"Living Soberly" by Mike Singh
"What does it mean to be sober?"
From a medical point of view, being conscious and able to think and act independently is awake. But physical sobriety does not mean psychological sobriety. For example, a person who is in good health and works smoothly will also face many problems in his daily life, experiencing negative emotions such as entanglement, hesitation, anxiety, and pain. His mind was clear, but his heart was chaotic and confused.
This is actually the problem of many modern people: our living conditions are better, our life content is richer, there are many ways to have entertainment, and there are delicious foods to enjoy, but we will still be in a lot of negative emotions. The pain of life may not be diminished in the slightest.
So why is that? The author Singh gave the answer in "Living Soberly", he said: Because we are not sober enough, we have not really known ourselves, and we are in a state of muddy and unsober life. Just like many people say, they know a lot of truths, but they still can't live this life. Because, although you understand a lot of truths, but you don't understand yourself, you naturally can't handle your own life.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Singh's experience in writing this book is also quite legendary. He was originally a doctor of economics and a meditation enthusiast. During his doctoral studies, he accidentally underwent a profound awakening and entered a state of seclusion, which lasted for 40 years. When he reappeared in the public eye, he had completed his mental metamorphosis and became an amazing meditation master.
And the book "Living Soberly" is the result of his enlightenment and practice and experience of life. This book is born out of meditation practice, but it does not stick to traditional methods, but leads readers to observe themselves step by step, think about themselves, and gradually become aware of their waking self.
The voice in my head
So, what exactly should we do to be aware of ourselves? Let's start with a small phenomenon in life, which is the "voice in the head."
We often feel that there is a person in our head who is talking to us. For example, when we go to a party, and we talk to each other, but no one talks to us, there may be a voice in our head that says, "Oh, let's go, you see that no one pays attention to you, why stay here?"
At this time, we will also feel a little embarrassed, say goodbye to our colleagues early, and leave first. Many people think that the "me" in their minds is their inner self, and when he talks to us, he actually reminds us, tells us what he feels in his heart, and tells us what to do.
But is this really the case? In fact, as long as we pay a little attention, we will find that the voice in our head never seems to stop, and it has been in a state of "dissatisfaction" for a long time, as if it is complaining all the time, and sometimes it is particularly contradictory. For example, when we stay up late at night to play with our mobile phones, this voice will run out to remind: "It's time to go to bed, if you don't go to bed early, you may be late for work tomorrow." But then it will say, "Well, why rush to sleep, you can't sleep when you go to bed anyway, play for a while, and when you are sleepy, you will go to sleep." ”
Slowly, we will realize that this "self" in our mind does not seem to be under our control, and from time to time we will say something unexpected and express some bad thoughts that are meaningless. There is no doubt that we have achieved many goals in life, such as completing school, getting married, having children, etc., but the voice in our head rarely praises us.
So, why is this "self" so strange?
Some people may think that people are very fickle, and this capricious voice is the embodiment of the self. But the author Singer points out that this voice is not actually a "self", but a roommate in the human heart, who lives in the same body as us, but always chats with us. It is the outward life, the inner manifestation of the person. Most of the words it says are also meaningless and of little practical help.
The reason why it appears frequently is actually that a certain amount of energy has accumulated in the heart and needs to be released. If we look objectively, we will find that when we feel nervous, fearful, or desired, the voice in our head becomes extremely active. For example, when we see someone or something we particularly hate, we feel angry, and when we want to scold someone, we have already scolded many times in our hearts. In this way, we are able to ease our emotions and release our energy.
In addition, our "inner voice" also has times of calm and tranquility. For example, on a sunny afternoon, when we go for a walk in the park, we exclaim, "The sky is so blue, the grass is so green, everything is so vibrant, it's so beautiful." "If we experience it carefully, we will feel that our inner voice will make us feel happy and peaceful. This is actually a manifestation of energy release.
Therefore, the "inner voice" is not the inner self, but the brain's processing of the external world. There is a lot of information from the outside world, but the brain will grasp the information that attracts people's attention and makes us feel strong emotions inside, whether they are positive or negative, and they will be presented in the inner world.
The true self
However, this raises another question: if the inner voice is not the self, where is the "true self"?
Actually, we've just been exposed to it. Singer proposes that the true inner self is the "listener", the one who has been listening to the "voice in the head". In other words, our inner voice is just our "rough processing" of the external world, and the person who listens to the inner voice is the true self. These two are the relationship between roommates, one is talking, the other is listening.
According to Singer, when we recognize our inner roommates, it is the beginning of our self-awareness. Before that, we thought that the inner voice was the ego and were used to following that voice. For example, when a person starts working overtime, the inner voice complains, "Why do you want to work overtime? What's the point? My colleagues don't work overtime, and I don't want my free time to be taken up." ”
Under normal circumstances, this person may be led by this "inner voice" and immediately stop working overtime. But if he realizes that this is his inner roommate, he can quickly adjust his mindset and tell himself: "This is just a temporary thought in the brain, and I want higher performance, more income and a bigger future than temporary comfort." When he has similar thoughts, it means that he has begun to detach himself from his first feelings and try to control his emotions.
Behind this cognition, there are actually two ways of thinking that we change ourselves. Many people believe that in order to change their lives, it is important to change the external environment. If I don't like my current job, I can change companies, and if I don't like a colleague, I can not go back and forth. However, this often treats the symptoms rather than the root cause, because a person will always encounter people or things that he does not like, and it is impossible to change everything indefinitely.
At this time, what you can do is to ask for help from the heart: don't blindly think about changing the external environment, but also try to adjust your reaction to external things, change your inner voice, and don't be led by the simple judgment of the brain, otherwise there will always be new troubles.
So, what can be done to make us change from a "subjective" mentality to an objective observer? Singh proposed a method called "observation experiment": when we hear the inner voice, we should not rush to answer or analyze, but first find a quiet place to calm down.
If this voice speaks in our heads, we can listen carefully, and at the same time repeat the sentence, imagining that this voice is not in our heads, but that there is another person around us who is speaking, and we will find that it suddenly has a much smaller impact on us, as if from our ontology, we have become a closer friend, constantly expressing our own opinions.
At this time, we are actually already standing in the perspective of "observers" and listening to our inner voice.
Learn to be your own "spectator"
When a person knows how to keep a distance from his own mental activities, especially those negative emotions, he can be regarded as a person who truly controls himself and is sober.
The experience is a bit abstract to say, and Singh gave an example of watching TV. Many people like to watch TV and movies. Because in the process of watching, people will be immersed in the plot, imagine the storyline happening around themselves, and thus empathize with the characters in the story.
So, why do people feel this way?
This is because of the focus of consciousness. When television attracts people's consciousness through visual, auditory and other sensory stimulation, people will forget that they are sitting in front of the TV and sitting on their own sofa, but feel that they have entered a "different world", an environment similar to television. At this time, that "self" is actually following the plot of the TV, completely immersed in it, and infected by the storyline. It's only when the TV is over that the audience slowly recovers, realizing that they are watching TV rather than really experiencing a storyline.
In the same way, in life, people will also be attracted by the sound in the brain like watching TV, thinking that this is the self, so there will be certain cognitive biases, and then produce fear, worry and other psychology, and make defensive and evasive behaviors.
So what we have to do is to be our own "spectator", even if we keep hearing the voice of the brain in our hearts, we make sure that we are conscious and not immersed in it, as if we are listening to a friend chatting and narrating these things. At this time, we can look at these things calmly and respond reasonably.
For example, a mother, because the child is naughty and she is very angry, her heart is roaring: "The child is too disobedient, I should punish him severely!" But at this time, the mother through observation experiments, peeled herself out of her angry emotions, objectively examined her angry state, and soon found the problem: the child made a mistake and should indeed be punished, but as a mother, she can't pour out all her emotions on the child. So, she quickly adjusted her emotions and punished the child appropriately.
This is a process of returning to sobriety, self-awareness. In Singh's view, the true self should be calm and objective, and not easily shaken by external things. When a person has this stable state of mind, he will naturally not be disturbed by all kinds of negative emotions.