The difficult thing about consciousness is the level of detail and nuance with which you can 'do' it.

Imagine writing down everything that is going on inside you right now:

  • You are a little tired.
  • You are a little bit in love.
  • You are a little sad.
  • You are in a little bit of pain.
  • You are thinking about X and Y.

All of this happens at the same time, and sometimes one thing takes over completely.

Some people know themselves so well that they can identify all of this on a very detailed level.

Let’s take one element:

“I am tired.”

  • Are you tired because you have been sitting behind a computer for too long and need to exercise?
  • Are you tired because you have exercised too much?
  • Are you tired because you are overstimulated?

“I want to exercise.”

  • Do I want to exercise because I genuinely feel like exercising and I know it is good for me?
  • Do I want to exercise because I want to get rid of another unpleasant feeling?

This is extremely difficult in practice because you have to learn to recognize certain patterns. It is also something you learn through life experience. You have to make the mistakes first before you know where the boundary lies.

Sometimes you are thinking about something that is difficult and interesting, but it also takes a lot of energy. And that can be good. But sometimes you are stuck in an endless, compulsive loop of thinking. Being able to see the difference is the real skill.

This is something women can be very good at. They can hear a child crying and sense whether it is a genuine cry or not. It is a little bit like that.

Buddhists don’t really understand this. They tend to treat all forms of thinking as if they are the same. But no two thoughts are exactly alike, or even come close to each other. They can feel completely different and arise in different places in your body.

Learning to calmly respect your own feelings.

You’re going to make mistakes, and you don’t always have to act on your feelings or do what they tell you. But over the long term, you need to develop respect for your inner feelings. That is an important part of self-respect.

These are long, spiritual processes.

It’s like your voice: it matters too. You have to express yourself. Without that, it means nothing.

When you are emotional, one thing often takes over. That can be useful, but it is also helpful to be able to take a little step back. You can do that like this:

What you want to know is where you are as a whole. So, all the things at the same time.

For example: I am stressed, and at the same time a little bit in love, and at the same time sad, and at the same time tired, and at the same time relieved. You name all those separate things.

The art of this level is to become better at identifying those separate things. Then you can see all of them at once.

In a way, you know the state of your whole body. Then you can look at what you want to do with each part of it.

This is what you call emotional intelligence. You have a good understanding of all the different things that are going on inside you at that moment.

The most important thing is where you are as a whole.

Showing a different side of yourself each time, like a flower unfolding.

Really getting completely into that feeling.

What is that feeling telling you? That things will never be okay again?

“And I feel so awful all the time! It’s not fair!”

Thoughts come in waves, just like emotions. Let them wash over you in waves. At some point, you’ll know exactly what they are.

I saw a video yesterday of someone saying that you can’t find yourself, because when you search, you only find separate parts. There is no “you” behind it all.

This is typically the kind of thing that is technically true but irrelevant. If I could put the thoughts of two people next to each other, you would see very clear patterns in what they are thinking about and what occupies their minds. So what you think about actually tells you a lot about who you are.

All those thoughts show a different side of you, with the “you” in the middle.