Jeremy Mohler

Writer and meditation teacher

Teaching meditation to socialists scared the hell out of me

by


“Who am I?” I wondered, as 20 strangers closed their eyes and settled into chairs.

I knew who they were: socialists, my people — skeptical of capitalism; deeply disappointed by racism, sexism, and climate change; knowing there has to a better way to organize society.

But here I am teaching meditation instead of debating Marxism and the shortcomings of the Democratic Party.

As I began — ”find a posture halfway between relaxed and alert” — my stomach tied itself into a knot. I tried to breathe normally but my shoulders were shaking, making my voice sound higher.

I had spent the hour before denying I was a nervous wreck. Who tells socialists to care about themselves?

“Liberal.” “Bougie.” “Social justice warrior.” I could hear the call outs in my mind like they were tweets about a New York Times op-ed.

Thank God meditation teaches a response for anxiety and other overwhelming emotions.

Simply put: open to them.

Emotions are attached to stories, i.e., thoughts about the past or future. We usually either indulge the stories or run away from them. We follow them away from the present moment or distract ourselves with social media, alcohol, name your favorite distraction.

When you notice unhelpful stories, accept that they’re just what’s happening right now. They are real but not necessarily true. Let them go with the mind’s attention. Then, open to the present moment, to all it’s sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings.

When we’re lost in thought, we close off to the rest of our experience, particularly if we’re overwhelmed.

“When we are stressed, our attention narrows and fixates, often into obsessive thinking, worry, and judgment,” writes meditation teacher Tara Brach.

This closing off shows up in the body as a clench — in the stomach, shoulders, hands, etc. — as if we’re bracing for something bad just around the corner.

Opening is allowing the tightness to just be and then feeling its raw sensations, it’s warmth, tingling, or pain — whatever it feels like.

Feeling emotions without coming up with stories to explain them takes some wind out of their sails. It lowers the emotional charge. It allows you to calm the body, putting you back in touch with your surroundings.

As soon as I didn’t see the knot in my stomach as a problem, it relaxed. I felt its serpentine grip loosen. I breathed deeply, feeling cool air fill the bottoms of my lungs. I started feeling like myself, who I always am no matter the circumstances, whomever I’m around.

Being mindful isn’t just about focusing more or directing your attention. It’s also about relaxing your attention so that you’re witnessing thoughts and emotions rather than being lost inside of them, whipped around by their every whim.

It’s about opening, allowing, and receiving — which enables you to respond rather than react to whatever or whomever you encounter.

Want to be more mindful?

I’ve come up with a cheat sheet to help you start and stick with a regular meditation practice. Get it for free here.

Meditation for the 99%

On Meditation for the 99%, I take meditation out of faraway monasteries, expensive retreat centers, and Corporate America, and bring it to work, relationships, and, especially, politics. Listen everywhere podcasts are available.

Photo credit: David Shankbone

The power of facing your emotions rather than turning away

by

I recently stumbled on an alternative translation of dukkha, the ancient Pali word from Buddhism usually translated as “suffering.” In The Trauma of Everyday Life, the psychiatrist Mark Epstein says it also means “hard to face.”

I like this phrase because it implies that we can turn towards the pain, as hard as that may be. One can even read it as saying: the more we turn away from pain, the more we suffer.

So much of life is hard to face. That you’ll eventually die. That who you love will die, possibly before you. That you might never be as rich and successful as you thought you’d be. That you might owe thousands of dollars in debt. That white supremacy and misogyny exist.

There’s also the small, seemingly inconsequential stuff. That you need to respond to that day-old email from your boss. That you need to tell your partner you’ve been feeling bored with the relationship. That you probably shouldn’t drink again tonight.

“Even pleasant experiences carry a whiff of dissatisfaction because of their inability to provide ultimate comfort,” Epstein writes. “No matter how fulfilling, they eventually run their course.”

Regular meditation practice is one way we can start to turn towards the pain.

Anyone who’s tried meditation even once knows: even when you’re doing nothing but sitting in silence, the mind creates suffering.

Our mind doesn’t stop telling stories about the past and future. It worries about tomorrow. It judges you. It questions what you’re doing with your life. Upwards of 80 percent of our thinking is negative, research shows.

Just like in a movie or novel, the mind’s storytelling creates emotions. Anxiety. Fear. Anger. Self-doubt. Sadness. Excitement.

These emotions cause the mind to create even more stories. It tries to find an answer for why you’re feeling overwhelmed, which often just adds more fuel to the fire.

The takeaway here is that the emotions inside of us are what’s hard to face, not life itself.

It’s not what your partner might say when you tell them you’re bored that’s hard to face. It’s the fear you feel about being out of control, about not knowing what they’ll say, about putting the relationship on the line.

Luckily, meditation is a practice. It doesn’t just leave you hanging with the emotion. It strengthens your ability to turn towards what’s hard to face inside of you.

During a meditation session, you begin to notice the raw sensations that accompany emotions. You feel the tension in your stomach that comes with, say, anxiety. You feel the clenching of the muscles. Instead of going off on another explanation for why you’re feeling anxious — another story — you learn to sit with the tension. You even get curious about it. You release the tension, opening into the uncharted territory of the present moment.

Then, one day, you find an inner courage that no one can take away.

“When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it, “ says American Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön. “The only way out, so to speak, is through.”

I know. It sounds like hell. But along the way there are moments when it feels like you can face anything, both inside and outside. And those moments grow more often the more you meditate.

Want to be more mindful?

Sign up for my weekly email on meditation and how to be mindful about the stuff that matters most — work, relationships, and, especially, politics.

Listen to the podcast version

I talked about this post on my podcast, Meditation for the 99%. Listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and everywhere podcasts are available. Stream this episode below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Podcasts | RSS | More

Making big life decisions involves being confused. And meditation can help.

by


There’s this counterintuitive thing about meditation that’s one of its biggest benefits.

While it helps you stay present — not lost in thinking about the past or future — it can also help you come to deep insights. And sometimes these insights are about your intentions, which are informed by the past and impact the future.

During a seven-day silent meditation retreat last year, I outlined two book ideas and finally settled on a design for my first tattoo — which I got tattooed on my arm an hour after leaving the retreat center.

All that silence and meditation had turned down the volume on my surface level thinking. It soothed my worrying, planning, ruminating, reminiscing, etc. until those thoughts were less interesting than how my body felt breathing and what the meditation room sounded like.

This allowed deeper thoughts to bubble to the surface, thoughts that felt so true I couldn’t deny them. Some of these thoughts were intentions.

What do I mean by intentions?

I used to work in the tech industry helping IT companies win business with the federal government. I hated it from the beginning, but I got pretty good at suppressing what I felt in exchange for the job’s benefits. I could afford living in Washington, D.C., during the 2008–10 recession, felt smart and productive, seemed “normal,” and was making my parents proud.

I always knew I would leave someday but couldn’t figure out what I really wanted to do and how to make the switch.

I slowly realized those questions didn’t matter so much. What was holding me back from leaving where the whys. Why was I still working there? Why did I want to leave? Why did I spend most of my free time writing, meditating, and being an activist?

As I began to explore these questions — truly sit with them, without pretending I had the answers — the job became even less attractive. The pointless emails seemed more pointless. A white colleague’s casual racism towards our Muslim CEO began to bother me. What really bothered me, though, was that I didn’t say anything to him about it.

I was finally admitting that who I was at the office and who I was after work were very different people. I was getting in touch with my intentions, which shone a 1,000-watt spotlight on the fact that my job wasn’t aligned with my values.

By then, I had started meditating regularly. I slowly saw that I was working a corporate job because it made other people happy for me. That was my intention for being there.

Around the same time, I was offered a job in the labor movement helping working people fight corporate power. When my new boss called me with the offer, I barely noticed that I was about to take a $20,000 a year pay cut. My anxious thoughts sounded like a kid upset about not getting ice cream and having to settle for cake. They were surface-level, easy to tune out.

Big life decisions — if we’re lucky enough to be in the position to make them — can be years in the making. But you have to be willing to sit with the questions without thinking you know the answers.

You have to be willing to be confused. You have to be willing to admit: I don’t know.

There’s an ancient Russian tale about an old woman named Baba Yaga that illustrates this point. She lives in a hut deep in a forest where she stirs a pot waiting to tell the truth to whoever visits her.

In the story, three people visit.

The first visitor, a young man encouraged to visit by his parents, knocks on Baba Yaga’s door.

“Are you on your own errand or are you sent by another?” she asks.

“I am sent by my father,” the young man says. Baba Yaga throws him into the pot and cooks him.

The second visitor is a young woman who entered the forest on her on. Again, Baba Yaga asks, “Are you on your own errand or are you sent by another?”

“I am on my own errand,” the young woman answers. Baba Yaga throws her into the pot.

The third visitor, a young woman confused about the world, approaches.

“Are you on your own errand or are you sent by another?” Baba Yaga asks.

The young woman says, “In large part I’m on my own errand, but in large part I also come because of others. And in large part I have come because you are here, and because of the forest, and something I have forgotten, and in large part I know not why I come.”

Baba Yaga says, “You’ll do,” and invites her into the hut.

Ready to get serious about meditation?

Sign up for my weekly email on how to bring mindfulness to the stuff that matters most — work, relationships, and, especially, politics.