There are some blessed souls who have a positive mindset, a cheerful attitude, and an optimistic outlook on life. I am not one such person. Given the choice between selfishness and consideration, it’s a constant struggle to remember to embrace a spirit of compassion. I hope that one day my default mode network will rewire such that this becomes my default state. Until then, this mindset is one of the things that weigh me down from going higher up the mountain. I have to consciously choose to change it.
The mountain represents man’s climb from selfishness, blindness, and living in darkness towards his ascent to vision, freedom, strength, beauty, and light. The mountain represents man’s awakening consciousness to those around him and to himself. When you are at the base of the mountain, living in darkness, the only way to avoid mental suffering is to distract and numb yourself. You may indulge in mindless entertainment, a fantasy, self-deception, throw yourself at your work, abuse alcohol or drugs, or a number of other things. Despite your best efforts, occasionally the mental anguish will rear its head. You’ll ask yourself, “Is this it? Is this all there is to life? Why am I living this way?” Even worse, sometimes the direction you take to manage such anguish will cause you to fall into a pit and hit rock bottom. When that happens, there is a silver lining. There is a positive to take away from it. When you are at the bottom of the pit, the only place you have to look is up, and when you look up, that is when you see the light that is on the top of the mountain.
How do you go from rock bottom to the top of the mountain though? You have built yourself around your current life, your current way of doing things. Clearly, it isn’t working for you though because that life you built has led you into this pit.
The path up the mountain represents a transformation of yourself. Specifically, you are transforming your values. When you were growing up, the world around you taught you to value certain things. Maybe you grew up rough, and because of that, you have learned to value strength and self-preservation. Now, you are immersed in an environment where it feels necessary to be strong and look out for yourself. Transforming yourself may mean leaving that environment that you are in. It’s no easy task. You can do it alone, but the odds of success are greatly reduced if you try to go at it alone. So, one of the things you’ll need is people who are travelling the mountain path with you. This is the first warning that I have for you. Many people will suggest paths up the mountain to you. Some of them are objectively worse than others. You should be suspicious of anyone telling you that their path is the only path. But you do need to find the path. I am working on forging paths; these blogs are the early stages of learning and organizing ideas for this purpose.
So, the path up the mountain represents a transformation of yourself. What does that mean? It means that everything you think is important, every action that you take that you consider useful, it’s only important or useful in relation to a goal. Most people haven’t thought about their goal in life much? What is the purpose of your life? What is the meaning of your life? If your goal in life is simply survival, then strength and self-preservation would naturally be some of the highest things you would value. If you’re such a person, you probably have experiences in your life that make you belief that “people will screw you any chance you get. The only thing you can do is to look out for yourself.” This is a learned belief. Just because it has been your experience, it doesn’t mean it’s the right belief. There’s a way to transform this belief. Transforming yourself means finding your goal and reevaluating your values, beliefs, and actions in light of that new goal.
My goal is an idyllic vision of a group of people living together. They each are engaged in work. They’re productive. No one is addicted to alcohol, drugs, gaming, television, fiction, or any other distractions. They all have a positive mindset. No one is critical or condescending of any others. They engage in music, and singing, and dancing together. They tell jokes together. They engage in social activities together, like cooking and gardening. They enjoy a fire together. Everyone is content, accepting what happens in life.
Now that I can define my goal, then I can structure my values and beliefs around the things that are most likely to help me achieve that goal. I have studied neurobiology and psychology, philosophy and religion. I have tried to find the things that would contribute the most to my climb up the mountain, and at the end of the day, it is still the simple truths.
We all have baggage from our past, weight from mental anguish, and anxiety about the future. We have things that are weighing us down from our journey up the mountain. We have to reduce those things holding us back. Part of it will involve healing our past and our pain. Part of it is changing our mindset. Healing our past and pain is an involved, long process. I am not minimizing it, but I am not going to focus on that part here. Instead, I want to talk about mindset here. Regardless of what your goal is, there are a few specific things that I would recommend to everyone who has begun their journey up the mountain:
- Discipline over distractions
- Acceptance over anger
- Detachment over desires
- Momentfulness over worry or regret
- Optimism over pessimism
- Gratitude over bitterness
- Happiness for others over jealousy
- Forgiveness and reconciliation over conflict
- Empathy over judgment
- Humility over arrogance
- Kindness over anguish
- Mastery over self-doubt
As you release these mindsets that shackle your mind to the darkness, your spirit will become light and free. A free spirit universally begins to embody 8 characteristics. These 8 characteristics were identified in the Internal Family Systems modal of psychotherapy as what unburdened consciousness exhibits.
- Confidence
- Calmness
- Connectedness
- Clarity
- Curiosity
- Compassion
- Courage
- Creativity
When I release the past and pain through discipline, acceptance, detachment, momentfulness, outlook and mastery, then I can embody the spirit of a wiser, kinder, gentler version of myself. When I am operating from this position, then what I do – the actions to achieve my goal – are wide open to me. I will not be upset by setbacks or hardships for I have learned to accept life as it flows. I have detached from my desires. If I am upset by not having something or by what something someone else did, I realize I am not being accepting and that I am too tightly attached to my desire for control. When I release those things, I can then practice curiosity and compassion and calmness about such things. As I become better at operating in these mindsets, then I can work towards achieving my goal of reaching the top of the mountain.
This is how the mountaineer begins their ascent. Godspeed.