In terms of the basic process that’s being addressed in Somatic Inquiry, we’re talking about working with our conditioning, the habitual patterns that have formed in response to the influence of our parents, our culture, our religion… Now, those are terms that point to a “big picture” view of conditioning, but in everyday experience it’s more like when someone says “he really pushed my buttons”. Even though there’s a lot of emotion involved, it’s kind of mechanical, like pushing a button and then something happens. Each time the button gets pushed, the same response occurs, without any variation. We act in ways that are so deeply ingrained that we and everyone around us knows what the next words out of our mouth are going to be, what face we’re going to make, what we’re going to feel… It’s a trap, a dead end in our lives, and there’s no authenticity to it.
It’s possible, however, to refrain from taking that first step that leads, almost inevitably, to the same chain of thinking, feeling, and acting that we’ve followed countless times before. If we can resist giving in to our addiction to habitual patterns, a space of possibility is instantly there. And the report from people who don’t always fill in the moment with a conditioned response, is that whatever arises in that space is fresh, intelligent and in contact with the world, even if it is painful, awkward, or uncertain. They say it’s better, more creative, more alive.
When we live by just acting out our conditioning we miss what is actually happening. We become actors in some kind of purgatory or hell, condemned to just repeat our lines again and again. It has a scripted quality. The force of the scripting is so intense and reflexive, that unless we take time to let something new arise, to have unscripted experiences, it’s pretty hopeless to think that we won’t just follow along in the ruts we’ve created. Again and again, we climb up that sliding board and when we let go, down we go with a speed that makes true choice impossible.
How can we deal with this relatively hopeless, or at least very difficult situation? Many have said, and I would agree, there is no better approach than taking time to be with ourselves without trying to change anything, as a start. This approach is called meditation. In the kind of meditation being described here, from the mindfulness tradition, we enter into a situation where there is so little demand on us that we don’t get thrown into and absorbed into habitual patterns trying to respond to those demands. Interestingly, as we do this our scripts continue to run, and our conditioning continues to operate, even in the absence of something external we think we’re responding to. There’s a kind of simplicity and even purity to watching our mind run on when there is no need for it to be active. It lets us appreciate the flavor of our default setting, the filters we have that influence not only what we do but affect even how we see and hear. By listening to the noise of the mind that’s there even when the mind is resting, we can investigate that whole process of scripting, because the scripts continue to run in a surprisingly vivid way.
As we sit in meditation, doing nothing, our mental movies will keep on playing. We’ll keep having lines of thought as one thought links to another, then to another, in a never-ending chain of associations. We might be aware of how our body feels in response to the movies we are watching and the thoughts that are being produced. If we are replaying an argument or imagining a future victory, our bodies may react as if these events were occurring right then and there. In meditation we get to experience a full range of body/mind phenomena that we usually think are occurring as a reaction or a response to things outside ourselves, only there is nothing going on outside us. That is the beauty of the highly simplified situation of mindfulness meditation. We can realize that all these internal events are in some sense occurring in a vacuum. No immediate demand or challenge is calling for them to operate, but they’re still going forward. And that activity of our mind that operates all the time regardless of what our immediate environment is, becomes the veil that prevents us from contacting reality, the present moment. When that activity of mind decreases a bit, or even when we begin to see it for what it is and don’t believe it’s true, we see through the veil, feel through the veil. Then experience is more acute. It’s fresh, we’re experiencing something that we’ve never seen or felt before. We get a glimpse of a simple reality that’s not altered by our personal stories, not polluted by our dramas.
If we keep doing this over time, we make a journey with respect to our conditioning. We work through it, to begin with, in meditation, and eventually in daily life. It becomes more possible to have this kind of fresh experience in the midst of the demands of daily life, instead of just stepping into the rut of habits again.
Group Member #1: I hear that word a lot and sometimes I just wonder what that word authenticity means; sometimes it’s hard for me to figure it out… I had an encounter the other day where I was strategizing my movements and what I was going to say. I felt really bad about that, but I found out later the other person was in bad circumstances. I was not having a good relationship with that person, but I was trying to communicate and I wanted to be authentic but I felt like I had to script everything. I wanted to show sympathy but I didn’t want to forgive anything I shouldn’t. I was just trapped in the spot, and trying to figure out what would be the right thing to do. I’m not sure if I came up with the right answer.
So, what would be the methodology for making this journey? What would be the occasion? How would we find or know authenticity?
GM #1 : I have a really hard time with it, because to me being authentic might mean I’m really angry at someone but the best thing may not be to be authentic and blurt it out. Maybe that’s the wrong definition of being authentic. It’s kind of hard for me. You don’t figure it out though, from what you said. It just flows naturally, comes naturally.
GM#2: I think it’s usually a surprise to me when I react to something without a whole lot of thought. It’s almost like it happens quicker and I just respond. So when I get like you were talking about like when I’m planning and navigating and trying to work everybody with all the little puppet wheels it loses all spontaneity.
GM #1: I think I’ve had that experience when there’s no time to think. I do something really quickly and act in a way that’s appropriate to the situation.
GM #3: I was thinking in this Gremlin Taming method the definition of authenticity Rick Carson uses is when you match your facial expressions with what’s going on in your body. But then, just living out of that definition for me I find that I am not authentic when I withhold myself. I withhold what I might express. Not in a reactive kind of way but if something hurt my feelings. So relationally learning how to be authentic. Like still be open without blaming, which is kind of staying connected with the person but yet saying “I’m feeling hurt. I’m aware that I’m sad right now.” You’re able to be that way out in the world, be with another human being that way is just pretty good. That’s hard for me. I’m working on it. I think I’m doing better. It feels better to me.
You used the term withholding. Do you feel yourself withholding at times?
GM#3: I know I’ve withheld, when I withhold, a few seconds after, and maybe even a little bit while I’m doing it. And then maybe try not to be hard on myself when I do it.
I think that’s part of it. The way I’m thinking of this is that whether it’s gearing up to withhold, or gearing up to transmit like in your example, which I can very much relate to, it’s like “Let’s see now. What is that proper tone of voice and set of words and facial expression to express the kind of sympathy I want to express to someone towards whom I’m still pissed off.” Which is of course hopelessly complex. Now I’m willing to grant that may be in some sense realistic to do in some situations. But to me it’s the feeling of an effort.
In meditation we don’t need to do that. I’m thinking of the sitting as being a training ground in body, mind, breathing, gaze – it’s looking at the way we use all aspects of ourselves when they are in the service of what to some degree is phony. You know, how we defend and protect ourselves, making up a person and trying to believe that’s who we are.
In meditation, we don’t need to unconsciously fall into and get stuck in habitual patterns. Meditation is one place that we don’t have to do that. We can sit and be ourselves without fearing any negative result. We won’t get into trouble with our boss, be rejected by our friends, or be put onto a watch list by unnamed agencies. We can really just be ourselves when we sit in meditation.
Otherwise, using your example, even when we’re not with that person we could still be withholding and hiding from ourselves that we are hurt—at some point we withhold from ourselves, we try to gin up a certain feeling that we think we ought to have. This is trusting ourselves enough to feel “what is the effort that I’m making?” That’s an open question. Anything other than just being here, we actually make the physical effort to put on those masks. What is that effort… That’s the inauthenticity. When that begins to drop away, that’s authentic, and then the thoughts and feelings arise. That’s making friends with ourselves.
GM #2: I think I kind of confuse authentic with being nice or putting on a face. I guess I see it as being real, but I have this energy where I don’t want there to be trouble or drama, because of my childhood stuff. So I can be authentic in a phony way I guess, to try and make everything OK. I had an experience with a close friend of mine when I first got sober, probably one of the more authentic people I’ve ever been around. He would say things that would hurt people’s feelings sometimes, but it was just really honest. Not in a way where it would harm people. I remember a conversation with him that was pretty deep. Somebody came walking up and stood there, and it was a pretty intense conversation, or important. He just kind of turned the guy and said “Did you need something”? I would never say something like that; it would freak me out. The guy didn’t take it as negative or personal, just “No, I see y’all are in a conversation”, and kind of walked off. It was a very authentic way to respond, and it didn’t seem nice to me, almost like “Ooh, you can’t do that in the real world”, but I guess you can. You’re saying that from here, how we act in this group, we could be authentic and that can translate out to that type of situation.
There’s another aspect of authenticity in this practice, which often might be experienced as uncertainty. When we are conducting ourselves according to a script, we have the operating instructions for what we’re supposed to do, what words we should say and in what tone of voice and with what pacing, and what face we’re supposed to put on. Even though it’s canned, there are quite a few variables that we have to consider and hold constant. In general, across all the domains of experience, we know what is supposed to happen next, according to our script. But out of a truly open space, something fresh could arise or form. The quality of this is that we learn about it at the same time everyone else does. It’s not studied and vetted before it can be released, having passed the censor in control of habitual patterns. But if that space it occupied, what would happen spontaneously is thwarted. It can’t form and come to fruition.
GM #3: Cause we’re caught in a conflict, about “I’m supposed to be nice”, “I want to be authentic”, “I want to self-express”… Yeah, so… Being a friend to myself, learning how to say “That hurt me”.
What comes before saying “that hurt me” is feeling “that hurt me”. And when we’re well-versed in and running full speed with all our defensive maneuvers, we don’t let ourselves feel. Why don’t we let ourselves feel? Because it’s dangerous to feel something that clearly because, by God, if we feel something that clearly, we might say what we feel to others. And then what would happen? What comes next is out of our control.
GM #4: There are certain situations where I find myself in the company of people who it appears are all the time putting on a façade and they all bounce off of that façade, and it’s like a spontaneous combustion. Sometimes I feel obliged to step in, but it just doesn’t seem to work. I cannot partake in that process.
When we talk about most collections of people, or more broadly our culture, or our society at large, it has been said there is a collusion among people. There is an unspoken agreement regarding the things we won’t say. It’s been described as mutual deception. It’s like saying “everything’s great isn’t it?” “We all love working here.” Which is not to say always complain about things, but it doesn’t have to be always ginned up. It could just be ordinary, and it’s still good.
Accompanying Guided Meditation:
Becoming Authentic
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