Making Friends with Your Mind:
Towards Transformation and Unconditional Self-Love

We have all seen ads urging something like "transform your life" through yoga, or some similar spiritual technology. I myself have used the word "transform" in some of my yoga advertisements, though without giving much idea of what that means. So here I am to tell you what I mean by it.

What I want to say here is based mainly on my own personal journey. If it weren't for my own experience,
the word "transformation" would have no real resonance for me. If you are reading this, it probably means
it has some resonance for you (or maybe you want to get a glimpse of how crazy I really am, I don't know).

First, I want to make clear that transformation is a dynamic, ongoing life process. I'm not here to tell you
that I'm enlightened or achieved Nirvana and that you can, too. I'm talking more about how you can get more control
over your life circumstances via the understanding and application of certain theoretical and practical principles.

Transformation for me means a major shift in awareness. It has primarily been a "sea change" in my understanding
of the world. In that sense, it's not always visible from the outside. On the other hand, I am so different than I was
even a few years ago that I am even outwardly like a different person.

The main thing that has changed is my relationship to my thoughts. Yoga teaches that our words and actions
stem from our thoughts. If your thoughts generally reflect a negative self and world image, you are basically going to
find that those thoughts become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Meaning that you will experience again and again how much
it sucks to be you. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out."

In my case, here's what happened: I began to develop a somewhat negative self-image in my teenage years,
mainly because of feelings of inferiority because of not measuring up to certain parental, peer, and self-imposed
standards. Most kids of that age are highly impressionable, and I was no exception. I just took in a lot of crap
because that's the way I thought things were. I developed this tape that ran a lot of negative self-talk -- talk I was
not even conscious of a lot of the time, and one that I wasn't even aware was detrimental to me. Do you know
how traumatic it is for a kid if a peer or parent says something degrading to them? Yes, I'm sure you do.
For example, if a parent angrily shouts at a kid, "You'll never amount to anything," that is so damaging that it
could potentially linger for a lifetime if not dealt with skillfully.

In my case, I had to have an experience of unconditional love/self-love to begin to liberate me from such negative
thought patterns. This was at the end of my teenage years. That experience (I will talk about it elsewhere in more
depth) was a turning point and a foundational moment in my growth. I had a taste, if only briefly, of unconditional
self-love and acceptance. I was free because I KNEW that I was infinitely loved and loveable, regardless of anything
I did or didn't do. Things were never quite the same after that, but my old limited self and patterns did re-assert themselves to a certain extent. If they hadn't, I would not have kept searching. In a way, I was only searching to somehow regain that initial experience. I thought there was something that I could do that would somehow bring that back to stay for good. So I began to study world religion and spirituality. I traveled to Israel and to India. I ran long distance races. I did hours of yoga practices each day. I went vegan. I became celibate. I endlessly repeated mantras. I meditated. And I still didn't find what I was looking for.

On the other hand, I have to say that overall things kept feeling better and better, I felt that I was progressing at least in that I was feeling in more control over the circumstances of my life. Here's why:

Even though the old patterns had re-asserted themselves, they could never hold absolute sway because of
the awakening experience I had. At the same time, all of the searching and practices and work-outs and meditations and
mantras were having an effect. Primarily what was happening, as far as I understand it, was that I was becoming more attuned to both my body and my mind. Through Hatha Yoga and other physical disciplines, I was learning that via will power, I could exercise a certain degree of control over my body. This was very empowering in the
sense that I was feeling less and less at the mercy of circumstance. I was beginning to understand what Bruce Lee used to say: "Hell, I create circumstance!" And there's no doubt some truth to the saying, "The harder I work, the
luckier I seem to get." I felt like I was getting luckier and luckier.

What I feel happens after a good workout is that for various reasons (sense of accomplishment, endorphin rush, etc.) the mind and body feel very calm, clear, settled. Some athletes may even feel superhuman, I know that I have (when I was younger it was more tinged by egotism), and this feeling carries through the entire day generally, maybe even until the next work-out. So as one trains the body, over time one naturally feels clearer, stronger, healthier, and so on, and this alone helps to change whatever negative chatter there is in the mind. If the mind says, "You always mess up," or "You're not good enough" or "You'll never
amount to anything," you just don't take that kind of shit as seriously anymore. You realize that that's just your
mind talking, and what does your mind know? It's just repeating the tape, just replaying old re-runs. (I want to add
that although I did this via physical pursuits, any type of achievement can improve one's sense of self-worth. So if you're not too athletic, doesn't matter. Find something that makes you feel good and empowered.)

That said, obviously you see that this is kind of a band-aid approach. It doesn't get to that depth of feeling that no matter what you do, you are loved ("I'm good enough, smart enough..."). There are plenty of great athletes who are in pretty bad shape when it comes to these more internal dimensions.

Partly it is because we have not made peace with our minds. Now this is very difficult to do if one has deep
feelings of guilt, shame, anger, fear, and so on. That's why another key dimension of what I am calling "Transformation"
is to: 1) Practice right action (basically helping life and not harming it); 2) Heal those places in your life that require
healing for you to be able to move on, such as seeking forgiveness from those you have harmed, including yourself.
In other words, you have to start with living an ethical life, that really has to be the foundation.

At the same time, you don't want to get caught in the trap of being attached to being a "good person," or a "spiritual person." That's why it is also really essential to fully understand the concept of "ego," which is reflected in any attachment we have to anything that we are or do. Physical achievement can become very egotistical if one feels "I am doing this," where there is a strong identification with one's body and persona. If you can avoid the ego trap of identifying with what you do and achieve, the physical activity can be a great tool to purify body and mind.

My life really began to change when I fully grasped the concept of ego, when I began to realize what a great burden the ego really is. If you are stuck in a certain self concept, or any pattern of thought or action, you really are not going to fully enjoy life, you will never feel free. A little example: If you feel, for instance, "I couldn't do that, what would people think? I've got a reputation to uphold!" you're stuck in a limiting self-concept that is denying your soul's innate desire to explore, and your lack of experience may make you intolerant. A personal example: For a long time I was so deadset against drinking and drugs. I didn't just not do them, they were anathema to me, and people that did them were likewise anathema to me. Now, are drugs always bad, or people that do them always bad? Of course not. Let's get rid of the limiting concepts of "good" and "bad" anyway, they're for kids (unless we start teaching them differently). Sometimes are very useful tool, it's all how you use them, with what consciousness you use them.