Inner180

Today the waterfall technique soothed me.  My thoughts about my son’s traffic ticket are challenging my peace.  I walked today, using the waterfall,  and the rhythm of my steps reminded me of how, as a teenager, I loved to use my sewing machine.  Something about the soft, rhythmical clacking was soothing in those tumultuous times.

I am off for a last minute weekend with a friend, at a rustic hot springs deep in the Colorado Mountains.  I have no idea if the internet exists there.  I will post if I can, otherwise, you’ll get three posts on Monday.

My thoughts were easily released today with the ticker tape, and I wasn’t as absorbed in creative naming.  Afterward, I turned on my electronic appointment calendar and discovered that I had accidentally wiped out all of my future appointments while trying to back it up last night.

My stomach began to burn.  At some point I emailed my clients, asking for help.  My teaching schedule and my airline ticket could be retrieved from saved emails.  Everything else must not be too important.

The crisis was over, but my stomach still ached. I observed myself looking for someone else to blame. (The tech support people at the Apple Store?)  Then, I remembered the guiding principle of my childhood: “I cannot make a mistake.”  Still around.

It took about 30 minutes today to recover. I was able to observe myself in the process of thinking of who I could blame.  About six months ago, I was mostly unconscious of this process within me.  Here’s how it went last spring:

When a colleague asked a question about something I’d done on a group coaching call,  it felt like criticism.  The question, or at least what I made of it in my mind, pushed a big, hot button in me.  I paced in little circles, muttering “I can’t believe her nerve.”

I couldn’t forget about it.  Psychologists call this attentional hijacking, and my attention for anything else was nowhere to be found.

Donning my imaginary power suit and stilettos, I called forth my inner trial lawyer.  I gathered supporting evidence, consulted potential allies, and crafted my arguments. In the process, my judgments about my colleague got very creative, for example: “I bet she was intentionally trying to make me look bad.”

At some point, I came to my senses enough to call a coaching buddy for a session. I began to understand that my old childhood belief, “I cannot ever make a mistake,” was alive and well. I began to breathe more easily, and my attention returned.

And guess what?  No less than an hour after the storm was over, someone else questioned something I said.  I’d love to report that this time, I saw through myself.  Nope, out came the power suit and stilettos.  It felt just as overwhelming as the first round had.  I defended myself with a swift montage of thoughts: “She didn’t understand.  She wasn’t listening,  She set me up for that.”

I called my coaching buddy again.  I wrote in my journal.  Soon, my internal gyroscope righted me, and my attention came back.

And guess what?  The next day, I posted a short note on a coaching forum. I thought it was particularly insightful and eagerly awaited the opinions of the other coaches.  The first comment that was posted noted that I used a comma where I should have used a semi-colon, and quoted the rule of semi-colon usage for my convenience.

And guess what?  Yep.  Again, I rushed to my defense, and compiled a short, funny, but firm response, explaining that as  journalism major, and a former lawyer who made a living for years through writing, ha ha, I certainly knew the rules of semi-colon usage, and ….

It clobbered me over the head, and I began laughing and crying at once. Old images swirled up–missing a question on a second-grade reading test, forgetting to return a library book, being scolded for talking in class. My childhood strategy–performance beyond criticism, straight A’s in every aspect of life–was looking pretty silly.  My biggest, most heartless critic was an eight-year-old-me.  I saw how messily human I am, and how that’s both hilarious and profound.

So maybe next time, I’ll smile wisely.  If not, if I reach for my legal pad and stilettos, compiling my defense of blame and evasion, and the process can unfold again.  Again and again until I get it.

Yesterday, I chose The Ticker Tape method of Doing Nothing.  As my thoughts arose I visualized them moving across a mental screen, and named them.

Since they were tame, I nick-named them instead of naming the emotion.  I had the I’m-hungry thought, some to-do-tomorrow thoughts, the I-want-chocolate-instead-of-dinner thought, the whoops-I’m-in-someone-else’s-business thought, and the whoops-I’m-thinking-again-thought.

Then, I had the my-son-didn’t-call-me-like-he-was-supposed-to-so-I-could-fax-him-the-information-to-pay-his-traffic-ticket-and-I-forgot-about-it-until-now thought.  I laughed as I named it the I-forgot-to-worry-about-this-until-now thought.  And was hilarious to realize how worrying is so optional.

By bestowing each thought cluster with a name, I easily wiggled free from them, especially from the one about my son not calling, which had the potential to get me going.  But by naming it, it floated by, just another thought in a marching thought parade.

When my 15 minutes of doing nothing was up, I chose not to react to my son’s inaction. His ticket.  His business. The best way to handle it, of course.

The name-that-thought process was fun, like a game.  As I said in class, creativity is one of my signature strengths on the Values in Action Inventory, and here I had an opportunity to be creative, right in the middle of doing nothing.  How cool is that!

So what do you think?  Is it okay to be creative and have fun as we are on our way?

How do we stay in a place of joy when it seems as if circumstances or people around us are falling apart?

Pam Slim, master coach and blogger extraordinaire, has posted a beautiful quote about staying in our center, in our place of joy and calm, when the people or the circumstances around us are in turmoil. It’s from The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell, the brilliant and gentle scholar of mythology and religion who wrote so movingly about the archetypal stories that connect us throughout cultures, nations, time, religions, indeed all of humanity.  You can read it here.

Campbell said famously, “Follow your bliss.”  To learn more about him, click here or here.

The Joy Diet class for Martha Beck is starting Tuesday, and I’m thinking a lot about the joy practices we’ll explore.  Truthfully, what I’m thinking most about is the stillness practice we’ll do.  Lots of us are challenged by the notion of doing nothing.  I’ve never quite gotten the hang of it.  Or, the why bother of it.

Last night, after watching the presidential debates, I caught an ad for Microsoft Windows.  The ad, a flashing series of testimonials by celebs and ordinary mortals, glamorizes Microsoft as modern and hip, like iPhones and Macs.  You can see it here.

The superstar of the commercial is Deepak Chopra, who sits in a handsome office lined with rich woods, books, objets d’art, and of course, his PC.   In a seriously sly voice, he deliciously intones, “I am a PC and I am a human being. Not a human doing. Not a human thinking. A human being.”

With that, I think I began to get it.  Right there, in the most ludicrously unlikely place, a silly, flashy TV commercial, I began to understand stillness.

I am not a human thinking.  Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle have taught me that I am not my thoughts.  I’m most certainly not those funny and frequently pesky things.  I’m way more than my thoughts.

I’m not a human doing, either.  I am not my roles or my activities—coach, mother, writer, yoga class attendee, former lawyer, procrastinator. I’m way more than those things too.

A human “BEing.”  Is that what the mystery of stillness is all about?  The me apart from my thinking or doing?  Not a human thinking, feeling, doing, buying, eating, suffering, talking on the phone, or playing sudoko.  I am a human being, a wondrous be-ing, who has that simple truth to come back to, over and over, especially when the going gets tough.

Thanks, Deepak. I’m getting it.  But I’m still sticking with my Mac.