The Hinterland
Hinterland: A region lying inland from a coast. A region remote from urban areas. Origin: German hinter+land. (From Merriam-Webster.com)
Photo by Matt Gross on Unsplash
It feels good to be writing again. I had intended to write regular posts in 2023, but somehow, again and again, the time did not seem right. Some important happenings in my life took place this year. In the spring, I was inspired to take online courses to earn continuing education credits and renew my social work license in the United States. I still really enjoy learning about mental health, even as my focus is now on promoting wellness rather than treating mental illness. In the summer, I established my mindfulness coaching business in Germany and I started working with clients here, alongside clients who live in the United States. This all felt like forward momentum from a productivity point of view. Despite all this, I have had periods throughout the year in which I left my quiet center and felt unpeaceful and disconnected. (For an introduction to the quiet center, see “Living from the Quiet Center in a Pandemic”, published 3/24/2020). I have recently been thinking of any experience that is not grounded in the quiet center, as being like a journey through the hinterland. In this back country of the mind, there are landmarks and signposts, but they don’t lead anywhere good.
I have two hinterland states that have recurred regularly. One of them is what I would call, “angry sadness,” which draws its strength from the lengthy adjustment period to life in Germany, joined with missing life in the United States, plain and simple. There is nothing wrong with grieving my former life in the United States, nor with finding various aspects of life in Germany difficult to accept. I lived in the United States for almost 30 years, and in Canada for 14 years before that, whereas I have lived in Germany for less than 2 years. At the level of form, there are myriads of cultural and practical differences between these two parts of the world. It takes time for the differences to become familiar and to learn to accept them. Call me crazy, but I miss the freedom of grocery shopping on Sunday and I still struggle with cyclists riding on the side-walk (more below on this area of repeated forgiveness work). There’s nothing confusing about feeling angry-sad. It is obviously not a quiet center experience, because it is aversive, uncomfortable, and clearly not peaceful.
The second, all-too-frequent, hinterland state that I find myself in, is a kind of flatness, an experience which cozies up to feeling apathetic, but which is much milder. When I was a psychotherapist, I worked with someone for many years who often described her mood as, “meh.” She wasn’t actively depressed, but she also didn’t feel much contentment. She was able to do quite well in her career, had a good home life, and a circle of close friends. But when I asked her, week after week, how she felt, she would say she felt, “meh.” That is a good word for describing my second hinterland state. The meh state is sneaky; unlike the angry-sad state, it does not wear it’s wrong-mindedness on its sleeve. From within the hinterland, the flat feeling of “meh” is not very different from the “quiet” of “quiet enjoyment.” If I felt just a twinge of frustration instead of flatness alone, I would already know that the state is wrong-minded. If the flatness were stronger, or more uncomfortable, that would give it away too. From outside the hinterland, the difference between the meh state and peace is very clear. At the very least, feeling peaceful feels pleasant. When there is some joy or love blended in with it, it is an even more beautiful experience.
Part of my difficulty with noticing the meh state is that it does not involve an obvious detour into the hinterland. With angry sadness, the sharp turn is crystal clear. Take cyclists on the side-walk, a trigger for me here in Germany. Far too often for my comfort, someone cycles up noiselessly behind me while I am out walking. The moment the person overtakes, I feel an instant of surprise and sometimes a jolt of fear. To my unaccustomed body, there is a clear and present “danger” in coming so close to someone passing right beside me on a bike. My fight-flight system makes the assessment: vehicle means collision means injury or death. Except, that is not the meaning of cyclists on the sidewalk here. People start riding bikes as very young children and cycle around the city with their families. Postal workers cycle along the sidewalk from postbox to postbox, delivering mail. It has been a big forgiveness opportunity encountering these cyclists ‘where they are not supposed to be,’ and I have actively worked for many months to forgive all of these instances. In contrast with the angry-sad state, there is no obvious trigger for the meh state, no obvious apparent wrong-doing on the part of another person and no obvious wrong-minded thought; I seem to just wake up in the hinterland with no sharp turn to alert me. The meh state of mind lurks in my awareness, feeling neither very bad nor very good. As a result, I can be in this state for a while without noticing that it is not the quiet of the quiet center, and there is the rub.
Like Buddhist and Hindu traditions, A Course in Miracles strongly encourages us to train our minds. Doing so helps us to become aware of our thoughts and reactions, so we can then work with them directly to promote peace and connection with others. The Course tells us, “You are much too tolerant of mind-wandering…” (T-2.VI.4:6). Despite my years of practicing what the Course teaches, my mind clearly still wanders, or I would never find myself in the Hinterland. When I am not in my quiet center, my mind is wandering, “…through darkened corridors, away from light’s center” (T-14.VIII.3:1). In other words, I have wandered away from states of peace, love, and joy. This wandering is a decision I have made at some level, probably an unconscious one in the case of “meh.” All of us are constantly making a choice between two thought systems, which the Course references again and again. When we are in our wrong mind, we are thinking with the thought system of the ego, which is based on the belief in separation from our Source, leading to a sense of disconnection, and to many kinds of negative states of mind. By contrast, when we are in our right mind, we are thinking with the thought system of peace, which is our true reality, placing us in communication with our Source and in union with everyone and everything (for more, see “Remembering Abundance,” published on 11/17/2020).
It might sound strange that waking up in a meh state is based on an unconscious decision, perhaps even one made in the middle of the night. We are accustomed to thinking that when we sleep, our minds also sleep. A Course in Miracles makes very clear that this is not the case:
³Few appreciate the real power of the mind, and no one remains fully aware of it all the time… ⁵The mind is very powerful, and never loses its creative force. ⁶It never sleeps. ⁷Every instant it is creating. (T-2.VI.9:3, 5-7)
This is a radically different idea from what most of us are taught, and it takes some getting used to. Training the mind is a life-long endeavor. No matter how sneaky any wrong-minded state is—and the ego thought system can be very sneaky—we can learn to notice it and to change our minds about it.
There is one aspect of the meh state that I am finding helpful for noticing that I am in it. From the hinterland of meh, whenever I think about doing something, the activity feels like a drag. As someone who is self-employed and works from home, it is up to me to choose how I am going to spend my day. Aside from my two part-time jobs, mindfulness coaching and taking care of our beloved Golden Retriever, Wall-E, I have a host of activities that I engage in. They range from chores and errands on the less interesting end of the continuum, to walks and calls or video chats with friends and family, on the more enjoyable end of the continuum. From within the meh state, this continuum shrinks to a dot. Everything has the feel of a chore, because it is painted with the same grey brush. This is the clue that I have been working with to recognize that something is amiss. I am practicing tuning into the experience of things that should feel light and fun, feeling, instead, like a drag. This then helps me to realize that I am feeling flat, rather than peaceful. It tells me that I have been wandering in the hinterland without awareness.
From awareness of being in the hinterland, the way back to the calm center is neither difficult or long. I usually stop and ask my Inner Teacher for help. Since starting this blog in 2020, I have written many posts about our inner (or, if you prefer, outer) Guide and Guidance. (For example, “Building a Community of Love,” published on 9/30/2021) This source of comfort, wisdom, and inspiration knows the directions from any hinterland location back to the calm center, and offers tailored guidance on the journey back to anyone who asks. As A Course in Miracles says in the beautiful Epilogue found at the end of the Manual for Teachers:
Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain. ²Doubt along the way will come and go and go to come again. ³Yet is the ending sure. ⁴No one can fail to do what God appointed him to do. ⁵When you forget, remember that you walk with Him and with His Word upon your heart. ⁶Who could despair when hope like this is his? (C-ep.1:1-6)
A Course in Miracles is published by The Foundation for Inner Peace. All the books comprising the Course, along with the supplemental pamphlets, are now found online:
https://acim.org/acim/en
All quotations of A Course in Miracles in this blog post are drawn from this version of the Course.