Entries from August 2007 ↓

You only live once. And sometimes not even then.
– P. J. O’Rourke.

There’s a story about a monk meditating every day in the village square. A businessman would hurry by, going about his business and sometimes frowning and shaking his head. Finally one day he could stand it no longer. He asked the monk, “How can you waste your life just sitting there in a trance?” The monk replied, “But my son, it is you who is in the trance.”

My last post, A Habit Is Just a Habit, talked about how much of our behavior is automatic. We’re complicated creatures and couldn’t function if we had to do everything consciously. But if we never learned to step back and re-evaluate our habits, it would be like living in a trance…we would be acting like sophisticated robots, mere victims of our programming.

Adam Kayce suggests we set up an automatic system to remind us to take awareness breaks. We can set an alarm or use cues in our environment to mentally step back and check our emotional and physical states. If we’re worried and tense, say, we can briefly take corrective measures. As Adam points out, a small investment in time can do wonders for our productivity.

Of course, the monk in the story would say there’s more to life than just goal-achievement. If we’re changing our automatic reactions just for the sake of efficiency, then we’re simply acting as self-programming robots. We’re still not fully alive in the present.

The good news is we don’t have to sit and meditate all day to put that extra dimension of spirituality and joy into our lives. Some periods of meditation or reflection often helps, but those simple awareness breaks Adam suggests can do wonders. Only instead of taking them just for the sake of getting things done, why not use them to tune into your surroundings, your body and the life force within you and be grateful that you’re alive? People who have survived cancer or other life-threatening experiences will be the first to tell you…life, the present moment, isn’t something to be taken for granted.

As an ancient Sanskrit poem puts it:

Look to this day, for it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the realities and truths of existence,
The joy of growth, the splendor of action, the glory of power.
For yesterday is but a memory
And tomorrow is only a vision
But today well lived makes every yesterday a memory of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!

Picture by tiseb at Flickr. Creative Commons license.

Other relevant posts: Happiness, The Purpose of Life? and Linda Salazar’s Falling Awake.

Self-massage is an easy way to tune into your body.

For short meditation breaks, Tammy Lenski recommends The Meditation Room.

There’s a famous picture of Sigmund Freud holding a cigar, illustrating his love of smoking. When asked about the psychological significance of his attachment to cigars, he answered, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

I thought of that quote when I read Robert Hruzek’s recent post, Comfort Zones, and Other Impediments. It’s a fun piece… Robert asks us to close our eyes and fold our hands together, with our fingers interlaced as in the picture on the left. Then open your eyes and see which thumb is on top, the right or the left. The next step is to interlace them the other way. If your right thumb was originally on top, this time make it your left thumb. Notice how strange that feels. Robert points out that strange feeling is a simple example of getting out of our comfort zone. It’s a natural reaction to changing a habit.

Habits are powerful tools, and we couldn’t function without them. We would be worse than a centipede trying to walk by consciously moving each of its legs. And if we want to be effective in life, we need to keep upgrading our tools.

The ability to change our habits is one of the most powerful life skills we can develop. I learned that when I was 16 years old and cured myself of a dental phobia. It was one of the most empowering experiences of my life, and since that time I’ve never felt stuck, never felt I was a helpless victim. It might take me a while to figure out what to do, but I had the tools to do it.

There’s a wealth of information available to us now on the subject of habit modification. Just today I came across Three Steps to Changing a Habit at FallingAwake.com, Leo Babauta’s method at LifeClever.com and Gretchen Rubin’s method at The Happiness Project. And there are plenty more ideas out there. Pick a method that works for you and try it. The method isn’t as important as deciding you really want to take charge of your life. And that step is a lot easier if you don’t take habits too seriously. They’re not a moral matter. Don’t waste emotional energy on judging them. Just get curious and see how they work. Don’t be afraid to start small, to develop your skills on habits that are easy to change. Have fun with the process… you’ll learn faster that way. Again, don’t make a big deal of it. After all, a habit is just a habit.

Picture by girlonthewire at Flickr. Creative Commons license.

One of the main reasons I teach stress management is it forces me to practice what I preach. And what I’ve been practicing the past couple of weeks is Item #10 of the traits of stress-hardy people:
“They know how to mourn the inevitable losses in life. They know how to let go of things they have no control over.”

So, letting go…. That doesn’t mean trying to push feelings away. If I’ve learned anything in this world, it’s that if I just hang in there through difficult times and stay open to life… including the dark feelings …there is joy at the end of the tunnel. That doesn’t mean wallowing in those feelings, rehearsing the stories that feed them, getting caught in a downward spiral. It means quietly being with them, seeing what’s behind them, and being gentle and compassionate.

Does that mean being a passive victim? No, not at all. It just means being gentle and patient. It means having faith in the process. It means not fighting reality. Losses do occur. They do hurt…they hurt a lot. But that’s not the whole story.

As Richard Bach puts it, “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.”

Or, in the words of Carl Jung, “The greatest problems in life are fundamentally insoluble…. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” By outgrown he meant the person’s perspective changes. “Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient’s horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It …faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge.”

And that’s the main thing, don’t try to rush the process, but keep in mind that if you stay open to life…if you nourish yourself with music, inspirational quotes or literature, or whatever connects you to your deepest values…you will find you have gained more than you have lost in the trip through the tunnel. Have faith you will experience the joy at the end.

Flickr photo by oneras. Creative Commons license.

And did you find what you wanted in this life even so?

The Dalai Lama once told a group of professors at Columbia University that the greatest teachers in the world aren’t the lamas or professors or gurus. The greatest teachers are the mothers, for they’re the ones who give children their first experience of being loved and valued as human beings.

I would expand that view of teacher to fathers, grandparents and any other person who has a compassionate and loving relationship with a child.

And this teaching isn’t just for children. It is for ourselves and everyone we come in contact with. When we practice love and compassion we bring more peace and happiness into the world. As the Dalai Lama says, “The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. This helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the ultimate source of success in life.” It is our human nature to want love and connection with others.

One of the greatest sources of stress and depression in modern life is the over-emphasis on material things and not enough on the deep need for affection and connection with our fellow human beings.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “We must be the change we want in the world.” Every day we have opportunities to put more love and compassion into the world. Becoming a “great teacher” by taking advantage of those opportunities is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves and for everyone else.

For more on the Dalai Lama’s views, click here.

And to explore another view of the search for purpose, see Adam Kayce’s post