Here’s another stillness method, this one from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. Simply sit and smile for a few minutes a day. That’s it. I tried it today, and want to report that it is a gem for building joy, as well as a great stillness exercise. Give it a try!
I examined my desire about wanting to get all of the wisdom of my books into me, without spending the time to read them. This idea didn’t inspire or excite me. In fact, it exhausted me. It was based on a (false) story that I don’t know enough, so I need to read more, train more, take more classes, etc. It feels good to scratch this one off my desire list.
Next, I explored my yearning to spend more time on artistic, creative endeavors. When I imagine sitting with a brush in my hand, totally absorbed in the colors of paint going onto paper, I feel excited, joyful, alive. I’m onto something with this one!
In fact, the more I imagine myself painting, with a brush full of vibrant, jewel-toned colors, the more certain I am that I want this in my life, and that it is going to happen for me. I’ll open to possibilities, messages, and straightforward as well as unusual methods of having more artistic expression into my life. This feels good, and I am smiling as I write this.
So give it a try. Sit (or walk) and smile for a while. Notice how the simple act of smiling makes you feel. Do you feel a shift inside? Now find something from your list of desires that makes you smile even more. What is it?
Some further thoughts about stillness, culled from my personal experience as a failed meditator:
You can put your attention on your breath, and notice how the breath comes in and out, without your doing anything. Just leave your attention on the breath, and without trying to change it, simply follow it in and out.
During a walking meditation, notice the people and objects you pass and give them simple names—dog, flower, bench, airplane, bus. Don’t go to descriptive names, like beautiful flower or stinky bus. Just simple one-word names. I suppose this would work if you were sitting, as well, and looking around your room.
Sometimes, I will repeat a line from a poem to myself over and over, my homegrown, English language version of a “mantra.” Here are couple of examples I use:
From Rumi: “When the ocean comes to you as a lover, marry it!” From the Tao te Ching: “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?” When I’m walking, I might repeat, “wait till the water is clear,” over and over. From Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”: “Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
Some days, I simply can’t do any of it, no matter what technique I use. I daydream, over and over. I bring myself back, only to daydream again, within nanoseconds. But I find that just the 15 minutes or so away from busyness, phones, emails, other people, is refreshing, even if I’m not achieving much in the way of “doing Nothing.”
On those days, I remind myself of a profound piece of advice given to me by a number of brilliant mentors—“I am willing to suck at this.” That’s how the light gets in.
What we’re doing in this week’s exploration, is getting in touch with our hearts, the physical seat of desire within us. Can you feel the feelings in your heart? When you long for something, when you yearn for it, don’t you feel it in your heart? And isn’t that where do you feel love—love for your partner, for your child, for a puppy? When you are deeply moved, isn’t the feeling most intensely in your heart?
Here’s a reminder to appreciate this wondrous place within us: Our hearts work tirelessly, without stopping for 70 or 80 or even 100 or more years, never taking a vacation. It beats about 100,000 times a day, 40 million times a year. It pumps 2 gallons of blood each minute, over 100 gallons per hour, through a network of veins and arteries that is about 60,000 miles in length, which is more than twice the circumference of the earth.
As for me, the clearest message from my heart today is to find new ways to help my clients with their stressful reactions to the current economic situation. That is the clearest message of desire and longing I’m having. Meanwhile, I’m going to appreciate this amazing place within me—it pumps my blood without rest, and sends me messages—messages that will be the key to my joy.
Today, I examined Monday’s list looking for general themes. After I saw this I began to feel excited. These are some things I want, although I don’t know in what form:
Travel
Independence
Warm water
Creativity
More time
Wisdom
Inner peace
Inspiring others to inner peace
Okay, I looked over yesterday’s list, and to be perfectly honest, I want a gorgeous red leather purse. It’s awesome, and I so rarely see things that I like this much, but is it going to add meaning to my life? It’s a purse, no more, no less, at least as I see it today. I’m going to put that desire on hold for now and look at the others.
My fascination with the current elections (and my desire to stop spending time reading about it) gets closer to real, honest, meaningful desire, felt in my heart. Taking a closer look, my interest is really a reflection of wanting a better world, of caring for the future, of concern for children, including my own. My desire is to stop reading and start doing.
Hmmm–is this what Martha Beck calls a “beauty-queen desire?” Something politically correct and safe? Interesting that this one caught my attention so quickly.
Well, I’ve always worked in a service-oriented capacity, and even as a lawyer I did a lot of work for causes I believed in, issues I thought would change the world for the better. But maybe that begs the question, because I also have a long history of repressing my heart’s desires. This idea of changing the world is something I’ll have to feel around inside to get at–where is that wanting and caring coming from? Is it my head, which surely wants me to be a “good” person, or my heart, which may simply yearn for a really cool red bag?
What do I want right now? What does my heart desire?
I want to take a trip to someplace exotic, all by myself. And to feel comfortable and enjoy myself, even though I am alone.
I want to do creative art projects, like watercolors and photography, regularly.
I want to read all of the fabulous books piled on the floor by my bed. Well, what I really want is all of the knowledge and inspiration in those books, instantly. Like wisdom in a pill.
I want to give up the time I spend reading the political news every day.
But not until after the elections.
I want to take a hot bath.
I want to create a brilliant, inspiring telecourse to address the fears people are feeling about the economy and money.
I want the amazing red leather purse I saw in a shop last week.
I want to remain calm and be a good role model when my daughter speaks with upset in her voice.
I want to find a hairstyle that always looks good without spending any time styling it.
I want to never eat past satiety again, no matter how delicious the food is.
I want to go to New York in November for my son’s birthday.
I want to swim in warm, crystal clear water and snorkel with tiny iridescent blue fish and eat fresh lobster from the sea.
I want life to feel easy all the time, like I’m floating on a bamboo raft down a stream in Jamaica, eating a ripe mango in the warm sun.
Can we catch the low spirits of those close to us the way we can catch chicken pox? The bad news: we definitely can. But do we have to? The good news is an emphatic “NO.” Truth seekers have abundant immunity from this common illness of spirit.
What am I feeling? A bit uneasy and upset.
What hurts? Agitation and vibration in my belly.
What is the painful story I am telling myself? Someone close to me is caught in a story and in pain, and much of it is dirty pain. He shouldn’t do this. He should realize the truth, and cheer up.
Can I be sure this painful story is true? Well, no.
Is my painful story working? No.
Can I think of another story that might work better? Yes. I am responsible for myself, my mood, and my actions. If I stay in my own business, I can be loving and compassionate and supportive, yet not get infected with his story and his mood. My advice for him really pertains to me: I should realize the truth, and cheer up.
When I was in the mountains weekend before last, my friend and I talked extensively about how to avoid picking up the negative energy of our loved ones. One of her mentors gave her this advice: realize that you are bigger than the other person’s emotion—so big that you can hold their emotion without it impacting you. It can simply pass through you.
So, try it–next time you think your mood is attached to someone else’s and spiraling downward, realize that you are so large that you can hold their feelings, without your own mood and joy becoming infected. That, and a large serving of truth will provide you with natural immunity.
What am I feeling? Excited, happy, with a tinge of dread.
What hurts? A heavy place on the left side of my heart.
What is the painful story I am telling myself? Don’t get too excited. Don’t count on it. Don’t believe it until you see it. People change their minds. This might not happen. Don’t get your hopes up.
Can I be sure this painful story is true? No. Quite the opposite. This painful story is completely unverifiable and speculative.
Is my painful story working? Nope. In fact, it is dampening my excitement and joy.
Can I think of another story that might work better? Yep. Something fantastic happened and I am going to enjoy it to the max. I am going to let myself get really excited and feel my happiness. It is safe to be happy.
Compassion: I understand these thoughts are trying to protect me from disappointment, trying to keep me safer. So I’m going to understand, with tenderness and compassion, that they are the thoughts of little girl disappointment, trying to protect me now, and inadvertently creating unnecessary joy-robbing disappointment when everything is going wonderfully well.
Some of the comments earlier this week reminded me of a time when my fear seemed both relentless and no longer tolerable. One night, on Byron Katie’s website, the line, “Who would you be without your story?” leapt of the screen and smacked me right between the eyes. On the spot, I registered for her nine-day school, even though I knew virtually nothing about it.
The school began one week later, which was fortunate, because if I’d had longer to think about it, I wouldn’t have gone. All that week, that question haunted me. Who would you be without your story? “Nothing,” the voice inside answered. Who would I be without my story? “Nothing,” was the only answer that came, over and over. I’ll be nothing.
There would be no me left–just a boring, plain vanilla, hollow shell of a person. With nothing to say. No desire, no opinion, no humor. No fun. Uninteresting. Empty. Lifeless. Nothing.
I told this to a friend and fellow coach a few weeks ago. Peals of laughter erupted from her. “Yeah, boring!’ she howled, “you are really plain vanilla and boring.”
But at the time, I could not separate myself from my stressful thoughts. Without them, there was nothing left.
Sometimes, the idea of living joyfully, content and fully alive, may be scarier than staying where we are, because we fear the loss of something essential to our identity. And that’s just another part of our story. Another thought, another untruth.
As we separate from our stressful stories, we become our own observers. As Eckhart Tolle reminds us, “The only way you can gradually go beyond the conditioned thought process is to simply be there as the witness.”
This week, can you separate a little more, and begin to witness yourself in the process of having your stressful thought?
This must be what ADD is like. I jumped from thought to thought, started something, skipped to something else, mindlessly peered into the fridge, wandered over to the washer to begin some laundry, started working again, only to stop everything to check email, hoping I could avoid the whole to-do list and have something new to turn my attention to.
Clearly, it was time to do nothing and have a daily meeting with truth.
1. What am I feeling? Racing inside, racing attention, thoughts skipping like a stone across the surface of a lake.
2. What hurts? Nothing, really. It’s paperwork and phone call day.
3. What is the painful story I’m telling myself? Oh, that. Well, I have too much to do. I can’t possibly do it all today, or even in a lifetime.
4. Is this painful story true? Well….no.
5. Is my painful story working? Actually, it’s preventing me from getting anything done. I was so distracted this morning that I programmed the number for Quest Diagnostics (the medical lab) into my phone, rather than Quest, the phone company, as I hurriedly thought I would call them while I was out walking, instead of doing nothing.
6. Can I think of a story that might work better? Yep. I am so lucky to do work I love with people I love. I have a lot of fantastic ideas, and it is amazing that I want to do them all at once. And, I’ll just do one thing at a time, and do it well, because that works a lot better for me. And what doesn’t get done can wait. I’ll just jot down my ideas on a list and look at them later. And I’m so happy I could do 15 minutes of nothing in the middle of a day chock full of stuff, because it slowed me down enough to be able to see what was happening, and what wasn’t happening.
Ahhh, may you be well, may you be safe, may you be free from suffering, you sweet little place inside me that generates thoughts so quickly that the rest of me can’t keep up.
Here’s another stillness method, this one from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. Simply sit and smile for a few minutes a day. That’s it. I tried it today, and want to report that it is a gem for building joy, as well as a great stillness exercise. Give it a try!
