Sometimes spinning our wheels is a good thing - like when we're getting exercise riding a bike. But when the wheels of our mind spin the feeling is the opposite. It feels like we're victims of our thoughts. This episode introduces Tara Brach, the Buddhist teacher and author of the book Radical Acceptance. She talks about how meditation can help us move away from mental spin.
Tara Brach https://www.tarabrach.com/
Radical Compassion https://www.tarabrach.com/radical-compassion/
Hello and welcome to Uplifted. My name is Meg Luther Lindholm. And I welcome you on this journey from adversity towards new insights for a better life. Today’s step on the journey is called Spinning Our Mental Wheels.
If you’ve ever ridden a stationary bike you know how it feels to peddle while the wheels spin in place. We’re going nowhere. But we feel good knowing we’re getting in shape. We’re toning our legs - building muscle with every rotation. Spinning faster. Spinning harder. Moving towards our goal of losing weight or feeling stronger.
But when the wheels of our minds spin, the feeling can be totally different. If our thoughts are negative we can feel like helpless victims of our minds. We wonder why we can’t shake our bad thoughts? Why do they follow us around? Why they don’t leave us alone? Our bad thoughts might be connected to tragedies from our past. Like the death of a loved one who we couldn’t help. Or to memories of reaching a fork in the road and choosing the wrong direction. Like choosing the wrong person to marry or buying a home that we couldn’t afford. We blame ourselves over and over. Our inner critic is like a parent who never stops berating us.
Sometimes its fear of the future that brings out our inner critic. One woman I encountered recently was immersed in bad thoughts about her adopted son. I’ll call this woman Ann. Her son had been severely traumatized in an orphanage before she and her husband adopted him. Now he acts out in anger and in fear. He pushes people away and doesn’t let his parents get close to him. Ann fears her son will end up hurting himself or ruining his life in some other way. And she blames herself. She feels she hasn’t done enough to help him. She says she overreacts when he provokes her. And so she fixates on thinking about what a bad parent she is. Rationally she knows she didn’t cause her son’s trauma. But she can’t stop blaming herself for his problems. If only she could do more. She’s on the mental bicycle spinning her emotional wheels. And she can’t get off.
Tara Brach: “The talk tonight is how to let vulnerability be truly the path to freedom.”
Tara Brach is a clinical psychologist. She’s also a longtime Buddhist practioner and teacher. And she’s the author of a book called Radical Acceptance. In it she writes: “For many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn’t take much--just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work. These are all things that make us feel that we are not okay.
TB: “When we’re at war with how our mind is when we’re at war with the fact that there’s thinking, that are minds get busy, that our minds get obsessive, we’re going to be at war for the rest of our lives.”
I realize that what Tara is saying doesn’t exactly sound hopeful. It sounds more like a verdict of doom. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s light that can appear through the practice of meditation. When we meditate we begin to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness. And that awareness is our first step towards altering our perceptions of ourselves.
TB: “We have these neuro pathways that have been grooved in. In order to shift the conditioning we need to practice over and over.”
We need to practice watch our thoughts passing through our minds. When we do this we begin to create space around them. We begin to realize our thoughts are not who we are. They are not in control of us. This realization becomes a form of liberation.
For Ann, the mother of the adopted boy, meditation allows her to feel how much she loves her son. She turns away from herself to focus more on the compassion she feels for him. And instead of berating herself for not doing enough she accepts that she is doing the best she can. And in that shift, she begins to feel more compassion for herself. We can all make a similar shift away from thoughts of why can’t I do more or better? To thinking I’m doing the best I can.
TB: “Sense that tender spaciousness and sense that this truly is more who you than any of those stories of the stuck person.”
Thank you for joining me on this step of the Uplifted journey. I’m Meg Luther Lindholm. You can subscribe to Uplifted on Itunes, Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. You can also subscribe to my blog on Substack. You’ll find a link on the Uplifted website. And if you like what you hear I would so appreciate your sharing it. Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.