A Bird in the Hand

    I got home from work the other day and a small bird had become trapped in my screened porch. It was frantically flitting side to side and I attempted to shoo it out the door. The bird refused to be herded. Each time I would close in, it would dart over or under me to hide in the corners behind furniture. After a few minutes of this insane and fruitless endeavor, I realized that I would have to change my tactics.
    A pattern eventually emerged. I could get her to a corner and work her upwards until she freaked and her behavior became erratic. Ultimately, it became clear that there was only one option and it would be dicey. I was going to have to ensnare the bird with my hands quickly and then secure her without causing harm.
    The small bird followed the plan perfectly. I boxed her in and lunged. Her small and delicate body vibrated in my hand and she chirped excitedly and pinched at my fingers with her beak. I had to fight my instincts to let her go. Quickly and gingerly, I moved through the open door and she bursts from my hands back to her forest home. I had such a sense of relief and a rush of peace after rescuing this magical little creature.
    Later that day, I sat down to meditate. As usual, I settled in and settled down, but occasional thoughts would flit through my mind. "Oh, I'm thinking about my day", let go, back to the anchor of the breath. "Hmm, now I'm following a daydream down a rabbit hole. How long have I been doing that?" Let go and back to the breath.
    Teachers of meditation use several analogies or metaphors to illustrate how we should consider our thoughts when meditating. One of the simplest and most commonly used is clouds in the sky. Clouds are always forming and moving. They are ephemeral and completely out of our control. They are also devoid of intent. We never judge a cloud, feel proud of its fluffiness or shame because it's wispy and falls apart. We notice the cloud or thought, acknowledge it exists and let it pass. This works beautifully, most of the time.     
    However, on this day, a stubborn thought loop kept reappearing. I was so curious and hungry to explore it that I couldn't let it go. I would become aware of it, acknowledge it and try to come back to the breath, but it would pop back up. In actuality, I was just chasing it from one corner to another in my mind.
    Then, I remembered the bird! This tenacious and evasive idea was just like that energetic little creature, but now zipping around the edges of my psyche. I gathered my resolve, moved in to corral this elusive yarn, and lunged. Gotcha!  I could feel it struggling and tickling the edges of my mind as I walked it to the open door. I felt that same sensation of peace and relief. Finally, I was able to break the loop by imagining myself capturing and setting that notion free back into the ether forest of ideas.
    I can't control the birds. Others will probably find there way back into my porch from time to time and that's ok. They don't mean me any harm. They're just doing what birds do. I also don't have to toil and struggle to shoo them away because now I know how to handle them.

Help Yourself, Hype Yourself

    We all need a cheerleader or a hype man. The hype man is the individual who is responsible for keeping the momentum of a show going, motivating the artist, and pumping up the enthusiasm of the crowd. He or she functions like an emotional barometer, constantly evaluating the feel of the environment and injecting energy into lulls and adding exclamation points to the performance. There have been many, sometimes even multiple people on the stage, but no one was greater than the one and only Flava Flav. 

    We all have a version of Flav in our heads. You could even say that we are that hype man. Sometimes, he's just not able to do his job properly. At this point, you probably are wondering, "what in the hell is he talking about?" Well, hang in there. I will arrive at my point shortly. 

    Experienced meditation teachers often use a metaphor to explain our inner mindscape. They speak of the "monkey mind." This aspect of our mind is the equivalent of an angry, or my favorite description, drunken monkey thrashing around the confines of our psyche. At times, the monkey jumps and screams and swings around shaking branches and throwing poo. We cannot escape him, so we must learn to live in harmony. This is where meditation comes into play. Meditation is being a witness to the mind and making peace with the monkey. 

    Well, it occurs to me, that the analogy breaks down in our fast paced and frenetic lives, so far removed from nature. Additionally, this inner self is much more sophisticated and crowded than a single drunken monkey. I see it performing all sorts of complex and creative tasks in myself, as well as others. Luckily, western medicine tackled the complex puzzle of the mind and developed a more detailed, albeit hotly debated, psychological framework. 

    In the 1920's, the renowned Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud, elaborated on the monkey mind. He referred to this primitive, neurotic, pleasure seeking, instant gratification aspect of ourselves as the id. The id craves the basic resources, e.g. food, clothing, shelter, and is characterized by it's violent and sexual tendencies. This new explanation of the psyche was incredibly important because it introduced the westernized, scientific community to this idea of the monkey mind. So, we began to have a common language between mysticism and scientific determinism. Each independent actor in the play of life could get on board with this idea regardless of bias or operating paradigm. Something was in our head and it was making us crazy, or at least anxious, sad, angry, etc...

    In order for us to bring this full circle, it's important to become aware of this internal situation. It's also imperative to accept that we are married to this monkey or id for life. We don't judge the monkey because, he appears randomly and we have no control over his initial state. However, with awareness and practice, we can learn to occupy the monkey or shine light on the id's behavior and course correct. 

    Once we accomplish this task, we get out of our own way, Flav wakes up, and we gain the ability to hype ourselves. This development is a critical step in becoming self actualized. The negative self talk loses it's punch, the damaging narratives that we construct become simple bedtime stories to be discarded, facades crumble, the truth of manufactured urgency and self imposed anxiety is revealed, and labels peel away. Under this new paradigm, we gain a new level and degree of psychological freedom that is peace filled and blissful. Then, we are capable of operating at our fullest potential and we can confidently face the actual slings and arrows of life.