Photo by @alexas_fotos
Having completed a long list of factors that make change difficult, the next few chapters are about the difficulties in choosing a worthy goal.
You are not present, and you are not even present as to how not present you are.
In this post I want to highlight how much time in our lives is spent unconsciously making decisions and taking action. We are not present in our lives and this is the biggest impediment to any change attempt.
Decisions, Decisions
From the time we get up till the time we return to our beds we make thousands of decisions and take even more actions based on those decisions. Most of these are automatic, subconscious. This is a wonderful thing as consciously making so many decisions would drain our energy and we would not be able to make good decisions in the few instances where it really matters.
The problems with autopilot
Autopilot is awesome until it messes up. Consider that near miss when you almost rammed into the idiot over-taking you on the wrong side on the highway. You managed to swerve away at the last minute. Luckily you became conscious at the right time and avoided becoming roadkill on the side of the road.
At least you were able to catch yourself being not-present and understand the repercussions of staying not-present. Unfortunately, that is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. 80% or more of our lives are run on automatic and it feels like there are no repercussions.
For example, the way we talk to certain people or certain groups of people is automatic. Maybe you put on a haughty way of being automatically when you talk to your subordinates at work. Maybe you automatically become meek in front of your boss. The problem with switching to default behaviour when interacting with others is that you stop listening and just react. This won’t bite you at the time of the activity but can lead to disastrous effects later.
The question to ask is, “does this automatic behaviour get what you want from this relationship and from life?”
Change
Ultimately to change, you need to change your default actions and reactions. Remember that your default behaviour is who you are 80% of the time! Also, the future you are living into affects your way of being and hence your default behaviour. So, to change, you need to alter the future you are living into.
Attention
The foremost tool you have to stop the future you are living into from creating your future is attention. Focusing on the present will engage the frontal lobe of your brain and impede your automatic reactions.
Once you engage the frontal lobe of your brain, you kick off the process of retraining your brain. In effect you begin rewriting the future you are living into. This process is slow and requires repetition. This is also stressful as you try to suppress your default behaviour and replace it with new behaviour.
Unfortunately, your ability to focus and pay attention has eroded thanks to your multi-tasking and Netflix addictions. Taking the reins of your brain, even in non-stressful environments, is thus hard and tiresome. So you need practice and the best practice for attention is meditation.
Meditation
Meditation is the practice of bringing the mind back to a point of focus.
When you close your eyes all your most urgent thoughts fight to get your attention. When you meditate, however, you try and bring back your attention to a single point. This could be your breath or the point between your eyebrows. From where-ever the mind goes, bring it back to the point of meditation.
This practice strengthens your resolve to control the mind by pulling it away from your thoughts and emotions. This resolve will be useful when you need to rein it in during an uncomfortable situation. This resolve will help you curb your automatic reactions and thus retrain your mind.
At war
However much you meditate, the real retraining of the brain begins only during uncomfortable situations. Your behaviour at those times either makes your default reactions stronger or begins the process of retraining your brain.
The stronger your default behaviour becomes, the harder it will be to retrain it to the behaviour you want. Further, if you put in a lot of effort but are still unable to restrain your default behaviour you will feel despondent or hopeless. This will make it harder to restrain your default behaviour the next time.
This is the beginning of gamblers ruin of your change attempt. The more you try, the more despondent you feel which makes it harder to change.
How can we avoid this trap ?
Just observe
The first step, then, is not to launch an all out attack on your default behaviour as it will be too strong for you in the beginning. Rather, the best tactic is just to observe your actions as you go through the stressful situation.
Get a journal, write down what you noticed about the stressful situation. This should be done fresh after the incident for best returns. Be curious and ask yourself the following questions
What happened ?
How did you interpret the situation ?
How does the situation occur to you ?
Who are you being in the situation ?
What is important here is not to judge. Do not assign a good or bad label to the incident. Just try to be as honest as you can when journaling it.
DON’T MAKE PLANS FOR CORRECTION YET.
If there are negative feelings that surface, just soothe them. It's OK and you are OK. There is nothing wrong and nothing to fix. Just observe.
Think of this as a study to understand what triggers you. How do you behave when triggered ?
This is the first step in the process of change.
Practice mind control through meditation. Be present to how you act and react. Write your experiences in your journal. Read it, don’t judge it.