Waking Up Together: a mindfulness blog

During one of the most violent periods of human history, an island of Peace appeared.  On Christmas Eve in 1914, German soldiers began to decorate their trenches with small candlelit Christmas trees and sing Christmas carols.  Drawn out by curiosity and perhaps a respite from the misery, British soldiers proceeded forth into No-Man’s-Land under the cover of darkness to explore the unexpected scene.  Once discovered by the Germans, rather than reverting to fear, a brief truce spontaneously emerged.  Over a few days, conversations arose, songs were sung, gifts exchanged and meals shared.  It was only after the generals caught wind of a break in hostility that these men were forced to once again bury their better natures.

This story, of peace and compassion arising amidst such pain and suffering, is a profound reminder of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching on human aggression and compassion, “When the seeds of happiness in you are watered, you will become happy. When the seed of anger in you is watered, you will become angry. The seeds that are watered frequently are those that will grow strong.”  If the soldiers whose sole purpose was to kill the hated other could open to their innate compassion - if ever so brief, how about us?  At a time in our country when we are so polarized along political and cultural divides, which seeds shall we water, today and tomorrow?

The Christmas Truce of 1914: the day the guns fell silent

Tags: compassion, peace, thich naht hanh

I took an extraordinary step the other day.  Actually, I took no steps, while texting.  And oh, what a relief it was.  To have my feet firmly planted in a safe spot and enjoy focusing on a single task.  As the attached link explains, multitasking is a myth.  Oh, how I wish it could be removed from job descriptions, “must be good at multitasking.”  We might as well add to a job description, “must be good at flapping arms and flying around the room.” 

We can only focus on one item (internal or external) at any given moment.  Multi-tasking is a misnomer.  What we actually do is rapidly shift our attention between different phenomena.  As described in the attached NPR story, this capacity to rapidly shift attention may have had an evolutionary advantage.  But our hunter-gatherer ancestors were not rapidly shifting between smartphone, email, television and TikTok (and pot boiling on the stove and someone yelling outside the door!).  Studies on attention and interruptions reveal we require from 7-25 minutes to return to the task.  Now, how much time are we saving, and how much more productive are we with multitasking?

Now, consider being able to focus on one task. Completely. Feel breath deepen, body relax and mind become laser-like focused upon one task.  Imagine this to be your standard operating procedure.

While we may desire this opportunity, we tend to be trapped in pseudo-multitasking mode.  Even if we want to slow down and really smell the roses, our minds continue to make To-Do lists or worry or plan or scan.  Mindfulness invites us to practice and reclaim our capacity to be fully present, fully focused, fully engaged, in this moment, in this one task.  Ahhh...

Think You're Multitasking? Think Again 

Tags: multi-tasking, stress

What is mind up to when we are not focused on the task at hand? Research suggests that we are highly prone to mind wandering. Given the long list of benefits from mindfulness, or being present, lack of focus or wandering must be an undesirable state we need to avoid. But like most things in life, the answer is far from black or white. A deeper dive into the research reveals the subtlety of this question.

Research by Matt Killingsworth reveals mind wandering is a common occurrence.  Up to 47% of the time, we are lost in thoughts rather than focused upon the task at hand. His research reveals this occurs whether we like the current activity or not. Even when we do not like the activity, mind wandering results in less happiness than being present with the unpleasant experience. Score one for “no!” to mind wandering.

Amisha Jha’s research reveals our mind wandering tends to be comprised of self-reflection and negative affect. In other words, we think about ourselves and get depressed! Again, mind wandering looks like something to avoid.

But what about times when we find ourselves slipping off into a creative wandering mode. Consider stories of artists, scientists and inventors who discovered the fruits of the their labor when they leave the studio, lab or workshop and allowed mind to go unleashed. Is this the same state studied by Killingsworth and Jha?

Going further back in the research we find the answer. Jerome Singer refers to different states of mind wandering. One form looks back into our past. This ruminative state is associated with negative thoughts and affect. More recent research also finds an increase in stress hormones with this looking backward.  When looking forward, we shift into a more creative mode of wandering.  Singer’s research also revealed both of these states can occur spontaneously or volitionally.  

But the nuances of wandering are more than just whether we look forward or backward.  Other wandering states can include a positive rewriting of past events similar to the process used in therapy (like CBT and narrative therapy) and unrealistic “what if-ing” as we drift off into the future.

A paper by Smallwood and Andrews-Hannah offers us an alternative view of mind wandering.  Depending upon the complexity of the task, the content of the wandering and the baseline wellbeing of the individual, mind wandering can either be beneficial or detrimental. So much for a simple black-and-white answer to our original question - now what?!

How might we limit the negative effects and harness the positive effects of mind wandering? We can draw upon mindfulness for some possibilities. First, by increasing our capacity to observe thoughts, we can catch and shift out of backward rumination or unrealistic forward conjecturing.  When we find ourselves in creative wandering, we can take note of the conditions that gave rise to this mode, both internally and externally, learning to nurture this imaginative state.  

Rather than being at odds, perhaps mindfulness and mind wandering can be partnered into new modes of mental wellbeing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3744871/

Tags: mind wandering

Pick up an object, such as a pen, coffee mug, or iPhone. Pull back your arm and prepare to throw - now stop! Before the object leaves your hand, can you predict where it will land? Thanks to good ol’ Mr. Newton (of apple fame), we can predict where the object will come to rest.

OK, how about a coin toss?  Surely a coin toss is too random to know the outcome. Again, thanks to the wonders of mathematics, once we know all the initial conditions before the toss, we can predict heads or tails (coin tossing machines can generate a predictable toss 100% of the time). 

OK, you say, maybe we can predict the outcome of some simple physical objects in motion, but surely my happiness is beyond prediction. Or is it?

In our life, we also experience causality (aka Karma).  Every action results in an outcome. My reaction to an event will lead to a particular outcome, resulting in another reaction and another outcome and the cycle continues.  Just as we can predict that releasing an object will result in it dropping to the floor, we are capable of recognizing that clenching our teeth all day results in a headache. Tracing the causality back further, we recognize that replaying an argument over and over again in our mind results in clenching our teeth. So perhaps we are capable of catching the causality that drives our suffering or happiness. 

The key to enacting this predictive capacity relies upon awareness. On auto-pilot, we miss the conditions and only recognize the negative outcome breaking through to awareness, making us feel as though we have little control of our current state. Mindfulness invites an expanded awareness, to catch the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) initial conditions that drive us to suffering or happiness. In noticing the tense jaw and the replay in my mind, I can shift my awareness from the thoughts to the experience of breathing, allowing the thoughts to rise and fade, rise and fade, rise and fade, and become nothing more than an event to be observed rather than reacted to. 

Within this field of expanded awareness dwells a choice. I can choose the old and familiar (such as jaw tensing) that drive the suffering. Or I can run the experiment, practice a new choice (shift focus to breathing), and see if happiness may be found in this moment, after all.

In other words, perhaps happiness is not some random or elusive event, but predictable!

A couple of fun vidoes about randomness and predictability:

http://www.realclearscience.com/video/2014/07/17/what_is_random.html

http://www.realclearscience.com/video/2014/07/17/what_is_not_random.html

Tags: happiness, suffering

Upon receiving a sensation (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and ideas) and weaving a narrative, we experience an emotion. Often, we are not even aware of this flow until we find ourselves in some unexpected mood.  And our typical reaction, as thinking beings, we ask, “Why?” Why am I feeling this way? Sometimes, the answer is apparent - something deemed either good or bad just happened and we immediately connect the dots. Wonderful! 

But what about the all too frequent occasions when the emotional math does not add up? How do we typically react? Do we double down on thinking our way out of this feeling, continuing to ask “Why?” When that still fails, we start to pave our path forward with shoulds: “I should be feeling…!”

In the end, we dig a deeper hole as we try to think the feeling.  If digging deeper fails to reveal the answer, perhaps a new approach is called for.  Instead of a problem to be solved, emotions are an energy to be experienced.

Mindfulness invites us to linger a little longer with unpleasant emotions. In doing so, we discover a powerful shift in our relationship with emotions. First, like all forms of energy, emotions are far from static. They are dynamic - constantly changing and ultimately, fading away in the moment. It is not the emotion that persist, but our retelling of the story that retrigger the transient flow of emotional energy. 

Secondly, we are bigger than the emotion. When we attempt to fight against the energy, the ensuing battle creates an overwhelming foe. But when we step back and hold the emotional energy within our field of awareness, we experience ourselves as not only as bigger than the emotion but far more capable to be in its presence. Emotions become not a foe to be feared, but another thread within the tapestry of our days, our lives. They add vibrance, color, and texture to our experience. When we shift from having to do something with them, to simply experiencing the unfolding flow, we discover how this energy is integral to our wholeness. We discover how emotions are another layer of our human experience. We discover how to embrace all emotions in the moment and how they enrich our lives.

Tags: emotions