The Secret Within

Note: This post runs longer than normal. It’s about a ten-minute read. 

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In the mid-1980s, I attended an executive retreat featuring best-selling self-help author Richard Lieder. The theme of the meeting was the power of purpose. I was intrigued. I never put much thought into my life purpose. I was too busy.

During a break, I introduced myself to Lieder and asked him what the most impactful book he had ever read was. His immediate answer was Man’s Search For Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. 

Frankl was a Jewish medical doctor who lived in Vienna before WWII. When the Nazis annexed Austria, Frankl and his extended family were sent to concentration camps. Ultimately, Frankl would spend three years in four camps, including Auschwitz. During that period, his father, mother, brother, and new wife all perished. 

Amidst this devastation, Frankl clung to life. In the book, he explains that the Nazis took everything from him. But the one thing they could not rob him of was his choice of how to respond to life. Frankl credited this insight with his survival.

Man’s Search For Meaning was written in just nine days. First published in 1946, it quickly became an international bestseller. The book exposed me to a completely new concept. Namely, life comes to us not so much as it is but rather as we are. 

When I first read Man’s Search For Meaning, I was struggling with the demands of a high-pressure job and an uncertain future. Our first child was born with a severe physical disability. At times, it felt like life was more than I could handle. After reading the book, I committed to applying Frankl’s philosophy to my life.

An essential characteristic of a life well-lived is the ability to rise above circumstances. Some call this resilience, but it’s more than that. Resilience is about weathering the storm. What I’m referring to is rising above the storm. Everyone faces difficult personal issues. The ability to rise above those issues and enjoy a meaningful life is a superpower that’s worth pursuing. 

I worry about today’s youth. Mental health is in sharp decline. Drug overdoses have increased 5-fold during the past twenty years to over one hundred thousand annually. Suicides have increased twenty percent over the past decade. Fertility trends are in sharp decline. 

To be sure, there are things to be concerned about. Two wars threaten to escalate into broader global conflicts. Inflation is running at the highest level in forty years. High mortgage rates make home ownership unaffordable. Increasing numbers of young adults feel the American dream is beyond reach. Climate change looms in the background as an existential threat. 

Easy or quick solutions to these predicaments are not forthcoming. A new wave of pessimism appears to be setting in. For many, it’s becoming harder to enthusiastically say yes to life.

How do we separate our response to life from what happens to us? On the surface, it doesn’t seem possible. And yet, that is precisely what Frankl did! But how?

Initially I assumed that choosing one’s response to life was about choosing one’s attitude. Undoubtedly, that’s part of it, but the complete answer is far deeper. 

We assume happiness derives from our particular circumstances, like whether we are rich or poor, healthy or frail, attractive or plain. And yet, there are plenty of fortunate people who are miserable, as well as deprived individuals who are happy. 

What is the secret to a life well-lived? How do we enthusiastically say yes to life?

This is the question I set out to answer forty years ago.  It’s been a long journey, and I still have much to learn. One thing, however, is clear. The experience of life is driven as much by our perspective as by particular circumstances. 

Perspective is woven on a loom of awareness. The warp of that loom is relationships. The connections we make in life form our perspective. While the circumstances of life are not always under our control, connections, relationships and perspective are.

Before reading Frankl’s book, I hadn’t thought much about awareness and meaning. Like most people I assumed life was defined by circumstance.  I worked hard to shape circumstances to my favor. When our son was born, I learned the limitations of that approach. Difficult things happen. And when they do, everything changes.  

Frankl’s claim  challenged my perspective. I didn’t understand it,  but I was determined to figure it out. To explore his proposition, I began to question the role awareness plays in defining relationships and meaning in life. I began to ask myself questions like, what is awareness? How does it arise? And to what degree is it malleable? These are profound questions. Quick answers were not forthcoming. Deeper investigation was required. 

The great physicist Neils Bohr once wrote, “Consciousness is the singular for which the plural is unknown.” That’s an accurate description. Awareness is essentially an unknown frontier in modern medicine. Western studies approach it in an analytical and reductionist manner. I found that unhelpful. 

For thousands of years, eastern philosophy has placed consciousness at the center of contemplative inquiry. The approach is subjective, suggesting that the answers to life’s most profound questions are found on the inside rather than the outside. I resonated with that and eventually found a practice centered on watching awareness. 

Here’s what I learned:

Our perspective comes from connections we make and relationships we form. Awareness enables those connections. Watching my awareness revealed the power of Frankl’s insight. In probing its depths, I found the greatest peace. 

This may sound a little too woo-woo for pragmatic readers. I get that. So, let’s step back for a moment.

Life is defined by connections. Relationships arise from our interpretation of those connections, which in turn drive perspective and meaning.  Experience therefore, is contextual. Watching awareness, I began to observe my context. This is where real learning emerged.

Life narrowly focused on Self is a prison. A prison where happiness is defined by getting our way. When awareness expands, life expands. When watching awareness over an extended period, it naturally broadens from the finite boundaries of Self, to a new domain of possibility. Expanding the breadth and depth of awareness is therefore critical to rising above difficult circumstances in life.

It took many years for me to garner the experience to write the last two paragraphs. Perhaps the following analogy will help describe what I’m trying to convey.

Let’s pretend we were born before the invention of road maps. To learn our way around a city we must walk up and down the major roads, observing the buildings, businesses, and houses along the way. Little by little, we begin adding lesser streets, all the while building a mental picture of the city and how it is situated. Our perspective on that city is informed by the things that happen to us along the way.

Let’s now assume we are suddenly handed an iPad with Google Maps installed. Upon learning this new tool, we discover we’ve gained a bird’s eye view of the city. This completely changes our perspective. We see that the city is situated at the end of a vast plain that stretches to the East. An extensive mountain range looms to the West. Three interstate highways, I-70, I-76, and I-25, lead to the city. We now have a completely new perspective of Denver Colorado.

In the first example, awareness was confined to the gritty experience of walking up and down city streets. In the second example, awareness expanded to a broader context. Broadening awareness in life operates similarly. 

Meaning defines how we make sense of the world. When we “know,” our meaning algorithm is effectively locked. However, when we open awareness to a broader context,  new ways of experiencing life emerge.  This is why attending to awareness is so valuable.

To reveal the wisdom in awareness, we must observe how it responds to changing circumstances.  Events may be beyond our control, but events are only one-half of the equation. Awareness shapes our experience. This is The Secret Within.

When something negative happens, watching our emotions is instructive. By doing so, we learn that we are not our emotions. Emotions are merely a response based on a fixed perspective. The more we watch this response, the easier it becomes to separate the response from the circumstance that produced it. With time, this can actually change our perspective.

If that sounds challenging, you are correct. But the payoff is enormous. Within each of us lies Frankl’s epiphany, the power to cultivate our response to life, despite difficult circumstances. 

I’ve made a practice of watching awareness for many years. This has led to happiness that is independent of circumstance. That’s a big deal! So big, that I want to share the process with others. I’ve done this in bits and pieces in this blog over the past three and a half years. But given the potential impact this could have on people’s lives, I want to be more deliberate.

Toward that end, I’ve started writing a new book. The title is, The Secret Within. I don’t have a completion timeline as I’m just getting underway. I want to take the time to make things as clear and applicable as possible. I Haven’t yet decided how I will present the book. Perhaps I’ll offer it in installments online. More updates will be provided as I figure things out. In the meantime, I’ll probably reduce the frequency of posts to this blog to free up the time this project will require. 

In closing, life is challenging. Disturbing things happen. The world sometimes goes through difficult periods. We may be entering one of those periods now. The ability to rise above circumstances and enjoy a meaningful life is a superpower worth pursuing. 

The Secret Within will hopefully provide assistance to people interested in committing to such a journey.

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