Can you notice when you are acting due to a thought or story you made up about your child, rather than acting in response to what is actually occurring? Particularly when we are at our limit, we can begin to believe the storyline over things as they really are. The more you can notice when you do this, then take a breath and reconnect to what is happening, actually happening, the easier things become. Even when they are hard.
My children were sick all weekend. My husband was working. He has been working every weekend the last month, as well as late nights. I am at my limit. And I was at my limit tonight when they both repeatedly asked me for comforting, at the breast and with snuggles. I just wanted to get dinner in the oven. I didn't have much to do, I hadn't been able to attend to anything else all day outside of playing with them and snuggling/nursing them, changing them, caring for them in the many ways we do when they are ill. I just needed five minutes to get one thing done. They needed me. They felt bad. They needed mama's touch, mama's milk, mama's lap. I didn't want to give it to them anymore. Their cries that they felt sick, that their tummies hurt, that they wanted me - it all felt like way too much. Instead of taking a breath, and acknowledging that indeed, this felt like too much, and working with the energy of that, I began to go off on a storyline, voicing my frustration and resentment. I began to exaggerate in my mind, project my own fears and sadnesses onto them. And I began to speak to them out of that muddled dream. Luckily, I noticed. I heard my words and saw my little ones' faces. But it took a few minutes.
It took a few minutes. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it takes a few days. With some storylines and emotions, it can take a few years, or more. The important thing is that at some point, you notice. You stop. You take a moment to look, and you see that what you thought was true, well, it really isn't. "Life is always kinder than the story we tell about it." I know I am always mentioning that Byron Katie quote, but my goodness, it is apt.
It is only when we can let the whole thing go, watch the shadow unravel, that we can actually stop perpetuating suffering, both our own and others'. The important thing is to notice. Then you can open back up to things as they are, really are. I always say to my meditation students that even if they just notice one time during a meditation session that their attention is not on the breath, and then bring their attention back to the breath, even just once, well - they have meditated. It just takes one time. Over and over and over again.
So. Tonight was one of those times. Noticing that I had allowed myself to be carried, once more, on the wave of story - carried away from the present moment, and into my projections. And behaving badly because of it. I noticed. I came back. I picked up my two crying boys, and I apologized to them. I got warm cloths, and laid them on their tummies. I held them. I nursed them. I hugged them. I asked my husband for help when he got home, even though I knew he was stressed and tired as well. I realized I couldn't attend a meeting I had been planning on going to this evening. That commitment, nagging at the back of mind, had also fed my little tirade. I let go of what I had planned and embraced what needed to occur.
The boys are sleeping now, as is my husband, who is also sick. My kitchen, no, my whole house, is a mess. The cats need to be fed. I need to wrap a birthday present for my youngest and finish a felt crown for him, as it's his second birthday tomorrow. I feel that I am about to come down with this illness too. But still so much to do here. It's ok. And it's hard. I can just acknowledge that, and not add any of the other stuff to it. I don't need to write a whole story of how it should or could be, or why it is hard or whatever. Just breathe. Just be here. Then it isn't hard, or at least, not so hard, anymore.
Showing posts with label mindful speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mindful speech. Show all posts
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
what is your story?
“The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.”
-Sharon Salzberg
If you can pay attention to your mind during the day, to where you are placing it, to the thoughts running in and out, you will discover something. You will discover your story. It is the thought you turn to again and again when you are feeling hassled by things, when your back is up against the wall. You probably turn to it even when you are feeling pretty good about everything, happy even. In those cases, it is usually a kind of nagging little fear that will raise its head. When you are really stressed out, or trying to get something done, your children out the door, the dinner ready, whatever - going forward with your agenda - and it is not happening easily - the eggs fall out of the fridge and break on the floor, your youngest poops his pants as you are getting him in the car seat, you get the phone call saying you haven't gotten the job- your story might even slip right out of your mouth, verbalized for all to hear. What do you say to them, to yourself?
With the last months being so stressful for us, full of so much heartbreak, I have found my story slipping out. It came out this morning in the seemingly simple task of getting my three year old and my 20 month old out the door to the library. I can't even remember the series of events that made this outing seem akin to climbing the Himalayas barefooted, but after yet another delay caused by some act of typical toddler behavior or potty learning adventure I said, aloud, "I just can't catch a break."
It is the same sentence I said aloud to my husband in the days after learning about my miscarriage, as I tried to prepare for my three year old's party, and a dozen eggs slid from their perch in the fridge and broke all over the newly mopped floor minutes before guests began arriving. "I just can't catch a break."
It is a sentence I have been repeating to myself for what seems like all of my life. "I can't catch a break, I can't catch a break, I just can't catch a break!" With meditation practice, I finally noticed it, finally really heard what I have been spending years telling myself. When I was home with my parents last month briefly, I heard the same sentence and its variations uttered many times by my father. I doubt he has ever really, truly noticed this story flying from his lips with such regularity.
We all have our particular story. Often, it is a story we first heard from our own parents, or perhaps it was given to us by another authority figure or maybe we came up with it all by ourselves. In any case, it doesn't serve us. It isn't true. It is a story, just that, and since we have been writing it, we can also rewrite it.
It depends, as Ms. Salzberg says, on where we place our attention. When we hear ourselves telling our particular story to ourselves or to others, we can stop. We can notice what is going on with our bodies, our breath. What are we feeling? Where are we? What is actually happening in this particular moment? Things as they are do not conspire against us, although that may be how we feel. Things just are, true, variable, moving, changing, vivid. If we drop the story, we may actually really see, really perceive what is actually happening in any given situation, what the phenomena is truly communicating to us. The world is not for or against us. Things and beings are all dancing, shifting, arising and ceasing in an enormous interconnected dance. What are we choosing to tell ourselves about it? It is important where we put our minds and what words we choose - the story we tell. Can we recognize it as a story? Or do we call it the truth?
When we sit in meditation practice, we notice the tricks we play on ourselves, the wild tales we tell that keep us hooked, deceived, yo-yoing up and down. The more we sit and just let those stories go, not feeding them, not pushing them away, just letting them flow through and continually dropping them, dropping them, dropping them, the more space we create and the more we can laugh. Laugh at what we have been telling ourselves for so long.
Byron Katie has a powerful book of her work entitled "What Would You Be Without Your Story?" It is full of dialogues between her and different students, all with a powerful story that they have spent many years placing their minds on, again and again, with great emotion and intent. In the simple conversations with her, these stories fall apart, get flipped on their heads, and the people become so much freer. They no longer believe them.
This is what I am working on this week. Noticing my story. Catching when I am telling it to myself or others. Dropping it. Touching it. Asking myself, "Is this really true?" And placing my mind again on the present moment. I don't want to give this story to my children. I would rather they tell themselves the vivid truth of basic goodness, again and again, rather than this lie of "I can't catch a break."
-Sharon Salzberg
If you can pay attention to your mind during the day, to where you are placing it, to the thoughts running in and out, you will discover something. You will discover your story. It is the thought you turn to again and again when you are feeling hassled by things, when your back is up against the wall. You probably turn to it even when you are feeling pretty good about everything, happy even. In those cases, it is usually a kind of nagging little fear that will raise its head. When you are really stressed out, or trying to get something done, your children out the door, the dinner ready, whatever - going forward with your agenda - and it is not happening easily - the eggs fall out of the fridge and break on the floor, your youngest poops his pants as you are getting him in the car seat, you get the phone call saying you haven't gotten the job- your story might even slip right out of your mouth, verbalized for all to hear. What do you say to them, to yourself?
With the last months being so stressful for us, full of so much heartbreak, I have found my story slipping out. It came out this morning in the seemingly simple task of getting my three year old and my 20 month old out the door to the library. I can't even remember the series of events that made this outing seem akin to climbing the Himalayas barefooted, but after yet another delay caused by some act of typical toddler behavior or potty learning adventure I said, aloud, "I just can't catch a break."
It is the same sentence I said aloud to my husband in the days after learning about my miscarriage, as I tried to prepare for my three year old's party, and a dozen eggs slid from their perch in the fridge and broke all over the newly mopped floor minutes before guests began arriving. "I just can't catch a break."
It is a sentence I have been repeating to myself for what seems like all of my life. "I can't catch a break, I can't catch a break, I just can't catch a break!" With meditation practice, I finally noticed it, finally really heard what I have been spending years telling myself. When I was home with my parents last month briefly, I heard the same sentence and its variations uttered many times by my father. I doubt he has ever really, truly noticed this story flying from his lips with such regularity.
We all have our particular story. Often, it is a story we first heard from our own parents, or perhaps it was given to us by another authority figure or maybe we came up with it all by ourselves. In any case, it doesn't serve us. It isn't true. It is a story, just that, and since we have been writing it, we can also rewrite it.
It depends, as Ms. Salzberg says, on where we place our attention. When we hear ourselves telling our particular story to ourselves or to others, we can stop. We can notice what is going on with our bodies, our breath. What are we feeling? Where are we? What is actually happening in this particular moment? Things as they are do not conspire against us, although that may be how we feel. Things just are, true, variable, moving, changing, vivid. If we drop the story, we may actually really see, really perceive what is actually happening in any given situation, what the phenomena is truly communicating to us. The world is not for or against us. Things and beings are all dancing, shifting, arising and ceasing in an enormous interconnected dance. What are we choosing to tell ourselves about it? It is important where we put our minds and what words we choose - the story we tell. Can we recognize it as a story? Or do we call it the truth?
When we sit in meditation practice, we notice the tricks we play on ourselves, the wild tales we tell that keep us hooked, deceived, yo-yoing up and down. The more we sit and just let those stories go, not feeding them, not pushing them away, just letting them flow through and continually dropping them, dropping them, dropping them, the more space we create and the more we can laugh. Laugh at what we have been telling ourselves for so long.
Byron Katie has a powerful book of her work entitled "What Would You Be Without Your Story?" It is full of dialogues between her and different students, all with a powerful story that they have spent many years placing their minds on, again and again, with great emotion and intent. In the simple conversations with her, these stories fall apart, get flipped on their heads, and the people become so much freer. They no longer believe them.
This is what I am working on this week. Noticing my story. Catching when I am telling it to myself or others. Dropping it. Touching it. Asking myself, "Is this really true?" And placing my mind again on the present moment. I don't want to give this story to my children. I would rather they tell themselves the vivid truth of basic goodness, again and again, rather than this lie of "I can't catch a break."
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
what to accept and what to reject
"Nobody else can really begin to sort out for you what to accept and what to reject in terms of what wakes you up and what makes you fall asleep. No one else can really sort out for you what to accept - what opens up your world - and what to reject - what seems to keep you going round and round in some kind of repetitive misery." - Pema Chodron
We got our computer room painted. Or I should say, the back bedroom where our computer resides had paint dropping off the ceiling, so after many entreaties, our landlord finally came in one cold Saturday and painted it an institutional green color, then closed the windows tight and left. So we have been airing out the room for the past week, exhausting out the chemical gasses with fans and open windows in chilly fall temperatures. Which means that I have been unable to blog and unable to go online at all, which, in a way, has been great.
While blogging is something that I would like to cultivate as it helps keep me on the path of mindfulness and compassion, being online in general is something I really really need to cut down on, or reject, to use dharma terms. We don't have a television, so I use the computer as my source of mindless (as in makes me lose all mindfulness/awareness) entertainment. This kind of indulgence or cultivation of mindlessness in turn makes me feel sluggish, resentful, unmotivated and just squashes my lungta, or chi. Even worse, when I am online, my children want to go online also. My infant wants to know what is magnetizing me in the middle of a playtime and my toddler really wants to watch a Thomas the Train video on the web. And how can I say no to them when I am there, glued to the screen, scrolling through my email? I may only spend five minutes doing that, but that is enough for my children to become distracted. So the mindlessness spreads, as do its attendant symptoms.
As a practitioner of mindfulness, I have often been admonished by my teachers to be aware of what I am cultivating in my heartmind. Am I watering the seeds of compassion and wisdom or am I watering those of ignorance and aggression? This awareness of what we are cultivating internally can extend out into our external lives as well. What are we putting our attention on, what are choosing to bring into our day to day lives with our children? Is what we are bringing in encouraging sanity, clarity, compassion, and joy in their lives? Or is it watering the seeds of distraction, dissatisfaction, anxiety? Are we encouraging their nourishment or their ill health? What I have found is that if something in our daily lives is nourishing us, it gives us energy, connection and contentment. And if it is not nourishing us, it leaves us cranky, drained and checked out.
When I was pregnant with my children I was very conscious of what I was eating, as whatever I ingested would enter into their growing brains and bodies as they waited within me, readying for their births. Now that they are in this realm, I sometimes am not so conscious of what I am feeding them in terms of daily nurturing. With small children, a habit can be acquired extremely quickly, as they cling to routine and sameness. Hence, my toddler now expects a cookie from the corner Italian deli every Tuesday after library storytime- all due to the fact I had to buy lunch there two weeks in a row and the deli man kindly offered him a cookie when he saw my son was impatient. And if he sees me on the computer, he expects to be able to watch a video.
These aren't big, terrible habits. But within them I see the seeds of habitual tendencies that can lead to closing up rather than opening. And I see as one of my main jobs as a mama to be the tender encouragement of opening to the world and other beings. So this week I am beginning to focus on what I can accept into our world that will assist us in this opening, and what I need to reject. What leaves us energized and what leaves us checked out? I made this list of things to accept and cultivate. I think it really helps to look at these kinds of lists as things that nourish us and help us in our sanity, rather than things we should be doing:
1) daily meditation and contemplation: for me with two under 2, this means having my toddler ring my meditation gong in the morning, doing a short morning chant and letting him and my infant play in my lap while I sit quietly for a few minutes. If they are not having it, then just the gong and the chant is enough.
2) keeping the radio, music and videos off until after naps in the afternoon, when we can use them for a transition time of about 30 minutes. This is a hard one for us, as my toddler is really habituated now to waking up and watching a video as I check my email. This means mama is no longer online until the children are asleep at night.
3) saving treats like cookies, cake etc. for special occasions or at the most once per week. This is also hard as I am a former professional baker and chocolatier. Which means I still bake, a lot. Ahem.
4) continuing to cultivate mindful speech around my children and with others. This also means speaking with gentleness. This too has been hard lately, as my toddler has been entering the defiant stage known as the terrible twos.
5) going to bed at a decent hour. This means mama as well. Being offline this week really helped me with that as my old tendency was to stay up to all hours surfing the net while my children dozed.
It is interesting to note the pull towards those habits which do not nourish, but keep us distracted and closed down. I have noticed it all week - the pull to the computer in the poisoned paint room! Look at what it took to keep me out - noxious fumes! What are your lists? What do you want to cultivate in your daily life with your children, and what to you want to reject? As with all things on the path, just remember to relax with it all, to be gentle with yourselves, and keep walking along.
We got our computer room painted. Or I should say, the back bedroom where our computer resides had paint dropping off the ceiling, so after many entreaties, our landlord finally came in one cold Saturday and painted it an institutional green color, then closed the windows tight and left. So we have been airing out the room for the past week, exhausting out the chemical gasses with fans and open windows in chilly fall temperatures. Which means that I have been unable to blog and unable to go online at all, which, in a way, has been great.
While blogging is something that I would like to cultivate as it helps keep me on the path of mindfulness and compassion, being online in general is something I really really need to cut down on, or reject, to use dharma terms. We don't have a television, so I use the computer as my source of mindless (as in makes me lose all mindfulness/awareness) entertainment. This kind of indulgence or cultivation of mindlessness in turn makes me feel sluggish, resentful, unmotivated and just squashes my lungta, or chi. Even worse, when I am online, my children want to go online also. My infant wants to know what is magnetizing me in the middle of a playtime and my toddler really wants to watch a Thomas the Train video on the web. And how can I say no to them when I am there, glued to the screen, scrolling through my email? I may only spend five minutes doing that, but that is enough for my children to become distracted. So the mindlessness spreads, as do its attendant symptoms.
As a practitioner of mindfulness, I have often been admonished by my teachers to be aware of what I am cultivating in my heartmind. Am I watering the seeds of compassion and wisdom or am I watering those of ignorance and aggression? This awareness of what we are cultivating internally can extend out into our external lives as well. What are we putting our attention on, what are choosing to bring into our day to day lives with our children? Is what we are bringing in encouraging sanity, clarity, compassion, and joy in their lives? Or is it watering the seeds of distraction, dissatisfaction, anxiety? Are we encouraging their nourishment or their ill health? What I have found is that if something in our daily lives is nourishing us, it gives us energy, connection and contentment. And if it is not nourishing us, it leaves us cranky, drained and checked out.
When I was pregnant with my children I was very conscious of what I was eating, as whatever I ingested would enter into their growing brains and bodies as they waited within me, readying for their births. Now that they are in this realm, I sometimes am not so conscious of what I am feeding them in terms of daily nurturing. With small children, a habit can be acquired extremely quickly, as they cling to routine and sameness. Hence, my toddler now expects a cookie from the corner Italian deli every Tuesday after library storytime- all due to the fact I had to buy lunch there two weeks in a row and the deli man kindly offered him a cookie when he saw my son was impatient. And if he sees me on the computer, he expects to be able to watch a video.
These aren't big, terrible habits. But within them I see the seeds of habitual tendencies that can lead to closing up rather than opening. And I see as one of my main jobs as a mama to be the tender encouragement of opening to the world and other beings. So this week I am beginning to focus on what I can accept into our world that will assist us in this opening, and what I need to reject. What leaves us energized and what leaves us checked out? I made this list of things to accept and cultivate. I think it really helps to look at these kinds of lists as things that nourish us and help us in our sanity, rather than things we should be doing:
1) daily meditation and contemplation: for me with two under 2, this means having my toddler ring my meditation gong in the morning, doing a short morning chant and letting him and my infant play in my lap while I sit quietly for a few minutes. If they are not having it, then just the gong and the chant is enough.
2) keeping the radio, music and videos off until after naps in the afternoon, when we can use them for a transition time of about 30 minutes. This is a hard one for us, as my toddler is really habituated now to waking up and watching a video as I check my email. This means mama is no longer online until the children are asleep at night.
3) saving treats like cookies, cake etc. for special occasions or at the most once per week. This is also hard as I am a former professional baker and chocolatier. Which means I still bake, a lot. Ahem.
4) continuing to cultivate mindful speech around my children and with others. This also means speaking with gentleness. This too has been hard lately, as my toddler has been entering the defiant stage known as the terrible twos.
5) going to bed at a decent hour. This means mama as well. Being offline this week really helped me with that as my old tendency was to stay up to all hours surfing the net while my children dozed.
It is interesting to note the pull towards those habits which do not nourish, but keep us distracted and closed down. I have noticed it all week - the pull to the computer in the poisoned paint room! Look at what it took to keep me out - noxious fumes! What are your lists? What do you want to cultivate in your daily life with your children, and what to you want to reject? As with all things on the path, just remember to relax with it all, to be gentle with yourselves, and keep walking along.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Mind of No Complaint
Mindfulness of speech is a big practice once you have children. With our little ones looking to us as models of ways of being, what comes out of our mouths has an impact we can’t escape, as they will inevitably repeat back to us at some point or another what slips out. I have a terrible habit of cursing – I picked it up many years ago in an attempt to appear much tougher than I actually was as a punk rock teen. And my father cursed in front of us daily- so much for having a Professor of English as a language role model! I am reminded everyday how much I still use these curse words; as my level of exhaustion rises, my mindfulness over my tongue weakens, and a few choice words are sure to follow as I struggle to find my keys or drop a plate in the kitchen. My little ones are looking on, and as I notice them looking at me, and to me, I am instantly reminded of my speech and come back to my resolve to not curse either in front of them or anyone else.
On a more subtle level than curse words, I have begun working with the notion of “complaint” in my daily speech and thought. Speech after all begins in our thoughts, in the constant self-talk we engage in silently to ourselves. This self-talk plants the seeds of speech that will blossom out of our mouths the more we water them internally. Complaint is a form of speech, both internal and external, that truly pushes us towards aggression and away from compassion or joy. To voice dissatisfaction, to indulge in it in our self-talk and then share it with others, can truly distort our relationship to things as they are. Complaint is actively warring with what is. Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t see things as they are and then see possibilities for change that will benefit ourselves and others. That is much different from complaint. Where the former still includes acceptance and clear seeing, the latter is always about our own projection onto and discomfort with reality. It is about closing instead of opening. Opening to what is can lead to transforming things, whereas closing and complaining just shuts out all possibilities.
So, working with complaint for me has been very sparky and rich. It has meant noticing when I am engaging in complaining self-talk. It has meant also noticing when I am uncomfortable with reality and what is arising in it and reacting with a shove rather than an embrace of what is going on. This has led me to notice my tone of voice with my children. I am now aware that when I am uncomfortable with my children’s needs and their communication of their needs, I adopt a very exasperated, edgy tone of voice, even if my words are quite sweet! There are days when it seems my toddler and infant are playing an out of tune violin right in my ear, and every sound they communicate to me provokes a reaction of impatience. Again, my words sounds patient and loving, but my tone and my way of being are full of complaint. As though I am saying “stop bothering me!” “what do you need NOW?!” “Can’t you just play quietly for five minutes?” I have never actually voiced these things, but I am still communicating with a push away rather than a welcoming in. So, what to do with that?
Again, just noticing is the first powerful step in stopping the chain of karma. So I notice. I pause. I stop being so busy with what I think I must be doing, and instead try to open to my children. Sometimes I need to acknowledge to myself that yes, I am tired, and yes, these little ones are certainly needing a lot from me today. And I have made a vow to give to others, not just my own children. And really, nothing is happening. They aren’t trying to do anything to me, or to harm me. They simply need a drink, or a nursing, or a cuddle, or a changed diaper or help opening a box or the thousand other things that require a big person’s aid. It doesn’t have to be such a big deal. So, do I push them away with my complaint about what is, or do I open to them? The wonderful thing is that when I open, my discomfort invariably drops away. I find I am more resourceful at finding things that will help them. Everyone perks up and relaxes. We move forward. And my level of complaint and their level of need also tend to drop. This is what the mind of no complaint can begin to accomplish. What are ways you work with mindfulness of speech around your children?
On a more subtle level than curse words, I have begun working with the notion of “complaint” in my daily speech and thought. Speech after all begins in our thoughts, in the constant self-talk we engage in silently to ourselves. This self-talk plants the seeds of speech that will blossom out of our mouths the more we water them internally. Complaint is a form of speech, both internal and external, that truly pushes us towards aggression and away from compassion or joy. To voice dissatisfaction, to indulge in it in our self-talk and then share it with others, can truly distort our relationship to things as they are. Complaint is actively warring with what is. Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t see things as they are and then see possibilities for change that will benefit ourselves and others. That is much different from complaint. Where the former still includes acceptance and clear seeing, the latter is always about our own projection onto and discomfort with reality. It is about closing instead of opening. Opening to what is can lead to transforming things, whereas closing and complaining just shuts out all possibilities.
So, working with complaint for me has been very sparky and rich. It has meant noticing when I am engaging in complaining self-talk. It has meant also noticing when I am uncomfortable with reality and what is arising in it and reacting with a shove rather than an embrace of what is going on. This has led me to notice my tone of voice with my children. I am now aware that when I am uncomfortable with my children’s needs and their communication of their needs, I adopt a very exasperated, edgy tone of voice, even if my words are quite sweet! There are days when it seems my toddler and infant are playing an out of tune violin right in my ear, and every sound they communicate to me provokes a reaction of impatience. Again, my words sounds patient and loving, but my tone and my way of being are full of complaint. As though I am saying “stop bothering me!” “what do you need NOW?!” “Can’t you just play quietly for five minutes?” I have never actually voiced these things, but I am still communicating with a push away rather than a welcoming in. So, what to do with that?
Again, just noticing is the first powerful step in stopping the chain of karma. So I notice. I pause. I stop being so busy with what I think I must be doing, and instead try to open to my children. Sometimes I need to acknowledge to myself that yes, I am tired, and yes, these little ones are certainly needing a lot from me today. And I have made a vow to give to others, not just my own children. And really, nothing is happening. They aren’t trying to do anything to me, or to harm me. They simply need a drink, or a nursing, or a cuddle, or a changed diaper or help opening a box or the thousand other things that require a big person’s aid. It doesn’t have to be such a big deal. So, do I push them away with my complaint about what is, or do I open to them? The wonderful thing is that when I open, my discomfort invariably drops away. I find I am more resourceful at finding things that will help them. Everyone perks up and relaxes. We move forward. And my level of complaint and their level of need also tend to drop. This is what the mind of no complaint can begin to accomplish. What are ways you work with mindfulness of speech around your children?
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