Ex-scientist turned creative entrepreneur. Founder of Weston Pixel, an indie film & creative agency helping creators & entrepreneurs navigate the digital world. I write about business, creativity, and content strategy.
10,000 Hours You Didn't Expect
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What's up, Reader? Itâs ya boy Eli. Iâve been keeping a secret. My 10,000 Hours: Not What You ThinkMy 10,000 hours is not in photography and marketing. Itâs in sitting and breathing. Iâve studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhist teachings under the guidance of a teacher for over 10 years now. When I first encountered the teachings at 21 years old, I realized how silly and lackluster my spiritual understanding was, so I held back from sharing my thoughts and discoveries publicly. Keeping quiet turned out to be a great move, but now that my life is soaked in Buddhist thought, it feels right to break the silence. This is the story of how I found a Buddhist teacher - completely by accident. The Quest for a CounselorMost people seek counselors because of their childhood experiences. Iâm no different. In 2014, I went on a quest to find someone who could help me make sense of all this pain I carried around. At the time, I was reading a lot about spirituality, health, and exercise. I found that getting in touch with how my body felt was a great remedy (or at least a distraction) from the mental chaos Iâd experience. Itâs hard to think about your problems when youâre focused on lifting 450 pounds in a deadlift. Discovering Bioenergetic TherapyI came across Wilhelm Reich, a student of Freud, who put a lot of emphasis on the body in psychotherapy. His student, Alexander Lowen, took his work further and coined a method of therapy known as âBioenergetic Therapy.â Bioenergetic Therapy is based on the idea that physical, mental, and emotional health are connected. Trauma can be stored in the psyche, but thereâs also a representation of that trauma stored in the body. For example, letâs say you were chased by a huge pitbull when you were 5. This is a powerful memory of fearâyou had every reason to shit your pants. Fear has a physical representation: tight neck, shoulders, a feeling in your stomach, etc. There are also physiological adjustments like an increase in adrenaline (so you can run), blood leaving your stomach (in preparation to use your limbs), and bowels letting loose (so you can be lighter in escape), etc. As an adult, you may feel those sensations every time you see a large dog. These bodily sensations, just like the memory, lie dormant until theyâre triggered back into your awareness. And this happens even with less dramatic events. Ever walked into your parentsâ house and smelled something that took you back to how you felt as a kid? Thatâs the type of phenomenon these guys were pointing to in their workâthe inseparability of the physical, mental, and emotional experience. Another way to think about it - they were pointing at what people commonly refer to as âbaggage.â We all carry aspects of our experience in our postures, good or bad (confidence could be considered baggage from this perspective). In a bioenergetic therapeutic session, a lot more emphasis is placed on the body. Itâs much more active than traditional talk therapy. Clients express emotion by moving their bodies, yelling, crying, feeling. The foundational idea is that the mind has a subconscious (Reich studied Freud, after all). Itâs called a subconscious because itâs really below your conscious thoughts, so itâs not always accessible. You canât just tap into it like a to-do list for the day. But you can take the backdoor route to the subconscious by getting in touch with your body. Meeting My Teacher by AccidentSo, I sought out a counselor who was knowledgeable about these schools of thought. I was no stranger to counseling. I had been in and out of therapy with multiple counselors my entire life, and most of them didnât really work for me. In my search for a body-oriented therapist, I came across two counselors in Birmingham. Both had Ph.D.s in counseling, but their specializations and training differed. The first counselor was a certified Bioenergetic Therapistâmy first choice, obviously. My second choice was a long-time Rolf practitioner (a massage technique focused on aligning the body) with a masterâs degree in Buddhist & Western Psychology from Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. Sounded interesting, but I knew nothing about any of that. I scheduled 2-3 sessions with the Bioenergetic Therapist, but not long after the second session, he actually passed away. (RIP to that sweet old manâI could tell he was a good therapist.) I was bummed because that was the only bioenergetic therapist in town. Mind-only counseling had proven itself shortsighted in my experience. I felt like bioenergetic therapy was the way for me to heal most efficiently, and now there was no professional in sight. Nonetheless, I was a mess, and I needed help, so I made the call to my second choice a few weeks later and scheduled a session. The first thing I noticed about this man was his officeâit was almost bare. Nothing but a table, two chairs, and a Buddhist picture on the wall (a Thangka, I later found out). Every other therapist Iâd been to had loads of stuff in their officeâart, photos, books, memorabilia, etc. Itâs like this guy valued more space than stuff. I took a seat and started chatting with him, beginning with small talk and then telling him why I was there. I quickly noticed his listening skills were top-tier. He listened to me unlike anyone Iâd ever met. His expression was calm and blank, his body relaxed. He had a calmness that was contagious. It seemed like he had no âbaggageâ at all. Heâd occasionally nod or say âmhmâ as I talked, but he never butted in or asked for clarification until there was space to do so. After I mentioned that Iâd read Reich & Lowenâs work, he started talking about how he includes the body in his approach to therapy, as well as his experience with meditation. âMeditation is similar to bioenergetic therapy. The principle of the body storing information in the musculature lines up with the approach. The difference is in acting out. You donât need to act out to tap into the unconsciousâitâs already there, beneath your conscious busy-ness. If you just sit for several sessions or a long period of time, your conscious mind will slow down, allowing you to become conscious of the unconscious. Meditation is a way of working on the unconscious without acting out.â At this point, I couldnât tell if I was talking to a therapist, a professor, a monk, an astronaut, a friend, or a hippie. (Side note: this is how you know youâve found the right therapistâyou lose track of the fact that youâre in therapy mid-session.) I was also relieved I wouldnât have to act out like an infant in front of a grown man during therapy. He went on to tell me about his educational background: undergraduate in biology, the Masterâs in Buddhist Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Counseling. I was confused as hell after our conversation, but one thing was abundantly clear: Iâd found a friend and a spiritual teacher by complete accident. My Teacherâs Teacher - Chögyam TrungpaThat relationship has continued to this day. In the 70s, my teacher studied under a Tibetan meditation master named Chögyam Trungpa. Chögyam Trungpa came to the United States after learning English in the UK for a few years. He received a Spalding Trust fellowship to study at Oxford University in 1963. The Chinese Communist Party drove his people out of Tibet in 1959, when he was around 20 years old. Trungpa was the head of the Surmang monasteries and had just assumed the responsibility of carrying on the traditions when the monasteries were being destroyed and the Chinese were taking over the land. He had to flee through the Himalayan mountains into India on foot, a journey that took about nine months and ended in January 1960. (Documentary about his journey) He was one of the last Tibetan monks to go through traditional monastic life and training in Tibet before the Chinese invasion. Trungpa made it his lifeâs work to share Buddhist teachings with the West. He founded Naropa Institute (now Naropa University) in Boulder, Colorado, in 1974, where my teacher worked with him for four years. Chögyam Trungpa taught prolifically until he died at 47 years old in 1987. His teachings have been compiled into numerous books, forming a massive library of work. It makes me want to cry every time I think about how lucky, blessed, and honored I feel that these teachings found their way into my life. All that being said, youâll start seeing a bit of Buddhist thought sprinkled here and there. Iâve got some other stuff up my sleeves, but Iâve learned itâs best to keep big plans under wraps. Hope you have a great week. - Eli TOOLS I LIKEWebsite Builder (WordPress Plugin):â Hosting Service:â Productivity App:â Creator Email Marketing:â WHERE TO FIND ME
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Ex-scientist turned creative entrepreneur. Founder of Weston Pixel, an indie film & creative agency helping creators & entrepreneurs navigate the digital world. I write about business, creativity, and content strategy.