A big change I’ve been living through in the past year is how I respond to moments where I disappoint myself.
This has occurred through an evolution of my beliefs around discipline and love.
The sources of authority in my upbringing punished unwanted behaviour and used fear and shame as tools for warding off future repetition. I don’t believe I am particularly alone in this kind of experience, nor do I feel like a victim, I had a privileged and wonder-filled childhood with two loving parents, it’s just the way things unfolded in relation to disciplining a very curious little me.
It has been common practice for parents, teachers, and other authorities to discipline children under their care with punishing words and actions.
However, for me, it also led to a certain kind of internal voice. One that was scared, critical, and punishing when things didn’t quite go my way or I felt that I had failed or made a mistake. As a result, I could find myself spiralling, doubling down on less wholesome behaviours, or feeling helpless and defeated in the face of difficulties.
On the bright side, this internal experience and it’s impacts on my life did eventually lead me toward studying the workings of mind through both scientific and spiritual lenses.
The changes in the past year are the latest chapter of that silver-lined journey.
Since making contact with the book ‘The Wisdom of No Escape’ by Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron through Dharma Moon’s Summer 2024 Cohort, I have been working with the ideas of Gentleness, Precision, and Letting Go.
Through employing these qualities in meditation practice, as well as in everyday moments, I now recognise that the disappointment that I feel when something goes wrong or I engage a behaviour that I thought I had left behind, is actually an energy of self-love.
I am disappointed in myself because I love myself, and I know that I could do better.
This contains the gentleness of recognising my goodness and the precision of knowing I could do better, and thanks to those two, I can let go, and begin again. Taking things task-by-task, moment-by-moment, and day-by-day.
Prior to engaging these concepts in any great depth, these moments of lapse would not solely trigger disappointment but afterwards a cascade of self-denigration would follow, as a result of the habitual reactions of my environment as my brain was developing.
One could call the way that I was punishing myself precise. I was seeing clearly that something I would rather not happen was happening, and I was letting myself know. However, without gentleness, I was unable to let go.
Precision is like a knife. The intention with which we imbue our actions with a knife determine the outcome of its usage. For a surgeon, there is a certain kind of care (or gentleness) with which the blade can be a tool in healing. For a revenge attacker, there is a violence and aggression with which the blade cuts and may lead their victim to retaliate with greater force.
By inviting gentleness into the experience of disappointment, I slowed down my minds habitual reactions of punishment, and have been able to take action that is balanced and has ultimately led to an improved treatment of myself, through both behavioural change and in moments of self-disappointment.
The major belief change I have undergone is that I now believe I can create sustainable change without self-aggression, and solely through love.
This love contains the gentleness of self-understanding, the precision of clear self-knowledge, and the letting go of the need to get it right every time.
This change has allowed me to see that every situation is workable, that every moment is an opportunity, and that any perceived transgressions contain their own secret wisdom.
I practice meditation to increase this self-awareness, and this year I am more able than ever to move forward without dwelling on the misdeeds of the past years, months, and days.
A moment where this belief change was solidified for me was in a Zoom call with a Qi Gong Master named Dr. Sat Hon. He told a story about always hitting the target. He said: “If you always want to hit the target when firing a bow and arrow, you only have to do one thing. Carry a bucket of red paint with you. Then, wherever the arrow lands, you take your bucket of red paint and you draw your target around the arrow.”
For me, this is the lesson. Whatever happens, with the right approach, it's workable.
This journey started as early as 14 years ago for me, as I began to search the internet for ways to increase confidence, whilst experiencing social anxiety at high-school.
I would go on to study medicine at a highly-regarded university and then drop-out to focus on meditation.
The most important learnings from my time at medical school were two:
The brain is changeable. (Neuroplasticity)
Mind states can effect the health of the body. (Psychoneuroimmunology)
Put together, for me, this was hope. As someone who was anxious, depressed, and stressed all at once at medical school, the idea that I could influence my neurology using my mind, and that this could then have impacts on my body, behaviour, and therefore life, was empowering.
There is now even more literature than when I left to back me up when I say that meditation is good for your health and longevity. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10355843/)
I teach meditation as part of a constellation of offerings in the hopes that some people will benefit.
I believe that meditation is not just a stress-busting tool, but a practice with benefits that can reverberate throughout your whole life. I believe it would be helpful to many already well people.
I also believe it is not for everyone and people should make their own way to it, only if they are curious.
There is a continual tension between wanting to get better and a recognition of the goodness in how things already are.
A quote that sums this up quite well comes from a Zen master named Shunryu Suzuki:
“Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.”
This tension is something that I have been in communication with teachers and friends about over the past five or six years.
I am delighted to report that I am still enjoying it.
