The past month or so has presented some exciting new challenges. My bike was stolen from out of my house. My email account was broken into by an anonymous gem-of-a-person who did some nasty things to violate my privacy. A person I loved and confided in fled the scene and started a new life somewhere else without informing me first.
Ouch. Life. I have felt not-a-little heartbroken and not-a-little bewildered by these occurrences, and yet somehow I'm grateful, too.
The winds of change (which often smell like farts and garbage) have a way of giving you an opportunity to grow even as they stink up your life. I've been led to a deeper inquiry on how to deal with difficult emotions: sadness, anger, abandonment, and paranoia, to name a few.
In one instance of suffering, a dear friend of mine sent me this Sufi saying, which I keep coming back to:
"Overcome any bitterness that may have come to you because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you.
"Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain. You are sharing the totality of that pain.
"You are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity. The secret is to offer your heart as a vehicle to transform cosmic suffering into joy."
To put it in a simpler, less mystical way, for those of you who can't dig on religion and have never dropped acid: Life hurts. We all hurt. The challenge is to learn to react from awareness, rather than ego-driven habit, so that we don't keep hurting ourselves and others.
In my experience, there are habitual ways that we react to pain as unconscious means of seeking refuge from it. We say "if only things were different than the way they are..." as though we occupied a seat at the top of some mental control tower.
We get urges to have, to do, to improve. We make war, point blame, or try to get rid of the way we are feeling altogether.
We try to prove ourselves to others. We put on masks and craft story lines about what has been done to us.
We do things to hurt other people; it's easier to pass pain onto someone else than to find the patience, courage, and guidance we need to pause and experience our sorrows in a way that is healthy.
Here's a start. Take a sheet of paper, and write the following phrase 20 times or more:
I deserve love.
There's a good chance that many of you reading this just chortled, scoffed, cringed, or shook your heads at such a touchy-feely suggestion (ugh, gross, affirmations!). But I can assure you that if you reacted in any of the above ways, you are probably among those who need it most. Check in: What do you have to lose? What are you afraid of?
In my experience, hesitation is a pretty clear sign that you are hiding something from yourself. Don't you want to know what it is?
Be courageous, or just prove me wrong: get out your pen and paper (and possibly a box of tissues) and see what comes up. No one has to know, so there is no reason to feel silly or ashamed. Write it, as many times as you can:
I deserve love.
Dec 15, 2009
Dec 9, 2009
Ceremonious Oats
A little over a year ago I was on an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety med that wasn't working anymore. Faced with the choice of either staying on it and upping the dosage, or dropping it and figuring out a more holistic way of maintaining sanity, I chose the latter.
One of my closest friends at the time had a knack for keeping his heart light. I told him about my plan to come off of the anti-depressant and he advised me to eat well. He said, "Make yourself a good bowl of oatmeal every morning. Oatmeal is my zoloft."
At the time I rolled my eyes. I made the assumption that my friend didn't know what real emotional pain was like if he thought oatmeal could soothe my crazy brains. Of course, it was only one part of the equation. It goes without saying that oatmeal is not the same as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (like zoloft). With oatmeal, it's not a matter of chemistry but of simple process: there is value in the practice of preparing a good bowl of oats if you slow down and appreciate the ritual of it. This is true for just about any practice, but oatmeal is a good place to start.
Have you found that when you are stressed out, your eating habits change? Some people overeat and still feel sluggish. Others feel their stomachs become a bundle of nerves and can't eat at all. When we are in a state of stress, our body shuts down blood flow to the digestive system. If we eat anyways, the food tends to sit in our stomachs without being absorbed. We end up running on fumes, which makes the mind even more loopy.
So our mental state largely determines our ability to nourish ourselves, and our ability to nourish ourselves largely determines our mental state. Oatmeal simply taught me to start every day by getting my mind involved in the act of nourishment.
Have you ever experienced a flood of stress-thoughts as soon as you open your eyes in the morning? Sometimes it's a dream that leaves you unsettled before you're fully awake, or the long to-do list that's been running on a subconscious loop all night. Whatever the reason, take comfort in the fact that there is no one alive that has not woken up feeling like shit at some point. So you begrudgingly get your poor ass out of bed. You open the curtains. Some days are grey, and there isn't much sun to be let in, but you open the curtains anyways. This is an apt metaphor for the way life should be: open the damn curtains, and pay attention.
Go into the kitchen, put some water on to boil. Put the oats in your bowl. Are you paying attention? Or are you thinking about everything you have to get done today? Come back to the oatmeal: it is a blank canvas for whatever your body is craving. It is waiting to accommodate any combination of fruit, nuts, and yogurt.
Slice the fruit. Your mind wanders to something menial: how shitty your life is, or what you will wear to work today, to the job you don't really care for. Come back to slicing the fruit. Strawberries, mango, banana, apple? Your oatmeal is only limited by your imagination. Say to yourself "I am slicing fruit for my oatmeal. That is all." Because that IS all. Nothing else is happening right now. Focus on every gesture of the knife, how your hands work it. This focus not only calms your mind, but improves your knife skills. Smell the fruit, be aware of its lovely color. I like to use dried fruit - raisins or dried cranberries - in addition to the fresh stuff.
Add some nuts to your bowl. Now you are thinking about someone you have to call, or a mole you should get checked out. Come back to the oatmeal, to the nuts. Walnut halves, slivered almonds, toasted crushed pecans? It is good to start the day with some protein. I even go so far as to throw in a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt, though any kind of yogurt lends it more protein and calcium, not to mention creaminess and flavor. A little honey and sea salt also go a long way in relieving the oats of their blandness.
The kettle whistles. Did you notice its pitch before you shut the burner off, or the way the sound tapers off like a yawn as soon as the kettle starts to cool? Maybe you didn't, because you were thinking about the bicycle that someone stole, or the fact that your roommate has never once cleaned the tub. Gently remind yourself, again and again, to come back to what is happening right now. Laugh at yourself for having a monkey mind, and breathe.
I don't think nourishment is as simple as putting food in your mouth, even if it's good wholesome food. It starts with the preparation, which is not just preparation of food but preparation of mind. With patience and quiet attention we can learn to put ourselves in a mode of self-care first thing in the morning.
Your oatmeal is warm and filled with chunks of things you like to eat. It takes a little more time and effort than scarfing down a Dunkin Donuts bagel in the car on the way to work, but you get what you give: making this breakfast has been a kind of ceremony, and you haven't even started eating it yet.
One of my closest friends at the time had a knack for keeping his heart light. I told him about my plan to come off of the anti-depressant and he advised me to eat well. He said, "Make yourself a good bowl of oatmeal every morning. Oatmeal is my zoloft."
At the time I rolled my eyes. I made the assumption that my friend didn't know what real emotional pain was like if he thought oatmeal could soothe my crazy brains. Of course, it was only one part of the equation. It goes without saying that oatmeal is not the same as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (like zoloft). With oatmeal, it's not a matter of chemistry but of simple process: there is value in the practice of preparing a good bowl of oats if you slow down and appreciate the ritual of it. This is true for just about any practice, but oatmeal is a good place to start.
Have you found that when you are stressed out, your eating habits change? Some people overeat and still feel sluggish. Others feel their stomachs become a bundle of nerves and can't eat at all. When we are in a state of stress, our body shuts down blood flow to the digestive system. If we eat anyways, the food tends to sit in our stomachs without being absorbed. We end up running on fumes, which makes the mind even more loopy.
So our mental state largely determines our ability to nourish ourselves, and our ability to nourish ourselves largely determines our mental state. Oatmeal simply taught me to start every day by getting my mind involved in the act of nourishment.
Have you ever experienced a flood of stress-thoughts as soon as you open your eyes in the morning? Sometimes it's a dream that leaves you unsettled before you're fully awake, or the long to-do list that's been running on a subconscious loop all night. Whatever the reason, take comfort in the fact that there is no one alive that has not woken up feeling like shit at some point. So you begrudgingly get your poor ass out of bed. You open the curtains. Some days are grey, and there isn't much sun to be let in, but you open the curtains anyways. This is an apt metaphor for the way life should be: open the damn curtains, and pay attention.
Go into the kitchen, put some water on to boil. Put the oats in your bowl. Are you paying attention? Or are you thinking about everything you have to get done today? Come back to the oatmeal: it is a blank canvas for whatever your body is craving. It is waiting to accommodate any combination of fruit, nuts, and yogurt.
Slice the fruit. Your mind wanders to something menial: how shitty your life is, or what you will wear to work today, to the job you don't really care for. Come back to slicing the fruit. Strawberries, mango, banana, apple? Your oatmeal is only limited by your imagination. Say to yourself "I am slicing fruit for my oatmeal. That is all." Because that IS all. Nothing else is happening right now. Focus on every gesture of the knife, how your hands work it. This focus not only calms your mind, but improves your knife skills. Smell the fruit, be aware of its lovely color. I like to use dried fruit - raisins or dried cranberries - in addition to the fresh stuff.
Add some nuts to your bowl. Now you are thinking about someone you have to call, or a mole you should get checked out. Come back to the oatmeal, to the nuts. Walnut halves, slivered almonds, toasted crushed pecans? It is good to start the day with some protein. I even go so far as to throw in a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt, though any kind of yogurt lends it more protein and calcium, not to mention creaminess and flavor. A little honey and sea salt also go a long way in relieving the oats of their blandness.
The kettle whistles. Did you notice its pitch before you shut the burner off, or the way the sound tapers off like a yawn as soon as the kettle starts to cool? Maybe you didn't, because you were thinking about the bicycle that someone stole, or the fact that your roommate has never once cleaned the tub. Gently remind yourself, again and again, to come back to what is happening right now. Laugh at yourself for having a monkey mind, and breathe.
I don't think nourishment is as simple as putting food in your mouth, even if it's good wholesome food. It starts with the preparation, which is not just preparation of food but preparation of mind. With patience and quiet attention we can learn to put ourselves in a mode of self-care first thing in the morning.
Your oatmeal is warm and filled with chunks of things you like to eat. It takes a little more time and effort than scarfing down a Dunkin Donuts bagel in the car on the way to work, but you get what you give: making this breakfast has been a kind of ceremony, and you haven't even started eating it yet.
Dec 2, 2009
Notes on the title
Yoga and oatmeal, because the two have sparked my interest in the mind-body connection.
It is unmistakable how the body absorbs the tension of the mind. I discover it again and again on the mat. One day I have an enjoyable practice - it stimulates my circulation as it stretches and strengthens me. I fully inhabit my body, filling it with the energy of the breath. Wisdom moves away from the chatter of busy-mind into the quiet, eager limbs. When I am done, I feel limber, open, and strong. I am taller, and calmer.
Two days later, I unroll my mat and discover that I have in me a re-occuring landscape of tightness. As it turns out, we don't live in a blissful vacuum between the times we practice; at some point the chatter picks up again. Reality is often lost beneath a static of distracting, self-generated noise: laundry lists, daydreams, attractions, and aversions. As the mind tells its stories about itself, unable to stop talking to itself, the body braces in reaction without our even being aware of it. As long as the stories repeat themselves (which they inevitably do - we are all subject to our own conditioning), tension collects in the same spots.
Continuing to practice is a great act of self-compassion. To set aside the chatter-mind for the sake of bringing attention back to your body, to kindly listen to its aches and open it again, restores a simple sense of clarity. We tend to forget: that our consciousness can inhabit this mass of energy, this body, is so mysterious as to be miraculous. Some would call this the divine. I think I would call this the divine.
Next time I'll talk about oatmeal.
It is unmistakable how the body absorbs the tension of the mind. I discover it again and again on the mat. One day I have an enjoyable practice - it stimulates my circulation as it stretches and strengthens me. I fully inhabit my body, filling it with the energy of the breath. Wisdom moves away from the chatter of busy-mind into the quiet, eager limbs. When I am done, I feel limber, open, and strong. I am taller, and calmer.
Two days later, I unroll my mat and discover that I have in me a re-occuring landscape of tightness. As it turns out, we don't live in a blissful vacuum between the times we practice; at some point the chatter picks up again. Reality is often lost beneath a static of distracting, self-generated noise: laundry lists, daydreams, attractions, and aversions. As the mind tells its stories about itself, unable to stop talking to itself, the body braces in reaction without our even being aware of it. As long as the stories repeat themselves (which they inevitably do - we are all subject to our own conditioning), tension collects in the same spots.
Continuing to practice is a great act of self-compassion. To set aside the chatter-mind for the sake of bringing attention back to your body, to kindly listen to its aches and open it again, restores a simple sense of clarity. We tend to forget: that our consciousness can inhabit this mass of energy, this body, is so mysterious as to be miraculous. Some would call this the divine. I think I would call this the divine.
Next time I'll talk about oatmeal.
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