Finding Calm, Part Two
The first aspect of inner training is to stop our self-talk.
By this I mean we must stop talking to ourselves silently. It is especially important to look at this habit critically, seeing clearly that calling it thinking does not change the fact that it is just self-talk. In this sense, we can say that perception is different than abstraction: where perception is simply what the senses register, abstraction is the internal commentary we make on everything the senses experience. And it is to this level of abstraction that we begin to pay more attention than we do to our actual sensory experience of life. Thinking about our life, in other words, begins to be more important than living our life.
So recognizing that the torrent of thoughts, emotions, and memories that makes up this me is not really me makes it possible to correctly identify them as habits obeying the dictates of the genetic code. In particular, our dna has established instincts we all share—the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct to reproduce: most of the self-talk we engage in results directly from these two instincts. The instinct for physical survival uses fear to keep us alive—not fear of something specific, but fear of anything that might be potentially threatening. Since this covers most of the things in the universe, there is almost no limit to the things we might fear. Anything entering our awareness, indeed, can provoke some level of anxiety. And for those who have been injured badly or often enough, it seems there is no practical limit to how hyper-vigilant they believe they need to be. Similarly, the instinct for physical reproduction uses sexual urges to keep us focused on looking for opportunities, real or imagined, to engage in sexual activity.
Because the dictates of our dna operate from within the cells of our body, the instincts are part and parcel of our nervous system. Which is to say that fear and sexual urges are part of the brain. And when the extent of fear is really plumbed, we can see how worry, loss, guilt, shame, remorse, humiliation, anxiety, nervousness, foreboding, indecisiveness, tension, distress, uneasiness, trauma, and so forth, are all facets of fear. Then we can see how nearly all of our thoughts, emotions, and memories are habits of the brain—habits that are repeating as automatic functions of the brain, triggered by the instincts for survival and reproduction.
Inner training recognizes how pervasive this self-talk is and how it colors our experience of life. Rather than ignoring the problem, it addresses it directly, determined to bring it under control so that the listening mind can be cultivated and real peak performance can be achieved.
The first step is based on the fact that we can have only one conscious thought at a time. With this in mind, we train to eradicate self-talk by taking control of our inner speech—rather than letting the brain endlessly run through its list of habit-thoughts, habit-emotions, and habit-memories, we take up an exercise that cuts off the self-talk whenever it starts.
Exercise One—Whenever self-talk arises, begin silently repeating the word Enough! in an authoritative manner, as if you were cutting off a trivial and insulting conversation before it could even get started. At first, it will be necessary to practice this exercise nearly all the time, but as it replaces the old habit of self-talk this new habit of inner dignity and self-possession will become the rule.
The second step is based on the fact that self-talk is stimulated by what the senses register, transforming direct perceptions into our own personal associations—abstractions that either identify, evaluate, and analyze our perceptions, or else remind us of some past abstraction.
Exercise Two—Attend to the five senses for extended periods of time, moving your attention from one to another, from seeing to hearing, to smelling and so forth, absorbing yourself in the sense’s experience of the moment and cutting off any thinking about the moment or any feeling or memory that takes you away from the moment. Feel the air or humidity or clothes on your skin. Eat or drink something and simply taste it without any internal commentary. Move from one sense to another, focus on two or more senses simultaneously, trying to move deeper into your experience of life. If your self-talk is too disruptive, return to Exercise One until you have quieted it and then come back to continue this Exercise.
Please keep in mind that quieting self-talk is not the goal of this training—it is just the first step on the path of inner transformation. Enter into this training regimen with patience, keeping in mind how diligently musicians and athletes train in order to achieve peak performance. And study your self-talk closely, keeping in mind that it is, on a moment-to-moment basis, the principal weakness holding you back from reaching your full potential.
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The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.
If you’d like to learn more, visit the website: http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/
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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.
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