Going within is our only way out or as I like to state it, “It always begins and ends with you”.  This is a well-recognized theme for those that have been following me over the past two and a half years.  As Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) eloquently reminds us, “The only way out is in.” In all the years of my own practice this is what I have found to be the most salient concept of all. My mentor Dr. Kenneth Wapnick always emphasized how essential it is to remember that the only brother you can help, or change is you, as there is no one else. Now many of you may say well there are plenty of others out there and I would agree that it appears that way. But as I have reminded you all in the past our perceptions are untrue. We have no way to prove that they are true. Thay reminds us by encouraging us to ask ourselves a very simple question, “are you sure?” I don’t know how many of you do this on a regular basis but if you aren’t doing this, I encourage you to begin. Questioning our perceptions is the road to realizing that we could be mistaken about what we see or hear. I will admit this is not easy to do but like any practice the more you do it the better you get at using it.

We are living in a very complicated world these days and it is very important to be more mindful of our thoughts and actions. The key word here is mindful. Practice not being consumed by what others think or do. Because you cannot do anything about their thoughts and actions, but you can do something about your own. It is about keeping house in your own mind. This is the point of mindfulness and meditation.

When you look at this from a psychological point of view our thoughts and emotions are connected to our actions. In other words, B in some way connects to A. We are triggered by something that occurs in the world, a thought comes up which gives way to an emotion and then a reaction. In short what is happening is that we interpret what we see or hear and then we react to the situation. These neurological pathways are usually habitual. What this means is that we react similarly most of the time. Therefore, A and B have a connection that produces C the behavior. A behavior is the effect of the antecedent cause. Likewise, every cause is an effect that measures its consequence. The bottom line here is that our mental activity(thoughts) strengthens neural pathways in our brain based on what we focus our thoughts and feelings on. Not to oversimplify this but clearly stated if you focus your thoughts and feelings on unhappiness that is what is strengthened in your mind. Similarly, if you focus on stress and anxiety, you strengthen stress pathways. However, if you focus on happiness with your thoughts and feelings you reinforce happiness neuropathways. Hence, every thought we think and feel strengthens the circuitry of our neurological pathways. There is a quote I am sure that many of you have heard me say many times, “neurons that fire together wire together” (Donald Hebb 1949). These neurological pathways are the foundations of our habits of thinking, feeling, and acting. What we think and feel is what we believe and how we act.

Let’s say we believe all the above thus far. Would it not be very easy to be imprisoned by our thoughts or perceptions? Likewise, isn’t it easy to project that blame out into the world or onto some other person instead of taking responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions? Do we want to be prisoners of our own thoughts? Being a prisoner of our own thoughts is referred to as karma. Did you know that it is possible to change your karma and the karmic debt in your own lineage by working with your own mind?

Working on your own self is referred to as mindfulness, mindfulness changes karma. We all want to become aware of looking at our habits/impulses/thoughts/emotions and observe how they come up and pass on. Just like the clouds in the sky they don’t remain forever. There is a saying by a Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, you cannot step into the same river twice. Everything is ever changing nothing here is permanent, absolutely nothing. By recognizing the impermanence of our thoughts, we stop getting stuck and reacting to them and begin to see they are merely thoughts.

Moreover, mindfulness changes the links in the chain of actions and consequences. While doing this it unbinds us and frees us up to new ways of thinking and acting. Without the skill of mindfulness, we remain stuck in our own frame of reference and the past consumes us and obliterates the path to freedom.

It is vitally important to remember that mindfulness frees us, and mindlessness imprisons us. The more out of touch we are with a full picture and unlimited possibilities the more stuck we are in our own past life story and habits of not seeing and blaming others. This process of mindfulness requires us all to know thy self-better than anyone else. By aligning yourself with the way things are, instead of the way we think they are based on the past, allows us to see the only way out with clarity.