Michael Singer’s 4 Word Teaching for Dealing With Our Emotional Baggage

No blame. No shame.

Photo by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash

Buckle up, everybody, because we’re going to straight to the meat and bones of spiritual growth today. No dilly-dallying around the edges. Just drilling to the core.

Of course, there are myriad ways to express what that core is. Today’s article explores the core according to the teachings of Michael Singer; teachings that I believe in.

Let’s start with an abridged explanation of the path, according to Singer. He teaches that we have all sorts of experiences in childhood and beyond and that we held onto the ones that bothered us. Because we couldn’t handle them, we pushed them away. But in doing so, we actually held onto them.

Samskaras, our baggage

These experiences manifest inside us as Samskaras (a Sanskrit word), which are little pockets of stuck energy. Taken together, these Samskaras form the ego.

Unfortunately for humankind, these ego energies determine how most of the eight billion people on Earth lead their lives, and not in a good way.

How so?

Let’s take an obvious example I’ve used before. Your parents had a bitter divorce when you were ten years old, replete with smashed plates, custody battles and oceans of tears shed by all.

40 and terrified of intimacy

The experience left you emotionally scarred, to the point that, at age 40 you still can’t last in any relationship that goes beyond the most superficial levels of intimacy. Why? Because any time a partner pushes the envelope past extreme superficiality, that massive Samskara inside you presses the panic button and you run for the hills.

You might not even put two and two together on that, thinking that relationships aren’t for you. You simply treasure your independence and don’t want any encumbrances.

Or maybe you do get it and have just vowed that you’re not going to risk all the suffering your parents rained down on you and your family.

In both cases, your life is being guided by a deeply entrenched Samskara.

Letting go of Samskaras

That being the case, Singer posits, the sole objective of the spiritual path is letting go of these Samskaras; also known as, letting go of the ego.

Once we do that, our true, natural selves can shine through and a deeper, inner peace takes over the steering wheel of our life. That’s what we’re shooting for, folks.

Based on that, what is the most important endeavor of our lives? Letting go of the baggage/Samskaras/ego.

But doing so isn’t easy. If it were, we’d all be walking around smiling ear to ear.

Why letting go is hard

Why is it so hard? Let’s start with the obvious: Very few people are even aware that their lives are guided by their egos, and the few that are don’t know what to do about it.

I hope the fact that you’re reading this puts you in that smaller, latter category of those who are aware.

Which brings us to the subject at hand: Michael Singer’s four-word helper on how to deal with our baggage. Actually, his teaching is mostly about what NOT to do.

Four words:

No blame. No shame.

The reason this teaching is so important and worth devoting an article to is that most people do both of those things when dealing with their stuff.

Don’t blame

First, blame. What almost all of us do is blame others for our woes. In the example above, the mother and father who created World War III in their home would be blamed for screwing up the lives of the surviving kids.

“My mom and dad were awful. I’d probably be happier today if they’d put me in an orphanage at birth. What losers.”

Here’s the thing. That may be true. They probably were screwed up, dysfunctional people.

But harboring ill feelings toward them by way of blame only serves to breathe life into those Samskaras. It gives them oxygen.

What to do instead? Let’s start with what NOT to do. Don’t go into denial in the form of:

“Yes, things were tough when they got divorced. But it wasn’t that bad. And they didn’t do anything wrong.”

That’s just garden variety suppression. And nothing is worse for our inner well-being than suppression.

An effective approach

What to do? Acknowledge the reality of what happened and the effect it had on you. And then approach it with:

“Yes, my parents caused a shitstorm with how their marriage affected me and my siblings. The trauma it caused is still with me and has prevented me from engaging in intimate relationships. But it happened thirty years ago. It’s over. And blaming them for all this isn’t helping me. What I need to do is let go of all that crap trapped down below. Which won’t be easy. It went down with pain, and it will come up with pain. But I want to move forward with my life so I’m going to bite the bullet and do the hard work of letting it all go…”

Therapy can help

It’s worth noting that key to this is what I said about acknowledging the reality of what’s going on inside you. And an effective way of doing that is psychotherapy, something I did a lot of in my earlier years.

My view is that therapy’s greatest benefit is helping us understand why we are the way we are. Knowing that can help us become better understand our Samskaras, which facilitates our letting them go.

Don’t shame

Then there’s no shame. Don’t shame who? Yourself.

Maybe that child of the bitter divorce feels shame that he or she can’t get over the pain that was caused so long ago. It makes them feel weak.

Or maybe one of your Samskaras is a life-long battle with eating and body image. You continually beat yourself up any time you overeat.

Blaming and shaming yourself over this does nothing but strengthen that baggage that desperately wants to be let go.

The kid in you

What to do? First, it’s critical to note that adult you is usually not where the feeling is coming from. In the divorce example, it’s the ten-year-old you that experienced the trauma and couldn’t let it go.

With the eating example, when that awful feeling arises, maybe after overeating or looking at yourself in the mirror and not liking what you see, realize that it’s teenage you who’s coming up.

So instead of feeling shame, go the opposite direction and have compassion for that younger version of you. Imagine giving him/her a hug then having a conversation.

“I’m so sorry you felt so badly about your body and your eating habits. I know it hurt like hell. But it’s time for us to let go of this and move on. It’s the only way we’re going to feel peace inside.”

The takeaway

The bottom line: Our stuff is our stuff. No matter how bad or traumatic, it’s inside us because we keep it there, most of the time unknowingly.

Most of us keep it there by blaming those who had a hand in creating our Samskaras or shaming and blaming ourselves. Both of those do nothing but strengthen our baggage.

Letting go of our Samskaras is incredibly tough work. But if we persevere and sweat our way through it, that work will produce the greatest benefit humans can experience…

Liberation.