One of my favorite illustrative stories is from Tara Brach, the Buddhist Meditation teacher, about an adult man who has trouble wetting his pants. I’m sure she tells it better than I do, because I laughed out loud when I first heard it and haven’t forgotten it.

Here it is:

It seems that every time he was in a work situation that made him nervous, he would PSP. Public speaking, meeting with the boss, sales call to customers, all of these things generated a nervousness that would cause him to wet his pants.

He was a very productive employee, at least when left to himself. However, like most of us, meetings are required part of our work. His boss, to help him, suggested that he go see a therapist or go find some meditation or get some help. So this man ended up in a meditation class. He went several times a week for several months and became quite comfortable and even accomplished with meditation. It became a regular practice in his life. He found peace. He was able to settle into mindfulness and reduce the anxiety of his thoughts.

A few months later, at his office, his boss called him in to catch up. His boss asked, “How are things going with meditation and your problem? Have things gotten better for you?” As he asked this, he noticed a dark spot appearing on the man’s pants.

The man responded, “I’ve been going to meditation for several months now. I still wet myself, as you can see. But I’m okay with it now.”

I tell this story to make a simple point: Meditation can be a wonderful resource for helping us through anxiety in life, but at some point, we have to change our behaviors.

I am extremely committed to meditation in various forms. But in dealing with areas I want to improve, things such as emotional maturity, financial management, career development, etc., I have had to change behaviors.

I developed a meditation practice for many reasons, but one of the main reasons was to be a calmer presence in general and to not react angrily in particular to the things that triggered me. It seemed to work, until a large and difficult situation happened. Then I lost my temper and alienated everyone around me. I pissed all over myself. More than once. I still meditate, but I have added other practices to develop emotional maturity and to deal with things that trigger my emotions.

There are companies who offer meditation classes to employees, many of whom are working 50 or more hours per week. I’ve seen numerous pieces in recent years about meditation being used in financial firms. (Here’s one from the Financial Times.) These people meditate and then go back to the same activities that create work-life imbalance, stress, and even guilt if the work violates that person’s ethics. Again, pissing ourselves. Getting ourselves to where we’re “okay with it”, and then doing the same unskillful thing.

One final example: How many of us are addicted to our phones and social media? Every day is an emotional roller coaster. Our feeds are filled with news items that subtly or overtly spark small or large amounts of anxiety or anger or depression. We read comments from the obviously stupid people who disagree with us. We write an angry retort. We wait for likes. We fall prey to stories about which tweet “dismantled” or “owned” some celebrity or politician and allow that to stir emotions. We seek likes for our opinions and posts. We are addicted to an online economy of rapid and chaotic emotional shifts. We are addicted to the chemical charges in our brains that daily outrage (Obama did this, Trump did that), tragic news stories, feel good news stories, and clicking “like” or being liked bring.

Then we meditate to feel good. “I need this meditation to deal with my anxiety.” Then we go back like rats in a maze taking hits of crack and do it all over again. Pissing ourselves.

We are creatures of habit. Habits consist of cues (triggering event), our response (the habitual action), and the “reward”, which I put in quotes because we all know the rewards for our bad habits aren’t rewards at all. I do believe that meditation can help us to see through our habitual responses to stimuli. But forming new habits involves practice. Not pissing ourselves involves changing behaviors. More on that later.