Samskaras/Silver Lining Skills/Choiceless Awareness

Samskara is a word that kept coming up in Living Untethered, a newly published book I read within the last two months and highly recommend. From this article, samskara means: 

"The word samskara derives from the Sanskrit sam (complete or joined together) and kara (action, cause, or doing). It is commonly translated as “mental impression,” “habit pattern” or “recollection.”"

I find it fascinating that people in India were studying mental health and how to deal with mental health issues thousands of years ago. 

This article is a great primer on how to address the past events that have left behind mental impressions in your mind. 

At the end of the day, it's not what happens to us that bothers us--it's the reaction we have to what happens that bothers us. Letting go of our harmful reactions is important if we want to live a joyful life. Well worth a read even if you aren't interested in the philosophy of yoga.

Without going into too much detail that might cheapen whatever I experienced, I dealt with depression this summer that I realize now was from a lack of meaning and not doing what makes me feel alive. 

But...something broke open in me in a good way, and a bizarre chain of events led me back to the teachings of Ram Dass, which eventually led me to Michael Singer. I have since read two of his books and listened to all of his podcast episodes. 

The way he expresses truth amazes me, and his teachings on letting go to address mental pain have been simple and profound. 

This short video explains the reasoning behind why you would want to let go of the things that are troubling you--and how to do it. 

If this video speaks to you, you will absolutely love The Untethered Soul, Singer's international bestseller. This is not about religion. It's about figuring out who you are at your core and why you're unhappy when the world doesn't give you what you want.

I loved that this article highlighted a mental health issue that is rarely discussed--catatonic depression. In this short read, you get to meet Zeenat Fayyaz and hear about her path from having a breakdown, which left her with depression that rendered her unable to speak or move. 

Fayyaz dealt with trauma in her life, which, if unaddressed, is often a precursor to major physical and/or mental health issues. Her recovery story is heartwarming, and I applaud her for coming forward to share that story with others. There's always hope.

Jiddu Krishnamurti is another person who has been a great teacher for me over the last ten years. 

His Book Think On These Things is a profound read and is an absolute delight if you're a deep thinker or want to do the work to figure out what is true.

One of the concepts he lectured on a lot when he was still in this world was the idea of "choiceless awareness." Through meditation or other centering techniques, you can get to a point where you are OK with everything that is happening around you and just doing what is required in the moment, not beating yourself up about endless possible choices you could make.

I used to live every waking moment of my life with thoughts running through my head. Learning how to meditate and noticing that I am not my thoughts is one of the biggest breakthroughs I've ever had.

This was just a cool way to learn about a concept. Don't you hate it when you're dealing with something difficult and someone says, "Well, at least you have..." or "At least you're not..." It's condescending and ridiculous and helps no one.

So what could you possibly learn from these kinds of situations? 

A lot apparently. Jessica Hagy brilliantly shows the silver linings of some common situations.

Here's picture one to give you a taste:

Farnam Street always explains things so well, so I'm just going to leave this snippet from a recent Brain Food newsletter issue here:

"Short-term easy is long-term hard. Short-term hard is long-term easy.

I was reminded of this when one of my kids came home with a grade that wasn’t up to his standards. Rather than look at the feedback and dive in, he said, “oh, I understand it now.”

I called his bluff. When I asked him to “explain it to me” because I didn’t understand it, he stalled. He didn’t understand. This lesson isn't just for kids.

We’d rather do the easy thing than the hard thing. That’s natural and normal. I call this the mountain. You can climb it, or you can avoid it, but it’s not going away. There is always a mountain. There is always something in front of us that we know we should do, but it just seems so ... hard.

On any given day, we can avoid the climb. We can stand at the bottom, look up, and say, "I'll wait. Hopefully, the mountain isn't here tomorrow." But we all know the mountain is still there tomorrow. And instead of looking smaller, it’s even larger.

When I talked to Jerzy Gregorek about the mountain, he said. "Easy decisions, hard life. Hard decisions, easy life."

The easy path today makes a hard path tomorrow. The hard path today makes an easier path tomorrow.

The choice is yours, but the mountain isn't going away. The longer you put off the hard thing you know you need to do, the harder it becomes to get started.

The climb is the fun part."

If you liked this, you'll love the rest of the newsletter issue linked to above.

I saw The Tallest Man On Earth perform in a theater in Richmond, VA years ago,  and it was one of the best live performances I've ever seen.

He is truly an artist. His lyrics are poetic. His music is moving. And the way he expresses himself brings it all together. This is a nice pick-me-up for the rest of your week.

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