BY RICK LEED — When stuck in your car in painful, frustrating, unimaginable traffic, already late for an appointment, who hasn’t felt like a Looney Tunes cartoon character, with steam coming out of their ears, fists pounding the steering wheel, and eyes turning red and bulging out of their head?

Road rage is usually directed at someone else who has done something heinous — or at the least, rude, like cut you off, changed lanes unexpectedly, or flipped you the finger.  But the inward-focused rage and fury that has no specific personal target is so often worse, creating more stress, more anger, more intense negative energy:  ‘Why the hell isn’t this traffic moving?’

All of this came into sharp focus, with all the drama of Hollywood, in Los Angeles during the second week of July when one of America’s busiest stretches of freeways, the I-405, had a massive closure for demolition and reconstruction.

It shut down the city. The only way for people to avoid traffic jams because hundreds of thousands of travelers — and tourists going to Disnleyland and LAX in peak season — was to take detours along very small and already congested side roads, or simply stay at home.  Civic officials were so desperate they actually enlisted celebrities with huge Twitter fan bases — like Lady Gaga, Charlie Sheen, and Kim Kardashian — to help get the message out to the millions: stay the hell out of L.A.  Buy groceries, hunker down, cocoon at home and don’t even look at your car keys.

What happens when you add “cars” plus “Armageddon”

It inspired talk radio to coin the term, ‘Carmaggedon’ — likening the man-made catastrophe to Godzilla trashing Tokyo, with sci-fi sound-effects included.  With Los Angeles paralyzed, each of us reacted differently, which raises the question:

Can the collective conscious embrace events like this as an opportunity to reflect on our own ability to just ‘let go,’ instead of — at the extreme — going ‘drive-by’?

The question, on a psychological and spiritual basis is this:  What do you do when there is absolutely nothing you can do?

Does letting your blood pressure go through your moonroof as you foam at the mouth, lean on your car horn, and spew profanities really improve the situation?  We know it doesn’t, of course, but we often go nuts anyway.

My experiences in Los Angeles over the last few years include two memorable ones involving traffic.  One was when my 14-year-old daughter and I were going to see a school play on a Sunday afternoon (Annie, no less, about the eternally optimistic orphan, who sings that ‘the sun will come out, tomorrow’).  It was the day of the Los Angeles Marathon, which had recently had a route shift, and no one, including us, was prepared.  Giving ourselves 90 minutes to reach her school — normally a 20-minute drive — with a path that seemed quite clever, we found ourselves in grid-locked, unimaginable snarls of traffic with movements of several feet over the course of ten-minutes.

It was an hour since we’d left home, and we were barely a quarter of the way there.  Then, after two hours on the road, we had barely gotten another quarter of the way there.  We had already missed the whole first act of the show.  My daughter was crying, I was yelling, telling her that this wasn’t my fault, or anyone’s fault.  We both were exhausted and stressed and full of rage and resentment.  Even turning around and heading home without seeing the play — which we did — was still a disaster, because we had to re-trace our steps again at a snail’s pace.

How to let go of it, before totally losing it

During that awful trip--and during the other memorable one involving city-wide gridlock caused by a visit to LA by President Obama — I remembered things told to me  by two different and quite wise psychotherapists:  Getting mad, being upset, stressing out, becoming filled with rage and anger will not make the traffic dissipate.

The simple fact is that there is nothing you can do about the traffic, so, why beat yourself up over it?  Why not just ‘let it be’ and try to realize that you won’t get where you are going any faster by beeping your horn or cursing at other drivers (or cursing to yourself).  Why not try to breathe, find some inner peace, find some reserve of positive energy, maybe even — God forbid — find some twisted humor or irony in the situation?

Traffic, an inevitable reality of our current state of modern urban life, can’t be cursed away, wished away, or beeped away.  We can blame the other drivers on the road, or we can blame ourselves (‘why the hell did I take this street instead that street?!’), or we can curse or beep our car horns in a gesture that is equivalent to primitive man yelling or grunting or howling at an eclipse or some other natural occurrence or mystical phenomenon.

So, perhaps, the simple thing to take away from this is that sometimes, you have to accept that when there is nothing you can do to improve or change the situation, the only thing to do is . . . nothing.

RICK LEED has lived in the world’s top traffic capitals, including London, New York, and now, L.A. In the past two years, however, he has experienced even worse traffic in Mexico City and Sao Paolo, Brazil — proving that no matter how bad you think traffic is, it can always be worse.

A companion piece to Pamela Wilson’s first column for Soul’s Code, Age of Sorrow, Age of Wakefulness, this meditation invites you into restorative rest and gratitude for every granule of your being. Invite someone close to you to close their eyes, and try reading these words to them sotto voce.

BY PAMELA WILSON — Sit quietly and look inside, feel the sensations in your chest. Notice how some are protective. These are the “felt” defenses. Honor and thank them. Now look behind them to what they are protecting. There might be a quiet, or an ordinary, openness. Let yourself get curious, and feel it.

You might notice it is restful, with not a lot happening there. Rest and allow the body to be nourished by the stillness. If there is a sense of relief or gratitude, let that express itself. . .if there is any lingering agitation, let it be as it is and notice it is appearing in a calm openness.

Now, the mind might express some doubts; if it does, allow them — and invite the mind to take a rest.

As your attention is resting, notice that it does this naturally when it encounters peacefulness. Also invite the body to rest. Any sensations and emotions will alert you to where there is remaining tension, and where gentleness is needed. As everything within starts to relax, feel it deeply with gratitude.

Now, observe attention itself  . . . become curious about its ability to soothe body and mind.

Express gratitude for no reason, and then rest as you are.

When the body and mind are at rest, it is easy to see who we are, innate naturalness, the presence that is always in the background. Before, your attention was on the personality — not the property of being that was wearing it. Now that role can be surrendered.

Somehow, the body, emotion and sensations have always known our true nature. They have always presented themselves to this gentle openness within, asking for kindness and understanding.

BY TONY SAMARA — Whether your suffering is a low-grade depression or a paralyzing fear, you can rise above it. From the Heart is a collection of satsangs (Sanskrit for “association with truth”) from live workshops with spiritual seekers from around the globe. In this excerpt, a uniquely-simple way of overcoming one particular source of pain in our lives: the mundane.

Detach from the intensity of the mundane

A mouse is trying to find a space to be safe, but the cat follows. It knows exactly where the mouse is and there is no escape. Maybe for a little moment there is a safe place to hide and to be in, but this little mouse basically lives in fear. Yes? This is how I understand suffering.

If you are thinking of how to move beyond this and this is the space that you’re in, you’re like the little mouse. Full of fear, full of this concept which is what is so chaotic and so subtle and so . . . what’s the English word? So dominating in its essence. This concept is fear.

What we are running away from is not actually suffering but what we’re doing is embracing suffering by honoring the space of fear that we are creating around the suffering.

Actually suffering, if you can still follow what I’m saying, is not real. It’s only real because you make it real…

…When people say to me, “Tony, I’m suffering!” I say, “Remember the joy!” and they look at me and they say, “Come on Tony, that doesn’t make any sense to me! I’m suffering! Can you not feel my feeling? I’m suffering! What does joy have to do with suffering? Can you not take me more seriously? Please answer my question, please help me!” And I say, “Joy.” You have the choice to be joyful even in the most complicated and chaotic of situations. You have this choice. Even if in the beginning it’s just a pretence. Try to bring joy into that space that is dominating your emotional body, the fear…

…It’s very easy. We have to go back and change that fear so that the communication speaks to you in a very different way. When we do this, for example, we go back to the fear and then we say, “That is not the picture that I will feed my emotions with because I want to create a different reality. I will feed it with love.” Joy is love. It’s basically an expression of love. “I will feed it with love.” How can we do this if we are upset? It’s very, very simple. Take a deep breath and come back to another memory.

The cat is not real

Remember for example the beauty in that partner you locked out of the house and said, “I don’t want you in here because you’re just too silly!” Forget that emotion and go back to the sensation that you had when you first met this person, when you first realized the soul of that being.

Ok maybe you don’t have a partner . . . a child is ok? Or a pet, a dog. Dogs can be amazing, they bring joy to people. Ok, you don’t have a dog, you don’t have a child, and you don’t have a partner you say? Ok.

What do you have that makes you happy? Go back and explore. Explore an aspect of your life where your heart opened and there was a sense of joy so then what we’re doing is flying high like the eagle, expanding our energy beyond that limited mundane aspect that is creating the suffering.

We’re expanding to a space where love feeds the heart, where love feeds the emotions and when this happens, we create a different reality. Even in the middle of a war zone. Even in the middle of pain and suffering. Reality begins to change, but maybe not immediately.

If you are waiting for it to change immediately, then you’re doing what people always do and that is requiring a change from the divine because it’s your right to have that change. You say, “I don’t want to suffer, I want something better!” and of course, you know this is very different from what I’m saying. This is coming from the ego. It’s a desire. “I want to be better, I want to have more money so that I want to be free so that I want this and I want that.” That is the ego.

I’m asking you to come back to the space of love, joy, so that you can feed the emotions. In that space the emotions no longer invest in the cat and mouse game where fear is the dominating factor but rather come back to its deepest essence and that is joy, harmony. When you do this, reality has to change. That is the law of physics…

…Give yourself time. Be patient and go deeper because the mouse and the cat can play many games until the mouse realizes that the cat is actually just a shadow. It was never there. It’s just a shadow that all mice believe to be true. There are no cats in the world and then you’re no longer a mouse. Then you realize you’re a human being and that fear is just another emotion that is actually quite useful to have. I love fear because it helps to create a sense of what joy means.

After living for several years in a Zen Buddhist monastery, Tony Samara ventured to the jungles of South America – to the Amazon and to the Andes – where he lived and studied among a community of Shamans.  Tony Samara is now visited by people from all parts of the world and from all walks of life, seeking spiritual guidance or simply the experience of being in his presence. His function is as a Spiritual Teacher who encourages all to lead their lives actively in a noble way in order to realize the evolution of human consciousness.

Hear Tony Samara’s Live Satsangs at www.TonySamara.TV. From the Heart is available on Amazon.com.

BY MARY COOK, M.A., R.A.S. — Read TMZ.com any night about the most privileged people on the planet. Nic Cage is arrested for spousal abuse and public inebriation. Days later Cage’s son attacks his personal trainer. Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen is acting out again.

When our primary needs or desires in childhood are insufficiently gratified, we experience a deep and lasting sense of fear, incompleteness and inferiority.

Because it is difficult to contain fully conscious awareness of these feelings, defense mechanisms arise to dull, block or defensively glorify them.

We might adopt narcissistic or avoidant behaviors, or dangerous thrill-seeking practices, in order to distract ourselves from original fears.

Externalizing, projection and displacement are common defenses that deflect our original pain and problems onto people, places and things outside of us.

What you externalize with projections will be internalized as compulsions

Because fear interferes with our ability to feel internally comfortable and positive, we might attempt to artificially produce these emotions through food, drugs, sex, shopping and other compulsive activities.

(The video, by the way, is from Charlie Sheen’s own YouTube channel).

This is also our attempt to compensate for previous lack of gratification. When family or friends in our adult life confront our compulsions, a sense of anger and entitlement arises in us, and we complain that they don’t understand us. These feelings are from childhood and don’t usually fit adult circumstances at all.

The law of addictive attraction

The energies of past pain and problems attract new similar experiences. And our defenses reinforce the themes of what we are defending. These energies are maintained, because in childhood we internalize deprivation and mistreatment into our sense of self, and feel unlovable, undeserving and unworthy.

When we do not have a healthy dependency period, we do not mature into a healthy interdependent state. Thus when we experience childhood themes in our adult life, we lack a mature adult framework from which to understand and resolve them.

In order for us to heal, we must recognize not only the similarities of past and present circumstances, but also the differences between now and way-back then.

5 easy pieces

Are you older and wiser?

Do you have more resources, support, options and courage?

Even if the current event carries the same theme, does it contain the same level of danger or mistreatment?

Do you  have other experiences with successful positive change in thinking, feeling and actions?

Do you have people in your life today that model healthy behaviors and positive growth?

And now about spiritual beliefs that afford us faith, trust and guidance in new endeavors.

Discovering the roots of unhealthy thinking and behaviors diminishes their power over us. Underneath narcissistic attitudes, lie significant past failures in empathy, sensitivity and understanding. Perhaps in childhood we lacked a sense of being seen, heard, felt, touched and understood for who we truly were. Self-absorption, and feigned grandiosity and arrogance are attempts to compensate for this. Ironically these defenses pass on empathic failures to others, and reinforce the theme of distrust and hurtful relating.

Avoiding situations that stimulate original fears has limited effectiveness.

Can we we make our conditioning conscious?

When we do not address and heal our fears, fear enlarges and the elements that stimulate fear increase. We also continue to attract situations that reflect what is unhealed within us. When we romanticize fear through recklessness and dangerous actions, we focus on how outwardly courageous we are. We hope this will undo the internal effects of earlier trauma, but it only reinforces the original fear.

Externalizing, projection and displacement are defenses that give us temporary illusions that our problems and pain are not internal, but lie in outward circumstances and other people. So now we blame and attempt to control what we cannot control. Even if those we blame do change according to our wishes, we quickly find new circumstances or new people upon which to project our inner problems.

Compulsive activities can dull our conscious awareness of what feels painful and threatening, and provide temporary artificial euphoria. Because we associate the compulsions with positive feelings, this further undermines our chances for healthy esteem. And because compulsions cannot replace primary needs and desires, they involve us in an endless, futile struggle for satisfaction.

Our healing journey involves recognizing that we have a child and an adult sense of self. We can develop compassionate understanding, and ultimately loving guidance for our child self. We can view our adult self as equal to, rather than inferior or superior to others, and we can exhibit humanitarian and spiritual values.

We can identify and appreciate the differences between past and present stress, and increasingly relinquish defense mechanisms in favor of deeper awareness and corresponding integrity. We can remember that as adults, we hold the keys to healthy self-care, and we teach others how to treat us through this example. We can thankfully demonstrate responsibility for our safety, serenity, health, happiness and fulfillment, and experience a deep and lasting sense of wholeness and goodness.

Mary Cook is the author of “Grace Lost and Found: From Addictions and Compulsions to Satisfaction and Serenity”, available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com and through her own website. Mary has 35 years of clinical practice and three decades of university teaching experience. Based  in San Pedro, CA. Mary is available for telephone and office counseling, guided meditation, speaking engagements and in-service training. Her e-mail: MaryCookMA@att.net

BY JOHN PTACEK – Why did a tsunami flood Japan? Why can’t politicians tell the truth? Why did it have to rain on my wedding day?

If humans really had power, CEOs would be immune to cancer, holy men wouldn’t sin and Michael Jackson would still be alive. But we don’t call the shots.

Reality baffles us.  We question it every day and keep waiting for people to be good, for governments to be just, for life to be fair.

What we really want is for reality to be fantasy, for it to live up to our lofty expectations.  With one foot planted in reality and the other in a dream world, our lives are rooted in compromise.  Life is a chore, a problem to be solved.  It is often painful, sometimes dreadfully so.

Resigned to this suffering, we find ways to justify it.  We decide that suffering is good, even noble.  A sign of virtue.  This saintly rationalization deadens the pain, but only briefly.  Soon we are wondering why our marriages aren’t happier, why our children aren’t saying no to drugs, and why a collapsing stock market sucked our savings dry.

What is it that we never learned about reality?

That is, what didn´t we get about life as it is, and that makes us so newly frazzled by it every day? Did we sleep through the philosophy class that taught us how to appreciate it? Or the psychology class that taught us how to adapt to it?

Or maybe it was a science class we slept through.

14 billion years ago nothingness exploded into something and, following a succession of progressively conscious life forms, that something included us.  We human beings are but a single expression of life in a vast, intimately connected universe.

Or so the story goes.  Clearly we’re not buying it.  Somewhere along the line we decided that being a bit player in a tediously long evolutionary story didn’t suit our ambitions.   We wanted to be masters of the universe.  Screw evolution, it was time for us to jump the track and take control of our destinies.

Taking charge is like believing we are driving a bus on which we are merely passengers

Soon, our upright gait acquired a certain swagger.  Life wasn’t about natural law, it was about attitude.  From our new vantage point at the center of the universe, we had a much better idea of how life should be proceeding – our way.  If we wanted something badly enough, we could make it happen.  The way they do in Nike commercials.  You just have to be willing to work up a sweat.

Our attempt to subvert the will of a smoothly functioning universe had its downside, however.  It put us on a collision course with suffering.  When our Nike version of reality meets the real thing, it’s no contest.  We lose every time.  And when we lose we suffer, no matter how much we sweat.

To believe we control the movement of life is to believe we are driving a bus on which we are merely passengers.  We feel as if we are in control when the bus takes us where we want to go, but when it keeps chugging merrily on its way despite our attempts to turn or stop or slow down, we are incredulous.  We grip the frozen steering wheel and stare helplessly out the windows muttering that teenagers shouldn’t be having babies, corporations shouldn’t be exploiting legal loopholes for profit, and a cure for cancer should have been discovered by now.

Life asks many things of us, but suffering for our delusions isn’t one of them.  The biggest delusion is that life should unfold in ways that make us happy.  Since we weren’t even around when life began, our happiness could hardly have been a bullet point in its mission statement.  Finding happiness is our job, and there’s more of it to be found when we meet life with open arms rather than with a fistful of angry questions.

John Ptacek questions conventional wisdom and thinks you should too. He lives in Wisconsin with his wife Kitty and not far from his handsome son Joe. His essays appear on his website, On Second Thought, www.johnptacek.weebly.com.