Tag: mindfulness

Banana bread

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As we stay home to stay safe, many of us have done a lot of baking. That was my plan on Monday afternoon. Banana bread—I follow a good recipe but I just want to say a little cardamom and a little ground ginger give it a deeper, richer flavor. I went to cupboard and pulled out the flour and sugar, each in a clear plastic canister. I looked at the flour and wondered if I had enough. So holding the canister slightly above eye level I gave it a good shake and soon the left side of me was covered in the half wheat half white combo that I like so much and a large mound of it had settled at my feet.

I’m confident I would have won $10,000 from America’s Funniest Home Videos if anyone had been around to record the moment. But I wasn’t laughing just then. As I stood there I felt tears in my eyes, I felt tension in my chest, I felt heat throughout my body. My first thought was a curse word. My second was a question. Who failed to close the canister lid tightly? Alone in the house there was no one to yell at or to help me clean up the mess. That was a good thing because it gave me time to stand still. And that was a good thing because I needed to figure out how to move without making the mess worse and because I wasn’t just feeling the rise of anger within me, I was watching it and being curious about it. This is not an argument against anger. It has an important role to play in our lives. But in this situation, although I felt it, I also wondered what purpose it could serve.

A lot of different thoughts went through my mind as I watched myself reacting. I thought about how much I wanted the unclosed lid to be my partner’s fault. I wanted to blame someone other than me. And I thought about being a kid. My siblings and I had one mantra: Don’t tell mom. Because no one ever wanted to be to blame for whatever inappropriate thing was going on. I noticed that I felt defeated—now I didn’t have enough flour to make banana bread (and judging by the amount on the floor, and on me, there had been plenty). But going to store is no longer and easy proposition and once I get there, flour isn’t always available. I felt wasteful and careless—two cardinal sins in my family. Observing all the tentacles of my reaction to this trivial mistake, I realized that the feeling of defeat was the one most likely to linger. This is a habit of mind that is absolutely central for me. Suddenly I saw myself giving up on the afternoon. Throwing myself into a chair, cursing and grumbling, overwhelmed by that familiar feeling that I can’t do anything right.

I saw it. I recognized it. I didn’t stuff it down. I didn’t berate myself for its existence and as I watched it, its hold on me started to loosen. I cleaned up the mess. I left the banana bread project for another day. I saw that I could be happy despite not being perfect and so I was. Not as happy as I might have been with a fresh loaf of homemade banana bread but enough to not poison the atmosphere of my mind and my home.

Being there

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We traveled for 24 days. We were gone so long that the days ran together and the routines of home were completely displaced. The opportunity to travel is such a gift—the planning, the preparation, and being there–that I always forget that it also includes discomfort and stress. Tummy trouble, a lumpy bed, changes affecting sleep patterns, and very little time alone. Constantly surrounded by unfamiliar sights and sounds and customs, at the end of each day I feel both exhilarated and exhausted.

In a depleted state, I am vulnerable to an old habit of mind: judgment. Initially my thoughts are overwhelmingly positive—beautiful churches, interesting museums, and wondrous natural beauty. But as time passes, and the stresses mount, negative judgments increase. I’ve often joked that my life’s ambition is to learn to say, “Pay attention,” “Keep moving,” and “Single file,” in all the world’s languages.

“Come on, it’s a narrow two-lane bridge with even narrower sidewalks. Must you stroll arm-in-arm even if that means I have to step into oncoming traffic? Single file please!”

“I know you are entranced by the tile work in the palace but there are 200 people waiting in line to see it. Keep moving!”

“Yes, it’s delightful to visit one of the world’s great cities but the streets are packed and everyone’s maneuvering around you as you stand there talking on your phone. Pay attention!”

I can tell myself that fatigue induces impatience and impatience results in a sour view of humanity. But that’s not the whole story. To the extent that I am fixated on other people, I must ask myself, “What in me is disturbed by their behavior?” I see that they are taking their time, walking aimlessly, looking relaxed and at ease. In contrast, particularly during international travel, I’m constantly on guard, fearful of making mistakes, of embarrassing myself. Watching other tourists makes me more self-conscious and my ego fights back with negative judgments.

When I finally grew sick of that crabby voice in my head, I tried to counter it. Each time my eyes settled other people I identified something positive about them. But it was still all about judging. I finally remembered my favorite practice: non-judging awareness. I don’t want to use my energy to make irrelevant, inane, mindless assessments of the world around me. But as a client once wisely asked, “What am I supposed to do with my brain?”

Observe, observe, observe. Describe, describe, describe. And avoid using evaluative language. What a relief! The world was so much more interesting. Out walking in the swirling crowds I just noticed people. Naming their features—balding, tall, green shorts, I felt like a crime novelist providing descriptions of characters. I started asking myself, “What’s that person distinctive feature? One that can’t be easily changed?” You know, in case they had to go on the lam. We were in small enough places that I often saw the same people later and recognized them because I’d so closely observed them. I also brought this practice to art and architecture, museums and cultural attractions. I realized how limited and superficial my assessments had been. “Yeah, yeah, another beautiful church” which is so dismissive, was replaced with, “I notice that almost all of the iconography in this church is of female figures.” As I paid more attention to guides than to the behavior of other people in the group, I asked more questions. I wasn’t trying to become a bigger nerd than I already am. I was trying to eliminate toxic negativity and shallow positivity.

I can go to the most interesting places, learn things that sharpen my understanding of the complexity of the world we share, meet kind, funny, clever people from all over the world. But I have to take myself along for the ride and that turns out to be the biggest challenge. With each and every thought I can either defend myself against my own discomfort and anxiety or open myself to the present moment and just be there taking it all in.

Moving and storage

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Less than a week after they moved into their beautiful new home I arrived for a weekend visit with my friends C and J. That first evening we enjoyed a delicious supper prepared by J then spent the better part of the next two days opening boxes, removing each item, and finding its proper place. C and J kept telling me I was a great friend for helping them and I accept their praise. However, it’s their behavior I find a true testament to friendship because I can’t imagine allowing anyone to watch my partner and me unpack our possessions. I know C and J love me but now I know they also trust me.

Although our efforts concentrated on the kitchen the things we unpacked were more than tools for meal preparation. There were gifts and inheritances; there were items that resolved a problem and others that remain a point of contention. I was in awe of their ability to lovingly recall the stories, connections, and meanings associated with these objects yet still get everything put away in the gorgeous new blue cupboards or let it go.

In addition to putting things away, C and J were also figuring out how to live in their new ranch style house, which has almost nothing in common with the farmhouse they just sold. For instance, the simple act of entering their home has been totally upended. In the old house they entered through the front door, put coats in the closet to the right, put bags and keys on the hall table in front of them, and removed their shoes placing them to the left of the table. In the new house they enter from the garage and the coat closet wall, rather than door, is to their immediate right. There’s no good place for a table where keys and bags can be dropped and the entire entry area is visible from the living room thus the challenge of dumping stuff but wanting all to remain neat and tidy.

As I watched them confront the challenge of transferring a necessary routine into a new space I thought about how deep our need is for a few taken-for-granted assumptions about how we function in the world. I wondered if craving the ability to put my keys down without deliberate thought, sure in the knowledge that I won’t spend 20 minute searching for them later, is a failure of mindfulness. Our habits, like our possessions, have a story, connections, meaning. Some are gifts, others we inherit. Mindfulness means staying alert to routines that have so hardened we can’t bear to let them go. They will surely cause me more suffering than struggling to find my keys once in awhile.

Round and round I go

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We had to make last minute airline reservations. The next morning I found two emails from our credit card company asking if I recognized the transaction. My partner, who made the reservations, had already gone to the gym. After I stopped screaming when I saw that the second email informed me the charges had been declined, I went downstairs in search of her phone to find the confirmation email of the reservation. There was no email. I felt a small measure of dirty relief that at least we now shared the blame: I hadn’t seen the emails from the credit card company and she hadn’t noticed that there was no confirmation email. I went back to the emails from the credit card company and hit the “Yes, I recognize the charges” button but I suspected that wasn’t going to preserve our reservations. I went to the airline’s website but couldn’t check our reservation without a reservation code—which would have been in the confirmation email. I looked to see if the flights were still available. They were not. It was now well after 7:30 the time at which Laura said she’d be home from the gym.

I sat at the table and thought about mindfulness and non-judging awareness and how, in this moment, they both seemed utterly irrelevant. In this moment, my habit of seeing the worst possible outcomes, my capacity for judging my partner, and my conviction that we were going to have an ugly, stress-filled morning felt perfectly justified. With a smirk on my face I answered the three key questions: What is my mind doing? Racing, panicking, raging. What emotions do I feel? Anger and fear. How do I feel in my body? Tense, tense, tense. Then I started talking out loud as if to further convince myself that my reaction was reasonable. “I am frustrated that this happened. I’m angry that I didn’t look at my email once more last night. I’m mad at Laura for not noticing that she didn’t get a confirmation email. I’m mad that she’s not back from the gym and I’m dealing with this all by myself.” Then I got up and went into the family room to straighten up. I don’t know why. But while I was in there I realized I could call the credit card company and see what they could do. As I was talking to the credit card rep, being assured that she could not reinstate the reservation but that the next time we tried it would go through, Laura came home. I got off the phone and told her what had happened. She said, “Oh, okay. Yeah, I wondered why there was no confirmation email.” She went to get a piece of paper where she’d written down the reservation code. When she came back we looked up our reservation and saw its status was “pending.” We called the airline, waited ten minutes for a callback, they resubmitted the reservation, and all was well again.

As we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee, I said, “You really didn’t seem upset by this whole thing” She looked at me, the picture of innocence, and said, “Well we talked about this. I’m trying to be calmer about things.” My laughter was loud and long. We had indeed talked about this just the day before when she asked me to teach her more about mindfulness. I said, “Well you sure are a quick study.” And I am not and that’s okay.

The only moment I have

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Here in the middle of the Midwest it is neither winter nor spring. The days are a little longer and tiny green shoots are scattered throughout our garden beds, and as the temperature rises my shoulders start to loosen after weeks of hunching against the cold. But it isn’t all mild days and flowers rising. The sky is often overcast, sunny days feature biting winds, and those tender green shoots are probably going to get buried under several inches of snow before the month is over.

Although I’m a native Midwesterner, it was the 15 years I spent in Minnesota that made this season of contrasts my least favorite. On a warmish day my spirits lift and I convince myself that spring has arrived. When snow falls a few days later I feel like a fool. But I’m not much of a learner on this topic so for weeks I experience this cycle of hope and disappointment. In Minnesota it lasted until May.

My mother had a friend who snarled at people who complained about hot days in July. “It’s summer isn’t it?” she’d bark at them. One hot and muggy summer I decided to take the implication of her admonishment seriously and vowed I would not complain about the heat. When I noticed my mind moving in that direction I batted the thought away. The challenge I hadn’t anticipated was how often others would complain to me about the heat. Talking about the weather is such a simple way to make contact. But it’s also a great example of routine negativity disguised as interpersonal connection. I didn’t want to snap at people or correct them so I found myself developing a host of responses that featured a big smile and something along the lines of “Oh, but we’ll miss these days come January.” Or, “Yes, but wasn’t it a glorious spring?” I was chipper enough that people didn’t appear to feel scolded as those who encountered my mom’s friend probably did. The one thing I didn’t manage to do, the thing I’m working hard on now, is simple appreciation for what is.

My challenge during these days between seasons is that a warmish day sends me hurtling into the future where the daffodils are out and the days are predictably mild. Right now, this moment, the sky is clear, the sun is urging the flowers to rise, the temperature is below freezing, and the furnace is working just fine. This moment, I remind myself, with all of its contradictions, is the only one I have.

The view which the mind takes

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My partner and I are thinking about moving. Nothing definite yet, just the exploration stage. We’ve been here before. This would be our third move in the last 10 years. Here’s what I’m discovering about myself as this situation unfolds in a context of self-acceptance, mindfulness, and non-judging awareness: “It is the view which the mind takes of a thing which creates the sorrow that arises from it.”

Who would guess that Victorian era author Anthony Trollope was a Buddhist? I shouldn’t be surprised at his insight since his work overflows not just with minute observations about the daily activities of his characters’ lives but also the social constructs shaping them, and the sense they make of their station in life. He conveys the challenge we all face when our essential self comes up against what the world appears to expect from us. Like Trollope, I understand, more than I have before, that the view my mind takes of thing creates the sorrow that arises from it.

When I think about moving there is sorrow when I fixate on the future—where will we go, what will it be like, will I make friends? And on alternate days when I dwell in the past recalling all the things about previous moves that overwhelmed me. But practicing mindfulness has helped me distinguish between constructive planning and obsessive stewing.

Differentiating between my concerns and my partner’s can a tangled source of sorrow. We are truly in this together but in our eagerness to do right by the other person we try to do the other person’s thinking and feeling for her. For instance, I push aside my hesitation or downright dislike of a location by telling myself that if a job is a good fit for her then I can’t stand in her way, and that I can adjust to any location, and that this attitude is the very definition of being a good partner. Recently, my partner told me that if she was single she would, most likely, have already moved by now. I said, “See, I am an obstacle.” “No,” she said, “That’s not what I meant. I meant that I try to think about which locations would best suit your needs.” When she said that I felt, of course, she is the most wonderful woman in the world. But I also felt irritated because I don’t want her to decide, on my behalf, where I’ll be happy. And, yes, I do see that we are mirroring each other’s behavior. When we try to think and feel for the other person, we have frustrating, circular conversations each trying her best not to be the cause of the other person’s possible unhappiness.

Non-judging awareness and self-acceptance are critical because they allow me to observe my thoughts and feelings, not be overwhelmed by them, and not push them aside because I assume they are an obstacle to my partner’s happiness. Together, we remind each other that we will take the journey as it comes and view the journey as one filled with compassion for and trust in the other person.

(The opposite of) Stewing, Part 3

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My original title for these three posts was “The 3 R’s” for rehearsing, rehashing, and revising encounters we anticipate or have already experienced. While there’s value in thinking before we speak or reviewing actions that cause suffering, when we mindlessly engage in these behaviors we trap ourselves in the past or the future and actually increase suffering. But as my client Jeremy so wisely asked, “Well, okay but then what am I supposed to do with my mind?”

It’s easy to encourage mindfulness but it’s important to notice the challenge this advice presents when engaged in routines that allow our mind (ego) to have free rein. Our lives are filled with commuting, picking up kids, standing in long lines, or sitting in waiting rooms. Other tasks, like mowing the lawn, doing laundry, or cooking meals, tasks require some but not all of our attention. Whenever we find that we are zoning out, we have the opportunity to zone in on something that improves the quality of our life. Although what we do with our mind, as an alternative to rehearsing, rehashing, and revising, is influenced by where we are, if we are alone, and how much time we have here are some suggestions and the first one can be done, in fact is done, everywhere.

Take air into your lungs and then expel it. That’s right. Breathe. There are countless breathing exercises out there that take less than two minutes, improve concentration, and calm us down. My favorite is 4-7-8 and I recommend Andrew Weil’s video demonstration at drweil.com.

Be willing to feel foolish. When we’re engaged in a routine task we often think its very simplicity requires us to use our great big brains to engage in some higher order activity at the same time. And while rehearsing, rehashing, and revising may be more sophisticated mental tasks than brushing my teeth they are not superior to it. When the reel-to-reel version of the past starts to play I shift my attention and concentrate on my immediate task with laser-like focus—paying particular attention to the work my body is doing, especially my hands as I wash dishes, make a bed, or rake leaves. It’s very challenging to actually think about a routine task as I’m engaged in it but it’s also surprisingly rewarding. It refreshes my mind and the 3R’s never do that. Also, there are so many more things to notice about routine tasks than our wandering minds realize. Water use, changes in the light, differences between flannel sheets and regular sheets, raking into one big pile versus several small piles. Even routine tasks can be accomplished in many different ways so thinking about the task helps us appreciate the intricate beauty of seemingly simple aspects of our lives.

Strike a bargain. If I have more time, say 45 minutes to walk or drive somewhere, my temptation is to listen to the radio or a podcast. I think that’s perfectly fine and I may stay present if I actually listen to the speaker. But have you ever turned on the news or a podcast and a few minutes later found that your mind is miles away? Listening passively is sometimes a cover for the sort of ruminating about the past or imagining the future that is a source of suffering. If you have 45 minutes and you’re a news junkie or you love podcasts, try splitting the time in half. Limit listening time, and knowing you’re going to turn it off in 22.5 minutes might help you stay attentive. For the other 22.5 minutes breathe, concentrate on the task at hand and what you’re doing with your body, and then and pay close attention to the world around you. Get so quiet and aware that you can hear the smallest sounds in your environment.

I can say with certainty that stewing has never improved the quality of my life. My goal now is to acknowledge it when it happens without wasting energy being mad at myself, acknowledge and feel my feelings without letting them overtake me, and then name what is true and real in this moment.

Stewing, part 1

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It doesn’t take much to get me started. Set the date for a family visit, schedule a meeting with co-workers, agree to speak on behalf of my favorite non-profit and my mind becomes a bubbling cauldron of anxious imaginings—who will be there, what will I say, how will I say it, what will they say, how will I respond?

In anticipation of meetings or classes or conversations with colleagues and loved ones, I prepare relentlessly. It’s become such a familiar habit that I thought everyone did it and when people compliment me on what they believe are spontaneous comments, I feel a bit like a fraud because I know how much energy I spend turning my thoughts into intelligent remarks.

I believe the world would be a better place if everyone thought about what they were going to say before saying it. The philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin wrote, “The word is a two-sided act.” Speech is both from someone but also, always for another and it’s worthwhile to consider the other before speaking. I’ve had a lot of successful interactions with a wide variety of people because I am thoughtful about what I say and how I say it.

But in recent years, as I’ve explored mindfulness, I’ve come to question this practice. I don’t want to be less careful and thoughtful in my speech but there’s a difference I want to embrace between a thoughtful practice and a mindless, energy depleting, anxiety producing habit.

I’ve observed not only my habit of rehearsing but also my habit of replaying scenes that have already occurred and revising them for a better or at least different outcome. This latter habit reminds me of the French expression esprit de l’escalier. It means staircase wit—the clever remarks we think of too late. Who among us hasn’t reviewed our encounters with others and thought of the perfect rejoinder we failed to come up with in the moment? But I don’t just imagine a smart retort here and there. Some interactions seem to play on an endless loop in my brain. Like my rehearsal habit, there’s some value in examining past actions as a pathway to living more authentically, to being willing to see the impact of our behavior on others. But when I stop myself several times a day to notice what my mind is doing and the answer is almost always rehearsing for the future or rehashing the past, then I know that the one thing I am absolutely not doing is living in the present moment.

You are that light

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I’ve recently worked up to thirty minutes on a pillow on the floor for meditation. And even more recently, I’ve stopped spending the first ten minutes thinking about my physical discomfort. So one morning last week, I was eager to start and didn’t notice that the lamp behind me was still on.

Well on my way to a quiet mind I heard a small click and noticed a barely perceptible change in the light beyond my closed eyelids. Happily my initial impulse was to ignore both the sound and the changing light but my curious mind got the best of me. I opened my eyes, looked around, and saw the lamp was off. Had I left it on? I flipped the switch. Nothing. I was on my feet flipping light switches. Nothing. Questions filled my mind. Is it the whole neighborhood or just our house? Was it caused by the construction project down the street or is there something wrong with our electricity?

Thinking I would return to the pillow once I had answers, I tried to access the electric company’s website. The site asks for account information. Ours is in my partner’s name but her phone number wasn’t in their system and I couldn’t remember her previous number. Their public site shows an outage map but the information was too general to satisfy me.

By now all thoughts of meditation were gone as I became immersed in busy-ness and counting grievances. I manage the household bills but I didn’t have a job when we moved here so that’s why the utilities are in Laura’s name. That still pisses me off. We’ve got to get that changed but we only think of it when something goes wrong. Like the time I sent the electric bill in almost 10 days late and they turned off the power and I had to wire money to pay it. Had that happened this time? I didn’t think so but the shame of that incident washed over me nevertheless. I went back into the online system and tried to change the password by generating an email to Laura. I sent her a text asking her to check her account. A few minutes later she called to say no email. What address had she used to set up the account? Neither of us remembered. My mind was churning through questions and causes as my frustrations grew.

Fortunately, Laura was done at work and said she was headed home. That information brought me, mercifully, back to the present. I knew I would ruin the rest of my day and hers in my current state of distress. I took a deep breath and continued to focus on my breathing, I reminded myself that we were in no danger, that there was nothing I could do to get the electricity turned on, and that I’m always looking for an excuse to go out to lunch.

This incident returned to me as I was reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. He writes, “You cannot fight against the ego and win just as you cannot fight against darkness. The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light.”

Making the bed to make the bed

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“Young lady you are making me dizzy,” snapped the nun who was supervising my mother as she raced from side to side making a patient’s bed. She was a 17 year-old trainee in a nursing program at a Catholic hospital. My grandmother was a strict housekeeper but it was the nuns who demanded tight hospital corners and economy of motion.

Years later my mother tried to teach me but her bed-making lessons didn’t stick. As a modern, thinking woman her solution was to close my bedroom door.

When my partner and I first lived together simply pulling up the covers satisfied our minimal housekeeping expectations. After our first big move I had more time. Often, too much time. To fill long days I kept house with the energy I’d once reserved for teaching. I started making the bed every day but I refuse to fold the corners under—just the thought of hospital corners makes me feel trapped.

Although Laura admitted that she liked the peacefulness of a tidy house, she worried I’d gone around the bend when I said I was convinced there’s a way to fold a blanket to make it look like a swan.

Some people recommend making your bed as soon as you get out of it in order to feel a sense of accomplishment at the start of each day. I understand the principle but it’s not for me. And unlike my mother and the nuns, I don’t prize speed and efficiency of movement. I make the bed to make the bed.

Each day I hold a firm intention to think of nothing but the act in which I’m engaged while I make the bed. I don’t make to-do lists or review the morning’s conversation with Laura. I don’t look for dust bunnies under the bed and think about when I’ll have time to vacuum. I focus all of my attention as I remove each item from the bed—pillows, comforter, and sheet. Smooth the fitted sheet, re-tuck as needed. Return the top sheet and straighten it from the top down and then check that the sides are even. Return the comforter and straighten it from the top down, checking for even sides. Fluff the pillows and return them to their place.

How many of us long for a quiet moment during the day? But what are we imagining? An afternoon, an hour, 20 minutes? For some people even ten minutes would seem difficult to come by. How about 2 minutes? Do you have them? Will you find them?

In two minutes you can enhance the sense of peacefulness and order in your life. But more important you can quiet your mind. Focus on one thing and one thing only for those two minutes. No thoughts of the past or the future. No reviews or revisions of conversations you have had or expect to have. Focus only on the task at hand. Make the bed to make the bed.