Of Hooks and Shenpas

Via my dear friend Dan.

"PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Someone criticizes you. They criticize your work or your appearance or your child. At moments like that, what is it you feel? It has a familiar taste in your mouth, it has a familiar smell. Once you begin to notice it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever.

The Tibetan word for this is shenpa. It is usually translated “attachment,” but a more descriptive translation might be “hooked.” When shenpa hooks us, we’re likely to get stuck. We could call shenpa “that sticky feeling.” It’s an everyday experience. Even a spot on your new sweater can take you there. At the subtlest level, we feel a tightening, a tensing, a sense of closing down. Then we feel a sense of withdrawing, not wanting to be where we are. That’s the hooked quality. That tight feeling has the power to hook us into self-denigration, blame, anger, jealousy and other emotions which lead to words and actions that end up poisoning us."

Fiendish Jones and the Need for Permission

Earlier this morning I was just feeding my Frenchie Rufus and doing some cleaning and rearranging in the kitchen when (to me) a profound and probably obvious thought occurred to me. 

I've been operating in my new apartment space with a sort of unconscious need for permission from some nebulous "persona" out there. Even something as simple as where I'm putting the toaster on the countertop became a battle for permission. What if "someone" doesn't like it there? What if they don't approve of my choice of toaster color? What if they criticize my choices?! And on and on it went.

In the moment where I realized fully what I was doing to myself a name came to me as if someone opened my head and plopped it right into my brain. Fiendish Jones. He's basically Snidely Whiplash (for those of you not old enough to remember the cartoon Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties Snidely was Dudley's arch nemesis.) He's the voice that lurks just out of range of my consciousness that criticizes every decision I make. He has a top hat and cape and a long mustache that he twirls as he laughs manically at mentally cornering me yet again. I've constantly found myself asking his permission for just about everything I do.

I didn't even realize until this morning I was operating under this kind of imaginary criticism. Now that I know this, now that I've moved from ignorance to knowledge, from knowing to embracing, I understand that I don't need to seek or be that needy for permission about anything.

What a revelation.

Criticism

A simple and profound truth. 

 

Your Top 5

We spend so much time criticizing ourselves, tearing ourselves down, and filling our head with that awful negative voice. When you read this, I want you to stop what you're doing and write down somewhere the top 5 things you love about yourself. Keep that list with you for at least 24 hours. And every time you start that negative talk in your head, pull out the list and read it.

Voices of Dissent

As I move closer to my goal of a new career I've noticed something. The more I succeed the louder and more intense are the voices of the naysayers. You know, those people who would never have the guts to try and do what I'm doing. Those people who are so afraid to look at their own lives, but have no problem looking at mine and criticizing it.
It's taken me a long time, a good deal of soul-searching, and courage to stop listening to those people. And I'm so much better for it.

Our Inner Voice

Sometimes our inner voice speaks to us with such cruelty and debilitating criticism. We are our own worst critic. We are pointed out to ourselves all the flaws, real and imagined, that no one else would ever notice. We are relentless in our critical and painful self talk. We speak to ourselves in ways we would never allow others to speak to us. When we become more aware of this, however, we have an opportunity. An opportunity to change the inner dialog. To be our own biggest fan instead of our own harshest judge.