Category: Email Archives

Stop dwelling in the past.

You live now, not then.

The person you were no longer exists. No need to hang on.

The decisions you made in the past are already made. You can’t change them.

I have no regrets anymore. I used to have them. I’m sure a lot of you have regrets. But, I don’t.

It’s not that I don’t sometimes think about how things might be better if I had made a different decision. I do that.

What I don’t do is hold on to the past. I don’t identify with the one who made the decision. The decision was just made, and here I am, experiencing the consequences of it.

It’s like the weather. I don’t get upset about it.

Um…maybe you get upset about the weather…

Nevermind, then.

And I don’t just mean big decisions. Small decisions, too. Like when playing the piano, whatever decisions I made that led to a wrong note, I don’t identify with them.

They just happened. On their own.

But, maybe you don’t even see those as being decisions. Maybe you see them as “careless mistakes”. Maybe for you the problem is that you’re not identifying enough.

Uh huh.

Get rid of this concept of “careless mistakes.” It’s not serving you. It’s getting in your way.

Really, you think the ideal situation is that you’re careful all the time? That’s how you want to live your life?

Seriously, have all the best moments in your life occurred when you were the most careful?

No, you’re not looking at it that way. Instead, you’re looking at the worst moments, and noticing how they happened when you weren’t careful.

Fine.

Have it your way.

I can just see it now, on your gravestone:

“Here lies [insert your name here].
He/she/it never made a mistake.”

Really, that’s all it will say. They will literally not be able to think of anything else to engrave other than (1) you never did anything wrong, and (2) you’re lying there in the ground.

That’s because if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not making anything else happen either.

A rock makes no mistakes.

“Here lies [insert your name here].
He/she/it will never make another mistake again.”

If you want to stop dwelling in the past, you have to see that mistakes are not bad things. Yes, they might lead to consequences that feel bad. But the mistakes themselves had to happen, felt good at the time, and also lead to good consequences.

You have a choice as to whether you want to identify with them.

I know, you don’t see it that way.

Also, there’s an irony here in that most of you are going to use my own words to beat yourselves up about not being able to choose to stop identifying with your mistakes.

Go ahead, knock yourself out.

Really, I’m serious. That kind of pain is what teaches you how to let go.

Are you skeptical about meditation and mindfulness?

It doesn’t seem very scientific to you? You don’t get what the big deal is?

Fine.

It doesn’t have to make sense to you. It will work whether you believe in it or not.

I certainly don’t want you thinking that I’m trying to convince you of anything. Ugh…that would be horrible.

If you’re determined to be a skeptic, great. Keep doing it until it stops working. (I can already hear you arguing with me)

“I just don’t like to waste my time with things that aren’t evidence-based.”

Good for you. You still think I’m trying to convince you, don’t you? Nope.

For those of you who are curious to learn more, let’s talk about that.

You can benefit quite a lot from this, so I would recommend taking it seriously. You should have learned about this in school, but I’m sure that didn’t happen. Oh well. Better late than never.

See, the truth is that you’re fine as a human being. No problem there, regardless of how you feel about it.

The only problem is that you have this mind that keeps trying to tell you that you’re not fine. And you listen to it. That’s no surprise…you can’t live your life ignoring you mind all the time, can you?

Your mind has power over you. It controls your behavior. It dictates how you look at the world. (by the way, when I say “mind”, I don’t mean “brain”)

And what minds like to do more than anything is defend their ways of looking at the world.

That’s fine, until it’s not.

For instance, if you’re trying to learn a new skill, such as a musical instrument, you can’t do everything based on your existing worldview. Instead, you’re going to have to look at things in a new way.

Your mind won’t like that, and will try everything it can think of to stop you.

The solution is basically to present your mind with more data from the real world, so that it’s forced to confront the fact that it’s wrong. And then, it will create a new worldview to take into account the new information.

With that new worldview will come more possibilities for how you can behave. How you can move. How you can think. What mistakes you’re allowed to make. What is “dangerous” and what is “safe”.

And you suddenly find that you are now capable of learning things you simply couldn’t before.

Self-discipline is overrated.

You don’t need that. Come on. Just accept where you are.

You don’t want to do the thing. Why are you forcing yourself to do it if you don’t want to do it?

Is that fun?

It’s certainly not fun for me to listen to that. To listen to you complain about how much you don’t want to do it. How much you are trying to force yourself to do it. How upset you are that you can’t stop yourself from doing all those other things instead.

What do you have against yourself, anyway?

What’s wrong with your desires, interests, and urges?

Don’t try to pull me into this. I don’t support you in it. I want to be helpful, but I can’t agree with this.

If you tell me that you want to practice the piano, but you can’t because you keep watching Netflix instead, what am I supposed to say?

It sounds like you want to be watching Netflix and don’t want to be practicing the piano.

Are you really going to stand there and deny that with a straight face?

That’s just bizarre. I don’t know what to say to that. It makes my head hurt.

“I just need to try harder.”

OK, so try harder. Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.

Why do you even say that kind of thing to me?

“You’re being condescending. I was just sharing.”

Oh, OK.

Let me share, then. I don’t want to be “supportive.” I don’t want to “respect” you. I don’t want to give you “space to make your own decisions.”

Give me a break. You don’t need my permission to make your own decisions.

You make my head hurt.

I don’t consider that a bad thing, however. It can be helpful for you, even, if you listen to my complaining and understand it to be a sign that there’s a problem with your behavior.

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, and it made me think that perhaps I get too meta at times. Maybe it’s hard to tell when I’m serious and when I’m joking. I wish I could clear that up for you, but I’m not sure that’s possible.

Everything I say is meta. That’s because I don’t take language as seriously as you do.

Sucks to be you, really.

Do you realize that I’m not even writing this to you?

Back to self-discipline.

You don’t need it. It’s based on a lie, anyway.

I once asked a therapist how I can get myself to exercise more. I had tried so many times to commit to some kind of schedule, but it just wouldn’t stick.

She suggested that I try taking the pressure off myself and just not do it.

So I tried it. I said “I’m not going to let myself exercise until I have an urge to do it.” And I wait for that urge to show up.

In the meantime, all kinds of other nasty things showed up. More urgency, disgust, doubt, etc.

However, it took a couple months before the urge to exercise showed up.

I know you wouldn’t wait that long. So, you’ll probably never be able to try this experiment for yourself. (just reminding you that the “unsubscribe” link is at the bottom of this email)

I no longer tell myself stories about how “if I could only get myself to commit to this thing, then it will be OK.” I understand that it just doesn’t work like that.

Commitments are about the present, not the future.

Don’t make me come after you.

You can’t just sit and read about things.

You have to actually do them.

That’s the only way you will learn. By doing.

Stop trying to take so much responsibility for the process. You were taught to do that in school, but it’s wrong.

You will learn whether you like it or not. As long as you’re in the right environment.

You don’t believe me?

How did you learn to walk? Talk? Recognize your friends’ faces? Say your name? Pick out your favorite foods at the grocery store? Text? Open a door? Watch TV? Sweep the floor? Take out the trash? Fill up a glass of water? Pick up a glass of water?

Come on, it’s not that complicated.

You know full well that you didn’t learn those skills by carefully controlling everything you did according to some rigid rubric around right vs. wrong.

You learned them because you were in an environment where you just had to learn them. You had no teacher. The environment itself was your teacher. You were not the student. Your body-mind was the student.

You didn’t have to take notes, study for an exam, or follow instructions.

Instead, you stumbled around until you figured it out. And you made plenty of mistakes along the way. However, you don’t remember those mistakes, because you didn’t feel any shame when they happened.

But when it comes to music, the game is different.

Teachers don’t trust that students are able to learn, and students don’t trust themselves.

Students are more concerned about evaluation of self:

Am I going to pass or fail?

How am I doing compared to my peers?

Am I going to embarrass myself?

I’m not good at this.

Teachers are more concerned about evaluation of self:

Am I a good teacher?

How am I doing compared to my peers?

My students’ performance is a reflection of me.

Why don’t my students respect me?

Blah blah blah.

Right now, you’re either nodding in agreement, or shaking with anger.

Whatever.

That’s not learning. That’s just staying exactly right where you are.

Put this article down and go practice something. Let it teach you whatever it has to teach you.

Know that afterwards, you will be somewhere else.

Here are the rules for being in my circle:

1. Don’t act like a victim.
2. Don’t treat me like a persecutor.
3. Don’t try to teach me.

If we’re friends, you can do anything you want.

But, professionally, here, I’m the teacher.

I know that’s condescending. However, this is my boundary.

If you break any of the above rules, I will get sucked into it very easily. That’s not what I want. Is it what you want?

For example:

You: I get so nervous about performing on the piano.
Me: Yeah, me too. Have you tried being mindful of the sensations of anxiety?
You: How dare you!? I was just venting, not looking for advice!

Wrong answer.

A much better way of starting this conversation would have been to say something like “Hey, I just want to vent about how nervous I get performing on the piano.”

Then, I would have known exactly what you’re looking for, and could have responding accordingly.

If you catch yourself saying any of the following to me, shut your mouth and go think about your life choices:

– You’re so condescending.
– You’re so arrogant.
– You’re being manipulative.
– You don’t know everything.
– You don’t know what’s best for everyone.
– You have no right to tell me what to do.
– I’m not upset. I just find it interesting that you…
– I’m not bothered. I just don’t understand why you…
– I’m not triggered. I just think it’s weird that you…
– That’s a very white male thing to say.
– You should make “I” statements.
– You’re the one who was rude to me. I am not obligated to care about your feelings.
– You didn’t even apologize to me.
– I told my friend and he agrees that you’re being offensive.
– I’m not going down that rabbit-hole again.
– This is why you have no friends.
– I think it’s sad how much self-awareness you lack.
– You’re never going to succeed if you keep treating people that way.
– You violated my boundaries.
– Don’t contact me.
– Get out of my consciousness!
– *barf*

Don’t get me wrong. I can (and will) take the time to decode each of these and try to get a sense of what’s going on inside you. But, what I’d rather do here is teach music and mindfulness. Not be your therapist.

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I ain’t got the training, either.