by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 21, 2017 | Blog
My morning routine is pretty simple.
Most of the time, I wake up at 4:13 or 4:18, and my alarm
goes off at 4:20. I lay there for a minute to get my bearings, get up, turn on
the coffee, use the bathroom and splash water on my face.
I open Insight Timer, sit down to meditate, and my thoughts
kick in.
Ideas about what to write about today.
Thinking about what I have going on today.
Thoughts about something that happened yesterday or a few
days ago.
Opinions on something I saw in the news.
Resistance to what I am planning on doing today.
Judgments about the way my dog’s nose makes a whistling
noise every third breath.
Explanations for that vague anger I feel so often.
Ideas about what I would rather do today.
Now, as always, thoughts are not good or bad.
Meditation is not about clearing your mind, but accepting
whatever is there. It’s about simply noticing when you become distracted and
returning to whatever your anchor is. The breath, sounds around you, or, in
mindfulness practices, simply observing your experience.
But this is also where the subtlety of the mind becomes
apparent. Instead of just noticing that I am distracted, it tries to use this
as an opportunity to take over.
Thinking.
No problem, just return.
No criticism, no judgment.
Don’t even assess the distraction.
Distractions are neutral, they are not good or bad.
It’s the same as situations being neutral, our thoughts just
stain them one color or another.
That’s the third podcast.
I didn’t get it done over the weekend.
When can I get that done?
Not Saturday, we are in Oklahoma this weekend.
It feels like there isn’t enough time in the week.
No, I have as much time as anyone, my priorities need to
shift.
But where?
I don’t really waste much time.
I did watch Journey to the West again yesterday. That was 2
hours.
I was tired.
Everyone is tired, stop complaining.
Why did I shave my head? I always hate the way it looks.
And by this point, I am distracted. Noticing I am distracted
presents the mind with another opportunity to subtly pull me away.
This is our life, constantly thinking and living inside of
our heads. Our minds feeding us stories and beliefs about the world instead of
letting us live in the world.
Every time we become aware of this, of being caught up in
our mind, is an opportunity o retrun to the present, to reality.
The more we do this, the more aware we become of the mind
and the way it works.
The more aware we are of how the mind works, the more it
becomes a tool for us to use instead of a knife that chops us to pieces or a
hammer that dulls us into distraction.
Reality is reality, everything else is stories.
Is that a good way to end this?
Is it too abrupt?
What if people think I suck as a mediation teacher because I
get distracted?
I don’t want to take Macy to the vet this morning.
The vet is neutral, just go.
I sure do complain a lot.
And we’re off.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 21, 2017 | Blog
Welcome to the Sunday Pop-Up, where I write about whatever
pops into my head.
This has been a week of encounters with highly opinionated
people, along with someone asking me if not having opinions is part of my
spiritual practice. I think I made a conscious decision to detach from my
opinions when I saw that they did nothing for me. They told me these stories
about the world and about other people, and these stories made me feel a
certain way about these things, but they were not true.
It is odd that we live in these stories about what is right
and wrong and good and bad, and that these stories determine how we treat those
around us. Fake stories, based around the fake stories we were raised on and
that our cultures tell us, determine how we treat very real human beings.
But, I may be wrong. As one person explained to me this
week, his opinions are not stories, they are Truth. And if they are stories, he
was raised with the right ones. Born lucky I suppose.
I wish I could jump forward in time and see how we perceive
this time period where the internet became an opinion-reinforcing machine.
I am not sure there has been a time in human history where
we could insulate ourselves so completely when it comes to different opinions.
It can’t be making us any smarter.
But, once again, I may be wrong.
I do notice that every time I throw my opinion out there,
especially a critical one, it doesn’t do me or anyone else any good.
Every single time I do, it leaves me wondering why I let
myself have one in the first place, and why it mattered (because it didn’t). I
find that my opinion is most likely to jump up at the same times things like
anger, resentment and rash decisions pop up – when I am exhausted or
emotionally drained.
It’s funny how the ego never really dies, it’s just waiting
for the guards to go to sleep.
I finished up One Punch Man this week, I cannot remember the
last time I was able to just enjoy something as much as I enjoyed that. My
tendency is to re-watch the same shows over and over so that I can work at the
same time, so it’s pretty cool when something new can slip into my list. But,
like everything it came to an end and now I’m back to IASIP for the 6th time.
That’s it for this week.
Do something you enjoy today, and every day. Smile at
someone, pet a dog. If you are going to have an opinion, choose it instead of
letting it choose you.
Take care.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 19, 2017 | Blog
I don’t want to write anything today.
I am tired, I am approaching burn out, and there is not a
single thing that seems interesting to me.
And this is why a daily blog has been so good for me.
I wrote about keystone habits and how shifting one big
thing can change your life a while back. I cannot think of anything that has
done this more significantly in my life than writing a blog every day.
In theory, writing a blog every day would affect the first
45-90 minutes of my day and be done there, but, like so many things, it has
spread into my day in significant ways.
The discipline of writing every day has created discipline
in other areas of my life.
Like I said, I don’t want to write today. I have noticed a
general struggle in all areas of my life lately, I probably need to take a
break from the office (I am in May). I have noticed some compassion fatigue,
and some straight-up fatigue.
But, because I do this every day, I am up and I am writing.
It wasn’t even a question for me, because this is what I do now, and this is
good for me. I am up and I am moving and things will get better from here.
Discipline.
Blogging every day has put me in touch with people I wasn’t
in touch with before, and has turned some acquaintance relationships into much
more intentional relationships.
I have learned a lot about some of the people in my life,
and that has been cool. There is also this unique feeling of knowing people I
am not friends with are reading this through the unfamiliar email addresses
that have subscribed. That is a cool feeling. If they get in touch with
me, it’s one more intentional relationship in my life, which is even
cooler.
Blogging every day has helped me get past the need for
perfection.
It’s not easy for me, but on days like today when I can tell
my writing is choppy and feels uninspired, I am able to let the best I can do
be the best I can do. In the past I would have scrapped this and given up
because it’s what I did. If it wasn’t perfect, I wouldn’t put it out there for
anyone to judge. Since nothing is perfect, I never put anything out there at
all. Simple. I would not have launched the podcast without blogging every
day first.
All of this together has made me much more intentional in my
daily life.
I am more intentional with my time since I have less of it,
and I am more intentional with my attention as I look for things to write
about. I have learned more about the internet and computer stuff than in my
entire life up to this point, and I still have a lot to learn. It’s cool.
Changing one simple habit can change your whole life. Pick
yours.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 17, 2017 | Blog
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people
I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous
and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I
have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized
that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and
birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of
them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at
my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and
eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is
unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are
unnatural.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Other people are many things.
They are mean and shady and self-absorbed and difficult.
Other people will do many things.
They will cheat you and lie to you. They will lie about you
and criticize you and try to bring harm into your life.
None of this has anything to do with you.
None of this can actually affect you, the you that lies
behind all of these things, the you that is beyond the things that other
people say and do and think.
What they do is not your business. Only your response to it
is.
What they say is not your business. Only the truth of it is.
What they think is not your business. Period.
Any time spent focusing on what other people are saying or
doing or thinking is wasted time because these things are beyond our control.
We can respond to the things they bring our way, but it is
our responsibility to respond kindly and rationally.
Other people’s actions do not us give a free pass on our
own.
A person who is suffering tries to bring suffering to
others. There is no need for us to let them.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 16, 2017 | Blog
“But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence
to its cleanest components.”
William Zinsser
I am rereading “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser, and I
am going to apply different principles to my writing each week. This week is
about stripping away unnecessary words, so these posts may end up being 4 or 5
words long.
An economy of words is something I need in my life.
I don’t like how much I talk. I don’t like how much I enjoy
the sound of my own voice. I would like to learn what the minimum number of
words needed to communicate are, and what the minimum amount of
talking required to be a good human is.
Words feed our ego like nothing else.
They draw attention ourselves by drawing attention to our
thoughts and our ideas, neither of which are actually “ours”. I am not sure how
to not do this in a world filled with chatter.
I am also aware that these things are being said on a blog I
write every day, and on the day after putting out my second podcast which is
just me talking. There’s no escape.
I try to be mindful of what needs to be said.
I try to be mindful of unnecessary words that are more
complicated than they need to be (like trading “extraneous” for “unnecessary”
in this sentence). This doesn’t always work. I like talking with people and
sharing ideas. I do wonder if I sometimes dominate the conversation though, and
this always leaving me feeling unhappy with myself.
But this all has to be balanced with not being standoffish
or rude to other people. I live in a part of the country where not talking a
lot is against the culture. If you don’t over-share you are rude, if you don’t
volunteer an opinion you are not participating. It’s a difficult balance.
I am learning words are not always necessary, and that they
are often unhelpful.
When I am not around people I prefer silence over noise, and
the sounds of life around me over anything orchestrated by people. This means
just doing what I am doing rather than narrating it, which can be odd.
How many words are too many?
How much talking is enough?
Who would you be without the words in your head?
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