What makes us happy?
It might be easier to look into what makes us unhappy…
According to eastern philosophies, unhappiness or suffering is an experience of the mind; craving things we cannot have and having aversion to the things we do not want, in a life which is constantly changing and will eventually end.
Modern life thrives on knowledge; we believe in science so much, that it has overtaken religion. It has brought us great advances, and in the space of a few centuries the ways humans live, has changed profoundly; our lives involve more comfort and jobs involve more analytical thinking and less physical activity. With the arrival of our virtual world through social media, we have started living in our minds even more. What have I observed of my own adaptation to working life?
It started with my posture slowly becoming more rounded, compressing my abdomen and chest, and I suffered from tension in my neck and shoulders and pain in my back. My body might have been deteriorating (even more so after I became ill and had surgeries) but my mind was great; it was fast and I loved that I could make quick decisions and judgement calls. I started to disconnect from my body; tuning out from sensations, as most were unpleasant anyway.
The brain is not just a neat analytical processor, it also helps us interact with the outside world using our senses, controls our bodies (to some extent), it has complex emotions intertwined with memories and an innate hard-wiring to detect danger and keep us safe. This danger-detection works quicker than our thinking part of the brain; on autopilot, the emotions, triggering memories, in turn triggering more emotions, can take over before we have a chance to rationalise it. When these reactions are repeatedly triggered they can create patterns which start to impact the body; a depressed or anxious person might instinctively hold a protective posture; rounding forward, compressing the chest and abdomen. A stressed person, perhaps feeling they are always on the go, with a sense of alertness in the body, might tense the back muscles causing the back to arch. Emotional patterns start to live in the body and as much as the mind impacts the body, the body impacts the mind.
So there I was, thriving on thinking, being ‘in my brain’, speeding up my judgments, lots of activity in my brain. Patterns getting stuck in my body, creating a feedback loop constantly triggering more emotional states. I started to dislike myself for being such a judgemental person. I became depressed by the thoughts that I wasn’t a very nice person. I became anxious people didn’t like me. Why would they; I didn’t like me. I had constant negative chatter in my mind and a body which (to my mind) was broken.
Fortunately my body started hurting so bad that I had to take action. After trying various things, I found Yoga and it slowly started to open up the contracted muscles at the front of my body, and strengthening the muscles at the back. I started to enjoy the feeling of my body opening up. The most surprising effect however, was my mind. Yoga had started to slow those negative thoughts in my mind. There was a bit more space there, offering a relief from all that mental activity.
Yoga (a Sanskrit word) means the union of body, mind, soul, and spirit. The Yoga Sutras, written by Patanjali over 2000 years ago, is a practical guide book for the spiritual journey of remembering who we are. For a person who couldn’t even connect to her body, this whole spirit thing was a bit ‘out there’. But since my mind had been given a little space, I was perhaps becoming a bit more open to new things. Yoga sutras 1.2 says that “Yoga is quieting the fluctuations of the mind”. I started to realise that the physical aspect, even though massively important as a tool for getting out of my mind and releasing some of those emotions stored in my body, was only minor in comparison with this understanding of the mind.
For a long time, I identified with my thoughts and feelings, I didn’t realise that I was not my thoughts and therefor I got caught up in the stories playing (over and over) in my mind. The feeling of dislike for myself was real, but yoga philosophy was teaching me about the ‘monkey mind’; the egoic part of the mind that can trick you, and wants to mull over past events, and worry about the future. That it wants to hold on to the things it likes and pushes away the things it doesn’t like, it wants to avoid pain at all costs. The stream of consciousness (the stories we tell ourselves), these critical voices can be so strong, that we believe we the stories are real….
“Someday we will realise that the study of our personalities is more important than reading, writing and arithmetic.”
A big part of yoga is meditation and mindfulness. They are practices which help us to be present to the moment, to become aware of our thoughts and emotions, to be open and curious and not judge; they help us find that deeper part of us, the observer. We increase the gaps between thoughts and observe the thought patterns, we learn to let go and create more space between the thoughts. They also allow us to observe the sensations we feel in our bodies and release the patterns we store there (this is why the movement of yoga is so powerful as we actually get deeper into those spaces while we are being mindful). Modern brain scans have shown the increase in activity in our thinking brain and a decrease in activity of the old part of the brain that is responsible for fear, and there is an improvement in the communication between them. Through mindfulness and meditation we are able to physically improve structures in the brain which will take us out of our autopilot, fear-mode, and we can pause and think and respond in a wise manor, rather than react instinctively. Before I knew the philosophy, I had already felt the impact of the physical practice (this moving meditation) on the feelings of anxiety and depression in my body and mind.
We have little control over our outside world and most of our conceptions of the world are an illusion; a false sense of security which modern life has provided. Change is inevitable and so is death. This should be an incentive to truly live in the moment, as ‘this moment’ is the only certainty we have. We better find tools to deal with the uncomfortable truth of the inevitability that life will end. Instead fearing it, we need to live the moments we have.
Practicing mindfulness, meditation, yoga, any form of mind-body practice, to reconnect mind and body (and soul and spirit), will help you to become a more connected person; with an open mind, without judgement, and with curiosity to learn and grow. It creates compassion, it helps us see that we are all human and that we all have hardships to go through and that we are all, deep down looking for the same thing. Connection. Do not get stuck in autopilot. Do not let fear win as it leads to separation and hate (for oneself and or others). It is why the world is in turmoil and in desperate need of repair. Start connecting to yourself, so you can connect to others.
“Yoga is the progressive settling of the mind into silence.
When the mind is settled, we are established in our own essential state,
which is unbounded consciousness.
Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind”