Working Meditation

Observations on Human Connection & Contribution

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#116: Choosing our axis and rotations

Rotation is the action of spinning on an axis or a center, and we often associate this movement with the planets. It is Earth’s habitual movement that gives us the experience of day and night. Living beings also seem to spin around an invisible central axis, which creates our visible rotations. Animals have recurrent migratory and homing patterns. Humans go back and forth to school, work, grocery stores, to spend time with loved ones, and to entertainment spots. All of us like kites connected to invisible threads anchored somewhere in our life.

The central axis around which any individual spins is determined by their biological needs—both physical and emotional—and these keep evolving as we develop. This invisible and ever-present axis manifests clearly in the combination of roles one inhabits: a student, a sibling, an entrepreneur, caregiver, athlete and so on. These roles in turn determine how we use our time: the places, people, and activities that fill our days. Just like for Earth, our axis (needs and roles) determines our rotations (time spent in habitual engagements).

But unlike Earth, our axis shifts in response to life changes, both big and relatively small: moves, babies, deaths, acute injuries, new friendships, or home repair projects. We take on new roles or drop old ones. Consequently, the makeup of our time shifts quite organically; where we spend it, with whom, and how alter without too much effort. A change in our needs and roles changes our lived footprint. A shift in axis, changes the rotation.

Axis and rotations are inseparable from living organisms. They create the observable footprint of our days and, over time, a life. We can intentionally choose them or they come into form on their own by the mere fact that we’re alive.

If we wish to change our life experience, a useful first step might be to note the axis around which our life is anchored. While it’s not always easy or desirable to shift our axis, we do it many times over a lifetime when we make big life moves. Rotations rarely venture far from the axis we’ve settled into. Even so, it’s easier to shift the structure of our rotations vs. our axis. We can choose the physical places and online spaces we spend free time in, the relationships and interests we cultivate, ideas and information we engage with, and our patterns of engagement and rest.

Most of us have more agency over our life and attention than we realize, and we must exercise it. When we don’t, we end up creating a life that looks nothing like the one we crave to live. Unlike our beloved Earth, we have the power to see our habitual patterns and make changes.

“We give no significance to human attention. Things open up and change only in response to attention. Otherwise old cycles repeat endlessly.”— Sadhguru, yogi, mystic and teacher

#115: Who we become on the sidelines of conflict

I’m part of many different professional tidepools, each with a group chat on Signal or Whatsapp. The Israel-Gaza conflict has surfaced in these spaces over the past month with layers of aches and perspectives. The personal and collective histories like a messy bundle of electrical wires: inextricably enmeshed and full of charge.

While Israel and Palestine isn’t the land of my ancestors, my elders experienced identity-driven geopolitical conflict alongside the fear, anger, hate and violence it generates. Their forceful expulsion from their birthland is full of stories of slaughter. I was also raised in a beautifully plural society and have experienced the turmoil that sometimes rears its head in true diversity. I’ve seen the nature of individual and collective conversations we have with each other during such times.

Our first step is ususally to share and explain our side. If we are genuinely and fully met in our grief, we feel more secure stepping out further to try and understand the other side. Most conversations get stuck at the first stage because we don’t typically acknowledge another’s pain in public (or private) discourse. We also shy away from acknowledgement because it invites action of some sort; which may be unclear, hard, or even impossible.

So the spaces for shared sense-making—where people bring in their deepest emotion, truest thoughts and questions, with a desire to shape a healthier future—are rare. This shared sense-making is hard enough face to face with people we love and issues we have known about all our lives. It’s even harder in group chats or social media with people and issues we know little about.

Although we all sense that group chats are a choppy tool for perspective sharing and sense making, we have the constraints and tools that we have so we engage. And like most spaces, a few voices step into the circle to share, some with more comfort and assertion than others. Whether we are inside the circle or silent on the periphery, we listen and digest. We learn about human nature and our own nature by coming to terms with our comfort, discomfort and boundaries. We gain a sense of how we like to learn and engage. We create perspectives about ourselves, people groups, and whole cultures. Often without realizing, we veer towards hope, helplessness or cynicism. All these become muscle memory.

Then one day down the line, even if we stand quietly in this conversation, we will step inside some other circle and share our thoughts. We might do this with nuance or binaries, with an attitude of sensing or ripping apart another’s perspective. One thing is for sure, how we behave when we enter that circle in the future will be guided by who we are becoming while on the sidelines today.

“At our best, we serve as inadvertent triggers for each other’s eventual illumination.”— Mark Nepo, Poet

PS: This is a good one about not having a hot take on everything, which forces us to have a definitive stance on issues when first a posture of learning and inquiry is better suited— Pick a Side. Pick a Side. Pick a Side. Now.

#113: Psychological trash

I just got back from a trip, with a stomach issue that has lingered. In my fatigue, I watched the house slowly fill up with messiness. An open box here, a glass of water there, unprocessed laundry and unpacked bags there and there. The kitchen also filled up with recycling, compost and dishes; squashing any desire to go there and cook. 

When I got a bit of energy, I slowly started cleaning. The first thing I addressed during cleanup was the trash that was piling up. I took it out of the house and deposited it in the bins sitting outside so it could be hauled away and processed. I feel responsible for the trash I create and yet I create it daily. I reduce my use, reuse what I can and recycle what’s possible but I still create mountains of it week after week.

I also create mental and emotional trash daily. What creates this trash, and where does it go?

My interactions—with myself or another—create new physical sensations, thoughts and emotions or embellish pre-existing ones. I may process these with joy or with pain, with ease or with difficulty; by myself, with another or both. Regardless, every interaction creates an experiential residue that lingers and forms a psychological imprint that primes me for future experiences. How I processed this one interaction often sets my template for how I process future interactions. This internalized imprint is what can potentially become my psychological trash if I’m not watchful.

How do I know if a psychological imprint is trash? I try holding on to it long enough and see if it creates a low-grade feeling of dis-ease inside. Does it make me contract emotionally, leak on me in the form of shame or on others in the form of blame? If yes, then it’s psychological trash that needs to be processed further.

Just like physical trash, the first step is to notice it with unattached and blameless awareness. The second step is to process it into compartments: is it outright trash that has served its purpose, a recyclable that can be used anew, or shapeshifting compost with potential to make something else thrive? The final step is to pick it up and let it go, often repeatedly. So life can flow without the burden of yesterday’s trash. 

She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, “Am I too late for the garbage?” “No, jump in!”— Henny Youngman, Comedian and musician

#108: The emotional dust of creation

We don’t create things all at once, fully formed. Whether it’s an organization, a community, a tiny human or ourselves, creation takes time and the build is always unexpected. That’s a big reason why we subconsciously hold back from creating anything new: it feels risky to invest emotion and effort and not even have the guarantee that this thing we want will actually happen, or happen the way we want it to.

If we make a plan before starting (which is always a good idea), it’ll orient us in the right direction and help take suitable steps, but it likely won’t reflect the nuanced terrain we’ll actually walk. That’s because neither the terrain nor our creation remains static. Both respond to our actions and the events in our larger environment. Similarly, we ourselves respond and change; what we thought last week or last month will shift a bit when we engage in the work. Finally, we never build anything alone. Ever. There are others right next to us co-creating and going through the same push and pull of change and creation. So we’re changing, our creation is changing, our co-creators are changing and the environment is changing. This happens simultaneously and repeatedly. This dynamic is called emergence, and it asks for emotional flexibility. 

The work of creating something new is less like driving a self-driving Tesla on a traffic-free highway, and more like walking a dusty backroad full of brambles alongside others. It’s never a cool and collected experience of just sitting back and arriving. We all get scratched, stumble, bump into each other and kick up dust as we walk.

To make matters harder, we regularly pass through invisible gates that change the scenery and the terrain. What we did before needs to be adjusted in unexpected ways. If we were too absorbed in the work of creating, we may not even realize that we passed a gate. That’s when the emotional dust peaks―we all scramble to make sense of the new terrain, run furiously into the brambles and each other, kick up more dust, and make it harder to see things clearly. 

Knowing this, what if:

  • In addition to drawing maps, we prepare for that dusty and brambly trail with unseen gates.
  • Instead of a heroic solo journey, we note others who walk besides us.
  • Our commitment isn’t to one specific outcome but to staying on the dusty path. We develop resilience, integrity, and might I add―joy, so none of us opt-out in favor of the cushy Tesla path.
  • We invest time in creating trust: holding a hand, mending a wound, or offering a sip of water on this twisty path.
  • Most importantly, we create the capacity to be ok with emotional dust as we blind each other with it.

“The mighty oak was once an acorn that stood its ground.”― English Proverb, Author Unknown 

It may not happen.
If it happens, it wont happen the way you imagined.
If it happens, it’ll be its own thing: emergent and separate from you, uncontrollable by anyone.
Bringing it to life will dent you and others in unseen places.

So, why do it?
Because you came with these fertile seeds.
And if you hold back, first the seeds will wither…then you.
― A little ditty, by Suparna

#100: Yoda on demand

On a particularly busy day, I wanted to exercise my body so quickly jotted a calendar reminder for yoga. I added the words “on demand” to remind myself to follow a pre-recoded class vs. a livestreamed one from my studio. When I opened my calendar later in the day though, I saw that I had typed “Yoda” instead of Yoga.

For those unfamiliar: Yoda is a fictional character from Star Wars. He represents intelligence, wisdom, courage and is known for his deep connection to the Force (life’s energy field), which he deftly channels against evil of all sorts. Yoda-isms are embedded everywhere, the most memorable being  “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”. The creators of Star Wars seem to have put the wisest parts of humanity in this tiny and ancient creature.

My error sent me on a thought experiment…what if we all had a Yoda on demand? And almost immediately I saw my Yoda on demand.

For years I’ve had this mental model of being inside an arena or a boxing ring; I likely created it from Teddy Roosevelt’s The Man in the Arena speech where he applauds the brave striver fighting in life’s arena and daring greatly for a worthy cause regardless of victory or defeat. In my mental model, I see my face marred with blood and sweat like Teddy did, but I don’t see myself alone. I see the brave me being coached by a Yoda-esque figure, like a ringside coach in a modern boxing game. My coach Yoda is me, not someone else.

When we operate in the arena, it’s often uncomfortable and lonely. When it feels like we’re getting punched in the face by life, our first and most frequent source of wisdom is the self. And in those moments, our wise Yoda-self draws from the wisdom we have exposed it to ― from the wise thinkers, brave doers, timeless sages, to our own everyday practices that regenerate and strengthen us. What we feed our brains in our downtime is what we call upon when we step into the arena.

We’re always fed by a legion of other Yodas but when we enter the ring, we are our own Yoda.

“…and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world…”
― “The Journey” by Mary Oliver, Poet