"The Modern Day Monk: A Recap of 'Think Like A Monk' by Jay Shetty" (Part 1: Let Go)

There are so many books about being successful, being wealthy, being on-top-of-your game, but what about a book about being happy and mindful?

Well, a book about happiness and mindfulness is just what we need in 2020, right? Luckily, motivational social media influencer and former monk Jay Shetty gave us just that in September: his first ever book Think Like A Monk. It was originally going to be released in May, which got me excited to blog about it back then. Now having waited a few months, I have decided to keep my promise to do it. So here it is, the first instalment of...

The Modern-Day Monk: A Recap of "Think Like A Monk" by Jay Shetty!

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Note: Jay Shetty is not a monk anymore, since he's married and monks are forbidden from romantic relationships and marriage (i.e. monks have to be celibate), but I mean the title of my series to communicate the idea that Shetty is encouraging all of us to be modern-day monks, to go about our modern-day lives while adopting the ways that monks think, feel, and behave towards others. After all, it does align well with the title of this book.

The introduction of Think Like A Monk recounts the story of how an eighteen-year-old Jay Shetty discovered that he could abandon a prestigious life to be a travelling monk after hearing Gauranga Das speak at his college in London. After hearing the monk speak, Shetty ran up to him and asked him how he can spend more time being around monks. The first offer was for Shetty to attend Gauranga Das' remaining events in the UK, which eventually led to him being a full-time travelling monk in India and Europe after his graduation. 

In this section of the book, he also contrasts the monkey mind with the monk mind. Basically, the key difference between these two mindsets is that the monkey mind is always in a rush, swinging from branch to branch and seeking instant pleasure, while the monk mind digs deep to the source of the problem, steadily establishing plans for growth and seeking long-term benefit. The purpose of the instruction in this book is to be able to switch from the monkey mindset to the monk mindset. These instructions are divided and categorized into three steps: Let Go, Grow, and Give.

In this instalment of my series, I will focus on the Let Go section: releasing all the factors that can negatively impact our lives, both internal and external. First is how we choose to identify ourselves through our values. Second is the negative thoughts and people that let us down. Third is the fears that hold us back from doing what we love. And finally is the intentions that we set for the actions we take.

Chapter 1: Identity

What others expect of us can create many layers to our identity

The chapter opens with this mind-blowing quote by Charles Horton Cooley: "I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am." What it means is that our identity, in general, is strongly influenced by what other people think of us. Therefore, the actions we take are usually done for people to think good of us. However, this can lead to us being different people at work than we are at home, on the Internet, or at a party with friends (with social restrictions if there is a pandemic). Then, we bring these different identities into our regular lives, and suddenly, we don't know who our true selves are. "We live in a perception of a perception of ourselves, and we've lost our real selves as a result," Shetty says, "How can we recognize who we are and what makes us happy when we're chasing the distorted reflection of someone else's dreams?" The Hindu analogy of the dusted mirror is presented later on. If there's dust on a mirror, you won't be able to see your reflection clearly, unless you rub the dust off. Unfortunately, you will be exposed to the dust, which feels unpleasant, but eventually, you will see your reflection, pure and good as new. The same is true with discovering your real identity, in fact, meditation does just that: it helps you realize your inner demons (dust getting in your face), which can feel uncomfortable, while unraveling your true self in the process.

Values are like our GPS and they are influenced by how we think

Luckily, we have values, and finding your values is another way to discover your true identity. Knowing your values can guide you to the right people, actions, and habits for you. Without them, we would literally be lost, just as a car would without its GPS when travelling to a place for the first time. So how do we find our values? The real question to ask here is: Where do values come from? They come from our experiences, our families, our education, and these days, the media. Sure, the things in everyday life that we're exposed to give us values, but we can still be selective of them by figuring out if they really are true to us. 

Actions are the real way to express your values

Now with our values in mind, we can apply this to our actions and only do what best aligns with our values. We can express our values in many ways from simple everyday choices to how we manage our day to getting involved in a cause that's close to our hearts. Either way, the actions we take must match our values or else we steer off course on the path towards a fulfilling life. Always think Does this fit my values? whenever you make a decision.

There are two kinds of values

According to the monks that Jay Shetty lived with, there exists higher values and lower values. Higher values guide us towards happiness and fulfillment. They include gratitude, service, truthfulness, integrity, determination, deep study, and acceptance, but exclude happiness and success, since they are just rewards for achieving the higher values. Lower values are simply the opposite, they guide us to a lower state of mental health and happiness. They are greed, lust, anger, ego, illusion, and envy. If you're familiar with the Seven Deadly Sins of the Christian religion, then you'll likely see the similarity between those and the lower values, except there's six of them, not seven. If you look at all the higher values, you'll notice that they really outnumber the lower values. That's because, as Gauranga Das told Jay Shetty and the rest of his fellow monks, "There are always more ways to be pulled up than to be pulled down."

Surround yourself with people whose values align with yours

As I've mentioned earlier, values can guide us to find the ideal people in our lives. These people should just so happen to share values with you, so you can build a circle that supports you and who you want to become. Thanks to the Internet, it has become easier to build your community of people whose values you share, with tools like LinkedIn, Meetup, and Facebook. If you're not sure about the people you're with, ask yourself: When I spend time with this person, do I feel like I'm closer or farther from who I want to be? Personally, with the Internet nowadays and quarantine of course, I like to add people I've never met, yet know very well thanks to the content they create online, to my circle. Jay Shetty is one of these people, as is fellow Canadian YouTuber Evan Carmichael, professional therapist Marissa Peer, happiness guru Gretchen Rubin (and her younger sister too I guess), brain coach to the stars (and regulars) Jim Kwik, and late night comic Trevor Noah (not his YouTube channel/podcast, his TV show, which I find super funny).

Chapter 2: Negativity

Negativity comes from three basic fears

It's everywhere, but the negativity we experience everyday, through the actions we take and the emotions we feel, comes from the threat to one of our three basic emotional needs: peace, love, and understanding. We either fear bad outcomes (loss of peace), fear being criticized (loss of love), or fear being rejected (loss of understanding). Negative emotions such as anxiety, insecurity, competition, and distress can emerge from these fears as complaints, comparisons, and criticisms about ourselves and others. We may be a victim at point in our lives, but having a victim mindset, where we put negative pressure on ourselves by complaining, comparing, and criticizing, can make us less concerned about others, and more likely to be self-centred.

We can become negative when surrounded by negativity

The results of the famous Asch experiment in the 1950s was living proof of how contagious negativity can be. Psychologist Solomon Asch would show a set of two cards of vertical lines to a panel of college students. One card had one line, while the other card had three labelled lines of varying heights. Each student in the panel had to answer the label of the line on the second card which had the same height as the one line of the first card. The experiment started out with everybody saying the correct answer. However, once a couple students in the panel said an incorrect answer, the entire panel said the incorrect answer. The catch? Only one student in the panel was the actual college student being tested: the one who had to answer last, while the rest of the panel was acting. Even if the subject already knew what the correct answer was, they still managed to say the incorrect answer along with the rest of the panel. The Asch experiment showed the power of conformity, fitting in with a group, whether positive or negative. (Actually,  it was 75% of subjects who conformed with the panel's incorrect responses, but that's still a majority) The degree of negativity we're affected with can actually be influenced by the degree of negativity that surrounds us, depending on how prone we are to conformity, that is. Our surrounding negativity can even affect our negativity towards strangers, and how negative we become in the future. Sounds scary, but luckily, there are ways of controlling our negativity, explained later in the chapter, that won't allow these bad things to happen.

There are seven types of negative people

Between the following types of people, there's likely someone you know who fits at least one of these types. (Notice they all begin with 'C', Jay Shetty loves alliteration apparently!)

1. Complainers: complain nonstop about their problems without searching for the answers

2. Cancellers: turn things around whenever they receive a nice compliment from others

3. Casualties: think the universe has a plot against them, while blaming other people

4. Critics: judge others for either not sharing an opinion with them or not having an opinion at all

5. Commanders: recognize their own limits but put pressure on others to succeed

6. Competitors: compare, control, and manipulate to make themselves or their choices look better

7. Controllers: direct how others spend time, with whom, and the choices they make

Knowing the seven types of negative people allows us to not only take notice of the behaviours of the people in our life, but also establish relationships with these people that neutralize their negative behaviour.

We can reverse negativity from the outside in

To deal with the negative people in our lives like a monk would, we can simply be aware, back away a little, add more positive people to our circle, regulate how much time we spend with the negative person, and try not to go beyond the tools you have to "save" them. Once our external negativities are dealt with, then we can start working on ourselves from the inside. "Letting go doesn't mean wiping away negative thoughts, feelings, and ideas completely," Shetty says, "The truth is that these thoughts will always arise—it is what we do with them that makes the difference." This is where his Spot, Stop, Swap technique to cleanse our negative thoughts comes in. First, you spot the issue/feeling at hand. Then, you stop for a moment to consider what it is exactly and where it comes from. Last, you swap in a new way of processing it. No matter how big the issue, we should still approach it as a monk would with this technique, because as the flapping of a butterfly's wings causing a tornado taught us, the smallest actions can make the biggest difference, whether positively or negatively. 

Forgiveness comes in four forms

Actually, the forms of forgiveness are more like stages, since you progress from one to the next. The first is zero forgiveness, choosing not to forgive, while recognizing you don't want to do harm. The second is conditional forgiveness, only choosing to forgive if the other end apologizes or promises never to do the thing again. The third is transformational forgiveness, which is what Jay Shetty recommends we should all aim for, having the courage to forgive without expecting anything in return. Last is unconditional forgiveness, choosing to forgive no matter what the other end does. Not everyone has to achieve this stage, but it makes for an incredible advancement! 

We can forgive ourselves the same way we forgive others

Usually, shame and guilt is experienced when we do something wrong, so we deserve to not only be forgiven by others for it, but also forgive ourselves for it, especially if it happened way back in the past. We can't change our past, but we can definitely change the way we see it and find our way to healing through our own minds.

Chapter 3: Fear

Fear isn't always a bad thing; it can motivate us

Growing up, we are engrained with the belief that fear is negative. That isn't necessarily true, since fear serves as a signal that something isn't right. Fear that comes from big problems, such as climate change, can encourage us to find solutions and take action. The negativity of fear really comes from how long you let the fear sink into you and ignore it. That turns into anxiety, fear which is experienced everyday, and it blocks us from our real emotions.

There's a root fear for each of our fears

During his time at the ashram, Jay Shetty was instructed by Gauranga Das to relive a fear from the past. In the beginning, he thought he was scared of nothing, until he started thinking about his fear of exams. Then, he realized that he was scared of how his family and friends would judge his grades. But he kept digging and digging through his fear patterns, and then he discovered that his fear was of disappointing his parents. It was a huge revelation for him, since he found his root fear in thirty minutes. The fears that let to this root fear are what Jay calls "branch" fears, since they stem from the root fear. When evaluating our fears, we should be able to distinguish our branch fears from our root fears.

We shouldn't change our fears, but rather change our relationship with them

As mentioned earlier, fear can inspire us to take action. It opens brand-new opportunities for us to grow. The real thing we should fear is fear. In other words, we should fear missing the growth opportunities that fear offers. We should let fear guide us in the right direction, rather than just ignoring it and agonizing over it. To change our relationship with fear, rather than changing fear, we should recognize the upside of fear and stress, just like I would if I found out I had an assignment to finish or a test to study for later in the week. I stress (in a healthy way) about my responsibilities to remind myself of when and how I have to finish them, as well as be more likely to actually get them done. In fact, using stress as a motivator like I do can improve health and well-being, as long as the thing you stress about actually gets done, since you feel a sense of accomplishment afterwards.

The cure for fear is detachment

We experience fear because of attachment, a need to take ownership of things: our ideas about ourselves, our material possessions, and our expectations of relationships. To ease our fears, we need to detach. In other words, we need to recognize that what we're holding on to isn't truly ours. Our fears fall into two categories: useful and hurtful. Useful fears are the fears we can change after being alerted, such as fear we'll get infected with a disease (ahem, COVID). Hurtful fears are the fears that are outside our scope of control, such as fear that a loved one will die from a disease (maybe COVID?). Luckily, we can turn our hurtful fears into useful fears by only focusing on what is in our circle of control. We may not be able to control the source of our fears directly, but we can detach and do what's best for us, regardless of if the outcome matches your fear or not. 

Our breath can help manage our short-term fears

When faced with a test, performance, interview, or any event, we might experience a stress response. Heartbeat and breath is faster, you're shaking and sweating, how can you manage this? Luckily, this is short-term fear, and these fears can be managed simply by controlling our breath. Jay Shetty recommends the 4-4-4 technique: inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4, exhale for a count of at least 4, and repeat until your heart rate slows down. The technique helped him calm down before having to speak in front of people; however, it doesn't help manage all short-term fears. Other techniques such as seeing the big picture and revisiting long-term fears can help in those situations.

Chapter 4: Intention

There are four fundamental motivations

According to Hindu philosopher Bhaktivinoda Thakura, there are four motivations behind anything we do: fear, desire, duty, and love. Fear can help us point out our problems and push us to fix them, but it's not sustainable, since we may agonize too much about getting things right, which can hurt us in the long term. Desire can set our hearts towards wealth, success, and pleasure, which is what the Hindus believe is an illusion, that happiness comes from the outside. Duty brings out our sense of responsibility, to do what's right for others. Love is similar, except it's more about doing something because you care for others and want to help them.

For each want, we should dig deeper to find the why

To find the root motivation behind something we want, we can keep asking ourselves why we want it. Eventually, we'll find the deepest why, which we can connect to one of the four fundamental motivations. Shetty refers to this model of thinking as the "why ladder". For example, if you want to start a business, you might want to do it simply for the money (desire). Maybe you want to start the business because that's what one of your family members tried to do one time and failed miserably at (duty/love). Or maybe you want to start a business because you don't want others to think you're weak, based on those countless times you've been harassed and bullied throughout your life (fear). Even the want to be rich can have have various intentions behind it: getting a lot of fancy things for yourself (desire), not having to be in debt ever again (fear), or donating money to a cause you care about (duty/love). Using the why ladder model can lead to great realizations that you never thought otherwise: whether you're acting out of arrogance or even better, whether you're searching for confidence.

Perfectly and poorly set intentions are like seeds and weeds

According to the monks Jay Shetty studied with, setting intentions is like planting seeds vs. planting weeds. A well-set intention is like a seed that grows into a nourishing, fertile, and selfless tree which stands strong for centuries. However, a badly-set intention will grow into an invasive and destructive weed, which acts from arrogance and envy. Always grow seeds, not weeds, and water them too, rather than leave them behind. Take meaningful action everyday once your good intentions are set. Then, others will bask in the shade of the trees you've grown from higher value.

Wishing isn't the right way to set an intention

Manifestation, the idea that things will occur simply because you believe strongly that it will happen. But saying "I wish" as a way of manifestation isn't the right way to go. Jay puts it this way, "'I wish' is code for 'I don't want to do anything differently.'" Of course, the only way you can truly put a plan in action is to change the actions you take. An even better way to set your intentions is through affirmation, saying "I am", "I have", or "I will" instead of "I wish".

When living our intention, we should consider the process instead of the outcome

If you strive only for the reward after setting an intention, you'll only be pleased in the short term, then be disappointed afterwards. For the pleasure to work in the long term, you have to actually show interest in the work being done, and be satisfied in the process, with your clear intention in mind. "You might be equally successful either way," Jay says, "but if you're driven by intention, you will feel joy." To help with determining the process to fulfill your intention, Jay recommends using role models, more specifically, looking at how these role models got to where they are today from the stage you're currently at. Of course, you can't copy exactly what they did, but this kind of research can definitely serve as inspiration for your own path to success.

No intention is completely pure

Sure, you probably want to be rich so you can donate to impoverished families in developing countries (love). But you kind of also want to make money to please yourself with a collection of jewelry (desire), as well as continue to expand your family's fortune (duty). That's fine. No intention is 100% one reason, but the less pure an intention is, the less likely it is to make you happy. Only three reasons are provided for this example intention, and having fifteen would give it a very low chance of success.

Next time: I recap the second section of "Think Like A Monk", on how to grow after adjusting everything talked about in the first section. Catch you later!