Living Without The Burden

A friend of my parents once somewhat critically observed of me, “what a serious young man!” In my late teens, I took this as a compliment. Life seemed to be a very serious affair. I believed I needed to get the right grades, get the right job, get the right girlfriend, know good from bad, and be only good. So many seemed to have failed at this. If I tried really hard maybe I’d get close to having a good life.

When we imagine our lives this way, we cannot help but feel burdened and pressured. Even if we imagine things are “going well” we feel pressed to continue our vigilance because things are always shifting about. This way of thinking makes even our “leisure” into hard work. We’ve got to work on our relationships, exercise our bodies, spend our time wisely, make sure we enjoy our weekend.

This belief that we’re responsible for “a self” that needs to become good, happy, wise, successful, loving, healthy, and useful creates a relentlessly oppressive burden. Some of us withdraw into depression, some of us are hounded by continuous worry, some of us blame others for our apparent failure, some of us stoically perservere hoping that we’ll get there one day. But of course, no matter what is accomplished, the self we imagine we should be never arrives.

But what if we don’t need to become anything? What if “me” and “my need to be something better” are just repetitive themes in the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories others tell about us? What if our existence, exactly as it is right now, doesn’t really need any justification at all?

What if we just take a break from the burden of believing that we’re supposed to be what we are not? What will we become? When we see that we don’t need an answer to this last question, it will stop coming up, and we’ll finally be living without the burden.

Dissolving Anxiety

Over the course of my life I’ve experienced a couple of panic attacks, but more significantly many years of my life were plagued by a familiar background anxiety. Almost every situation seemed to involve a degree of tension. It was so common that I felt it was just how life was supposed to be, my natural state.

Every time we believe that there is something we need to avoid or something we need to have happen this can become a source of anxiety for us. So as I’m writing this, I might think “I really don’t want to sound weird.” Then I start worrying about all the ways each sentence might be interpreted. If the fear is strong, I might even become paralyzed, agonizing over every step. Then I think “I’m too anxious to do this.” “What’s wrong with me?” “Normal people can cope with life!” “How do I get out of this?” “How can I stop it?” “Where will I be safe from this anxiety?” Thoughts like these are at the root of most anxiety and of most of the avoidant habits that develop in response, such as compulsive television viewing, gossiping, or the consumption of sedatives.

Thinking that there is something we need to avoid or seek typically happens very quickly when we look at anything. Then as we try to get, or get away from, something we run into the immediate problem that the self-protective/self-conscious anxiety interferes with our performance. This in turn generates more anxiety. The more we struggle the more we sink into the quicksand. The more strenously we seek safety from uncomfortable feelings and thoughts the more we suffer them. “If I could just stop thinking about…!”

Paradoxically, the way anxiety dissolves is through the ceasing of the struggle to end it. We turn toward our experience and give up our attempts to escape. We come to rest in awareness, available to our experience, without buying into the idea that things need to be any particular way. We become self-aware rather than self-conscious. We’re looking at what is here without judging how we’re doing or even needing to “know” why it is the way it is. We don’t even need to judge the judging or change it. Instead we bring agenda-less awareness to the entirety of experience, all the thoughts, feelings, images, and sounds.

As we allow ourselves to just be with whatever is arising, we start to directly realize that we are awareness. This is the discovery of our true nature and the complete dissolution of all anxiety.

Like yours, my life has not gone to plan. There have been failed marriages, poor career choices, vast amounts of energy poured into avoidance and chasing fantasies. My mind and body have been frequently captivated by anxiety, frustration, and delusion. And yet, right now we can ask “where is the damage?” “Is it here now?”

In an instant we can see that the story of “my life” is not here. Unless we go digging through memories or referring to rehearsed thoughts about ourselves, we have to admit that we can’t find anything resembling damage.

How can this be so? How can our persistant imperfections, and all the ways we’ve been foolish and messed things up, have led to this moment where we can’t find the damage? We’ve made so many mistakes, even some big ones. So often we didn’t really know what we were doing and sometimes we didn’t care. And yet here we are, in this moment, free of debris. It is like the slate is miraculously washed clean and we are instantly saved.

But of course, this is also a characterization, merely the flipside of characterizing ourselves as burdened by our past blunders. We have not really been saved from anything, and there never was a slate to be cleaned. The whole story of “my life” only exists as a repetitive theme in the movement of thoughts. As soon as we look closely at what is actually here now, prior to our thoughts about what is here, the fiction becomes transparent.

Liberation in Two Moves

Before the first move, we’re typically preoccupied with trying to get what we think we want from the things “out there.” We try to change our circumstances, our partner, our work, our house, etc., to conform to our desires. Unfortunately, no matter what we do, our ever-shifting desires keep moving satisfaction seemingly beyond our reach. We inevitably find ourselves suffering anxiety and frustration as we struggle with our lives.

Then we may ask “what causes different people to experience similar circumstances so differently?” “Why do I get upset at some event this time but not another time?” We might start to realize that it’s not “the world out there” that is really causing us to suffer or be content.

This fundamental realization is the first move toward liberation, and inspires spiritual and psychological work. We start to move our attention within and explore how we might bring more peace, love, and satisfaction to life. Changing ourselves becomes the new priority. This work can profoundly transform our experience of life as we become more self-aware.

However, we also find our habits of dissatisfaction, frustration, and anxiety show up in this new arena. We can’t seem to make “negative” thoughts stop or uncomfortable feelings disappear. We might even find ourselves becoming more self-conscious rather than self-aware.

Then we might ask “how can I expect to control the flow of thoughts and feelings when I can’t find their source?” “Also, where is the damage when a thought or feeling moves through awareness?” We start to realize that we can directly experience whatever thoughts and feelings show up without needing to make a problem out of them. This nondual realization liberates us from the struggle of self-improvement. This second move immediately dissolves the experience of a spiritual path and brings us to the end of our seeking. We find ourselves perfectly at ease in this moment, in our natural state, with no need to get anywhere.

Maybe in another moment we find ourselves thinking once again “that things need to be different,” but now we can allow that thought to just happen as it does, offering no resistance, even to any thought or feeling we might call “resistance.” We find ourselves falling open, completely available to whatever is happening, free of any need or compulsion.

As a child I would occasionally ask my father, “what do you want me to be when I grow up?” He would always reply, “I just want you to be happy.” That is of course what I thought I wanted also – don’t we all?

But what is happiness? Where is happiness? Is it simply the thought “I am happy” and similar “positive” thoughts? Is it a particular feeling in the body like a pleasurable sensation? Is it found in romantic love, professional success, or some other activity/event? But what is our experience of these beyond thoughts, feelings, images, sounds? Are you happy right now? How do you know? What do you look for as evidence of its presence or absence?

If we believe that happiness is any type of experience that can be present or absent, the pursuit of happiness is going to involve an ongoing struggle as we try to get more of it, intensify it, prolong it, hold onto it, or find it again. Furthermore, despite all our struggles we don’t even know what our next thought or feeling will be. We can’t experience, let alone control, their source.

Another possibility is that we end the pursuit. We see that the duality of happiness and its absence is just another way for us to characterize ourselves and this reality as inadequate. If you look directly at your present moment experience, your thoughts and feelings as you read these words, innocently – without an agenda to prove anything, what happens? What is here prior to characterization, interpretation, analysis? This awareness that we are is not lacking anything. We are already the ultimate end we were seeking.

Welcome, friends.  I was born and raised in England, but have been living in the United States since coming here to obtain my Ph.D. After some profound openings led me to experience the truth that lies beyond all my philosophies I started inquiring into spirituality and became a daily meditator.

At age 33 I left my job as a Professor to devote myself to spiritual opening in community with others. A few years later the struggle and confusion of my spiritual path fell away when I came across the nondual teachings of Peter Fenner.

I then worked with Peter to develop my capacity to share the ultimate space of nondual awareness with others. Now I’m inviting people to effortlessly open to their spontaneous compassion and natural wisdom through private coaching and work with groups.

I love supporting the flowering of nondual awareness in people’s lives and witnessing the profound shift from struggling with life to effortless presence. I feel so grateful to be revealing the natural abundance of joy, intimacy, humor, and love, that we have so often struggled to create because we imagined them scarce.

Through my coaching, retreats, workshops, and weekly group, I’ve been able to share the precious gift of nondual awareness with hundreds of people. In addition to the events I organize myself, I’ve also very happily accepted invitations to lead events sponsored by other groups and organizations, such as Western Illinois University, The Peoria Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, The Spoon River Quaker Meeting, and many more.