Cruel Optimism, or What We Seek Can Make Us Suffer

Hi there. Thanks for stopping by. This is Josh. Welcome. I feel like supporting my work, which is entirely supported only by donation. I never charge for anything I do. not the counseling or the teaching. The Venmo is DharmaPunks with an X NYC and the PayPal and Patreon is on the website. So that's about it.

I'm going to start out with attachment from a positive perspective. From birth, our most basic drive, after all, as human beings, is to attach. all other mammals whose new-borns are almost all other mammals there are some primates like us but most mammals new-borns can stand move feed themselves within hours human Babies are born in a completely dependent state and require years and years and years.

of caregiving to be able to survive. I mean, we're talking well over a decade, which is unprecedented amongst the rest of the animal kingdom. At birth, our brains are intentionally underdeveloped. And human brains are underdeveloped at birth so that we can... be wired to the specific environments that we grow up in. And of course, there's a wide variety of human family systems. So it was pertinent and

Human beings live in vastly different geographical locations. So it was pertinent that human brains not be completely wired. before birth, that the bulk of the way the brain is formed and our behaviors and emotional attitudes be... be wired by actual experience. So we cement... the emotional predispositions by for years by bonding with others who will provide us with warmth feeding protection

and help us move. It's a strategy that keeps us alive in that we're being tethered to very specific caregivers who are emotionally invested in us. As crying infants, we can't soothe ourselves. We're only quieted as infants when someone picks us up, holds us close. and where we are met by a familiar voice and face. So we establish connections that keep us alive, and the way we do it is through eye contact, touch. wails, movements, gestures, essentially nonverbal cues. And...

The whole point of these is to get attention so that we'll make eye contact and be seen in the eye of a caregiver. And through thousands of interactions, a secure base is formed where... As infants, we internalize an expectation that people are there that care about us and that we're not alone in the world. This secure base or this internalized expectation that we matter is literally embodied. It's a right brain process. It's not something that we keep.

in our thoughts, telling ourselves, I matter, I matter. It's a felt sense that secure children or secure babies have that if they venture. out of, even out of sight of their parents, they know that their parents will be there if they need protection. And over time, we can tolerate greater amounts of separation because we anticipate that people will care about us if we call out for them. And this is precisely why we can explore the world and develop new relationships with other people.

If care is over time predictable, our nervous system learns to relax after stress. But if care is inconsistent, if people are not always available or attentive to our parents, are not always available or attentive, we remain in vigilant, activated states after stress. And we don't even explore as much because we're not sure if people will come running. If care is overwhelming... closeness itself feels engulfing. These patterns are learned semantically before any thought, again, occurs.

This process is all about bonding and internalizing a sense that we matter.

So we have to broaden our attachment. Work, friendships essentially alleviate loneliness and provide a sense of worthiness. Work. hopefully provide structure, emotional stability. Institutions are meant to provide a sense of protection if we need physical care. And through evolution, adult safety was really predicated on being a member of a tribe. In groups, we hunted together, we gathered tools, we prepped food, we maintained shelter.

Our sense of self was based on participation, not on individual achievement. And being a part of a member of a... tribe elicited profound feelings of purpose and belonging. No single person, no spouse, no parent, no leader. would ever carry the full weight of our needs for support. protection, emotion regulation. We lived in a cooperative environment. Now, modern life interrupts this developmental handoff. In our current world...

We attach to systems that can't reciprocate very well. Work is increasingly remote and solitary and screen-based. Social contact very often occurs through Slack. Zoom or FaceTime instead of direct in-person interaction, we can spend more time scrolling than speaking, more time watching than connecting. And instead of being a member of a tribe or a clan, we rely often on insurance companies.

on markets, on bureaucracies, on employers. And these institutions are, we know deep down inside, are indifferent. to our needs. And instead of really caring about our internal experience, they offer forums and chatbots and

monetary transactions where we have to pay for minimal care and protection. And over time, what this does is it leads to internalizing a brutal lesson about our sense of self who we are we over time begin to believe that we're not owed care that nothing is guaranteed, that everything in life that's vital must be paid for, such as health care and housing and rest and support and that dependence is a form of weakness rather than a normal

human condition, and that dependence is part of the process of maturation in life. There are times where we cannot. be robust and healthy, that we need care. And this is a Well, it's a terrible thing because our attachment needs are redirected towards structures that, to put it oddly, but don't love us back. It feels like if we would let go of these structures, it would feel like we're falling without any net. And this is a...

developmental mismatch because, again, brains were shaped for communal reciprocity. Our brains were not evolved to self-regulate. isolation. Our attachment needs persist, but we attach to our sense of

that somehow the world is going to recognize our efforts. The great social theorist Lauren Berlant, coined a term which i love called cruel optimism and cruel optimism was her phrase for when we attach to beliefs or goals, or plans that actively undermine our well-being and flourishing that the very things we attach to for security and well-being actually steer us in the wrong direction, leading us farther and farther away from true sources of care and support.

And so the problem is, is that at first letting go of these dreams, beliefs, goals can create feelings of panic. grief, because without a spiritual practice, we don't know what to rely on. The promise embedded in these

these false structures are impossible to fulfill. So I'm going to name a few of them. It's no surprise, by the way, that Lauren Berlin's primary example of cruel optimism was the American dream, the belief that hard work, obedience... self-discipline, effort, guaranteed economic security that we would be eventually repaid with rest and leisure, that there was even this... fantasy of upward mobility that is a kind of an advertising slogan that America

presents to its citizens as a kind of bait and switch operation. So one of the false goals is owning a nice home, which for the vast bulk of us is beyond our means. The inability to achieve this goal or to keep up with the extremely wealthy that arrive with their wealth through generational wealth that's being passed down to them becomes internalized as a personal failure rather than a kind of harsh economic reality.

And another dream is saving enough money to retire while working in unstable industries facing... housing, food, and spiraling health care costs, where any interruption could cause years. of our efforts being wiped away. Work in the past promised security benefits advancements, but now all it offers is intense workloads, diminished protections. And so all this is baked into us by this mythological time. And there was a period in the post-war era where for...

mostly for white people. Wages increased with productivity. Housing and education were accessible. There was long-term... work that offered protection and benefits. And this time, the working class and normal people had a sense of possibility because there were strong unions. But today, work is precarious, temporary. The costs of living rise faster than incomes.

health care, housing, and retirement are unstable. So we're chasing a dream by starting each new... gig employment with the idea that this may be the place that recognizes my worth, treats me with dignity and purpose, and eventually helps me own a home. and retire only once again to face the stark truth that the next layoff we might be... right back where we started. So in essence, Lauren Berlin's cruel optimism is the note that in American neoliberalism, life is akin to asking for harm.

orange juice at the hardware store. You're not most of the time going to get it. And it's also very similar to what in psychology is called repetition compulsion, where we keep going back again and again to situations where we've been wounded and disappointed in the past.

Because wounds, disappointments, and traumas etch themselves most deeply into... the right neocortex and so we can be trapped and again and again and again not just going for the same to the same people for attention but to the same institutions and expectations the buddha noted that when we're disappointed

And he said that this disappointment is not new to us. It's been around for thousands of years. Whenever we face the true disappointment that believing in these structures will somehow provide us with a nice, reliable, safe outcome. When we experience dukkha, the failure, the sense of, oh my gosh, this job, this relationship, this... This group of friends, this purchase, this vacation, whatever, is not going to bring me...

what I need, then we seek even increasingly temporary interruptions or short-term pleasures to soften the blow. People seek out alcohol and weed. dampen their anxiety or binge eat to override their depression or retail therapy. They impulsively purchase items. to create feelings of reward. binge-watching TV shows to numb intrusive thoughts, compulsive dating that replaces intimacy with fleeting dramas.

posting virtuous messages on Instagram instead of actually being involved with other groups and world and taking a stand in the real world. So all of this increasingly makes life repetitive and makes us again caught in this frustrating loop.

So spiritual practice involves shifting our reliance away from arenas that fail. to meet our needs. And, of course, the fundamental foundation of spiritual practice, as the Buddha noted, that Community is the entirety.

of he said the spiritual practice it's the place where we connect where we once again tap into that feeling of belonging and purpose and safety and being seen and being emotionally supported, regulated, where support is distributed amongst a group rather than concentrated and belonging becomes resilient. It's never fragile. Just as... So while this... meeting we have on Tuesday, which I really cherish and love to connect with.

But it's only the very beginning of the process. I would urge everyone to focus on also finding where they live. some group that you can join, whether it's another spiritual community, whether it's a 12-step group, whether it's a meetup where people... hike or do activities together. But it's essential that we physically share the same space, connect. and bond with others in person.

In addition to this, just as secure children internalize a sense of being seen, and cared for that's essentially over time felt, a lot of Buddhist practice involves internalizing images of reliable care. One of the most dominant meditations of the Buddhist time was internalizing images of secure, safe... figures that we would sustain not as stories but as images in our mind so that over time we would start to have that embodied sense of

attachment that was reliable. One practice is, of course, known as buddhanusati, which is simply creating an image in mind of whoever your Buddha might be. It doesn't have to be a male or a female or any gender. It could be any... kind of figure that transmits to you a sense of being seen and cherished and important and mattering. Also is Santi Nusati visualizing places where in the past you felt safe, where your body is relaxed. And all of these tools we now use.

today in therapeutic modalities such as EMDR and other trauma therapies where people are trained to resource images of safe places and safe figures. So this is... a practice that's still as resonant and important today as it was some 2,500 years ago. Sainte Nusati is simply in your mind, not so much the image. of that safe place, whether it's a place on a beach or a mountain or by a lake or...

in a favorite room. It's more recreating that feeling in your body of what it's like when you've arrived at a place where... you feel completely able to relax. Another practice was kaganusati. The Buddha talked about how important it was to... visualize a group of people who've shown us generosity or care. So in our minds, what we're doing is recreating those tribal attachments, those sense of belonging to a group.

And all of this is not done as thoughts, but as images, because images are actually internal representations that are actually resonant to the right. hemisphere of the brain which holds the needs for attachment and security and safety. The left brain uses language and ideas, but it is not the home of embodied affect. It's the home of... chasing after resources, identity, beliefs, stories, but the feelings that we need to feel safe and connected and bonded.

which are right brain primarily, as McGilchrist and Alan Shore and Dan Siegel have shown are right brain and the fastest way. to talk to them is through images and through your body. conjuring up images of people that care and holding a hand on our heart center, relaxing our body, feeling the sense of being attached and bonded. is an exceedingly important resource that we have. And these practices retrain attachment in our daily life. Everything we spread now regulation across.

I love you. both real friends and community and internal representations. So instead of turning towards a job or purchase or vacation experience or going back to school, All those things you can do, but you engage with your work or purchases or vacations or return to graduate school, not with a sense that it will be the thing that resonates. rescues us or provides us with true purpose or meaning, you have that already in place so that you can engage in other things without...

Disappointment and frustration are shame when ultimately we find that these are places that can't really sustain us. So instead of escaping discomfort through overwork or scrolling or substances or compulsive distraction, we turn directly to... either real people or internal representations of care, along with the physical experience of belonging. This is a practical rather than idealistic promise. And suffering profoundly decreases when we stop asking things like jobs.

roles in the world, seeking achievements to provide us with permanent feelings of attachment and security. We still engage with the world, but we seek to alleviate those feelings of needing to... We alleviate our loneliness and our emotional needs. through the real places that can meet those deep needs for connection.

So make of that what you will. I hope something in there was worthy of your attention. Now what we're going to do is we're going to do meditation where we actually put into practice. especially the three early Buddhist tools of internalizing a sense of care and mattering to others. So thanks for listening. And hopefully at this time, you'll give yourself permission to go off screen and find a really comfortable seated meditation position.

When I give these thoughts, I'm always so hoping to get all my thoughts out that I entrance. And then transitioning to the meditation, I try to breathe and take a few breaths so that I can actually shift into a slower... pace, which I think is more conducive to turning inwards and relaxing and also switching off the cognitive factors. So...

We're going to take three full breaths. And as we take each long, full inhalation, we're going to tense every... muscle group in our body that holds stress, whether it's the buttocks, the belly, The lower legs, the calves, the thighs, maybe it's in your chest, your neck, and especially the muscles, the micromuscles in the face. So what we're going to do is clench, tighten, contract.

These muscles, as we breathe in, we're going to hold the in-breath and then as we breathe out slowly, we're going to release all the muscles. And this is a practice that's not just done in Buddhist practice, but it's also an ancient Hindu practice before... people would go into meditation or savasana after the yoga practice. So... We're going to breathe in slowly, if you like, and then just start to clench fists, arms, holding your belly tight.

The buttocks and your leg muscles tighten. Lift the shoulders up like you're trying to touch your ears. Squinch the muscles in the face. Hold and then... It's actually hard to—well, I'm actually doing it as I lead the instructions. It's pretty hard, so this time I'm just going to— Breathe in and tighten everything, and you know what to tighten. We're just going to hold and make a pinched ugly face, clench the jaw, and then...

Let your shoulders drop, your belly soften, your buttocks release. Let the fists release. Let your toes unclench. Just let your body find a relaxed state. One last time, breathing in, tighten everything. Make a contracted belly. Keep those shoulders up around your ears and furrow your brow. Tighten around your eyes. Pinch nose, clench jaw. Pinched toes, fists, arms tight, belly held in, and relax. And now incline your breath. to a exceedingly soothing rhythm.

And I can tell you that the key to down-regulating ourselves so that we can just relax without being... hopefully bombarded with too many intrusive thoughts or distractions, is by Giving yourself permission to breathe out as long as you're comfortable with. Don't try to... Keep breathing out to the point where you're gasping to breathe in again.

Just allow your body to find that kind of breathing you might be in when... i don't know you wake up after a long relaxing sleep before there's any issues of the day to address maybe the kind of breathing that occurs when we've been out, running around, doing chores. Maybe some of you have been running around doing seasonal shopping or running errands, and then you get home and you put everything down and you flop on the couch.

Our shoulders drop, everything, the belly softens. The pace of breathing slows down. Just find a nice place. a spacious place in your body, whether it's the chest or around the nose or the belly. where you can feel yourself breathing, but try to observe or stay with the breath, not in a tight way. You can have other sounds, images floating around in your mind. The Buddha didn't say only knowing the breath. He said...

knowing whether you're breathing in, knowing if you're breathing out. So it's just enough to know. That basic question. So try to find an anchor for your attention that you can practice with for a little while just to...

help develop states of ease. To develop states of ease, we want to switch from self-oriented thinking, which is... known as default mode, to task focus, which is... the lateral parts of the brain. And when people are in task positive mode, Their sense of self and self-judgment and self-consciousness drift away. And they do that by becoming really interested and curious about something.

Some of us get it when we're doing things like painting or playing music or dancing or... engaging in a creative activity where you're focused, your attention on something and that kind of... focus alleviates our self-fixated thought, which causes so much stress and drags us away from being present. So a good anchor could be not just your body breathing or the energy flowing.

in accordance with the inhalation and exhalation. But it could be the sounds going on around you while your eyes are closed. Listening to the world as if it's a strange, foreign symphony. Bringing a kind of beginner's mind to the sounds that surround us as if you've never heard them before. One of my... I studied with a monk for a while, and he used to say practice like you're a Martian that's landed in a human body. You've never felt.

Feelings before, heard sounds, smelled, aromas, all of it's new. Just treat every arising sensation. with curiosity. So no need to only focus on the breath if you prefer. It could be listening. without visualizing what causes the sounds around you, or it could be just watching the images that move through the mind without the stories, without the... thoughts. Sometimes random images pop up. And if we don't try to string them together with a story or a set of ideas, it's just like an inner...

Strange cinema that's playing random. Kind of short visual clips. Or you could just note the closed-eye lights, even when there's not a... image or memory. It could be just when we close our eyes, sometimes there's these random lights flickering. So choose one or more ongoing sensations, breathing, sounds, images. body sensations and All you don't have to do is get lost in a memory about the past or thoughts about the future and don't judge your experience.

Just stick with sensations as they arrive and pass. No judgment. And shoulda thought pull you away, just... Bring your attention back to the present. No judgment. Feeling good about your practice.

So at this time, we can do some of the old Buddhist practices to internalize a sense of a secure attachment foundation. And to do this, you have to let your right brain really step to the front, which means putting aside the kind of logical... rational, trying to figure out what the best solution is and just allow your mind to spontaneously produce images that will work. So without...

Any cognitive effort at all, just allow your mind to conjure up whatever image... arises when you think of being cared about by someone who that figure, what that figure, might look like or what you would want it to look like. Don't think about it. Just allow an image to appear. You might need to wait for it. But it should be an image that conveys a sense of having... of being seen, a figure that sees you, that attends to you, that recognizes you.

And this figure can take any form that's right for you. And when you do this, also just ask your body, what does it feel like when I feel, when I am really seen by someone? cared for, secure with someone. Just ask your body to attain that state or move towards that state. Sometimes to do this, I put a hand on my heart center and just that feeling of warmth in the heart center also helps the process of my body moving into

A state of belonging. So none of this is to be figured out or thought about or even judged. Put aside any self-consciousness and just go with whatever figure, no matter how strange or ridiculous, as long as it's a soothing figure. and allow your body to go into whatever state it may, as long as it's a soothing, safe state. Add to that figure more figures, more people, so it's now not just one. figure conveying concern, empathy, attention, but now people from your life that perhaps you've

shown up for or who have shown up for you or people that you care about. And just visualize their faces if you can. capable of internally representing people you know, just have these faces looking at you. If you can't visualize... figures, remember, faces, that's okay, just ask your body and emotions to go to a state where you feel like you're in a group, you're with. Friends are people you care about, and your body can relax, your shoulders can drop. You feel you can say and disclose anything.

That you don't have to do anything to be important to these other people. let's visualize what the Buddha called Santi Nusati. Remember a place, maybe in the distant past, or maybe from this week, a place in the world where you feel really safe, protected, resourced. If you can visualize that place in detail, whether it's a place by a beach or in... the woods or your favorite spot in the city or a park. But if you can't visualize, again, no worries. Just...

Ask, what does it feel like when I'm... Just ask your body to go back into that state. For example, you might not be able to visualize a beach, but you can create that feeling in your body of what it's like to be warm and hear soothing sounds. feeling the warmth of the sun. So just let your... Semantic memory structures recreate in your body what it's like to be with safe people in a safe place. And so this time, what we're going to do is have a nice out-breath.

Once again, relax the body and slowly open our eyes and at a pace that feels right for you, return. to your screen and