Memory

After over three years in a counselor training program and four weeks of meditation class, I came to a new realization/understanding last night about memory.

It was connected, in large part, to something I wrote about on Monday - an idea our teacher had shared in class. Last night, when she went over the concept again, I realized I had remembered it (and internalized it) totally incorrectly, and so had sort of traveled down this tangential and theoretically erroneous path in processing the information.

To clarify and correct my earlier post... the three pillars are teaching, practice, and enlightenment (connected, predominantly, to the Japanese tradition of Zen - assuming I'm remembering that correctly!). The three stones referred to in class are related to the Korean tradition, and are peace of mind, happiness/contentment, and gratitude.

This little ah ha moment in the midst of class led me to thinking about memory and how we tend to define ourselves by our memories. They are our anchor to our past, and because we are so often attached to thought and our mind in terms of our self-definition, I think sometimes we are prone to relying solely on our memories as a basis of truth for our experience.

The difficulty in this is how subjective (and potentially faulty) memory can be. We need only ask a family member or friend for their version of events on a particularly important day to see there is no such thing as objective truth. Experience is defined by the narrative we weave, the meaning we make, the memory we hold and define as real.

Yet, if we honor each person's experience as valid and authentic, then we must accept multiple renditions of reality and embrace the very scary notion that objective truth simply does not exist. Or rather, our version of "objective" truth can be objective for no one other than ourselves.

This is important in two ways, I believe. The first echoes back to something one of my professors said with regard to working with younger clients: it doesn't matter how you meant something or what your intention might be, it matters how it has been perceived by the client and what meaning he/she makes of it.

In other words, whether I intended offense or hurt through my words or not - if someone has told me that's how they experienced what I said, then the truth (and validity) of their perception of the interaction between us must be acknowledged. This is especially important in the realm of multicultural awareness and sensitivity, but is a great lesson to carry forth into all interactions.

Similarly, whether my recollection of events jibes with those of someone else or not, we are equally invested in our remembering. We hold onto those memories like a safety line in the tumultuous sea of chronology and biology - both of which tear asunder our minds as we grow older.

What this all leads to, I think, is the necessity for an increased capacity to forgive ourselves and others when our versions of history chafe against each other or we realize we have muddled something previously thought stable and irrefutable due to the limitations inherent in our thinking selves.

I am more aware of the importance of forgiving and accepting my husband, friends, or family their memories - much as I must accept and forgive my own. So many of us are quick to speak sharply, exhale loudly, or react negatively when someone has forgotten something important to us, retold a story we've already heard a dozen times, or made a mistake based on (to our thinking) an erroneous recollection.

Pretty unfair when you remember the mind is merely one small part of us... not our selves. It makes no more sense to punish someone for a glitch in their thinking than it would to get angry for the ramifications of a missing limb, a genetic propensity for high cholesterol, or the extra care taken with something like asthma.

And yet, we do it all the time. I do it all the time; showing frustration and impatience instead of compassion and calm. Harder on others than I am on myself, because I control the remembering of my own inadequacies (and we all know how that goes).

May you distinguish your self from your mind. May your memories provide a source of perspective - without claiming infallibility.

Habits

When I met my husband, I was a smoker. Probably what you might call a medium smoker. I think I went through a pack in a week - maybe more... and I sometimes hit long stretches where I'd just have one or two per day.

I was out of my cloves stage at this point, and the Marlboro Reds (which may have led to my asthma in my late 20s - who knows). I had very few drug-type vices at this point, and I was loathe to give up smoking entirely... particularly social smoking which often happened in tandem with dinners out or drinks after the show, etc.

My husband, however, was a staunch no-smoker when we began dating. My habit was not a deal-breaker for him, but it was something that stood in the way of our having a child - because he felt very strongly he didn't want his child to grow up around cigarette smoke.

I agreed. I quit (pretty much cold turkey), and I have a new conception of myself as a non-smoker. It is difficult, in fact, to remember what it was like to be a smoker... even harder to remember what I enjoyed about it.

"Such an easy thing to change!" I think, in retrospect. It's remembered with a sense of distance and a feeling of separate-ness because the current "I" and past "I" are so different in this regard.

I have been taking a look at many of my habits lately... ones that are more subtle and insidious than chemical addictions or the tendency to eat lots of sugar when depressed or rely on soda for caffeine. No... the habits I now investigate are the ones connected to behavior - actions and choices seemingly ingrained in my arsenal of "involuntary" responses so that they become unthought/unthinking echoes of rut-like conduct.

Bossiness; attempts to control circumstances or others; a pessimistic perspective; impatience; self-doubt. All seemingly inherent aspects of my personality and self as I currently define it; and yet, every single one is a choice. All are habits I choose knowingly (or unknowingly, which makes it no less of a choice), and all are within my power to alter.

We see habits, I believe, as something generated or existing outside ourselves... dictated by external events or influenced by circumstances - people, places, things. It's so easy to assign the blame to an other of some kind; to engage in self-medication, self-denial, or self-soothing without truly acknowledging the impact of our decisions upon ourselves or others.

They seem so difficult to change; and yet, time and again, we remake ourselves in an effort to please someone else. Maybe a spouse or partner, maybe a mother or sibling, maybe a boss or mentor. And sometimes those changes are great and wonderful things (and sometimes, as you well know, they are not).

The trick is knowing why you are choosing to be who you are. Why you are holding onto the patterns, habits, yens, and ruts in which you currently find yourself... and to embrace - and truly own - the knowledge that you can change any single aspect of who you are at any moment.

Habits are the result of being human; we crave predictability at times. But they should not be an excuse for unhappiness. They should never feel like an anchor or prison. And... if they do... then perhaps it's time to remake yourself - for no one other than yourself.

I have been reminding myself of this - attempting to relearn a lesson I have long forgotten from the carefree and entirely transmutable days of infancy. It's frightening, sometimes, to admit I have the power to define myself every second... it makes my frailties and failings so much more crushing at times. And yet, even choosing to forgive... to answer my weaknesses with compassion and love as I would a dearest friend - even that is a choice I may make.

So much power, and still... I wrestle to pull my habits close to my chest. Enclose them and claim them as my own so I may honestly assess what best defines the person I wish to be. Keep what works, discard the rest. And make no judgments in between.

May you recognize the person you wish to be in each moment; may you feel empowered to choose the habits that fit you best.

Ego

I don't know about you, but I have been thinking - really thinking - about ego a lot as of late. I mean, A LOT. Maybe because mine thwarts me so. Maybe because it's at the crux of a very important lesson I need to learn. Maybe because it's a term of popular parlance in modern culture and seems to pop up all the time in the most banal places.

Whatever the reason, it's been haunting me lately. Showing up in my readings, my television shows, my morning news.

You see, I had always understood ego as the prideful side of me. The haughty, snooty, all-too-important, give-me-a-pony side rooted in childhood yearnings and unfulfilled wishes. But it has only been recently that I have also begun to recognize ego as the insecure and cowed side of me as well. The broken, dark, hopeless side convinced of failure and eager to point out moments of stupidity or ugliness in order to reinforce an imagined need for anonymity.

I guess ego can go both ways. It can make us feel larger than everyone around us, or smaller than dirt. And both are distorted visions of who we are and where we stand in relation to others - one increasing us to gargantuan size and the other working diligently to remain invisible because we are convinced of our smallness.

Ego is the voice that whispers to you and tells you convincing lies. It plays upon your fears and fishes through the caverns of your heart to find the perfect nugget that will unnerve you or jangle in just the right way so you speak in jumbles and don't say what you mean.

And here is the most important part, I feel, of this ego conundrum. Ego, which is the opposite of our larger self - the one that is connected to all people and all life and everything around us - ego, the little "i" of our seeing and being and living, is what ends up separating us from other people. Either because we feel we cannot reach up high enough to merit their attention or because we feel we are too far above to possibly be able to understand or even tolerate their presence.

This can be communicated and experienced in a myriad of ways. The most simple of which might be never seeing (really seeing) the people around you on the train as you head to work. Ignoring the man standing at the entrance of Starbucks, cup in hand. Forgetting to hold the door for the woman with a stroller wrangling two kids and a shopping bag. Talking yourself out of asking her out. Heading home early from a party because you were convinced everyone was ignoring you. Never sending out the manuscript you finished three years ago.

In its more insidious form, it becomes road rage, cruelty, racism, violence. The news stories all start to chant the tale of little "i": racially motivated hazing in South Africa, violence against women in the media, increased violence in Pakistan.

I realized this morning that if we all believed, knew and understood and embraced, that we were all connected - all part of humanity, or life, or spirit, or god or whatever you wish to call it - if we saw ourselves more in the context of the big "I" and not the little, then we would be much less likely to hurt one another. We would be more compassionate, more forgiving, more patient with each other.

There is an excellent TED talk by Jill Boltle Taylor about her stroke and how it changed her way of viewing and experiencing the world. As a neuro-scientist, she made meaning via left and right brain... but she also talks about how it connects to the different lenses we use to view the world. The ego vs. the larger self (little "i" vs. big "I"). The way in which she describes how she experienced a connection to everything during her stroke when her ego (her left brain) shut down was particularly significant. Something that has stuck with me.

Of course, contemplation is often so much easier than action. And so it was I had started down this path of thought, listening to stories of disconnection and sadness on the radio, when I encountered a garbage truck in the alley.

I could not get through. I was worried I would be late to pick up Ari at school. It was raining out. And so I sat, patiently at first, waiting for the man to finish loading in the large bins outside each building on our block. One. Two. Three. Four. Surely he must be done now. He looks at me. He gets into his truck, moves forward. And stops about 2 feet from his original position... gets out and begins to load in more garbage. He could have moved just a few more feet to let me pass. But he does not. He doesn't even look at me. Just loads up more garbage, truck smack-dab in the center of the alley.

It is at this moment I snap, start spewing forth expletives, and quickly turn around to go the other way and loop the entire block so I may go in my intended direction down Ridge. I am cursing him, feeling angry and mean, wishing to pour forth my ire in some tangible, unavoidable way so that he may understand the ignorance of his actions.

I consider stopping near the alley so I can roll down the window and scream some choice words at the man. Or maybe hop out and read him the riot act for being so blind to someone else's needs. But then I think: he's doing his job. He's got his own needs, his own morning, his own time clock to contend with. And even if he didn't move out of spite or uncaring or whatever... the bottom line is, my anger does nothing for either of us.

So I drive on, get to Ari with plenty of time to spare, and think some more about ego and "other" and the ways we imagine ourselves separate from one another. Mostly to justify our ego-driven decisions.

May you notice others around you today with a sense of compassion and connection. May you feel embraced by the world around you.