Coffee with Mara: Facing our feelings, failures, flaws and fears

In Buddhist tradition, there was this evil god named Mara who used to try to get Buddha caught up in negative thoughts, desires, and emotions, like shame and fear.

But Buddha knew fighting this guy was just falling into his trap. He knew the way to peace was radical acceptance--just accepting things as they are, without judgement, so he took a radical approach to Mara's attack. He said, "I see you, Mara," pulled up a cushion, and invited him to sit down for a cup of tea.

I've been having lots of encounters with Mara lately. He showed up this past Thursday, when I read over the end-of-the-year student surveys. Feelings of failure and inadequacy welled up inside me as I read some pretty nasty comments mixed in with hard-to-hear, but true, feedback. The last couple of days, the issues were different, but shame, judgement, and fear still swirled through my neurons, my whole body tensing up, ready for fight or flight. Millions of years of survival instinct bracing itself against imagined threats.

Lately, I've been reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Harari. In his chapter on religion, he sums up Buddha's teaching about suffering: It's not the troublesome feelings or emotions themselves that are the suffering. Suffering occurs when we want painful emotions to stop or pleasant ones to continue. It's the craving, the discontentment, the tension between what is and what we feel should be. It's the lack of acceptance.

That's how I was. I was like one of my students earlier this year. She had come to my office, almost crying. She didn't want to tell me what was wrong. She said she didn't want me to think less of her. I told her that would never happen--nothing she could say would make me think she was any less than awesome. I could imagine the things she was harboring, and the shame she felt, but I felt such compassion for her and could honestly say I would love her unconditionally. That's what I need to do with myself at times like this, when Mara comes around.

Some of my most peaceful times are early in the morning, when I sit at my desk for some mindfulness meditation and a fresh cup of coffee. Looking out at the sun through the trees in the backyard, I feel at one with it all. But the other day, after a restless night of stewing, I woke up already tense.

Then I remembered the story of Mara, and I decided to just radically accept it all--what Eckhart Tolle calls "acceptance of the radically unacceptable." I imagined that everyone knew all about me, and that I was exposed just as I am... and that it was OK.

In that moment, the tension melted away.

Of course, it came back later, but that's OK, too. Whenever I accept myself with all of my feelings, failures and flaws, then fear melts away. Others might judge me, but that's OK. They're welcome for coffee, too.

"All my life, I was never good enough"

Probably the most peaceful moment of my life was lying flat on my back in my family's old gravel bank, my hand applying pressure to where the chain saw had cut into my shoulder, watching the clouds pass by in a clear blue sky.

I didn't know the extent of the damage, and it seems like I should have panicked instead of soaking in the feeling of the stones beneath my back and feeling at one everything.

It was as if, with nothing I could do but wait for help, I could finally just relax and not worry about striving for whatever it is I'm always striving for.

For just a little while that day, I was free from what Tara Brach, in her book, Radical Acceptance, calls the "trance of unworthiness." Like many people, all my life I've been walking around believing there's something wrong with me--that I am never good enough, that I have to prove something to the world, and always fall short somehow. And I find myself pushing my wife, kids, and students in the same way I push myself, always seeing deficiencies and room for improvement, sending the message that I don't accept them for who they are right now.

Improvement is good, but judgement and lack of acceptance is not. It keeps us from enjoying our moments, trapped in anxiety, resentment, and discouragement. It causes us to hide, pretend, and react to things in unhealthy ways, and keeps us from seeing clearly enough to bring about the change we need.

Radical acceptance, on the other hand, means facing and embracing everything about ourselves just as we are right now: weakness, anger, mistakes, envy, flaws, lust, frustration, fear, and failure. It means opening up to everything about our circumstances as they really are right now, denying nothing, hiding from nothing, feeling everything. It means seeing these self-imposed requirements and judgements and the suffering they cause to us and others. It means accepting ourselves without judgement.

In other words, there's nothing wrong with me. I have nothing to prove. What I am and what I have, right now, is enough.

Wait, is that true?

If not, then enough will be impossible for me. I know myself well enough. It's either enough now, or it never will be. I don't know if I'll have another minute on this planet, and I don't want to be like the woman in Brach's story who woke only long enough to say to her daughter, "All my life, I was never good enough," and then slipped back into her coma.

Accepting allows us to experience "enough" even in the midst of pain. Like the Buddha of legend, we can say to shame, fear and anger, "I see you Mara," and invite him to tea. Instead of being swept away in cascades of negative thoughts, we can defuse the chain reaction and experience the good around and within us, even in the bad.

But accepting doesn't mean being content with staying where you are. Like Tim Ferriss, whose interview with Tara Brach introduced me to her, I worry that accepting myself will mean I stop improving. I've struggled in the past on this blog about the balance between contentment and improvement. Tara Brach's answer is that honest and non-judgemental awareness of where you are (radical acceptance) is the only first step to real change.

My trance of unworthiness manifests itself in high achieving, never satisfied obsession, but I have students who are not high achievers, yet struggle more than I with self-condemnation and the trance of unworthiness. The outcomes may look different: me, enslaved to stressful striving, they, paralyzed in fear of failure. In both cases, we suffer.

For all of us, radical acceptance means being free: free to be enough, just as you are, to just lay there, feeling the grit through your shirt, maybe even bleeding, and just watch all those self-imposed requirements float by in a blue sky.

And then it means being free to act mindfully, and change.

So this is what I'm working on these days: practicing radical acceptance. 

Hugs like light through stormclouds

Let's just say the Depot is not without its crises and conflicts. Hardly a day goes by without some drama unfolding. Many of these young people are being  battered by life, and many lack the resiliency or the skills to cope. Sometimes the strife ripples out into our little community like a gathering thunderstorm, or else it hangs in the air like black magic.

But just as frequently, light breaks through the clouds.

Like the excitement of one struggling young person who landed his first internship last week, and another young lady whose internship just turned into a job at a law firm.

There's the growing confidence of a young man whose challenging technology project is finally getting off the ground, and the excitement and pride of a young man who came to tell me about his new, higher SAT scores.

There's the excitement among the staff as we plan new supports for students.

There's the generosity of a young lady who baked twelve dozen cookies for everyone, and the seven students who worked all morning yesterday cooking a delicious ham dinner for the whole school.

There are the smiles on faces that haven't seen many smiles lately, as they picked out an unwrapped gift during the Yankee swap.

And there are the courageous young women who sang impromptu songs for our open mic.

But the brightest light this week came from one powerful young man whose courage and compassion just blew me away. The past month has been just one painful blow after another for him, and on top of all that, a friend at the school has been seething with anger towards him for a week. So he decided to do something about it.

First, he approached his angry friend and tried to initiate a conversation: "Hey, man, we have to talk about this.." he began, and then explained his side of the story.

There was no response to this initial effort: the other student just turned away. But that wasn't the end of it. Later that day, as the angry student was sitting for the Yankee swap, this powerful young man approached him again. He came up behind him, and I heard him say something like, "I may get punched in the face for this hug, but I'm doing it anyway."

Then he wrapped his arms around this angry student, and that frown that had been there all week just... broke. It broke into a smile, though this angry kid tried to fight it. That bear hug broke through that anger like a the sun through storm clouds.

Thank you, young man, for reminding me what it's all about--what being human is all about.

Make it personal. Make it purposeful.

If you really want to motivate humans, you need to do these two things: make it personal and make it purposeful.

Personal: When radiologists were shown a picture of the patient along side every CT scan they interpreted, they were much more likely to notice things that were wrong with the patient.

Purposeful: When hand-washing stations in hospitals had signs reading "Washing your hands keeps patients from getting sick," they were more likely to wash their hands than if the signs read, "Washing your hands keeps you from getting sick."

The more I read, and the more I compare it to reality, the more I'm beginning to see the centrality of relationships to humanness.

I used to see life as competition, and that the most powerful motivator was self-interest. And I thought this was good--that it made us stronger, more creative, harder working.

But as Daniel Pink Pointed out in Drive, and as he pointed out in different ways in To Sell Is Human,the opposite is true.

If you really want to optimize human motivation and performance, you need to tap our pro-social instincts.

Rough sketch of a better balance

I used to think achievement and creativity were the key to human happiness. I justified this, I guess, because I figured that what made us human was mostly our creative potential--our ability to make the world whatever we wanted it to be, to break through the boundaries of the possible and explore the unknown.

And I still think this is an important aspect of human nature, but I'm realizing it is not the most important--it's just one facet of something a more complex.

For one thing, all this drive for creation, change and exploration and boundary breaking--this ambition--really needs to be interspersed with contentment.

And though we are definitely the most creative of animals, were also among the most social, and so I think I'd add community to creativity.

And closely related to community is compassion.

And then of course there's just pure enjoyment, hedonistic immersion in the moment, fun, and excitement--let's call it captivation.

A more balanced picture might look something like this:

So that's part of going for a better fit, I think--trying to hit all of those every day.

Fact, story, feeling.

*Hypothetical* Scenario:

I'm trying to deliver a mini-lecture in chemistry biology--droning on about exciting things like chemical weights or the molecular structure of DNA.

Two students are having a conversation between themselves while I talk.

I get upset and reprimand them (mildly) in front of the whole class.

Or maybe it wasn't in class. Maybe it was the other night when my wife made an off hand comment that offended me and I got upset and kicked in the silent treatment.

In both cases I thought that what was upsetting me were the things I observed--the facts of the case: the talking in class or the offhand comment. But that's not true. What upset me was the story I told myself about the facts.
 
I really just upset myself.

According to the authors of Crucial Conversations, an awesome audio program I've been listening to, it works like this: We observe something. We interpret it--we tell a story to explain it. Then we feel something, based on our story.

Facts don't lead directly to emotions.

Facts lead to stories in our heads, and those stories lead to emotions.

When I saw the students talking, that was a fact. Then the story kicked in: They are being rude. They are disrespectful. There are just challenging my authority, trying to make me look like a fool in front of the other students. Then the emotions kick in: I feel threatened, irritated, angry even. And then I act... and cause damage.

Instead, what I need to do is follow my emotions backwards down that path and notice the story I'm telling myself, and question it, and then make up a different, kinder story. And then watch my feelings soften.

What if I found out one of their mothers was deathly ill? Or what if I could put myself in their shoes and feel again just how difficult it is to be a teenager (or just how exciting it is to be a teenager), or just how excruciatingly boring my lectures are?

And maybe my wife just had a really rough day? Or maybe she simply wanted to spend time with me and I was glued to the computer (not that that happens...).

Funny thing is, these kinder stories are much more likely to be true.

And the result is more positive climates and stronger relationships.

Is compassion a skill?

"empathy & kindness can be taught w/rigor"

  — Jenn Hayhurst

This tweet this morning on #satchat got me thinking. She followed it up by saying maybe "passion" would be a better word than rigor. But it got me thinking...

What if we could teach compassion with rigor in the sense of depth of knowledge or cognitive rigor.

Part of me says, "But it's a feeling, not a skill."

But a bigger part says, "But then how do I become more compassionate? Can I? Can I help others/my students become more compassionate?"

Recent readings in Mindfulness and The Joy of Living make me think compassion can be cultivated, and that makes me think it's a skill. And if so, isn't it an important skill?

And then I thought, "Wow. What if our graduation standards including things like compassion?"

Of course, then we'd have to measure it (maybe?). And that could be complicated (to say the least). And I doubt the cognitive rigor framework can be applied to social emotional skills. But we could certainly develop a rubric for the so-called (misnamed?) "non-cognitive skills." (Or maybe some less rigid sort of self-assessment or reflection would be more appropriate.)


Either way, part of me thinks, "That's crazy!"

But the bigger parts thinks, "But what if we could do it?"