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You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today is a special episode, a conversation with beloved meditation teacher Pema Chödrön, about something I think many of us feel in our current climate. The challenge of living with vulnerability.
Pema Chödrön is a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the author of When Things Fall Apart, Start Where You Are, and How to Meditate. With Sounds True, Ani Pema, as she is often called by her friends and students, has created many audio learning programs and online courses, including a powerful course on living with vulnerability. This conversation is a rebroadcast of a webinar that originally launched the Living with Vulnerability online course.
The webinar featured questions from listeners about their own challenges in dealing with loss and uncertainty, including questions about feeling regrets and how to work with chronic illness and grief. With warmth and intelligence, Ani Pema has a gift for helping us embrace whatever challenges we’re experiencing with a whole lot of tenderness. Here’s a special episode on living with vulnerability with Pema Chödrön. Ani Pema, welcome.
Pema Chödrön: Hello there, Tami. I’m ready for questions.
TS: Alright. Let’s get right into it. There you are—ready to roll. I want to begin with the title, Living with Vulnerability. Some people, I think, when they hear the word “vulnerability” feel quite uncomfortable. Other people are, “Finally, someone’s going to talk about the times we live in and how I feel in the aging process”—and this tremendous sense of fragility that I think more and more people are tuning into. So, tell me a little bit about living with vulnerability, especially for those people who see this as something not very attractive. Really?
PC: Yes. So, living with vulnerability. Well, it’s interesting because this has been a topic that I’ve been interested in for years and years and have taught about in many different ways. For instance, the book When Things Fall Apart, that’s a lot about vulnerability, right, when things fall apart. Then currently, particularly because of Brené Brown, there’s all this positive teaching on the topic of vulnerability, which pleases me immensely because it’s so important to me.
The reason it’s important to me is because I have found that until people really learn, not so much learn, but how the experience of turning toward or softening to or welcoming things that are uncomfortable and edgy energies and any kind of difficult feelings, what we might call painful feelings. So, vulnerability is definitely in that category of things that, if we move toward them, they have so much to teach us. And if we hide from them, it’s actually hiding from a whole aspect of life, which is important. Part of a human life is this vulnerability.
You mentioned aging. There’s sickness and aging. Those things are inevitable in a human life and there’s many other things that cause us to feel vulnerable and uncertain as well. So, some sense of moving toward those things is a way to embrace life fully. Because when you cut out whole parts of your life that you cannot deal with, in the process, you are closing down to life in general, just trying to find something that is certain and predictable. It’s very unlikely that you’ll find it for more than a very short period of time. So, getting used to and having a wholehearted relationship with tenderness, with vulnerability, with things falling apart, it’s really, is a life changer. I can say that.
TS: Ani Pema, what are the key capacities or trainings that someone needs to have under their belt in order to turn toward this vulnerability with any type of confidence and a willingness to get in there?
PC: Right, right. Well, there’s two things I would say. The first thing is meditation, the type of meditations that allow you to become extremely familiar with your own mind and your own habitual pattern with an attitude of acceptance, an attitude of lovingkindness, an attitude of kindness in general toward your own perhaps very disruptive habitual pattern, and your mental states. So, becoming very, very familiar as a way of developing a deep, deep, unshakable, friendly friendship with yourself.
The other is that some kind of somatic training, some kind of ability to stay with your body, to feel your body, to be able to have a sense of your body. So, touching in. There’s many disciplines currently that you can do that with, somatic experiencing, for instance, but many others as well. So, for instance, Reggie Ray does a lot with body and so do other teachers as well. But even with just meditation, if you become accustomed to not just meditating with your head, but more meditating with your heart and having a sense of being very grounded when you meditate—if you’re sitting in a chair, your feet on the floor, your butt on the seat, and if you’re sitting on a cushion, a sense of where your legs are, where your feet are, what that feels like, what’s your body feels like.
So, for instance, just as a simple way of somatic experiencing is that when you begin meditating, you do a kind of … If people are familiar with a body scan, where you start at the top of the head and you just slowly move down through your whole body, just touching in with what you’re feeling in your body, every part of your body, all the way down, looking for any tension and just putting your attention there and breathing, let things open up and just all the way down to the soles of your feet and then slowly, slowly coming up again.
So, getting embodied before you start to meditate and carrying that into your life. So, for instance, someone was just telling me today about how when she gets very worked up, her practice is to feel her feet on the floor, to just ground herself in space, touch the earth, and be present physically, and then also have a large sense of space around her. So, that combination is something that she finds very, very powerful. Because she can do it anytime, it’s always available to her. It’s a way of working.
For instance, that would be a way of working with feelings of vulnerability—that you could feel your feet, ground yourself in your body, be fully embodied, and at the same time just have a sense of how much space there is around you. Literally, the space in the room you’re in and the space outside the room. You can go to the whole universe if you really want to talk space. So, does that address what you were asking?
TS: It does, and I have a further question, which is in the online course, Living with Vulnerability, you emphasize that we can touch those experiences of shakiness or fragility with kindness. As you’re describing turning toward our physical experience, where does the kindness come in?
PC: In being embodied or being …
TS: Yes, and in …
PC: … the touching and …
TS: … feeling our feet. It’s sort of neutral. It’s not necessarily kind or not kind. What do you mean by bringing kindness into the picture?
PC: Yes. Sometimes, it’s difficult to find adequate words, but it’s like warmth. I guess you could say warmth. That word’s not going to mean something to everybody who’s listening. But it will mean something to some people. A sense of embracing. So, for instance, if you’re doing a body scan, where’s the tenderness? Well, it pretty much, it seems neutral, neutral, neutral. But then when you hit physical pain or you hit a numb place because there’s some kind of trauma or something like that, then that’s when the kindness really comes in.
Rather than feel that you’ve done something wrong, feel that there’s something wrong with your body, for instance—that’s so common, so common—you instead have a tender attitude, a gentle attitude, a sense of warmth directed toward physical pain or toward the low, derogatory self-image or any of that. I don’t know. Is that too vague?
TS: No, I think it’s helpful.
PC: Maybe I’m more specific in the class. I don’t know.
TS: Well, we have a specific question for you. We have Yohana, [who] has called in from California, so we’ll move right to Yohana. Yohana, welcome.
Yohana: Oh, thank you so much, and thank you Pema for your teachings. They have helped me so much on this journey. One of the things I’ve learned is to open up to feelings, but that means that there are a lot of good but also bad feelings. I wanted to ask for your advice about how to work with past mistakes, but mostly with regrets—and regrets about having hurt people. It just hurts so much.
PC: Right. Yes. Well, the main thing is to be willing to acknowledge with … Are you capable of feeling regret without guilt, do you think?
Yohana: I’m not so sure about that.
PC: That’s the trick, actually. That’s the trick. If it’s a trick that you currently, it’s not in your toolbox so to speak, but that is the trick—is how to be able to acknowledge, yes, in fact, I really did. Like in my case, there’s a number of people in my life that I really, really hurt when I was in my early 30s. Of course, I have just enormous regret. But somehow, I’ve learned over the years to not have it turn into guilt. The difference between regret and guilt as an experience for me personally is that regret has sort of a heart quality, like there’s this expression, genuine heart of sadness. It has a sort of sadness.
It’s almost like the feeling of “I wish I hadn’t.” Not only do I wish I hadn’t done that because it hurt the other people. I wish I had known better at that time. I wish I had been wiser at that time. So, it’s almost like sending some kind of kindness to that younger person. But guilt is, it becomes a sort of a major, to use the Buddhist language, ego thing where the big deal: I’m bad. There’s a lot of solid self-image about I’m bad, I’m bad—and you just don’t let go of it. It’s almost if I let go of it, then that means I’m not sorry enough or something.
Yohana: That makes so much sense. Yes.
PC: Yes. Yes. Because if you can acknowledge with regret without it being such a big drama about yourself and how bad you are, but just more of a sense of … So, I don’t know how long ago it was that you hurt people that you feel the regret, but I have some sympathy for that.
Yohana: Quite some time ago.
PC: Yes. So, having some sympathy for that younger person who didn’t know any better at the time. Then you can have a sense of laying it aside. It’s like in the 12 steps, they actually have steps where you acknowledge, you do a fearless inventory of everyone you’ve hurt and everything, and it’s very important to finally fess up to it. Or that’s kind of harsh language. But it’s very important to acknowledge, and with the regret, and then go forward because you can be freed of these things if you can do that fully without the guilt.
Yohana: Yes. That makes a lot, a lot of sense. What you said about … It’s like I can’t stop feeling guilty because then it means I’m not really sorry.
PC: That’s right. Yes.
Yohana: That last part just resonates so much. But when I think about the regrets, it’s almost my heart hurts physically and I get so sad.
PC: Well, sad is good.
Yohana: I’m sorry.
PC: Sad is good. Sad is good. Let sad be a connector for you with humanity. Let sad be a connector with that—life has sadness and life has joy and life has hard times and life has beautiful times. It’s a complete picture and you can’t live a human life without all those aspects being part of it. It’s some kind of myth that you could avoid all the painful parts and just have the pleasant part. That’s definitely never going to happen. Everybody tries and it never happens. They keep trying anyway. So, I don’t know. So, the fact that it hurts and you feel sad, think of that as actually good. Think of that as growth. That’s what growth feels like.
TS: Beautiful answer.
Yohana: Thank you so much. It really, really makes a lot of sense. Thank you deeply.
PC: You’re welcome.
TS: Thanks for calling, Yohana.
Yohana: Thank you.
TS: A follow-up question for you, Ani Pema. I heard some feedback from people who have engaged with the Living with Vulnerability online course and this idea that we’re supposed to turn toward—and that this gives us the opportunity, turning toward our sadness, that then we can move through it, not around it. There can be this agenda. This is what I’ve heard from people, like, “Okay. I’m turning toward it. I want to move through the sadness to the other side. Right? There is another side. Let’s go.” So, how do you make this move without having that agenda?
PC: Yes. But what does it mean exactly, agenda? It means that you have …
TS: Somewhere I’m going. I want to get to the other side.
PC: I see. That’s right. I’m willing to do this if it’s all going to feel fine on the other side.
TS: Yes, exactly. Sadness is going to be a gateway, but let’s get through it.
PC: Yes. So, actually, it’s almost trite, but nowadays it’s a popular idea actually that the actual journey is—the learning is in the journey. You don’t get to a future place; it’s like now, right now, as you’re turning toward. And the learning, too, that you’re big enough to hold sadness, for instance. You’re big enough to hold vulnerability. You’re big enough to hold those things and you can, if you feel yourself contracting, you can expand. If you feel physical contracting, you can expand and there’s various things you can do.
But that in itself, then, becomes the growth. That is the growth. It’s like people who want to be on the other side but don’t want to do the work. It’s not really about reaching someplace. It’s about a slow process of growth. Have any of you ever in your lifetime been able to say when you suddenly went from adolescence or went from being a teenager to being more mature or something like that?
It’s just a process and you can’t exactly pinpoint it. You can say when your birthday is and when you turn 21 or something like that. But when do you actually feel the shift? Well, usually, you feel it in retrospect. So, you don’t get to actually watch yourself grow, but you can have a certain confidence that the growth is happening each time that you’re willing to stay present with your experience with a kindness.
TS: Alright. We have Jacqueline from Portland ready to go. Jacqueline, welcome.
Jacqueline: Thank you so much, Pema. I’ll briefly say thank you deeply for your practices. I’ll say that the practices of working hard to stay with those shaky feelings of vulnerability have, as you say, been life-changing and they have deepened my compassion for both myself and others. My question is, in conflicts when I want to stay open and grateful to everyone for what they can bring me and teach me, are there also some circumstances where it’s also beneficial to draw boundaries and to appeal for accountability?
PC: So, is it also necessary in certain situations to draw boundaries and have accountability? Absolutely. Yes, it is. Definitely. So, sometimes people take these teachings and use them, sadly, as a reason for staying, for instance, in an abusive relationship. Let’s just use that as an example. Often in relationships that are difficult and challenging, I think part of the learning is, part of it is learning to stay present with your feelings, and another part is knowing when to say enough is enough or knowing that in certain circumstances, the kindest thing you can do for the other person as well as for yourself is to set boundaries.
So, for instance, just to go back to an abusive relationship, it is not in any way kind to allow someone to be abusive. It’s definitely very traumatizing and harmful for you, but it’s also very, very damaging for them. So, anything you can do to set boundaries can be extremely helpful for somebody who has such a strong habitual pattern of aggression, for instance. If you always respond in the same way, then that keeps their habitual pattern going. Whereas if you draw boundaries and say, no, this isn’t okay, this isn’t acceptable—however it is you want to draw the boundary—that’s a big learning experience right there, is how to draw boundaries. We learn a lot through our mistakes on that one. But yes. When you learn that, that’s often—usually, actually—the kindest, kindest, most compassionate thing you can do for the other person as well.
Jacqueline: That really resonates with me. It is challenging to learn how to do it with kindness and with gentleness. But I do agree that it can be very, very beneficial. To me, when others do it to me, it can be a very important learning experience and that I can offer that to others as well. Thank you.
PC: That’s right. You know that if someone offers you feedback and you can hear that it’s coming from a place of that they care about you, then you’re much more apt to be able to actually hear that and not just be defensive. But in any case, drawing boundaries is helpful to you and to the other person. But it’s even more, even … They get the point more quickly if you’re firm. It’ll not always sound all that gentle—you’re firm and direct, but it’s not coming from a place of hatred. I think that’s important. Yes.
Jacqueline: Thank you very much.
TS: Jacqueline, thank you. Thanks for joining us. We have another caller. This is a gentleman named John from Toronto. Ani Pema, are you ready?
PC: I’m ready for John. Yes.
TS: Alright John, welcome.
John: Hi, Tami. I’m really honored to ask a question. So, my question is, sometimes making friends with the internal nasty fight, I feel like I overdo it and it gets me into thick mud, So it’s like I lose all energy to practice. It can get reduced to crying, sleeping for half the day, or the dog doesn’t get walked and pees inside. I got divorced recently and my husband, he really wanted an open marriage and for my sex addiction recovery, I knew I couldn’t handle it. So, anyway, I’m not sure whether to go into formal practice more deeply and use sangha energy to help me worm through it, or if that will just add to the wet mud and there won’t be enough straw to use a compost, as an analogy. Does that make sense?
PC: Yes, it does. So, what you describe, it sounds like a very natural kind of—I think it would normally be called depression. But when a marriage breaks up, it’s so common to experience something like that. It’s a kind of death, isn’t it really, and a sense of loss. If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that the making friends with yourself or the kindness toward yourself can just lead to more depression in a way because then you start feeling sorry for yourself and start, as you say, crying, which is not a bad thing in itself. But you’re saying you get swept away with sadness and because of being kind to yourself?
John: Yes. Well, yes. Maybe it becomes kind of like addicted to … Crying is cathartic, but then maybe that emotional release becomes kind of necessary in terms of all the other things that I’m doing in my life that make me sad. So, it’s like, it just seems like it may not be the best cycle.
PC: Yes, yes, yes. You always have to trust yourself on these things. I can’t see that kindness actually could ever really lead you astray. Did you ask me if it would be better to just get on with my practice and—Do you still do Zen practice?
John: Yes. I do. So, I was thinking should I try to do something in a formal setting where there’s a sangha schedule and people want to say, “Well, you didn’t get up this morning, John. What’s going on?”
PC: I see. Yes. Oh, gosh. That’s really a good question. I think that it could be very, very supportive and helpful. I say that really based on living here in the monastery in Nova Scotia and how people come often with exactly your kind of situation and they find the schedule and the discipline combined with a lot of warmth here. But that combination of you get up in the morning and you go and you practice and you have silence in the morning and you practice all morning. Then you work with people in the afternoon and it’s all very monastically predictable. People find that really, really helpful, particularly if there’s a teaching component happening. Have you ever done any IMS practices, any vipassana retreats or Spirit Rock or anything like that?
John: No, I haven’t.
PC: Yes. I think it might be interesting to you to just look at the schedule of their offerings, what they’re offering, and see if there’s something that really appeals to you. Because the reason I suggest this, and it might not be a suggestion that you want to follow up on, but the reason I suggest it is because there’s very, very good discipline and it’s also a very soft atmosphere, a gentle atmosphere. However, you were drawn to Zen. So, maybe some kind of short [inaudible 00:29:42] type thing might be better. You have to experiment a little bit.
But I think your instinct that maybe to be around people and have some outer discipline, I think that could be really helpful to you, as long as there’s a lot of sitting going on so that you’re able to work with your emotions and all that’s coming up as … In other words, you’re going through a grieving process actually, and you need to be able to go fully through that and not check out so that you’re not really in touch with what’s happening with you in the sense of loss.
John: Yes. Thank you so much.
PC: Does that make sense? You’re welcome.
John: Yes. It definitely does. Thank you.
TS: Thank you. John. Ani Pema, John’s question brought up something I wanted to ask you about, which is I have heard from many people who are interested in the Living with Vulnerability course that they are going through a grieving experience of some kind. In that grief there’s a sense that it’s not even what’s happening at the level of my mind, the person’s mind that really matters. Sometimes, there’s no even storyline happening. But incredible physical sensations of anguish and being leveled by the pure physicality of the experience that feels overwhelming, like somehow I’ve been made a feeble lump. It doesn’t really matter what I’m thinking. I’m just on the couch. How do people work with that experience? It’s so devastating.
PC: Well, it’d be nice if there was just some simple answer I could give you. Well, do this, this, and this and everything will be fine. But again, I think it’s a journey and it’s a journey that involves opening to sorrow and opening to all that physical. For instance, I remember it as being the first time that everything really fell apart for me, and what you’re talking about, the physicality was so intensive at that particular time. It’s never been quite as intense as that since. At one point, I was actually catatonic. I literally couldn’t move off the couch or speak or anything. I just sat there.
So, I know how intense it can get. The main thing, though, is that you are in touch again with your body, that there is a sense of embodiment there. There is a sense. I know people, for instance, who hug themselves at times like that, that sometimes a physical touch can be so incredibly powerful. Even taking your hand and putting it on your cheek and just holding your hand on your cheek, just some kind of tender gesture toward yourself, or the very common one where you take your hand and you put it over your heart.
Those things can be so comforting because it’s physical. You are actually not trying to think anything or getting away from anything. But you’re adding that aspect of “it’s okay.” What I’m feeling feels horrible. I don’t like it. But fundamentally, there’s nothing wrong happening here. You do that by physical gesture, such as touching the heart or touching the face or anything along that line. Hugging oneself. People do different things. The other thing actually, which is in terms of physicality, and this is the last thing that you want to do, but actually is powerful, and that is to dance.
Sometimes, it’s not going out and dancing at a club or something, but just dancing, just getting up in your room and just starting to dance. Dance it. Dance it. People sing too, sometimes. They just open their mouth and sing. So, all those things somehow allow you to be present physically with what’s going on physically with you. So, yes. I understand you do this kind of work, Tami, working with physicality.
TS: I do. No, which is part of the way that I know how painful it can be from my own personal experience and how nonconceptual it can be too. It’s like what is this? Conceptually …
PC: I know.
TS:… I don’t even have a problem with this situation, but my body’s giving me other information.
PC: Absolutely. That’s right. I’ve had experiences in my life where the pain was so intense that—and I had already started meditating. I’ve had more than one in my life, probably quite a few actually, all-nighters where the pain is too intense to sleep and I just sit up all night. I just sit up all night. It’s not what you would normally call meditation. There are no thoughts. There’s not a storyline going on. It’s just sitting with a toothache or something—but searing pain and just sitting there. A couple of these times, I had quite profound insights come from that because it was so intense and it was such a long duration through the whole night.
TS: Would you be willing to share one of the instances and the insight that came? Without necessarily the whole context, but just what the discovery was?
PC: Yes, yes. Well, the one I remember that I’ll share with you, I have shared it before because it was the first one, and the first one was, I was having really, really, really painful relationship with someone that I couldn’t get away from and basically, they hated me. They absolutely hated me. For me, my personality type and stuff, that was like annihilation. It was just terrible. So, usually in my life, I had developed this whole ability to get through that by smiling and being sweet and winning people over. In this case, none of that was working.
So, it really resulted in this intense feeling, which didn’t just have to do with this relationship. I knew it was something very old. Anyway, I sat there all night and just about dawn, I suddenly felt myself physically as a very young child. I was sitting on a chair and my feet didn’t touch the floor, I was so little, and I just had the insight. It was so clear that I had spent my whole life, my whole personality was based on not wanting to feel that I wasn’t okay. Something had happened to this little child, nothing really horrible, no big trauma.
But something had happened where this little child just knew that they better be sweet and nice and the good girl and all of that. Otherwise, maybe their mother was going to turn on them and treat them the way she was treating the older sister or something like that. I don’t really know all the details of it, but all I know is that I realized that my whole personality had been built up around trying to not feel this feeling. That was very profound because it gave me such an insight into my limited persona of identifying as being a certain type of person and my whole style and everything.
It just became so clear to me that it was time to just start feeling those things. So, that night, I actually was able to feel. I got to the, I guess you could call, some kind of bottom of feeling what was completely unacceptable to feel all those years and that it had something to do with “I’m not okay. I’m just basically not lovable and I’m not okay and there’s something wrong with me.” So, I went cold turkey with that feeling, I guess, and it gave me that insight that I wasn’t going to hide from that for those feelings anymore.
TS: I want to go to our next caller in just a moment. We have Sue from Michigan who’s coming. But before we do, I want to say something that’s maybe kind of obvious, but I want to hear what you have to say about it, Ani Pema, which is, I feel the medicine of a conversation like this that we’re having and with you answering questions from Yohana, Jacqueline, John is the medicine of—and we have thousands of people who are joining us right now listening right here live—that there’s this medicine that’s going into the wounded, hurting, painful places and saying, “That’s okay. You’re human. Sadness is a connector. This is the human experience.” Here, Pema Chödrön, a teacher we love and respect, has stayed up all night more than once in anguishing pain and sat with it and gone through it. There’s a way that it’s not normalized that much in our culture.
PC: Yes. That’s for sure.
TS: So, you’re a voice of this kind of sane medicine that people don’t get to hear that much. I’m curious why you think, why is it so rare?
PC: I don’t know. Isn’t it becoming less rare? Aren’t there more TED Talks on this topic and so forth in various forms? I do know that it’s popular, that’s for sure. People who talk about this kind of thing are—people seem to have quite a voracious appetite to hear about this. I think it must connect with some wisdom in us where we already know that that’s where the healing would come from. Not from avoidance.
PC: So, it might be rare. Certainly culturally, it’s rare. But it also seems to be very, very popular or resonant with people, like the people you would reach with Sounds True, for instance. So, I was always very surprised by that. When I wanted to call one of the books When Things Fall Apart, the publisher said, “Oh, no way. We can’t use such a negative title.” I said, “Believe me. I know the audience. People will gobble that up.” In fact, so many people just picked it off the bookshelf because of the title. I want to know about when things fall apart because that’s what’s happening to me. So, it is something that resonates deeply with people. I do find that.
TS: Yes. Alright. We have Sue from Michigan. Sue, welcome.
Sue: Thank you. Thank you, Tami. Pema, it’s a great honor to speak with you. I’ve been following your work for years and, oh, you’ve so helped me throughout my journey. So, it’s a great pleasure to talk with you. My question is about vulnerability in the corporate world. I’ve been working in the corporate world for years and I notice it’s very difficult to be vulnerable in the corporate world, especially when you’re trying to move up the ladder or just get your work done and meet the strategies of the organization.
I noticed it’s often perceived in the workplace as weakness. I’m curious what your take on that is and how you would suggest an approach to maintain that vulnerability—but when there’s a lot of judgment about your vulnerability in the workplace—and still be successful.
PC: Yes, and particularly since you’re a woman, that there’s more … Right? They give you a harder time around that whole subject. Right?
Sue: Absolutely.
PC: Am I correct?
Sue: Absolutely.
PC: Am I guessing?
Sue: You are correct. Yes, and I find women are becoming even more and more, less and less vulnerable. They’re finding that they need to, I guess in terms, toughen up and be like a guy and be like a man and suck it up. It gets very difficult. I am a very open and vulnerable person and I find myself caught in that cycle. I know in my heart that those others are equally as vulnerable as I am and they see that vulnerability in themselves when they see it in me. But just to be successful in the workplace, it can be quite challenging. I’m curious what your take on that is.
PC: Well, I will answer you, but I want to also say something that’s fascinating to me is that a lot of these companies, like Google, for instance, and Facebook, for instance, and Apple, for instance, they all have teachers like me come in and teach this stuff to their staff. So, do you have anything like that at your place?
Sue: No. Unfortunately, in the companies that I’ve worked for, no. I could be working in organizations that really just aren’t supportive of that. Because I know that even Brené Brown speaks, as you’ve discussed, speaks on that subject. I think she’s a pretty big speaker in one of the big three automotive environments where she speaks on that and I think they’re more supportive of that. But in the workplaces that I have been in, there is an issue there and there is not that level of support.
PC: Yes, yes, yes. And you feel committed to staying in that particular environment because it’s meaningful to you, I’m assuming.
Sue: Well, interestingly enough, I just left the organization that just didn’t offer that level of support. But I find that …
PC: Yes. Well, good. Good for you because you probably could get employment in an organization that would be more sympathetic to that approach. For instance, one that was run by women, you might find other women wouldn’t have to be so hard edged, because there are a lot of women in the organization. Then they appreciate the feminine qualities. But it isn’t, of course, just a feminine quality, as we know, the vulnerability. It’s just that women do have a little bit of a lead in terms of more culturally, it’s more acceptable for women to feel those things, maybe not in your former job, but in general culturally than for men.
So, it’s nice to see that a lot of men currently are getting more and more in touch with that side of themselves. But anyway, in the corporate world, I think it might be that if it’s really so antithetical to those values, then it is best to leave, just as you have, and get employment elsewhere where the values are more appreciated.
Sue: Yes. I’m curious, if I may ask just a quick follow up question. I feel this need to extend that to organizations that really need that. I think in the last corporate jobs that I’ve had, I guess I’ve almost felt this need to mentor the organizations so they could support that type of an environment, like the Googles and the Facebooks. I wonder, I’ve questioned myself like maybe I’ve just tried to take on too much in those corporate worlds.
Even though I am seeking and am probably going to be getting an offer soon in an organization that’s much more suitable to me, but I’m just curious, how is that going to help the world? How is that going to help those environments that aren’t supportive of that? Do we just let that go and take care of what we can within our own bubble and just leave that to being taken care of itself?
PC: Well, that sounds so sort of fatalistic.
Sue: I know. I know. I know.
PC: I think that you want to work where there’s some opening to wanting to work in the way that you’re describing. In other words, if there’s no opening, if it’s just currently at this point that that particular organization definitely doesn’t want anything to do with that way of thinking, then it is futile to try to change it, I think. Yes. I do think. But if you feel there’s some kind of opening, someone in a position of power who really wants this to happen, then I think it’s really worth trying.
Sue: Okay. Alright. Thank you, Pema.
PC: You’re welcome.
TS: Thank you, Sue, for being part of our live call. Ani Pema. One other thing I want to make sure we touch on is that the subtitle of this new course is A Training in Making Friends with Your Mind.
PC: Making friends with your mind. Yes.
TS: I want to speak to that person who has a strong inner critic, which I think is probably a lot of us, and that voice in our mind that says, “You could have done a better job with XYZ. You could have prepared. You could have said this. You could have, etc., etc., etc.” A voice that we hear. “You could have not eaten that thing, or the thing you’re eating right now,” or whatever it might be. What’s some good heart advice for how to work with that voice right when it’s happening?
PC: Oh, yes. Well, I think the main thing is that you actually really hear the voice, that you hear the harshness in the voice. It’s like that you catch yourself being critical of yourself. You catch yourself. That’s the first step to actually really notice how hard you are being on yourself. Sometimes, people will … I’ve led, for instance, meditation sessions, which are all about “Notice your tone of voice when you ….” For instance, if I’m giving the instruction, if your thoughts take you away, you’re giving your … Your object of your meditation is your breath. If your thoughts take you away and you get completely lost in thought, at some point, your mind will come back and just very gently recognize that and then come back to your breath again.
So, I’ve had sessions where people have done that for a while and then I say, “Notice your tone of voice when you notice that you’ve been thinking, sometimes for the entire sitting period.” People, sometimes it’s a revelation to them to hear how harsh they are on themselves. Like, bad dog, slapping themselves practically. Someone called it, in one of my classes, they call it the little general sitting on your shoulder. Sometimes with the whip, as somebody said. So, that’s the first step, Tami, I think really is noticing your tone of voice, noticing how hard you are on yourself, and then some kind of tenderness coming in.
Say, “I don’t want to be that mean to myself anymore. I don’t want to be so hard on myself.” Actually maybe, well, when you’re actually meditating, if given the instruction, but notice your tone of voice and if it’s harsh, just actually say it again if you’re actually noticing that you’re thinking insane thinking, and you say thinking as if you’re hitting yourself or something. Say it again, but say it gentler. Do it again. Train and the same thing is happening, but with more gentle kindness.
So, I think that’s really, really a key thing is to notice and have this sense of, oh, look. I’m doing it again. I’m being mean to myself again. Here I go being mean to myself again, and then lightening up. When you realize you’re doing it, it can produce a lot of sadness, in a way that you don’t want to continue to treat yourself that way. Then there’s what you were talking about earlier, like that there’s actually nothing about you that can come up that you can’t say to yourself.
It’s essentially no problem. It’s okay. Whatever you’re feeling right now, even if you’re being harsh on yourself right now, essentially you’re okay. You’re okay. It would be good to lighten up and not be so harsh, but just know that whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re feeling, there’s nothing wrong with it, that it is okay, not a problem, and developing that all embracing attitude toward your very being.
TS: We have a final caller, Ani Pema.
PC: Okay. Okay.
TS: This is Chris from Albuquerque. Chris, welcome.
PC: From Albuquerque.
Chris: Yes. Hello. Thank you so much. It’s great to be here.
TS: Thank you.
PC: Hello, Chris.
Chris: Yes. I’ll ask my question. Pema, I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts about how to work with chronic illness in the context of vulnerability or vulnerability practice. It’s something I deal with and it just requires a daily confrontation with extreme fatigue, with an awareness that my capacities are no longer what they once were. So, I’m just wondering what that might look like in terms of using this as an opportunity to work with vulnerability.
PC: Right. Do you have some form of immune breakdown, like a chronic fatigue or something like that?
Chris: Yes, it seems to be something in the chronic fatigue category that also has a strong component of just chronic severe sleep deprivation. So, I have that consistent somatic experience of just extreme fatigue. So, there’s a constant feeling of that in my body. Then of course, the thoughts that go along with that.
PC: Do you have, along with the fatigue, do you have the feeling of no chi, like no life force, like hard to lift your arm, practically?
Chris: Yes. I think that’s a good description. There’s the physical experience of that, of that energy drain, but also a mental counterpart to that where I just feel as if even my sense of self is almost dissolving or crumbling beneath the weight of this ongoing day-to-day experience.
PC: Right, right, right, right, right. How long have you had it?
Chris: It’s been going on for around four or five years now.
PC: Yes. I had something like that, Chris. I had it for over 20 years and we just called it chronic fatigue when it [inaudible 00:55:53]. So, I think one of the things that I’ve found in working with this was as much relaxing with the situation as possible and trying to develop, I don’t know. In my case, I couldn’t work anymore or anything that. So, I developed a lifestyle where I could sleep as much as I needed to. I had very, very little on my schedule and things like that to allow myself to relax with the illness and not be tormented by not being able to keep up, not being able to keep up with a schedule or keep up with how I used to be.
So, the mental component that causes so much suffering, I’ve found in talking with many people who have a similar thing—that is not necessary. And it’s the mental component where it just upsets you so much to not be able to do what you used to be able to do. There’s some sense of, people feel different things, shame or embarrassment. As you say, if I’m not that person, that accomplished person that I used to be, who am I now? Right? Do you have that feeling?
Chris: Absolutely, and it’s really helpful what you’re saying, especially the focus on the mental component. I’m just aware of how that really is compounding my suffering, whether I’m comparing how I used to be to how I am now, but also just offering myself that kind of softness, that it’s okay to need these adaptations that you described. With the culture around me, I feel that what’s celebrated is battling against it, somehow powering through, maintaining the former life as long as possible. That’s actually what I’ve done. But in some ways, it’s almost compounded my suffering.
PC: Oh, absolutely. It will compound your suffering definitely. Then that mental anguish, which you can work with meditation with that in terms of noticing your discursive thoughts and your habitual patterns around not being the person that you always identified with any longer. So, if the more that you can realize that and not go down that road with the storylines about that, then let me put it this way: when you do go down that long road and you do have those storylines about poor me and I am feeling I used to be like this and I’m not like that anymore and all of that genre of thinking, that definitely makes you sicker. There’s no question that the mental stress and anguish definitely makes you feel worse.
So, I don’t know. I think what I found was I just had to give in to it. I just had to give in to it. There didn’t seem to be any other way around it. So, I just allowed myself to sleep. I did, and then every once in a while, I’d feel better. You learn tricks like don’t clean out your garage the minute you feel better. Someone told me, someone said, “It like think of energy as like gasoline in a car and you don’t want the car to run out of gas, and that the minute you begin to feel better, you try to go run the car on zero.” So, basically, they said you should think of it in terms of you want to build a kind of bank of energy. You want to build energy so that you have a little energy to do a few things.
Actually, what happens is you really get transformed in the process because first of all, you give up that strong identity of being that other person. You go through the very profound questioning of then who am I now? That gets you closer to realizing that you’re not fixed. You’re not a fixed identity, and currently, you’re someone with chronic fatigue and it feels horrible. You’ll do whatever you can to try to be free of it. But on the other hand, the other thing I found was struggling, struggling, struggling just made me sicker and sicker also.
So, relaxing helps a lot. Relaxing helps a lot. I got to the point where I felt I like had a Zen master behind me with a stick, and every time I started to gear up to my old personality of accomplisher, the person who accomplished so much, that gearing up energy, it would be like I got hit with his stick. All my symptoms would come on dramatically. So, I learned from that. I learned to not gear up, and that was overcoming a major habitual pattern, And I just learned to relax a lot more and be much easier with life.
I learned so much from the process and in my case, I did, I finally discovered that I was allergic to nickel and I had a nickel-backed tooth and I had been basically having metal poisoning all these years. So, that’s what was causing it for me. So, they took the tooth out and then it still took three years to get back to normal. But I did at least find something that could be dealt with. But not everybody does. That’s for sure.
Chris: Yes. Thank you. That’s extremely helpful. I appreciate those insights.
PC: You’re welcome.
TS: Chris, thank you.
Chris: Thank you, Tami.
TS: Pema, in conclusion, I wanted to just have a pith instruction on the idea of unconditional confidence. I know this is something you teach on, and how our listeners can find: what is the source of unconditional confidence when it comes to living with vulnerability?
PC: What is the source of unconditional confidence? Oh, dear, Tami.
TS: Got to ask you a tough question here at the end. Where do we get it? Where do we get this confidence to move forward? I know forward is a word that’s important to you.
PC: Well, see, that’s the thing. It’s like a bank of energy that is always accessible to us and we have to figure out what can we do to access it. In the process, the first thing you learn, and this is a very, very helpful process, you learn what dampens the energy, what closes the energy down, what shuts it down. Then you do learn what opens it up. Someone was saying, “Sometimes, unconditional confidence is like you’re depressed. You get out of bed, and you go and you take a shower, and maybe sing in the shower or something to just get in touch with that, uncover that, or unlock that bank of energy that’s always accessible to you.”
So, it’s like how do you find enthusiasm or joy when you’re feeling depressed and down and despondent? Those are practitioner’s questions. Those are the questions that someone who wants to use their life to wake up begins to ask. Rather than “What kind of pill can I take?”, it’s more like “How do I rouse my unconditional confidence? How do I get in touch with it?”
But I think it’s helpful to think of it as a bank of energy that’s always accessible to us. And we have to see what it is that blocks it and what it is that unlocks it, and then start to go with what unlocks it. Meditation is definitely an excellent, excellent tool for doing just that, to making those kinds of discoveries about what blocks it and what unlocks it. So, I don’t know if that’s what you were expecting, but maybe that’s as pithy as I can get tonight.
TS: I’ve enjoyed our conversation so much. I want to thank you and I want to thank Yohana, Jacqueline, John, Sue, and Chris for your participation. You really made the conversation rich, meaningful, and specific. Ani Pema, thank you.
PC: You’re welcome, Tami, and thank you very, very much. I hope people enjoy the clinic.
TS: You’ve been listening to a special broadcast of Insights at the Edge on Living with Vulnerability with Pema Chödrön. If you’re interested in taking the online course, please visit soundstrue.com. In this course, you’ll get five hours of teachings, guided audio meditations, a printable course workbook, and journaling exercises to help guide you through your journey of living with vulnerability. Thank you for listening to Insights at the Edge.
You can read a full transcript of today’s interview at soundstrue.com/podcast. If you’re interested, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app. Also, if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave Insights at the Edge a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe we can create a kinder and wiser world. Soundstrue.com: waking up the world.
