skrapnel

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing some Buddhist meditation exercises to penetrate deeper into my subconscious and discover the source of things interfering with my happiness, health and personal growth.  I’ll save a description of the process for another post, but it’s kind of like reverse engineering unhealthy thought patterns and self-destructive habits.   In this post, I just want to briefly touch on the healing process and also share tonight’s breakthrough.

Fears and complexes can lead to problems like difficulties in relationships (with family, friends or partners); an inability to allow ourselves to achieve or feel success; and even manifest into some health problems.  Our quick-fix society thinks we can take a pill to solve everything, but medicine alone can’t cure the source of the suffering.  For that, I feel that psychoanalysis, meditation, etc., are the only real ways to grow into healthy human beings.

"Reconciliation" by Josefina de Vasconcellos at Coventary Cathedral

Part of the process, for me, is writing. Words are powerful: They change our perceptions and therefore also modify our thinking and habits.  By writing, we can get our thoughts out, manifest them into the world, and settle our minds.

Tonight I couldn’t sleep well.  Instead of the usual drift-into-sleep meditation I normally do in this situation, I ended up continuing deep-meditation exercises I’d been working on earlier in the day.  After I’d gotten into a certain state, I started writing out and acknowledging some of my fear-based actions.  Then I followed the threads of those fears backwards until I’d discovered their source.

One part of the breakthrough involved my relationship with my mother.  The message, below, was typed out in a text message on my cell phone.  It was spontaneous and somewhat subconscious, and the emotional release was so strong that I was crying while writing it.  Thanks to the new copy/paste feature on the iPhone, I’m able to share it with you guys as is.

Mom: I love u so much. I acknowledge that in the past your actions hurt me. I also acknowlede that u r human, and like the rest of us, aren’t perfect. With all my heart, I forgive you and allow you to be imperfect. I allow anything that happened in the past to happen. By so doing, I let go of any pain and suffering it has caused me. I do this to heal myself and allow you to heal. I love u so much, mom. Thank you for bringing me into this world. Love, chris.

I’m so thankful for this epiphany.  I hope it really does help us both heal. I KNOW it will help us both heal.

Will I be able to write the same sort of message to the person whose abuse has affected me the most?  He has blocked it from his memory.  Maybe doing the exercise without contacting him is sufficient to start my side of the healing process.  I know the Lord will help me find the answer.

In the novel, I wanted to look at the problems that occur when one’s individual perceptions don’t sync up with those of the outside collective.  The next book is going to be a study of how our impressions of people are shaped by the opinions of the group.  In preparing for both books, I’ve been reading psychology and philosophy books that discuss individual and collective perceptions.  So far, the best has been a Buddhist psychology book by Thich Naht Hahn called “Understanding Our Mind”.

Our perception of the world is based on our past experiences and the collective perceptions we share with society, our family and our friends. When we add more personal experiences to our lives, we can calibrate our perceptions against those we have learned from others.

When I play back the moments in my life that define the perceptions of the moment I’m in, it’s always like a movie: The action takes place in the present, even though I’m aware it is actually in the past. I am all the experiences leading to this moment, but the person from 5, 10 or 20 years ago is not the same.  I’ve changed.

In Austin, I’ve been constantly aware of the perceptions and experiences I had in college.  It’s been a process of rediscovery and reconciliation.  It offers the chance to look at my past ideas, compare them with my current ideas, and then decide which make sense.  It’s kinda like recalibration of my perceptions–rebuilding myself based on who I was then with the experiences I’ve had up to now.  It’s an interesting process that is difficult at times.  Do people who’ve lived in one place all their lives ever experience this?

Sometimes when I sit down to write, I have a hard time concentrating.   I may check Facebook and Google News.  My mind may start wandering to the economy, new business, the dishes–anything to keep me from writing.  If I’m not writing, then I get depressed and, well, I can’t write anymore.

Over the last few years, I’ve started to realize that all these habits are actually effects of fear.  It’s kind of like a fight or flight mechanism.  My mind is so scared of what MIGHT happen–what if people don’t like what I write, what if I fail, etc–that it makes up these distractions to sort of ease the suffering that it thinks might happen.  In effect, what ends up happening is that I defeat myself.

I’ve also noticed that I feel like I’m missing out on something or giving up “Chris time” by FORCING myself to do some arduous task.  Whether it’s hanging out with my friends, going to the park, or just chilling, I feel like I’m rebelling against my own authority.

In both cases, what I have to remind myself is that writing and art make me happy.  I’ve purposefully changed my life so that I can spend more time working on these things in hopes that ultimately I’ll be able to support myself completely off my art.  With that in mind, I have the following three questions posted above my writing desk:

• What can I do right now to get closer to reaching my goals?
• What can I do right now to improve my state of mind?
• What can I do right now to improve my quality of life?

Not all of these have to do with writing.  Sometimes I’m legitimately distracted by things like paying bills, doing laundry or eating.  These questions force me into thinking about what’s bothering me by asking if I can do something in that moment to help me focus so that I can get back to work. It helps.

What do you do to fight procrastination?

The Washington Post had a great article discussing Michelle Obama’s reluctant ascent to fashion icon status.  A good discussion of celebrity and public canonization, it talks about her ardent defenders and how they actually stifle any discussion of reality.

To me, public perception creates a new identity in addition to that which actually exists–the identity of the “celebrity” vs the person herself.  But how does the celebrity mitigate these differences with the doting public?  Does she play up their image, or realizing she can’t be what they want, does she shut herself off?

In her closing paragraph, the author of the piece, Robin Givhan, asks similar questions:

Being an icon is not for the faint of heart. How unnerving it must be to know that your actions have disappointed some stranger. How odd to have anonymous citizens rising up in your defense over something that has caused you no upset. And even more frustrating: How do you show your gratitude or tell your defenders to back off?

via Robin Givhan on Culture: You Gotta Love the First Lady. No, Really, You Have No Choice. – washingtonpost.com.

Sad that we have a whole industry devoted to telling us how celebrities are just like us.  By so doing, they actually perpetuate the public myth.

Now this is scary.  Your brain punishes you for thinking differently!

A new study in the journal Neuron shows when people hold an opinion differing from others in a group, their brains produce an error signal. A zone of the brain popularly called the “oops area” becomes extra active, while the “reward area” slows down, making us think we are too different.

“We show that a deviation from the group opinion is regarded by the brain as a punishment,” said Vasily Klucharev, postdoctoral fellow at the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and lead author of the study.

Hmmm…I wonder if they could make a drug to reward the innovation part.  Maybe those creative and innovator types don’t have this happen.  Or maybe it’s caused by society and then the body gets trained, kinda like dogs.  Too bad Foucault’s dead. Love to hear what he’d say!

Read more at CNN.com>>