Uncategorized Archives - Brooke Siem Brooke Siem

Of all the themes that weave in and out of my life, the most common is loss. We are all bound for loss to become more prevalent as we get older—I suppose that’s the agreement we sign in exchange for living a long life—but for people who experience it early in life, grief is a persistent, melancholic hum.

It was once described to me as a live sphere caught in a box. The box stays the same size, but the sphere grows and shrinks and moves. When the sphere hits the sides of the box, it sends a shock through the edges so strong, the box and the sphere become one.

Once the sphere is created, it never goes away. But it can become so small relative to the box that it feels like it’s dissolved into the ethers. There’s no telling how long the sphere will stay swollen, or what instance will cause the sphere to morph. The death of a child, I imagine, makes for the most inelastic sphere.

Still, the greatest grips of grief come from the tiniest of moments. A hair caught in a comb. The empty space where his books used to be. A whiff of eucalyptus. The emotion that arises is not quite sadness, not quite nostalgia. It is yearning. A deep ache for what never was or will never will be.

Grief transcends death because of this yearning. All loss and all endings come with what if. Divorce and separation, the transition out of childhood, a career ending injury. It all illuminates an impossible timeline, forever nourishing the sphere, which is why ranking grief on a hierarchy of suffering is a futile game. Every subsequent loss builds on the one that came before, the grief of today’s end feeding on yesterday.

Psychiatry has now decided that grief lasting more than six months for a child and twelve months for an adult can be classified as mental illness, known as prolonged grief disorder. Advocates of the new addition to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) say that this new classification will help people incapacitated by grief get treatment, likely on their insurance’s dime. Critics argue that it’s just another way for pharmaceutical companies to make money, and that psychiatrists will over diagnose and unnecessarily medicate people for normal human emotion.

I’m sure the truth is somewhere in between, but what I know for sure is that grief waits for you. It is an enduring, compounding, and often surprising price we pay for love. Perhaps it is the most noble emotion of all.

On saudade and feeling the present moment

Lately, I’ve been preoccupied with the notion of last times. For every encounter, every feeling, every breath, there is a moment in which that event will never happen again. The last time you go skiing. The last sip on coffee on the patio of your first apartment. The last phone call from an old friend.

Most last times bypass our awareness. Moves, breakups, jobs—only things with social or literal contracts tend to make us stop and realize we’re experiencing a last time. And when that moment ends, often there is a deep longing for the presence of absence. The Portuguese call this feeling saudade, an untranslatable word that loosely encapsulates nostalgia, melancholy, and a longing for that which is gone forever.

Saudade, in my experience, has a way of clarifying the present. Colors brighten. Awareness sharpens. Time slows. It is a paradoxical occurence, allowing for both a profound disconnection from all that is irrelevant—political nonsense, Instagram likes, afternoon errands—and a deep connection with the only true reality there is, the current moment.

Though saudade traditionally refers to that which will never be again, in an environment of constant change, I feel myself feeling saudade in the middle of everyday moments.

My dog, for example, is snoozing on a blanket next to me. Her little black and pink paws are twitching, yelps occasionally squeaking out of her as she dreams. Watching her doze is one of my favorite pastimes. It feels like I have years to feel her soft fur resting against my leg, but the reality is I don’t know how long I have. One day, she will sleep next to me for the last time. For all I know, this is the last time. The thought fills me with saudade, and suddenly, the moment is rich.

What happens if you approach all the mundane and repetitive things in your life as if they were happening for the last time? The last time you go to your gym. The last time you spontaneously take a walk with your mom. The last time you boogey on a dance floor. Even the things you think you’d rather not repeat, like your toddler getting you up in the middle of the night. Eventually, she or he will sleep wake you for the last time, and that bonding time will be gone.

Said another way: What if every person or experience came with a blue light that hovered above, brightening as you got closer and closer to the last time. At first, the light might be barely perceptible. But one day, that light is going to glow brilliant and opaque, altering you that this experience, this person, this group of people, will never be again. In seeing that blue light, what do you feel? What choices do you make? How does this change the lens through which you view your experience?

Working our way through Chapter 3 of Eckhart Tole’s “A New Earth”

To understand Eckhart Tolle’s work, one must understand the crux of his thesis. That is: our identification with our own ego is the source of all suffering. Said another way, all the wanting, the jealousy, the depression—it’s not the real you. You are the form that perceives the mind and body is experiencing wanting, jealousy, and depression, not the wanting, jealousy, and depression itself.

Most people, though, aren’t aware of the thin barrier that exists between the form that’s perceiving and the ego that is driving the need for more or different. Just yesterday, I was taking a walk through the desert hills behind my home, stuck in a loop of mental argument after a difficult conversation. It’s delicious to live in that space because in my head, I’m always quick-witted and sharp. I win all the arguments with the characters in my mind!

This is a perfect example of the ego, Eckhart says, because “there is a sense of self, of I (ego) in every thought—every memory, every interpretation, opinion, viewpoint, reaction, emotion. This is unconsciousness, spiritually speaking.”

In the past, those mental tapes played for weeks, like a film projecting on a thin screen overlaid upon my world. It took years to understand that the mind chatter was alerting me to something I needed to address, and in the meantime, I relied on venting as a coping strategy.

Eckhart doesn’t address venting specifically, but to me, it is the slightly less chronic cousin of complaining, which Eckhart describes as a “little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in.” Complaining—whether expressed or internal—is sugar for the ego, a quick hit of righteous energy that leads to resentment.

This doesn’t mean you should stuff what you’re feeling or let people abuse you. Instead, he asks you to analyze it. Is the fault even real? Sometimes the assumption of malice or ignorance is a misinterpretation, “a projection of the mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior.” Other times, when a true fault does exist, focusing on the issue only amplifies it (which was the situation when I was walking through the desert.)

In either case, nonreaction is the answer. Do not confuse this with nonaction. It’s not that we don’t act as needed. It’s that we don’t react to ego or unconsciousness, whether that’s our own or someone else’s. After all, negative or undesirable behavior in others is an expression of their own ego. “To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being at his or her essence.”

Nonreaction and nonaction are often mixed up in a world where “good citizens” are (incorrectly) defined as those who make the most noise. I see this as pure reaction, which ultimately creates more pain. Whether the issue is interpersonal or global, it’s all about being outraged and offended. To express that outrage is to try to convince others that you are on the “right side of history” when in reality, it’s all about strengthening the sense of self. “There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right,” Eckart says. And to be right, means someone or something else has to be wrong, forever perpetuating a cycle of war.

Which brings us to one of the most important ideas in A New Earth: war as a mindset. Eckhart says:

“Beware of making it your mission to ‘eradicate evil,’ as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against. Fighting unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself…Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”

Therefore, anything that begins with “the war against…” is doomed to failure. The war on drugs, crime, terrorism, cancer, poverty—they all have a way of creating more problems. (The war against drugs, for example, has only increased drug-related deaths and simultaneously bloating the prison system.)1

Eckhart continues:

“War is a mindset, and all action that comes out of such a mindset will either strengthen the enemy, the perceived evil, or if the war is won, will create a new enemy, a new evil equal to and often worse than the one that was defeated…You can imagine what kind of action comes out of such a delusional system. Or instead of imagining it, watch the news on TV tonight.”

By recognizing that war and ego as “a collective dysfunction” or the “insanity of the human mind…you no longer misperceive it as someone’s identity.” There’s nothing to take personally. No complaining or blaming. It’s ego, and that’s all.

All this to say, after a few minutes of hoofing through the desert irritated and indignant, I recognized the chatter taking over and said to myself, “This isn’t you. This is the ego talking. You are just fine.” The simple recognition of the situation alleviated the tension, even though the issue still needs to be addressed. Today, I’m far less hot on the subject, which will likely lead to a more balanced resolution.

A New Earth by Ekhart Tolle, Chapter 2

The Two Most Hazardous Words in the English Language

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” The crux of this statement is whether or not our inner lives can ever truly be communicated, and if it cannot, what impact does that have on how we interact with the world?

Eckhart Tolle would say that it is this limit on language, and our assumption that a limit does not exist, is the root of ego and suffering. After all, words are simply a shortcut to identification. We can’t ever know what goes on in the inner world of a bird, a tree, or even a stone. All we have is the written label for those things, and with that label, we cut off the depth and wonder of the object because we have assume we have identified it satisfactorily. But if you look at that same object as if you were seeing it for the first time and didn’t know what it was called, a sense of awe arises from within. Imagine seeing a bird for the first time. Does the word “bird” accurately capture the wonder you might feel? Pushed even further, does your name, or the word “I,” encompass all that you are?

Tolle says, “In normal everyday usage, ‘I’ embodies the primordial error, a misperception of who you are, an illusory sense of identity.” This is ego, and it begins when we are small. Children learn from their parents that their name is equated with who they are. It begins as a means of communication, so when children are first learning to speak, they often refer to themselves in the third person. “Johnny is hungry.” But as grammar and social constructs correct themselves, “Johnny is hungry” becomes “I am hungry.” Soon enough, that “I” morphs into “my” and intertwines itself with things. Thus, the connection between thought identification and self is born. In the child’s mind, “my toy” is not about ownership. It is identity itself. So when “my” toy breaks or gets taken away, a meltdown occurs. The toy, of course, has zero value and can be replaced. The suffering occurs because the toy has “become part of the child’s developing sense of self, of ‘I.’ ”

As we grow up, that “I” becomes identified with who we are through gender, politics, race, body image, possessions, nationality, opinions, profession, family roles, etc. Whatever you identify with—whether that’s being a mother, an atheist, a Democrat, an athlete, or whatever else—is just as illusory as a toddler’s identification with “my toy.” As Eckhart says, “They are ultimately no more than thoughts held together precariously by the fact that they are all invested with a sense of self.” And just like the meltdown that occurs when the toddler’s toy is taken away, intense suffering arises when what we identify with is eliminated or challenged.

To put it plainly: No thing ever has anything to do with who you are.

“The ego tends to equate having with Being,” Eckhart says. “I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am.” It is all about comparison and how the way you are seen by others creates the mirror for how you view yourself. If everyone was rich with a giant house, the mansion wouldn’t serve its purpose of enhancing your sense of self worth. “You could then move to a simple cabin, give up your wealth, and regain an identity by seeing yourself and being seen as more spiritual than others.” Ah hah! Foiled again!

How do you let go of attachment to things, then?

“Don’t even try. It’s impossible,” Eckhart says. “Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.”

They key is to simply become aware of the attachment, which often becomes most obvious in times of loss. If you are upset about something or someone you’ve lost, it means there is attachment. This doesn’t mean that you don’t mourn the loss, but you aim to be come aware that the suffering isn’t who you are. “I am the awareness that is aware that there is attachment.” That, according to Echkart, is the beginning of the transformation of consciousness.

Wanting

“Having” and “owning” does a decent job of feeding the ego, but as we all know, the satisfaction of purchasing that designer bag wanes over time. Eventually, it becomes just another object, and soon enough you’re jonesing for another fix.

“Wanting keeps the ego alive much more than having,” Eckhart says. The psychological yearn for more isn’t the ego saying, “I don’t have enough.” It’s the ego saying, “I am not enough,” which is why the act of having objects provides only superficial satisfaction.

On a personal note, this is where I struggle the most. I am quite unsentimental and have little attachment to objects that aren’t in my direct line of sight, so much so that it wouldn’t surprise me if I one day sell my house without remembering to clean out the basement storage. However, I have a deep sense of wanting. Not so much for specific things, but for feelings. Most of my unmedicated life has been spent trying to acquire these feelings I can’t quite articulate, and the lack of them causes all sorts of suffering.

Thus, the following statement got a big fat underline from me: “Most egos have conflicting wants. They want different things at different times or may not even know what they want except they don’t want what is: the present moment. Unease, restlessness, boredom, anxiety, dissatisfaction, are the result of unfulfilled wanting.”

The egoic mind requires two things: content and structure. Content is interchangeable—the toy, the car, the land. Structure is “the thought forms of ‘me’ and ‘mine,’ of ‘more than,’ of ‘I want,’ ‘I need,’ ‘I must have,’ and of ‘not enough.’ ”

No amount of trying to remove attachment to content will shift if the structure remains in place.

Perhaps the most obvious and often painful example of this exists in our relationship with our body. Blurring the line between content and structure, our identity is wrapped up in how our body looks and what it can or can’t do. Whether (perceived) ugly or beautiful, the physical body that is “destined to grow old, wither, and die with ‘I’ always leading to suffering sooner or later.” That’s not to say you don’t care for the body and enjoy its abilities while they last. But to equate the body with who you are is to inevitably create suffering when the beauty fades or the body becomes incapacitated. In fact, as Eckhart says, when the body begins to weaken, “the light of consciousness can shine more easily through the fading form.”

But don’t think you’re off the hook if you weren’t blessed with model looks. You can just as easily create an identity around a “problem” body and turn the illness or disability into your identity. After all, there are benefits from being sick. People take care of you. You get lots of attention from doctors and caregivers, all of whom reinforce your identity as a sufferer. I believe this is one of the unspoken truths of depression: some people simply don’t want to get better because, consciously or unconsciously, it is beneficial to remain sick and/or too scary to let go of the depressed identity.

The good news is that shifting your perception from your external form to your inner body is quite simple. When you find yourself stuck in critical thought loops, perhaps about the size of your thighs or the wrinkles in your skin, shift your focus to the feeling aliveness inside your body. Close your eyes, pick a part of your body, and focus on what it feels like. You may feel a bit of tingliness, or a sense of fuzzy electricity in floating in space. You may even be able to feel this inner-aliveness while completing an activity, or while reading this newsletter. In any case, tune into the inner-body as often as you can.

“When you are in touch with your inner body, you are not identified with your [physical] body anymore, more are you identified with your mind. That is to say, you are no longer identified with form but moving away from form-identification toward formlessness, which we may also call Being.”

The Peace that Passes All UnderstandingThere comes a time when we all lose something deeply important to us, whether through the natural cycle of life or unexpected tragedy. By creating conscious awareness around attachment, we can find serenity and peace, even in times of great loss. Said another way, “In the face of this, how can it be that I feel such peace?

The answer, says Eckhart, is simple when you understand how ego works. The collapse of all the things that gave you your sense of self is the collapse of the ego itself. “When there is nothing left to identify with anymore, who are you?”

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, Chapter 1

As you might remember from past issues of Happiness Is A Skill, Eckhart Tolle’s book,The Power of Now, was the final piece in my puzzle of healing from depression.

The moment the puzzle locked in place is still clear in my mind. I was January of 2017, and I was in my apartment in snowy Prague. In an attempt to turn a one-bedroom apartment with a living room into a two-bedroom apartment without a living room, the main living area had a random double bed pushed against a sunny window. I dubbed it the Reading and Napping bed, and spent many hours curled up there when it was below freezing outside.

I arrived in Prague feeling all a funk. I was nearing the year anniversary of getting off antidepressants, and though I was experiencing longer stretches of lightness here and there, I’d been stuck in a period of depression for weeks. The bitter cold and isolation both amplified the melancholy and also brought me comfort, the ache of loneliness foiled by untethered freedom that only solitude can bring.

One afternoon, I got into my Reading Bed and picked up The Power of Now. Two pages into the introduction, I read the following passage:

“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with. “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real.”

In one all-encompassing moment, I realized: the mental chatter in my head wasn’t me. It was a separate entity entirely, the ego as Tolle comes to call it.

The puzzle piece clicked into place. I put the book down, all of two pages in, and fell asleep for hours. When I woke up, I got out of bed, looked around the room, and watched it brighten. As the sun filled the space, I felt the depression lift out of me. I finally got it. Whatever it was. I’ve been free from depression ever since.

Eckhart’s work always seems to find me right when I need it. With all that’s going on in the world, I was drawn to another one of his books, A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose. Originally published in 2005, it’s now more relevant than ever. I’ve been reading a section or two before bed, and I find it always has a way of centering me, especially when the people are being particularly awful to one another.

For the next handful of issues, I’ll be going through each chapter. I’d recommend picking up your own copy and slowly reading along with me, but if that’s not your style, you’ll still be able to understand what’s going on in each issue. (Hence my story about The Power of Now and the ego. The ego is the main character in A New Earth, so now you know its origins.)

So let’s dive into it, beginning with Chapter 1.

The Flowering of Human Consciousness.

The thesis of A New Earth is, more or less: Identification is the cause of all suffering.

Said another way, when you base your identity around any number of situations or things—relationship status, body image, illnesses, power, a big house, a fancy car—all of which are driven by the ego’s desire for more or better, you are inevitably doomed to suffering because the ego is never satisfied. Furthermore, the ego is not you. It is a distraction from who you really are, which is the “divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form.” Once this essence is noticed, it is possible to see it in all living and non-living objects, which allows you to “recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves.”

I know, I know. That sounds like a lot of woo-woo mumbo jumbo. Stay with me, and I assure you it will start to make more sense.

As Eckhart says on page 11, “If the history of humanity were the clinical case of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived ‘enemies’—his own consciousness projected outward. Criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals.”

Keeping this in mind, the only conclusion we can come to is that what we’re doing isn’t working. It’s the reason why I don’t look at Eckhart’s words as hippy nonsense. Each individual has to get a whole hell of a lot better at existing in this world, otherwise we’re doomed.

“Fear, greed, and the desire for power are the psychological motivating forces not only behind warfare and violence between nations, tribes, religions, and ideologies, but also the cause of incessant conflict in personal relationships. They bring about a distortion in your perception of other people and yourself. Through them, you misinterpret every situation, leading to misguided action designed to rid you of fear and satisfy your need for more, a bottomless hole that can never be filled.”

It is not enough, however, to try to be good. Attempting to let go of fear and desire doesn’t work because fear and desire are a side effect of dysfunction, not the dysfunction itself. For the dysfunction to actually dissipate, a shift in consciousness is required.

“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.”

One of the easiest ways to understand this shift in consciousness is to tap into big-P Presence, by looking at a flower. Though flowers have utility in the plant world (pollination), for humans, they are largely decorative and ceremonial. There is a shift in the present moment when you receive flowers or happen upon one in the wild. Some part of you recognizes the beauty, and this recognition is an essential part of your “own innermost being,” your “true nature.” The ability to feel joy and love are intrinsically connected with this recognition, which is why the simple act of observing a flower can be so powerful. It connects to a greater realm.

To sense this recognition, this Presence, when observing the beauty of a flower is one thing. To do it in all scenarios, especially the difficult ones, is to have true mastery of the practice. Puppies, kittens, crystals, flowers, lambs, babies—all of these things act as a clear window to Presence and often, momentarily, cut off access to the ever-present ego.

Aside from the benefit of relieving individual suffering through Presence, humanity is at a collective tipping poing. For the first time in history, the human egoic mind is threatening the survival of the planet. Therefore, a shift in consciousness is required. “If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same destruction.” Until, one day, there is nothing else. As Eckhart says plainly: Evolve or die.

May Cause Side Effects

Brooke’s memoir is now available for preorder wherever books are sold.

This is a heart-rending and tender memoir that will start conversations we urgently need to have. It’s moving and important.
Johann Hari, author of New York Times bestseller Chasing the Scream and international bestseller  Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions

Get the Book Now

Before you go…

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

The Core of Ego

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

The Core of Ego

On saudade and feeling the present moment

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

The Core of Ego

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

The Core of Ego

Working our way through Chapter 3 of Eckhart Tole’s “A New Earth”

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

A New Earth by Ekhart Tolle, Chapter 2

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, Chapter 1

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

Before you go…

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal

May Cause Side Effects

On Living and Breathing Grief

The struggle to kill the serotonin theory of depression in a world of political nonsense

Last Times

Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal