How To Be Wise When You’re Falling Apart - Article by Robert Strock

I'm encouraging you to reflect on your own most difficult moment of suffering and try to drop in to when you face this deep challenge. And we're going to explore together ways you can support yourself. Likely you haven't heard before. I want to introduce you to something I call friendly mind or wise mind, which I discovered during the deepest suffering of my life. A little over two decades ago, I had a kidney transplant. The medication I needed caused a very severe and unusual reaction. I could only sleep one hour a night for six months. The result? A state of exhaustion and inner devastation beyond description. My body felt wired as if I were on speed and emotionally I was completely shattered inside with chemically induced anxiety agitation and was deeply downcast. I wasn't in physical pain, but emotionally I was consistently at rock bottom. After months of barely sleeping, I noticed that my thoughts, particularly at night, were fueled by anxiety and hopelessness. Will I feel this dead for the rest of my life? After becoming aware that my destructive and negative thinking was only making my reality worse, the answer came to me. Clearly, I will not listen or react to the voice of my anxiety and hopelessness, especially at night, because it was nothing but misguided fear based on predictions and darkness. I instead led myself into silence. With 25 years of practice in meditation where I learned to let thoughts go as they arise. I took this practice and shifted it and used it as a tool during this crisis. When my mind started spiraling into anxious or hopeless futures, I said no and silenced it. In the early years, I would catch myself within seconds of an anxious or depressed thought and remind myself, this thought is of no benefit to me. You don't know the future and you've been wrong at least 95% of the time. At one level I was emotionally exhausted and empty, and at another level I was guiding myself through the development of friendly wise mind. Friendly mind was evolving as I asked myself, how can I best take care of myself when I feel this dead and agitated? I became devoted to asking the question, what is my wisdom guiding me to do? And how can I best take care of of my inner world? Now, 25 years later, I still need to show up, not be overtaken by the feeling, and guide myself to friendly mind. Having this insight alone is not nearly enough. I'm sharing this with you so you can use this and develop this this capacity to serve you in your moments of greatest need. If this makes intuitive sense to you, you'll need to dedicate yourself to continuous practice. I debated whether to call this practice friendly mind or wisdom mind because Friendly mind didn't mean I could feel good. I was unable to experience positive emotions. But it did mean that my thoughts were capable of always being constructive, empathic and wise, and be the voice that I follow. It's normal to let our emotions control our thoughts. But learning to interrupt this cycle requires dedicated practice. Can you see how essential this skill could be, especially in moments when your mind is working against you? Though I couldn't control my emotions, I could control my thoughts. I focused on my core intentions to to be and do good for the world and myself. This might sound like a consolation prize, but it turned out to be the most profound psychological and spiritual development of my life. Imagine this in your own life. When your emotions overwhelm you, you have the capacity to shift your focus away from destructive thoughts. Wouldn't it be a relief to quiet the mental noise that fuels your suffering? Does this practice resonate with you? We often believe our feelings are the most important aspect of our experience. But I discovered something deeper. Especially at these times of severe suffering, wisdom is by far more valuable. Our emotions are heavily influenced by hormones, by chemistry and past trauma. But our ability to choose our thoughts remains within our power. With wisdom and dedication. Friendly mind allowed me to continue working as a therapist and teacher for my clients who knew about my transplant. I explained my ability to operate on two levels. Devastated on one level, but deeply guided by wisdom on another. And for others, I was able to have the appearance of not being in deep suffering at all and was able to keep the focus on them. Often I would ask myself, how can I best take care of myself right now? Sometimes the answer was to fully engage with my clients. Other times it was as simple as lying down with my hand on my heart to ease my exhaustion. This practice didn't make me feel good, but it created an inner knowing of well being. This is hard to see its significance unless you've experienced it even in conversation. I reframed the common question, how are you feeling? Instead, I asked people close to me to say, how are you doing with your response to your exhaustion, devastation or anxiety? This shift allowed me to be seen without reinforcing the negative feelings. Can you imagine yourself stopping a negative thought pattern after your emotions take over? If you didn't feed your feelings with more anxious, despairing thoughts, wouldn't they lose some of their intensity and duration? It took walking through fire for me to learn this lesson, but it set me up for deep gratitude. In later years, the ability to guide myself no matter how I felt, became my greatest asset. Now take a moment for yourself. Have you ever experienced deep fear, anxiety, angst, hopelessness, or tremendous anger? See, if you've had the ability to guide yourself away from thoughts that fuel these emotions, have you ever succeeded in doing so? How often would you want to develop this ability further? Please write me and let me know. I have a number of meditations to support you in developing this practice, and I truly hope you'll explore them and that it's beneficial for you.