Gut Grinder

If this is your first time seeing one of these, you’re welcome to hop in and give it a go, or you can start with the first one.

Image Credit: Cartoon Network/Phil Rynda, Paul Linsley, Nick Jennings. No copyright infringement intended.

This is the twenty-sixth episode in a series designed to focus on the basics of meditation. This track includes ten minutes of meditation practice; if that feels like a lot to you, maybe start at the beginning!

Turn on the TV, get comfy, and play this track after you’ve watched the episode: Gut Grinder (Season One, Episode Twenty-Six).

Mentioned in this episode: Tasha Schumann of the Consciousness Explorer’s Club (and her dope music). And some reflection inspired by one of my absolute favorite meditation tracks “Healing Through Non-Action.” Tasha invokes a metaphor from the Tao Te Ching:

“Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action?” - Chapter 15 - Translation by Gia Fu-Feng and Jane English

P.S. If you’re curious, here you can find out why I started this project.

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Recording Transcript (Meditation Begins at 5:28)

Hello again friend.

Thanks for joining me on this last adventure of the season. More than anything else, I hope you have encountered yourself in a somewhat meaningful way. If that has happened for you, even one time, this will have been worth it.

We’ll be continuing with our practice of clarity this session. And as we’ve discussed several times before, when we settle down and really take a look at what comes up in our minds, we can find some things that are really uncomfortable, or challenging, things that can feel pretty shitty. But don’t worry, because “there’s a lot of interesting smells in poop.”

It’s the very same with those parts of ourselves that we find difficult. Often times, when we’re just out living our lives, we feel the friction that these stinky parts of ourselves cause for us. But the hope is, that in the space of meditation, when we have cleared away all other tasks, reduced the amount of information we’re pumping into our brain, and have taken a moment to let our nervous system settle, then we can, if we’re lucky, approach these difficulties with a spirit of curiosity rather than tension.

When we start to look at our thoughts in more detail, pieces of ourself become clearer. We may not always like what we see at first, and that is okay.

Many of us harbor deep fears about who we are, about what others think of us. If people tell us over and over again that we look like a hideous, gold eating monster, in time we’re likely to begin believing them. The stories other people tell about us can shape our own self-reflection, especially if we do not feel anchored and secure in our own sense of self. Almost every relationship we’re in, every experience we have, tells another story about who we are, and some of these, especially ones from early in our lives, leave a tremendous imprint on how we think about ourselves. Over time, almost anyone who is repeatedly told that they are monstrous is likely to conclude that they “belong behind bars. Look at the evidence.”

This is one of many reasons it is important to have a clear sense of self, to have a sense of awareness about what messages go on inside our minds, and which ones we really believe. Meditation practices, like the clarity ones we’ve been doing together, are one way to practice this skill. But how do we do this? How does this work?

Tasha Schumann of the Consciousness Explorer’s Club (who also happens to be a phenomenal musical artist) offered two metaphors that really stuck with me. One is trying to get dirty water to settle: if you stir, or scoop it, or even strain it, it is very unlikely that you will actually get it clear. The best way to get muddy water to clear is to let it settle. Over time, the sediment will naturally fall and you’ll be able to see through the water perfectly fine.

Another is the image of a snake that is tangled in a knot. The more that snake writhes and struggles, the more entangled it will become. But by relaxing and releasing, the snake can easily unwind itself and move freely again.

This spirit of doing nothing, or healing through non-action, runs pretty contrary to most of our cultural sensibilities. It’s perhaps not as gratifying as popping a pill, and it certainly isn’t something someone can sell you. I’m also not suggesting that all problems can be solved this way; certainly direct action and intervention are necessary at times. But I think that direct action is often stronger and more powerful when it is intentional and clearly thought out. And for many of people, “doing something about it” is the only tool they’ve got in their belt. And it is not a tool very well suited to making peace with your insecurities. We need something else for that.

All of this is to say: when we are practicing this skill of clarity, even when we find things that we don’t like, thoughts that we don’t agree with or that feel out of place in our life, we don’t need to chase them away.

In fact, simply recognizing them as they occur is enough to change our relationship to them, even if it’s in a small and subtle way. By growing more familiar with our insecurities, we learn to make peace with them and they don’t hold so much influence over us. We see them for what they are: just thoughts. Remnants of stories we have been told us about ourselves. And as we see ourselves and the patterns of these thoughts more clearly, we don’t have to be so afraid of them.

So let’s give it the old college try. Let’s take the cup off our gold and see what comes to gobble it up. Get settled how you like, maybe let out a heavy sigh and let’s begin.