The I-ness of Being

I had a work dream last night. In it, I was walking through a field where there were chairs set up. Senior management ushered in a bunch of engineers and began to berate them on their work. They talked about poor design and bad coding practices. In essence, they blamed all the company's problems on them. I raised my hand and asked when management was going to take responsibility for their own poor planning. This set off a huge argument at which point I left to get a cup of coffee that turned into a leaky bag of coffee and spilled all over my pants.

Aside from the spilled coffee, which I have no idea what that signifies, I think my psyche was working out belonging and criticism. My sister-in-law sent a Brene Brown video (thanks Megan) about belonging and worth. In it, Brene says we shouldn't negotiate our worth and belonging. Those are intrinsic values that we generate inside us. This value comes from knowing who we are.

And this is where the criticism comes in. When working with engineers, we get very protective of our ideas. We fight about the most minute details because we want things to go our way. Our identity is wrapped up in our design, so when someone criticizes our work, we take that as criticizing our very personhood.

Criticism is a two-edged sword. Our initial reaction is pain and protection, but our ideas improve when they are evaluated critically. We avoid criticism like the plague because it hurts. But why does it hurt? Because we think it signifies something may not be as we assume it to be. Our design may not be correct. Our political or ethical beliefs may not be as robust as they could be. And if we've tied our identity to those beliefs and thoughts, we think we're not enough.

Something I'm learning from meditation is how to assume the role of the observer. Meditation involves sitting and noticing your thoughts without judgment. It's about separating yourself from thoughts to see them as mental objects you experience but are not equated to. When you really stop and think about the question "who am I," you will discover it's very hard to define. Are you your body? If you lost an arm, would you cease being you? Are you your thoughts and feelings? Those change a lot, so does your "you-ness" also change a lot?

There's a poem Alan Watts quotes:

There was a young man who said, "Though

It seems that I know that I know,

What I would like to see

Is the I that knows me

When I know that I know that I know."

Watts says we can never truly know ourselves just like teeth can't chew themselves or a knife can't cut itself. Our "I-ness" is wrapped up in self-image. We can experience brief moments of lucidity when the illusion of self is removed and we experience simply being. This can happen in meditation, listening to music, watching a movie or dropping into flow at work. The mental chatter drops away and we are living in the present experience. But, the moment we become aware of awareness itself, the state of being disappears and we're back into the illusion of self as thoughts. 

If we can learn that our identity is simply consciousness itself, then when someone criticizes our opinions or lifestyle or beliefs, we can let it go because they're not threatening the real us. The observer. The I-ness of being.