If you prefer to listen to this newsletter, rather than read it, click on the recording above. Also, Online Breath & Belonging is back this Thursday, August 11th, and I’ll be in Detroit on August 20th and 21st for two live, in-person Breath & Belonging events. Details and links below.

Hi Friends,

It’s been a month since I sent out a newsletter, and what a month it’s been. In mid-July I participated in a ten-day Lakota ceremony, about which I don’t yet feel compelled to share. What I will say is I turned my phone off throughout the ceremony — no calls, texts, social media, news, nothing — and it was surprisingly easy, given my phone addiction, to be without it the entire time. I spent those ten days in nature, in community, and in ceremony, feeling more present than I’ve felt in a long time. It confirmed for me what I’ve long believed to be true: create a life from which you don’t feel the compulsive need to numb and escape, and you will find yourself living in the present moment more naturally.

It’s easy, of course, for me to write create a life from which you don’t feel the compulsive need to numb and escape. The reality of creating such a life takes a lot more work than simply writing the words, but I do think it’s important for us to recognize our power in being able to do so, at least more often than we may be doing now, as well as aspects of doing so that actually are pretty simple.

For example…

What makes you smile and laugh? Do more of that.

What helps you to relax? Do more of that, too.

What makes you feel loved? Do a s**t ton of that.

Life can be incredibly difficult and we can do things to make it easier. If we commit to bringing awareness to the choices we make each day, and as much as possible begin to give more energy to choices that feel good, and start to eliminate the ones that deplete us, we can change our lives overnight. Literally. Just as important, if we practice being gentle and loving with ourselves when we’re not making the healthiest choices, if no matter how we’re showing up in our lives, we commit to loving ourselves, we will completely transform our relationship with ourselves to one of grace and generosity and best friendship.

When I’m having fun with and feeling loved by my family and friends, I rarely feel compelled to numb and escape the moment, which is why I’m dedicated to deepening and expanding my relationship with myself, becoming my truest, most beautiful friend, so I no longer feel the desire to run away from me. And if I do feel the desire to numb and escape my reality, I’ll always have my best friend with me.

I got back to Santa Fe late Friday night after spending the past week in Whitefish, Montana, at my friend-brother David Gandelman’s meditation and leadership retreat. I guided a couple of powerful breathwork journeys (I love breathwork so much), as well as helped to facilitate some of the week’s discussions. I’m still flying high from the experience, from the beautiful community I met there and the deep connections we had throughout. The week was perfection.

Well, aside from one thing. I got bit by something on my forehead, had an allergic reaction, and my face was some degree of swollen for a few days. I’m sharing the following photo only because I find it hysterically funny for some reason, and not because I’ve transcended my vanity (I have not). I look like I was on the losing end of a boxing match. Also, I had enough Benadryl in my system to knock out a horse.

Prior to starting this newsletter, I’d been staring at my computer screen for thirty minutes, hoping some ideas about what to write would come to me, feeling frustrated with my lack of inspiration, as well as pressured to come up with something, as it’s been a month since I last wrote to you all. What could have simply been the reality of me staring at a computer screen waiting for an impulse to write (a reality I’ve experienced hundreds of times) became an entire tragedy filled with frustration, pressure to perform, insecurity, disappointment and even a little disgust.

The drama my mind created is a perfect example of a moment in life from which I would have liked to numb and escape, a moment during which I’d given the reigns to my determined inner critic rather than my trusty best friend. So I interrupted the cycle of mind-infused insanity, expanded my perspective to make space for grace, laughed a bit at the ridiculousness of it all, and eventually felt more at ease with whatever decided to unfold. We do have choices when our mind goes on a rampage. With willingness, determination and some work, we can shift its focus.

We create so much suffering by judging what we’re thinking, how we’re feeling, or what we’re doing against some perfect idea of what a healthy / evolved / sane person supposedly thinks, feels and does. On its own, staring at the computer screen without much inspiration is no big deal. When the mind gets a hold of it, however, it spins this highly inconsequential moment into fifteen reasons to feel like crap about myself.

So how do we stop our minds from abusing us? A great question with an unfortunate answer: I don’t think we do stop our minds from abusing us, at least not entirely. It’s part of what our minds do. A mind’s gonna mind. What we can stop, however, is accepting all of our minds’ thoughts as true. We can stop believing the lies of our minds. And why wouldn’t we? Don’t believe all of your thoughts (maybe even most of them), especially the ones that in any way suggest you are less than, not worthy, and not enough. Lies, lies, lies, all of them.

One of the most liberating realizations I’ve ever had was understanding my mind is often lying to me and I don’t have to believe it. I can choose to hear my mind without internalizing its thoughts. I can challenge my mind without making it an enemy. I can recognize the noise of my mind as the weather, while I remain the sky.

I wrote this recently:

I have taught and written a thousand time over, don’t go to war with your mind. It’s a losing battle, and all war does is create more war, externally and internally. But not going to war with something is not the same as loving it. I am intentional about shining love on the difficult parts of my personality, on the aspects I used to shame, like envy, and jealousy, and the compulsion to compare myself to others. I have not, however, been intentional enough about deciding my mind, on the whole, is also worthy of love. Even as it’s lying to me about myself, or compelling me to envy, or inciting prejudice toward others.

You may know the following fable, recounted here from Wikipedia:

A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge. It's in my nature."

My mind is the scorpion, acting out its nature. It cannot resist the urge to stoke fear and insecurity, to criticize and abuse me, to dwell on the past and worry about the future, to do everything in its power to stay in control. All of this is, in part, what a human mind does, or perhaps, more accurately, learns to do. However our minds come to be what they are, they are abiding by some aspect of their nature. Their delusional, controlling, fear-based nature.

And still, my heart implores me to love my mind. To understand it is simply acting as all human minds act. Fulfilling its role, in the same way my hands and arms and feet fulfill theirs. My heart, by its very nature, asks me to love my mind, myself, and everyone else, no matter what. The main reason I feel compelled to listen to my heart, to love no matter what, is because it feels good to do so. Feels better, in fact, than anything else I spend my time doing. That’s how love rolls.

As I close out this newsletter, along with reminding you to give yourself over to love and self-love as often and as completely as you are able, I’d like to encourage you to give yourself over to beauty, too. Yours and our world’s.

Wishing you many, many moments of beauty, and big, big love.

Scott

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After more than a month off, Online Breath & Belonging returns this Thursday, August 11th, at 6pm PST / 9pm EST. Details & Registration are HERE.

If you live in the Detroit area, join me in Farmington, MI, on either (or both) Saturday, August 20th or Sunday, August 21st, for a live, in-person Breath & Belonging (as well as a live, in-person hug). Details & Registration for Saturday the 20th are HERE. Details & Registration for Sunday the 21st are HERE.

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