Patience Takes Practice, Literally

“Mom!!!!!!!!! Can I make bacon?” My youngest son yelled as he barreled into my “office” aka the tiny corner of my bedroom where I’ve set up an old wooden folding table and chair to serve as command central during the
shut in. I was in the middle of working, via a video call, with a client who was having a big surge of emotion that needed my caring attention and presence…a tough time for an interruption. I felt the swell of frustration. I felt my breath. And before I said anything to anyone, I closed my eyes and went inward.

The sacred pause. One of the things that meditation teaches us, quite literally, is how to feel what we’re feeling without leaping into action. If you’ve begun a meditation practice you’ve heard this before. How come it works? As we practice mindfulness, whether it’s returning to the breath or body sensations, we engage the prefrontal cortex, our brain’s command center, the home of complex thinking. The more we feel what we feel and engage our executive functioning the better we become at feeling and thinking before action. Hence, me stopping to breathe when my son interrupted me rather than yell and hence making a real mess out of things.

Stopping did two things for me. First, it helped me keep grounded. When I made room for the feeling sensations happening, I met my frustration, I didn’t try banish it. I internally said, “it’s ok” to what was rising up. This is key for all of us to remember. Meditation isn’t necessarily
about transcendence or calm in the way we might imagine it to be. It’s about being with and meeting experience. Opening our hearts to feelings that might be incredibly big or overwhelming. In this opening of mind and heart to our experience we can create more center and ground. Secondly, stopping and noticing got my executive functioning on board. Did I really wanna holler at my child in front of an upset client? Yeah. No.

Is this skill built quickly? Not in my experience. It’s like going to the gym. It takes more than one session of lifting to cultivate strength, but it’s well worth the effort. And there’s no time like this present moment to start or continue to build our ability to stop rather than react to feel rather than do.

Begin with doable sessions of seated
meditation of 5-15 minutes one or more times a day. The easiest way to practice mindfulness is to notice
your breath, and each time your attention wanders (and it will), return to the sensations of breath. If you need more support there are a number of free guided meditations and books for beginners out there to support your practice.

Oh, how did it end with my son? After the pause I took a big breath and just whispered, “Honey…” and nodded my head toward the computer in front of me. He stopped dead in tracks and mouthed, “Sorry Mom!” then ran back out.

May you be healthy.

May you be happy.

May you be safe.

May you be free.

My Little Girl

See this sweet kid? It’s me. I think I was about four in this picture. This locket was something that my Grandpa kept in his lunch pail until he retired. Then, afterwards he kept it on his dresser. When he died my Nana gave her back to me for safe keeping. She still lives inside my body. In my memories (cognitive and implicit), in my muscles and nervous systems. And it’s my job to care for her now. In good times and in challenging ones like what we are facing in our nation today.

When I’m reacting to life in a way that is bigger than the trigger in the present moment...enraged by an ignored text message, despair over a slight work upset, feeling like a powerless kid rather than a grown woman with options, I know that she is present.

It’s normal for our old wounds and defenses to come crashing into the present moment and many of us don’t know this or see it when it’s happening. When we are in these implicit memory experiences we can forget how to be a rational adult and sink into our kid self...reacting to an unanswered text as abandoned child left all alone rather than knowing it is just an unanswered message. We can feel utterly hopeless and powerless to make a change, protest, or stand up for what we believe is right. What we’re not realizing is that these huge emotional experiences are actually old body and nervous system generated memories of being abandoned, hurt, or terrified from our past. It’s like a movie reel is getting played over present reality.

So how do we know when we’re caught? When you have that niggling sense you’re overreacting to a challenge pay attention and get curious. You can even ask yourself this, “how old do I FEEL right now?” Another way we can start to see this process is when a trusted therapist, friend, partner, or family member reflects that we may have overreacted during an exchange. To seriously consider what they’ve shared gives us an opportunity to grow and heal.

For me growing my awareness around really big feelings that don’t perfectly match current life circumstances has been a huge relief. When it happens now I imagine the part of myself panicking is this little girl. I’ve learned to be gentle with her, not judgmental. When she’s present I ask what she needs. I ask her what’s scaring her.

By caring for myself like this my emotions can now start to settle and feel more contained. Once I’ve supported my emotional needs there’s an important final step. I remind myself that I’m a grown woman who can sometimes feel like a very small girl. This extra step helps me return to the present moment. It reminds me that though I feel powerless, I do have options. I can protest. I can vote. I can make my needs known to myself and others.

AND this implicit memory stuff, it’s not all bad news…she doesn’t just live in my tears and terror. I experience that kid when I dance, tell jokes, and run. I feel her freedom and soul every time I teach. When that happens I know she is thanking me for taking such good care of her.

My Mask, My Self

"I think your next step into power is letting go of being a good girl." When my therapist, David, said this to me recently I registered two things. First, surprise.  Anyone who knows me knows my fascination with the dark side. From music, to movies, Stephen King novels and my newly purchased skull ring (thanks NOLA), good or nice wasn't a label I felt like I was trying to live up to. I have a potty mouth. I can be critical. The thought that I was functioning from some place of "good girl" made me bristle. Yuck. I don't wanna be good...I'm a badass. 

Secondly, because I was so averse to hearing what he was offering I recognized that it might be a "guilty as charged" moment. So I decided to be a detective in my own life and do some investigating. To live with myself for a bit and consider what he was saying, was I unconsciously acting from "gotta be good" as some old defensive way of being? Turns out, yes. I was, and that doesn't make me a phony or weak. It makes me human.

We all have ways of trying to fit in to receive love and supportive connection from family and friends. These mostly unconscious traits, behaviors, and habits start early, usually in our family of origin, and can drive how we function and operate in our daily life. Consider your life. What roles do you play that earn you recognition, respect or love? Do you strive to be a good student, caring person, rebel, leader, clown? Do you feel like you need to show up in this way, and if you don't you'll be cast aside or ignored? Building consciousness around how we show up with our masks of good girl, or go-getter, or comedian gives us a new way...a way that includes choice rather than a feeling of have to.

For me showing up as "good" takes on an "I'm here for you" aspect. A former co-worker of mine nicknamed me the cruise director. Need an ibuprofen? Directions to the store? Help holding the door open? Where to buy your yoga mat? I got a solution for it all! The problem though with always being the good girl who knows how to get things done is that it's exhausting. My energy is all up in my grill and I'm so busy tending to everyone and everything outside of me, I can forget me. As I come to know this defensive way that I can be in the world I can (occasionally) slow myself down and ask myself some grounding questions. Do I really have space to help out right now? Do I really have the time to pick up another class to teach? Answer that text? When I'm operating from a place of unconscious defense I feel like I HAVE TO do these things or people won't like me. This is all part of being a good girl. I HAVE TO is the mantra. This pattern leads to fatigue and a sense of emptiness inside. So, what to do? 

Getting to know the roles we play is an important first step in healing. We can’t address what we don't see. What's key as we explore the ways that we show up that come from pressure and fear of rejection is that we don't then beat ourselves up for our masks. Holding onto certain roles is all about survival and having a place, it's human, not wrong. Once you notice a mask or two pay attention to how your body feels when you are in your role. Is your jaw tight? Back tense? Is your energy all in your forehead? These body symptoms can help you know that you're operating from a defensive place rather than an open hearted one. The best part of all of this noticing and building awareness? Once you know that you can sometimes say NO to being a leader, or good girl/boy you can start to loosen up the mask and listen to your body, your mind, and energy instead. Under this compulsive way of being, what do I truly need?

Beginning to move from this automatic place of defense will give you more fuel in your tank and help you have better boundaries. Giving yourself away a bit less as you become more aware. We will likely never shift completely away from our masks, it's part of being human, but at least we can have a bit more agency around the issue.

Supposed To: My Day of Suffering

"We suffer because we are projecting the myth of permanence upon a situation that is actually conditioned, selfless, and constantly changing. Everything is interrelated and interdependent. There is nothing substantial and separate that we can lean upon. Samsara, 'the cycle of suffering,' is a direct result of our desire for permanence."

From “The Myth of Permanence” by Sakyong Mipham

I don't know about you but when I read philosophy I can have a hard time grasping the concepts in a meaningful, how does this apply to day to day life, kind of way.  In other words, I'm always curious about how I can LIVE an idea not just think it. For instance take the topic of suffering. Sure in my head I've been bouncing around the idea for a while now...we can't control the world around us yet most humans try...this habit creates suffering. When we walk around with a lot of expectations about how the present moment and its inhabitants should be we are contributing to our pain rather than easing it. Today my understanding of how I create my own suffering hit home in a new way. I create suffering...I do that every day, for many minutes of the day.

For this New England girl it all starts with the phrase "supposed to." As in today I was supposed to get a lot of work done on my computer; as in my internet was supposed to be working properly. As in I was supposed to be done by my afternoon full of clients so tonight I could rest with my family. See none of the things on my list are guaranteed to work and yet it didn't stop my mind from grasping at the thought that everything should go according to my plan. The truth is that nothing is fixed and yet every day I rely on things to go MY WAY and when they don't I repeat the refrain SUPPOSED TO and then I suffer. 

As you read above I had a big list of things I wanted to accomplish today...when the writing was on the wall that my internet was too slow for some tasks due to the weather (another supposed to...April is not supposed to be so icy and cold!) I decided to go to the drugstore across the street for some new earbuds while a file was uploading to my computer.

I approached the crosswalk at a dangerous intersection and heard my internal grumbling "I hate these people...they are driving too fast...this is a crazy intersection...what are they thinking? They are supposed to drive carefully through here...they are supposed to stop for pedestrians...." I stopped my thinking and reviewed that phrase supposed to. As I finished my walk to the drugstore I realized that I had been torturing myself all day with that phrase. Suddenly I could connect personally to the Buddhist concept of suffering. I had my real-life scenario of how I was reacting to the day as an example of the concept. 

As I watched my mind grasping at how today should be to fit my rigid view of reality, I recognized that I was contributing to my own frustration and experience of having a shitty day. You you can't totally stop pain. It's impossible. Pain is part of life and being human. I couldn't stop the ice from falling from the sky, but I could stop lamenting spring. I could make a choice to re-route my course of action rather than bang my head against the wall. I made my predicament worse by refusing to accept life as is. My desire for a different reality was making me feel terrible! So how to live it differently?

I can't make my internet work. I can't stop the rain. I can't force my computer to move faster. What I can do is let myself see what's happening and respond to it with flexibility rather than with an iron grasp on having my way. I lost an hour of work today because I kept waiting for the internet to speed up. Rather than accept the one bar of cell service my phone was showing me I kept waiting for it to get better. This is what contributed to my frustration. Had I really taken in what I was seeing, I could have taken my walk to the drugstore sooner, maybe even scrapped the project completely for today. When I finally accepted what was happening and shifted to a new plan I felt better! And that's how I wrote this blog rather than doing the 10 other things I had on my Monday to-do list. I accepted my fate and recognized that this story might be a way for others to consider how they contribute to their own suffering...and could help us all take a step into shifting away from trying to control things and into meeting the day, each other, and ourselves as is. 

Blessings to you on your journey towards freedom from suffering!