“Everything, not just some things – but everything – is workable”.
(Pema Chödrön)
A couple of decades ago I volunteered at Covenant House, a half-way hostel for street youth, located near Vancouver’s downtown east side, or DTES as it is known in social working circles. “One of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods, the DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues including disproportionately high levels of drug use, homelessness, poverty, crime, mental illness and sex work.” (Wikipedia) Yikes.
Along with a friend and fellow yoga student, my role was to run a weekly crafts program for the teens temporarily residing at the center. One option we offered was journaling, surprise surprise, as a way to help the youth vent their feelings and perhaps process some of the many stresses that are endemic to life on the street. One youth, a well-spoken and seemingly highly intelligent teen, described how he came to be staying at Covenant House. His dad and step-mother had moved him and his much younger half-siblings onto an isolated country property, survivalist-style, where he lacked a social context or stimulation for his brighter-than-average mind. He explained: “One day I just got so frustrated that I took my computer outside and blasted it with my twelve-gauge. After that my parents didn’t think my siblings were safe, so they sent me away.” Okaaay…
At a loss for words after hearing this ’confession’, I can’t now remember how I extracted myself from the conversation, but the incident left a profound impression. As a mother, and would-be youth counsellor, I felt unequipped to offer the support I felt this troubled teen needed.
Thereafter, I set out to better prepare myself for dealing with such emotionally challenging situations. Laterally, I learned the balanced breathing exercises that I sorely wished I could’ve offered to that alienated youth. At the time, I certainly could have used such a practice to settled my agitated mind! From a friend who practiced mediation and conflict resolution, I learned of another effective technique that follows these guidelines:
- Give each person the time and space to express their feelings without interruption, advice or judgment.
- Acknowledge that each individual has a right to their feelings, whatever they may be.
- Once an individual knows he or she has been heard, and acknowledged, the emotional memory can be more easily dissipated, and the individuals themselves can be recruited to find novel solutions, or options for going beyond their current problems.
I call this “going meta”.
Wikipedia explains the term as follows: “Meta (from the Greek μετα-, meta-, meaning “after” or “beyond”) is a prefix meaning more comprehensive or transcending.”
Another definition that appealed to me reads: “People talk about “going meta” as upleveling, stepping out of something to observe it, typically because there’s something unresolved at the lower level.”
(Jeremy E. Sherman, “Everything You Can Do, You Can Do Meta| Psychology Today Canada”, January 8, 2020)
What is often at the “lower level” is a perception, bias or story that frames the situation in a certain way, and fails to consider the bigger picture, or enquire into what details might be missing. Including an exploration of how these biases and prejudices came about in the first place — Sherman’s “something unresolved at a lower level”. Though it sounds convoluted, going meta about one’s preconceived thoughts and ideas is a practice of thinking about thinking. In yoga we are encouraged to question how and why we think what we think; asking ourselves “how do I know this is so?”, and “is this idea authentic to me, or did I take it on blind faith from other sources or people? Is it part of my past conditioning, and, if so, can I move beyond all that?”
Depending on how hard and fast I hold on to an opinion or belief, it can take a tremendous effort to let go, stay open and receive new information, particularly if the latter contradicts something to which I have formed a strong emotional attachment. Which is why, as in the case of the homeless youth, I find it vital to bring in a spiritual practice. Find some way to dissipate the emotional energy that could be blocking my capacity to see clearly and respond calmly. As suggested in previous blogs, journaling and balanced breathing are two invaluable tools that anyone can use to become less emotionally invested in a particular answer or agenda.
Why is this important?
Because it is our best hope of freeing ourselves from an endless circle of cause and effect, a cycle of knee-jerk reactions or unrealistic expectations predicated on an unexamined past.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche explains it thus:
“This kind of freedom cannot be created by an outsider or some superior authority. One must develop the ability to know the situation. In other words, one has to develop a panoramic awareness, an all-pervading awareness, knowing the situation at that very moment. It is a question of knowing the situation and opening one’s eyes to that very moment of nowness, and this is not particularly a mystical experience or anything mysterious at all, but just direct, open and clear perception of what is now.”
It is this open and clear perception that gives us what Eckhart Tollé calls “the Power of Now”. The power to respond to people and situations, no matter the provocation, with clarity and patience.
And leave the twelve-gauge on the shelf.