There is no doubt that in today’s society we encourage goals, success, and achievement while sometimes overlooking the development of an inner life. Perhaps the recent tragedy of Zappos founder Tony Hsieh is an example of that. It is almost as if what we are feeling inside doesn’t really matter as long as everything looks good on the outside. But isn’t that the same as building a good-looking house on weak foundations? How do we develop our inner lives?
In Episode 11 of Beautiful Ghosts (listen in your favourite podcast app, YouTube, or website), we discussed with our first guest Phil several topics related to the development of an inner life. In this blog post, I summarise that discussion into steps that can help with the development of an inner life: knowledge, introspection, and speaking with someone we trust.
Starting with knowledge. To develop an inner life, we have to be aware of how we feel, the emotions that are driving our behaviour, and our own rationalisations and justifications of how we feel and behave. It is self-awareness or self-knowledge. Being aware of our own feelings is not as easy as it sounds. A few years ago, I was on holiday with my wife and son in Rotorua, a touristic city in New Zealand. In the morning we went to the Luge carts which are a famous attraction there. Instead of having fun, I was irritable and not communicating well. Because of that, my son ended up falling out from his cart while going at high speed. Luckily nothing serious happened. After arguing with my wife, we ended up leaving the place in spite of the fact that we had paid for more. Then I had breakfast. After eating breakfast, I was feeling much better and in a good mood. Which means I ruined holiday time with my family for not eating breakfast. My irritability and being upset was because I was hungry and I didn’t recognise that in time. Many years ago, when I fell in love, I went to the library and borrowed a book about love. I needed to know what I was feeling.
Then we have introspection. There is a tendency to try to avoid listening to ourselves by working all the time, drinking, or distracting ourselves with the screen. Simply sitting down to meditate or reflect is of the essence. Should we listen to our minds or to our hearts? The feeling is there and we have to identify it, but we need to be aware of how we rationalise that feeling. Sometimes we recognise we are not in a good mood and we try to find a justification for it. But how accurate are we in identifying the reason for our bad mood? Perhaps the reason is physiological such as being hungry, not having slept well, or hormonal. Perhaps we think it is because we don’t have a flashy car but it may be loneliness. Many years ago, I read the experiment where an electrode is connected to a cat’s brain. If the electrode is activated in the absence of another stimulus, the cat doesn’t react. But if the electrode is activated in the presence of a toy mouse, the cat will attack the mouse. The cat “thinks” the emotion is caused by the toy mouse when it is really triggered by the electrode. How often we do the same when we lash out at our partners, blame the weather, or blame the government for our situation? Listen to your heart first, then examine how you are rationalising. In general, I have found that human behaviour is driven by basic animal instincts rationalised in some way or another. Introspection can take us to the next level.
Finally, speaking with someone we trust. Opening up and being vulnerable can help to not only understand ourselves better but also cope better with our emotions. It was interesting to discuss with Phil the stereotypes of the Latin-Americans more open and willing to share compared to the Anglo-Saxons generally viewed as more reserved. There are obviously appropriate people and situations to open up, and other situations and people where opening up may not be appropriate. However, finding one or more people with whom you can safely open up is critical. Otherwise, as Phil mentioned, we are always like actors in a Greek play wearing masks to express our outward personas. Friends and family are the obvious first choice to open up but this will depend on the particular relationship with those friends or the culture created in the family. Unfortunately, not everyone has friends and family with whom it is safe to open up. A family where the TV is on at the dinner table is probably not creating that safe space. In that case, there are groups that can help. Nico and Phil are part of a group called Essentially Men with exactly that purpose. And of course, there are also therapists. We can also turn the tables and become the person with whom someone can safely open up, because as Phil said “being a listening presence for someone else is one of the greatest acts of love you can give them”.
The choice is ours. We can continue chasing the ghosts of outward success and achievement without ever considering our inner lives, always wearing the Greek theatre masks, or we can stop from time to time to learn about ourselves, meditate, reflect, and safely open up with others to develop our inner lives. We have made our choice. How about you?
Make an impact,
Pablo
This post was originally published in Beautiful Ghosts.