First, I’ll put the disclaimer out there that these are my reflections about Taoist principles and by no means am I saying that this is the way. As Lao Tzu, who is attributed to the Tao Te Ching wrote, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” That is, to try to articulate this Eastern spiritual philosophy is not the same thing as the “Tao” itself because although we can discuss it as a concept, it’s something that we have to personally experience to truly understand. If that’s still a little confusing, maybe our favorite honey-loving bear can explain it better in the Tao of Pooh. 

Doing nothing

Taoists actually have a name for doing nothing: wu-wei. During these times of quarantine, we may have different associations with doing nothing. I’ve spent a lot of time eating, drinking, watching television, and scrolling through social media. I’m even on the verge of the ultimate form of doing nothing as I consider downloading Tik Tok. Prior to this pandemic, I’ve done this type of nothing mostly on the weekends because my weekdays are all about doing something: working. Working day in and day out, working on a million different things at once and working on how to be better at working. As Rihanna put it, work, work work, work, work. 

I have to say that I lost myself a bit in all that work, which is not uncommon for management consultants. When you are not only ambitious but you’re surrounded by other people who are also ambitious, so much so that they’re even competitive about who’s more ambitious, you may see a lot of productivity but it’s often at the expense of individual well-being in a non-material sense. Maybe that’s an American mindset more so than just a consulting one. I’m hoping that by revisiting one of the philosophies that resonated with me the most during the peak of my personal development in college, I can find myself a bit more again. Here’s the excerpt from the Tao Te Ching that triggered that for me this week:

Those who stand on tiptoes do not stand firmly.

Those who rush ahead don’t get very far.

Those who try to outshine others dim their own light. 

Trying to Stop Trying

I’m the type of person that gets anxiety over a vision test because I don’t want to do poorly on it. I strain my eyes to see the letters without the aid of my contacts and I wonder whether I got it right or wrong. I know I don’t have 20/20 vision but if I’m going to do something, I want to do it to the best of my ability because I am all about living my virtuous life in the spirit of continuous improvement so that I’m always living in accordance with excellence. Thanks, Aristotle. Trying to “pass” a vision test defeats the whole purpose though because if my optometrist doesn’t have a true sense of what I can and can’t see, he can’t prescribe me the appropriate prescription for my lenses. Ultimately, it means that in trying to see, I can’t fully see at all. Damn, that’s so deep.

Consulting is all about making recommendations for what managers and executives should do to solve the challenges they face as an organization. In a sense, I have to be able to provide actionable guidance on what should yield specific results and do so in a way that increases the probability of a specific outcome. It’s the same approach I take on my life. When I want something in my life, whether it’s a certain income, an ideal weight, the optimal vacay experience, I get out my spreadsheet or to-do list, and I plan the hell out of it. This works in most cases because I’ve become really good at planning my life in a way that helps me to achieve certain goals, but there seem to be other things I want in my life that aren’t as easily achievable, like balance, complete relaxation, and peace of mind. My body is quick to tell me when these things are out of sorts but when I’m working, it’s so easy to ignore signals of distress.

In this time of solitude, I’ve been able to bring it back to my breath because by focusing on my breath, I spend less time reflecting on what may have happened today or yesterday that was less than ideal or didn’t go as planned. My breath also keeps me from worrying about the future and running endless scenarios in my head about how something could and should go and what my action plan would be given those various permutations. In the here and now, I know that everything is okay. It brings to mind a mantra I learned from my recent self-hypnosis guide: “I am safe. I am calm. I’m where I choose to be.” In this moment, I am so grateful for my health, my shelter, and the day ahead of me, which can bring so much joy if I allow it to do so. And, that’s the key, to allow it. It is another way to translate wu-wei: non-doing. Trying to control all the things that are beyond my control and worrying about it ad nauseum will not change things. By riding this wave and letting it take its course, rather than trying to dominate the ocean which is much more powerful than I am, I’ll be at one with it. David Foster Wallace put it beautifully in his little story:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

Wallace reminds us that “this is water, this is water.” It’s all water, baby. 

What are you doing and not doing right now? 

I came across this Instagram post that resonated with me this past week. It said, “Trying to decide whether I should buy my feelings today or eat them?” with a message that advised: Get you a girl who can do both. That’s definitely how I’ve been spending my weekends but during the past few weeks, once I’ve put a good day of work in, I’ve explored, and in certain cases revisited, certain healing practices that have connected me more to myself and environment around me, namely Self and Guided Hypnosis, Tarot Reading, and Qigong.

Since my last post about how my grocery shopping experience has changed each week due to COVID-19, a close cousin of mine suffered through and passed away from it. That was especially hard to process because it made this virus even more real and reinforced this new way of living. The automatic reaction to hearing news like that is to be there by my family’s side to support them through this tough time, yet being together is the one thing we can’t do right now. Going through the grieving process is just not the same over Zoom and group chats. This all had me feeling some kind of way– anxious, fearful, sad, angry… not quite sure so for the sake of my waistline and wallet, I’ve tried a few things to help me come to terms with this new reality. 

Oh, and also, no grocery store this week. I just ordered my groceries from Whole Foods to be delivered to my doorstep this weekend. This included my wine, which is probably not the healthiest coping mechanism either, but the indulgence of which is totally on-brand for me.

Self and Guided Hypnosis

This one is new to me. I’ve studied and practiced yoga and meditation since I started college, marking another point of time in my life when I turned to safer methods of self-exploration beyond those typical of a teenager curious about her body and mind would have been involved with. Back then, I didn’t actually categorize hypnosis as a way to connect you to yourself for healing purposes. I just remember watching a show on television where a hypnotist incited roaring laughter by getting a panel of participants to do crazy things they would never have done had they not been under hypnosis. I’m a bit of a psychonaut so I was always interested in trying it myself but similar to other state-of-mind-altering methods, it fell into the category that scared me a bit because although I want to explore, I don’t want to get lost or lose control. 

I couldn’t sleep one night, which is happening more and more lately, so I turned to Holiticism’s Liminal Library and decided to tune into a webinar about self-hypnosis. I learned a few things and actually gave it a try. One thing that made me feel safer about trying it is the idea that despite what the media portrays, you can’t be unwillingly put under a hypnotic state. You have to choose to do it and only by allowing it will you be able to experience it. That appeased my irrational fear that I would be mentally, or even financially, taken advantage of if someone, or even a YouTube video, put me under this state of consciousness. 

The other thing that opened me up to this experience is the scientific explanation for it. Not that I’m the type of person who needs a scientific explanation for things. I believe that science has its limits and in certain cases, it is only now proclaiming truths that have been found in ancient traditions dating back to thousands of years ago. Anyhow, being someone who’s intrigued by neuroscience and cognitive psychology, I liked hearing about the distinction between Beta, Theta, Alpha, and Delta brain waves. The gist of it is that in between a highly alert and awake state (Beta) and a deep sleep state (Delta), there are two relaxed states both of which are ideal for exploring yourself. There’s the Alpha state which is the type of relaxed when you’re not thinking, i.e. when you’re getting a massage, and then the Theta state which is the type of relaxed where you are mindful of your thoughts, like when you’re meditating, scrolling through social, or that period when you’re in bed and not fully asleep or awake. That Theta state is optimal for hypnosis and in a sense, whether we call it that or not, we’re in some sort of hypnosis whenever we’re in that state of mind. 

Ok, I’m far from a scientist, but hypnosis being explained to me that way helped me to step into it. It started with deep breathing, imagining a light coming through the tip of my head and throughout my body, and then quietly listening to the sounds around me, asking myself to hear sounds farther and farther from me. The big ah ha moment for me was not an idea that was totally novel, but an experience of something I know to be true. It’s something I reflected on when I heard Stephen Covey say, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” In this relaxed state, I initially didn’t hear anything because my thoughts were the object of my attention or hell, I wasn’t conscious of the fact that my thoughts were just guiding me through my next thought or action. In the dead of the night, I heard the ceiling fan swirling, then I heard my refrigerator buzzing, and even farther I heard crickets chirping and cars buzzing through the side street. The aha moment was that all of this was happening and because I’m always so carried away with my thoughts, I sometimes don’t realize that I can choose what to pay attention to and that is magical.

Tarot Reading

This one is probably the most woo woo of the different things I’ve explored this week. Part of me associates it with witchcraft and other esoteric practices categorized as “New Age” but in the same way I was intrigued by Voo Doo when visiting New Orleans, I don’t judge it and I’m open to seeing what it’s all about. I had an unopened tarot deck stuffed behind where I store board games in the closet. Interesting taxonomic choice, I know, but that wasn’t intentional. I fueled my attention span with an iced coffee, removed the plastic wrapping (even though I bought this maybe a year ago), and cracked open the guide book it came with to begin learning how to use and interpret the deck. I was feeling particularly studious so I grabbed my favorite pen and pulled out my “spiritual practice” journal and created a section where I outline what I learned from the book. My main takeaways included the basics of what the deck included: Major Arcana which represented deeply meaningful archetypes and Minor Arcanas which were more situational and could represent people in our lives. Then I learned about the numbering system and the general meaning for the different symbols: Wands, Swords, Cups, and Pentacles. After looking at a few pictures of how to shuffle, cut, and present the cards, I did my first reading for myself.

Surprisingly, it was on point. I presented three cards to represent my past, present, and future. It said that my past involved a quest for knowledge, my present was characterized by a lot of pressures and almost threats to my well being, but my future brought forth the opportunity to help others, the act of which would come back to me ten-fold or more. I learned that when you flip the cards, you should pause to reflect on how the image makes you think and feel before you interpret what it means. Then, I opened the book and navigated to the page that corresponded with the cards to read through what they meant. Beyond that, I had to interpret its meaning for myself. Another key point is that the interpretation should be read in a way that supported my growth rather than stunted it like if a card that symbolized death came up, that doesn’t necessarily mean someone in my life is about to die but instead, it could mean an end of an era and the door opening for something new. How different is tarot reading from going to a museum and reflecting on different pieces of art and applying it to our way of thinking and living?

Qigong

I was scrolling through upcoming MeetUps and came across a free guided Qigong session. This is something I came across way back in my late teens, early twenties when I worked at a yoga studio. I even bought an instructional video once after becoming really intrigued by it. The way this instructor described it, Qigong is an older form of Taigi or Tai Chi. The gist of this practice is that beyond the blood flowing through our veins, we also have these meridian channels that allow for the flow of energy within our bodies. Our energy also flows with the energy around us (“Chi” or “Qi”) and if we practice methods like Qigong, Tai Chi, Reiki, etc., we can sense blockages of energy that could be the root of bad thoughts, feelings, and actual disease, which would then allow us to heal ourselves. I am all about this! As Nicola Tesla put it, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

As I’ve mentioned in the past, my work is go, go, go! I rarely have the opportunity to slow down and breathe. On Fridays, when possible, I crash, stop completely, and just want to turn my brain completely off. Practicing Qigong at 5:30pm on a weekday did not use to be a possibility for me given my corporate life, so I felt fortunate and thankful that I could take the time to do this. First of all, I’m not a very patient person, so even the idea of slowing down my movements and being very mindful of the energy running through my fingertips and surrounding my being is not an easy feat. The other neat, yet somewhat strange, thing was that we were doing this via Zoom and besides the instructor, there was one another person following along. I tried not to be self-conscious and just followed the movements. I was really into it and would do more of it but there was one side effect, though I can’t be sure it was directly connected. As I went through the movements and even much later in that evening, I felt sadness. My typical happiness and well-being median is high, meaning I feel extreme joy and sadness like anyone else, but I usually revert back to a state that’s pretty positive and confident. Along with the sadness was this anxiety and restlessness I couldn’t explain. 

I won’t end on a womp womp note. Ultimately, I think these new methods of self-exploration allowed me to feel my feelings, which I believe to be a critical part of living a healthy life. It means that we’re not suppressing these undesirable feelings and seeing them manifest in negative ways down the road. These new practices are also ushering me through a transformative period in my life and I’m hoping they help me to navigate even tougher challenges that will inevitably come about as I grow in my life and career. Lastly, I see these practices allowing me to achieve so much more in life and create a greater sense of abundance both materially and spiritually. I’m hopeful that I will finally get out of my head, which is where I spent most of my time, and instead be more mindful of my body to then clue me into who I really am and the connection I have with others and the rest of the universe.

What are you doing to cope with the current situation?