Photo by Rebekah Hansen on Unsplash
Or how I get my feet under me (then do it again).
For my first three decades of life, I felt entirely owned by my thoughts and my reactions to them. My thoughts were thinking me! In my thirties, I began learning practices that helped me use my mind in ways that promoted my well-being and that of others.
It wasn’t like I decided to be more mindful and voila! There was no magic shift. Starting those practices was just that: a start. It took months to see results, years to make profound and lasting changes. I have a long way to go—forever, in fact. The practicing never stops. There are always areas where I discover I’m stuck, areas where I can learn and grow. I begin again.
Thirty years and thousands of practice hours into my journey, here are some things that tripped me up badly, like all the time, and that work better for me now.
I used to get three pieces of advice that never worked for me.
I thought I was doing them wrong. Nope! They’re literally impossible to do.
- “Clear your mind of thoughts.”
No worthy meditation teacher will utter those words. It’s literally impossible to do. The mind is a perpetual thought-secretion machine. It’s how we’re wired. Trying to eradicate thoughts just adds more thoughts: “No more thinking. Stop thinking. Oh no, I can’t stop!”
What’s actionable? Step out from under the cascading waterfall and observe the thoughts flowing by. When you get caught in thoughts, repeat.
- “Don’t take it personally.”
Having a feeling is reality, and saying “Don’t feel it” is unhelpful. The stories in our head unspool, and sometimes the mind says it’s about me. Telling the mind “Don’t take it personally” just adds criticism to suffering (yielding more suffering). Instead, step out of the toilet vortex of self-criticism (as Dan Harris and friends describe it) and practice self-kindness.
What’s actionable? Notice your thoughts and feelings when you’re suffering. Fill in the sentence “The story my mind is telling me now is . . .” Offer yourself words of empathy, comfort, and gentle support, as you might do for anyone suffering that way.
Saying “Don’t take it personally” is about as effective as saying “Don’t think of a pink elephant.”
- “Calm down and relax.”
Have you ever told someone to calm down and seen them actually calm down? It doesn’t work any better when spoken into the mirror. To feel relaxed, create conditions likely to be relaxing for your organism (a term that a dear friend uses for the body-mind). It might mean exercising for the relaxation that follows. It might be clenching and releasing muscles, one by one. It might be reaching for a pleasant diversion until the current state transitions into something more calming.
What do these three directives have in common?
They deny reality as it is. The fastest path to suffering is to be in contention with reality. Worse, they appear to offer instructions, but they’re not doable. That’s an automatic fail. Instead, I view each statement as aspirational, as results rather than ways to get results:
I’d like a calmer mind.
I’d like to just be without constantly judging my own existence.
I’d enjoy feeling calm and relaxed.
I came to realize that I had zero control over anything that happened before the present moment. What is already exists, exactly as it is. That gave me freedom over what I can do: Tune into what is and use the three areas over which I have agency—the next focus of my attention, my intentions, the next thought I’ll have, and the next breath I’ll take. In that tiny yet infinite spacetime that is the now, I am liberated to influence the next moments of now.
The steps I take:
- I stop, tune in, and become aware of what is, I accept reality with self-talk such as: “This is what is right now. This is what I sense through each of my senses. This is the normal, natural breath effortlessly breathing my body. This is what I feel in my body. These are my thoughts.”
- I speak carefully to myself. When self-defeating thoughts arise, I reframe them: “The story my mind is telling me is . . .” “Even though something has happened, I will . . .” “Even if what I fear comes to pass, I can . . .”
- I choose practices geared toward developing my goals. For me, that’s daily mindfulness meditation and lovingkindness practices, guided by the best teachers I know of. We use the Happier app (formerly Ten Percent Happier) and resources at danharris.com, which offers lots of great free content. I read books and articles and listen to podcasts that cultivate mindfulness and compassion.
- I practice daily, each morning. Or at the very least, daily-ish—on rare occasions when I need to be somewhere early or am traveling, I might not make it every day. And that’s just fine.
- I observe my experience, acknowledge sensations and thoughts, and appreciate any benefits I notice.
Practice doesn’t make “perfect.” What would perfect even look like? Rather, intentional practice builds skills, memory, and eventually better habits and accessible responses that are helpful, or at least less counterproductive than those arising from unexamined motives and misguided beliefs.
What does this have to do with bodywork?
Thank you for reading this far!
As you might have noticed, I live very much in my mind. But we are not skin-encapsulated minds driving bodies around. We are each an entire being that has physical and mental dimensions that cannot be separated.
Back in the mid-1990s, I was sitting at my desk at the advertising agency where I wrote ad copy. I got massages regularly, but it had never occurred to me to offer massage to others. One day, I realized I wanted to do bodywork. Since I’d never “received” such an internal message before, I decided I should heed it. I took a two-week intro to massage at Kripalu to be sure, then went right into a 900-hour accredited massage program. Good choice!
The skin is the largest organ in the body. Touching the skin is like having access to a keyboard that “plays the brain” like a musical instrument.
Being present during bodywork with a practitioner who is present with you means you have company at the juncture where your nervous system meets the world around it. Together, you quietly and intentionally experience this sliver of now, a moment of grace for both of you.
Nurturing touch in a safe environment with a practitioner who remains present and attentive to your needs and your experience is a powerful intervention. This kind of touch increases awareness of your internal experience—interoception—and offers greater access to affect it on your own.
The mindfulness practices I adopted in my thirties are most likely what allowed me to hear the message to get more into my body and facilitate that experience for others. Thirty years later, I’m grateful I was willing to listen and able to act.
May your New Year bring comforting and enlivening experiences that you are present to appreciate.
