really understand and it’s overall confusing.
One thing that is for sure though is that sometimes we feel peaceful but often we don’t. And the point is, reality is always the neutral, it just happens. So it’s our reactions to reality that shape the way we feel. These reactions reveal more about us than reality.
Emotional trigger = hint from reality
So the core of this meditation is to accept that our triggers, the moments that disturb our peace are the key to unlocking deeper understanding of ourselves:
Stress
Shame
Resistance
Frustration
Compulsive Desire
Now you might be thinking, dude who the hell wants to spend all their energy focusing on the negative?
But it’s not like that.
It’s much simpler than that and trying this for the first time even gave me immediate clarity on a personal issue that had been plaguing my mind for months.
So now let me explain the 5 step process to turn your triggers into understanding:
Notice the trigger
For example, maybe you are sitting in line and feeling frustrated the line is going slow.
Most people can relate to that. But did you ever realize sometimes you can step out of the frustration and rather than have it be all encompassing feeling, the frustration can turn into something you’re simply witnessing?
That’s the first step. To witness the trigger.
Maybe you simply note it down in Apple notes for now, but that’s the first step.
And maybe part of you thinks feeling frustrated with the line is not a problem because if you didn’t have that aggressive energy you would not be as effective in the world. But in reality I would argue the opposite because it is essentially lost energy and bandwidth and either way the lines gonna move so being stressed in the meantime is simply accepting a self imposed reduction of freedom/peace.
After you notice the trigger, you acknowledge it verbally:
If you’re alone you can do this out loud or if you’re shy in your head:
“I feel frustrated that the line is moving slowly”
Now here comes the woo-woo bit.
If you are open to it, you will likely experience an emergent sensation of the emotion within your body. A clear location in your body and maybe a color or texture of what this specific pattern represents.
Don’t believe me?
Imagine the feeling of being sad funeral where your chest and forehead tightens and there’s a predictable physical reaction within your body. Emotions are like that.
But these habitual triggers that we experience are often the result of years / decades old patterns which were long ago created and repeat over and over.
And the point is that many emotional reactions and patterns no longer serve us and so through this process you can begin to accept their existence and repattern them which is the next step:
Accept the emotion
The most common objection here is:
But why would I accept a “negative” emotion into my life?
That’s what I felt. But it’s more like you accept the existence of the emotion without judgement or contempt. Because when you do, it opens up for deeper interpretation.
Sounds crazy but it happens to me every time.
Sometimes, however, I feel unwilling or unable to accept the emotion. In that case, I simply accept my unwillingness to accept it.
Inquire the source
At this point, I often find there is something for me to learn from the reaction.
This is where it sounds really crazy but you can talk to the emotion. Ask it questions like why is it here and typically I’ll get some sort of emergent answer from deep in my stomach.
So it’s not like a river of thoughts flowing out of my brain but rather like a quiet stream of emergent answers.
For example, I once felt immense emotional pain over a woman and I asked the pain what to do and it simply answered “leave her” and I could tell from the core of my being that was the right thing to do.
After months of intellectualizing and swimming in uncertainty!
This point is often my favorite because I like to try and understand what is actually going on inside.
For example, when I couldn’t quit nicotine, I asked why and discovered I was searching for external distraction to avoid confronting my inner reality.
The insights can be crazy!
Repattern the unhelpful reaction
Over time, the pattern becomes weaker.
Simply the act of step 1, is proven to weaken the trigger. In a book by David Hawkins, I once read an example of how Cookie addicts began to work in the direction of curing this cookie addiction, simply by counting how many cookies they ate!
It reduced their cookie intake automatically.
And I noticed the same thing with nicotine. Simply by entering the witness phase of: “Oh I desire nicotine right now.” And not even trying to quit, drastically reduced the intensity of the desire.
But overall, once you’ve seen it, accepted it and gotten the golden nugget, sometimes it’s good to fully drop the pattern altogether in favor of something more serving.
To recap the 6 step process to turn emotional disturbance into understanding:
Stressed
Notice
Acknowledge
Accept
Inquire
Repattern
Hope it helps.
You can try this with big things or small things (ironically I’ve often found the root of both to often be the same), but either way I’ve found it to be life changing and was excited to share with you.
Enjoy!