I dislike resolutions.

No, let me rephrase. I dislike New Years resolutions. I love challenges, but they need to be very specific and short. I believe one month to be the goldilocks zone, though there is merit in weekly challenges and challenges up to 3 months as well. New Years resolutions are rarely specific (e.g. lose weight, exercise more, get organized, save money) and involve an entire year.

Last year was my first time to seriously set a New Years Intention. It was my theme for the year and less formal than a resolution. 2024 was focused on choosing gratitude, built around the idea that while we may not be able to control our circumstances, we can always control our response to them. This year’s intention will be a combination of several different themes I have adopted over the last couple of years. These include:

• Embrace the suck – I first encountered this phrase during Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) for the army back in 2017. It embodies a radical acceptance and even strange delight in the unpleasantness and difficulty of the current situation. I recycled this during my month of transforming critical self talk.
• Be in the moment – This is a fairly common sentiment in meditation circles. For me, this concept had new life breathed into it following a 10% Happier podcast featuring Vinny Ferraro. To convey the majesty of the present moment, he coined the phrase “Every moment is pregnant with liberation.” This turned into the focus of my month of living one-mindfully.
• Live life to the fullest – This phrase is included in my dating profile. In my 20s, my interpretation of this was “achieve your highest potential.” Now, I view it more as “create and enjoy your fullest expression and experience.” Either way, it communicates the desire to do more than just survive in life – to thrive!

My intention for 2025: Work FROM success, not TOWARDS success!

There are 4 actions I will be focusing on throughout the year to live out this intention.

1. Reframe success – Base it on CURRENT state of mind, not FUTURE level of achievement.
   When I was in medical school, the way I viewed success was entirely in the future. I would have success when I received my medical degree, earned a large salary, purchased a house, and/or found a life partner. In fact, I felt like my current mind state was irrelevant so long as it moved me in the direction of success. This is one of the many factors that led to my complete breakdown at the end of year three.
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   We have the power to shift our expectations. I have found that when my objective for the day is simply to respond skillfully to situations and foster curiosity and compassion, I not only find myself experiencing more joy during the day, but also tend to get more done as a bonus. Judgment is a toxic fuel source. It produces a lot of energy very quickly for a time, but eventually burns up the machine it is trying to power.
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2. Embrace imperfection – Middle Path is NOT a compromise; it IS the way.
   Many of the lessons I have learned about acceptance have occurred in the context of meditation. Before my major bike accident in August of 2021, I meditated in a hero pose position, which felt empowering and comfortable, as I had done so for a few years. After the accident, it was impossible to get into this position without incredible discomfort. I felt salty over my foot dysfunction for a while, but eventually embraced the new reality. This not only allowed me to find a bench and pillow that accommodated for my left leg, but ultimately led me to the practice of walking meditation, which I love!
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   Another imperfection I am learning to embrace, during meditation and in life, is physical pain. I have experienced chronic back pain since I was around 20 years old. For the longest time, I viewed meditation and life as objectively subpar if pain got in the way. During a daylong meditation retreat this past summer, I used the RAFT technique to skillfully observe instead of reactively judge the pain, and experienced something amazing! My best way to describe it would be a psychic release. The pain was still present (if anything it was a bit worse than normal), but it wasn’t negatively affecting me. I felt weirdly happy.
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3. Celebrate small wins – No skillful action is TOO SMALL to validate!
   “Go big or go home!” Great for some things, but not a good motto for everyday life. By far, the most transformative challenge I completed this year was my month of daily validation journaling. Basically, I told myself “good job” for three things each day that month. I experienced an unbelievable amount of positive endorphins and at times even euphoria.
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   Why? I was honoring the mundane, and MOST of life is the mundane. It is vitally important to congratulate ourselves on getting up in the morning to meditate, or only watching 30 minutes of TV instead of an hour, or observing agitation with compassion instead of reacting to it with judgment.
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4. Practice self-compassion – Avoiding failure is NOT an option; recovering gracefully IS.
   I have run multiple half-marathons over the last 6 months. One of these occurred during my challenge of transforming critical self-talk. I noticed a lot of refrains come up during my run.
   • “You could be going faster. Slacker!”
   • “You are going to blow out your IT band again, stupid!”
   • “This was possible 5 years ago if you hadn’t screwed your life up!”
   • “How could you not be aware enough to avoid the accident that jacked your leg up?”

The key during these moments was to become fully aware of the thought, send love to my inner critic, and propose alternative ways of viewing the situation that accomplished the same goal. If needed, I would do some self-soothing or call a friend for support.

In hindsight, am I grateful for my mental breakdown 5 years ago, given what I have learned? I would so like to say yes, but if I am being honest, there are a lot of times where I would give up all of my insights about life to go back and get on the external success train. In these moments, I choose to use this mantra by Kristin Neff:

This is a moment of weakness.
Weakness is a part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the self-compassion I need.

I refuse to accept the limiting belief, while also choosing to not judge myself for having the thought. Instead, I open up to it with gentle awareness and curiosity.

Namaste.

P.S. I’ve been trying out an AI art generator for some of my images. I like the general aura of design, though the details are sometimes off.

For the first month of the new year, I want to complete a long overdue challenge. The last meditation-related challenge I completed was way back in 2015. I have meditated pretty much every day for the last few years, am regularly involved in a weekly heartfulness meditation group, and have completed 2 daylong retreats within the past year. However, the possibilities in meditation are endless. The challenge this month is to intentionally explore some of those possibilities and expand the horizons of my practice.

Here are the requirements for this challenge:

• Meditate for at least 20 minutes each day – This won’t be much of a challenge, as I am already doing 15 minutes currently (5 first thing; 10 later in day). Sometimes, I do feel like my meditations are cut short, so the extra few minutes on some days might be more than welcome. Today is a great example – the weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!
• Meditate during my lunch break one day per week – A couple of years ago, I completed a month of purposeful spiritual connections, during which I chanted outside for a couple of minutes during lunch time at work each day. I really enjoyed the practice. My meditation will be longer than a couple of minutes, so I am only requiring it on one day each week. I will probably utilize the yoga mat I store in my classroom for this purpose.
• Meditate somewhere new once per week – The inferior function of my Myers-Briggs personality type (extroverted sensing) always groans when I think about driving somewhere to meditate. However, novel environments can provide both blessings and challenges that are useful in building a robust meditation practice. There are several parks I’ve wanted to check out anyway, and this will be the perfect motivation to do so.

• Use a new guided meditation 3x per week – Most of my meditation practice is self-directed, which in many cases is most effective. With that being said, there are so many great meditation apps and resources that I would love to experiment with both for my own benefit and so I can provide specific recommendations for others. I will start by exploring the Plum Village app I already have downloaded on my phone.
• Choose a general theme for each week – This can really be anything from a character quality to an area of life to a group of people. I’m not planning on having all of my practices that week be focused on that theme, though I can if desired. My main goal is to simply take a moment before the practice and dedicate it to that quality, topic, or person.
• Participate in 2 group writing meditations – The Secular Buddhism community I am involved with online hosts weekly writing meditations on Monday afternoons for 10-15 minutes. I have been interested in trying this out for a while now, but just never made the effort. This month will change that.

I am incredibly excited and optimistic about this challenge. I think it will tie in nicely with my 2025 New Years intention. However, I will reserve my thoughts on this for my next post. May the new year bring you many peaceful moments and exciting adventures!

Namaste.

I have considered myself a progressive ever since Bernie Sanders first ran for President back in 2016. For me, the word progressive is fairly simple to define. Basically, that there are certain necessities of life that a developed country should provide freely to its citizens outside of the realm of market forces. Principally, these include basic healthcare, legal services, education up to a certain level, housing, and enough money to survive on.

Questions can be raised about what exactly constitutes basic healthcare or legal services, whether free education should stop at high school or extend into college, and how guaranteeing a minimum amount of money is best achieved. These are important considerations, but they don’t change the essential position: that the basic necessities of life are a right by virtue of being a citizen.

The other question is: What does it mean to be a ‘progressive country’? If a country has free healthcare but not free college, or universal housing but no living wage, should they be classified as progressive or not. Obviously, there are degrees to this just like anything else. However, I think the litmus test should be healthcare. It seems to be the most fundamental service that one requires throughout their lifespan. That is what I would use to define a country as progressive.

I have been intrigued by the concept of socialism for about as long as I have been a progressive. However, I’ve never identified as a socialist, because I was always unclear on exactly what this entailed. At best, I was socialist-curious or socialist-positive.

Let’s start with the most basic definition: social ownership of the means of production. Textbook. Okay, but what does this really mean? Does the federal government control everything? Is this strictly an economic system, or does it extend to social welfare as well? What metric would I use to label a country as being socialist?

These are the three questions I want to try to give a tentative answer to in this post.

1. Does socialism mean the federal government controls everything? I don’t think the federal government controlling something makes it socialist or even more socialist than it was before. It could just as easily (and probably more likely) make it more fascist (not that these two ideologies necessarily are opposites). For this reason, I prefer the more Marxist definition of socialism: a system in which workers control the means of production. Now again, what does that mean? I think at a minimum it needs to include this:
   

   A government mandate that businesses with more than a certain number of employees give each employee an equal vote in business and personnel decisions for that company.

2. Does socialism include social justice such as reproductive rights? I think it best to view socialism strictly as an economic system, specifically promoting or demanding a level of democracy in the workplace. Now, more than likely, if you are a proponent of more democracy in the workplace, you probably also want social justice in general. That being said, I don’t think this should be considered a necessary prerequisite.
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3. What determines whether a country is socialist or not? In order to define a system economically, there needs to be some top-down rule that is in effect. Otherwise, it could just be chance. For example, let’s suppose that 90% of the businesses in a country were worker cooperatives? Even though I would call that country extremely socialist-friendly, unless there was a law on the books that enshrined this model, I wouldn’t call it socialist. Perhaps another label would apply: syndicalism. But that is a topic for another day.

TL;DR: Socialism is democracy in the workplace, pure and simple.

Using the effective definitions I provided in this blog post, almost all developed countries are progressive (minus the US), but very few are socialist. This is another one of my hang-ups when it comes to espousing socialism. We just don’t have a lot of successful experiments with it (definitely NOT on a large scale). However, I would like more thought and research to be done on the topic.

Obviously, there are still a lot of questions to address within this framework. The principal one being: how many employees would be the cutoff between a large business and a small business, or should there even be a number? However, defining the parameters of the discussion is a necessary first step in having any type of intelligent dialogue on the topic.

Namaste.

Ok, let me be clear up front: this blog is providing some of my current thoughts ON suicide, not my thoughts OF suicide – just in case there was any confusion or alarm at the title. However, the fact that I feel this unrestrainable urge to disclaim my mental state before going on to talk about this issue is part of the reason for this post today.

I vividly remember having strong passive suicidal ideation around 6 years ago when I was in medical school. I was studying for the STEP 1 exam at the time, didn’t have many friends, and had recently experienced a period of major depression. What ultimately removed these thoughts and feelings in my situation: I discovered Buddhism. More on that in a future post.

A bill was recently passed in England that allowed for assisted dying, a process by which a terminally ill person can work with healthcare professionals to decide on how to end their life painlessly in their own time. Similar processes are also legal in several other countries and US states.

Bodily integrity is what I believe should be the most basic value upheld by a society. I’ve detailed in a previous post why this, and not life, is the fundamental right. The Cliff Notes version can be elucidated by the question: would you rather have 50 years of living a normal life, or an eternity of living in pain. I think almost everyone, without a moment’s hesitation, would choose the former.

Bodily integrity isn’t bodily integrity unless you allow people to potentially do things that could seriously harm or even kill themselves. That is their choice. You want to prevent people that are mentally incompetent from doing hurtful things to themselves, but otherwise, it is not society’s job to police what people do with and to their bodies.

I recently listened to a Modern Wisdom podcast featuring Nedd Brockman, an ultramarathon philanthropist who ran 1000 miles around a track in 12 days. This is not a one-day Ironman (like I would like to complete), but an almost 2-week slog around a small oval again and again just tearing yourself down to the bone with very little sleep. Is this safe? I’m not sure, but even if the answer was a definite, “NO,” Nedd should still be allowed to do this. People should be allowed to smoke or eat what they want, sleep with who they want (provided it’s consensual), and wear what they want (provided it isn’t a public health risk).

If you support bodily integrity, you can’t draw lines and say you support it in this area but not in that one. That would mean you don’t REALLY support it at all. And with that being the case, suicide is one of those choices people might make.

I would love to see people’s language and perceptions around suicide change.

1. It isn’t always a bad thing; It can be beautiful in some contexts – I think that giving terminally ill people the ability to choose how they exit should not only be their right, but has the potential to be a wholesome and liberating process, provided the proper guardrails are in place to prevent foul play.
2. Even when we deem it unfortunate, it is not some deadly sin (even if it is deadly) –Catholicism teaches that anyone in their right mind who dies by suicide without repenting goes to hell for eternity. Talk about some serious moral implications! To be fair, most of the Protestant articles I browsed on the topic did not subscribe to this mentality. However, commit suicide, is still one of the most common ways of addressing someone’s choice to do this. I would recommend died by suicide as a more neutral option.
3. The best way to prevent suicide is to destigmatize talking about it – The vast majority of the time, when I hear someone has died by suicide, I view it as a horrible tragedy. However, I try not to judge people for taking this action. I also don’t express immediate shock when someone speaks in passive suicidal language (specifically talking about the act might prompt a different response). Instead, I try to validate the emotions they are currently feeling and let them know that they are not alone in their struggle.

In 2022, 13.2 million Americans seriously contemplated suicide and over 49,000 died by suicide, according to the CDC. The reasons for why suicide rates have been steadily increasing ever since the early 2000s are multifactorial. However, holding space for people experiencing these thoughts and emotions and choosing language that recognizes but doesn’t condemn suicide is a great way for everyone to become more understanding and compassionate.

The lovingkindness meditation I use everyday seems like a fitting way to end this post:

May we all be free from danger,
May we all be liberated,
May we all make friends with our bodies,
May lovingkindness manifest throughout all our lives.

Namaste.

I feel extremely blessed right now. Last week, I purchased a new Trek Domane AL 2 Endurance Bike, which I picked up on Thursday. I took it for a 12-mile spin this morning. Although my toes felt like they froze off from the cold (toe socks and shoes don’t provide much insulation), it was otherwise a great experience! I am also very happy to be evaluating this past month’s challenge. It’s not an exaggeration to say it was the most beneficial one I’ve done to date.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• More effective than karma points – I have used a self-generated karma scale as a source of intrapersonal validation and honoring of middle path for several years. However, it operates on a more cerebral level and doesn’t often give the visceral boost that a simple, “Good job!” from someone can do. In this regard, the journaling was a smashing success.
• Strengthened my empowering belief in consciousness conservation – I don’t talk about my metaphysical beliefs much because there aren’t any people or groups that I am associated with that hold them in the same way I do. For this reason, they sometimes feel completely intellectual and unreal. This challenge opened a sense of deep connection with my spiritual side and allowed me to actualize my beliefs in a practical way.
• Produced spontaneous gratitude – Many times throughout the month, I felt this totally unprompted surge of joie de vivre. Simple things like taking a deep breath, drinking a glass of water, and meditating felt hyperreal and wondrous. Very early on, I had a random sustained period of euphoria.

• Net energy gain in the moment for most of the challenge – All of the journaling challenges I have completed in the past – gratitude, reframing self-talk – have been helpful in allowing me to gain perspective about something or skillfully deal with some unpleasant emotions. However, although I was grateful for them overall, there definitely was an energy sink in committing to make an entry each day. This month was the opposite; I felt an energy boost almost every time after dictating.
• Felt a bit unnecessary the last week – Towards the end of the challenge, it started to lose its effectiveness. Making the entries was still nourishing, but felt more like a chore. I suppose this is to be expected with any new practice. Everything changes and getting attached to anything will ultimately produce some suffering in the process.

WHAT I WILL CONTINUE GOING FORWARD:

• One sentence journaling – I came up with this objective after a related challenge this summer, but didn’t follow through with it. I feel much more eager and optimistic in continuing this coming off the endorphins I experienced this past month.
• Use phone app instead of computer app – I believe one of the reasons I didn’t stick with journaling before is because I was using my laptop instead of my phone. There is something incredibly calming about sitting in a recliner and dictating my journal entry as opposed to sitting at my desk and typing it in.
• Look into backing up my entries – One of the downsides to using a free app is that you may not be able to backup your journal. I would like the opportunity to go back and read some of my entries from a particular time if I wish to do so, especially if I am going to become more consistent in writing.
• New focus for journal entries each month – I think this can aid in maintaining interest in journaling. If there is a new focus for each month, it adds a layer of purposefulness onto the experience. I am not saying I have to stay on this topic every day, but it is there as a helpful default.
• Commit to journaling as a practice, not a project – If I am constantly trying to create utility or meaning out of an entry, this is likely to lead to frustration. However, if I think more long-term, I can appreciate the action even when I’m not feeling it. This is very similar to my approach to meditation. I honor the practice whether it is easy, difficult, enjoyable, or painful. This elevates it to a meaningful experience regardless of the immediate outcome for any particular session.

I feel this past month has reignited my interest in journaling for the fun of it! Also, if approached skillfully, it can be a great way to enhance my experience and understanding of life.

Namaste.

It’s new challenge time again! I was thinking I would do a physically strenuous challenge for this month, but recent foot pain and dysfunction have made that option unwise at this time. Instead, I am going to do something that is long overdue. One of the areas of life I have been trying to restore in the last few years is my dysregulated sleep quality and schedule. This month is all about creating and maintaining a healthy and sustainable pre-sleep and post-sleep routine.

Here are the specifications for the challenge:

• Create a separate podcast account that is strictly for bedtime listening – I want to have a list of podcast episodes on my phone that are solely used for falling asleep and are updated regularly. What works best for me at this time, perhaps paradoxically, is casual political commentary.
• Do inversion practice for 5 minutes immediately before getting in bed – I was thinking about doing an inversion-specific challenge, but in looking into it discovered there are actually some benefits to sleep from inverting beforehand. My main focus is headstands, but I’m okay with sometimes just doing partial inversions on days I’m not feeling it.

• Decrease time spent watching TV or YouTube in bed to zero – This will be my third or fourth time to do this, but I am optimistic about it sticking this time since I’m combining it with a lot of other practices and aids. Also, I am not doing this all at once; I will taper down slowly over the course of the challenge.
• Turn off Wi-Fi at night – I had my students use an article on the dangers of wireless radiation as their scientific reasoning practice at the beginning of the year. Since that time, I have been more mindful of my own exposure. Unplugging at night is a great and easy way to reduce that, and may also have a slight impact on sleep quality.
• Reduce the amount of time between waking up and getting up – Currently, I have a series of small actions I take over the course of 30-35 minutes to gently coax myself out of bed. I developed these when simply judging myself for not getting up was unhelpful. I believe I am ready to curtail these down to maybe 10 minutes.
• Drink water with lemon first thing upon getting up – When researching effective practices to engage in immediately upon rising, drinking water was at the top of almost every list. Adding some lemon flavor can make that even better. I will start by just using essential oil and purchase and prepare some fresh lemons as I progress.
• Meditate outside for 5 minutes in the morning immediately after stretching – This will entail budgeting a few extra minutes in the morning to fit the practice in, but I think it will be worth it. Meditation has been the single most effective aid at regulating my nervous system, stabilizing my emotions, and increasing my level of gratitude. I am excited to try starting the day off with it.

I anticipate some struggles and failures as I implement these calibrations. The area of sleep has been one I’ve struggled with in different ways for decades. However, I am at a stable place in my sleep regimen currently, and hope to supercharge it over the course of this month.

Namaste.

Since the 2024 presidential election two and a half weeks ago, I have thought a decent amount about what, if any, underlying values are necessary for people to both be able to vehemently disagree with one another, while at the same time genuinely respect their experience and viewpoint.

A lot of assertive ideas have been bandied about as universal starting points, only to have a huge portion of the country utterly toss them out as bogus. Some common refrains I hear from a variety of sides:

• Trust the experts – What qualifies someone as an expert? What if the experts disagree? What if the experts are disconnected from the average person’s experience?
• Have faith in God’s plan – Can we prove God even exists? How can we be sure we are interpreting God’s plan correctly? What if God’s plan turns out to be evil?
• Believe in science – Why is science any more valid as a starting point than faith? Who decides when scientific consensus is reached? How can science instill values?
• Avoid extremes – What if an extreme position is the right position in some cases? Who decides what is extreme? Wouldn’t this cause us to shift values every time we visited a different culture?
• Use common sense – Does this essentially mean just trust our gut? If someone else’s gut doesn’t align with ours, does that mean they have the wrong type of common sense? What if Einstein was right when he said,

• Do what’s right – How can we know our feelings of morality are anything more than just saying “Boo!” or “Hooray!” in reaction to certain ideas and actions? If what is right is not dependent on what we feel, to whom should we sell our soul: Our perception of God? Pure rationality? Popular consensus?
• Avoid tribalism – How big does a group have to be before it becomes a tribe? Isn’t unity a desirable quality? If ancient human survival depended on being part of a group, are we asking people to discard an essential part of what it means to be human?

To be fair, I have used all of these refrains at one time or another in my life. Usually I would preface them with the word ‘just’ to emphasize the seeming simplicity of it all. Just trust the experts! Just have faith! Just use some common sense! Just do what’s right! It’s as if I thought the answer to all life’s problems could be illuminated in a single-sentence epiphany.

Looking back on my usages of these talking points, one common thread stands out to me: Arrogance. I really have the audacity to believe that in my paltry time on earth, I have figured out for myself – much less FOR EVERYONE – the obviously simple truth that informs all behavior, all morality, or all truth? A truth that countless philosophers, scientists, politicians, and theologians have debated for eons?

No, I think the only way to experience a sense of connection that is independent of a person’s fundamental epistemology, political alignment, or personal values is to embrace humility. I’m not proposing this is easy; in fact, it might be one of the hardest mindsets to live out. No one likes uncertainty. However, if you care at all about wanting to understand people that are radically different from you or learn from experiences that are utterly foreign from your own, I don’t see another option.

Maybe you are thinking to yourself, “Nah, such-and-such is the truth and that is just the way it is!” If so, I would encourage you to try this simple exercise. Ask yourself the question, “How do I know?” If you can give a compelling answer, then ask the question again. Usually, it only takes about 4 of these queries to get to the point where you honestly have to admit, “I don’t know.”

That. That right there is the bedrock of humility.

Humility does not mean giving up your convictions. However, the recognition that we don’t have absolute certainty can at the very least instill in us some curiosity and compassion for the beliefs and practices of those that are fundamentally different from our own. It can bring some much needed grace into our lives and relationships.

For me personally, I would like to transform my reactive “that is stupid” response into a more humble, “Hmm, that doesn’t make sense to me. What am I missing?” Every time I have chosen to take this approach, I have never been unhappy I did so.

Namaste.

I sometimes have people ask me, “What is a Buddhist like?” My thought upon hearing this is ‘pretty much the same as any other lovely person that exists in the world.’ However, I think what the question is driving at is: What virtues are at the core of Buddhist life? When you set aside the philosophical aspect of non-attachment and just look at character qualities, what would I expect to find?

One of the spokes of the dharma wheel is skillful effort, which involves cultivating what in Buddhism are referred to as the 4 heavenly abodes. I remember these using the acronym SCEL (and yes I realize this is not an actual word).

• Sympathetic Joy: experiencing the joy of others as if it was our own
• Compassion: experiencing the pain or sorrow of others as it if it was our own
• Equanimity: holding a balanced mixture of all emotions
• Lovingkindness: exhibiting complete and unrestrained friendliness

Of these four, equanimity is probably the most recognizably Buddhist, probably because of its association with meditation. However, a lot of people (myself included in the past), picture an equanimous person as someone who is never ruffled no matter what life throws their way – someone who is imperturbably calm and steady.

This stereotype is understandable because in the macro-sense, this is true. However, in the moment-by-moment sense, this is not so at all. In fact, pure equanimity implies feeling all emotions in their fullest sense, without judgment or embarrassment.

When something unjust happens, we can feel deep anger that leads to righteous action. When something painful happens, we can feel unabashed sorrow. When something exciting piques our interest, we can feel incredible passion. However, cultivating equanimity means accepting the truth that hanging out in any of these valences for an extended period of time is tiring. So after fully experiencing the anger, sorrow, or passion, we hold it in gentle awareness and come back to a balanced center.

Over the last couple of months, I have experienced increasing levels of equanimity in the midst of daily life. Sometimes, it seems inexplicable. A week and a half ago, I had a pretty rough day at work and felt like just stewing in a cloud of negativity on my drive home. However, I decided instead to practice curiosity and compassion: to acknowledge and unpack what I was feeling in all of its intensity without judgment or reaction.

A weird phenomenon occurred when I did this. I arrived home and almost suddenly started feeling upbeat and almost euphoric (not a normal occurrence for me following a bout of negativity). I decided to be curious about this as well and embrace the feeling without attachment. After a while, my mood settled into a more balanced position. The negativity and euphoria were still within me, and both had their purposes, but integrating them into my natural resting state was ultimately more comfortable than hanging out in either extreme.

I experienced a feeling of deep contentment. The cool thing about this experience is that it is completely replicable. Normally, the swing in my emotional disposition is not so pronounced, but as I have cultivated this mind state, I have discovered that although I can’t banish unpleasant emotions, I always have access to finding this place of balance. Just realizing this opens up a well of gratitude.

I am feeling more emotions at this point in my life than I have in a long time. I also feel more at peace with myself than I have in a long time. These things are not contradictory. In fact, I think they are intricately connected with a proper understanding of equanimity.

Namaste.

A few months ago, I embarked on a month of loving my former self. Ever since leaving med school, I have experienced a boatload of guilt and/or shame on a semi-regular basis. Even after working through a lot of the issues that lead to my breakdown multiple times over, I still retained a cacophony of unpleasant emotional noise from the past. My diagnosis was that I held bitterness at this earlier version of myself and my prescription was basically an elaborate self-forgiveness challenge.

I learned and grew a lot from the challenge. I unpacked most of the various threads that lead to my unraveling and the unpleasant current emotions that had glommed onto each thread. However, at the end of the process, although I gained an enormous amount of context and compassion for myself, I still felt like the whole mess was largely unresolved.

My eventual epiphany was that the root of my emotional turmoil was not guilt, anger, anxiety, or bitterness (even though these were close outgrowths), but rather deep embarrassment. I think one reason this is the case is that with most of the other uncomfortable emotions, I feel a sense of familiarity and confidence in dealing with them, even if it is painful and difficult work.

A podcast episode I listened to recently (either from Modern Wisdom or Ten Percent Happier) challenged the well-known idea that all growth comes when we get out of our comfort zone. The guest coined the phrase ‘uncertainty zone’ and proposed this to be the place where the rubber really meets the road in terms of learning about oneself and accomplishing not just personal growth but radical transformation.

Embarrassment is one emotion I feel deep and abiding uncertainty in navigating. In fact, it was this emotion more than any other that led to my general feeling withdrawal when I was a teenager. It induces in me a sense of panic, of unworthiness, and a host of downstream emotional ripples. It turns on my fight/flight/freeze/fawn reflex to full capacity.

I’m struggling to even write this blog post, because just contemplating the concept of embarrassment unleashes a cascade of moments and sensations from the past that causes my panic level to start rising. This is the zone of not just discomfort for me, but an abiding and almost existential aura of uncertainty.

I would love to say that this understanding opened up some sense of release and acceptance towards myself and the past, but that is not the case. If anything, I feel like I have regressed to the age of 13 and am struggling to breathe through the murky and toxic fog of an adolescent brain.

However, one positive thing I have experienced very recently is a feeling of resilience. This has been cultured through my firm commitment to middle path in all situations, developing a daily practice of intrapersonal validation, and my trust in the meta-narrative into which my life fits.

It is from this newfound sense of resilience and optimism that I write this post. I’m not sure how I will learn to sit with and accept my Achilles’ Heel, but I do know that being honest about it is the right action for me in this moment. All life is a series of moments and I trust I will be able to take the small action necessary at each juncture.

Namaste.

The inspiration for this challenge came from an episode on the Modern Wisdom podcast. I believe the guest being featured was Derek Sivers. However, even if I am misremembering the contribution, I do know that listening to this conversation resonated with a lot of the thoughts and challenges I have been experiencing over the last few years. Focusing on believing and doing things because they are useful instead of because they are “true” has become very central to the way I wish to operate.

I have kept a gratitude journal on and off for a few years now. The benefits of gratitude have been widely studied and reported. However, I personally have experienced that without engaging in underlying personal validation, expressing gratitude can feel a bit inorganic and performative.

This month is all about establishing and maintaining a more positive and healthy emotional baseline. I believe doing so will make gratitude more spontaneous and less transactional.

Here are the particulars of the challenge:

• Write 3 “good job” entries to myself each day using the Gratitude app journal –
  These could be done all at once at the end of the day, or singly as I recognize wise action in myself throughout the day. I can get more creative with the entries as I progress, but I want to start out simple. E.g. “Good job taking a few minutes to sit with the unpleasant agitation you felt after 8th period instead of giving in to avoidance.”
• If possible, focus on times during the day where I consciously used middle way –
  
  In addition to supplying daily doses of personal validation, my other goal is to create a ritual that affirms my empowering spiritual beliefs, primarily consciousness conservation and karma. As I believe good karma is acquired by living in middle way, I want this to be the main emphasis. This could be on a more macro systems-level or micro situational-level.
• Share one of these entries with someone else at least once per week – As valuable as INTRA-personal validation is, I want to also cultivate opportunities for INTER-personal validation as well. I have several obvious venues I can think of for this: Unitarian fellowship, Secular Buddhism zoom call, affirmative prayer sessions, or weekly blogs. However, I want to think about sharing in other contexts as well when appropriate.

I am incredibly excited and optimistic about this challenge. I am hopeful about this expanding to include expressions of validation about other people and related events around me as well. Maybe this will become an actionable way to appreciate the Universal Self.

Namaste.