Welcome to the beginning of Act 2, where we will discuss our own selves more in depth, and explore topics on where some of our thinking comes from, how we can question behavior and intent, and finally how we can examine the whole narrative we have of ourselves.
We’ll start with discussing how our minds run on autopilot sometimes, how we can identify when these instances occur, what we can do to form a habit change, and disrupt the egotistical programming we face everyday.
The Illusion of Free Will
Many of our actions are habitual, think about some of the actions that you do throughout your day that are habitually ingrained into your routine. Some people may have a coffee during their morning commute, or have a glass of wine with dinner, and perhaps some people find themselves scrolling through social media during their lunch hour.
Even our responses are programmed into us via societal input, familial influence, media interaction, etc. For example, the vast majority of westerners probably get upset when something happens to them in traffic, say someone cuts them off and they have to slam on their brakes as a result. You can likely imagine what sort of words fly out of their mouths as they apply their brakes. I would wager you’ve done something similar, because I know I have.
We all feel like we’re in charge of our mind, but in reality, a large amount of our “decisions” are made outside of our free will via coded interactions through our habits. The lines of thought, decisions, and reactions are all programed into us through myriad inputs. Our family makes impressions on us, movies and television, heroes and villains, even our own ego helps to craft our predetermined responses.
When we are coming up in age our parents teach us how they believe we should be acting, but then we see someone in a movie or show act differently in a similar situation, and then our ego interprets all of this data and figures out the best way to present itself in those situations.
This is the beginning of how we crack the mirror. The first step in deconstructing the self is to recognize the parts of your life that aren’t truly you. This is why we discussed awareness so heavily in Act 1, because learning how to become aware of ourselves and our surroundings is paramount to dismantling the self and becoming more enlightened. Seeking understanding, learning how to deconstruct ourselves, and then discovering how to interact with the western civilization after we destroy our egos is what these writings are all about.
Identifying the Source
There are inherited cultural codes that seep their way into our egos, they are published via large, societal programs that we absorb without question. They are often linked to common sayings that get passed along from one generation to the next. For example, “money doesn’t buy happiness”, or “busyness equals value”, and lastly “cleanliness is next to godliness.” You’ve likely heard one of these and can probably name a few yourself.
As we’re approaching the holidays, think about all of the cultural codes that are passed down for behavior during this time. They dictate what you should wear, like dressing up to go to church or to a family member’s holiday dinner; they provide guidelines on what food will be eaten and whether gifts will be exchanged or not. Imagine all of these different codes being programmed into your mind as you grow up, they influence your behavior even now, regardless of your age.
Like I previously mentioned, family has a significant influence on the programming of your ego because they can micro-program you from childhood. The parent’s own anxieties, rules, and emotional responses to stress will very likely get passed along to you, because children are constantly analyzing their parents, even if subconsciously, and pick up on these micro behaviors and will attempt to mirror their parents behavior later in life.
Even if your parents or family members are mostly absent in your life, that can have another type of behavior impact on you as you grow and learn how to interpret the world.
The oldest, and most persistent code is that of our survival instincts. The fear, anger and attachment loops are hardwired into our brains for staying alive. They influence whether we fight, flight or freeze. Events will happen to us in the real world and it will trigger one of these hardwired responses, without any input from you.
Book Recommendation: It Didn't Start With You
As an aside, I highly recommend the book, It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn. This is not a sponsor. I have personally read this book and it is very informative. It explains how "the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents."
How to Spot the Code
So, we spoke about what influences our brain’s reaction to life events, but how do we spot the reaction ahead of time? It’s great that we know why we’re reacting the way we are, that’s an important first step, but we need to know how to separate an event from happening to us and our response to that event.
When something happens to you, you don’t respond – you simply, and automatically, reenact a learned behavior that your mind has habitualized to use. What can you do about it? The key is to notice the space between the stimulus and the reenactment.
Flashes of anger and judgment are a good primary example to use because they’re easy to trigger. There’s almost always an automatic code at work that your ego has designed in a way that attempts to protect you from a perceived flaw. In my career, I handle a lot of civil litigation cases involving car accidents, and people generally will have automatic responses that attempt to shift blame away from themselves and onto something else. It was the weather’s fault, the accident happened because there were no street lights, the other driver was speeding, etc. Rarely does someone actually accept that they made a mistake.
The ego is focused on self-preservation (not being “at fault”), and this defensive action is rarely malicious but is always mechanical. The ego, programmed by a society that punishes ‘fault,’ instantly executes a defense script. This reflex is rarely malicious; it is merely mechanical, the ego protecting its perceived boundaries. Recognizing this shifts your perspective: you are observing a programmed defense, not a conscious choice.
How to Rewrite the Code
First, as we’ve just learned through Act 1, we need to observe. This act of observation will be your guiding light, and is generally the start of any situation we find ourselves in. Whether it’s to understand more about the universe or to simply enjoy living in it, we must first and always observe. We need to become aware. Think of this as your first Zen commandment, because we can’t do anything until we’ve observed it and become aware of it.
You can’t simply erase the decades of programming that have been instilled into you, trying to fight this only reinforces the ego. Zen teaches us that we need to understand the program, without seeking action against it. We need to learn to live with it, but we can also create new behaviors and new habits.
Instead of trying to go against this behavior, we can pause. When a familiar script triggers, remember your foundation from Act I: Pause. Instead of immediately executing the curse-word protocol, stop and take a single, deep breath. This short pause introduces gap-awareness, the crucial space between the stimulus and the reaction, where your free will actually resides. This short pause will create distance from the action and the reaction, and when there’s some space in between them, it allows you to consciously respond.
I will play it out for you.
Person cuts me off – I have to slam on my brakes, but I avoid the accident. I can feel my face get hot and I can feel my middle finger twitch in the moment, but I stop and take a deep breath.
A smile cracks at how funny I must look, and understand that the person who cut me off has their own ego and they’re doing what satisfies it, not to hurt me. My programed response that I almost gave into seems funny on the grand scale of things, and then I remember we’re flying through space on this giant rock, so this little altercation isn’t that serious and I forget about the whole thing an hour or so later.
This is how we can create new behaviors and new habits. Only when we interrupt the cycle can we write new codes for our brains to follow. Each and every time that you practice this you choose awareness over the regular ego-fueled automatic response, over time, this will give you freedom from being a slave to your egotistical mind.
Seek Stillness
The goal is not a blank slate, but a mind where you are conscious of what is happening to you and within you. You’re not just running around with predetermined behaviors, but you can now stop and think about how you’d like to respond instead of just blurting out or acting in a way that you always have.
You need to think consciously before you allow your ego to automatically take over the situation. This will require discipline, because its easy to shut it off and just let the ego take the wheel again. Vigilance requires not just discipline, but radical gentleness, observing the ego’s pull without condemnation. Remain vigilant, breathe, and use the Pause as your moment of choice. Every conscious response is a line of new, authentic code written for a life lived in freedom.