by Barrie

I first read Dr. Richard Gillett’s aptly titled book It’s a Freakin’ Mess: How to Thrive in Divisive Times back in Spring 2020 when I was feeling disheartened and exhausted by the uncertainty we were living through at the beginning of the pandemic. The simple and concrete tools he shares really helped me to develop habits that allowed me to stay informed and engaged without getting drained and overwhelmed. Since much of what he writes about seems to be very much in line with what I’ve learned in yoga, I wanted to interview him to understand more about the intersection between the concepts presented in his book and yoga.

Barrie: For those who don’t know much about you, please tell us something about yourself, including your yoga background.

Richard:  I was born in London, England, and spent my early childhood in Uganda, Africa, where my father was an entomologist, specializing in mosquitoes. My mother was born in what is present day Ukraine and in 1940, at the age of 17, was imprisoned in a cattle train and taken to Siberia by the Russian military. She eventually escaped from Russia and ended up in Uganda in a British refugee camp of which my father was the mosquito-controller. I mention this history because it was a big influence in my quest to understand how to live gracefully in difficult circumstances.

I received my medical degree from Cambridge University in England and became a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. My specialty was psychotherapy for people who were looking for a better quality of life. To this end, I set out to find briefer and more effective methods of creating mental and emotional change.  This search took me all over the world—I’ve lived on four different continents—looking for solutions to common human predicaments from the perspective of different cultures and psychologies. Some of these methods are rare, including wonderfully effective techniques some 2000 years old, from ancient Greek and Indian psychologies. And all this led me to yoga and the study and practice of meditation.

My focus now is on publishing something of the array of knowledge that I’ve been privileged to learn.

Barrie: Your latest book is It’s a Freakin’ Mess: How to Thrive in Divisive Times. What was your impetus for writing this book?

Richard: The impetus came early one morning, a few years ago. I had awoken at around two o’clock, my mind churning with all the inflammatory political news I’d heard on TV the evening before. “Wow,” I thought, “it’s a freakin’ mess out there”—and it was a freakin’ mess in my own mind too! Lying awake for hours, restless, worried, and exasperated, I came to a decision: I would research, and hopefully find, the steps I needed to take, not just to get through, but to feel good and be more effective while living in these times of division.

It’s a Freakin’ Mess: How to Thrive in Divisive Times is the result of my research. Every solution I found I tested first on myself, then on my (willing) friends—eventually fine-tuning these solutions by incorporating feedback from my website readers. The book is also based on a lifelong personal and professional quest of mine: what does it take for us human beings to transcend divisiveness?

Barrie: I find it interesting that you use the word thriving in divisive times in the title of the book because I think a lot of us are just trying to survive right now and surviving in itself can feel like a big accomplishment, let alone thriving. Why did you decide to use that word? What’s your definition of thriving in divisive times?

Richard:  On the front cover of my book, the word “survive” is crossed out, and the word “thrive” is written just above it. Apart from the play of the rhyme—survive/thrive—these words relate to the theme of the book. Survival, I agree with you, can be a big accomplishment when you are threatened! That’s the plus side—your emergency output of adrenalin, for example, can help you through physical danger. The potential downside to this emergency mode occurs when it extends for days, weeks, months, or years. When we live longer-term in an internal brew of adrenalin, we feel in a more-or-less constant state of threat with accompanying feelings of worry/fear or anger/outrage. Even if we try to suppress such feelings we can end up with an unpleasant sense of constriction and tension within our muscles. So, in these long-term situations, we’ve survived, yes, but we don’t necessarily feel good.

Barrie:  OK, so what do you mean by thriving?

Richard:  Thriving, as I’ve used the term, is not only surviving, but feeling good and taking effective actions where we can. This means that even in situations of divisiveness and increased enmity, we can still live full lives in which there is joy and compassion.

Barrie:  In the Yoga for Healthy Aging community, we believe one of the most important factors in healthy aging is developing equanimity. How do we do that in a world in which there is so much divisiveness? In your experience, how does your yoga practice help?

Richard: The aim in yoga, as I’ve been taught, is union. Yoga means union. In the highest level, in non-dual traditions this refers to union between the individual and divine Consciousness. On a more everyday level, we can see this union as a redirection of our identity from us-vs-them concepts (I believe this and I’m right and you believe this and you are wrong) to our higher values or virtues, which are inclusive.

When we feel others to be the enemy, it is difficult to experience equanimity because we have natural aversive reactions (fear, anger) to those whom we perceive to be a threat. But once we see that the people we thought of as the enemy are human beings like us—who share all the same basic human attributes, like, for instance, wishing to be appreciated, loving to laugh, enjoying good food, wishing for respect, wanting to be heard, caring for loved ones—we feel empathy and greater unity with the essence that is in all people. With this sense of unity comes greater calm and equanimity.

There is always divisiveness in this world. The question each of us has is this: do I add to this divisiveness by dividing myself against those who I believe are creating the problem, or do I focus on our essential common humanity? This is where I’ve found my yoga practice helps. Yoga practice and discipline teaches me that I have a choice on what to focus. Just as I can focus on a particular part of my body in Hatha Yoga or on higher thoughts in meditation, so too I can focus my thoughts on differences or I can focus my thoughts on commonality. Focusing on the essential oneness of all beings is one of the great tenets of yoga.

On a very practical level, when I focus my thoughts on commonality, an amazing thing happens. Let my share a little anecdote on this.

Barrie: Please do.

Richard: This is an incident that happened on the subway in New York City, a few years back. I was sitting down and I noticed a morose looking guy sitting opposite me. I was busy making all kinds of assumptions and judgments about this man, even his political affiliation, when I suddenly thought: Hey, wait a minute! What am I doing? I know nothing about this guy or what kind of life he has. So, then I changed my focus and began to think about all the things we have in common. I chose some pretty universal human values like cherishing self-respect and appreciating kindness. And here’s the amazing thing: in less than a minute, I felt happier! I smiled a little in reaction to my happier feeling, and then this man smiled a little too. No word was ever spoken.

It struck me that we are, each of us, faced with this kind of choice many times each day: shall I focus my mind on differences between myself (or my group) and others, or shall I focus my mind on what we have in common? Which one of these two choices we make may have a big effect on our level of happiness.

Barrie: That’s great. What do we do, however, when we find ourselves angry with words or actions taken by politicians or public figures—or anyone else—especially when these angry feelings keep recurring and affect the flow of our day or the depth of our sleep?

Richard: First of all, I think it’s important to recognize our anger. I say this because sometimes our anger goes underground, manifesting as impatience, cold resentment, judgmentalism, complaining, condescension, derision, sarcasm, blaming, or contempt—to name just a few!

OK, that’s STEP ONE—recognition of our anger.

STEP TWO is to make sure we don’t spread the anger to others, through speaking, venting on social media, or even through facial expression. Venting anger does not dissipate it; it increases it in both ourselves and those we vent to. This relates to that prime yogic principle: You become what you focus on.

STEP THREE is to feel compassion for ourselves in our angry state. Don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t be angry—that just stirs an internal war, which usually leads to more anger. Be kind to that angry part of yourself, just as you can sincerely love a three-year-old child who is having a tantrum.

STEP FOUR is to recognize the origin of our anger.  Classical Yoga tells us that anger is created through having a wish that is not met. Ask yourself what is it that you desire.  For example, let’s say you have a desire that a politician stops lying about a matter you consider very important. It’s helpful, of course, to recognize that you are not in control of what comes out of someone else’s mouth. I know that’s really obvious! But sometimes we think we should have more power over what happens in this world than we actually do and that’s a sure recipe for unhappiness! Finding the humility to recognize our powerlessness over most (though not all) external events helps.

Then we can focus on what we do have complete power over—ourselves. So now we can redirect that yogic question: what is the desire we have that is not being met? The externally focused desire is that the politician tells the truth. The internal desire (the part we have control over) is our own wish or need for integrity, trust, and respect. If you say I am angry because of my own need for integrity, trust, and respect, you are no longer focused on an enemy (the politician who lied), you are focused on your own personal values. With this change of focus, the “enemy” is no longer jumping around in our brains, and the anger—which is really no more than a physiological reaction to threat—dissipates. This is not a matter of repressing anger; the anger dissolves when you drop the enemy image. You have shifted from the negative (against the politician) to the positive (for your higher values). And you have also shifted from the external—over which you have no control—to the internal, which is within your circle of power. You cannot make your need for respect and trust be fulfilled by a politician you’ve never met. But you can fulfill those same needs in other ways.

Barrie: You write about elevated feelings—like contentment, compassion, gratitude, wonder, kindness, love—and you compare them to feelings such as fear and anger that take away our peace of mind.  Can you say more about that? How do you get from fear or anger to these elevated feelings?

Richard: I think that fear and anger take away our peace of mind by their very nature. They are the emotions of aversion, the natural physiological reactions to a perceived threat. I find that when I do the four steps that I’ve just described, the elevated feelings naturally arise. They arise because they are inherent in our very beings. When our minds and bodies are rattled with us-and-them aversive thoughts, we lose connection with these birthright qualities of being. Saving ourselves from apparent threat takes predominance.  When we quiet our minds, on the other hand, through yoga or meditation—or through the exercise I just mentioned—there is space for these qualities to breathe.

The great news is that you only need to focus on one of these qualities. The elevated feelings go around in beneficent gangs! What I mean by that is these qualities—like contentment, compassion, curiosity, wonder, gratitude, humility, kindness, love—all support each other. When we feel more gratitude, for example, we experience contentment in a sense of personal abundance and the recognition that we have something to give; and that leads us to kindness. With gratitude, any grudge about how we think we have been treated unfairly in our lives is replaced with contentment about what we have received—therefore divisiveness dwindles. Without divisiveness, we are more compassionate. With compassion, we want to know what is going on for the other—we develop curiosity and wonder. And with curiosity and wonder comes greater humility because we realize how much we do not know. Humility, in turn, leads back to greater compassion, for with more humility we can listen with fuller presence, without condescension or thinking we know what’s wrong and how it should be fixed. All these qualities foster love for others and for ourselves.

The more we practice these happy-making qualities the stronger they become!

Barrie: In your book there seems to be a lot of overlap between the strategies you suggest for coping with divisive influences in politics and transforming anger and other painful emotions, and the principles of yoga philosophy. How did yoga philosophy and your own personal practice of yoga inform your approach to thriving in difficult times? How does it help you to do that?

Richard: I mentioned that Classical Yoga teaches that anger arises from expectations not being met. This is expounded in the Indian scripture the Bhagavad Gita. I have found this immensely useful. When I recognize my own anger, I often ask myself the question: “What is my wish that was not met? What is my expectation?” That question alone begins to shift my state.

Yoga philosophy also places high value on the virtues, what I’ve called the “elevated qualities” or “elevated feelings”.  Practicing quieting the mind through focus within—whether it’s on a mat in Shavasana or a cushion in meditation—is a time-honored way of reaching and expanding these inherent qualities we all have.

Barrie: How do you think postural practice helps one to achieve the elevated feelings you describe in your book? In your experience, what role does the body play in cultivating those feelings?

Richard:  It’s a big role. First of all, it is the body that produces the signs and symptoms of fear or anger—such as elevated heart rate, faster breathing, tension in the belly, tension in any of our muscles that are involved in fight or flight (that’s most of our muscles!) Developing greater body awareness through postural practices is helpful in recognizing our states of fear, anger, and greater limitation, and also in recognizing when we are free of these tensions. Many people do not have this perspective and may not know when they are angry, fearful, or tense.

Secondly, postural practice and focusing on the breath actually change our physiological state into one of greater calmness. For example, a slower out-breath stimulates the vagus nerve, which slows down the heart rate and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system—that part of nervous system that is calming and conducive to the quietening of the mind.

Thirdly, the focus on particular parts of the body in our postural practices brings us into the present moment. Instead of fretting over what happened in the past, or the thing we worry might happen in the future, we are in the magic of NOW. When we are in the present, our natural virtues are there for us. In other words, focusing on a particular posture or lying in the calm of Shavasana creates for us the state in which the elevated feelings naturally arise. When the body is calm, the elevated feelings that are always there for us, come to the fore of our consciousness.

Barrie: Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers?

Richard: Yes, there is one elevated quality I haven’t mentioned, and that is patience.  All these steps that I’ve mentioned may take a while to practice. Sometimes I find myself angry or upset about what is happening in this world—things that I think are so unfair. It’s not that I don’t fall into these traps; it’s more a matter of being better able to find a different perspective. That takes some practice and patience—and that patience with ourselves is an act of kindness.

Richard Gillett is a psychiatrist, author, podcaster, keynote speaker. He received his medical degree from Cambridge University, England, and is a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Richard has traveled the world—living on four different continents — to find solutions to common human predicaments from the perspective of different cultures and psychologies, including the study of yoga and meditation. He settled in NY State in 1991, where he was granted residency, and later U.S. citizenship, as a “professional of extraordinary ability.” He has been interviewed over 30 times on radio and TV, including on Good Day New York.  He was also featured in full length articles in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Men’s Fitness and Woman’s World.  He is the author of three books.  His first book, Overcoming Depression, was translated into seven languages. His latest book, It’s a Freakin’ Mess: How to Thrive in Divisive Times, os an Amazon #1 bestseller.

 

Download Barrie’s free Guide to Home Yoga Practice right here. Learn more about her book Evolving Your Yoga: Ten Principles for Enlightened Practice and her online classes at www.barrierisman.com.

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