What is Philosophical Mentoring?

Let's begin with the conventional understanding of philosophical mentoring. According to the Preamble of the NPCA Standards of Practice:
"a philosophical practitioner [mentor or counselor] helps clients to clarify, articulate, explore and comprehend philosophical aspects of their belief systems or world views....Clients may consult philosophical practitioners for help in exploring philosophical problems related to such matters as mid-life crises, career changes, stress, emotions, assertiveness, physical illness, death and dying, aging, meaning of life, and morality."
As such, related activities commonly include:

• the examination of clients' arguments and justifications
• the clarification, analysis, and definition of important terms and concepts
• the exposure and examination of underlying assumptions and logical implications
• the exposure of conflicts and inconsistencies
• the exploration of traditional philosophical theories and their significance for client issues
• the initiation of projects for common goods

My understanding of philosophical mentoring--its scope and pursuits--is generally compatible with this conventional understanding, although my own approach is significantly broader in scope and includes, among other things, spirituality and religion, personal relationship, social problems, parenting, well-being, masculinity. And whenever possible my approach makes use of empirical findings from psychology more than the conventional approach to philosophical mentoring. And although my approach tends to rely on available empirical findings, my approach isn't limited to things that can be empirically verified. Many mystical spiritual traditions are committed to things that aren't empirically verified, e.g., empirical studies are just starting to demonstrate the positive affects of meditation, which have known for centuries by people who meditate. It's important to note here that philosophical mentoring isn't designed for people with serious mental health issues, e.g., major depressive disorder, etc., but for people who are generally mentally healthy but are interested in gaining a better understanding of their self and the world. In this way my approach to philosophical mentoring is squarely rooted in the ancient Socratic tradition, which viewed that the unexamined life is not worth living. In addition to a broader scope, my own approach to philosophical mentoring is unique in a few ways from other practitioners. First, my approach isn't static because I'm a seeker not a guru. I'm constantly learning and am always a student, even when I'm in more of a teacher's role. As I grow, my fundamental beliefs about the world change. Last, in terms of methodology, my own approach to philosophical mentoring is to first establish and clarify the understanding of fundamental questions about reality and value. So what are they? In simplest terms, I start from the premise that we're biological organisms hurtling through space on a rock in a distant corner of infinite space. This alone tells us very little, of course, and allows for many competing theories about the meaning of life or our purpose. My own approach holds that the fundamental core value is personal growth. Specifically, growth from who we are right now. For me this is the ultimate goal, or meaning of life if you prefer. Habits that cultivate personal growth are insight, discipline, curiosity, compassion, honesty. Once these values are established, the goal is to live in alignment with them, being true to who you are.

If you're interested in learning more about how philosophical mentoring can benefit you, contact me for a free consultation at srmillard@gmail.com

My Understanding of Buddhism: A Simplified Version

My view of Buddhism is by no means static, but ever since I was exposed to it over 25 years ago my intuitions about Buddhism and its consequent appeal was that it was much more of a practical guide for well-being than a religion resting on a set of doctrines or a metaphysical theory. In other words, I never really saw Buddhism as an "ism" at all. Instead there were things that Buddha had said, which were primarily about how to live a life that was free as possible from suffering, anguish, etc. And living this sort of life had very little to do with believing religious doctrines or making specific metaphysical commitments. Rather it seemed clear that the things that Buddha said could be practiced by someone is completely secular or agnostic about traditional metaphysical topics. Recently I discovered that there are a large number of people and entire movements that share my understanding, e.g., many different brands of secular Buddhists, Mindfulness and Vipassana Meditation, and individuals like Stephen Batchelor who has actually developed this idea fairly thoroughly. 

The Buddhist Eightfold path that makes reference to beliefs, views: "right view" (samyak-dṛuṣṭi / sammā-diṭṭhi) or "right understanding". Because of this one might infer that Buddhism is committed to some sort of metaphysical doctrine. But having the right view or understanding merely means acknowledging that that our actions have consequences, esp. that our actions cause suffering.  Yes, Buddha did talk about karma and rebirth, but many secular Buddhists, myself included, believe that there are perfectly reasonable non-metaphysical understandings of karma and that rebirth is simply inessential to Buddhism. All of the other parts of the Eightfold path are explicitly practical or have practical implications for one's life. 

Unlike many religions or philosophical theories, Buddha taught that enlightenment is a practice, a process, a path, not a belief system. So I have always interpreted Buddha as a practical or ethical teacher, where "ethical" is understood in the broad ancient Greek sense of ethos: a general lifestyle or set of mental or practical habits that result in general character traits, which themselves result in flourishing or suffering. In this way, I see what Buddha was teaching as similar to what was being taught by other Ancient Greek philosophers in the West. Indeed, I notice many similarities between Buddha and various Hellenistic (i.e., post-Aristotle) philosophical movements such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism and Cynicism insofar as all of these Western philosophical movements were first and foremost ideas that had practical application to one's life. Moreover, Epicureanism and Stoicism are similar to Buddhism in specific advice they offer of how to live well by avoiding pain, suffering and struggle. The ethos that Buddha taught was one of awareness, emotional regulation and non-attachment. 

Furthermore because Buddhism isn't committed to a specific robust metaphysical doctrines it can be freely tailored to contemporary society and its unique challenges. For example, Mindfulness is a secular movement that was a direct response to the ever-increasing--in many cases overwhelming--bombardment of information and drive for professional success that is pervasive in society today. Both Buddhism and Mindfulness are practical tools for achieving and maintaining well-being in today's world. Last, secular Buddhists are free to draw on other elements of secular life that can aid in the Buddhist goal of reducing the amount of suffering, anguish, etc., such as the inclusion of science, the arts, movies, literature, poetry, etc. In this way, Buddhism has an advantage of other western religions, which are based on static doctrines and therefore must occasionally undergo reformations to be updated.

On Being Stuck and Non-Attachment

People get stuck. Stuck in old patterns of behavior that ultimately prevent meaningful growth. Why? Well, being stuck has its virtues: it's easy. When we're stuck, we're in a space that is comfortable, familiar, has no risks, etc. Furthermore, repeating old patterns of behavior is an efficient way of avoiding feeling lonely, boredom, etc. For example, using intoxicants or foods, staying in contact an old boy/girlfriend, etc. tend to provide immediate gratification. Most of the time when we're stuck, we don't realize we're stuck; or if we do, we don't care. But at some point most people begin to realize it, e.g., you notice that you've been doing the same things over and over for a while; and you begin to feel unfulfilled with repeating your maladaptive behavioral pattern. When these things happen, you may also start to notice the reasons why you've been stuck, which often times have their basis in more primitive things like fear of change, fear of failure or rejection, loneliness, etc.

After one identifies the obstacles that have kept them in the ongoing pattern of behavior and one has acknowledged that continuing to engage in the behavioral pattern is personally unfulfilling, one can do something escape our self-imposed condition of being stuck. First, we can acknowledge that failure is always possible. We can fail to succeed at making some lifestyle or personal change, we can fail at maintaining healthy, fulfilling personal relationships, etc. Fear of failure is often what keeps people stuck in old, unfulfilling behavioral patterns. Since failure is always possible, the goal can't be a criterion as strong as success. Instead the standard should be something slightly weaker such as doing everything you can within your control. The sooner people come to terms with this, the less likely they'll be afraid and get stuck in the first place. Accepting the possibility of failure dovetails nicely with the Buddhist attitude of non-attachment. The attitude of non-attachment is the acceptance that everything changes and is impermanent. And since everything changes and is impermanent we shouldn't cling to things that change or end, including personal relationships, friends, personal experiences, etc. If we cling to things that change or end, we suffer; and the suffering tends to result in new fears, e.g., fear of engaging in relationships, fear in setting personal goals that will lead to meaningful growth, etc. We have to reconcile the fact that we can invest everything we have into a relationship with the fact that the relationship can end, esp. since relationships include other people who may or may not be well-suited for us. Having an attitude of non-attachment does not mean not investing everything that you have into a relationship; it just means not clinging to the relationship if the relationship ends. Having a relationship that ends is perfectly compatible with doing everything that one can do to maintain the relationship. The virtue of an attitude of non-attachment is that it prevents people from being possessed by their fears that keep them stuck in old, unfulfilling behavioral patterns. 

Last, a useful exercise is to reflect on the following question: what things possess you, e.g., people, fears, experiences, etc.?

Pre- and Post-Conflict Virtues

Life and human relationships are so challenging to navigate that it seems inevitable that everyone will eventually experience disagreement, conflict and have their feelings hurt (or hurt someone else's feelings). And fairly regularly. For this reason people spend a lot of their time and energy focusing on developing skills for avoiding or minimizing conflict, e.g., exhibiting patience, being non-judgmental, accepting, non-blaming, etc.  Since these emotional skills are used prior to arriving at disagreement, hurting someone else's feelings, etc., let's call these pre-conflict virtues. These skills are intended to avoid conflict and hurting people's feelings in the first place. And people rightly focus on cultivating these skills because they are incredibly valuable and will no doubt minimize the number of times we'll hurt other people's feelings.  While I'm in no way discounting the value of these pre-conflict virtues, still it seems inevitable that genuine disagreement will occur; and some of these disagreements will result in someone being disrespected, feelings being hurt, etc. Because of this, it seems that being a good and happy person also requires, what I'll call, post-conflict virtues.  The most common examples of post-conflict values are things like leniency, forgiveness, mercy, reconciliation, etc. 

Both the pre- and post-conflict virtues require emotional intelligence and maturity, however, it seems that the post-conflict virtues are in shorter supply than the pre-conflict virtues these days. But why? There may be many explanations, but one mundane reason seems to be that exhibiting one of the post-conflict virtues requires one additional, emotionally challenging act from people.  It's a platitude that humans have a tendency to be self-righteous, indignant fuckers who tend to think that exhibiting the pre-conflict emotional skills should be enough. That is, many likely think that: when I conduct myself in such a manner that I make my best effort in the first place to avoid a conflict with someone else, hurting their feelings, etc., then I've done everything one can do to maintain a friendly, respectful comportment with someone else. But this attitude is really the product of self-deception because we can always take one further step to forgive, or reconcile with, the person whose feelings have been hurt.

A renewed focus on the post-conflict virtues seems more salient than ever in our world where cutting off people is easier than ever, e.g., un-friending people from social media spats, etc.  In addition, some recent research suggests that family (i.e., parent-child) estrangements are as common as divorce these days. And these sort of estrangements tend to have very real long-term negative affects for the relevant people.  Not all relationships are worth saving, e.g., abusive (either physical or emotional). But the negative affects of estrangement seem to be worth weighing against the challenges we face at making a sincere, thoughtful effort at exercising the post-conflict virtues.

Goal-Oriented and Process-Oriented Living

It's a platitude that the ultimate goal of human life is happiness. Another perhaps lesser known feature of happiness is that it's a side-effect of something else, e.g., actions, events, things (that we obtain), goals that we achieve, etc.  But after this, disagreement sets in about what particular things produce happiness.  For some people knowledge produces happiness; while for others professional success produces happiness; or still further, one might think that some material object like money produces happiness.  I'm not here to say that either of these things is better or worse when it comes to producing happiness.  Instead I want to talk about two general approaches--means--of achieving happiness.  The first is a goal-oriented approach; the second, process-oriented.

First off, the goal-oriented approach.  A goal-oriented approach is the more common method in our culture for achieving happiness.  Indeed it seems as if we're surrounded by messages alleging that the achievement of this or that new goal will make us happy.  Whether it's documenting and pursuing specific goals, e.g., categorized by one year, five years or 10 years; or a new workout routine, a new diet, applying a new professional plan, happiness can be obtained by achieving these relevant goals.  While having some goals seems inescapable, it also seems that we're being sold some goals that, frankly, are remote (in time) or might be unlikely to achieve.  Moreover, some might find it difficult to wake up and get motivated every day to achieve some goal that is so far off in the future or whose achievement is simply unlikely.  And such a predicament doesn't make for much happiness.

Fortunately, there's another process that tends to produce happiness that doesn't depend on achieving any goals. This other approach to achieving happiness is sometimes called a process-oriented approach. The process-oriented approach to living simply prescribes maintaining a small but important set of habits that are practiced regularly.  Most of these habits will be daily habits, but some may be for some other short-term period of time, e.g., weekly.  The process-oriented person believes that in order to achieve and sustain happiness they need only do the following sorts of things everyday: do something active every day, eat healthy (for the most part), engage in some meaningful hobby, connect with friends and family, etc.  Doing something active, for example, may involve any number of things from simply taking a walk to participating in some more organized class such as yoga, etc.  And doing some meaningful hobby, for example, may involve reading, writing, playing music, mediating, crafting, etc.  In fact, meditation is the ultimate non-goal oriented activity.  Melli O'Brien writes:

There is no hurry to get anywhere or achieve anything— there is no goal or finish line ‘out there’ in the future. The goal is to be fully present, in the moment and to be fully engaged in only whatever is presenting itself in the here and now. Any idea of striving for some future goal will only impede your practice. You may have come to mindfulness practice in the hopes to achieve certain results (like more happiness or health), but let go of these desires during your practice and simply allow this moment and where your at to be enough.

For the process-oriented person, the important thing isn't to set some new goal that terminates sometime in the future but to make sure to do a handful of important activities every day.  And because process-oriented living is grounded in regular (daily) activities it's plausible that it is better at producing a sustained or continuous sense of happiness than the goal-oriented approach, which tends to produce happiness when the relevant goal is achieved, i.e., less frequently than the happiness generated by a process-oriented approach.

Last, it should be stressed that the goal-oriented and process-oriented approaches to life aren't mutually exclusive whatsoever. In fact, while there may be some for whom all of their happiness is derived from goal-oriented actions, I know of no one who has no goals and derives all of their happiness from process-oriented living.  The point here is that process-oriented living tends to be overlooked, despite the fact that it can produce and sustain a high degree of personal happiness.

New Year's Rituals

The new year is a special time where for one reason or another we are inclined to think about and mark the closing of the year as well as think about what the next year might bring.  I don't find it very useful to look too far in the future because what we plan for our lives doesn't always materialize and yet in most cases we're perfectly satisfied with where we end up. I do, however, think that it can be fruitful to think about ourselves now, think about the obstacles that we have overcome in the last year, and think about the general direction that we'd like to move in the new year.  One great way to close out the past year and mark the beginning of the new year is with some simple rituals. Rituals are practical ways that we can mark important events, and ground ourselves in a world that can seem meaningless or unpredictable.  So here are some rituals that we can perform to celebrate the new year. These can be done with friends or by oneself.

1. Close out the calendar year by engaging in a Solstice ritual. This year I participated in a Yoga Solstice class that allowed me to focus on a natural event instead of a conventional one (e.g., Christmas, etc.). The Solstice marks the longest day of darkness in the year. And while some think of long, dark and often cold days where many plants are dormant as depressing or generally negative, in our own lives darkness is often a time for reflection about ourselves that can often result in change and growth. 
2. Think and then write about what you did in the past year, what changes you made, etc. This is much easier if you have kept a personal journal for the last year. You can summarize the important events, changes, etc. of the past year on paper, then burn the summary as a symbolic means of closing out the past year. You can also incorporate a gratitude ceremony into closing out the calendar year. This could take the form of expressing gratitude to the people in your life or setting aside a chunk of quiet time to devote to meditation about what you're thankful for from 2017.
3. Think/write about where you are now, note what you like and dislike about your current self. Then think/write about what you want things you'd like to improve about yourself, which can be developing personal characteristics such as patience, being less judgmental and more accepting of others, etc.; or this may include a desire for cultivating a new lifestyle or professional changes.

I hope you have a wonderful new year and that some of these simple rituals add to it.

Peace,

Sean