Where is Ontological Mode of Being in the Face of Major Everyday Mode Adjustment?

Let me start off with a disclaimer that this topic isn't easy for me to blog about anymore because it's getting more personal than I anticipated. That said, I need to continue because continuing this blog is a commitment I made at the start of my first semester in my PhD program. I don't give up.

I didn't anticipate this much struggle in the transition but I'm at peace with this now that this early stage. I've gone through a lot worse and have seen the light at the end of the tunnel before. I really am a person who sees strength and beauty in vulnerability and struggle so I'm willing to take the plunge. The fact is that not everyone graduates in their PhD program, especially at an R.1 institution, and I'm motivated to allow this to be an impetus for my growth.

It's no secret that my adjustment Georgia, Athens and the MFT program has been quite bumpy . I'm realizing that I'm going to have to play catch-up for a while until I become more settled and confident in my scholarly abilities. My sense is that most of my colleagues have more training and background in academic rigor and overall development as scholar at this early stage in the program. Regarding the topic of my blog, it's time to move toward Ontological Mode of Being by mastering Everyday Mode of Being, that is establishing myself as competent and more than able to contribute originally to my colleagues and professors. This is largely about demonstrating that I belong to do be in this program, not only to everyone in the program, but to myself. I'm ready to go all-in.

The past is the greatest predictor of the future; I think I can do it because I've overcome larger obstacles before. I'm excited to let this experience help me grow.

"Imposter Syndrome" & Feeling Vulnerable as Sources of Resilience & Roots of Growth

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” 

-Martin Luther King Jr.

In my previous posts, I was having fun documenting my journey toward embodying Ontological Being and showing-off my knowledge and personal application of mindfulness and gratitude. This blog has felt like fun self-care writing and I've definitely made progress since I've begun the blog, but now, 2 months into this program, my feelings are threatening my progress. 

As a stern believer in human resilience and in my own capacity to heal and thrive in adverse circumstances, this is when I can be most productive in my writing, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to write. Even though I can't feel it now, I know this will afford me many opportunities for growth. I must know, deep-down, that the biggest Everyday Mode struggles can potentially lead to the greatest Ontological Mode realizations. I truly believe this and will use this knowledge for courage to be vulnerable. 

I was originally hesitant to write about this because I don't want my colleagues or professor to pity me but I've come to the conclusion they won't; that they will support me instead, because I believe that they too, will be able to identify with my struggles. I'm attempting to be a lot more vulnerable now than I imagined. I guess these types of surprises can be expected after such a monumental transition from doing purely clinical work in California to beginning a doctoral program at a top-tier research institution. 

After a few unsettling interactions with faculty and struggling in my Statistics class, the truth is that I’m feeling very insecure about where I am in my professional development and am starting to have serious doubts about whether I will be successful in this program. This is at the heart of "Imposter Syndrome." It seems like everyone in my program is working exciting projects and I’m feeling left out. I’m feeling “out-of-the-loop,” excluded, less-than, like everyone else in the program is a lot better than me. I guess when it comes down to it, I’m not feeling "good enough."  I'm experiencing being in this position as quite odd because I’ve always considered myself to be confident in my abilities. I know, however, that a lot of what I'm experiencing is "old stuff," mainly feeling left-out in middle school and ridiculed for my speech impediment. My parents supported me after school but I don't think my teachers, who witnessed the others teasing me, knew how to help me and I may have internalized this as my being deficient in some way. I'm confident this will change, as after all, 2 months is simply not enough time to draw conclusions about anything.  I won't let my past dictate my future.

That said, being in such a different, unfamiliar, competitive environment has flipped me upside-down, literally. I went from feeling like I was the strongest MFT intern at my clinic to feeling like no one, out of place.  Where is Ontological Mode of Being now? Why does it feel so abstract, intangible, hard to grasp, far away? 

This will happen sometimes and I know it will pass. I know this type of fleeting emotional crisis can lead to strength and resilience. Writing out my struggles has usually worked for me and I’m confident it will help now too; in fact it already is. Thanks for this awesome writing-therapy, Jason! (You're welcome, Jason). I've just realized that I will need to work extra hard and really be “on the ball” to be successful the way I would like to and how I know I can. This is a wake-up call.  I can do this. I applied to very competitive PhD programs because I wanted to study with the best, not buy my doctorate like students at private and profit-driven universities. Now it’s time I prove myself like I have in the past. After all, I've gotten this far! I know I can too because others have thrived in even worse circumstances. I have many examples!

Jack Ma, CEO of one of the most successful commerce companies of our time, Alibaba, considered the "Amazon of China," was rejected from Harvard 10 times. Elon Musk's ground-breaking technology company, Tesla, was on the verge of bankruptcy; now it's poised to move the word to electric cars and achieve more sustainable transport. In an interview, he was asked if he felt like giving up; he responded non-chalantly, "I never give up."

 J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers before it became one of the most widespread fiction novel series the world knows. All-star basketball players Stephen Curry and Michael Jordan endured rejections from various schools before they succeeded. South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela was in jail for 27 years, which only made his fight for democracy and freedom all the more powerful. Timeless psychiatrist Victor Frankl proclaimed that his experience surviving Holocaust was the basis for this groundbreaking Logo-Therapy about meaning in life. Famous New York Times best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell documents that ‘desirable difficulty’ stimulates growth. Jon Kabat-Zinn, who brought mindfulness to mainstream medicine, states, “Each difficult moment has the potential to open my eyes and my heart.”

 In a famous TED Talk, Thandie Newton states, “...And I honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and my progress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel so anxious and insecure. I always wondered why I could feel others' pain so deeply, why I could recognize the somebody in the nobody… The thing that was a source of shame was actually a source of enlightenment...” 

How can I use their experiences to bring me back to Ontological Mode of Being?
Have you ever felt like this? If so, what helped you get through it?

I would love to see your comments below!

Relapse is Part of Positive Change! I Already Did it 100 times

If only change were so easy. We wouldn't need therapists or life coaches. It's not at all. Even with intention, motivation and purpose! The call and force of Everyday Mode often feels too strong, as we are innately creatures of habit. Let me give you a great and recent personal example.

 Last week my professor of my first Graduate Seminar course here at UGA, Dr. Denise Lewis, who is also the graduate coordinator of my program (a very important person regarding my success at UGA) gave me "the talk" about not wearing my helmet when I ride my bike. Another important professor, core MFT faculty member Dr. Desiree Seponski, used Denise's opportunity to also gave me the business. Soon enough, the whole class started laughing about it. To further intensify matters, Denise enlightened us with a fear-instilling story where her husband gravely injured his head over the long-term because an animal decided to enter his path right as he was crossing on his bike without a helmet. I felt mortified and foolish but I simply laughed with the class because it was a little funny why I wasn't wearing my helmet; I wasn't used to it and I didn't want another thing to deal with. When I reconsider those reasons, they sound quite ridiculous. This is often what happens to Everyday Mode of Being when it's carefully scrutinized through the lens of Ontological Being. The moral of the story is (if I understood correctly) that our brains are too important and wearing a helmet is too easy and simple to not do it. The risks are far too high while there are virtually no costs, and benefit is quite great! A protected brain! Plus I already have a helmet!

Accordingly, to avoid further embarrassment (and also to protect my precious head) I decided that day that I would routinely wear my helmet when I ride. The next day I succeeding in bringing it with me. I was so excited and proud of myself that I emailed Desiree and Denise with the great news of his personal change. The enthusiasm was short-lived when Desiree noticed me riding my bike the following day without a helmet. As I passed by, she yelled "where's your helmet?!" I felt so caught off guard that I almost stopped where I was at one block ahead, to give her the lame explanation that I had totally forgot to wear it. Making such a simple change was harder than it seemed! How I detest this type of realization. I really had simply forgotten because wearing a helmet hadn't entered into my daily routine yet. Apparently I needed to relapse a few times for this change to sink in. And just is such a simple change! What change is simpler than putting a helmet you already own onto your head? If you have any ideas, please let me know.

When I explore this series of events in retrospect and self-compassion and gentle understanding, I can realize that every time I notice I'm in Everyday mode (i.e. forgetting my helmet) and purposely go back to Ontological mode (realizing how important my head is and wearing my helmet), it's a success! I'm much less likely to forget my helmet now, so I can be grateful for this instead of beating myself up for immediately forgetting before. Life is always now.

Dwelling on the mistakes of the past just makes Everyday Mode stronger. In the words of my favorite Buddhist monk Ajan Brahm (who I discovered on YouTube), "you often don't learn from the past but learn a lot more from letting go of the past."

Why Mindfulness? Hijacking the Mind's Default Mode and Instead Living Alive

Ontological Mode of Being is all about being. Being, itself is not a philosophy but a practice. You simply can't experience it through words. Accordingly, in order to fully step into ontological being in my daily life, as opposed to Everyday Mode of Being, I need to cultivate it routinely by practicing. Mindfulness Meditation is a viable means (in addition to frequent informal practice in what ever I am doing in my daily life).

In a seminal research study called "Self-referential Modes of Knowing," Norman Farb asked participants to lay down in an MRI brain scanner and instructed them to "do nothing." He found out that we don't just do nothing. Not even a chance! The majority of participants started to think and narrate.  The mind just ceaselessly generates thought after thought, problem-solving, day-dreaming, planning, worrying, fantasizing, obsessing etc. When our minds are in this "default mode," we can say that we are in Everyday Mode of Being.  The region of the midline cerebral cortex called the "narrative network" lights up. It turns of that this "default mode," this autopilot of endless chatter, interpretation, judgment, analysis and second-guessing consumes copious energy! According to the publication, this is the same type of thinking that keeps people up at night, such as "I hope I will have time to go to the store tomorrow," or "why didn't professor smith give us clear direction on the homework," or "I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow." Dr. Farb calls this our "story of me," which when examined, tends to be obsessed with fault-finding, exceptionally skilled at complaining, self-centered, obsessed with the future and past, focused more on negatives than positives, excessively repetitive, boring, negative and often just plain wrong! We often, by default, talk to ourselves (or should I say berate ourselves) in ways we would never talk to others. By contrast, when participants trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, in other words, versed in Ontological Mode of Being, are told to lay down and do nothing, a lateral network and the insula light up, called the experiential network, which rarely gets airtime, unless we are trained in it. They don't report much of the default story-telling, and instead physical sensory unfolding of the present moment, now, which is closely associated with Ontological Mode of Being. Simply put, it is merely being, not obsessive, aimless, self-deprecating, future and past oriented thinking.

I've struggled with my own default narrative network, and it is what often keeps me up, when need to be sleeping. With my loved ones, I have been snappy or reactive. Practicing mindfulness meditation entails noticing my impulse toward anger for a time without acting on it, launching me into Ontological Mode of Being.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the man largely responsible for bringing mindfulness meditation into medicine and to the west, encourages us to recognize that "it's anger-ing" instead of saying "I'm angry." This way it doesn't have to be personal, as it usually comes from years of habits, conditioning that don't necessarily have to do with me. I'll know when I'm in Ontological Mode of Being if I pause to notice anger surfacing, instead of blindly reacting to it. I also tend to rush when I eat, so when I'm more in Ontological Mode of Being, I will slow down, taste the food and enjoy each bite, embracing that eating is a privilege, that sadly many people die everyday from starvation. Similarly, in Ontological Mode of Being, I will be feeling my teeth when I brush, instead of thinking about what I will do the next day as I brush. In my morning shower, I will be feeling the warm water instead of bringing my homework, readings, assistantship and social activities into the bathroom with me. This begins to generalize to all the actions of my daily life, like tuning into my step when I walk, and feeling the air when I breathe.

This alive, present moment awareness is Ontological Mode of Being. Want to practice? Try this 12 minute introduction to mindfulness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKTxp193MC8