My NVC teacher once said that we feel good when our needs are met, and also when we anticipate that our needs are about to be met.

For much of my life, I’ve used this (without realizing it) to take refuge in the future. My main means of surviving my childhood was to believe that someday, things would be better. This wasn’t an abstract conviction–I would literally imagine my needs being met in a future scenario. Over and over. Until I began to live more in the future than in the present. And that habit is still with me. It’s been a source of strength and it’s trained me to be creative, imaginative, strategic, and determined. It has also kept me from feeling satisfied, because I’m always looking ahead, and desperately searching for a better moment in time.

So I’ve been looking for ways back into the present. They go something like this:

• Forget expectations. Expectations are when I compare the present to an idea I had about the present, before it happened. It’s an attachment to a different version of events that isn’t real. Release the fantasy and then see what is in front of me.
• Forget the needs I thought I would have in the situation I imagined would happen. Learn to feel the real needs and feelings I have right now in this moment.
• Forget the idea that time can be stopped. In my future fantasies, it was generally one moment replayed over and over. In that one moment, I was ecstatically happy. So I’ve been looking for that moment I can stop in. But those moments have come and gone, leaving me disillusioned with whatever the circumstances were in which they arose. But it’s natural for intense happiness to come and go. In grasping to keep it, I prevent it from happening again by getting trapped in a state of disgruntled animosity toward the present.
• See time as a river that I happen to be swimming in. Stop trying to influence the current and let it carry me. That means, day to day, not worrying so much about what the next day will bring, and attending to the day in front of me.
• See my emotions as a river that I’m swimming in. Instead of looking for grand plans that will change my entire emotional landscape, attend to the moment in front of me.
• Forget the idea that I can always change my current mood to one of happiness. Sometimes I will be unhappy, and I won’t know why, and it won’t matter that much because the happiness will come back again.
• If unhappiness persists I can ask myself, “What am I telling myself right now?” to look at the contents of my thoughts.
• I can also ask myself, “What was I imagining this moment would feel like?”. That lets me see what my hidden expectations are so I can let them go.
• Sometimes I just need to curl up on the couch for a bit and feel sad.
• Remember that some days will be fast days and other days will be slow days. Some days will be happy days and other days will be sad days. Some days I’ll make brilliant art and some days I’ll make nothing at all, or nothing that comes together. Some days I will feel close to people and some days I will want to be alone. Equanimity in the face of everyday change creates a habit of peace and contentment.
• I can soothe myself by being at peace with the present moment. I don’t need anybody else to be different, and I don’t need the present to be different. This is empowerment.

So I’m reading issue #33 of What is Enlightenment, (it’s not the newest one), and Andrew Cohen says:

…unless the individual is willing to own their own shadow, they are going to continue acting out of all those repressed impulses and continue creating karma, which means acting out of ignorance and unconsciousness in ways that cause suffering to others. And the whole definition of enlightenment is that, at least ideally, we are supposed to become so conscious, so awake, that we don’t create karma anymore.”

I agree, except I see one little piece missing. The sentence “cause suffering to others” I would add “and the self”. This is so key to me, because I believe what turns people off, at least in our culture, to spiritual learning and whatnot, is that the emphasis is on “doing good”. We’ve all been bored to death with do-gooding. The selfless Jesus-cross-martyr spirituality is over, it’s done, and it’s just not ever going to be hip again. This is where NVC comes in with its brilliant premise of being radically selfish. By pointing out very clearly (not theoretically, but practically), how when you get your needs met at anothers expense you end up paying for it later (with their resentment, anger, and unwillingness to cooperate), it shows a way to care about others while being totally about your own needs. You end up being about others needs because you get that there’s no way around that if you really want to be happy and have your own needs completely fulfilled.

I’d like to shift the discussion of karma from always centering on “what you do to others” to “what you do to yourself”. The same principles apply no matter where the harm lies. If you suppress your own needs, neglect them, meet some needs at the cost of other of your needs, you are creating more karma for yourself. (I hope as a side effect that this idea helps pop you out of the karma-is-punishment mindset.)

If you have a conditioned pattern of reacting to emotional stress by overworking (for instance), each time you do it you re-enact it, thus ensuring that the next time the situation comes around again you are going to feel that same urge to react in the same way. Just as in the quote above, by not facing your shadow (your repressed feelings, thoughts, and ultimately, needs), you are acting out of unconsciousness in ways that cause you to suffer.

The bottom line is that no matter whose needs don’t get met – yours or someone elses – any unconscious pattern you haven’t dissolved is going to come up again until you can stay conscious of it and make a choice in the face of it, rather than react.