1 An original description, and possibly a term of endearment, not recognized by any worldly lexicon.
UNTHINK IT
If you’ve got kids, or are around kids a lot (as a teacher, for example), you’ll recognize what I’m about to talk about. Our boys (now ten years old) often just sit and look into space. Sure, it’s happening less than it used to. Especially now that they’re into video games. The time that they would have spent staring into space is now spent staring into space invaders, or its modern equivalent anyway (that said, they do like the retro games on their Nintendo 3DS, so they have been playing such ‘80s classics). That’s why we limit their time on such games to six minutes a day. No, it’s more. But when they plead to go and play on the PlayStation, we say, ‘If you can sit there and stare into space for 30 minutes like you used to, then you can play a bit of PS if you fancy.’ But, of course, they couldn’t do that. They could as much do that as lose the desire to spend every moment on a video game, because we would prefer it if they didn’t.
I drive the boys to school frequently, and back again, too. Often they chat away to each other in the back. And sometimes there’s just a lovely silence. I’ve learned to resist the temptation to strike up a conversation (‘Right boys, what do you think about the new increase in the top rate of tax, then?’), and leave them in silence instead. I take a sneaky peak at them in the rearview mirror, and they’re either just looking blankly out of the window, or at the back of the seats in front, or at their hands. They’re not reading anything or doing anything, just staring blankly.
Once, they were doing this staring blankly thing for most of the journey home. I pulled up outside our house and turned off the engine. I sat there for a few moments, said nothing, and got out of the car. Nothing. I then walked to a place where I could see both of them, but without them seeing me (stalking your own kids, nice), and they continued just to stare blankly into space. I went into the house. A few minutes later, they came in, all chatty now.
Now, if we ever get to stare blankly as adults (and most of us don’t), we call it ‘meditation.’ And that’s if we’re doing meditation ‘well.’ Most of us, when meditating, are sitting there thinking, I must make sure I put out the food for the cats before I walk down to mail my letters, oh, I’m supposed not to be thinking here, give the old brain a break for once, ooooommmmmmmm, blank, blank, blank, one… two… three… I hope I don’t meet old Mr. Carson in the village today… I can’t bear the way he looks at my shoes… I don’t know what it is about my shoes, but he… oh, ooommmm, etc.
But Unthink It is less about meditating to access a blank space (though this can help over time) and more about thinking less in general. I’ll place myself in the stand as a prime example. I’ve always thought things through very carefully. I grew up understanding that the brain, and the ability to use it well and think things through, was our primary asset. As a teenager, one part of my brain wanted to be a lawyer (the other part wanted to be a rock star). I did well at school. My grandfather called me ‘Brains 1’ (and my sister was ‘Brains 2’). I liked that. I liked to be top of the class (when I was). In a very insecure time (early teenage years), I found solace in the fact that I was clever, and, as I walked down the street, that I was probably cleverer than most of the people around me. Sounds awful, I know. But that was my response to feeling insecure (i.e., afraid I was inferior): I found a good reason for being superior. We’ve all done it in one way or another. And we all probably continue to do it in one way or another.
Thankfully, for me, I realized that there were plenty of very clever people out there in the world. In fact, in one subject or another, there would always be someone cleverer than me. But I could tell the clever thing wasn’t working for me, anyway – not in the terms that I understood ‘clever’ to be then anyway, which was about working hard, learning lots of stuff, and spouting it out in the appropriate order. My imagination was too feisty and rebellious to be pushed into the corner by such hard work, so I rebelled against the hard work thing and made it my aim to do as little as possible to get through. And I did. It was only later that I learned the philosophical and energetic power of ‘doing less to achieve more.’ At times, I did more than just get through. Academics liked my madcap ideas about subjects that interested me. Yet the academic world wasn’t for me.
But thinking everything through was. Even if I couldn’t simply wander down rational lines of thought, I liked to think about every subject. I loved philosophy for its constant questioning. I loved great literature for its insights into human nature. That’s what got me excited: working out how we all tick. So I’d try to understand everything, and usually that meant everything about people. I’d think through why people were acting the way they were; I’d think through why I was acting the way I was. I was very interested in psychology and psychotherapy. I loved to try to unpick my character, motivations, insecurities, and hang-ups.
It was, for me, all about thinking it through. And I suppose it still is in many ways. You’re reading a book that is partially the result of a love of thinking things through. But to ONLY think things through and to ONLY approach things rationally, leaves us in a rather dry place. For example, I used to think it was great to work out my opinion on everything. So if, in a debate, I didn’t have a pre-formed opinion already, I would quickly conjure up one so that I could argue from this or that angle. Listening to radio interviews with politicians, I would see if I could guess how they would respond to a question and then imagine arguing against them. Lame, I know.
Years of meditation, years of working with energy, and years of LIVING, however, have taught me that opinions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Having an opinion on something, anything, means we’ve fixed our position on that subject. This then leaves little room for changes in circumstances, changes in context, or changes in us. The true philosopher doesn’t fix a position and then argue for it or from it. It’s funny that the most common use of the word ‘philosophy’ is now when we say, ‘Well, my philosophy is…’ ‘My philosophy is that you should always look before you leap.’ We precede a statement of our fixed view with the suggestion that it’s our ‘philosophy.’ Whereas philosophy is about simply questioning. I’m fascinated by how things work. But I don’t (any longer) come in with a fixed idea of how I think they should work.
Imagine seeing everything afresh. Imagine having no opinions at all, just seeing things as they are, or investigating a question before you with absolutely no prejudices. The word ‘prejudice’ is important because that’s what we’re talking about, not just in the sense of bringing prejudice (i.e., prejudgement) to someone because of their gender, color of their skin, sexuality, or nationality, but also, just as most of us see how harmful it is to be prejudiced in that sense, to extend that principle out to everything in our lives. Realize that it can be unhelpful to prejudge ANYTHING. Come to every situation fresh.
So if you laud the lord of thinking, if you relish your resource of opinion forming, how do you begin to Unthink things? Well, just by seeing that purely thinking everything through doesn’t do it for you is a good start. Say F**k It to the stock answer, the thought-through response, the carefully constructed arguments… cut loose from your mooring of mentality and drift more freely. See what it’s like to be fine not to have an opinion on something. Enjoy changing your mind on something. See the other side, but don’t join the other side.
Combine Unthinking It with full consciousness, the impartial watching of phenomena, and you start to unleash some powerful magic. When you begin to think less, or at least be less fixed by previous thoughts, you create space: space for stuff that isn’t just thought-based (like feelings); space for gentle dreaming (the staring into space stuff that kids do); space for other things to enter your life (you’re now not just filtering all input based on pre-programmed criteria). You become floatier, softer, more in tune with yourself and others, more adaptive, more open to change, more willing to accept things as they are, people as they are, more toleran
t, more flexible, more pleasant to be around.
That’s got you thinking, hasn’t it? Well, stop. Unthink It, and just relax.
Enlightened unconsciousness
I used to love digging: digging into experiences, digging out emotions, digging into dynamics. Any digging happening, I was there, not leaving anything unturned. Bring it all to consciousness, awareness, understanding. See it, say it, and name it. Whatever it took, I did it. All in the worthy name of truth (sometimes with not just a little cringing from John).
Now I don’t. Now I hang around.
When something turns up, I hang around. It’s not that I ignore it, or go unconscious, or run away, or that I got lazy (although I am really up for some laziness). Quite the opposite. I am there, but I just hang around with it, let it do its dance, let it play with me, and give it time.
It’s simply that I’m not so impatient to get out of the unknowing.
I just don’t have a strong need to work out what it is, and most of all I don’t try to work out what to do.
So, I hang around.
Because you see, often when you reach for your beloved ‘understanding tools’ in a rush, you are bound to use them in the age-old way you’ve always used them. So you come to the same conclusions you always have. And possibly you are very bored with those.
So instead of that… just hang around with it.
Next time you ask yourself the same old question: ‘What shall I do about this now?’ you can just decide not to panic, and hang around with it for a while instead.
It’s actually a rather lovely place to be (if you’re interested in letting go of the addiction to controlling it all): you can remain soft-minded, enjoying a slightly hazy, detached feeling of not knowing yet what’s going on and where precisely you’re going. ‘Can’t be bothered to struggle’ background energy sets in (not bad after an lifetime of struggling).
I call it ‘Enlightened Unconsciousness.’
You are unconscious in the way you’re not asking questions all the time and you’re not bothered with working things out, but at the same time you’re really alive, curious, and open.
And you know what, when you hang around like that for a while, without escaping, without pretending, but also without trying, life is given the chance to come up with something interesting.
When the time is right, you’ll just be able to notice what emerges (from that nice soft space, by the way, so no need to rush). And, as you’ve just been spending time hanging around, you’ll be fresh and full of energy to jump on that bus.
THANK IT
‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.’
That was said before all our family meals. It’s puzzled me for a long time, that one. Why can’t it be ‘We are truly grateful, Lord, for what we are about to receive’? Why do we ask that the Lord ‘make’ us? Do we assume that we’re miserable, ungrateful sinners, so would never be able to spontaneously thank the Lord for the bounty, the veritable ambrosial feast He’s laid before us… so we have to beg Him to MAKE us grateful? Go on, God, I’ll never be grateful of my own accord, I’ll never be good of my own accord, so please MAKE ME. Go on, whip me, make me deeply, pathetically grateful, even if all that’s on my plate is beans with two overdone pieces of toast (sorry, mum, that’s not what you did really, you put in many long hours preparing fresh, balanced meals for us).
But, you know what? I get it now. Because ‘grateful’ is one thing that we’re not very good at being. Whether life is good or bad, whether we’re on an upper or a downer, we’re very rarely ‘grateful.’
However, this is good news because being grateful is an astonishing Magic Trick for enabling you to walk through walls. And if you’re not using this trick regularly, which you’re probably not, you’re about to experience a heck of a lot of magic very quickly when you do.
So, what is gratitude all about? Well, it simply means being grateful, consciously grateful, for what we have. It means saying a definite ‘thanks’ or ‘cheers’ for many of the things that are going well in our lives (and even the things that don’t appear to be going well, too, but more of that in a minute).
And we’re not talking about manners here. I know you’re all very well mannered out there. When someone gives you a gift, you say ‘thank you’ and (usually) are genuinely grateful. When the waiter brings you your food, you say ‘thank you.’ When the masseuse has finished you off, you say ‘thank you.’ You say thanks when a door is held open for you, or you wave thanks when another driver lets you out. Most of us are polite in our day-to-day relations. But that’s not the gratitude we’re talking about.
We’re talking about a non-object-specific ‘thanks’ for everything in our lives. Sure you can talk about ‘God’ or any range of gods, angels, or spirits, or ‘the universe’ or ‘Life.’ But it’s a general ‘thanks.’ And what are we saying thanks for? After all, have you seen what a miserable time I’m having of it at the moment? Chuck’s been made redundant; we can hardly make the mortgage payments; Joline is acting up at school; the price of food is extortionate, not to mention the fuel; and this government is appalling, they’ve got no idea; and my mother-in-law just wants to stick her nose in; and my back is really playing up; and if I’ve told Jerry next door not to play his music late at night once, I’ve told him a thousand times; and people around here just aren’t what they used to be; and it’s all me, me, me nowadays, all money no manners. What was that you said about gratitude?
Well, there’s always something to be grateful for.
Yes, always.
So, here’s how you start building the magic of gratitude into your life: start building the magic of gratitude into your life, tee hee. Yes, set aside some time to write down all the things you’re grateful for. You could decide to write 18 things every day that you’re grateful for. If you can’t be bothered to write it down (and please do if you can, because it does really help), then add some Gratitude Recitation to a daily activity. For example, when I run, I say thanks for something in the rhythm of my running.
Like this:
‘I’m grateful for being able to run.
I’m grateful for this beautiful countryside.
I’m grateful for my pumping heart.
I’m grateful for my darling wife.
I’m grateful for my lungs.
I’m grateful for my beloved boys.
I’m grateful for my imagination.
I’m grateful for my balls.’
And so on. In my case, and so on, for 30 minutes every other day.
I wonder how much such ‘Gratitude Running,’ as I call it, is amplifying the benefits of my running alone (i.e., by being conscious of, and grateful for, and loving the various parts of my body, those parts of the body will be benefiting from those thoughts, as well as the exercise of running).
Decide to do such Gratitude Recitations while doing a daily activity… doing the dishes, or the ironing, or on your daily commute, or while scoffing down your breakfast, or having a shower, or having sex, or masturbating (‘I’m grateful for my hand. I’m grateful for my…’).
List the mundane as well as the spectacular: ‘I’m grateful for running water. I’m grateful for my Ferrari.’
List what you wouldn’t usually be grateful for: ‘I’m grateful that I’m tired. I’m grateful I’ve been fired.’ As even these recitations create something interesting in your life. Your brain will go, Why the F**k are you grateful for being fired? What good has that done, now that you’re sat at home, spending your time gardening, and sitting around, and reading again, and learning how to paint, and… oh!
And watch the magic begin.
I’d prefer it if you went away and practiced some gratitude for a few days before reading the rest of this chapter. It won’t ruin the magic, but it’s nice to experience the magic before reading about how some of the magic is working.
One obvious psychological reason for the magic is that, by introducing gratitude into your life, you’re t
aking your eyes off the negative things, the things to moan about, even for ten minutes a day. You’re creating a new habit in your brain – you’re seeing that, even if things look and seem crap in your life, there are blessings everywhere. And just like when you’re thinking about buying an orange pickup, you suddenly see LOADS of orange pickups on the road, when you’re thinking about the things you’re grateful for, you suddenly see more and more things to be grateful for. In fact, the things to be grateful for crowd into your consciousness so much that the things to moan about hardly have any room to move, and they eventually get so uncomfortable that they bugger off1 to clutter someone else’s consciousness instead. That’s the psychological magic. And it’s no less magic because it’s psychological. The brain is a magical thing.
By being grateful, we’re effectively saying F**k It to all the things that we should be upset and moaning about.
But gratitude is more than a psychological thing.
You know I mentioned the God, gods, universe, and Life thing? Well, it doesn’t seem just to be your ‘perception’ of reality (i.e., psychology) that changes. It appears to be that you change reality, too. When we give thanks for stuff, we seem to be showered with more stuff to give thanks for. So it’s not just that you start seeing more to be grateful for in your life (‘oh, I hadn’t really appreciated that just being able to walk or talk is in itself a wonderful thing’). But the things to be grateful for actually multiply. Is it that you’re more positive, more open, and therefore attract more from other people? Yes, but it’s more, too. And this is where you’ll find the real magic (magic being magic it’s hard to explain). But God seems to like it when you’re grateful. Life seems to respond well in return when you go ‘Cheers for sending that downpour, it really freshened things up,’ by saying ‘Okay, John, I’m enjoying your gratitude, so I’m going to grant you those wishes you had a little while back.’ The universe just wants to be loved. The universe seems to say, ‘You know, so many people just moan about what I give them, even when it’s brilliant, that I just think ‘F**k It, let me reward those who appreciate my work.’
F**k It Therapy Page 14