Simplicité

Internal power is the ability to alter, change or shift your personal experience.

It is your ability to be proactive, to cultivate the things you want rather than to be in a reactive state to your health, be in a cycle of damage control in your relationships, or simply punch the clock at work. 

It is your ability to start something new and bring it to ripeness. 

It is your ability to shift your perspective out of pessimism and into optimism.

It is the ability to choose your life rather than to exist in the status quo.

It is the ability to create in the flow of life rather than rebel against it.

It is the ability to get out of your own way.

External power is your ability to influence things outside of you, including others and their experiences.

Internal power is the ability to influence your own experience, and to actualize your reality. 

From my perspective, the point of Simplicity is to clear away any obstacles on the path to self-actualization. 

Self-actualization is the ability to have a vision for growth and to actualize that vision -- to bring my vision to reality.

Examples include:

-The desire to find a new purpose in life.

-The desire to reach a new goal on my career path.

-The vision to create a new committed relationship and have a family.

-The vision to feel empowered in my body, to loose weight or become healthier or stronger or leaner.

-The desire to experience the home as a peaceful sanctuary.

-The desire to learn any new craft, language, instrument or skill.

Energy Drains

A growth spurt can feel very similar to an energy drain, and this is an important distinction to make on the path of self-mastery. For the record, I do not pretend to have mastered the Self, yet I do bring my attention to it daily.

All of my clients here in San Francisco have one key thing in common: Overstimulation.

Quite simply, modern life has left them feeling fried, usually due to one of three reasons. They are often either Over-stuffed, Over-scheduled, or Over-informed.

Once we've decluttered their home, a fabulous step towards living a life of ease, usually part of this has involved facing the unhealthy craving for information.

A key culprit in dissatisfaction is the clutter in our minds.

Knowledge is Sexy

Information is seductive. It seems like it provides us with satisfaction.

Instead, often it feeds into a fear that we will never know enough, or that if we only know more then we'll have more control over our happiness, or that we'll be more secure in our jobs.

Sometimes this is true. Often it is not.

Fear that others will find out that we are actually not as smart as we seem can cause us to hoard information.

Our email inboxes become full of articles that we now feel guilty for not reading.

Our Twitter account shows 472 new user tweets and suddenly we scramble to scan for THE tweet that is going to change our life.

That stack of magazines in the hallway screams at us, "There is an outfit in here, a new hairstyle, and a game-changing article that will deliver you what you've always wanted: <insert husband, wife, job, awesome sex life here>."

That stack of information was supposed to bring you satisfaction! So what happened? How did the once delightful pursuit of learning new things and expanding creativity become so stressful?

Changing Your Relationship to Knowledge

To take back the reigns on your mental clarity, you only need to re-frame your orientation to the stack of papers / articles / emails looming in front of you.

Perspective: Information is no substitute for connection and relationships. At the end of your life, you will not look back and wish you read ONE MORE BOOK. I call this the "death bed reframe" -- it works to put almost all things in perspective!

Clarity: Knowledge sometimes is power, but sometimes it's just cluttering your brain.

Trust: Instead of being afraid of forgetfulness, TRUST that the necessary piece of information that will change your life will arrive right exactly when you need it.

Clean: Clear your slate. Email--Let your friends know via Facebook that you've "filed for EMAIL bankruptcy and will not be able to respond to old emails. If I'm being rude by forgetting something important in your life, kindly let me know!" Papers--clear them out!

Let Go: It is inevitable that you will let go, throw away or delete something that you'll miss. That's part of life. Accept this. It's a fact of the impermanent nature of things, and that fact that you might miss ONE thing is not a good reason to hoard 100 things that are causing you to be overstimulated!

  Information Fasting

How can you know which information is good for you and which information is causing mental obesity? You have an innate ability to discern this, you just need to recover that capacity. It's called Intuition, and you have to clear the mental chatter to hear it.

And like most recovery, one prescription can be total abstinence, at least in the beginning. Stopping the flow of useless information allows your natural instincts to come forward. And often your Intuition is far more helpful than volumes of articles.

I always recommend an information / tech fast for my clients when they go on vacation. You can't really know how fried you've become by being constantly plugged into your Smartphone, iPad, Laptop, etc. until you actually unplug from it. Let go of reading non-fiction on vacation. Cultivate your imagination-- a key component of intuition-- instead by reading a novel.

Remembering Fulfillment

Fulfillment isn't limited to any one cause, but I think we would all agree that the word "peace" is closely associated with it.

And if you fear getting rid of all of that information will cause you to feel bored, it might be time to change the word "boredom" into "contentment." Doing nothing isn't boredom, it's BEING.

      Recognizing Suffering... For What It Is, And For What It Isn't

    Disappointment, embarrassment, and all of the places where we cannot feel good are a sort of death.

We've just lost our ground completely; we are unable to hold it together and feel that we're on top of things.

Rather than realizing that it takes death for there to be birth, we just fight against the fear of death.

Reaching our limit is not some kind of punishment. It's actually a sign of health that when we meet the place we are about to die, we feel fear and trembling.

But usually we don't take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us.

Things like disappointment and anxiety are messages telling us we're about to go into unknown territory.

When we get what we don't want, When we don't get what we do want, When we become ill, When we're getting old, When we're dying, When we see *any* of these things in our lives, We can recognize suffering as suffering. Then we can be curious, notice, and be mindful of our reactions.

Our suffering is so grounded in our fear of impermanence.

Our pain is so rooted in our lopsided view of reality.

Whoever got the idea that we could have pleasure without pain?

It's promoted rather widely in this world, and we buy it.

But pain and pleasure go together; they are inseparable.

They can be celebrated.

They are ordinary.

Birth is painful and delightful.

Death is painful and delightful.

Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else.

Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.

--excerpt from Uncomfortable With Uncertainty by Pema Chödrön

        Buddhist psychology shows us that there suffering that is a necessary part of life (old age, sickness and death);

And then there is suffering that is chosen. Specifically, we can choose our response or reaction to reality.

We can choose to be friends with old age.

We can choose to glean character and perseverance from sickness.

We can embrace death.

This is why I am a purist, and choose not to self-medicate the suffering of old age with Botox, why I choose not to medicate stress with alcohol or Xanax, why I choose not to take drugs or party my way through the ups and downs of life.

It's why I rarely take pain medication. I would rather face suffering for what it is. But it's a choice, and not a moral one, there is no perfect answer to meeting life.

    Prevention

I just believe that by choosing to live life on life's terms, by choosing to face the natural suffering and vicissitudes of life, I believe I am eliminating a second form of suffering-- the suffering that resists the fact that Life Is Impermanent.

I also believe that by facing pain, it forces me to really look at the root causes of whatever suffering I may have at the time. It's not like I LOVE pain. Don't get me wrong, I take every preventative, proactive measure to promote happiness of mind, heart and body.

If it's body pain, maybe I need more exercise, healthier food, or acupuncture. If it's emotional pain, probably time to set a boundary, face denial, or shed light on a blind spot. If it's mental pain, I can weed out the destructive thoughts, meditate and practice gratitude.

Generally, preventing suffering means leaning on community, cultivating love, setting boundaries with energy drains, keeping my mind, body & heart cleaned out from clutter.

    Suppressing Pain

And I also believe when I suppress my experience of pain, I also suppress my experience of pleasure. Psychologists often cite research showing that we cannot suppress one feeling without suppressing all of them. Numbing pain, it seems, also numbs happiness.

I don't judge those who chose otherwise, who chose to medicate. Life as a purist can be intense, and perhaps it's not right in all situations for all people.

Some people think I'm crazy for facing the amount of adversity that I have had in my life and never touching a single form of elicit drugs. They simply cannot imagine holding that much pain.

To them, my choices seem like a form of repression. And that's ok for them. It's more than ok, actually. It's perfect.

    Equaniminity

There is a time and a place for all things, and we are all doing the very best that we can. I really believe that.

I'll say it again, because it's worth repeating:

We are really all doing the very best that we can. REALLY.

However we choose to face the vicissitudes of life is exactly where we need to be today. That's not New Age dithering. I find great comfort in that axiom.

  I got rid of everything I owned in a week.

And by everything I mean: 1800 square feet full of furniture, 4 closets full of clothes, a car, a dog, a cat, my grandmother Potoo's piano, a premium juicer, 55 pairs of shoes, an eclectic collection of art--including 3 huge murals.

AND my collection of jeans. Jeans. I could write a love letter to the jeans I left behind... 

I sold or donated everything except what could fit in 2 boxes and a backpack.

During that landmark Saturday yard sale in 2005, while my friends rallied around me to haggle with buyers, I sat in the shock of letting go of my favorite things-- not the junk, my *favorite things.*

Sister Ruth later asked, "Why did you get rid of everything? Why didn't you just put it in storage?"

I decided it was a cleansing ritual. Part of the process of choosing a new way of well-being meant letting go of the accoutrements of the past. It was an experience unto itself. 

"Why would you punish yourself by going to a monastery," a Catholic acquaintance asked? It was ironic how my Catholic friends were the most indignant about me going to a Benedictine monastery. Everyone else was first shocked, then later supportive. Catholics seemed to have associate the monastic life with pain.

When the kinetic force of your life suddenly stops on it's on accord, turns away from the direction of material success, and then one day turns toward a vastly different trajectory, it is virtually impossible to ignore the winds of change.

And so it was with going to the monastery for the 8-month meditation sabbatical.

After all of the things were gone, it felt amazing.

I can still remember the feeling of buoyancy, how the chatter in my mind disappeared once my things were gone.

Since I was 28 at the time, some might have called it a Quarter Life Crisis. Or a Saturn Return. For me it was an awakening of joy.

But it is much easier to let go when you know that you are choosing something else much better to take it's place. I was choosing contentment. 

It wasn't exactly "liquidation," a term which in some sense infers defeat, surrender to a debt crisis.

Instead, I was trading physical things for: lightness of being, clarity, peace, spiritual intimacy. Freedom from physical attachments. The richness of an experience re-oriented toward compassion. A relentless desire to return to innocence, or a "beginner's mind." 

Pema Chodron's book, "Comfortable With Uncertainty," is a salve to the cuts and scrapes of the heart and mind.

I find her economy of speech to be refreshing, as she gently points out optional suffering and it's causes.

    This excerpt is from #23 - The Facts of Life: Egolessness

"Egolessness means that the fixed idea that we have about ourselves as solid and separate from each other is painfully limiting. That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem. Self-importance is like a prison for us, limiting us to the world of our likes and dislikes. We end up bored to death with ourselves and our world. We end up very dissatisfied.

"In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness, as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness. It is our capacity to relax with not knowing, not figuring everything out, with not being at all sure about who we are, or who anyone else is, either. Every moment is unique, unknown, completely fresh. Egolessness is a cause of joy rather than a cause of fear." (p. 45-46)

          Many a 30-something single person identifies with taking oneself too seriously, particularly in a city like San Francisco, full of movers and shakers-- many who are creating real, beautiful change in the world.

The collective momentum of ambition can be intoxifying. It can be all too easy to be swept up in comparison with peers.

It's not considered suffering. It's considered a necessary function of success.

Perfectionism, being hard on ourselves, comparison-- all are considered useful motivators in our culture. But what about after we reach the carrot we've been seeking, when we get the things we've been looking for and find that we are still not satisfied? 

    I would guess that the Buddha might tell us today that pursuing our careers with Right Intention is part of the natural unfolding of life, and can be a source of happiness. Yet the ego is perhaps less useful-- and prevents Simplicity from reigning in our lives--- in these scenarios:

    Attachment to What People Think - Once upon a time it served us to please others. It's a great mechanism for getting a promotion, for example. However, we can get so caught up in our image management strategies that our organic desires, happiness & spontaneity begin to be filtered through the "What People Might Think" concept instead of the "I Am 34 And I Will Only Do Exactly What Makes Me Happy Because Damnit That's What I Waited To Be An Adult For" filter. 

Attachment to Identity - We can become so attached to our professional identity (lawyer, doctor, therapist, techie, engineer, dog walker) that we suppress and ignore and even power-cocktail-through the subtle nudges of our inner self. Instead of focusing on our internal satisfaction, contentment or real happiness, we can ultimately become more attached to the ego's machinations of a title, income level, lifestyle, vacations, masters degree, etc. Or worse, we can value these attachments above love and its glorious formless, intangible, subtle states of being.

Attachment to Egolessness - Becoming attached to the spiritual path is no less of a hindrance to happiness. This is my poison pill. I can become so invested in the interior life and cultivating states of awareness and attenuated feeling states that I can use it as an excuse to avoid choosing life. My experience has been that the longer I meditate, the trickier my ego becomes, hiding in newer and more creative rooms of my mind. 

    It is an ongoing process, awakening to the attachments of the ego. And it doesn't necessarily mean letting go of Stuff.

  It can mean holding all of the Stuff without fantasy or illusion of it being a source of happiness.

   It can mean keeping life and outsourcing the anxiety created by our attachments, letting go of the games we play with ourselves in our mind-- which, frankly, no one cares about but ourselves. 

  And we can exchange all those games with.... I dunno- Nothing. Empty space.

  And then Nothing can be reframed into Boredom.