Anxiety, Improv dance, surrendering the fruits of action to God

I've been doing a rather stressful job. Interning with a challenging 4th grade. It's been emotionally difficult, leading to anxiety and feelings of failure and hopelessness, due to me being not good at it, and there being high stakes on the line (the kid's future. And thus the world's future.)

So it has been a great impetus to remember to continually surrender the fruits of my actions to God. Because frankly, I don't want most of them. They are probably bad fruits. Bad results, due to my negligence. There are some good results as well, but I don't want those either. it gives me joy to see the children happy and well served, but I have no desire to become attached to those outcomes, because it is then so painful when I am not successful in reaching them.

So, lots of practice with that, and with a throughout the day meditation of namasmarana (which translates to remembering the name of God. "Nama" means name, or salutations, "Smarana" means remembering or memory. At least, I think that's about right. My Sanskrit isn't top notch.) Which is useful for the frequent bouts of anxiety.

Interesting to note, the anxiety appears in the day or two leading up to when I'm teaching. Not so much when I'm actually teaching. I'm too busy to be anxious when I'm in the midst of it. Making the lead-up time in many ways worse. But also, the aftermath is often unpleasant, as I reflect on how poorly I did, sometimes.

The bottom line is I really need to banish these unhelpful negative emotions. They really get in the way of enjoying my life and doing my best and are energetically draining. I'm still working on how to do that.

Soon it will be summer and I won't have to worry about that for several months since I won't be teaching. But the seed will still be there. The monster will just be slumbering, waiting for the right situation to rear it's head again.

I would like to be able to approach teaching at least with as much joy as I approach improv dance. With improv dance, I had a kind of freedom I gave myself. It was all made up, so I couldn't do it wrong. Whatever happened was right, and my job was just to be totally present so I could respond from a place of integrity.

Though I guess the other element that made it safe was I had a coach, who trained us (yes, you can train at improv dance.) and gave us the thumbs up when we were ready for performance. That is a very comforting thing. It kind of puts the responsibility for your performance on someone else. I trusted her not to put us out there if we weren't ready. I don't have that with teaching. We are very much getting thrust out there with I don't know how much preparation. I suppose the internship is preparation. But it is mostly under the supervision of a cooperating teacher, who is mainly a teacher of young children, not a teacher of teachers.

In any case, it's just a lot less comforting. I guess I need someone to repeatedly be telling me that I've done enough preparation and should feel good about going out and teaching. Or telling me that I'm not ready and here's why, and here's what to do about it to get ready.

This on the other hand, what I'm experiencing in this situation, is a lot more nebulous, fuzzy. Am I ready? Am I getting ready fast enough, so I'll be ready by the time I graduate? I don't know. And even my teachers say they have bad days.

And I can't just rely on whether my teaching felt good to me. That's so subjective. Having my proffessors come in and observe me is really super useful. I wish I could get that to continue after I graduate because that seems like one of the most useful things for understanding my level of readiness.

Anyways, this semester has been seriously stressful. It's not an accident, I think, that I've noticed my first gray hairs, during these months. But I'm a little worried about the summer as well, since there's going to be so much time when I'm not doing anything. I don't like doing nothing. It ends up feeling icky. I like being pleasantly busy, with things I know I'm proficient at. That's really the best. This semester, heck, this year, has been overbusy with things I'm not good at. That feels really bad.

The one positive of it is, as I said, I get to practice this renunciation of the fruits of action, as recommended in the Bhagavad-Gita. Hopefully, I will get good enough that no matter the situation, I feel balanced and good.

I'm technically on break now, for the next few days, because my internship is on break, but I still manage to feel anxious about my online children's class I'm teaching in a few hours this Sunday. I need to get over or reframe this anxiety. At least reframe it like I do with improv dance. Think of it as excitement, or energy. Even then, that's not the best... Think of it as enthusiasm then. That's better.

The Divine Play, and we all: merry actors on the stage

At least once a month, so here goes.

Very, very busy, and exhausted. More exausted than busy. I have time, but the time is spent in re-coup activities. I wish I could get more efficient with those activities, they end up taking quiet a lot of time.

I am anxious about my internship, anxious about the long stretch of days where I will be in charge. I am just generally feeling anxious and kind of bad about how little time an energy I'm devoting to preparing for my lessons, and also about how I feel... not particularly capable, as a teacher.

So I'm trying to do various things about that.

Some concepts/life lessons I'm working on, with myself:

Loving myself.

Man, this is a hard one for some of us. Easy to say, to know intellectually, but the actual emotional act of letting myself be ok just as I am, of being willing to accept the Univers's, God's, unconditional immense love, even with all the imperfections I still have... It's difficult. I guess it's difficult to believe, someone could love me that unconditionally. And so I really need to be working on loving and having confidence in myself, since that is kind of the hose nozzle, so to speak. No matter how much water is in the reservoir, no matter how big the hose, if the hose nozzle is tiny, only a tiny amount of water can come out at a time. That's like the universe's love and the nozzle is my ability to love myself. If I want more love, I have to allow it in. Be willing to accept it.

Why is it that I'm not willing to accept it? I suppose I'm frightened that it's not true, and if I accept it as true, I'll end up getting smited because God's not actually that forgiving. How fascinating. I thought I was way past over that view of God, but apparently my gut isn't.

Related: Going beyond Good and Evil.

This sounds kind of Nietzsche, which I'm not a fan of, so let me explain: our small, rational mind tries to figure out what is good, what to value, what is right and wrong. But that is not the place to act from. The place to act from is the voice of God within you. Ever fresh and personal. And listening to that voice is about living in the real world, and the real world is devoid of the limiting labels we have put on it, and the separating duality of hot and cold, pleasure and pain, good and bad. All is seen as one thing, dualities are seen as ends of one thing, like the two ends of a magnet, and though there is certainly a clear feeling for what is right and good, in terms of how to act, there is also the clear perception of the perfection of absolutely everything. And the understanding that all labels, even, "good" is just a concept that falls far short of the imminent truth.

It's easy to want to go beyond evil, but it can be more challenging to give up our limiting concepts of good. Don't get me wrong, I will listen ever more intently to the Voice of God within, but the desire to be right and good and perfect are, in the end, attachments that lead to bondage, not liberation. They are a necessary stepping-stone or training wheels, but eventually the external directions of what to do and not do must give way to the direct experience of living in the Immensity. So, working on bringing light to those tricky attachments to being a good boy.

And at the same time, working on living in that immensity, reality, and letting that giant force of God be the guide, the driver, the doer.

It is a challenging habit to try and cultivate. I want always-on awareness of God. Either through a spiritual awareness practice of some sort, or by doing the Bhagavad-Gita thing and dedicating all my actions and their fruits to God. Doing them for the save of the Atma, the supreme.


The good and evil, all the opposites, they are like a play. You, me, the actor, are not actually the character suffering horrible ills. Being in the world but not of it, being the lotus emerging from muck and water but being untouched by it, these are phrases for remembering that you're just playing a part in a fun play. The ups and downs happen, but not for real. But that doesn't mean sit down and go to sleep or quit. Play it to the hilt. Put on a good performance. But don't loose track of who you really are, and don't take the battle too seriously. It's all there for our entertainment and education.

There may be spelling errors, etc., in this post, but as I said I am quite busy, so it will just have to suffice.

May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. Including you.
May you have peace in your body, peace in your mind, and peace in your spirit.

In Truth,
-We

Faith in a Just Universe

This blog currently has literally zero people viewing it. I wonder why I'm even posting to it, but then I just keep going because I like  the idea of posting a more philosophical post every so often (once a month, is how I have the reminder set.)

Most of my philosophical rantings and ramblings are rather long, and I don't have time for that, as I mentioned last time. But I'd like to keep current, if I can.

I'm slowly getting better at having a constant awareness of the divine. Still a long ways off, but the habit is building, with considerable attention and reminders. Excellent. Also, I have more focus and will-power than ever. I can't see any logical reason for the change, when I'd tried changing so often in the past. Perhaps there is a reason, some simple profound thing that I could apply to other people and cure them of addictions in a trice. But I don't think so. I think it was kind of just working on it, trying different things, over a long period of time. Oh, there was one thing, I guess, that does seem to be the magic ingredient:

FAITH. Faith in God. My faith in the existence, benevolence, and active involvement of God in my life has given strength to my resolutions to follow dharma. (And addictions are decidedly not dharmic.) But can I give that to others? No. But I can share how I found it for myself: long search, and steady steps, trusting God as much as I could, experimenting, dipping my toes in the water, so to speak.

Like one of my favorite teachers says, when you're getting directions from a gas station attendant, you have at least enough faith in them to follow their directions. That's all that God is asking for. If the directions lead you astray, then don't have faith in that source of information anymore. But see the directions through to the end, at least, before giving up. Otherwise you'll never know if the gas station attendant is trustworthy or not. And unlike a gas station attendant, God is always showing up to give advice. You will see him(/her) again and again. So it's worth giving some initial faith. Enough to try things out.

Though it should be noted that there are lots of different sources claiming to be the word of God. You need to first find some that seem reliable, then test them, and if they aren't working, then perhaps they're not a good source of directions. But keep looking, because there are good sources. Should I tell you about mine? I don't know how helpful it would be, and I don't want to seem like I'm advertising, so I won't, unless someone specifically asks. me. Which currently is unlikely, as I'm the only person seeing this blog.

A translated quote from the Veda:

"Dharma supports those who support Dharma"

Ergo, in my mind:

"The universe supports those who follow their conscience."

Mind you, this is over the LONG run. Your short-term results may vary. This is one of the reasons Faith is very helpful.

Lowku due to no time fuuuuuu!

I have very little time for this post, like, serious nega-time, but it's almost the next month and I want to get at least one post up per month. Thus, this may be haiku-like in its brevity. Except without the poignant, crafted refinement of a haiku. Maybe a lowku.


A sickness of the spirit.
Straining. Trying. Taking responsibility for my mediocracy as though I was a dog that just pooped the rug.
God doesn't want a bunch of sourpuss's walking around.
He wants a bunch of laughing children, happy and carefree, playing all the time. Playing hard.
It is an act of extream bravery to trust in the unerring perfection of the universe.
Well, until you see that's the truth of it. Then it's just obvious.

Who's moving these fingers across the keyboard? Who's creating these thoughts? Not me. Obviously not me. I'm not sure 'blame' is the right word, but it is clearly all God's doing. So stop taking responsibility. Play your part to the hilt in this amazing play, but stop pretending it's more than a drama on a stage, or that you wrote it.
Play to win, play with everything you've got,
but in the theater seat of your mind, grab some popcorn, sit back, relax, and

just enjoy the show.

Do not worry, do not strain: Decide and Do.

Quotes that I'm working with at the moment, trying to put into practice in my life:

"Action must not be felt as a burden, for that is a sure sign, indicating that it is against the grain. No action which helps your progress will weigh heavily on you."

"Forget the past, do not worry about the possible errors or disappointments. Decide and do."

And I don't recall if this is an exact quote or paraphrase:
...Reading and writing your evil deeds will just impress them more into your mind. Better to substitute good thoughts for bad. Cleanse the mind by dwelling on righteous deeds and holy thoughts. Forget the things you don't want to remember.


To summarize my working plan:
-if something feels like a burden, stop, and figure out what to do, that doesn't feel like a burden. However, sometimes I have to do things as duty, so what needs to change is not the thing, but the approach. so:

-Don't worry about what happened in the past, or what bad stuff might happen in the future. Decide what must be done, and do it.

-And don't dwell on the stuff that you did bad in the past. Focus on good things you can be doing, and good thoughts to be thinking. It's just a habit. Cultivate it.


And even shorter:

Let your joy lead you. Never settle for something that doesn't feel right and good. Think good, decide on good action, and do it, without worries.

Kegan, Katie, Fritz and the Motivation Matrix Machine

I read a book by Kegan and Lahey about lasting change, and it fit in with two other people on the subject, so it's on my mind. The basic theory goes something like this:

There are things that we want. That we are committed to. For example, I really want to work diligently and become an excellent teacher.

Then there is the reality of what happens, or doesn't happen: sometimes I work diligently, sometimes I spend time on unimportant chores, or distractions like games, books, etc.

Why? It's important to understand the answer to that question, if you want to change it. The why is the answer to the question: what needs am I getting met by doing/not doing these things: the games, books, distractions. Perhaps for me there are a few desires being met: the desire not to fail (if I don't try, I don't fail). The desire to feel comfy, to be entertained.

Once you recognize and own these things, you can then move on to the next step: what are the underlying assumptions or beliefs that underly these competing desires? To find this out, a good way is to ask yourself what bad stuff you fear would happen, if you didn't get these competing desires met. In my example, if I imagine just not playing games or reading books for pleasure anymore, or at least doing so much less, I fear my life would become dull, unhappy, and unpleasant. Empty.

Then the final step in this system is testing those assumptions in simple, non-threatening ways. Perhaps I try, once, to not give in to the craving to read or goof off during work time. And then I discover, my life is just about exactly at the same level of pleasure and enjoyment overall (and a bit higher in the long term sense of self-satisfaction, since I'm working towards my long-term goals.)

This then begins the process of weakening the competing commitments. They were strong because of the fears of what would happen if they didn't get met. But if it turns out those fears are baseless or greatly exaggerated, then they loose their urgency.

It should be noted that this is an emotional and habitual shift, which means it requires repeated practice over a long period of time (but not necessarily for long stretches of time each day. Frequency over duration.)


This is expressed in different words by Robert Fritz, who talks about "the creative process, the universal structure that leads to successful creating." He's another dude I happen to have read, and his nutshell is he looked at successful creators, and tried to isolate the difference between people who created a lot and people who didn't. Basically it came down to what he called oscillating patterns and advancing patterns.

An oscillating pattern is, in essence, the structure created by having two opposing desires. Back to my example, the desire to do all my homework and the opposing desire to go surf the web because I'm scared of failure instead. It's called oscillating, because sometimes one desire seems to win out, and when it's the "good" one, we feel like we're finally making progress, but eventually, that desire starts to get satisfied, or something triggers the other desire, and then it takes over. Robert likened it to being attached to two rubber bands, one in front of you and one behind. As you start walking forward (doing homework), the rubber band behind you starts to pull stronger and stronger, (fear of failur, fear of an empty life) until I give in to that pull. Then, after a day long binge of netflix, the remorse of not doing my homework kicks in, that rubber band is pulling stronger, and I do some more homework.

Roberts solution is almost the same as Kegan's. He says you need to switch to an advancing pattern/structure. Wich is just one rubber band, that you keep putting ahead of you. He doesn't really have any good advice for dealing with the interfering rubberband like Kegan does, but he has more specifics on setting up the advancing desire:

First, you still need two points, but the first point is your present reality, and the second is you're positive desire. Keeping yourself aware of both of these creates need. Awareness of your present reality, ergo, I've got a ton of homework to do, juxtaposed with you're nice looking goal: happily having done all the homework satisfactorily, creates need. Creates movement.

Second: the goal needs to be something you actually want. Sounds obvious, but so often in our society we try to pick the 'right' thing to want, based on what other people want, or what we're told is right to want. But the bottom line is, if you don't want it intrinsically, it's not going to create the lasting energy needed to get to it.

Roberts solution to the competing desires. (I wanna get thin but right now I really want the ice cream) is not to do the fancy deep thinking Kegan suggests, but just to refocus on your structural tension juxtaposition (the image of what you truly want next to the truthful image of where you are presently.) and that should give you the energy to choose the long-term goal over the short term gratification. But I don't think the methods need be exclusive.


Finally, another angle on this thing, is Byron Katie. She calls it inquiry, and focuses mostly on discovering and busting the assumptions that are behind our structures (both the structure Kegan describes and Fritz describes.) It focuses on the final step of Kegan: testing your assumptions and beliefs. Her method goes like this: Start with someone who pisses you off, or saddens you, or who you have in some way not forgiven, then with some prompting questions Katie calls a "Judge-your-Neighbor worksheet," judge the heck out of them. Tell them what they are doing wrong, and how they should change. This is the easiest way to start finding assumptions/beliefs, but after your comfortable with that, you can just write down whatever thought it is that is bothering you, even stuff about yourself. (however it's ineffective to start with yourself: that's too close to home and people tend to short-circuit the process and not get good results when they do that first.)

Once you have the emotionally charged belief that's making you mad/sad/depressed, you go through answering a series of questions in a meditative way, that tends to make great progress towards dissolving that assumption/belief.  The questions may not be that useful without some hand holding to walk you through using them, but here they are:

Is it true? (the statement about life/the person/etc.)
Can you absolutely know it's true? (if the answer to the first question is "Yes")
How do you react when you believe that thought?
Who would you be (how would you be) without that thought?

And then you try turning around the statement to an opposite statement and finding examples of how that statement could be just as true.


It's not manipulative, which is nice, it's really just a guided tour of your belief, and the questions lead you to the realization that what you thought was so true, was maybe not quite as true as you thought. This is very much a practice, not a philosophy, so understanding it does nothing for you. It's all about the trip you take. And like all practices I know of that lead to permanent change, it takes repetition and persistence.


What interests me is that all these people seem to have independently stumbled upon one big thing. Like three blind people feeling up an elephant. They are all describing this thing to me, using different words, maybe focusing their description on different parts of the elephant, but they all seem to be talking about the same thing.

And what is that thing? I'm not sure exactly what to call it. It is the part of our mind that is our assumptions and beliefs about the world. And it's function is to determine (in concert with our desires, which seem to be a different part of the mind) our behavior.

The structure is quite fascinating, because, since basically all of our beliefs and assumptions are incorrect, at best approximations, we are in effect living in "The Matrix." An artificial reality.  And by adjusting the fundamental structures of our Matrix, we adjust our experience and thus our behavior.

Robert Fritz is solely interested in action and motivation, so he doesn't spend any time with the underlying assumptions. He just wants to push the gas pedal on this machine, which means putting awareness on where you want to go, and where you are, rather than where you are told to go, and where you don't want to go. But if you're car is broken, he can't really help (I tried his stuff, it was not particularly effective, but that was because there was other stuff in the way that he didn't give tools to fix. Or if he did, I was not aware of them)

Kegan is interested in how the car works, so it can be fixed or modified to run more efficiently.

Katie is interested in disassembling the car, so she's really good at that, and if Kegan needs some of it disassembled to run better, she can help. But ultimately she's interested in completely eliminating the car and just flying around like superman. Or to use the Matix analogy, Fritz wants to use the rules of the Matrix to be as strong as the rules allow, Kegan wants to do cool things in the Matrix be re-writing the rules and Katie wants to step out of the matrix altogether.


What does this mean practically?

Fritz: choose something you really want to create and practice structural tension regularly to give yourself the motivation to get it done. (Juxtapose your clearly seen present reality with the reality/thing you want to create)

Kegan: Figure out what you want, figure out how you trip yourself and keep yourself from getting that, figure out the conflicting desires that cause that irritating lack of progress, figure out the assumptions behind those conflicting desires (what bad stuff do I think will happen if I don't give in to the conflicting desire.) And then bust those assumptions to make the conflicting desire weaker and easier to ignore.

Katie: Bust all assumptions/beliefs that are causing you pain.


And to summarize further into a nice little nugget you can take with you on a post-it:

• Figure out what you want, frequently juxtapose it with where you are to turbo charge your motivation and action. 
• Figure out your competing desires that undermine you, (start with the undermining behavior.)
• figure out the assumptions about them that make you afraid to let them go. 
• bust those assumptions with real life tests and/or Katie's method. That will weaken the competing desires. 
• See if you can get those desires met in healthy non-disruptive ways. Or if not, just don't act on them, now that they are weakened.

Wanting Things is OK

It is OK to want things. Desire is like a horse we ride. Or that we have hooked up to a buggy or something. It is the energy that moves us places. There is a weird idea that being spiritual means trying to avoid having desires, or suppress the desires you have.

There is also a weird idea that being good means only doing what God wants you to do. Truely speaking, God, as Atma, is neutral, and doesn't really want anything. I got confused by this, and sat still, waiting to be told what to do by the Atma. But even the personal God doesn't want to tell you what to do. The process of growing up spiritually involves recognizing that you are the Son of God, and ultimately that you are God. Relying on external authority, though perhaps a useful set of training wheels, is not to be idealized. God has placed within your own heart all that he wants for you, as the desires already within you.

Our job is to listen to our own heart, our own desires, and when one comes up, check it against the voice of conscience (I should really do a post just on conscience). Or you might say, check it against the Atma. As long as it does not go against that internal voice, then it's ok to do. Enjoy. If it does go against it, then yeah, you should try and find a way to redirect it (still workn' on how to do that without unhealthy suppression stuff. results mixed but promising. Fully committing to following your sense of rightness makes it easier, and offering yourself, ahead of time, a list of alternative things, that satisfy the same basic craving but are ok with your own sense of rightness, seem to help. Like having healthy snacks around so you don't eat junk food.)

It's ok to do things just because you want to do them. Sometimes we get impulses from we don't know where, that feel like imperatives. And they always seem to be good ideas, and perhaps important to our overall life plan. I don't know. But those are the exceptions.

And if you are someone life me, who maybe externalizes my desires too much, "tell me what I should want to do." Then it's important to strengthen your desire muscles by doing things you want to do, that are not harmful to yourself. This strengthens your desire muscles, and those are the muscles that pull you through difficult tasks.

The other element of that, which pulls you through long-term difficult tasks, is staying connected to your purpose. What bigger things do you want in life? Long term goals, or dreams. Visions of your future that make you happy to think about. I suggest dreaming big, not letting possibility limit what you dream about. Then remind yourself of where you are and where you want to go, and at least the one next step that will take you closer to that. Keeping those in mind
A) keep us on track towards what we want and
B) keep us moving through the difficult stuff and still feeling good about what we're working on, even if day to day it seems unimportant.


Personally, I avoided wanting things because when I wanted things, I really wanted them, and when I didn't get them, I felt really, really bad about myself. It's a little difficult to get the hang of, but the Bhagavad-Gita suggests a solution to this: Do your action, but think of it as an affection offering to your Higher Power. If it's for yourself, it's for the Atma that is who you really are. If it's for someone else, it's for their Atma, the God that is at the core of who they are. It's not your job to worry about whether your action is successful or not. You do your best, doing what you know to be right, or doing something you want to do and know isn't wrong, and trust that God will take care of the outcome, and if you don't succeed, there's a good reason for that. (And maybe it's just teaching you persistance so your next job is just to try again.)


-Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves, says Mary Oliver.
-Hold the reins and use your discrimination to decide where your senses/horses take you, says Krishna.

These are complementary bits of advice, not opposing. Think again of the riding a horse analogy. Be loving and kind to your horse/desire body. Let it graze when it's hungry and drink when it's thirsty, give it a nice luxurious rub down after a hard day's work. But when you're riding, if you've got somewhere you want to go, direct the horse, and keep it from veering off course. Otherwise you'll never get there. In charge, but kind.