Watching the runaway train

I think we have all been there. Your mind starts to go down a certain path. Even as you start going down this path, another part of your mind notices and tries to pull you back. You know this is going to stir up your feelings. Before you can stop it, though, you are fully entangled in worries and anxieties, unhelpful assumptions and thoughts crowding your mind. Your heart is racing, your hands are trembling, your head feels a little light. And you mind is a runaway train caught on a circular track.

Not again.

You know, because you have been here before, that the train will eventually slow down. It will run out of steam  and stutter to a halt. Whatever attempt you make at pressing on the brakes will be challenging and likely ineffective. You are just along for the ride.

But what if you could ground yourself? You don’t have to be on the runaway train. What if you are standing on the side of the track, watching the train as it circles around. Because the truth is, if there is a part of you that knows that this is happening, there is a part of you that is separate from the train. 

Allow yourself to be centered in the part of you outside of the train. Feel the ground beneath your feet; notice as you press your feet down, that the earth pushes back up to support you. Notice as you breathe in and out, that your ribs expand  and deflate like a balloon. See how you are safe, standing apart from the runaway train of anxiety and can watch as it slows down in it race around the track and eventually comes back to a stop.

We have all been here and will be here again. But remembering that there is a part of us that stands apart and observes what is happening can help us stay in charge.

Weeding with gratitude

It happened so quickly.

A friend told me about the trip she was planning with her family this summer. Exotic and adventurous, beautiful and luxurious, her plans sounded wonderful. While I joined her in the joyful fantasy of her plans, seeds of less pleasant emotions took hold. Before I knew it, I was battling with jealousy and self pity. 

The self pity was particularly robust. It sent tendrils out to squash the joy. It reached to tighten my muscles, turned the corners of my mouth down, drooped my shoulders, shortened my fuse with my own family.

It took a moment before I was aware this was happening. The part of me that was still untouched by the growing weed watched it with detachment. What would I do?

Certainly, like any weed, the best thing would be to reach down and pull it out by the roots. Throw it away so it never takes hold again. But like any weed, sometimes even when we try to do that, we just end up cutting off the stems and leaves. And at least, be able to focus on the more desirable plants in the garden, allow them to grow.

I decided to go weeding. I actively called to mind the summer plans I have made - weeks of relaxation and calm. Staying closer to home so that we could enjoy time with family and pets and avoid the hectic demands of distant travel. I was also able to appreciate the conversation I was having with my friend, appreciating the connection there. Slowly, I noticed the feelings of self pity dissipate.

And I found myself looking forward to the summer for both my friend and myself.

Fact or Opinion?

When I was in elementary school, I remember a lesson that was entitled “Fact or Opinion.” We were given a series of statements and were asked to label them as one or the other. It was - and continues to be - an important lesson in literacy, but I find myself thinking about it as a self care exercise.

Did you know, as you go through your day, you are likely to have something like 80,000 thoughts? That is more than 3000 thoughts an hour, more than 50 thoughts a minute. Many of these are fleeting, passing through your mind before you have a chance to acknowledge them. Others are more meaty, occupying your attention for several seconds before finally passing by.

Our thoughts, as they pass through our minds, get incorporated into the  story we are continually telling about the world around us. But like any good story, that narrative is made up of facts and opinions. “The train just went by.” “I missed the train.””Now I am going to be late.”  “If I had gotten up five minutes earlier, I would not have missed the train.” “I am so lazy.”

When we hear the thoughts of people we love, or see our own thoughts written down, it is easy to see where a narrative crosses over from fact to opinion. When it is our narrative in our own heads, it is harder. We are committed to seeing our thoughts as true representations of the world around us. Just as incontrovertible in my own head as the words “the train just went by” are the words “I am so lazy.”

But what would happen if we could pause and recognize thoughts as not necessarily true representations of reality, but simply as cognitive phenomena, subject to evaluation?

The thought “the train just went by,” is based on our senses. Our eyes, the sensory receptors on our skin if we were close to the tracks, our ears all send information to our brain that forms this conclusion. We have gathered pretty solid evidence for this thought. 

Similarly, your mind draws on evidence to form the “I am lazy” thought. Remember that time last month I also missed the bus? Remember all those times my mom told me to get out of bed? And my laundry has not been put away in days. And here I am again, missing a train. I must be lazy.

In its rush to come to a conclusion, however, your brain misses a lot of information. For example, you ignored the bird flying overhead, the specific lyric of the song you were listening to, the drop of rain on your cheek, when forming the conclusion that the train was going by. Those observations, similarly sent to your brain from your senses did not have any bearing on this thought.

Similarly, in forming the thought “Im so lazy,” your mind ignored the times you get up early to do volunteer work on Saturdays. It ignores the energy with which you approach your work when you are engaged in a project. It ignores all the many many days when you do easily make it to work on time. In the interest of forming a coherent story that matches the train going by without you on it, with the feelings of frustration and annoyance, the master storyteller picks the relevant pieces of evidence to create a  “logical” conclusion.

This conclusion has consequences. Our mood is impacted differently if we engage with the thought “Im so lazy,” versus “well, that was disappointing.” That mood can shape the next 50 thoughts you have. And then the next ones. Before you know it, like a Chose your own Adventure story, the narrative of your day has veered farther and farther away from other possible stories.

So what can we do? Taking the time to evaluate each one of those 80000 thoughts is daunting. Our brains have evolved to pay attention to certain details for a reason. We would be overwhelmed if we tried to process all the information available to us at any given time. 

To me, this is where the literacy lesson from my elementary school comes into practice. The simple query - is it a fact or an opinion? - helps to put thoughts into different categories. “The train just went by” - fact. “I am so lazy” - opinion. “If I had gotten up five minutes earlier, I would not have missed the train” - opinion. “Now I am going to be late” - conjecture, maybe, but not a fact. Maybe, if we start by recognizing when our thoughts veer from fact to opinion, we can start to shape the opinions we have in more compassionate and helpful ways.

Gratitude as a way forward

I recently read a YA book by Neil Shusterman called Game Changer. In it, a young football player keeps shifting into alternate dimensions with every concussion he sustains. Initially, he is singleminded in his desire to get back to normal, to the way things were before; however, as he experiences different realities, is forced to live in different ways with each successive change, some of the imperfections of life as he knew it become more apparent. It is harder to let go of some of the new habits he has picked up. The return to normal is not quite as straightforward as it once seemed. 

I was unprepared for how resonant I found this idea. We are at the cusp of transitioning back to “normal.” There is light at the end of this tunnel, this inarguably tragic and unpredictable year. The superposition of vaccine availability and springtime give us a sense of hope. Yet I have noticed in myself a vein of reluctance to clutch too tightly to that hope. Alongside the eagerness to rejoin life as it was, there is a strain of melancholy for the year we had.

This melancholy is multifaceted. There is the continued mourning for the things that were lost this year - being able to go back to gatherings does not entirely made up for the celebrations that were dashed. There is the time shifted nature of grief - for those of us who have lost people in this pandemic, experiencing those losses in different ways as our lives get bigger can make the grief feel fresh. 

There are other more concrete aspects of this sadness. There were some nice things about the way life changed for some of us. It was nice to have free weekends and to have some space to breathe. Working from home while my children did  school in the room next door had its challenges but there was also a coziness about it that was surprising and hard to recreate. There is a depth to my relationship with my immediate family that may not have been there if life had carried on as usual.

At the end of Game Changer (spoiler alert!) the hero is able to make it back to his original reality. He is granted a gift which is that he is able to remember his journey through the multiverse. There is a kernel of wisdom here that I found helpful: the key in moving forward is gratitude. When I take a moment and allow myself to be grateful for what the Pandemic has taught me and shown me, even the difficult and sad lessons help me to move forward. Gratitude is both acknowledging the pain and loss and also staying open to the lessons that they may have for us. 

Gratitude allows me to look back with clear eyes before turning to the future and tightening my fingers around hope.

Playtime

I don’t know about you, but I have a long list of things I should do to take care of myself, mentally and physically: I should exercise regularly. I should get into bed early. I should eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. While in the category of self care, these can sometimes start to feel like a chore. But what if I added something to this list that sounded less like a chore and more like play. Like… play?

We value playtime for children. Play helps kids learn about and make sense of the world around them. It helps them try on new roles, and stretch their limits. It helps them learn about themselves and others.

In adults, it does all of those things and more. It allows us to turn away from sources of stress. It allows us to use our brains in new ways. And it gives us the opportunity to experience positive emotions - joy, delight, fun.

What does it mean to play as an adult? Parents often find themselves playing with their children; while this can be fun, it often has an overlay of caretaking. We may “play” sports, but if we think of exercise as a chore, or if the spirit of competition is too intense, some of that joy may be dimmed.

Play, for these purposes, is an activity that is rewarding and enjoyable in its own right. It may be caring for children or exercising or cooking, but it may also be doing a puzzle, painting a picture or planning vacations you have no intention of taking. Play is the act of stretching your arms out and receiving joy.

The biggest barrier to play is not time, as we may assume, but our own reticence. How can we justify taking time just to experience joy when we have bills to pay, families to care for, a house to clean, not to mention squeeze in 8 hours of sleep, exercise and healthy food preparation? It is a valid question.

My answer is the same answer that flight attendants give at the start of a plane ride.  In case of  a drop in oxygen, we are told to put on our own mask before helping anyone within our care. This always sounded vaguely self- serving to me but the reasoning behind it is sound. If we ourselves are struggling to breathe, we are of no use to those around us. In order to help those we care about, or in order to work effectively, in order to be at our best, we have to help and care for ourselves first. And this includes making time to play.

The Devil’s Snare

Towards the end of the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry, Ron and Hermione encounter a plant called the Devil’s Snare. Feeling the tendrils dangerously wrap around them, the nervous kids do what is natural: they attempt to fight against it. To their dismay, the more they struggle, the tighter the plant grasps them. It is Hermione who discovers that if they stop fighting, the plant reacts in kind, and they are able to make it past the challenge, fresh and ready to continue the larger fight. In order to get through this challenge, the book tells us, they had to experience a moment of acceptance of the situation they were in.

I’ve become better at recognizing Devil’s Snares in my own life: Power struggles with my children; traffic when I am worried about getting somewhere on time; acquiescing to rules that seem arbitrary.

In our hectic modern lives, we all encounter moments which trigger the desire to struggle. And sometimes, that is the right response. But other times, we may find, like the famous trio, that fighting may not help the situation; rather, we sometimes find that the more we engage in the struggle, the tighter it seems to grip us. Getting past this moment feels impossible.

What would practicing acceptance look like in these moments?

What if, instead of instead of arguing with my daughter about whether or not she needs a jacket on a winter morning, I accepted her wishes and focused on other aspects of our relationship? What if rather than changing lanes, checking google maps to see if there is an alternate faster route, I took a breath and realized that the traffic on the road was out of my control and that I would arrive safely as soon as I could. What if I was able to take a breath and accept some arbitrary rules and rather, turn my attention to thinking about why it was important to me.

Because acceptance does not necessarily mean giving up. Hermione had no intention of giving up when she counseled her friends to stop fighting the Devil’s Snare. Acceptance is a pause, a breath. It is a gift of a moment to reassess and decide where you want  to direct your efforts, a moment that is inaccessible to us if we are actively engaged in a struggle.

Practicing acceptance, practicing recognizing the Devils Snares in your life, can be a powerful step in finding your way.

Finding a compass

Imagine you wake up and find yourself in the middle of a forest. The forest is familiar to you - you knows these trees, the sound of the brook nearby - but there are no clear paths, no blazes,. There is ample space between the trees to make your way through the forest, but how do you start? Without a map or anchor point, it is hard to orient yourself towards your final destination. And what is that destination anyway?

This sense of feeling vaguely lost in a familiar place is one I hear from many. In our early years, there is a clear path that we are expected to follow: Finish high school and get in to college. Complete requirements for a degree. Find a job. Get a promotion.But at some point, that path peters out. Or we reach a fork in the road. It may feel like we have lost our way and lost our maps to help us move forward.

The truth, of course, is that there is no pre-made map. It is up to us to write our own narratives, to chart our own course. We are not lost because we have strayed from any path; we are simply explorers charged with finding our own ways forward.

Writing a map: this is how I think of goal setting.

Whether we are contemplating changes in our lives or trying to make our way through a forest, the first task is essential : we have to decide which direction to go in. This task is deceptively simple. With so many unanswered questions about the forest around us, it can be tricky to distill out what that dream is.

This task - orienting yourself and choosing the direction in which you want to travel -is really about self knowledge. The most effective goals are meaningful because they are in service to your values. In our busy and chaotic lives, sometime it is easy for those values to get buried. Furthermore, different values may compete with each other. Its okay for this phase to be messy. But the process of finding purpose, of turning yourself around to decide which direction you want to move it, is an essential first decision.

You may only be able to see part of the way forward in this direction. Thats okay.. Reevaluation, flexibility and curiosity is all a part of this journey. When you have your values articulated, they can serve as a compass, allowing you to reorient yourself along your journey.

Armed with a direction, that is guided by your dreams and values, you can now make our way through the forest. Our paths don’t have to be straight; they can be delightfully meandering. We may still be alone in the forest, but most importantly, we are no longer lost.

5-4-3-2-1

Jon Kabat Zinn defines mindfulness as the act of purposefully paying attention to the present moment in the service of self discovery. But for many of us, this is harder than it sounds. What does it mean to be aware of the present moment?

For most of us, clearing our mind in order to focus on the present moment is hard. If the mind is momentarily quiet, it almost immediately pulls in worries, to do lists, regrets and plans. Thoughts of the future and the past crowd each other out; there is no room for the present moment. 

Many guided mindfulness scripts focus on the breath as a focus point and this can be tremendously helpful. There are so many things to notice about the act of breathing; it can be a very rich experience to approach breathing with curiosity. There is also something lovely and metaphorical about the breath as our spirit, as our connection to the world outside of ourselves. However, I do find that for many people (including me), there are times when the breath is too ethereal to really anchor upon.

An alternative is focusing on the other aspects of our nervous system that connect us to the outside world - namely our senses. Our highly evolved brains interpret data coming in from our eyes, our ears, etc… without us noticing, filtering out what is deemed unimportant, holding on to the important. But our senses are still our own and can serve us as our anchor to the present.

I often think of this and teach it as the 5-4-3-2-1 method. Notice five things you can see with your eyes. Become aware of four things you can hear. Attend to three bodily sensation - maybe your clothes against your skin, the floor beneath your feet, the cool breeze against your skin. If possible, see if there are two different odors or tastes that you can sense. And finally, I possible, try to beware of your whole self as one whole being connected with the world.

This is not necessarily easy, but sometimes replacing the thoughts of the future and the past with a new task is easier than simply trying to set those thoughts aside. When this new task is one that centers you, that asks you to focus, for a moment, on the present, this can be a path towards practicing mindfulness.

Turning on the lights

Imagine this.

You are watching a woman in front of you. She is involved in some kind of intense activity, experiencing intense emotion. Perhaps she is loading a gun or writing a letter or simply standing in one place telling you about her life. All you see is this woman in the light - everything else is in darkness- and you are swept up in her experience. It is all that exists in the moment.

Slowly, though, the darkness around her lifts a little. You see other people around her. Perhaps there are others who are helping her, or preparing to support her in some way. Perhaps you see them acting in ways that add nuance to what she saying. Suddenly her words and actions are given more context. The story is a little more full, and your understanding is a little richer.

Finally, the lights around you go up. Now, not only can you see everything that is unfolding in the world in front of you, but you are also aware of those around you, others who are sitting in their seats, equally rapt in the action unfolding on stage. Your understanding of the situation is further enhanced by the reminder, the awareness that you are watching a play, a work of art that was created within particular contexts, with certain themes and messages in mind. 

This analogy certainly does not have to stop there. One could imagine turning on more and more “lights,” expanding our awareness of the present moment more and more until the impact of that intense moment that so consumed our attention is lessened.

This image is one I find very helpful in understanding how mindfulness can be helpful. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgement and with curiosity. It is about turning on all the lights, being aware of what may be currently in shadows, and allowing those things to be visible. Once we have a sense of the whole story, we are better equipped to move forward, to make decisions and to act.

Many of us are in the habit of having the spotlight on all the time. Perhaps it swivels back and forth between our deadlines at work, our conflicts at home, the negative stories we have always told ourselves. Perhaps sometimes, the stage lights flicker on to reveal the people who are supporting us, the strengths that we have, the accomplishments we can recount, but the strength of that spotlight remains. Mindfulness is the process of turning on those lights and keeping them on, so that what was in the spotlight can be seen in context. Once we see the whole story, once we are fully aware of it, we can move ahead.