Jeremy Mohler

Writer and meditation teacher

Your beliefs about how to get love, respect, and attention are what keep you disconnected

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Staying mindful—paying attention non-judgmentally—is so hard because many of the thought patterns that distract us were developed during childhood.

Even if you aren’t a victim of outright abuse, you’ve experienced some level of trauma.

“You can have childhoods were no overt trauma, occurs,” says Hungarian-born Canadian physician and addiction expert Gabor Maté. “But when the parents are just too distracted, too stressed to provide the necessary responsiveness, that can also traumatize the child.”

We all—every single one of us—have stories and beliefs about how and who we need to be in order to be safe, taken care of, accepted, and loved.

The heartbreaking thing is these stories and beliefs are exactly what hold us back from connection. They disconnect us over and over again—from the present moment, from friends and family, from living fully.

You should explore your particular stories, preferably with a therapist if you can afford it.

But with even just a little bit of regular meditation, you’ll starting noticing how often they appear in your mind, which will help you take them less seriously.

They’re just thoughts, after all. As the Nepalese Tibetan monk Tsoknyi Rinpoche says, they’re “real but not true.”

I’ve included a list of some of the more notorious stories below.

One of mine is, I have to do things “perfect”—whatever that means—to earn respect, love, and connection. A few weeks ago, it popped up at in an odd place.

I was hiking near Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park when I spotted a pile of little brown balls. I knew what they were because I’d seen “moose droppings” candy before in giftshops in Maine, and I’d heard moose were “active” in the area.

Stories of moose attacks flitted through my mind. “Man dies in horrific encounter with rabid moose.” My neck and shoulders clenched. My heartbeat thumped in my ribcage.

But what really twisted me up was, I’d be judged by others for making a mistake—for bumbling around in the woods without a gun, pepper spray, or even knowing what to do if I saw a moose.

Think about that. I was more worried about being judged than the pain and even death that might come with a moose attack.

It wasn’t the fear and anxiety that overwhelmed me—emotions are part of vibrant experience of life. It was the story I was adding on top of the emotions.

Once I noticed the story, I laughed a little and continued down the trail. Mindfulness had helped me—once again—become conscious of my unconscious thoughts, let them go, and reconnect to the aliveness of the present moment.

Do any of these stories/beliefs (borrowed from psychologist Cynthia Wilcox) resonate?:

  • I can lose myself when I get close to someone.
  • I must earn respect/love by what I do/produce/accomplish.
  • I feel responsible for others’ well-being.
  • Keeping others comfortable is the most important thing.
  • I have an evaluator in my mind that is almost always on duty, evaluating myself and others.
  • I rely on myself.
  • Most often, I am disappointed or let down by others.
  • I can’t trust anyone completely.
  • If I’m all that I can be, I’ll overwhelm others. I have to keep myself small.

Free meditation cheat sheet

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

Listen to my podcast 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.

It’s not why you’re anxious that matters. It’s whether you know how to reconnect.

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A friend recently gave me a book by Tibetan Buddhist monk Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche called In Love with the World, almost every page of which is knocking me on my ass.

Mingyur tells the story of sneaking away from his monastery at the age of 36 to spend four years wandering India on foot, begging for food. On the second night, looking for a place to sleep in a crowded railroad station, he comes to an insight about the concept of home.

“I had wished to enter the Varanasi station with the ease that many people reserve for coming home after a hard day’s work,” he writes.

“Say you come home from a grueling day, or a long commute. You walk through the door, so grateful to find shelter from an uncontrollable world … But this station definitely did not feel like my clean, safe rooms in my monastery.”

For months, as he’d planned his first few days of wandering, he’d imagined the station would provide him a temporary feeling of comfort.

“We often get caught in the illusion that arriving at a pre-determined destination will end the mental agitation of feeling in-between. This happens when we do not know the continuity of awareness—or when we know but still lose connection.”

I can so relate. It seems like I’m almost constantly leaning into the future, thinking that once I get somewhere else—or make more money, or land the right job, or make more friends, or…—I’ll finally feel okay.

Once, when camping in one of the most beautiful places in the U.S., Arizona’s Oak Creek Canyon, I became so overwhelmed with anxiety that I packed up my stuff and drove an hour north to the closest town.

I’d been looking forward to a peaceful night under the stars for months as I planned the road trip. But I felt lonely, and also ashamed for feeling lonely at the ripe old age of 31.

Nothing would console me, not even the laughter of children playing with a puppy a few campsites over. I needed the familiarity of a bookstore to calm down—a Barnes & Noble, for God’s sake.

The reasons I leave the present moment are plenty.

Capitalism requires constant hustle. The American Dream is all about the “pursuit” of happiness, not happiness right here, right now. I grew up with middle class parents who valued working hard and saving money for retirement. There was a lot of holding back when I was young, waiting for “one day.”

But, in a sense, the reasons don’t matter. Exploring why we habitually lose connection is essential work, but it can become yet another way we leave the present moment.

That’s why I love mindfulness meditation, this practice for finding our way back to connection. For discovering a sense of home in any moment, anywhere. For staying in the “continuity of awareness.”

It’s not some intellectual pursuit or religious exercise. It gives us three tangible anchors in the present moment we can tie our rope to: breath, sound, and the body.

No matter what’s happening, we can come inward and observe the sensations of our body breathing. Or we can pause and listen. Or we can relax a particular part of our body and notice the sensations.

There really is a sense of home in every moment. Right here, right now, everything belongs, and nothing is missing. There’s nowhere else to be, nothing else to do.

The trick is finding our way back, over and over again, which is a lifelong practice.

Free meditation cheat sheet

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

Listen to my podcast 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.

How mindfulness (and lots of therapy) is helping me tackle my toxic masculinity

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I witnessed something sad at a D.C. street fair recently. A smiling boy, all of six or seven years old, asked a face painter to turn him into a blue and purple butterfly.

“No, you’re not going to be a butterfly,” said his mother.

“But why?” the boy asked, his smile fading into confusion.

“Because,” she said. “Why don’t you be a tiger or a pirate?”

It wasn’t exactly abuse, but it was a glaring example of so-called “toxic masculinity.” Presumably, the mother thought her son should want to be fierce and aggressive rather than radiant, harmless, and feminine, like a butterfly.

Like all ideology, toxic masculinity is not natural but socialized —we learn it from other people. Many children—especially boys— receive messages from adults that lead to behaviors such as suppressing emotions, acting tough no matter what, and anti-femininity (“No, you’re not going to be a butterfly.”)

If that doesn’t resonate with you, think of your conditioning. Maybe you have body image issues or you’re a perfectionist or you’re addicted to work. We all have patterns of behavior that we learned from others or developed to cope with challenging situations when we were children.

Mindfulness wakes us up by making us conscious of this unconscious conditioning. It drives a wedge between our thoughts and the thinker of those thoughts, our awareness.

When we witness thoughts from a distance, we no longer have to identify with them. They’re no longer me—they’re stories forced on to me or that I took on to protect myself.

Awhile back, I visited my grandfather who was in the hospital with pneumonia. A nurse walked into his room and began to remove a breathing tube taped behind his ears.

“What are you doing? You’re hurting me,” he yelled. “Idiot!”

I’d never seen him scold someone outside the family. The nurse, a young Latino woman, was being gentle, yet confident. I wanted so bad to tell him to shut up and appreciate that she was trying to help.

Instead, I decided to let the situation play out to see what happened. I watched what thoughts and emotions were coming up inside of me. There was anger—a baseball-sized fireball in the center of my chest—but I also realized how lonely and afraid he must feel, having been plugged into machines for days.

I also admired the nurse. She stayed calm through what must’ve been a two-minute temper tantrum. I pulled her aside as she left the room to apologize for his behavior and ask if there’s anything I could do.

“No problem,” she said, smiling. “I’m used to it.”

As my grandfather had become angrier, I’d tensed up with my own anger. My mind tried to put out the fire by flooding with reactions and stories about being a “real” man, i.e., toxic masculinity: why can’t he ever calm down? He’s such a dick. I’m weak for not defending the nurse.

But mindfulness allowed me to see that telling my grandfather to shut up would’ve just made things worse. We would’ve gotten in an argument. I would’ve left the hospital feeling horrible for yelling at an old, feeble man. The nurse might’ve felt that I was questioning her professional ability.

Instead, I was able to let the judgments and emotions pass. I released the mental chatter and relaxed my body. The fireball in my chest was just another phenomenon alongside the medical device beeps, boops, and swooshes—it wasn’t overwhelming. This allowed deeper, more skillful thoughts and emotions to appear in my mind, thoughts and emotions more aligned with who I really want to be.

I’ve still got a long way to go in becoming conscious of my toxic masculinity, but I’m grateful to have found a practice—meditation—to help me along the path.

I’m sure the mother at the street fair was just trying to protect her son from bullying—perhaps unconsciously. But that’s the point.

Like most unhealthy behavior, toxic masculinity is an attempt to protect ourselves when we feel vulnerable. Anyone would feel uncomfortable in front of an old man yelling at a nurse. It’s just that, because I have a male body, I’ve been socialized to handle discomfort by being a “real man,” by expressing my anger, taking charge, and fixing things.

The point is, we all have these types of behaviors. Habits. Addictions. Things we don’t like about ourselves. Unhealthy ways of relating to partners, parents, children, and friends.

What we’re responsible for is trying to become conscious of them. Otherwise, we hurt people—including ourselves.

Free meditation cheat sheet

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

Listen to my podcast 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.