This past week in Office Hours, we looked more closely at what MINDS DO so that we could begin to put some healthy distance between Who We Are and the hypnotic effect of the human mind.
One of the most prominent features of a mind is its ability to judge everything. A mind judges other people, circumstances, and, most of all—your own actions, words, appearance, worth, and value.
But here's the the important distiction:
WE DON’T JUDGE.
A mind does that.
A mind compares. And in the mind’s comparisons, we either come out a winner or a loser, a victim or a villain, a saint or a sinner.
But, WE DON’T COMPARE.
A mind does that.
A mind predicts the future with urgency and drama. It adds details and evidence that seem impossible to refute.
But, WE DON’T catastrophize and dramatize.
A mind does that.
A mind lingers in regret, grief, and resentment about the past. It spins compelling, tangled webs of narratives with victimhood and unfairness as the common threads.
But, WE DON’T RUMINATE ABOUT OUR PAST.
A mind does this.
A mind beats us up and plays compelling stories of self-sabotage. It offers evidence that feels rock-solid. But it’s not.
But, WE DON’T beat ourselves up.
WE DON’T self-sabotage.
A mind does that.
And why does this even matter?
It matters because, when it looks like thoughts, stories, and judgments are OURS, we tend to live inside those thoughts—trapped like victims. We get lost in an identity of a small, separate, vulnerable self. Lost in conditioned beliefs that were added to us by our families, our teachers, and our society. Lost in compelling illusions that our worth, value, peace, safety, and Ok-ness are found outside of us and are dependent on people and things external to us.
And, by design, we suffer.
But when this distinction between who we are and what a mind does begins to be recognized on an embodied level, something softens.
We begin to relate to experience differently.
Instead of trying to manage experience, we simply notice THAT this experience is here. Like, “Oh, this experience of disappointment is here. Yeah, I can feel this.”
We gently remember who we are beneath and beyond what the mind says and does.
Not by effort or by force. But by noticing what has always been here.
This whole waking-up process happens by grace—by something beyond the control and management of a narrating mind.
It is not because of our work, our efforts, or our insights.
By grace—by something beyond our mind’s capacity to even name—waking-up is happening. Seeing who we really are beyond a collection of human experiences begins to come more clearly into view. Not as a concept but as a feeling. A sensation. A felt-sense knowing in the belly.
This week, one of my clients and I tried a little experiment together. This lovely man has carried a very compelling and legitimate narrative that goes something like this: “I had a shitty childhood, and no child should ever have to experience what I endured.”
Together, we honored that childhood. We named the shitty-ness of it. The unfairness. The grief. The rage. We named and honored the lingering questions of why and how could this have happened to a small boy?
And then, we put the entire narrative in a glass ball and set it in the palm of our hands. One in his. One in mine.
The glass ball was simply called “The shitty childhood.” And we allowed all of the details and the mind’s questions to be part of that delicate glass ball.
But instead of going into the ball to analyze and agonize over the details, we each held the glass ball out at a slight distance from our chests, so we could really see it.
The Shitty Childhood Glass Ball.
Together, we noticed the mind’s urgent demands to go back INTO the ball to describe more of the details; ask more of the unanswerable questions. But, each time that urgency yelled, we thanked the mind for doing its job, and we returned to holding the glass ball and simply looking at it.
I asked my client to look away from the computer screen and just watch the glass ball for several minutes, just to see what wanted to arise within him, physiologically, viscerally.
Big Emotions. Strong sensations.
Together, we stayed still and quiet for about 5 minutes. No words were spoken. There was some fidgeting, some movement. A tired arm that needed to rest. A locked gaze on the shitty childhood ball.
And then the tears, in him, began to flow. Softly at first and then free-flowing like a river.
I stayed quiet, directing as much loving energy his way as I could.
And then he said these words: “I see it.”
Again, I remained quiet so that he could FEEL in his body what he was seeing.
After a few more moments, he said, “That’s not the whole story is it? The shitty childhood isn’t the whole story. There’s something more I just couldn’t see.”
Yeah.
We weren’t denying the story. We weren’t trying to make sense of how parents and grandparents could do what they did to him. We weren’t arguing with what happened or how it impacted his life. We would never do such a thing.
But for several moments, together, we held a space of openness, compassion, and kindness for that shitty childhood. And in doing so, my client saw for himself, that all along, even in the worst parts of the story, there had always been something within him that was untouched. Unmarred. Even as a small boy, the truth of him was always whole, complete, worthy, valuable, and made of love. He just couldn’t see it until now.
The mind had played all of the details of the shitty childhood for decades. He had lived inside those awful details as an identity for nearly 65 years. And for the first time ever, he stepped outside of the narrative—not to escape it, ignore it, or diminish it—but to HOLD IT from the space of his TRUE SELF.
By grace, we wake up precisely when we wake up. We see that we are not the center of experience but the space in which experience is held, healed, and reintegrated.
What an incredible gift.
So, let’s take just a brief moment together…
If it feels okay, you might let your feet notice the floor beneath them.
Not changing anything — just noticing contact.
You might notice the sensation of your body being supported by the chair.
The simple fact of being held.
Now, without trying to stop thoughts or improve anything,
see if you can notice a thought as it arises.
Maybe a judgment.
Maybe a plan.
Maybe a familiar story.
Instead of stepping inside it, imagine placing that thought gently in the palm of your hand —
the way you would hold a small, delicate glass ball.
You’re not pushing it away.
You’re not analyzing it.
Just holding it.
And then notice something subtle but also lovely:
the awareness that is holding the thought is already here.
Quiet.
Steady.
Unmoved.
Thoughts and stories can come and go —
and this holding Presence remains.
Nothing needs to change.
Just notice.