I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Saturday Reflections, I take time out to reflect.
Today: more on responding to shenpa, that feeling of being hooked when things don’t go the way you want.
In Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, Pema Chödrön uses the example of Odysseus to show how difficult it is for a person not to heed the call of their “own personal sirens” — the demands your brain makes for impulsive, compulsive action whether that is an addictive behavior, an angry outburst, or simply devolving into perseverating about something we can’t change.
Odysseus, wanting to avoid the call of the sirens — beautiful maidens who called irresistibly to sailors, leading to the sailors’ crashing on the rocks and drowning — had his seamen tie him to the ship’s mast. No matter how compelling the women’s cries became, Odysseus could not steer his ship to them. Meanwhile, he had his men put wax plugs in their ears so they couldn’t hear the call.
I’m not entirely sure this analogy works, because you cannot tie yourself onto any kind of mast to prevent unskilled, unhealthy action in the fact of the call of your own personal sirens. Where it does work for me is highlighting just how demanding and distracting the hooked feeling that Chödrön calls shenpa — that feeling of being hooked by craving, by aversion, by confusion — can be.
I am tired of being at the mercy of the sirens inside my mind who lead me away from what’s peaceful and wholesome, instead towards chaos, upset, wrong action.
Chödrön writes:
Each of us can be an active participant in creating a nonviolent future simply by how we work with shenpa when it arises. How individuals like you and I relate to being hooked, these days, has global implications. In that neutral moment, that often highly charged moment, when we can go either way, do we consciously strengthen old fear-based habits, or do we stay on the dot, fully experiencing the agitated, restless energy and letting it naturally unwind and flow on? There will be no lack of opportunities and no lack of material to work with.
Odysseus was curious to hear the sirens’ voice and wanted to be the first to survive hearing it. He had no need to hear it. This is different from what a person faces with their “own internal sirens.”
Chödrön continues:
Looking closely at this process, as I have for some years, it’s easy to see that it takes courage to simply relax with our own dynamic energy, just as it is, without splitting off and trying to escape. It takes the courage, determination, and curiosity of a Ulysses [a.k.a. Odysseus] to stay open and receptive to the energy of shenpa—to the itch and urge of shenpa—and not scratch in a habitual way.
I continue to find this analogy inapt in certain ways, and yet it works for me too. I do find the thoughts that grip my mind like calls from some supernatural beings that wish me ill. And yet I need to open up and listen to them, lean into them because there is no quieting them.
Building up openness to shenpa gradually
Chödrön suggests a three step practice for remaining open and receptive without reacting, like Odysseus tied to the mast:
Acknowledge you’re hooked (with humor, if possible).
Pause, take three conscious breaths, and lean into the energy (with kindness, if possible).
Relax and move on.
She writes, “The biggest challenge in doing this practice is to embrace the restless energy, to stay awake to it rather than automatically exiting.” But by continuing to repeat this practice each time you get hooked you can get in touch with your inner strength and natural openness “for short periods before getting swept away.”
She calls this “excellent, heroic, a huge step in interrupting and weakening our ancient habits.”
Chödrön advises starting by practicing with only small irritations that happen all the time, so as to build up an ability to recognize shenpa, lean into it, and open to its dynamic energy when larger upheavals arrive.
The shenpa of the past week
I’ve suffering three major upsets this past week and I’m sorry to say I didn’t respond in the way I had wished, at least in two cases.
This is a message to me I need to change something, and I think what I need to change is my ability to open up to feel shenpa without automatically acting based on its restless demands on me.
I had already declared that in Newvember I would begin meditating again, but my trip to Atlanta threw me off. Today is a new day. As I travel from Atlanta back home, I’m sure I will have many opportunities to acknowledge I’m hooked, pause and take three conscious breaths, leaning into the energy, then relax and move on.