Six principles for a friendlier mind: stay interested in your suffering, think empathically toward yourself even when you don't feel it, make your best effort, stop trying to solve the impossible, and focus on what's actually possible. Empathic thinking is a skill you build, not a feeling you wait for.
For those of us who are watching and really want to develop a friendly mind, or at least a friendlier mind, what are some of the principles we need to know? Well, first of all, I really like that you made it friendlier. That's one of the most important things, is none of us are ever going to be close to perfect. So we're always trying to move in this direction and never trying to arrive. Oh yeah, I've got friendly mind down pat. So the first principle of friendly mind is that we're always interested in where things are most difficult for us inside ourselves. And that may sound intuitively obvious that we would do that. But when I look back at my 45 years of counseling and all the beginning sessions of working with people, and I ask how often are you really aware where you're suffering the most, where you're hurting the most, where you're afraid or anxious the most? Most people will say, well, once or twice a day. And I do my very best not, not to shame them, to say, oh my God, you're only aware of yourself for 10 seconds a day. And that really is the normal condition that people flee in and out at the best. And what friendly mind does is it stabilizes an interest in how are you hurting or suffering the most. And I'm terribly interested, wonderfully interested in how you are. And I want you to know that I'm also interested in just accepting you right where you are. So that's the first principle. The second principle is being empathic in your thinking toward your friendly mind. And that means that you have thoughts that are really empathic thoughts like, I'm sorry you have to go through this, I can see where you are and I'm really sorry you have to go through this. Now you may not have the affect that's very impressive, but your mind is really your friend. And as I'm speaking right now, visualize whatever's difficult for you and imagine what thoughts you could think that would be beneficial to you. The third principle is recognizing that when you have these empathic thoughts, you can't reliably be friendly toward these thoughts or towards these experiences because you're feeling lousy, you're feeling terrible, and when you're feeling terrible, the thoughts themselves will be co opted to some extent in the feeling. So you may still have a quality of if you're feeling anxious anxiety as you're having these thoughts that are really guiding you. But the thoughts themselves are always aimed in a direction that's going to be beneficial to you, it's going to help you accept yourself more as you are in the thought, or it may help you navigate your environment and what you need to do. So it's very, very important that you get that the thoughts themselves are empathic, but that doesn't mean you can feel the empathy. Now, this is something that's easy to understand, but again, it can feel like a booby prize. It will feel like a booby prize. But the truth is it's a lot more difficult to have empathic thoughts when you're not feeling good at all than it is when you're feeling only a little bit bad and being empathic towards yourself when you're feeling really lousy. Empathic thoughts as friendly mind is almost a miracle. Every time you do it, it's really hard. It's like you're developing a new muscle to think different than you feel. The fourth principle of friendly mind is always making your best efforts. Now, friendly mind is not a free pass where just because you are who you are, we're going to just be friendly with you. Don't worry about doing your best. No, friendly mind is always going to encourage you. What would be your best effort? Because that's what we're interested in. How can you be your best self right now? And that the mind itself being focused on the best efforts, even though you feel lousy, is a little bit like the Einsteinian quote that you have to be able to solve something at a different level than it exists. So you can't solve changing your feelings through your feelings. You have to shift to the level of thought. And a friendly mind or a mind that's going to be on your side and not stay at the same level of feeling, that takes a while to really grasp. But when you do, you realize it doesn't matter what you feel, you always can switch the level to a friendly mind. The fifth principle of friendly mind is you're not trying to solve the impossible. If we feel a certain way, we magically want to have a wand and go, I want to feel better. Or if we're focused on wanting something to be different in the outer world that we know we can't change, we still want to change it. Friendly mind reminds us we don't want to try to solve the impossible. Now, the sixth principle and the final one is very similar, but it's being said in reverse. We're always focusing on what's really possible. Now, that may again sound simple to understand, and it is. That if we really guide ourselves toward what's possible for the next five minutes, for the next hour, our life becomes so much easier. I have several friends who are suffering from permanent loss of capacity. One had a stroke and can't talk. One had three back surgeries and can't walk. Another one's on dialysis and their energy level can't be up. And in all their cases, the first one wants to be able to talk better, rather than how can I navigate my life to do the best I can with my limited speech? Can I find a machine? The second one is, how can I navigate myself in a wheelchair and be content with that and not keep trying to do the impossible to walk better? And the third one wants to have better energy all the time, which is like impaling himself when he's doing that. Now look at yourself right now. Where are you trying to go to the impossible and not staying with the possible. And when you see that friendly mind is always focused on the possible, it is such a relief. And I wish that for all of us and that you would keep staying attuned to where it's difficult and then staying with the possible.
