The Art of Enjoying Our Own Company

One of the opposites of being able to enjoy our own company, is being dominated by feelings of self-consciousness. Here’s how I am currently defining self-consciousness: a hyper awareness of oneself in relation to others. Many of us suffer from this affliction, even if we aren’t fully aware of it. 

Being afflicted by self-consciousness commonly plays out in some of the following ways: we think other people are looking at us & judging us harshly, a good deal of – or all of – the time; we think we are the focus of attention anywhere & everywhere we go (and alter our actions accordingly); we see one glance from a stranger and think What the heck is that dude’s problem?!, convinced that their glance means they are internally criticizing us.

To find comfort and ease in our own company, we must do the work of untangling from the grips of self-consciousness. It’s not necessarily that we need to stop caring about what others think about us, it’s a matter of learning that a lot of the time, people are in their own headspace and aren’t actually thinking about us at all. And if & when they are thinking about us and judging us, that’s their trip, not ours. 

A personal felt sense of freedom unfolds when we stop taking on things that aren’t ours to take. We have the ability to say no thank you, when people try to put stuff on us that isn’t ours. All of us, as relational beings, care to some degree how others perceive us. But when we have a strong, healthy sense of self-regard & self-worth, our actions are driven by a comfort in our own skin, rather than the fear & anxiety inherent in being pushed & pulled around by feelings of self-consciousness. 

But again, much of the time, it’s not that people are actually thinking about us at all, it’s that we have an under-developed sense of self-worth & self-esteem, and our insecurities are being mirrored back to us in the form of those around us.  

On Gratitude & Humility

Invest in the cultivation of
gratitude, also humility. 

Both serve as good companions
all along the way. 

There is no stopping point
to these wells of practice. 

There are only continuing
fruits. 

Gratitude teaches us to have
confidence in our ability to meet
the moment. 

Humility allows us to develop
ease, because we no longer
have anything to prove.

There is no such thing as having too much gratitude. No such thing as being so filled with gratefulness to the point of discontinuing the journey of investing in the energy of genuine appreciation. There is also no such thing as being too humble. There will always be more work to do in each department. Not work as in hard labor, but as in applied effort. 

With gratitude develops confidence. With humility develops ease. Both are necessary elements for the foundation of wellness. 

The more we invest in the practice of gratitude, the more we develop confidence in our own ability to meet the moment where it’s at, and to choose how we see and engage with the world. The more able we are to tune into our favorable conditions, the more our confidence is bolstered that life has meaning and value, and that our life is worth living on purpose. 

The more we invest in the practice of humility, the more we develop a felt sense of ease in our mind/body system. This quality of ease is generated through the process of unwinding ourselves from the Three Complexes: the inferiority complex, the superiority complex, and the equality complex. When our practice of humility is strong, we no longer have anything to prove. When we stop comparing ourselves to others and find comfort in our own skin, ease is what naturally arises as a result. Here’s a personal story to help illustrate how the fruits of gratitude and humility can play out in our daily life.

In August of 2021, after months of preparing to sell our house of 18-years, my husband Mike and I were geared up to put our house on the market. Energetically we’d be building up to this moment for a few years and we were finally ready to sell. With the help of our good friend and realtor Aaron, we were scheduled to go live with our house sale on a Thursday in mid-late August. We were slated to have an open house for 3-days, during which time Mike and I would move out so that perspective buyers could come and go with their realtor as needed. Three days before we went live with the sale, I fell and broke my ankle. 

How to Leave the Monastery

Okay. So, this post might not appeal to most folks but it’s alive for me to share so here it is anyway. Allow me to set the scene. My husband Mike and I are currently residing on retreat at Deer Park Monastery (DP) in southern California in the U.S. We arrived at the end of October, about halfway through what is known in our spiritual practice tradition as the 90-day Rains Retreat (RR). The RR ends on December 18, so we are heading into our final week. Mike and I are staying on here until early April, but those who arrived at the start of the RR in September will soon be departing, which amounts to around 30 people. Many folks have trepidation about leaving the monastery and returning back home, and understandably so. 

This is the third RR Mike and I have attended in a row. In 2020 we attended the whole RR and in 2021 we arrived a week after it started. We’ve been coming here annually to DP since 2014, though typically for much shorter periods of time, prior to 2020. In large part, the pandemic is what inspired us to start coming here for longer stays. 

Over the years, I’ve heard many people share about how nervous they are to leave this place. Whether they stayed at DP for two-weeks or three-months, it’s common for folks to feel sad, scared, worried, and/or anxious when confronted by their upcoming departure. This post is dedicated to them.

While it may seem like an odd way to begin, I’d like to say out loud that this place isn’t for everyone. I like to take any chance I get to help dispel the notion that monastery living is an idyllic place for anyone & everyone, or should be. I am a firm believer that nothing is for everyone. There is no one thing or place or person or experience or way to be in this world that will suit everyone’s fancy. End of PSA. 

For those that do take a liking to DP, communal living, meditating in a lovely hall, enjoying healthy food, connecting with the Dharma, and being located so closely to the wide expanse of wilderness surrounding the monastery can be a lot to give up. 

I penned this poem here last year, specifically as an offering for someone who wound up having to leave the RR early, suddenly & unexpectedly, much to his great dismay. Though really it’s a poem for all of us.

Different & the Same

The topic of how we are all the same and, simultaneously, all different, is one I circle back to often. Here are my current percolations. 

How we are all the same:

Each one of us is crafted – and continues to be crafted – by a myriad of causes & conditions; inputs & influences; triumphs & traumas; excitements & exasperations. 

How we are all different:

Each one of us processes, relates with, integrates and expresses our causes & conditions; inputs & influences; triumphs & traumas; excitements & exasperations in our own unique and individual way. 

My sense is that many of us grapple with this human paradox, at least on some level. We’re all the same AND we’re all different. I think this makes some sense to most of us, if even only in an ethereal sort of way. But I also think that many of us have been ingrained with collective teachings that have put things askew when it comes to how this plays out. 

The askew teaching we’ve learned about how we’re all the same:

We often think that how we think, feel, speak, and act is how everyone thinks, feels, speaks, and acts, or should. When we become incredulous because someone doesn’t share our same view or agree with us, this is an expression of this askew social teaching at play. Another example is when we say things like: What?! You’ve NEVER seen that movie!! O.M.G. Were you born under a rock or something?! Or if we are passionate about a certain cause and we discover a friend does not share our same level of concern, we may think: What is wrong with them?! Why aren’t they as upset about this as I am?!

The askew teaching we’ve learned about how we’re all different:

We often think that we are alone in our struggles, hardships, and suffering. That no one else can possibly relate to or understand what we’re going through. We think that our particular brand of suffering is a one-off situation, thereby causing us to think we’re different than everyone else, or everyone else is different than us – and different in the worst possible way. An example of this is when folks first start practicing sitting meditation and they think there’s something wrong with them because their minds are so active. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from folks over the years who think they just physically can’t meditate because they’re convinced their mind is more active than everyone else’s. They think everyone else in the room is having an easy time of it and it’s just them who is contending with an over-active mental landscape! 

The Art of Resting

In my view, the art of resting involves bringing the quality of ease to our mind/body system, regularly & ongoingly, for the purpose of promoting a genuine felt sense of well-being. Any act that is wholesome and beneficial, and helps to either conserve, replenish or restore our mind/body energy, is worthy of being considered an expression of this art form. It’s important to emphasize that the art of resting incorporates both the body and the mind. If we only know how to rest the body but not the mind, we are missing a large part of the equation. To be a practitioner in the art of resting, we must learn and put into active practice ways to settle both our body and our mind. While for some of us, resting physically is equally as challenging as resting our minds, it’s the latter I’ll be focusing on in this post. 

For many of us, our mental landscape is akin to a big city. There’s a LOT going on. There’s a constant din of noise, a flurry of activity, and a thousand things vying for our attention. The element of spaciousness is incredibly limited and the pace of life moves uber quick. When our mind becomes NYC, the city that never sleeps, it’s only a matter of time before the quality of our well-being starts to fray and deteriorate. 

I think all of us are well-versed in what it means to sorta rest but not really. To have a sit down or a lay down because we’re physically exhausted, only to be confronted with the amplification of our mental chattering. Our habits and patterns of over-thinking and worrying and planning and running through our to-do list might rarely, if ever, get put into check, let alone be consciously tended to and trained to slow & settle. We may look like we’re resting to the common observer when in truth, there’s a firestorm of mental activity happening that might be robbing us of receiving any real benefit from the act of physically sitting or laying down. We might even feel more depleted after we stand back up and resume our activities!

If we’re interested in being an engaged person in the world, who is able to show up for others with presence and care, and we have a desire to leave a lasting legacy of kindness in our wake, self-care is not an optional situation. Self-care is essential.  And self-care, in part, hinges on becoming a skilled practitioner in the art of resting.