First of all, I want to say that I don’t think I intended to subtly ask for support yesterday or be mysterious in any way. However, your support really touched me and empowered me even further. So maybe I was doing it sub-consciously! And I took my first step, so thank you, thank you. There’s no big mystery, I didn’t quit my job or change my life in a drastic way. I wanted to write it that way cause I wanted it to be generic. To express how each of us might choose to lean at times when a small (or big) choice is activating our personal insecurities. I apologize if the vagueness annoyed anyone. It was not intended.
Ok, that’s that.
Since it’s already 9pm here and I am close to bedtime, I thought I’d give you a bit of an update on where my mind is lately. Quick dump of thoughts in no order:
- I’ve been thinking a lot about the arrival of Fall. I am not really ready for it and definitely not excited about setting alarms, making lunches, driving back and forth to school several times a day. Mostly the adjustment period to a new schedule. Never an easy time for me. But I know it will work out, because it always does. One way or another. It will also be a good excuse to put some of the neglected areas back on track.
- I’m trying not to rush into the Fall and enjoy these last few weeks of August left. It’s been a very busy few weeks for me and I want to take a little time off and enjoy my family more and spend some time hugging. Maybe take a short trip since both Jake and I have upcoming birthdays.
- I am so grateful for the support of my parents. I am so grateful I get to talk to my mom so often on Skype and how unequivocally she supports me. I feel confident that she has my back. I hope that when my kids are older, they can feel that way about me, too. Thank you, Mom.
- I signed up for a few classes for September. One art, one soul-searching, and I plan to sign up for a local one on The Science of Mindfulness. And then one more but just a weekend-long one. I know that’s a lot. But I am planning to be kind to myself and I know they will all fulfill me in different ways.
- I am a part of Big Picture’s Big Idea Festival and it’s free so you should sign up. And, btw, even though I haven’t been posting them, I’m pretty caught up both OLW and MMEW.
- My MBSR class ends tomorrow. I am sad. This class really shifted me out of the sadness I’d sunk into since March. I am hoping the newfound joy and gift of meditation will stick with me long after the class is over.
- I’ve already begun thinking of 2013. Especially about my goals and projects for the year. A little bit about my word, too. But mostly about what to focus on. I want to combine what I love doing with new things to learn. I need to dump it all on paper so I can see it better. I am also still pondering the class but for now I am focusing on being a student and not a teacher. If there’s something you really really want to see here, let me know. (No promises though so please don’t get mad at me!)
- I had been thinking about what a difficult year 2012 was for me but now I feel so much better and I am so grateful for that.
- I’ve been really lacking in the photo-taking lately. Partly cause I am so overwhelmingly busy but partly cause it seems to be less of a priority lately. I need to and plan to work on that.
- I love taking little walks with my family. The one wonderful side benefit to the exercise has been that I can now take longer walks and I am in better overall shape. Since I love nature so much, this is a great plus for me.
- I need to eat better. Not even less. Just differently and more healthy. I tend to just have coffee and peanuts on days when I am busy. Not such a good choice. I feel like this item always falls to the bottom of the to-do bucket.
That’s it for tonight. Tomorrow I am at work all day and have class late into the night. If I don’t update at night, now you know why.
I’ve been battling with a decision for a few weeks. Well, in truth, I originally considered this path back in 2008, before I had Nathaniel. I was already pregnant and I was thinking about what path I might want for myself once he was here. The decision was complicated and I couldn’t see a way out. I pondered for a while, panicked for a bit, got frustrated a lot.
And then I gave up.
In 2010, it came back up again. I briefly visited it. Gave up once more. And then again in 2011. Each time I’d get all riled up, feel frustrated and lost all over again. But then eventually give up.
But I couldn’t seem to really let go.
A few months ago, it bubbled up again.
And I went right back into my cycle. Research. Desperate attempt to make it happen. Feeling small. Feeling frustrated. I just couldn’t find a way out. I couldn’t find a way to make it happen and yet I didn’t want to let it go either. I was so annoyed with myself for having sat on this for four years.
I wanted to be able to either let it go permanently or to find a way to just make it happen.
Day after day, I dug in. Day after day, I felt defeated and small. And I hit my zenith this week when I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I asked Jake and he said he’d support me and help me. It wasn’t enough. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t allow myself to inconvenience him just because of my incompetence.
But I still wasn’t able to let go.
I felt so mad at myself.
Today, I couldn’t even meditate because my mind was so preoccupied and I was feeling so full of all the competing emotions inside me. Finally, I told Jake I wanted to talk to him and I told him that I was really suffering through these decisions. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was feeling small. I needed his help. I needed to lean. I needed to stop this cycle. I needed to make a decision and be okay with it.
And he did what he does best: he helped me. He told me he was here for me 100% and that I could lean.
So I did.
I knew I couldn’t do this one by myself. I’ve been carrying it since 2008 and it just activates too much of my personal baggage. I think, sometimes, something that seems like a small decision to someone else might be huge for me. And vice versa. For me, it comes down to why the decision is hard. Is it expensive, time consuming, involving others, stretching my limits, etc. This one was just bringing up all the weaknesses I feel inside. It was activating my personal dark side. My fears and insecurities.
As soon as I realized that, I knew I couldn’t (and shouldn’t have to) conquer it on my own. And then I was able to let go and lean.
And I finally made a decision. Tomorrow will show if I can follow through but, for tonight, I feel better.
Grateful.
When I started feeling better about two weeks ago, the first thing several people told me was: “It probably won’t last.” I nodded. I knew it wouldn’t and that we often revert to the mean but I wanted to enjoy feeling good for as long as I could. More significantly, I wanted to believe that I wouldn’t be returning to the really bad place I was in before my class.
I wanted to be out of there permanently.
When you’re in that bad place, it feels like you will never see sunshine again. Just like when I feel sick, after some time, I feel like I will never be healthy again. Somehow my mind or body seems to forget what feeling healthy feels like. It’s as if all I know is this sickness. I feel the same way when I am in that bad place emotionally. It’s as if I can’t remember how light looks or feels like, let alone think I might see it again.
So once I started feeling good again, I understood I might deterioriate but I just didn’t want to go all the way back there.
The thing that’s great about feeling good is that just like the vicious cycle, the good feeling cycles on itself, too. I was feeling good, so I performed better, I was kinder, more open and then more good stuff came my way. I got the recognition and the pats in the back I craved when I was not feeling up to par. And things just cycled from there.
Then the weekend came and I got grumpy. Several annoying things happened. We lost internet connectivity for a long while, I dropped my camera and shattered the filter, I got very little sleep all weekend, I struggled with the sketching, my emails in both my personal inbox and work inbox overflowed and I just felt very behind. I wasn’t able to exercise as thoroughly as I wanted. I ate badly. I can go on, but I assume you get the picture.
The weekend came and went this way and then I woke up this morning and I was still really grumpy. And a little worried that the “good feeling” had disappeared. I got scared.
After my exercise, I sat down to sketch and opened a podcast.
I decided that I was hanging on to feelings of frustration and resentment by choice. The internet was back, all that broke in my camera was the cheapest part (the filter), I did all my sketches and exercised everyday. I didn’t get sleep cause I got to go out on date nights. Etc. I realized that I was still grumpy partly from being tired but partly cause I was just holding on to it.
And I decided to let it go.
just like that.
I did my sketch. Tried to catch up on work, emails, builds as much as I could. Stuff came up, urgent stuff came up, I dealt with it. (Still dealing with it actually.) I made a list of what I’d like to get done tonight. All of which can be rolled over to tomorrow if need be. Inboxes can wait.
Here’s why it can all wait: if I don’t think it can, I get all stressed. Then I get tired and decide to watch TV and put it all off. I’m not an adrenaline junky. I don’t thrive on deadlines or last minute rush. I am the kind of kid who comes home and does her homework first thing. So having last minute stress shuts me down.
So if I stress and continue to be grumpy, there’s zero chance my list will get done. But if I let it all go, I might feel ok enough to tackle one or two items on my list. Counter-intuitive, I know, but also 100% accurate.
Not to mention the other side effects of letting go: less jaw pain, kinder to the kids, kinder to myself, feeling less small and more confident.
The greatest miracle of all was that I was able to let it go. I still have the nagging feeling at the back of my mind and I hope to at least clear my emails tonight. But the grumpiness is gone. I am once again feeling the calm and serenity of the light.
and I hope to hold on to it for as long as I can.
Tomorrow is my next class in the Mindfulness-Based Stress reduction course. After that, there will just be one more and I am already sad thinking about that. However, I’m excited that my favorite teacher at Stanford is offering a Science of Mindfulness class this Fall which starts in just a few weeks and I will definitely be taking it. (I’m actually taking two other online classes starting in September on top of a crazy work schedule and two little boys starting school. I am trying not to think about what all this will do to my schedule.)
Last week’s class topic was on Beginner’s Mind (links to pdf). A lot of it is about making assumptions. We make a record amount of assumptions all day long, every day. And the more we interact with a person, with a job, with any particular thing, the more assumptions we make about it.
I’ve been with Jake for a long time and I know him so well that I often think I know what he’s thinking, how he will react and what he might be feeling. And, while there are many times I might be right, there are quite a few occasions where I am wrong. He does the same thing to me. He might remember how I reacted to some situation a few years ago and assume I will behave the same way again. But people change. Even when it’s not a fundamental shift (which also happens) people’s day to day moods will change how they might look at a particular situation. And how they respond. I often remind Jake to just ask me anyway. Even if he thinks he knows what I will say. And I try to remember the same thing. To approach it with an open mind. To really watch and listen and be there. And not to assume I already know how it’s going to go down.
This even applies to art supplies. I got stuck in my art journaling a lot in the beginning of my journey cause I thought I had to color my background. I thought that’s how it was done. I assumed there was a right way. I assumed I had to gesso my page. I assumed I had to use my paints with water. I do none of those things now. One day, I decided to not assume and I tried different things and I liked how they turned out. Sometimes “not knowing” helps. Not thinking that it has to be done a certain way.
I always remember how Wendy Kopp said she started Teach For America because she didn’t know it couldn’t be done. She didn’t realize what a big undertaking it was. She didn’t realize the education system in America is a huge undertaking. She just did it. If she knew all there was to come, all it would take, she might never have done it. And I, for one, am so glad she had no idea what she was getting into.
A few months ago, when things were really really rough at work, I realized yet another way assumptions were hurting me. In areas where I am not great, I find that I always assume others know so much more than I do. I put these other people on a pedestal and myself way down in a hole, so I feel smaller than I am. This is true whether it’s coding, drawing, scrapping, whatever. I just assume others know more, better, bigger. This problem is even more pronounced when I am around people who have self-confidence or who don’t like to ever show weakness. They like to come off like they know more than they do. When I am around people like that, I feel even worse. Look how much they know, and how little I do. I am nothing. They are amazing. I will never be anything. Blah blah. You get the picture.
But when I was facing real problems, I looked at the way these people helped me solve problems and I realized that they didn’t know more than I did. When it came down to digging in and figuring things out, their knowledge and ability to fix was no greater than mine. They just felt confident they would eventually fix it. I realized all the assumptions I was making were wrong.
I’ve realized this in other areas of my life, too. As I learn more I realize I didn’t actually know that much less than others. And, just as importantly, they didn’t know that much more than I do. So I didn’t need to put myself in a hole and I didn’t have to put them on a pedestal.
This might sound weird to some of you, but it was definitely a revelation for me. I was very surprised when I realized it.
And just to clarify, of course there are areas where others know more than I do but, in this case, I was creating a much bigger chasm between my place and others’ cause of my self-image and my assumptions. People hold themselves to different standards. What I might consider not-good-enough might be acceptable for someone else and even above-average for yet someone else. So I’ve learned not to assume anything. I’ve learned to approach situations with optimism and trust. Trust in my ability to figure things out.
I know this is a bit of a non sequitur from the Beginner’s Mind concept but it just made me think more and more about assumptions. And how they damage me. How they stop me from starting. How they stop me from keeping at it. How they stop me from trusting myself. How they stop me from believing I can.
So I want to work on being aware of these. Paying attention to when I don’t take a step cause I assume that I know how it will all not work out. Paying attention to when I stop along the way cause I assume it will never get better. Paying attention to when I assume I know how someone else will react. Paying attention to when I assume others are so much more capable than I am. Paying attention to when I beat myself up because I assume I messed up irrevocably.
Maybe if I pay attention more, I can do a better job of reminding myself that there’s so much I don’t know. That I don’t even know all that I don’t know. And I should never assume. Especially when I use it as an excuse to tear myself down and not be brave.
Because I want to be brave.
I want to remember that I *am* brave.
And every new day is a new day and I want to approach each day with a Beginner’s Mind. Assume nothing. Welcome this new day. Take it in fresh and know that it can be anything I want it to be.
A brand new beginning.
On October 2, I will have been working out every single day for two years. Two years. This means I’ve worked out for about 675 consecutive days already. That’s more than I’ve worked out in all of my 36 previous years combined. I started with going walking, fast walking, around my neighborhood. And then quickly decided it was time to buy a treadmill cause the weather was getting iffier and I didn’t want to have any excuse to skip a day. I bought it and have used it every single day I was home. When we took vacation, I made sure there was a gym nearby. When we flew to Turkey, I got off the 16-hour plane ride and went to the gym. I literally haven’t skipped one single day.
But this post is not to tell you about how awesome I am.
Back when I never exercised, people who exercised a lot always told me that once I started doing it, I’d get used to it and eventually I’d start craving it. I thought they were full of you know what. There was no way I would crave exercise. In fairness, I’d never put the idea to test so I couldn’t be sure but I felt pretty confident in my stance.
And I am here to tell you that I was totally right.
After 675 consecutive days, I still dread exercising. I still have to drag myself to the treadmill. Yes, the actual exercise is now easier but there’s no craving. There’s no part of me that’s dying to get up on that machine. Or lace up and run outside or whatever.
Not an ounce.
The only reason I am exercising every day is because I’ve made it a core part of my daily routine. I get up and exercise. I am not allowed to do anything else until I’ve done that. No sketching, no reading, nothing. So I get up and I do it.
And then I am done with it.
That’s still the best part. The being done with it.
It hasn’t become a habit. It’s something I do cause I make myself do it. It’s hard. It takes some of my willpower (less since it’s scheduled but still…) and even when I am on the treadmill, it takes more willpower to not stop at one mile or two. Going all the way to 3 miles is hard many days. I want to stop, quit, give up.
So if you’re like me and heard that you’ll grow to love it and crave it, I am here to tell you that’s not true for everyone. It wasn’t true for me and it might not be true for you.
But don’t ever let that stop you.
If I can do it, you can, too.
If you’ve had enough of my zen podcast-related thoughts, you can skip today. I’ve been listening to them still and since I am working really long days lately, I am clinging to the peace they are bringing me. (My long hours of work and the lack of brain power I have leftover is the reason I’m behind in emails and comments, I apologize.)
In one of the episodes I listened to yesterday, Tara said “pain is inevitable but suffering is optional” (I wrote it down so I think it’s accurate but if not it was something really similar.) She went on to explain that our resistance to pain is what causes the suffering. This made me think a lot.
A lot of the meditation I’ve been learning in my class has been about raising awareness and not judging and not striving. For example, being aware that pain is there but not judging myself for it and not striving to make the pain go away. Ironically, I’ve had a lot of acute pain in my jaw in the last few weeks. So I’ve been thinking about the quote a lot and trying to figure out how it applies to me.
I can see that in some cases, especially emotional ones, I can interpret it as, bad things can happen to me, around me, but I don’t have to suffer. I can be aware of them, I can accept them and possibly learn to live with them. I can also try to set a path for change or shift. And I can do all of this without suffering or resisting. I can see how this might work. I can see how it might be beneficial. I can also see how it might be very hard. Very, very hard.
But then there’s physical pain. My jaw’s been hurting so much in the last few weeks that I’ve had to take a lot of Advil. I am not sure how suffering is optional there. Am I making the pain worse by resisting it? I do notice that when I am stressed it gets worse. But I still can’t really make the connection to suffering. Maybe it means that if I resist the pain more and push against it, it gets worse?
Either way, I still felt an immediate connection with the emotional pain side of things. I tend to compound my pain by resisting it. Especially if it’s a loved one’s pain. If my kids or my husband is in pain, all I can think of is how to fix it. How to make them feel better. How to undo. How to just not have the pain be there. My instinct is to want to resist it with all my being. I don’t want them to have pain.
Same goes for my pain. I don’t think “well ok, it’s here.” All I can think is “how can I make this go away?” Every part of my body wants to resist it. I only consider other options after fighting it for a long time and losing. After a lot of suffering.
What if I didn’t fight it? What if I just accepted it and worked with it. Or even possibly around it. Instead of resisting so hard. Would that work better? Would I suffer less? I am intrigued by this idea. I feel tempted to try it. It somehow feels like it would work. I love the idea of not having to suffer along with every pain that comes my way. (And I LOVE the idea of not suffering from my jaw pain if only there was a way….)
So next time something painful comes my way, I am going to step back and not resist. I will not try to solve it or fight it. I will acknowledge it and be aware of it. And then I will try to breathe and see if I can take a different path that doesn’t end in suffering.
And maybe it works…
Have you ever tried it? Did not resisting actually reduce suffering? I’d love to know.
I’ve been listening to more and more meditation talks in the morning as I sketch. I find that they start my day in an optimistic and grateful mental state. In one of the talks I listened to today, Tara mentioned “intentionally looking to see the goodness” and it made me think a lot. She went on to say how we’re wired to see the bad. We’re wired to protect ourselves. To see danger.
But it ends up getting to you.
We don’t look to see the good around us. The good in others. The good in words said. I know that I have a tendency to hug the bad. I believe it more easily. I hold it closer to my heart. I think I have two reasons why I do this.
One is because I think that if I can imagine the very worst, when the bad happens it won’t hurt as much. I’ve already imagined the worst, so how bad can it get, right? Except that it can get much worse. Cause imagining the worst doesn’t actually compare to having it happen. It doesn’t prepare you. If the worst doesn’t actually happen, you wasted all those minutes, days, months imagining something that never happens. And if it does happen, you’re totally blindsided any way. Your life is upside down and it’s terrible. Because even when you do imagine the very worst, there’s a little part of you that thinks it will never happen. So when it does happen, you’re still totally crushed and devastated. So there’s almost no upside and a huge downside to this way of thinking.
The other reason I hold the bad stuff near is because I feel that remembering these will help me make decisions more carefully next time. It will prevent me from more bad stuff in the future. It’s like if I have a constant movie reel of my biggest mistakes in my head, I won’t make any more of them.
We all know how that works right?
Yep. When I think of all my mistakes, I get nervous all the time and I make even more mistakes. I am constantly scared and worried so I get stressed and the fight and flight response kicks in and takes all the blood away from my brain. Prefrontal cortex doesn’t work and I literally cannot think. So, clearly, the decisions I make in that state aren’t going anywhere productive.
So neither of these reasons are useful. Holding the bad stuff near and dear isn’t really helping me. But even more importantly, there’s an incredible amount of data that says looking for the good in your life actually makes you happier. Creating a daily gratitude practice makes people more wholehearted. Intentionally looking for the good changes your life.
What if we extended that to the people around you. What if we always looked for the good in others? Especially in those who annoy us. Especially in the people who try our nerves a bit. The ones for whom we hold anger. The ones that seem to always wrong us, etc. It’s easy to see the best in the ones we love. But if we just intentionally looked for the good in every single person around us, I bet it would completely change our life and our relationships. I love this idea and I want to give it a try. For the next few weeks, I will intentionally look for the good in everyone around me. I will assume the best but also really look to see what good I can see in each person I interact with.
I will also look for the good in my day-to-day life. My gratitude practice has fallen sideways and I want to intentionally bring it back. Now that I am feeling a bit better, too, I want to hold on to this and not let it go.
So here’s to a few weeks of intentionally looking for the good. Maybe you can join me?
I don’t really have a lot to say tonight because it’s already almost nine pm here and it’s close to my bed time. But it was a good day today. I’ve been working on getting Chrome 21 out the door for quite a few weeks now and today we finally pushed it. I don’t talk about work here but in the last few weeks I’ve seen once again what amazing people I work with and what a wonderful and inspiring company I work at. I think it’s easy to lose sight of these things in the hustle and bustle of everyday.
My kids were wonderful and played quietly so I could do what I needed to do to prepare everything. So I promised them that if they are patient, I will get them a nice surprise. I had to go to work this afternoon for a meeting and to thank some of the team members who’ve been working late nights and early mornings to get everything ready. After I came home, we all went out and each boy got to have a new lego set.
Bad days are easy to remember. Good days fade out of memory. So I wanted to note this wonderful day. A day when things came together. Tomorrow will bring its challenges. It might be better. It might be much worse.
But, for now, I just want to pause and acknowledge this good day.
Ever since I decided this would be The Summer of Calm I’ve been putting up reminders everywhere. Trying to remember that calm is my goal and that I am at my best when I am calm and not reacting. I have them all over my computer so each time I type an email or respond to someone on instant message, I can see the reminder.
To honor my desire to be calm, I’ve been working quite hard. There are my own issues, of course, but the hardest part of staying calm is when interacting with other people. When people make offhand, mean remarks, I have to step back and tell myself that this is about them and not me. When the kids get really noisy or interrupt me in the middle of what’s clearly a stressful or busy moment, I have to take a breath, and remember that I chose to stay at home and I love being around them. I have to remember that they are young and don’t have good impulse-control just yet. I have to remember that they are angels 95% of the time. I have to remember all of this very quickly so that I don’t react.
And the biggest part is that I am learning not to be attached to things. At each moment of potential conflict, I am trying to pause for a moment and search inside myself. Listen to my true feelings. Do I really care about this issue or am I just trying to be right? Am I trying to win for the sake of winning? For the sake of looking good? Being important. I know there are cases where I find myself reacting cause it looks like it might be the right thing to do. Not because I am actually attached to either outcome. Sometimes I might even fight back for the sake of being contradictory. When the other person becomes aggressive and assertive, I try to outdo them. I can fight with the best of them. I’m no coward.
But the point is, it’s so stupid. If I don’t really, truly care, then I am not really attached to either outcome. I don’t want to fight battles for the sake of fighting them. Needlessly create a chasm between me and the other person. And, more terribly, spin myself into a frenzy of stress. If the end result isn’t important to me, I should just let it go.
But it’s hard.
Sometimes it’s really, really hard. Even being able to step back in that split second and realize that I don’t have a dog in this fight is hard. We’re so conditioned to respond to stimuli. I was listening to another Tara Bracht podcast this morning (I listen to them every morning now; they are excellent.) and she was saying how what meditation does is add to this delay. To the reaction time. So you can have extra seconds (or maybe only milliseconds) to become aware and think so you don’t react but you act. Those milliseconds are so precious. And if meditating will give them to me, I am on board. Just tell me where to sign up.
Because here’s what I know: when I can take the few extra (milli)seconds to realize that I don’t actually have a stake in the outcome, that I don’t really mind either outcome, then I can stop the fight before it starts. I can remember my list and I can let it go. Because once I remember that it doesn’t matter, it’s easy to let go.
It’s that precious pause that’s the hard part.
Today was a good day. As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been feeling better and there’s always that jolt of energy that comes with feeling better. You slide into a better version of yourself and feel calmer, more confident, more capable. Which, of course, turns the vicious negative cycle into the continuous positive one.
There’s been some activity at work and I’ve been finding myself responding without panic but productively and quickly and effectively. I love feeling effective. I realized a few months ago that, at my core, this is one of the ways I measure my self-worth. If I am effective, I am useful. If I am useful, I am worthy. I know it’s whacked and I am working on disconnecting the threads and reminding myself that I am worthy just the way I am but in the meantime, I’ve been paying attention to these cycles and messages in my life. I figure while I work on things, which will take a while to resolve, I can at least become more aware so that I notice when I am in a cycle that I know won’t end well.
Anyhow, so I’ve been doing better. And today, someone I work with said “you’re doing an awesome job.” And, honestly, it was all I needed to hear. I was so grateful for the words. Not because I need the attention or recognition. And I was already doing well so I didn’t even need them to get out of a bad mood. I just needed them to affirm that I was on the right path and those little words gave me the energy to keep going. They were like a jolt of gratitude.
These seemingly small words always make a big difference. I’ve had a few people email me or leave comments with very kind words. Words on how they connected with what I wrote or how it makes a difference in their lives or suggestions for areas where I’ve asked for help. These few sentences often make my day. To me, they are affirmation that I matter. That there’s a purpose for my existence in the world. Maybe it seems weird to others that I should need/want this, but I’ve learned that, for me, these are like energy for my soul. They are what keep me joyful and connected. They give me a sense of belonging.
And I want to make sure I do my part in passing that feeling on to others, too. I often send IMs to engineers I work with letting them know that I think they’re amazing, thanking them for their hard work, etc. When someone makes my life easier, better, calmer I want them to know it. I want to pass on a bit of the gratitude I feel for their existence.
I think receiving and giving these affirmations strengthens our roots and connections to others. To the world and humanity as a whole. It reminds us that we’re all here and we each matter. Each of us makes this place better because we’re in it.
And all this from “you’re doing an awesome job.”
If such few words can have so much power, why wouldn’t we utter them more often?
One of my biggest goals for 2012 is to increase my awareness. I believe in the value of mindfulness and paying attention to what comes up. I had this goal last year, too, and besides the gratitude part, I don’t think I did enough to progress on my goal. This year, one of the things I did was to sign up for a class called Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction. I originally signed up for the class at a local hospital but then, at the last minute, a new session opened up at work, so I got lucky enough to get in.
This class was also highly recommended by my TMJ doctor so I was excited to begin. It started last Thursday and I’ve only been to one session so far. We also had an all-day silent meditation as part of the class this past Sunday. (as I mentioned briefly here.)
I haven’t read any of the materials yet but I have begun the homework which is doing 20-40 minute body-scans (links to PDF) every day. I’ve also been listening to Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance each morning as I sketch. I don’t know if it’s coincidental or not but I’ve been feeling a lot better emotionally and psychologically.
The first class also introduced the idea of non-judging awareness and awareness of judging (links to PDF). And this idea is exactly what I was looking for out of a class like this.
I love the idea of bringing awareness to your judging. The idea of stepping back and looking at your judgement from a third-person point of view and then being able to stop yourself so you don’t judge but you’re just aware. It’s amazing how often things come up to the surface and we attack them with judgement immediately. Being ashamed of sadness, or being angry or frustrated. There’s so much judgment involved that it’s hard to see the truths beneath it. The ability to separate yourself from judgement gives you the ability see yourself truly and to dig deeper and wider and understand what’s at the core of your feelings/thoughts so you can truly understand them. You’re not slapping them away or burying them in the sand.
This piece of the article really summed it up for me:
If you stay with it, this process of self-inquiry can give you practical solutions to situations in your life. It can also shift your inner state quite radically. Real discernment, I’ve always found, starts with the willingness to ask questions. If you keep asking those questions, you will often get to the place where there are no answers at all, the place where you are just…present. Judgments dissolve in that place. Then you don’t have to strive for discernment; discernment is as natural as the breath.
Removing the striving is such a huge deal. Not trying to be but just being. Just looking at what is and not putting judgement on it. Even just being aware of how much I judge has been eye-opening for me. It allows me to pay attention. To notice what went unnoticed before.
I know these ideas are hard to integrate. Like most things of value, they require consistent practice. They require persistence and not giving up. But, if the last few days are any indication, they come bearing immense gifts for my soul.
And, for that reason alone, they are worth pursuing.
Let’s see what the next few weeks bring; I know there are quite a few more gems on the path.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately of beginnings and ends. When it’s the right time to walk away. I’ve always found it hard to walk away from commitments. Even if they are just to myself. So I have trouble quitting jobs, ending friendships, stopping a hobby, or even quitting a book.
Years ago, I took a class where I discovered that one of my strengths is commitment. I am reliable. While this is a good trait for many reasons, it can make some parts of my life challenging. Years ago, I was teaching fifth grade in the South Bronx and I really, really struggled. It was clear to everyone that I should walk away from my commitment to TFA. But I couldn’t get myself to do it. I felt like it was a promise and I couldn’t break it no matter what. Even if it was hurting me (or even some of the people around me.) It was, to this day, the hardest decision I made.
There have been times I’ve walked away from jobs and people, of course. I’ve abandoned hobbies. I’ve even stopped reading books. But, most of these cases had one thing in common: I felt pulled forward. I left a job behind because I felt compelled to go in a different direction. So it didn’t feel like walking away from something as much as walking to something else and that if I wanted to go there, I had to let go of where I was. And the pull of the other place was strong enough that it would allow me the strength to shed.
In the last few years, I’ve been struggling with letting go in several areas of my life and I’ve noticed that the reason it’s hard for me is that I don’t feel the pull toward anything else. So it feels more like dropping something for no good reason. And like there will be a void if I let go. Or that I am abandoning more than outgrowing.
Which is, clearly, ridiculous.
One of the downsides to my pattern of not being able to walk away, without having something else to walk to, is that I am never left with empty space. I don’t have a period of doing nothing. I don’t have a pause. And pauses are important.
Pauses are crucial.
They are what give you the breathing room to hear the quiet voices in your head, heart, and soul. They are what push you to explore. When there’s a buzz of activity, like I often have in my life, I don’t tend to pay attention to the quiet voices. They are drowned by the noise. You need silence to hear those. This is why I like to journal. This is why I like to meditate. Those are my ways of giving the quiet voice some room.
And I’m realizing that I need to learn to let things go. Not after I find something new, different, better but when I feel like they are not serving me anymore. When I feel like I am done. So that I don’t drag them around. So that I can create the space where new things can flourish.
Silence can be scary. But the only way I am going to learn to be ok with it is by practice. You do it a little. You wait. You see that the world doesn’t end. Then you do it some more.
So my plan this week is to make a list of things I want to let go. Feelings, thoughts, hobbies, people, commitments, books whatever it is. And then start practicing.
Start creating the empty space.
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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