The Vipassana meditation course is the practical application of the buddhist theory of happiness. Within Buddhism there’s no concept of an afterlife therefore its focus is on happiness in this life and that’s what is relevant here. If we believe there's an eternal Heaven, or Hell, awaiting us then the quality of this relatively short life we're currently experiencing isn't so important - eternity is a long time whereas the handful of decades we're on this planet isn't. Rationally, this life becomes something of a qualifying round with the focus on accessing the potential eternal bliss up ahead. Being good, as defined by the culture we happened to be born into, becomes more important than being happy.

Rightly, or wrongly, for better or worse, Buddhism is concerned with happiness in the here and now and they figured out the structure of happiness, or at least how to generate happiness, a long time ago. Nowadays, our science understands that structure in much more detail than could be known in the past, but happiness then is happiness now. How we improve our level of happiness also, not surprisingly, remains the same although the terminology, and the concepts, used to explain it are obviously different - no one was talking about bio chemicals a thousands years ago - they translate back to the same general model. In practice, we've got the more esoteric model, or the scientific model, to choose from but, regardless of which we prefer, they paint the same picture. Here we'll explain happiness from both perspectives - present both models - so the universal fundamentals are clear and from there explain how an emotional detox significantly improves our sense of well being/ level of happiness.

If I have an hour to solve a problem, I'll spend 55 minutes defining it and just 5 minutes solving it' Einstein

By defining we're returning to the underlying fundamentals which, if we clarify, tends to resolve the problem. Confusion begets confusion.

While we may not personally believe in an eternal after life we, if we're westerners, cannot escape our culture is heavily influenced by this binary - good/bad - judgemental mentality. To us it's normal, indeed it is normal in our societies, but it's not normal in Buddhist societies. Obviously, if we're just seeking to be happy -just seeking those relevant feelings - we're much more able to navigate directly to them without feeling the need to firstly tick the 'right' boxes. This direct orientation helps a lot and the flexibility in their operating systems allows them to readily escape ruts. At base, all pragmatic therapy seeks to introduce flexibility into the individuals system which then allows the individual to make the changes needed. If the taste is not as we want we, obviously, have to change our recipe, but doing so firstly requires enough flexibility. Emotional detoxes help immensely with this plus provide us an immediate, significant improvement in our sense of well -being. As most people understand their phones operating system better than they understand their own this probably makes little sense, but it will shortly.

‘When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness is the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life’. John Lennon

The delightful feelings we call happiness arise primarily from emotional well being and this is equally obvious scientifically today as it was thousands of years ago. If we're fill of love and joy, the rest is just logistics. While traditionally there could be no knowledge of bio chemicals - neurotransmitters, hormones etc - it was obvious we’re feeling something and that we could control those somethings. Clearly, if we can control what bio chemicals we’re generating within, and then consuming/experiencing, we’re controlling what we’re feeling and if we’re controlling what we’re feeling we’re controlling our level of happiness. That we can reverse engineer happiness - go directly to it instead of feeling the need to tick the ‘right’ boxes first - is obviously possible and an emotional detox proves this to us.

Emotional detoxes could, perhaps more accurately, be called motivational detoxes in that we’re deleting/ minimising motivations that have accumulated over time and now compete against our emotional motivations for our limited time, focus and energy. We have to prioritise, have to choose which motivations we nourish, and thus grow. When our overgrown branches of acquired motivations are pruned back we’re escaping those negative, or even just distracting, motivations, we're reclaiming time and energy, and allowing much more light/energy into our emotional core. Joy needs space to flow into.

Our emotions thrive on love and joy. While love and joy are very similar experiences -similar flavours/ bio chemicals - they’re not exactly the same and nor are their sources the same. Joy is like soft background music that is always there but we can’t connect to it, can’t hear and experience it, if there’s also loud music. Often, it's only when the loud music is turned off that we even know the other music was there all along. When we - if we - experience it we then get it, we understand that less is more and it’s this experience a VM course seeks to introduce us to.

Explained scientifically; we have two seperate motivational systems; We have our dopamine system and our serotonin/ oxytocin system but we can only access our serotonin system in the absence of the louder dopamine system. For example, those on the other side of the monastery walls are not seeking love - they’re in the wrong place for that - so they’re either all naive, and stupid, or they’re seeking something else. That we don’t get it, that we may not know what they’re experiencing doesn’t mean that experience doesn’t exist, it just means we’ve never experienced it ourselves.

Via emotional detoxes, of one form or another, we do experience it and then get that less is more. While we don’t have to understand it to experience it, we’ll typically lack enough motivation to detox in the first place unless we have at least a basic understanding of the benefits and how those benefits manifest.

I should add that what I'm labelling 'joy' can be labelled/ understood differently. God, Tao, Light, Energy, Soul or just a different type of love are among the many different ways brains can understand it. Buddhism doesn't preclude the possibility that others can better perceive, thus better understand, the nature of this something than they can. Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of any God, they just personally lack the capacity to colour in what others, presumably, can. As, from their perspective, it's the connection to it/the experience that matters, the exact nature of that something isn't so important.

Boiled down; When we love someone we love the love. It's the experience we're valuing and attracted to. Presumably, if we didn't meet, and fall in love with that person, we'd meet and fall in love with someone else. The relevant bio chemicals that generate this feeling, or that feeling, are being generated within us and we can control them. What we grow in our inner garden is up to us, but whatever it is we want, or think we want, the first step is to remove the weeds. Do that and we see what long smothered seeds suddenly sprout. We see how we now feel. Typically, but not surprisingly, we'll find the weeds were the problem.

House got too

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs/Motivations

To understand how emotional detoxes achieve what they achieve, we must first understand our own motivational system and the classic Maslow hierarchy of needs/motivations illustrates our species basic system. While the micro details of the Maslow hierarchy are debated, it’s obvious we have a bunch of hardwired motivations, typically called instincts, as illustrated above. For obvious reasons, our survival instincts/motivations are prioritised - if we're dead all the rest of our shopping list becomes irrelevant. Beyond survival mode we seek some security - a bit of a buffer - while also trying to satisfy emotional, and ego, motivations/instincts. On top of these primary hardwired motivations we accumulate clusters of secondary motivations acquired via our culture, schooling, family etc. By the time we’re adults the handful of primary motivations we were born with are now bundled up with a huge number of secondary motivations, most of which were installed in us by others. This clutter means we can easily lose touch with our core innate primary motivations and thus struggle to act in our own actual interests.

Relevant to happiness; our emotional motivations and ego motivations tend to push against/contradict each other as they each seek very different things; Love and joy vs status and approval. One motivations treasure can be, and often is, another motivations trash. We're social primates, we're motivationally complicated; our emotional motivations face stiff innate competition for nourishment and the build up of secondary motivations increases that competition for our time, focus and energy. It's the resulting disconnection from our emotional interests which limits our ability to nourish them. When we detox away the overgrowth, we experience the massive difference and then get that less is more.

At the top of the Maslow hierarchy of needs/motivations we see 'self actualisation'. A vague term but clearly it requires discriminating between self and non self. As we can't escape our innate motivations - they're hardwired in, they are us - we need them well nourished given we're not going to be happy if they're unhappy. Satisfied motivations with few, if any, dissatisfied motivations is the very definition of the experience we call happy. Equally obvious is that the fewer motivations we're simultaneously juggling, or trying to juggle, the easier it is to have just satisfied, purring motivations plus we've also got plenty of space for joy to flow into.

When someone says they want to ‘find themselves’, they’re saying find, and then connect to, their real motivations. They want to know what they really want from this life thing they’re experiencing. Know that and they know what path to select. They’re looking to sort their motivational wheat from the chuff and they typically set about doing so via introducing a wider variety of experiences into their life to see what resonates and refine their path accordingly. While this strategy makes sense, and sometimes works well, we’re still in the grip of our existing motivational current which, given most of that current is made up of secondary motivations, is itself the problem. As it takes a long time to make significant progress wading against that current we're, in practice, better off stepping outside of that current for a short time, see what comes with us and see what washes away. Our innate motivations are hardwired in, they’re stepping out with us, and we quickly realise that current we were in was never ours to begin with. That current/river/reality is still there, but now it’s just another option amongst many. We can enter it, but we can also exit it, and we can enter it where we choose to enter it. We can mix and match: a bit from this, a bit from that. By getting out of our existing current we get above it. In a sense, it's not our rut that’s the problem - that reality exists and is an option - it’s our inability to climb out of it, our inability to zoom out, that’s the problem. When we zoom out, when we gain flexibility, we’re probably still looking for our cozy niche, still seeking our little oasis, still searching for our beautiful reward, but we’re aware of so many more options, and we can mix and match them. We’re no longer welded to the one cultural template we just happened to be born into. Critically, joy has space to flow into when we remove most of the accumulated secondary motivations.

When we get that less is more, the hard becomes easy as we understand it's not, beyond extremes, reality making us feel as we feel but our relationship with reality. Motivations within us seek satisfaction and they purr - release pleasant bio chemicals - if they're satisfied and claw - release painful bio chemicals - if they're dissatisfied. Those motivations are in us, if they weren't we'd not seek what we seek, not feel any lack - pain - not having what we don't want. Prune back our motivations and having just satisfied motivations - thus being very happy - is obviously much easier. Taken to the extreme pole of the spectrum we get to where Buddha himself was. He said; 'By doing nothing, I do everything'. If we're 10/10 happy what is there to do? Do what? By definition, there are no unsatisfied motivations so of course he just sits with that huge grin on his face and watches the world go by. From there, what is just is as he's not wanting anything thus everything is perfect as is.

At one end of the spectrum everything is nothing and at the other end nothing is everything.

We feel no lack not having what we don't want, or no longer want. If we feel we lack nothing we feel we have everything we want and if we feel we have everything we want we are, by definition, on a very high level of happiness.

At the other end of the spectrum we have the cynical and invariably unhappy people. Trump is good, albeit extreme, example of someone with 'everything' yet nothing. We look at Donald Trump and we see someone dominated by their ego. Their ego tree has grown high and large shading out their emotional tree which is now withered and malnourished. He’s hollowed out, only motivated by status, wealth and power as that’s the only satisfaction he can now access. They’re the only pleasant bio chemicals he can now generate thus all that matters to him. He cannot experience joy, and probably not even love as what is love without joy in the mix? Not because love and joy don’t exist but because they now don’t exist for him. Imagine 3 people in a car along with a cahffuer. Each of those 3 have different motivations thus different objectives thus different desired destinations; Call them survival, ego and emotions . Once we're surviving ok Mr Survival goes to the backseat and sleeps - all is good for him. This leaves ego and emotions fighting over our destination with the more powerful one winning that fight and deciding for both. If our ego wins our destination is status abundant fields and our chaffuer/brain will be instructed to navigate us through the environment accordingly. Our motivations, and the balance of power between them, determines our objectives. We do not seek that which we do not want. With objectives in mind we make decisions - choose this option we believe we have or that option we believe we have - and our actions flow from our decisions -we do as we've decided to do. Our actions add up building this or that reality. Our steps take us this way or that way, to this, or that, reality.If we lack clarity regarding our actual real motivations that confusion flows down the sequence and we'll probably end up going in circles or taking ourselves to a destination that proves to be a mirage and not the oasis we had imagined.

Lights out tonight

Looking at Trump, no one sees a happy person because whist ego satisfaction is something, it’s relatively insipid compared to emotional satisfaction and we’ve also got disgruntled emotions pouring painful bio chemicals into our cup. Would you want to be consuming, thus experiencing, the cocktail in his cup? Yuk, of course not. He naturally tries to improve his cocktail by furiously milking the only teat he can access - his ego teat - thus he’s the ‘greatest’, the bestest ever etc etc. That’s he’s painfully ignorant is also a symptom of a dominant ego as we must be humble to learn, must accept we don’t know to learn what we don’t know. Yet, if we’re the ‘greatest’, we already know all that’s relevant - not knowing doesn’t compute as accepting we don’t know contradicts our overinflated status.

Knowledge is power because is we know how to make something happen we have the power to do so. Relevant knowledge is relevant power and adults get to decide what is relevant. However, and the catch 22 is, if we already 'know' because our status is dependant on our beliefs and values being the one and only true set then we can't learn, or at least will recoil from learning, anything that challenges our sense of status. Hence the percular situation whereby most people will happily enough learn about their phones operating system to get it purring but are not at all motivated to learn about their own operating system to get themselves purring. Weird right? Like, duh. But it's simply how we're wired up; We're wired up to firstly survive and, at least in the precarious past, that simply wasn't possible outside our group so aligning with our group is a very powerful motivation within us.

All social animals, including ourselves, organise and structure the collective via hierachies. We have our Prime minsters, Presidents, CEOs, village heads, team captains etc etc. As our ego craves status, approval, respect from our group we satisfy that motivation via the specific hierarchy of values our group has. There's many different groups/ cultures, and subcultures, each with their own hierarchy of beliefs and values so what is right and good depends on who is asked - obviously - but accepting it's all subjective would weaken, instead of strengthening group cohesiveness and thus potentcy. Thus, we/I am right just because it feels good to believe so is, from an evolutionary survivla persecptive a feature, not a bug. Motivationally, we struggle to accept it's all subjective because that would mean our hard won sense of status is also just subjective. Ouch, dominant egos can't handle that given, like Trump, they now lack the emotional buffer to withstand ego pain. Our status is via/ conditional on our beliefs and value being the right set. If they're not then we're a delusional simpleton -yikes ! Naturally we choose the 'my in-group beliefs and values are the beliefs and values thus I'm superior/ have status over most others' option. Again, a feature, not a bug and it's only a bug if we need to change our recipe to improve what we're tasting but can't because our ego is very happy with the status quo. Most have a reasonable balance between survival motivations, ego motivations and emotional motivations. They're happy enough and if we're happy enough our recipe is good enough and there's nothing significant we need to change. Happy days.

Shedler explain it well

"Truth is, many patients do not come to therapy to change. Not really. They may say and think they want to change. It soon becomes evident that they want to continue being exactly the person they have been, and living life in the same self-limiting ways, but feel better doing it. Real psychotherapy begins with helping the person to not only understand but truly take to heart that what they want is impossible.

In other words, the real work of therapy may begin with crushing disappointment, as the patient struggles to reconcile with the painful truth that neither the therapist nor anyone else has the power to give them what they want. To feel different, they must become different—and there is no bypass around this. Paradoxically, it is this terrible disappointment that opens the door to realistic hope.Sadly, for every therapist who understands this and is prepared to join the patient in doing the difficult work, there are many more “therapists” happy to foster the patient’s illusion that they can feel different without becoming different, and therapy can work by magic. Choose wisely."

Some therapy seeks to temporarily improve what their client is feeling by validating their existing template of beliefs and values. Instead of freeing their client from them, thus pruning back their ego tree allowing more light in, and allowing their client to access so many more options/paths they're nailing that template in further. 'Yes you really are good, noble and successful'. Childish -what Trump loves to hear - and ultimately destructive but their therapist high-fiving them has their ego purring even more so they leave feeling a bit less miserable. The therapist gets paid, the client comes back 'forever' -good business - but sooner or later the client just selects a pill to plop in their ugly cocktail and hopefully mask the taste somewhat.

This is the classic ego resistance to change that haunts therapy rooms all day, everyday. To improve what they’re tasting they need to improve their recipe - keep doing the same things and we get the same outcomes - but whilst they’re emotional malnourished their ego is well nourished. Their ego doesn’t want change, doesn’t want to get pruned back to allow more light into their emotional tree, as our emotional wellbeing is irrelevant to our ego aside from if it affects our status. If it’s embarrassing we’re miserable then ok, our ego is motivated to remove that painful embarrassment but other wise not. Of course, if we hide our unhappiness from others we’re avoiding the embarrassment, the loss of face, so that’s the easier option from our egos perspective. Or ‘well everyone is unhappy, life is not about happiness ‘ is another way to save face. Our unhappiness is now a virtue, it actually gives us more status.

Once someones emotional well being has deteriorated to this degree they, like Trump, are very thin skinned. Questioning their beliefs and values provokes a furious response given their utter dependance on that structure their status is perched atop of allowing them to look down upon most others.

The humble can readily accept it’s all subjective because, not only is it screamingly obvious, but they’re not too concerned about status thus not desperately trying to protect it. They keep their ego tree pruned back thus allowing plenty of light into their emotional tree. Joy needs space to flow into, little light gets into a cave and then, without light, we do the best we can with what we’ve got. Again, one motivations treasure can be, and often is, another motivations trash so we need to manage our motivations.

the is one of the inherent problems with midstream, incremental therapy and why it's success rate is so pathetically low. Even if their therpist knows what they're doing and tries to remove the nails to generate the desperately needed flexibility the interventions, the struggle is midstream. They're struggling aganst the exisitng motivational flow - motivations vs motivations. The client has their exisitng objectives that are downstrem from their motivaitons so when we ask 'what do you want? who or what are we asking? We're giving their cuckoos a vote, asking someone who is lost what direction they want to go in. At best we can renovate their rut. Addiitonally, the therapsit is themsleveso n the mainstream path, has thmelves sat in a classroom for years, or even decades, so that reality, with rare exceptions, is the reality. Of course theyre limited to trying to fit the client into the mainstream path better yet it's often the manistream path itself that is the issue. If the mainstream path fitted the client snuggly enough they wouldn't be knocking on the door in the first place.

Pragmatic useful therapy is focused on generating flexibility in the clients system. Indeed, if they had flexibility to make the changes required they wouldn't be knocking on therapists doors in the first place. But how can we be flexible unless we're humble, unless we can accept it's all subjective and thus able to throw out the accumulated trash and go directly to the relevant feelings desired? We can't.

Humility is the gateway to happiness whilst our ego shuts that gate.

to open that gate we must remove that which is keeping it closed as Shedler explains;

At the tip of the motivational hierarchy we see 'self actualisation'. A vague term, but clearly it involves discriminating between self and non self. How do we do this? As mentioned, we do it by deleting much of our motivational overgrowth -secondary motivations - allowing us to reconnect with our primary real motivations which, given they're hardwired in, cannot be deleted. For example, a drug addict is dominated by that powerful acquired motivation which overpowers nearly all of their other motivations. The addict only cares about accessing the pleasure the drug provides and escaping the pain experienced without the drug. To free themselves from this habit/motivation they must starve it out. If they stop feeding that motivation it dies and they'll, in a week or two, be completely free of it allowing them to redirect their time, focus and energy towards satisfying other, hopefully more positive, motivations. All secondary motivations, large and small, can be deleted/ minimised/ managed via the same process. Programs installed can be uninstalled. If a program/motivation is not useful, or no longer useful, why keep it in us? We do because people come to identify with their existing motivations. Those motivations, and the existing balance of power between them, have been within them for so long they deem the status quo them.

Just as the drug addict must suffer to remove the alien motivation - going cold turkey doesn't amuse that 'monkey on their back' - so we must suffer, typically to a much lesser extent, to remove our clusters of accumulated motivations. A 10 day VM course is not much fun, but it works. The course involves spending the bulk of the 10 days just sitting crosslegged meditating with 'meditating' here meaning just focusing on the feelings arising inside of us. We soon connect the dots, soon understand motivations motivate via feelings. How else? Control our motivations and we control what bio chemicals/ feelings/flavours are dripping into our 'cup'. We're now pouring our own cocktail and if we can do this how is it possible, beyond extremes, to be unhappy? Obviously, the first step is to empty our cup. We must first throw away the stale ugly flavours to escape their taste and to make space for delightful flavours of our choice keeping in mind space within our cup has a quality all of it's own. Often people keep trying to pour in delightful flavours without firstly emptying out what's already in there. What's the point of that? The cup is already full, meaning little gets in and what does is quickly polluted by the stale stuff already there. If I have coffee in my cup and want to enjoy some wine, or whatever, I need to pour out the coffee, and the dregs, first. I guess I don't have to but it's just a bit silly, and self defeating, not to.

Clearly, to discriminate between self and non self, we just put all the motivations we’re juggling down, step away and see what we’ve now got. Those motivations that are us, that are hardwired in, are stepping away with us but now they’re no longer crowded, now they’re no longer smothered, now they can directly connect to what they want, what they’re nourished on. Now we're orientated towards our actual interests. Less is more.

House got too crowded clothes got too tight
And I don't know just where I'm heading tonight
But out where the sky's been cleared by a good hard rain
There's something calling my secret name

Had a coat of fine leather and snakeskin boots
But that coat always had a thread hanging loose
Well I pulled it one day and to my surprise
It led me right past that house and on over the rise

I had some victory that was just failure in deceit
The joke was coming up through the soles of my feet
I been a long time walking on fortune's cane
But now I'm stepping lightly and feeling no pain

Well here's to your good looks, here's to my health
Here's to the loaded places that we take ourselves
When it comes to luck we make our own
Tonight I got dirt on my hands but I'm building me a new home

Well I sought gold and diamond rings
My own drug to ease the pain that living brings
Walked from the mountain to the valley floor
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward

From a house on a hill a sacred light shines
I walked through those rooms but none of them are mine
Down empty hallways I went from door to door
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward

Tonight I can feel that cold wind at my back
I'm flying high over those grey fields, my feathers long and black
Down along the river's silent edge I soar
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward

We need clarity. Need to know what it is we're actually seeking to know what path leads there, thus what path to take. Ultimately, we're seeking to be very happy; no one seeks to be miserable although, if motivations get too numerous, tangled and contradictory, miserable is the best we can realise. We're 'happy' being miserable which means some motivations like our reality, whilst others don't, putting a very low ceiling on our level of happiness. One motivations treasure is other motivations trash....People want to be happy but they're often not willing to take out the trash. They desperately want lovely plants in their garden but refuse to firstly take the weeds out. They put in the seeds they want but how can they possibly grow amidst all the competition?

the rat traps

Explained differently; their existing motivations, and the existing balance of power between them, has solidified over time meaning their objectives have also solidified thus their decisions and then actions. Given their objectives, their decisions make sense and their actions make sense. As some of their motivations are their cultural beliefs and values they're on their societies mainstream path - they're a good person living life the right way - so, from their perspective, it's not their fault they're less than happy. Indeed, they can be very successful, as defined by their beliefs and values, so they think they should be, deserve to be happy. This 'paint by numbers' approach to happiness, and life in general, generates the rigidity and the confusion. Love and joy are not rational, have nothing to do with the brain and they're not something our brain can build. Our brain can help us access realities where love and joy are abundant but can't manufacture the bio chemicals.

In the precarious, brutal past our motivational artetchure worked well -we're here - and still works well if our mainstream path is in good shape. If it's not, or not for our tastes, then things get awkward. If our civilisation is past its zenith, and in the deteriorating stage of it's lifecycle, if the once smooth, and fruitful, mainstream path is now potholed with that once low hanging fruit long gone, spending our lives on that path might not be in our actual interests. Yet, via our schooling etc, we're programmed up to do just that - awkward.

Give us crack, anal sex

I think it's fine building

Where do the children play? Good question, and if children don't get to play - do what they actually want to be doing - they can struggle to connect to what they actually want to be doing/ experiencing as adults. Early, intensive and prolonged schooling makes us well schooled in the beliefs and values of the culture we happened to be born into. We can start to deem those beliefs and values, and the mainstream path they put us on, as the reality which, if that life is pleasant enough is just fine of course. If it's not fine we keep bashing our head against those walls not understanding those walls only exist in our head and we didn't even put them there.

Busted out of class

By the time we pop out of our cookie cutter schools, we've already gained some status, approval etc via those beliefs and values so we're now invested in them. We defend our status, we defend the beliefs and values our status is built on. The rationally subjective is not subjective to us. We, by lucky 1 in a 1000 chance, have been programmed with the right and true beliefs and values which, not coincidently, means we get to judge others by our values thus, as our values are not theirs, they fall short meaning we're superior to them. Voila, we have a lot of status. We're superior to most others in the world. Presumably, this also means we consider ourselves superior to nearly all who existed in the past, and all who will exist in the future, but this line of thought threatens our ego so we don't ponder it. What Shedler was also pointing to above was the classic ego resistance to change that haunts therapy rooms all day, everyday. Our ego is enjoying status from who we are so if we change who we are we lose the status and approval we've, often painsakingly, accumulated. Naturally, our ego resists being put on a starvation diet, it;s claws unsheat and we recoil from that pain. Our finger retracts from the 'refresh' button and we ask for a pill please. Shedler was pointing out some therapists 'cheat' by validating the persons ego thus milking some more delicious status bio chemicals - the person feels a bit better - the therapist gets paid and the client comes back in soon enough. Good business model, but terrible 'therapy'. The 'therapist' instead of removing, or at least diluting, the suffocating cultural, or sub cultural, template is actually adding in extra nails. But then, what can one expect? Most therapists have themselves gone through a couple decades of schooling, have never really lived outside that cultural bubble, so the mainstream path seems to be the only path there is from their perspective.

Which is one of the reasons midstream therapy has such a poor success rate when it comes to improving peoples level of happiness. One of the reasons so many people select some pill to hopefully mask how their cocktail tastes. When someone is heavily infected with second hand motivations how can they even know what they actually want? In this sense, what can the therapist even do from midstream? We're asking someone who is lost what direction they want to go in. Trying to make changes midstream -around objectives and decisions - is hard, slow work with their current objectives themselves downstream from their motivations. Just make the changes upstream at source and let gravity do the work. That we can simply go upstream and make the changes there is known, it's no mystery. Indeed, as I'm writing this ( August 26) the Huberman podcast discussed this very topic with psychiatrist Dr. Alok Kanojia who was explaining, albeit with different terminology, the same thing. '

‘What I try and do is I help people get to their fundamentals. Everyone is focused on changing behaviour, everyone is focused on increasing willpower to overcome a tendency, and it’s ,like, why not just change the tendency?. For their natural thoughts to change, for the way they see the world to change, for their behaviours to change on its own doesn’t require willpower. Will power is necessary when you’re fighting against tendencies but it’s not required when those tendencies are no longer there.’

Exactly. One needs willpower when it's motivations vs motivations but we don't at all if we just delete the problem 'tendencies'. Possibly due to his Indian heritage this is obvious to him. After all, India is the birthplace of Buddhism and, incidentally, where I did my VM course more then 3 decades ago - this is basic stuff there. Also incidentally, the Huberman podcast is an excellent source for remaining updated with the latest scientific discoveries and conclusions regarding health and happiness. Very popular, it typically ranks no 1 in the world in its genre and is often in the top 10 podcasts overall. It's hosted by Stanford neurologist Professor Huberman who is a very pragmatic, evidence only, type of guy. Recently he pondered the 'meaning of life' and to him it was ' learning to enjoy the time we have and to prolong that time'. Exactly, what else and if we believe it's something else where do those beliefs/motivations come from? It's hard to imagine we choose them ourselves as that would be self defeating. If we believe life is about hard work, so it will be but, like, why would we want that life? Isn't that the life of a slave?

You got a job downtown, man it leaves your head cold
And everywhere you look, life ain't got no soul
That apartment you live in feels like it's just a place to hide
When you're walking down the streets, you won't meet no one eye to eye
Now the cops reported you as just another homicide
But I could tell that you were just frustrated

Those on the higher levels of happiness know what they want.

Now some may want to die young
Young and gloriously
Get it straight now mister, that ain't me
'Cause I got something on my mind
That sets me straight and walkin' proud

Of course we have to survive. We need food, shelter, security etc and we need to satisfy those needs via the economic system that exists. Necessarily, our emotional well-being often has to take a backseat but, and what we find out via an emotional detox, many of our accumulated secondary motivations are just irrelevant, just clogging up our system like old files and programs on a laptop.

While most people understand their phones operating system better than they understand their own - due to ego resistance - they tend to assume they function a bit like a car does. If there's a problem the mechanic identifies it, fixes it, slaps the hood and off they happily drive. This belief is wildly inaccurate as we're much more like a laptop that struggles to function properly because it’s accumulated too many files and programs. It’s core operating system is overloaded, confused and it’s energy is been consumed by a lot of useless programs installed long ago. The problem is not a specific file, or program, it’s the overcrowding itself - there’s too much useless junk weighing down the system. We can press refresh, and if that works then fine, but we’re typically better off to return to ‘factory settings’ and get the core operating system functioning properly again. Experience the massive difference and then reinstall/install only those programs that we choose to have, that are relevant to our actual objectives, instead of remaining a drone programmed up by whatever culture, or sub culture, we happened to be born into. If we’re not acting in our own actual interests - in touch with our innate motivations - in whose interests are we acting?

Secondary motivations, for the most part, serve, or at least were intended to serve, our primary motivations. If not, why are there? Who, or what, are they serving? For example; we need food, shelter etc and we live in a world which these obvious priorities require some kind of gainful employment. The motivation for a job is a secondary motivation that serves those primary motivations. It’s a valid, if we don’t already have a lot of $$, secondary motivation, but a secondary motivation nevertheless. To get a pleasant, and fruitful, job we need qualifications, the right work ethic etc so now we’ve got more secondary motivations. Beyond a certain point, as our secondary motivations accumulate and get more and more remote from the primary source motivation, their actual relevance - their point in the first place - becomes confused. To get ‘A’ we believe we firstly need to get ‘H’ and ‘K’. To get ‘H’ we believe we firstly need to get ‘L’, F and J and to get ‘L’ we believe we firstly need to get ‘P and ’S’. Then do ‘K’ and it’s derivatives - complicated. That whole matrix, functional or not, is held in place by our existing beliefs and values which are themselves second-hand. Our parents and culture, with good intentions no doubt, installed the bulk of those motivations/programs and if the resulting matrix works fine, if that recipe delivers a satisfactory taste, then all is good. Happy days - we enjoy our time. If not, then perhaps we have some work to do, perhaps we need to step out of our own overgrown, second-hand, web and return to our core selves.

When we prune it all back, when we step out of our own overgrown web, we’re now connected with our underlying primary motivations that matrix was meant to serve. We then realise the overgrowth was itself the problem, we get that less is more and, once we’ve reorientated to our actual interests, can install a useful, relevant, simplified matrix/web of secondary motivations. KISS; 'Keep It Simple Stupid' as I was taught in the army long ago.

For many, this seems too simplistic, too easy and obvious. After-all, if it was this easy why doesn't everyone just detox, recalibrate to their actual interests, and be happy ever after? Because we come to see the cultural reality we're in as the reality and not just a manmade bubble within the larger reality. Us homo sapiens ( wise Apes) are social primates; we live in groups, very large groups these days that require ideals and ethics to function. Even accepting we're social primates is awkward so a more colourful, useful, veil is placed over the reality. This is normal, groups need a culture - their ways of doing things, their beliefs and values - so by the time we're adults our groups mainstream path seems to be the path and we, naturally enough, seek happiness via that particular path. Which, if that path is smooth and fruitful enough is fine - happy days - but if that path is now bumpy, with the once low hanging fruit long gone, then it's not fine. If our mainstream path is no longer in good shape, if our civilisation is past it's zenith and in it's dying stage of it's life cycle, then what's the point in retaining all that programming that propels us down that path?

There's no point, but we can't escape we're social primates strongly motivated, via our ego, to align with our group. Can't escape we've sat in a classroom for at least a decade having our ego calibrated to our cultures beliefs and values. Can't escape that by the time we're young adults we've obtained some status via our groups beliefs and values thus we're already invested in those beliefs and values. If we accept our set of beliefs and values are just subjective, as they obviously are, then our status is also just subjective. Ouch, our ego does not like the sound of that so we push such notions away in order to retain our status. This irrationality, from an evolutionary/survival perspective, is not a bug, it's a feature given our dependence on our group. Survival is our priority and, in the past anyway, we simply couldn't survive outside of a cohesive, functioning group. It's only a bug if our groups mainstream path isn't satisfactory but we can't escape that fate because we lack the flexibility in our system to find a more fruitful path. A path continually travelled easily becomes a rut which is fine if it's experienced as a cosy niche.

This -ego resistance to change haunts therapy rooms all day every day. A person is less than happy and wants to feel happier. OK, well if we want to improve the taste we, obviously, need to change the recipe. Ah, but we have a problem; their ego is perfectly happy with their beliefs and values as it's via those beliefs and values they have their delicious status/approval. Awkward. They may not be very happy but, via ego satisfaction, they're at least getting some satisfaction. They're good, noble and successful as defined by the person in their mirror and they're being asked to throw those delightful flavours out? Then what will they have in their cup? If there's now ego dissatisfaction in their cup, along with emotional dissatisfaction the pain is too much so they, natural enough, recoil from making significant changes and ask for a pill instead. If they had the emotional buffer to withstand the challenge to their status they can then make the changes required. However, if they had that buffer they wouldn't be knocking on the door in the first place. If they had the flexibility to make the changes required they also wouldn't be knocking on the door in the first place.

Shedler explains it better than me.

A lot of 'therapy' validates the persons existing set of beliefs and values thus providing them a bit more ego satisfaction. That's something, that's a bit of a temporary boost, but instead of helping their client escape the template/rut they're enmeshed in, they're adding more nails into it. Ego satisfaction is relatively insipid and limited - it has a low ceiling - as it resides solely in the cultural bubble. It exists in the world of labels and meanings our brains generate whereas our emotions exist in the pre brain world they always have existed in long before our species ever evolved our turbo charged brains capable of generating much in the way of labels and meanings. Extra intelligence doesn't magically remove the instincts that intelligence is trying to help us satisfy, it just gives us more possibilities, more sophistication, in how we go about satisfying them.

Well, I think it's fine
Building jumbo planes
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train
Switch on summer from a slot machine
Yes, get what you want to if you want
'Cause you can get anything

I know we've come a long way
Things are changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

Will you make us laugh?
Will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live?
Will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way
Things are changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

Increasingly, due to early, intensive and prolonged education, children don’t play and if they don’t play - do what they actually want to be doing - they can lose that capacity. Boiled down, we can lose the capacity to access joy and then what is love without abundant joy in the mix? Do what needs to be done to get some, or some more, light/joy into our core - prune back the overgrowth blocking that light - and all the rest is, more or less, automatic given it’s all downstream from there. This, that we must protect our innate motivations, must keep our autonomy, is something that is clearly understood by those on the higher levels of happiness.

Busted out of class
Had to get away from those fools
Learned more from a three-minute record
Than we ever learned in school

Now young faces grow sad and old
And hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against that wind
Now I'm ready to grow young again

We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Like soldiers on a winter's night
With a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

Point here is; there's huge resistance both within the indiviual and the collective to lifting the veil on our actual operating system. Indeed, look at the resistance to accepting we're primates and how most people are simply not interested in learning about their own species, thus themselves. Doing so disrupts their existing structure of beliefs and values their ego is perched atop of looking down upon most others thereby giving them their sense of status. If we go upstream and detox motivations - wanting to be good as we're defining good is a motivation - we're free of that cultural template and have the flexibility to easily change our recipe to match our tastes. But if we're midstream, if we're within it that flow, that flow seems to be the reality, we stay in it and seek happiness within it.

Groups, soceities obviously need to be functional. The crops are not going to harvest themselves, the infrstructure not going to build itself. Teaching the young to shuffle beads and chants mantras isn't pragmatically possible, or desirable. Of course they need to be motivationally orientated down the mianstream path, need to be motivated to tick this box and that box. Need to believe happiness awaiuts down there and not ponder the actual nature of happiness too much as things start to get awkward if we do so. How many classess on happiness were you offred in school? exactly; that's not their job, that an individuals job and to do that job we firstly need to throw out the crap others have installed in us.

Ego and midstream vs upstream therapy requires more explanation, which we'll do on another page. We don't want this intro page to be too long so this is just an outline which we'll then colour in.

It's perhaps worth noting though that the confusion regarding the nature of happiness, and how to generate it, not only stems from group needs and that our ego and emotional ideas of a good time is very different - one motivations treasure can be another motivations trash - but also because different explanations are coming from different places on the spectrum.

As briefly mentioned above, we've got different systems; our nervous system can be in stressed sympathetic mode - fight or flight - or mellow parasympathetic mode; our brain can be furiously whirring away in hyper Beta frequency, or can drop down a gear into the much calmer Alpha frequency. They're very different realities, very different experiences, very different perspectives that make no sense if jumbled together. Primarily, this why much of the 'happiness' literature can be so confusing, and seemingly contradictory; there's the perspective from within our manmade cultural realities -that type of happiness - and then there's the perspective of those that are outside those bubbles and their different type of happiness. They're on the same planet, but within very different realities. Explanations seemingly contradict each other not because one is necessarily wrong but because the authors are not in the same system, not in the same realities, not defining happiness the same way. Arbitrarily, as there's actually a spectrum, we can use the monastery walls as separating those within the cultural reality, and often deeming it the reality, and those outside those bubbles.

While we do have our two seperate motivational systems, it's not a binary proposition. In practice there's a spectrum and the most valuable gift we obtain from emotional detoxes is understanding the spectrum exists and that we can move ourselves along it. Buddha symbolises one extreme of this spectrum. He's depicted just sitting under a tree with his massive, blissful smile on his face. How can he be so happy? Isn't he, like, bored? Doesn't he have numerous motivations demanding to be satisfied? He said 'By doing nothing, I do everything'. If one is 10/10 happy what is there to do? Do what? There, by definition, are no dissatisfied motivations compelling him to get off his arse in order to satisfy them so of course he just sits and enjoys his bliss. Less is more because at one pole of the spectrum everything can be nothing and at other nothing is everything. We feel no lack - no pain - not having what we do not want. If we feel we lack nothing we feel we have everything we want and if we have everything we want we are, by definition, on a very high level of happiness. It's not about trying to emulate Buddha, we couldn't even if we wanted to, it's about getting out of our rut to be able to access possibilities that were always there, but we couldn't connect to. Sometimes we need to weed our garden to allow long smothered seeds to sprout and grow.

Towards the unfortunate end of the spectrum we have the cynical. To them love and joy don't exist, or if they do they're not really worth much, because they have lost the capacity to connect with them, to nourish them. To them, it seems like love and joy don't exist which, naturally enough, limits them to the wells they are currently connected to/ obtaining at least some delicious bio chemicals from.

'We carry with us the seeds of our own destruction, it's part of the human package. Among those seeds are the ones that bring all the good things into our world but it's always a big tug of war all the time. We have a hand that builds, and we have a hand that burns. This is a song about a person who figures out how to switch to the hand that builds. This song is called Leah'.

During the VM course there's no talking ( beyond necessary) no phones and just basic food a couple times a day. By just sitting we're obviously unable to satisfy our motivations - we're starving them. Naturally, they're not too happy about this, they 'crack their whips', use their claws, but if we refuse to do their bidding they fade away freeing us from their influence. Not surprisingly, this can be transformational, even a surreal, experience given we have/had no idea we were so infected. We had assumed, to the degree we ever thought about it, many of our secondary motivations were us, that they belonged to us and it can be a bitter sweet experience to suddenly be free of them. Sweet, because we are now free of them -we no longer have to try and satisfy those cuckoo motivations` - but bitter because those motivations have fooled us, and kept us in a rut, for so long.

All social animals, including ourselves, achieve the needed social structure via hierarchies. Put this in.

Humility has always been associated with high levels of happiness because the humble do not care much about status and as that’s not their objective they’re free to seek emotional satisfaction instead. In other words; the tug of war between ego and emotions is being won by their emotions, not by their ego therefore they’re orientated towards emotionally nourishing fields instead of fields where they can acquire, or maintain status. We can hunt status, and it’s symbols, or we can hunt the invisible feelings that really matter as regards happiness.

Strength is fantasy, time is illusion

Of course, most people have a functioning equilibrium that satisfies both well enough - they have enough status/ respect/approval and they have enough emotional satisfaction which makes them happy enough. However, it’s very common that those knocking on therapists doors lack that balance; they’re too focused on being right and good as defined by their culture, or sub culture, and lack the flexibility to change their definitions, thus be more flexible, even when they obviously need to. They’re in so deep they’re mistaking their cultural reality as the reality, as all there is and if it’s all there is then no other options realistically exist for them. They want to be happy but they’re trapped by their programming which they don’t see as programming, they see as reality.

The rat traps are filled with soul crusaders

I’m quoting Springsteen a lot because he’s a lot further along the spectrum than most are. Indeed, he’s an extreme example but it’s via the extremes we can more clearly see the unusual mentality.

Known as ‘The Boss’ because he’s in control of himself - got his fingers on his own buttons. A billionaire, famous, happy family and spending his time doing exactly what he wants he’s a success by almost anyones definition. As he said to his audience a few years ago; ‘I haven’t worked a day in my life - thanks’ and ‘If you got to have a problem then too much $$ is a good problem to have, I guess’ Very high level stuff, he obviously figured out this life thing a long time ago. Critically, yet most don’t understand why it’s so critical, he’s extremely humble. Critical, because flexibility and a pragmatic mentality depends on humility. When it’s obvious to us that it’s all subjective then how is it possible to care much about status? What is good and right depends on who is asked obviously and what gives us the right to impose our definitions onto others? What makes our definitions superior to theirs? After all, all egos are doing is slapping good and right on the beliefs and values the person in their mirror happens to have. We then -magically - are superior to most others but we ‘forget’ we’re judging them by our values as if our values are the values and therefore relevant to them. Again, a feature, not a bug from an evolutionary perspective but rationally silly nevertheless.

The humble aren’t playing that game - why do our values supersede their values/ who made us God?- so don’t have to tick those boxes, don’t have to jump those hoops freeing up their time, focus and energy for what’s more important to them. Our species has our limited array of mediocre senses that are capable of only perceiving a small slice of the reality. That small slice is then unconsciously filtered for relevance, as determined by our objectives, to reduce that incoming data to a small enough stream our primate brains can process. The notion we know the truth is ridiculous, only the painfully ignorant think they do, or even can. Even if all humans define something the truth that doesn’t make it the objective truth, it’s just what seems to be the truth given our limited capabilities. Who, or what, can stamp ‘truth’ on our beliefs and how can we know it knows?

We say ‘the sky is blue’. Well it seems to be to us given the rudimentary cones in our eyes but some species, some birds for example, have much more sophisticated cones and the sky isn’t blue to them.

‘You have to be reasonably knowledgable to know you’re ignorant’. Take away the illusion we know and we’re flexible and pragmatic. We’re not shaking our fist at reality because it’s not as we want it to be - not playing God - rather we learn to surf what exists. Everything exists we want -there’s no lack- the challenge is prioritising our motivations and then navigating reality competently enough to access what we actually want. We accept this life thing we’re experiencing is just that -an experience - and we then ponder what do we want to experience in the time we’ve got. By clarifying what feelings we’re actually seeking we can go directly, or more directly, to them. Of course, we need to survive, need to juggle practicalities but such is the game of life. It’s not necessarily easy - why would it be? - but if we’re flexible and pragmatic we’re much more able to match up our motivations with reality and that - having what we want - is the definition of happiness.

Dr Shedler also emphasises that to be humble is to be more aligned with reality.

'Around 2000, I had a medical scare and got a lot of terrifying diagnoses from medical doctors. The diagnoses had two things in common: 1) They were wrong. 2) They were all delivered with certainty. It made me reflect on my own work as a psychologist. I printed a sign and hung it on the wall in front of my desk so it would always be in my line of sight. It said,“We don’t know.” It was my reminder to be humble in my work with patients. I’ve fallen short many, many times, and still fall short. But I’m still trying, every day.'

Or as Dr Mary Jo Peebles. Clinical Psychologist and Author puts it;

“The goal of psychotherapy, all turf battles aside, is to rattle our patient’s certitude about their conclusions.”

People cannot change their recipe, can't play the game differently, without the flexibility to do so. It all starts there. Pragmatically useful therapy generates flexibility allowing change to occur. From there the individual makes those changes because they now can. Emotional detoxing such as the VM 10 day course introduces massive flexibility into a persons system because they've pruned back their motivational overgrowth freeing themselves from that baggage and this allows more light into their emotional core. They suddenly feel a lot better - they've bounced along the spectrum and now understand the spectrum exists and that less is more. They know they weren't that prior person, know they're not necessarily this new person, they're both and neither. It just depends on context, depends where they are on the spectrum at that time. Ask Springsteen who he is and he can't answer, the question doesn't make sense to his brain given he doesn't see himself as something solid and rigid. He has motivations he's trying to satisfy -trying to be happy - and has developed strategies, and habits, that aid those objectives but is he his motivations, strategies and habits? I guess, but they are fluid and context dependant so how can he answer in a definitive manner?

On the other hand, those dominated by their ego can readily answer because there exists a 'solid' hierarchy in their brain and they want to be patted on the head for climbing it. They want validation, approval, respect as that's what egos are nourished on. Sure, Springsteen has a lot of respect, but it's a by-product, it's not what he was seeking.

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
Till you end up like a dog that's been beat too much
You spend half your life just covering up

Born in the USA
I was born in the USA

But, it's not about being ego less - that's impossible unless we want to live under a tree - it's about the price we pay when our ego dominates.

The humble see the cultural bubbles as just that, bubbles within the infinite reality, not the reality. Those folk in a particular bubble have their ways, their beliefs and values and to navigate that reality the humble need to calibrate accordingly, but they’re not stuck in that calibration. Just because we were born into a culture doesn’t mean we have to stay in that bubble. Just because they play the game of life as they do doesn’t mean we have to. When you can make your own rules it’s hard to lose. We pay a high price if our ego dominates us.

You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take
You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks
Out on to an open road you ride until the day
You learn to sleep at night with the price you pay

Now with their hands held high, they reached out for the open skies
And in one last breath they built the roads they'd ride to their death
Driving on through the night, unable to break away
From that restless pull, ah the price you pay

Oh, the price you pay, oh, the price you pay
Till you can't walk away from the price you pay

Now they'd come so far and they'd waited so long
Just to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrong
Where the dark of night holds back the light of the day
You've gotta stand and fight for the price you pay

Do you remember the story of the promised land?
How he crossed the desert sands
But could not enter the chosen land
On the banks of the river he stood
To face the price you pay we pay

So let the games start. You better run, you little wild heart
You can run through all the nights and all the days
But just beyond the county line, a stranger passing through put up a sign
That counts those fallen away to the price we pay
Before the end of the day
You gotta tear it down and throw it away

As regards happiness we want to align our ego with our emotions so there’s no conflict. Define success as happiness and our ego is now happy in emotionally nourishing fields. They're both happy on the same path. Again, we still have to survive in the world that exists which can make things hard for our emotional motivations as their ego and survival motivations are natural allies. A promotion, for example, satisfies both leaving our emotional motivations overpowered.