Jeremy Mohler

Writer, meditation teacher, and therapist-in-training

I used to cringe when a meditation teacher mentioned compassion

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Living the good life is simple but extremely difficult.

Simple, as in all it takes — beyond food, water, and shelter— is one thing: self-compassion.

Difficult, because so much is stacked against us being nice to ourselves.

What I mean by “the good life” is what the poet Mary Oliver must’ve meant when she asked, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The adjectives wild and precious about sum it up. The good life is realizing the seriousness of this present moment. How it never, ever will happen again. Yet being okay with that. Not making anything too precious. Celebrating the wildness.

It’s like that old Oscar Wilde line: “Life is too serious to be taken seriously.” (Though, apparently, that’s not exactly what Wilde wrote.)

Or like what the ancient Indian mystic known as the Buddha meant by “the middle way” when he said, “There is a middle way between the extremes of indulgence and self-denial, free from sorrow and suffering.”

Let me bring all this abstract stuff down to Earth.

When I first got into meditation, I would cringe whenever a meditation teacher mentioned compassion. What is this hippie, bougie shit? I’d think. When they recommended self-compassion, my mind would go blank.

It made no sense. I was meditating to be like a Buddhist monk, you know, cool, calm, and collected.

But in hindsight, I was just trying to feel better. And it wasn’t until I practiced self-compassion that I actually started to on a regular basis.

A few years ago, I dated someone I was incredibly attracted to. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. Yet, when we slept together, I had trouble — let’s say — performing.

She was understanding and gentle with me about it. But I was a wreck. I thought I was broken physically or — worse — emotionally.

It wasn’t until I talked to a therapist that I felt better.

My friends had been kind. They’d recommended this or that supplement, this or that move in bed, this or that perfect thing to say.

But the therapist made me feel normal. Like nothing was wrong with me. Sure, what happened wasn’t ideal. But it happened. It was the truth.

The therapist’s non-shaming attitude allowed me to see that, despite being upset, I was also curious. What happened was evidence that my needs weren’t being met. Not evidence that I’m broken or weak or not a “real man,” whatever that means.

So, I decided to experiment. What is it that I really want? What really turns me on? What if I slowed down? What if I went at a pace that felt comfortable to me, instead of barreling forward because that’s just what a man does?

See, what gets in the way of self-compassion are thoughts. Spiraling, ruminating, critical thoughts. Stories about how we should or shouldn’t be.

angel Kyodo williams, the Zen Buddhist priest, says these stories fill our mind as if it were “that drawer that collects everything in your house.” She goes on:

They’re moving at an incredible rate of speed. And, for the most part, we almost never get the opportunity to observe them and sort through them. You say, ‘Oh, but wait a minute, someone lived in this house before me. And some of that stuff is not mine. Actually, this is not mine. That’s my mom’s. This is not mine; that’s the inheritance of white supremacy.’ And we have no real way of being able to discern what is mine, what is yours, what we’re holding collectively, what I have inherited, what I have taken on as a measure of protection, of a way to cope at some point in my life.

I was putting pressure on myself because… that’s just what men do. Men take control, do the exact right thing at the exact right time, and perform perfectly, no matter what. Those are the messages I inherited from our patriarchal culture.

But when I slowed down and got curious — when I observed and sorted through my thoughts— I also got confident, creative, and the rest of “the 8 C’s,” as they’re known as in the form of therapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS). I got courageous, compassionate, calm, and clearer about what I actually wanted.

I saw that I wasn’t emotionally connected with the woman I was dating. I was so caught up in her physical beauty that I’d lost connection with myself.

In other words, self-compassion is acceptance. Celebrating the wildness. Embracing our humanness. Dancing in the messiness. Learning from it all.

“Life is an incredible curriculum,” said the late spiritual teacher and psychologist Ram Dass. “In which we live it [sic] richly and passionately as a way of awakening to the deepest truths of our being.”

I’m happy to report that I haven’t experienced “performance issues” since. In fact, some 20 percent of erectile dysfunction cases are caused by anxiety, stress, or some other psychological issue.

But who knows if I will again? Life is unpredictable. Why would I want it not to be?

I’m a writer, meditation teacher, and host of the Meditation for the 99% podcast. My weekly email newsletter helps you bring mindfulness to work, relationships, and politics. Subscribe here.

Download my free ebook on how meditation transformed my life.

Your girlfriend is right. You should see a therapist.

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I was catching up with a therapist friend recently when a light bulb went off in my mind: Meditation is harm reduction.

It doesn’t solve the deeper emotional issues that cause many of our problems. But it helps us feel a little better in the here and now.

“Harm reduction” refers to an approach towards substance users that minimizes pain and suffering. For example, my new hometown of Baltimore has been giving out free needles to injection drug users for decades. People are going to use drugs. Why not make it as safe as possible?

Over the last ten years, giving out needles has prevented more than 1,900 new cases of HIV in Baltimore and saved the city over $32 million in public health costs every year.

People using drugs in a problematic, unhealthy way need more than just free needles. They need evidence-based drug treatment that addresses their health and social needs. They might need housing, healthcare, or a good paying job.

Meditation is like giving out clean needles. It reduces the harm caused by what therapist and author Mark Epstein calls “the trauma of everyday life.”

When we’re mindful we can step back from our thoughts rather than believe them without question. We feel a little less anxiety because we see that our anxious thoughts are just thoughts. We feel a little more joy because we’re in touch with what joy feels like in our bodies.

But we need something more revolutionary if we’re going making lasting change. We need to get to know our inner experience. We need to get familiar with different parts of ourselves, what triggers them, and how relate to them. We need to accept and even love whatever comes up inside.

That’s why therapy is so powerful. Working with someone skilled in holding back their judgement is like standing in front of a mirror. Except it’s a mirror that sees inside of you.

“I don’t take it personally,” says therapist and writer Lori Gottlieb, talking about clients who say mean things to her. “[Their aggression] is a way of coping with something that’s very unmanageable. And when we find out what the trauma and tragedy is … we [can come to like clients] quite a bit.”

A friend, your mom, your partner can’t provide that. They feel resentment, love, and all kinds of feelings towards you, even if they’re good at hiding it.

When you’re sitting across from someone who sees you fresh, who sees who you really are, you get to see yourself clearly. There’s no faking it, no bullshit. All that’s left is to dig into what’s really going on.

I don’t want to go as far as saying you must see a therapist. There’s a stigma against therapy, that it’s only for rich or “crazy” people. And it’s way too expensive—another reason we need #MedicareForAll. (Though, some therapists have sliding scale or even free rates.)

But please don’t be that guy, the one who thinks that meditation (or lifting weights or some job) has solved all your emotional problems. Don’t be me a few years back!

I was that guy until—you guessed it—a girlfriend all but commanded me to see a therapist.

“You can be broken as fuck, and still do good yoga,” spiritual teacher David Deida says. “You can be entirely dysfunctional therapeutically, psychologically, emotionally, you can be a wreck, and still be a master yogi. Yoga doesn’t fix the parts of you that are broken.”

I’m a writer, meditation teacher, and host of the Meditation for the 99% podcast. If you’d like to work with me on your meditation practice or being more mindful in your life, reach out. Get my writing straight to your email inbox here.

Download my free ebook on starting and sticking with a meditation practice here.

Heartbroken? The love you’re looking for is already inside of you.

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Over the weekend, I was painting a room in my house when Guy Clark’s “Stuff that Works” came on Spotify:

I got a woman I love
She’s crazy and paints like God
She’s got a playground sense of justice
She won’t take odds
I got a tattoo with her name
Right through my soul
I think everything she touches
Turns to gold

Those words hit me like an NFL linebacker. Every single one is the love I used to feel for an ex-girlfriend—“the one that got away,” as they say.

We long ago agreed to be just friends, which has been great. But sometimes I still feel romantic love for her—when I see a beautiful painting, when the sunlight looks a certain way, when I bite into a perfectly cooked steak.

As I mindlessly painted, I decided to watch what emotions were coming up.

First came desire—I missed and wanted her. Then sadness. What if I never find someone like her again? I thought. Then regret and self-blame—Why couldn’t I have gotten my shit together sooner? Then compassion—we were young and still figuring things out, of course we fucked up.

But that’s when I struck gold. Next came love. Overwhelmingly love. For my ex, yes—but also in a much wider, ubiquitous way. My chest went tender with a little sadness but a ton of warmth. In the words of the poet Mary Oliver, I couldn’t help but be in awe of “this one precious life.”

Here’s what I realized: That love is mine. It was inside of me from the start. I just needed someone else to help me feel it. But what if I can access it myself? What if love is available at any time, yet I just overlook it?

Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön writes about this in one of my favorite books ever, “Start Where You Are,” but about the flip side of the coin, about negative emotions, like anger.

“If you have rage and righteously act it out and blame it all on others, it’s really you who suffers. The other people and the environment suffer also, but you suffer more because you’re being eaten up inside with rage, causing you to hate yourself more and more.”

That makes me think of politics, of hating Trump and white supremacy and capitalist greed. I recently saw an Instagram video of white counter-protesters yelling hateful things at Black Lives Matter activists. As I watched, it was me who felt the hate. The counter-protestors were probably already home relaxing and watching TV. I felt like shit, like I was burning up inside.

What I’m saying is, we have to live with our emotions, good and bad. Might as well get to know them a little bit. And in getting to know them, we might stumble upon the fact that love is already inside of us. That it’s not out there. That it’s not something to acquire. That it’s not as hidden as we assume.

“We already have everything we need,” writes Chödrön. “We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.”

I’m a writer, meditation teacher, and host of the Meditation for the 99% podcast. If you’d like to work with me on your meditation practice or being more mindful in your life, reach out. Get my writing straight to your email inbox here.

Download my free ebook on starting and sticking with a meditation practice here.