How to Avoid the Toilet Vortex of Anxiety | Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren
This episode features meditation teachers Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren discussing how to navigate anxiety, boredom in meditation, judgmentalism, and reactivity. They share insights on fostering community, self-compassion, and practical tips for parents and dealing with grief.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Introduction to Meditation Party and Community Aspect
Recognizing Unnoticed Internal States and Personal 'Shticks'
Working with Fear: Death, Failure, and Social Acceptance
Addressing Monotony and Distraction in Meditation Practice
Overcoming Boredom and Plateaus in Meditation
The Importance of Community and Diverse Tools in Practice
Cultivating Compassion for Self and Others
The Purpose of Meditation: Caring for Life
Navigating the Idea of Being a 'Failed Meditator'
Exploring Different Meditation Techniques and Consistency
Distinguishing Between 'Useful' Rumination and Fixation
Meditation and Mindfulness for Parents with Young Children
Understanding and Engaging with Grief and Mourning
4 Key Concepts
Toilet Vortex of Anxiety
This describes a downward spiral where being critical or 'shitty' to oneself leads to being critical or 'shitty' to others, which in turn makes one feel worse about oneself, perpetuating a negative cycle. The practice aims to back out of this spiral by cultivating self-compassion.
Unfixation
This refers to the process of releasing oneself from a state of being helplessly stuck in repetitive, often negative, thought patterns. The goal is not to shut down the thought entirely but to remove the compulsive, fixated quality, allowing the thought's energy to dissipate naturally.
Grief vs. Mourning
Grief is defined as the internal experience of loss, encompassing the feelings and sensations associated with it. Mourning, in contrast, refers to the external practices and rituals engaged in to face, express, honor, and ultimately release that grief, which our contemporary society has largely lost.
Constructive Anguish
This concept acknowledges that a certain amount of thinking, worrying, and planning can be useful and productive. It differentiates this from mindless, rote repetition of stress and perseveration that doesn't lead to solutions or insights.
7 Questions Answered
Yes, realizing you've been taken away by thoughts and bringing yourself back is the essence of meditation. The more you practice, the quicker you'll notice the drifting and return to your focus.
Accepting the sameness and boredom can sometimes shift a plateau. It can also be helpful to try a slightly different technique, work with a teacher, or engage in community practice to gain new perspectives and shift your focus.
Taking loving kindness practice seriously, warming up your own internal 'weather' to be less at war with yourself, and deliberately maintaining and establishing new relationships can help you be cooler to yourself and others, leading to better responses.
No, there's no such thing as a failed meditator. The right meditation is the one that works for you, and that can change over time. Experimentation, trying different guided meditations, and short, frequent practices are all valid approaches.
The question 'Is this useful?' aims to unfixate from repetitive thought, not necessarily to compartmentalize in a negative way. While some forms of 'tucking away' thoughts can be helpful (like a visualization before sleep), the goal is to avoid aversion or hostility towards the thought, as that can make it stronger.
It often looks like a 'f***ing disaster' (Jeff Warren's words). It involves finding small 'islands of stability' for formal practice (e.g., 20 minutes, 2-3 times a week) and applying mindfulness skills in the moment, such as focusing attention on the feet to maintain boundaries during intense child outbursts, and practicing repair after inevitable screw-ups.
Recognize that grief is the internal experience of loss, while mourning consists of practices to face and release it. Engage in rituals, whether traditional or self-created (like letter writing or creating an altar), and connect with community to share stories and elicit emotional expression, allowing the energy of grief to flow and transform.
25 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Self-Compassion with Metta
Take loving-kindness practice seriously to ‘warm up your internal weather’ and stop being at war with aspects of yourself you dislike or don’t accept, which will positively impact your relationships with others.
2. Prioritize Relationships for Happiness
Be deliberate about maintaining and establishing new relationships, starting with family and extending to social circles, as prioritizing these connections significantly contributes to happiness and avoids regret.
3. Feel Emotions, Respond Thoughtfully
When triggered by fear or anxiety, practice being with the feelings themselves to understand what’s happening internally, allowing you to respond thoughtfully rather than reactively.
4. Prioritize Repair, Not Perfection
In relationships, especially during conflict, prioritize making repairs and recovering faster after mistakes rather than striving for perfection in the moment, understanding that mindfulness includes remembering to apologize and return to a settled baseline.
5. Break Rumination with “Is This Useful?”
When caught in a cycle of mindless stress or rumination, ask yourself, ‘Is this useful?’ to pop out of the rote repetition and assess if the thinking is actually helping you at that moment.
6. Unfixate Thoughts, Avoid Aversion
Instead of trying to ‘compartmentalize’ or forcefully shut down thoughts, aim to unfixate from them by giving them space, perhaps through a gentle visualization, allowing their energy to play out without being driven forward by your attention.
7. Engage Actively with Emotions
Instead of passively sitting with emotions like grief, actively engage with their energy by expressing them in some way, allowing them to live, breathe, and change, focusing on feeling the raw emotions rather than getting lost in the story of grief.
8. Utilize Ritual for Mourning
Engage in mourning rituals, either from ancestral traditions or created for yourself and your community, to actively process and release grief, as ritual provides a structured way to honor loss and the love behind it.
9. Express and Release Grief
Recognize that grief is a natural expression of love meant to be expressed and released, not held onto; engage in processes to honor both the grief and the love behind it, allowing it to flow as a natural process.
10. Simple Grief Rituals
Create simple, personal rituals for mourning, such as writing letters, engaging in nature rituals, or making a small altar, as these actions provide a tangible way to honor and process grief without needing a grand performance.
11. Metta for Difficult People
To work with criticism and contention towards others, practice loving-kindness (Metta) by imagining a difficult person’s life journey from birth, which can foster empathy and release the belief that they ‘should’ be different.
12. Expand Awareness with “What’s Here?”
Regularly ask yourself, ‘What’s here now that I’m not noticing?’ during meditation or quiet moments to expand your awareness and uncover underlying feelings or concerns that might be subtly influencing you.
13. Identify Your Recurring “Shticks”
Identify and acknowledge your recurring ‘shticks’ or ‘demons’—the persistent patterns or challenges that pull you into worry or specific behaviors—to understand how you lose contact with life and cause reactivity.
14. Kindness for Drifting Mind
When your mind drifts during meditation and you notice it returning, gently greet it with a kind phrase like ‘Great job, welcome back’ to encourage awareness and avoid self-judgment, which can disincentivize your mind from waking up.
15. Accept Meditation Plateaus
If you feel stuck or bored in your meditation practice, accept that you are in a plateau and try to be okay with the sameness, boredom, or anxiety as it is, as this true acceptance can sometimes shift the plateau.
16. Experiment Meditation Techniques
If your meditation practice feels stagnant, experiment with different techniques, such as focusing on sound, trying loving-kindness practice, or shifting your attention to other objects of awareness, to help move past a plateau.
17. Choose Your Right Meditation
The ‘right’ meditation is the one that works for you, and this can change over time; feel free to explore different practices, guidances, and teachers, especially if you have a mind that likes to jump around.
18. Commit to One Practice (for a while)
After an initial period of exploring different meditation practices, commit to one for a while to see how it lands, prioritizing multiple short practices daily over one long weekly session to sample meditative quality more often.
19. Create Meditation “Islands of Stability”
Even amidst a chaotic life, establish ‘islands of stability’ by scheduling one to three 20-minute meditation sessions per week, as these dedicated times lubricate your ability to apply mindfulness skills in the moment.
20. Ground Yourself in Chaos
In highly stressful and unavoidable situations, apply mindfulness by grounding your attention, such as in your feet, to maintain boundaries and a sense of your own body, allowing you to hold space for others’ intense emotions without entanglement.
21. Meditate in Community
Engage in meditation with others and discuss your experiences within a community, as this can profoundly change and deepen your practice by providing reflection, conversation, and shared understanding.
22. Deepen Practice with Courses
To deepen your meditation practice, consider taking courses that explore a specific aspect, practice, or teaching, as this provides a structured way to learn, stick with a practice, and engage with a community for questions and shared experiences.
23. Diversify Wellness “Tool Belt”
Recognize that meditation is not a panacea; for chronic issues like anxiety or depression, build a ’tool belt’ of different methods and techniques, which may include therapy, bodywork, or movement, to address what’s needed at the time.
24. Seek Teacher for Chronic Issues
For chronic issues or stuck patterns that meditation alone hasn’t fully addressed, consider working one-on-one with a teacher or therapist to explore deeper and find additional support.
25. Embrace Social Engagements
Actively say ‘yes’ to a large percentage of social invitations and opportunities to connect with people, as this habit can significantly increase your happiness.
5 Key Quotes
If every time you come back, you're greeted by like a hailstorm of disapproval, your mind is not going to, you're disincentivizing the mind from waking up.
Jeff Warren
My criticism of someone else is because I'm not them. If I live their exact life, I would be making their exact decisions.
Sebene Selassie
I'm here to care for life. You know, it's, Buddhism is very explicit about that. I don't, I don't even consider myself a Buddhist, but the Bodhisattva vow, like, I'm here to just, that's, you know, and that includes myself. And what else am I going to do in this time? Eat a thousand sandwiches? You know, may as well just do something cool.
Jeff Warren
Grief is basically a sign that we've loved, you know, it's not a mistake. It's not a problem. We, we grieve because we've loved something, but we don't hold onto that grief forever.
Sebene Selassie
It's about, can I recover faster? Can I make my apology? Can I come back to a more settled baseline knowing I'm going to screw up?
Jeff Warren
2 Protocols
Metta Practice for Difficult People
Sebene Selassie- Imagine the difficult person when they were five years old.
- Alternatively, imagine their life journey from the womb, through their upbringing, conditioning, and experiences.
- Recognize that if you had lived their exact life and conditions, you would likely make their exact decisions.
- Allow this realization to release contentiousness and foster empathy for both the other person and yourself.
Dealing with Overwhelm as a Parent
Jeff Warren- Put all your attention in your feet to stay grounded.
- Maintain a sense of your own body as separate from your child's.
- Let your child know you are present and not leaving.
- Cultivate patience, understanding that your child will go through their emotional cycle and eventually calm down.
- If you 'screw up' (get angry, say the wrong thing), remember to make a repair afterwards by apologizing and returning to a settled baseline.