Developing Empathic Wisdom Thoughts - Episode 12

Awareness That Heals, Episode 12.

Can you find situations in your life and identify the specific feelings you're going through so that you can find the motivation for the best direction you can guide yourself?

Awareness That Heals is a podcast that helps its listeners become more at peace with all states of their mind. Your host, Robert J. Strock, has practiced psychotherapy for more than 45 years. He's coined the term awareness that heals to help you develop self-caring and the capacity to respond in an effective way to life's challenges, especially at times when you're most prone to be critical or to withdraw. Together, we'll explore how to become caring, aware of our challenging feelings, and how we can use our friendly mind to respond and help care for these difficult feelings to live a better, more inspiring life.

I'd like to give you a heartfelt welcome again to Awareness That Heals. And this episode again is going to be a very important continuation of the depth and hard to understand the combination of simplicity and complication of each step Because to the mind, it looks like it's pretty easy to understand. But when we're suffering, it's not only not easy to understand, it's hard to even remember. So we're really going to try to do our best to give a grounded set of principles that include all of our life experience. And today both Dave and Shelley are joining us again. And as you've likely heard, which I'll give you the short version of today, Dave is my 50-year closest friend, co-president of the Global Bridge Foundation, and Shelley is a therapist and board member of the Global Bridge Foundation. Very dear friend. And we may also hear from Mark Spiro, who is the engineer and happens to be truly dedicated, as you will have heard in the prior episode of Friendly Mind, in his wide-open sharing. So in the last episode, we, we covered the first principle of Friendly Mind. Which really begins where all of us are facing our greatest challenges emotionally or situationally, and how important it is not only to become aware of those challenges or that challenge, but even as we develop Instead of going, oh shit, I feel afraid again, or I feel angry again, or I feel anxious again, or I feel depressed again, we gradually can develop the ability to go, oh good, I'm aware of myself. And now I have a chance not to just be stuck in this and can learn how to link to friendly mind, or its equivalent in whatever way you conceive of the universe, which is guiding ourselves when we're really suffering. And we'll be looking to really explore the fundamental principles of friendly mind, because without this understanding we definitely will not be able to take full advantage. And to be even more realistic, the understanding's 10%. It's practice, practice, practice. And then it's— when we're suffering, it's practice, practice, practice. And I don't say that to make it seem like work. I, I say it, hopefully you can get a sense of it, that yes, at first it might feel like work, and very likely will, but as it becomes clear, you realize you're learning to guide yourself, and it becomes more like play. It becomes more like a gift. But you don't want to rush there. And this is part of the subtlety of really understanding not to get ahead of ourselves and not to give up. So the second principle of friendly mind is thinking empathically when we feel really stuck, or even thinking empathically when we just don't feel good. It's of particular importance when we're stymied, when we're in a feeling where there's no way we're getting out. Now, some of you, as you're listening to this, will say, oh, I don't have that problem. The odds are pretty good you're under 60 if you say that. But many people actually feel that way from the time they're born because they have an altered chemistry. And so it's so important, no matter which end of the aging process you're in, or the chemical process you're in, or the trauma process you're in or not in, that the key is we're learning with friendly mind to think empathically toward ourselves when it matters the most, when our challenging emotions can take us over in a way that we're conscious of or in a way that we're not conscious of. Some of you likely have heard the origins of the conception of Friendly Mind, but I received a kidney transplant 21 and a half years ago from my brother. And that's usually a time for tremendous celebration, but the transplant medications, my body received a speed So I slept an hour a night for the first 6 months, and I was a mess. I was chronically exhausted, agitated, not that much fun to be with if you tuned into my energy. And I couldn't feel the good feelings that I had been able to feel, especially in my last 30 years of my adult life. Through quite a bit of my childhood. Couldn't feel gratitude even for my brother giving me the kidney. Couldn't feel joy. Couldn't feel inspiration. Couldn't feel tenderness that was more familiar to me. And so then I asked myself, which was the origins of Friendly Mind, what can I do? How can I be if I can't be what I belatedly came to a deeper realization of? If I can't be my identity of feeling good, of feeling loving, of feeling caring, of feeling compassionate, how can I be? So what started to come to me about an hour after I slept in the first month or two of not sleeping more than that was I can still find my wisdom as long as I remember I want to, because I didn't feel like it. I could develop my, my wish to care for myself, which I framed as intention to heal. Or healing intention, and I could channel that to guide myself to feel— or more accurately, to think— more caringly toward myself that this wouldn't be easy for anyone. Show me anybody in the world that this would be easy for. And of course, so many of you out there have a parallel version of this that's probably kept dominantly private. Or maybe you have one or two people, a therapist, a best friend, maybe a lover, family member, if you're fortunate, that you share it with. So that question of how can I think about this, how can I guide myself given that my identity can't be any longer based on how do I feel, or I was screwed. Now, that led me to keep asking that question because I had a lot of time on my hands. How can I care for myself? Not so much emotionally, like feeling caring, because I couldn't, but I could think. And I, I knew I wanted to feel better. So wanting to feel better, remembering to keep asking myself, how can I feel better, was the origins of Friendly Mind. And for each of you, it's so important that you see the paradox that I would encourage you to view it in a similar way to the way I viewed it, which is that was the time where I earned my stripes. I'm much better off now. I mean, I still have very difficult mornings, but when you don't feel good and you can still find some guidance for your life, that's heroic. For any of us that can do that. Because absolutely, that's the time where we want to fight or flight, where we want to just get angry at the world, angry at ourselves, or just run away from it all and disassociate. So can you ask yourself right now as you hear this, A, does it make sense to you that that's the most heroic time for you when you feel the worst? And more importantly, even, B, do you feel the motivation to develop it and practice it? And C, how important it is, which I assure you, if you're lucky enough to age and you don't have an early death, that you'll have an understanding of losing capacity in too many areas to mention, and that will lead to feelings of inadequacy, depression or depressiveness, anxiety, anger, helplessness, and much more. I remember saying to myself over and over again, you are doing the hardest work you've ever done in your life, and you're getting the least results that people can notice or will ever be able to notice. Notice, notice that this is the hardest work of your life, having no sense that I'd ever be able to really feel good again. But knowing whether I felt good or not, I was going to dedicate myself to being aware of how horribly exhausted I felt with about 10 constellations of feelings from there. And that I wanted to guide myself to still be able to see my clients, to still be able to acknowledge where I was and am, but still be able to relate to the rest of the world, still stay open to others' worlds and not follow my feelings. Follow my friendly mind. So the question is, can you hear this for you? Can you apply this to you? Can you find situations in your life and identify the specific feelings you're going through so that you can find the motivation for the best direction you can guide yourself. And again, as I have a few times before, I highly encourage you to go to awarenessthatheals.org and get a free copy of the introspective guides that have a list of the 75 most challenging feelings that we experience in a list that's not meant to be God's gift to lists, but it's a good comprehensive list when we're suffering. And then 75 healing qualities or actions that are likely to be some of the directions you're going to guide yourself when you're stuck in this way. Now, understanding is a great beginning of: this is my suffering, I want to feel better, or I at least want to do the best I can. If I can't, if I can't feel better, what, what can I do? And as we went into in the last episode quite a bit What are the steps I can do, and how can I be in whatever situation I'm in, whatever feeling I'm in, to optimize a sense of well-being? Not in, not in terms of feeling, but an inner knowing that knows that requires more to be centered when you feel like shit. And there's a part of you that's centered. And it may sound a little schizophrenic or weird even at first that you're going to split yourself in these two ways. But if you drop down into your challenges, you'll realize that it requires great devotion, great practice to really develop this capacity.

Thank you for sharing your story and having been your friend throughout that time. Um, and I'm identifying with a few of my own situations in my own life, but I, I will say there was— there literally was nowhere to go, and there was no steps to take at that time to move away from the state, the feelings. And so it was remarkable to see and remarkable now to have you talk about and, and to see where this has come and how much benefit is provided by creating another healing influence inside of yourself towards yourself. And recently for me, which is what I want to share about me in a different way, because it was a, a cancer with my wife, um, that took because of the pandemic, a lot of time between all the different elements of trying to figure things out, a lot of time between things. And during that time, there was nothing I could do. And I felt anxious in ways that I could not find reassurance from within myself to allay those feelings of anxiety. I could not find reassurance externally because there were too many unknowns, too many tests, too many steps that were still outstanding that for me were going in slow motion. And it was for me among the most challenging times, and I've had, I've had quite a few. In fact, As you mentioned before, over 60, somebody sent me something yesterday that said being over 60 is like driving a car for the rest of your life that has the check engine light on. And it feels that way sometimes. And so it does feel like I'm being introduced to, and, you know, hello again, here I am. And I'm going to be reintroducing myself to this aspect of life because it's the nature of things. And it was friendly mind. It was sometimes friendly mind saying, "Hey, just watch a movie," or as simple as that, or "Call a friend. Listen to them. Get out of whatever it is that's going on with me." And it wasn't avoidance. It was a— to me, I experienced that as healthy distraction from something that was impossible to move out of for me. And it did change the feeling to some degree. Of course, when left alone, when left to my own devices in silence, when going to bed at night, sure, there was the gravitational pull to go back to the feelings. But I found these to be ways I could deal with those things. And eventually, just as I said, introducing myself to this part of life was also part of what was helpful. And just knowing that there isn't a person, whether they're aware of it or deep in it or however they handle it, but is not going to go through these types of things in their life. And I felt the universality of it. It didn't comfort me. It didn't take away the fundamentals, but it helped.

Thank you for that, Dave. Um, the flip side, uh, of that is to have a truly close friend— you can't explain how deep that is— mirror an energy of love towards you that you can't feel. Is the greatest catalyst to help develop friendly mind from the outside. Because I couldn't feel you, but I knew you, and I knew the feelings were coming, and I knew my system was just blocked off. But that helped that more focused, narrow channel to be evolved. And it was utterly ironic because one of the tip-offs for me led to developing Friendly Mind was my mainstay of communication, which some people would say is my first name, my last name, and my middle name, and not always flatteringly. It it really allowed me to see that communication with friends wasn't creating the relief that it always did. I could say I feel exhausted, but guess what? When I was done, I was still the same exhausted. You could say I felt depressed, and guess what? I still felt the same depressed after I was depressed, saying I was depressed. But the key point being if you're lucky enough in this situation, to go to a counselor, if you don't have a best friend that can do that, is a great way to catalyze friendly mind. And I wanted to just echo one thing that you've said, which easily could be misunderstood, even when you covered it, of calling it a distraction at times, that that's a wise thing to do rather than stay consumed in a feeling. It's kind of a conscious distraction to help yourself not stay in the stew. One of my prior teachers said to me, when you feel your worst, go cook some eggs. And I was bewildered the first second, and then I realized he was saying, man, get your attention off it as fast as you can because you're not doing yourself any good to have your mind be absorbed in it when you're especially at the worst of it. When it's tolerable, then you can more directly relate to it and you can start asking questions of how can I care for myself. But there's a stage when you're in the bottom pits of it where it's not really a distraction, it's a wise attraction to help you balance yourself, to shimmy your way up to be playable, more playable with friendly mind. So that's where it gets so subtle as to, am I at that place where I can even ask myself questions? And as we're going to be talking about in the next stage, it's also very important to realize that friendly mind is in a way not the perfect definition Because friendly mind isn't meant to imply that you can be friendly towards yourself in the thought. It's the content of the thought that's friendly. It's the wisdom in the thought that's friendly. But we'll go more into that in the next principle.

You know, I'd just like to share, it's extraordinary being able to witness this conversation. And for me, having the benefit of being such close Dharma friends through these years and feeling relatively friendly toward myself for most of my life, but having an experience just recently that was an overwhelm that I had never actually felt before. And it was the day of the protests And I, you know, having— I was dealing with some physical pain. I had slept poorly for at least 3 nights, if not longer. That morning, helicopters were buzzing around Santa Monica for hours, and I hadn't read the news yet because I wasn't feeling well and I didn't know what was going on. And there was no time for friendly mind. It was just complete overwhelm. And I guess I would suggest this for anyone who doesn't have their own friendly mind to find a friend to be that friendly mind. But being able to go to you, Robert, and say, I'm I'm overwhelmed and I, you know, it's— this is— I'm having a hard time handling it. And just have you notice and embrace just a warm, present hug that completely settled my system. And, you know, something that few people know the timing, feel comfortable doing that. Certainly asking for it is— most people don't feel comfortable doing that either, but it's deeply healing. And so if— so that's one place that I feel is so important for people who are not necessarily let's say, ruminators in general. They just kind of experience something and there's not a lot of cognitive thought about it. It's just the energetic pattern. But also as it relates to, I think, one of the biggest things in my life that I've struggled with, a few things that had to do with really feeling a profound sense of guilt and remorse and being able to talk about it with you, Robert, and have a genuine experience of empathy and rationale and reframe and maybe even a little comic relief. It's incredibly healing, incredibly healing. So that's how I experience and don't experience friendly mind. And I think it's really worthy of sharing because it does come from a depth of friendship and trust and ability to be open to that. And so I thank you for that.

Shelley, thanks so much for that tender acknowledgement and especially the vulnerability that again, you're sharing with the audience and people that are listening. And it makes me think of two things. One is the feelings that you were dealing with, the remorse and the guilt. One of the subtleties, which again we'll be dealing with later in the other principles, is the key to being friendly mind was being in present time and not trying to solve something that you had guilt and remorse for from the past.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Because we have a tendency when we have those feelings, we just want to do them over. You know, we're not thinking of what's the most I can do right now to really deal with guilt and remorse. And then the second part that is so crucial, and we're not going to be able to go into it enough to give it the depth that it deserves, is that if friendly mind and passing that around is a key element of friendship, then instead of having your friend agree with you and disagree with your husband or your wife or always be on your side, friendly mind is interested in facing the truth and making the very, very best of it. And those friendships are sacred because they're not just trying to say, oh, you're such a good person, oh, you're so loving, 'Oh, he's an asshole.' It's saying, 'How are you best going to take care of yourself and the other involved?' And as friendships go, that adds another dimension that just needs to be talked about more and more.

One, one thing to add, and because it's so obvious, uh, inside me, but I just, I just want to reflect to you that, uh, I, I hope I have been there nearly as much as you have been there for me. And in amplifying that and amplifying what you just said to Shelley about being in the present, for me, guilt— and I have I have no shortage. I've earned it. In fact, I deserve it in some cases. But ultimately, guiding myself to where it's possible, to the original innocent intention, even if I'm in the midst of guilt, Even if I'm tormenting myself, even if I'm in trauma over acts and things that happened, looking for, seeking out again with my thoughts at the beginning, and hopefully eventually more, what was my original motivation? Was I really, really just a bad seed? Or was there something more? Was there something I was looking for that had some wholesomeness in it? And can I find that now to put an overlay on what happened?

And what you're saying is so profound in that you're not trying to short-circuit the guilt. There's a part of you that's even laughing. And that shows that there's some real healing. And being able to look at the guilt and the remorses of our life in present terms, and going back to the past and remembering where we were then and not having the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, is the only way to heal it, because there are original motivations that we had at the time, because we were in altered motivations, altered situations, altered needs, and we forget that. And so as you and I went back, it became very clear where a lot of your deepest innocence, truly deepest longings of your life were a big part of it. And that's a very important teaching for all of us. And again, we're not going to be able to give it full justice because it deserves more of that. And the other thing is, yes, you have been there for me every step of the way like nobody else in my life. So again, I'm very happy or pleased that we're dignifying how difficult this is because we're going through Friendly Mind step by step, slowly, and it can't be too slow. So I thank you for your rapt attention. I would encourage everyone to ask themselves, where do I need to think most empathically? Not feel empathic. Where do I need to think most empathically about my life? Where it's a really hard situation, because then you're setting yourself up to remember it and to catalyze the awareness of the situation and the response to the situation. So I look forward to you joining us in the next episode as we continue to deepen the breadth of understanding of Friendly Mind. Thanks so much.

Thanks for listening to Awareness That Heals. Please click subscribe so you won't miss an episode. If you love the podcast, the best way to help spread the word is to rate and review the show. This helps other listeners like you find this podcast. We're deeply grateful you're here and that we have found each other. We encourage you to download our introspective guides at awarenessthatheals.org. They will be helpful to you while listening to our podcast.