Begin Again
I have been alive for 71 years. Or, ~26,000 days. Or ~2 billion seconds. I am quite sure that for a majority of those seconds, I (whatever I is?) have been somewhere else, in a trance. Most of us are, most of the time, in a trance (generated by our default mode network and its effort to create stories to deal with uncertainty and to protect our identities).
I was in a trance this morning while walking my girl Juno. My wife Lea and I had a small skirmish this morning just before my walk, and my mind, on its own, all by itself, without my express permission, launched a video of the skirmish worthy of an Oscar that lasted for nearly a half-mile.
The video had all of the scenes and dialogue from the skirmish as I (again, that I thing) interpreted them and attached one essence/meaning/interpretation after another to what was said and the look on her face. But that was not enough for my brain. It had to wrap all of that material up into the wrapper of a beautifully constructed story about why she said what she said, and why she had the look on her face, so that it could create an Oscar-worthy story of injustice.
Before I snapped out of the trance I was tense, irritated, self-righteous, resentful, and blind to the world around me.
Thankfully I woke up. I am not sure what snapped my mind out of the trance, but the moment I woke up, I realized that my mind was at it again, creating stories and judgments and assessments all on its own, something that all of our brains do with amazing speed and indifference to reality. This is the trance we all live in for so much of our lives.
Having awakened to the fact that I was in a trance most of my life about 10 years ago, and having seen first hand the power of being able to snap out of the trance, I have come to believe that the skill of snapping out of the trance of our mind's stories and interpretation of everything is, in fact, the key to mental freedom and equanimity as we navigate this world. It is a superpower that grants you the ability to get up on a balcony and stare down at your brain and all the goings-on with the attitude of a detached observer. A superpower.
What does this all have to do with the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years I have been alive? Because in the 71 years I have been alive, so many of my moments have been lived in a trance, and because I have had so many skirmishes and emotional triggers and small conflicts that I have absolutely no memory of, I can only imagine how many seconds, minutes, hours, and days I have spent in rumination about some "injustice" or past conflict.
Why does this matter?
- It robs you from being present with whatever is actually going on around you, like the beauty of the quiet winter on the walk with my girl Juno.
- When our brains construct these stories about our various skirmishes and conflicts, it necessarily (and appropriately) cares primarily about itself. After all, our brains are meant to help us survive.
- In the middle of my brain's story making reverie, I will experience a range of emotions ranging from righteous indignation to irritation all the way to serious resentment that can harden into a wall of disconnection, which with me manifests primarily as withdrawal and silence (that was hard for me to admit, but it is true).
- That state of affairs arranged by the state of my mind has now made me feel miserable.
- That state of affairs arranged by the state of my mind can, if allowed, enact the withdrawal and silence protocol, deepening the disconnection, and throwing fuel on the flames of the miasma generated by my brain.
- Now the whole thing can potentially go on for a day or longer, until I decide to finally drop it and let it fucking go.
Which brings me back to the the 71 years. All of us have had an endless, endless number of skirmishes and conflicts, and I am certain that all of us have had the experience of not just wasting time and energy on being immersed in the trance of these deep and detailed reviews of events, but these ruminations or trance like assessments will negatively impact the relationship going forward if our brains continue to cling them like a prosecutor in a courtroom, except now you get the verdict over and over, but meanwhile you're the one actually sentenced - to stress (increased cortisol and sympathetic activation), irritation, resentment, and further disconnection.
Plus, we have all forgotten nearly every one of them!
Our brains evolved to protect us by telling stories fast so we can "make sense" of events. The problem is after conflict, that protection system goes into overdrive—and now it’s defending a narrative instead of your well-being. The story persists not because it’s true, but because it once felt useful. And usefulness is not the same as accuracy—or peace.
The mind is loyal to a fault. It just doesn’t always know when the war is over.
I picked up the idea of Begin Again from Sam Harris in the Waking Up app, and it is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful mental habits I have ever learned.
Steps:
- Recognize when you are in a trance. This is a general and critical skill useful for living in general.
- Look at the patterns you experience after a skirmish or conflict. If you are like most of us, your brain goes to court to defend your narrative, and your wellbeing.
- Now that you are aware of the patterns, and your reactions, you can learn to, if appropriate, drop the hot potato and Begin Again.
- To Begin Again, you need to believe in your bones that, as Rich Roll says, "mood follows action."
- If you believe mood follows action, then you need to decide to do something to trigger the Begin Again mood shift.
When I got back from walking Juno, I walked up to Lea, and even though there was a charge of static electricity as I approached, I forged ahead, put my arm around her shoulder, and said I love you.
She gave me a big hug, said she loved me, and now she is painting in her studio, and I am writing to you all with my brain and day unencumbered by the story.
So just like going to the gym or doing anything that is hard or unpleasant, waiting for the right emotion or mood is a recipe for procrastination and more stress. Don't wait to drop it. Forgive them, and yourself, and behave lovingly, and your mood, and theirs, will follow. It's not because you disproved the story. It's because you regulated your way out of the story by giving your brain conflicting sensory evidence of warmth, voice, touch, and belonging.
The goal isn’t to kill the narrative.
The goal is to stop letting it run the body.
And just like it is so hard to haul my ass out of the car when I am at the parking lot at the gym in the middle of winter with the heat blowing, it can be hard to Begin Again. But I assure you, once you get in the gym, everything starts to get better.
(I wrote the entire piece myself with my fingers, on an iMac, but I used NotebookLLM to create this graphic and video. Would love your thoughts on whether this is valuable or not!)
