After the MEDS Project, I asked myself what brings about the Peak experiences of life. This project launched me into an unexpected and nurturing journey with the Taoist key work, The Tao Te Ching, upon which my therapeutic journaling enquiries became pivotal. Welcome to The Peak Project.
Today I’m almost completely frozen with anxiety. I’m going to meet the future king of England this evening and I haven’t got my outfit sorted yet. I’ve been in denial… ‘It’s not important. I’ve got things to wear. I’ll go into town and buy stuff before I get the train…’
Help. I’m bringing softness of thought, but it just turns to inaction. Where’s that ‘sovereignty’?!
The calm interiorised mind sets you free from external considerations. Your choices become much simpler and less wide-ranging. Your purpose becomes much more direct and simplified.
Yes! I remember this from the writing of Tiara Kumara. Oh heavens, grant me a calm interiorised mind this day and every day. What else should I know or recall?
Peace begins within. Peace begins within…
Thank you… Peace begins within… This is all good learning. May my thinking settle and soften. May my gaze turn inward and rest upon the peace within me.
So this ‘mental toughness’ starts to come into focus as a possibility… I catch remembrances of the notion. It’s a reassuring notion, seemingly saying, ‘Remember? You’ve got the capacity to rule your world.‘ It feels promising, tantalising, inviting. As I write, I’m laid low with a cold, from having over-cooked myself with a huge amount of work and travel in the last few weeks. So, it’s not that I haven’t got staying power or resilience… In many ways, I’ve got the mental stamina of an ox when it comes to sticking to my commitments to others. No, the type of mental toughness I’m moving towards is the type which involves sticking to commitments to my own self. This is the antidote to the Obliger type (see Gretchin Rubin’s 4 Tendencies). This is about holding my own self to account with regards to my rules for me and my life, for my own wellbeing, safety, health and fulfilment. This is about holding my sceptre in hand, donning my own crown, and attaining sovereignty over my world.
‘I rule my world.’ What does that statement mean to you?
It means…
I am in charge of what I say yes and no
I don’t acquiesce to requests I don’t want to fulfil
I am able to follow my intuition without hesitation
I say no without fear or apology
I thus create enough margins of energy that I can do what I feel is ‘primary’ for me to do
‘Primary’. That’s a useful term. What is ‘secondary’?
Others’ whims and wills and desires which don’t in truth mesh with mine.
And what is your barrier to leading a ‘primary’-driven life?
I’ve noticed I have a fear that people will find my ‘flakey’ if I say no to them, or worse say yes and then change my mind.
What does ‘flakey’ mean to you?
Unreliable, untrustworthy, difficult, unwilling…
Are you those things?
Only when I’ve said yes to things I never wanted to say yes to in the first place… Only when I haven’t followed my intuition earlier on…
Let’s play with this idea of sovereignty. What is a sovereign being?
‘A supreme ruler, especially a monarch.’
If you were monarch of the kingdom of your life, what would your rules be?
My rules for my queendom would be…
Love is all
Take care of one another
Speak your truth, kindly
Stop there… What would it look like to apply those rules to your days..?
It would be amazing! So simplifying!
And what would it look like for people in your days?
Their interactions with me (and each other) would be… fair… true… nourishing… uncomplicated… There would be a balance of loving care and attention to others and to self. We wouldn’t need to rescue, fix or solve, as much as communicate our love and our truth in the moment. Much simpler.
And how would this fit with the idea of attaining ‘peak experiences’?
We would remain closer to the higher frequencies of thought. There would be less rollercoastering.
Help me understand that which I need to absorb.
The Queen of England spent her childhood preparing to be sovereign. She had 25 years of life to absorb the inner state of sovereignty. You too need to take time to absorb the inner state of sovereignty.
Tomorrow (assuming I’m well enough), I will meet the man who has spent 70 years preparing to be monarch! What a challenge to feel oneself ready for sovereignty and not attain the throne.
Sovereignty is an entirely inside job. We are each invited to attain the throne of our own queendom at any moment.
How do I attain my throne?
By sitting on it, in your own mind and heart, consistently.
Visualisation?
If you like.
Mindfulness practice is the practice of sitting on our own throne, isn’t it?
If you like.
I want to be clear that this sovereignty business is not about egoic vaunting…
We know that. We know that you are seeking self-mastery, and that is an admirable purpose. Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself. This is the first route to harmony and peace. Understand that self-mastery is entirely available to you at any time, but that it requires a softness of thought…
My aspie thinking can be a little full-on, and even black and white.
As we say, a softness of thought is the way of the gentle sovereign being.
I’m reminded of the way of the bodhisattva, as described by (the brilliant and complicated) Chogyam Trungpa whose writing I so love. And of course, beloved Pema Chodron, his student and an important teacher of mine over my hardest years.
‘A softness of thought.’ I can cultivate that, as a way to rule my world… It’s funny, I seem to be trying to find the balance between mental toughness and mental softness.
This is it. This intertwining of toughness and softness of thought is the kernel of the opportunity before you.
Beautiful. So, today?
Say: “I am cultivating softness of thought”
Lovely. I can aim to catch myself in hard or judgmental thinking, which is to say, I can practise mindfulness. I imagine this non-judgmental softness of thinking is the foundation for the mental toughness. I think of the Zen nun who is able to withstand all kinds of physical privations because of the exquisite quality of non-judging awareness she has cultivated.
Oh, angels of my heart and mind, bring softness to my thinking and my being. May I develop this toughness via the path of softness. May gentleness make a warrior of me.
I’m drawn in my reading today to the type of concept I’d usually recoil from. It’s from a former US Navy Seal called Jocko Willink whose mantra is ‘Discipline equals freedom‘. The concept which has caught my imagination is this:
“If you want to be mentally tougher, it is simple: Be tougher. Don’t meditate on it. … It’s possible to “be tougher”, starting with your next decision. Have trouble saying “no” to dessert? Be tougher. Make that your starting decision. Feeling winded? Take the stairs anyway. Ditto. It doesn’t matter how small or big you start. If you want to be tougher, be tougher.” Jocko Willink quoted in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss p414
Why does this resonate? Well, another of Willink’s concepts makes sense of this: “Take extreme ownership of your world.” I read this as follows: in wrapping one’s mental discipline around the tasks you want or need to undertake, you create more self-sufficiency. I believe this mental discipline potentially allows for more freedom and margins within our human relationships. In a still relatively new relationship, I’m aware that as I grasp my own nettles more firmly, I’m less likely to glance sideways and ask my partner to grasp them for me. Similarly, I’m going to avoid the temptation to blame my partner if I get stung by a nettle I tried to brush pass instead of tackling head-on. Furthermore, if my partner has developed a certain mental discipline, and I haven’t, the disparity will cause frustration and discomfort to us both – the invitation is open for me to rise up and regulate with my partner’s level of mental discipline – to resonate at the same frequency.
Another reason I might feel inclined to toy with the seemingly rough and ready theme of mental discipline? I’ve just written up my overview of where I got to with my MEDS protocols for the MEDS Project. I did so much good work, but on reflection, if I’d had access to really strong mental discipline and inner toughness, I’d have been able to give the ideas a better run for their money. I know that the MEDS protocols are my foundations for health and wellbeing, therefore they are also my foundations for peak experiences – so targeting the last inner barrier to success in my health and wellbeing will ever be a gift to myself. And so it doesn’t feel soft and gentle? Well that’s ok. My mind and ego play hardball with me, so I’m happy to generate some internal steam to order to match their energy-dispersing forces with my own focus-gathering decisiveness.
And it’s not all about Navy SEAL austerity, it’s about pushing to completethings (as G says), so that then leisure can be taken properly. In the same book (Tools of Titans p408), Maria Popova quotes H Thoreau on the theme of work:
“The really efficient labourer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is earnest to secure the kernels of time and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.”
Sounds like a cocktail by a pool, but really, to create the balance of true ease and true action, it takes… mental toughness. No?
Sure thing! Your inner child loves the clarity of boundaries. Your inner being loves the vividness of the decision and action. This is the sacred act of non-drifting.
Aha! Yes! Drifting…. Say no more.
Our inner barometer will always be seeking areas of low pressure where the work can get done without threat of squalls. You have the power to create your own inner weather conditions. The fun (peak state) begins when the internal state can be fine-tuned at will.
Good! Well inner toughness and mental discipline starts with obeying one’s day own schedule… It’s time to get up!
