The ‘I don’t mind’ mind.

Welcome to your Wednesday Love Note.

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Now, onto today’s tip.

This winter I went to Hawai’i for 10 days. I hung with friends, helped out on a community farm, practiced 3 hours minimum of guitar daily, watched humpbacks breach from the veranda while eating fresh rambutans, and snorkeled with gigantic sea turtles.

My consciousness felt pure and elevated.

My mood sparkled.

It was epic!

As nighttime descended and my head hit the pilllow… I had horrendous dreams. Dark, disturbing, even violent, dreams—every single night for the duration of my trip.

What the holy fuck is going on? I thought to myself.

Waking up each morning, I felt genuinely perplexed, experiencing a strange cocktail of emotions...

Confusion.
How can my subconscious mind be so troubled at night, while my conscious mind is so utterly blissed out during the day?

Shame.
After all the spiritual devotion and self-development work I’ve done, why is my dream life so intensely dark? Something must be wrong with me.

Determination.
Wow, that was awful. But I refuse to let it ruin my day.

Thankfully, determination was my saving grace. I knew that I wanted to approach these dreams with curiosity instead of fear, and decided not to let the shame, confusion or disturbance penetrate my attitude.

Upon returning home, I began a course called The Alchemy of Emotions with my teacher Anuttara, where we began an intense observational study of mindstates. In our first session of month-long immersion, she spoke about a concept that immediately described the daily morning practice I had cultivated out of necessity in Hawai’i.

The “‘I don’t mind’ mind” is an intentional attitude we can develop where we expand our capacity to experience uncomfortable thoughts, emotions or mental states by deciding to accept, allow and even welcome them.

The beauty of the “‘I don’t mind’ mind” is that it creates space for the hard stuff to be present… which it will be, either way!

We can fight those hard-to-feel emotions, or we can allow them to simply be.

And in that allowance, suddenly there’s an opportunity to receive the medicine of those emotions.

All too often, the moment we feel uncomfortable emotions—fear, shame, grief, disappointment, digust—we try to squash them out of existence, push them away, make ourselves bad for feeling them, and distract ourselves until we feel better.

Our emotions exist for a biological reason. They are wise messengers, if only we allow them to deliver their message.

I’m learning that we actually have a much greater capacity than we know… that we can simultaneously feel the hard emotions, and also be aware that they’re moving through us.

In other words, even as Britta is feeling disgust in the wake of a horrifying dream, Britta is also peacefully aware that disgust is present, is totally okay with it, and is curious about what the disgust is here to teach.

This is an incredibly valuable skill to develop.

So let’s practice.

🔸What’s one uncomfortable emotion you felt recently? Be specific with a particular memory so you can vividly feel it. Maybe there’s an uncomfortable feeling at this very moment you can work with? Even better.

🔸As you remember that emotion + situation in which it arose, try on the ‘I don’t mind’ mind. Like trying on a jumpsuit, imagine you can step into this mindset. Earnestly assess the emotion. Use this tool to name it if you’re unsure what you’re feeling. Then see what it feels like to not mind, despite the discomfort.

🔸Can you simultaneously feel the emotion as you also simply observe the emotion, allowing it to be there? What happens as you stop resisting the emotion, and permit it instead?

🔸To take this a step further, imagine The Observer part of you sitting back and watching the scene unfold, and notice how they feel as they observe. Calm? Present? Curious? Neutral?

I suspect that a good amount of my own suffering arises from a belief that I shouldn’t be suffering, or that being uncomfortable is a sign that I’m doing it wrong—and by “it” I mean life.

But we are in these human bodies to experience the emotions that come with them.

To the wisdom of your feelings, and your expanding capacity to not mind the discomfort,

PS. How does this land for you?
Hit reply and send me a message, I’d love to hear how it felt to try on the “‘I don’t mind’ mind.”