Inner180

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.

The internet is everywhere, including the main office at this lovely off the grid hot springs I’m visiting this weekend. Somewhere in the San Luis Valley in south central Colorado, I walked on a mountain trail late last night.  As I practiced letting go of thought, I realized that I was perhaps too far from the small enclave of tents and cabins to be heard if a bear or a mountain lion wanted a midnight snack. Already challenged from the altitude and the steep walk, my heart thundered with colorful visions of my dramatic demise.

I remembered Byron Katie’s words when she talked about being robbed at gunpoint.  Are you going to live your last few moments on earth in fear, or are you going to enjoy them?  Exhilarated, I decided that, since I so rarely have the opportunity to be in such darkness, such quiet, such isolation, that I would not spend this time afraid.  If I am going to be eaten tonight, I’ll enjoy every step until then.

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.

I began my fifteen minutes of Nothing today by walking.  I walked on a wide dirt trail near my house.  I trained my eyes downward, let go of thought, and heard the swish of my jacket sleeves as they rubbed against my sides.  I had never heard this sound before, despite many walks here wearing this same jacket.

I got excited.  “I can write about this swishing sound,”  I thought.  “Cool!  I can write about something so obvious that I never noticed before.   This noise is really loud.  Wow!  With all the thoughts I usually have, I never noticed it.  I can’t believe I never heard it before.  Hey! The swishing sound has a rhythm.  It’s not even.  One side of me swings differently than the other.  How could that happen?  Maybe my body is twisted.  Maybe I should try to walk straighter.”

I realized that I was thinking.  “Cheating!” came the next thought, “you’re thinking.”  Then, “telling yourself that you are cheating is not exactly compassionate.  Just let go of the thought.  Write about it later.”

And this is how it went on day one of my Joy Diet.  Thinking, then realizing I was thinking, sometimes  judging, then letting it all go.  Over and over.