Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

by Pema Chödrön

There are three things that I’ve observed about shenpa. One, our storyline fuels it. Two, it comes with an undertow. And three, it always has consequences—which frequently are not pleasant.

For instance, we feel lonely and automatically shenpa is there—that neutral moment of shenpa is right there. But instead of recognizing what’s happening, instead of waking up and riding the energy, we bite the hook and overeat, go on a binge, or strike out at others aggressively. Then there’s the post-shenpa shenpa. We become hooked by guilt and self-denigration for having been taken over once again. The story can go on and on for years, with one shenpa setting off a chain reaction that gives birth to further shenpa and so on and on.

crucial to drop the storyline.

The ignorance that doesn’t acknowledge that you’re hooked, that just goes unconscious and allows you to act it out—that’s the problem.

This is hard to do because then for sure you’re left in a very uncomfortable place. When you don’t do the habitual thing, you’re bound to feel some pain. I call it the detox period. You’ve been doing the same predictable thing to get away from that uneasy, uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling for so long, and now you’re not. So you’re left with that queasy feeling. This requires some getting used to and some ability to practice kindness and patience. It requires some openness and curiosity to see what happens next. What happens when you don’t fuel the discomfort with a storyline? What happens when you abide with this shifting, fluid, universal energy? What happens if you pause and embrace the natural movement of life?

we opt again and again for short-term gratification that in the long run keeps us stuck in the same cycle. If you’ve done this enough—especially if you’ve gone through this cycle consciously—you know that the consequences are easily predictable.

Dzigar Kongtrül once pointed out that you may find a particular feeling intolerable, but instead of acting on that you could come to know intolerableness very, very well.

There is a formal practice for learning to stay with the energy of uncomfortable emotions—a practice for transmuting the poison of negative emotions into

wisdom. It is similar to alchemy, the medieval technique of changing base metal into gold. You don’t get rid of the base metal—it isn’t thrown out and replaced by gold. Instead, the crude metal itself is the source of the precious gold. An analogy that’s commonly used by Tibetans is of the peacock who eats poison with the result that its tail feathers become more brilliant and glowing. This transmutation practice is specifically one of remaining open and receptive to your own energy when you are triggered. It has three steps. Step One. Acknowledge that you’re hooked. Step Two. Pause, take three conscious breaths, and lean in. Lean in to the energy. Abide with it. Experience it fully. Taste it. Touch it. Smell it. Get curious about it. How does it feel in your body? What thoughts does it give birth to? Become very intimate with the itch and urge of shenpa and keep breathing. Part of this step is learning not to be seduced by the momentum of shenpa. Like Ulysses, we can find our way to hear the call of the sirens without being seduced. It’s a process of staying awake and compassionate, interrupting the momentum, and refraining from causing harm. Just do not speak, do not act, and feel the energy. Be one with your own energy, one with the ebb and flow of life. Rather than rejecting the energy, embrace it. This leaning in is very open, very curious and intelligent. Step Three. Then relax and move on. Just go on with your life so that the practice doesn’t become a big deal, an ...

three step process

Pete was obsessed with the Star Wars series at that time, so one day when this was happening, I asked him, “Pete, what would Obi-Wan Kenobi do?” Pete got a curious, receptive look on his face. I could see him contemplating my question, and he began to sit up very straight and smile. He suddenly manifested as a powerful person who trusted in himself.

Gradually we lose our appetite for biting the hook. We lose our appetite for aggression.

Acknowledge you’re hooked (with

humor, if possible). Pause, take three conscious breaths, and lean in to the energy (with kindness, if possible). Relax and move on.

What happened was I did get exactly what I wanted—you could say, in worldly terms, that I won. But this woman could never see me in the same light again. To this day, she’s very polite and businesslike, but something shifted in her heart because she had always seen me as a spiritual teacher and someone who had it together, and then she got a voice mail from this neurotic witch. It didn’t do any good to say I’m sorry, which I definitely said. I said it for a year almost every time we talked, but there was no way to change what had happened. So I received a valuable lesson from that; sometimes we just have to learn the hard way.

Shantideva reminds us that by “putting up with little cares,” with minor annoyances, when the shenpa is lightweight,

Of course, neither you nor I know what adversity might or might not be coming—either in our personal or collective experience. Things could get better or they could get worse.