Nevertheless, she persisted

The middle of the night seems as good a time as any to offer a confession. Sometimes I notice I'll be going along fine. But every few months or so, I'll have an existential freakout. Maybe you know the kind, when you're plagued with thoughts about life and whether or not you'll be happy. Unfortunately, these freakouts aren't just the normal daytime ponderings. They are wake-me-up-at-3am panics about my future and if things will ever get easier.

Will I ever be one of those people who love my work?

Will I make a positive impact?

Will I ever payoff my debt and not struggle financially?

Will I ever have the love I long for?  

Will I ever leave a legacy?

There are lots of other variations, but you get the general theme. On these nights, I feel really scared and discouraged. I am viscerally aware of my own mortality. I think what scares me more than anything is passing on too soon with unfulfilled dreams still in my heart. It's tempting to stop trying. After all, why strive when there's no guarantee my efforts will be fruitful. Then this phrase...

 

This simple phrase originally intended as a rebuke is now my war cry. It is for a lot of women. It's a charge to keep going. Keep fighting. Keep pushing. Keep dreaming. Keep hoping. If the Lord is gracious, I could feasibly have another 50+ years of life. No one can stay on the struggle bus that long. Therefore, there's plenty of time to live, love, and passionately pursue purpose. 

As I close this out and try to grab a couple more hours of shut eye, I'll meditate on this phrase. At the end of my life, be it a couple of years from now or decades from now, I want it to be said of me that she faced some hard stuff. She had her hopes dashed and her heart broken a time or two. She wanted to give up many times and will her heart not to believe anymore. Nevertheless, she persisted and in doing so she inspired many and all of her dreams came true. Yeah. I like the sound of that.

Every day non-attachment

Crap. This again. I’ve felt this before, many, many times. It’s an uncomfortable sensation with which I’m all too familiar. It feels like a bowl of hurt mixed with a swirl of anxiety topped off with disappointment- a sad sundae indeed. I feel it every time things don’t go my way. To be more specific, I feel it when I’m looking for one outcome and get another. When the feelings arise, I sigh to myself, a little frustrated for having let it happen again. Then, I remind myself to resume my practice, the practice of non-attachment.

Non-attachment is an Eastern term. I don't practice Buddhism, but the basic idea of it rings true for me. The concept of non-attachment comes from the idea that we create suffering for ourselves when we attach to people, things, results, or anything that’s temporal. Life is transient and we don’t have control over many things. When we think we do or we fixate on things going a certain way, then inevitably we feel frustrated, at best, crushed, at worst. That type of pain is needless and we can minimize it by understanding some things about attachment.

Ways we attach

Attachment is common and insidious. We attach when we make plans with friends. We attach when we have certain aspirations for our lives or even the lives of others. We attach when we keep texts, voicemails, and pictures from people. We attach when we double, triple, and quadruple check our phones to see if certain people liked our posts yet or if they appeared to get our messages. We attach when we aren’t just looking for a reply, but we want them to reply a certain way. Is this sounding familiar to anyone or am I alone in being Team Neurotic at times? If this is you, then you’ve undoubtedly experienced the sad sundae as well. Exhausting right, not to mention just really unpleasant. The only remedy for alleviating the pain is to detach.

Ways we detach

Detachment isn’t about becoming aloof or uncaring. You still might care deeply. You just forfeit your expectations. Detachment, then, might look like deleting messages rather than holding onto them. Whether they are positive or negative, you are ruminating on what’s already passed and can no longer be. Letting go allows you to be free. Another example is if you send a warm message to someone and they don’t reply or not the way you want. Let that be okay. Did you reach out for the response or simply to show love? Detachment might also be granting people room to be who they are. It can be hard to see people make certain choices. But love grants others that freedom; it doesn’t control or force. Control only creates suffering for you.

Think about this the next time you start to feel hurt or mad about something. Ask yourself if it’s possible you attached to a certain outcome and in doing so, created your own pain. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but when these feelings arise, they offer a gentle reminder that there’s more practice to be done. That’s a good thing.

Stay on the mat

Recently I finished reading "Love Warrior," a memoir by Glennon Doyle Melton. In it, she shared personal and relational struggles and the tough work of becoming whole. She wrote with such refreshing transparency. I feel like we could be friends. She shared how healing yoga was for her during a crisis period in her marriage. One day, however, she wandered into a 90 minute hot yoga class by mistake. She had almost made her exit when the instructor greeted her. Now, she was stuck. As everyone went around the room stating their intentions for the practice, you know, stuff like, "I want to be one with myself," or "I want to illuminate love and light," etc., she had something else in mind. When the teacher asked her what she hoped to gain, she kept it 100: "I'm just going to try to get through whatever is about to happen, stay on the mat, and not run out of here." Yep. Totally my kind of woman.

Throughout the rest of her yoga session as well as the book she kept returning to that metaphor. Stay on the mat. It came to mean doing the hard work and not squirming out of it. It meant staying present when tough feelings emerged. It meant remaining grounded in a difficult conversation or emotional moment, rather than checking out, shutting down, or hiding behind your walls. I simultaneously love and hate everything about that. I know intuitively that it's necessary for a healthy relationship with ourselves and others. It's also incredibly uncomfortable and even painful.

I'm reminded of that during this love season. It's all fun and games until it hurts, until there's misunderstanding to sort through, until there's conflict. But when reactions get visceral and things get real in your relationships, vow to stay on the mat. Try it with me today. I know it's going to be hard, but all you really have to do is breathe, stay present, and stay open.

When someone you respect reveals a deeply held belief that opposes yours, stay on the mat. When everything in you wants to rage, wail, or numb your emotions altogether, stay on the mat. When you feel hurt, misunderstood, and invalidated, stay on the mat. When you're starting to feel happy and you're struggling to trust it, stay on the mat. Stay present. Stay open. Stay loving. Most of all, stay connected- to your feelings and to others. Next time it gets heated and feels hard, remember this. You are a warrior and you can endure. Don't punk out. Stay on the mat.

Bougie discomfort

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a client. She is a therapist in training, so in addition to discussing her personal concerns, we usually end up chatting about psychology concepts. You know, because we're cool like that. Anyway, in our last session, she introduced me to a mindfulness practice called bourgeois discomfort. Since I like to colloquial term "bougie" a little better that's what I'll use.

Basically, bougie discomfort is a way of training yourself to cope with unpleasant situations. For instance, if the temperature is not to your liking, rather than rushing to turn on the heat or the AC unit, just sit with it for a while without frantically trying to change it. Another example might be to sit in an uncomfortable position for a short period of time. Sit. Breathe. Notice the discomfort and notice that it either lessens or you just adapt to it.

I practiced this a little during my birthday travels. Most of my trip was spent in the middle seat on the plane and in a cramped back seat of a car. I also had a different eating schedule than I'm used to, so I got to practice whenever I felt hungry or slightly nauseated. I was never in pain or facing any harm, of course. In fact, I imagine it's called bougie discomfort because you're not facing real suffering. You are just practicing being a little less comfortable than usual, definitely good practice for people with first world problems. The hope is that as you learn to adapt to different uncomfortable conditions, then you're better able to cope when things actually get real.

Give it a try. How can you offend your bougie sensibilities today? Can you sit through a boring meeting? Can you breathe through a traffic jam? Can you hold that plank position a few seconds longer? Can you settle into a sensation without rushing to fix or change it? I bet you'll find you can withstand way more than you realize. That, or you'll realize, at least in some cases, the things we desperately try to avoid maybe aren't so bad after all.

Bloated, blah Mondays and practicing non-judgment

It was a rainy day in my neck of the woods...the kind that makes you want to curl up and take a nap after work. I felt like moving a little might be good though. Maybe I should go lift, I thought. Um, no. High intensity interval training? Uh, hard no. I didn't even feel like going to the gym. So instead, I opted to do a yoga-style flow at home.

Before I started, I set an intention of just moving mindfully and non-judgmentally. I didn't have a pre-choreographed routine and I wasn't following anyone's instruction. I was just going to go with the flow and see where my body took me in 45-50 minutes. Here's what I discovered...or perhaps, rediscovered. 

Non-judgment is not about being nice to yourself and it's more than about not being mean. It's about removing any labels or evaluations at all. It's about simply noticing what's there. Instead of labeling it or expressing opinion about it, you train yourself to witness it, observe it, and describe it. It's learning to be neutral and tabling bias. [I say tabling because it's very difficult to be totally bias free]. I'll give you examples of how to neutralize a statement by using a few judgments I noticed throughout today's practice.

I'm lazy. I should go to the gym.
It's important to listen to my body and give it what it needs, even if that means a lighter workout at home.

I really don't like my stomach. I wish I had a six pack.
I notice I am bloated in my midsection today. The skin around my core feels soft to touch.

I'm hairy and gross and need to get rid of it.
I notice the stubble on my legs (and chin for that matter).

My balance sucks today.
The balancing poses feel challenging today.

I wish I could do hardcore inversions.
I am where I am today. 

Get the point? I don't overcompensate and say an affirmation. That's more like self-love. I don't accept a false reality. There's nothing mindful about denial. I just remove the sting of judgment by staying neutral and being present with what is right now.

Give it a try. First, it'll take becoming aware of your judgments. Then once you are, practice removing the opinions and assumptions from them. Take away all evaluations and shoulds. Just notice, observe, and describe. See if practicing this stance as a way of life doesn't transform you and everyone else around you. At the very least, you might find relief in this gentler way of relating.