Last night I watched the documentary "Happy." It was a marvelous weaving of topics from my Psychology of Happiness certification program and Eric Weiner's book The Geography of Bliss. The movie left me feeling warm inside.
In the day since I watched it there was one part that touched me deeply enough that they have colored my day today. I'd like to share it. Featured in the film was a professor, who has done brain scans on meditators--master, such as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and relative newbies--to see what impact their practice has on their brains.
His research has determined that in as little as two weeks of doing a mindfulness meditation that focuses on love or compassion, newcomers to meditation can reprogram their brains to similar levels as the monk.
For years I did something similar. Back in the late mid-90s, I had a transformational experience. It felt like my body dematerialized into love. To this day, I can close my eyes and breathe in what that experience was like and feel my whole body tingle with the love that connects all of us, as it did in the transcendent experience. I used my memory of that experience as the focus of my mindfulness meditation for years, just breathing the memory in and then breathing it out again.
In no small part due to those meditations, I was totally calm in those years. Nothing ruffled my feathers. Nothing. At that time, I had a dance partner who was a very good dancer and fun to dance with. (Those two things don't always go together.) He had a horrible temper though, and the least little thing would set him into a rage. I never really knew what that anger was about, but I was sure it had nothing to do with the dance.
One time our dance teacher, who had witnessed several of these explosions followed by my compassionate responses, said to me, "How to you do it?" All that would come to me was that these meditations had built such a reservoir of love in me that the anger just floated by.
Then, insisting that no one can learn on their own, someone tried to teach me how to meditate, focusing me on the breathing and a mantra in one case. Another talked through the meditation. I am not sure exactly when I stopped my love-focused mindfulness meditation, but I am certain that I have not achieved anything close to that level of peace since. And, I have also not consciously recalled that experience of being love very often since then either.
In recent years the technology of brain-scanning and the exploding field of neuroscience has demonstrated just how "plastic"--neuroscience-speak for we can change fairly quickly--our brains actually are. While watching this documentary, and listening to the scientist describe the impact of mindfulness meditation focusing on love and compassion, the memory of my old style of meditation before I knew how "to do it right" triggered.
I wonder, I thought, after all these years, could I call that back? Well, my beautifully plastic brain confirmed that I could. I did my old-style-before-someone-taught-me-to-do-it-right meditation last night, this morning, and again this evening. I can already tell a profound impact. I've been totally at ease today, ticking off things on my list that normally might have been agitating. I was just calm. I have had the sense that I have been smiling all day.
"Happy" describes a psychological phenomenon called "hedonic adaptation." As we pursue, and then get, more material satisfaction, recognition, or whatever flips our personal switches, initially we are happier, but quickly we adjust to that level of gratification. To be happy again, we need to notch it up a level: we continue adapting and needing more and more gratification to produce shorter and shorter periods of happiness.
With today's little experiment, I've been able to be happy all day, even during a rather contentious business meeting, with no external gratification. I came home and cleaned my house--not my favorite thing to do--and I was consciously aware that I was relaxed and happy while I was doing it. I expect that the many years that I did this kind of meditation made it quicker for me to plug into the part of my brain that still remembers it, but the research would indicate that anyone could do it in two weeks. We don't need the hedonic pleasures. Happiness lies within us. It is there for the cost of just loving.
Showing posts with label mindfulness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mindfulness. Show all posts
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Zen and the Art of Massaging Kale
"Zen and...." whatever you fill in the blank in has become an expression of the practice of mindfulness through that given activity. Mindfulness is the practice which has grown out of Buddhism of really being totally present to any activity. The expression "Zen and..." evolved from the popular Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the 1974 book by Robert Pirsig which has been called one of the most important books in the last half century.
This afternoon I practiced Zen and the Art of Massaging Kale. About two years ago I discovered a delicious and ultra-nutritious salad--Winter Kale Slaw*--in the pages of O Magazine. Preparation is quite time-consuming but has big pay-off from the wonderful flavors and nutritional value. The foundation of the salad, as you might guess from the name is kale, that hard, coarse, bluish leafy vegetable which is professed to have countless health benefits. I'd never been a fan of kale before discovering the recipe, but my commitment to healthy eating enticed me to try the recipe.
The recipe starts by asking the preparer to massage the kale with lemon juice and olive oil for five minutes. Five minutes! Really?! In the beginning I would watch the clock through every painfully slow second. It seemed interminable. Most of those early times, somewhere around two minutes, I would decide that was enough. What more could be accomplished in the last three minutes that hadn't in the first two.
The answer: a lot. But, it didn't have much to do with the kale. I really can hardly tell the difference to the kale between the two-minute massage and the five-minute massage, but similar to my bodywork earlier this week, I can really tell the difference inside me between my 60-minute massage and a 90-minute one. That extra time is internally transformative.
As preparing the salad became a weekly ritual, I got into the kale massage more and more. I stopped watching the clock so much. At some point I stopped watching the clock at all and started to just enjoy it until a timer that I had set signalled that my five minutes had passed. Now I just enjoy it. No timer. Just allowing my fingers massaging the kale.
A remarkable thing has occurred. When I stopped watching the clock and was just present to my activity, time fell away. I began to feel the leaves transform in my fingertips, the unyielding leaves softening in my hands. Then, I could notice the kale started to massage me--really giving back to me, especially two knuckles that have a little arthritis in them. Somewhere between the beginning and five minutes, my shoulders soften and drop. Rather than attacking the kale, the exercise has truly become a mutual massage.
Last summer when I was taking the Psychology of Happiness class, I wrote a number of times about the importance of mindfulness to our happiness. What better experience than that my vegetables had started giving me a massage. I'd been in bed sick since about 9 last evening when I retired early. The Art of Massaging Kale erased the discomfort from my experience and filled my mind instead with a desire to write.
Spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss has said that our most important spiritual work is learning to be present. As long-time readers will acknowledge, being present has been a major lesson for me to learn, and what a gift this afternoon to learn that being present to my kale could have such a wonder impact on me. Thankfully, I may never approach making the salad in the same way ever again.
*http://www.oprah.com/food/Winter-Kale-Slaw-Recipe
This afternoon I practiced Zen and the Art of Massaging Kale. About two years ago I discovered a delicious and ultra-nutritious salad--Winter Kale Slaw*--in the pages of O Magazine. Preparation is quite time-consuming but has big pay-off from the wonderful flavors and nutritional value. The foundation of the salad, as you might guess from the name is kale, that hard, coarse, bluish leafy vegetable which is professed to have countless health benefits. I'd never been a fan of kale before discovering the recipe, but my commitment to healthy eating enticed me to try the recipe.
The recipe starts by asking the preparer to massage the kale with lemon juice and olive oil for five minutes. Five minutes! Really?! In the beginning I would watch the clock through every painfully slow second. It seemed interminable. Most of those early times, somewhere around two minutes, I would decide that was enough. What more could be accomplished in the last three minutes that hadn't in the first two.
The answer: a lot. But, it didn't have much to do with the kale. I really can hardly tell the difference to the kale between the two-minute massage and the five-minute massage, but similar to my bodywork earlier this week, I can really tell the difference inside me between my 60-minute massage and a 90-minute one. That extra time is internally transformative.
As preparing the salad became a weekly ritual, I got into the kale massage more and more. I stopped watching the clock so much. At some point I stopped watching the clock at all and started to just enjoy it until a timer that I had set signalled that my five minutes had passed. Now I just enjoy it. No timer. Just allowing my fingers massaging the kale.
A remarkable thing has occurred. When I stopped watching the clock and was just present to my activity, time fell away. I began to feel the leaves transform in my fingertips, the unyielding leaves softening in my hands. Then, I could notice the kale started to massage me--really giving back to me, especially two knuckles that have a little arthritis in them. Somewhere between the beginning and five minutes, my shoulders soften and drop. Rather than attacking the kale, the exercise has truly become a mutual massage.
Last summer when I was taking the Psychology of Happiness class, I wrote a number of times about the importance of mindfulness to our happiness. What better experience than that my vegetables had started giving me a massage. I'd been in bed sick since about 9 last evening when I retired early. The Art of Massaging Kale erased the discomfort from my experience and filled my mind instead with a desire to write.
Spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss has said that our most important spiritual work is learning to be present. As long-time readers will acknowledge, being present has been a major lesson for me to learn, and what a gift this afternoon to learn that being present to my kale could have such a wonder impact on me. Thankfully, I may never approach making the salad in the same way ever again.
*http://www.oprah.com/food/Winter-Kale-Slaw-Recipe
Monday, June 8, 2015
Choosing our Diseases
Yesterday I wrote about mindfulness with an emphasis on mindfulness and eating. Last evening during the local PBS fundraiser, I watched "Protect Your Memory" with Dr. Neal Barnard. Dr. Barnard inherited the gene that predisposes him to Alzheimer's disease, so his interest in researching what people can do to avoid or at least delay memory loss is a personal one. He described a few simple steps to eating, exercise, sleep, and other means to delay this horrible disease.
My own family medical history predisposes me to coronary-artery disease and diabetes. A recent public service advertisement campaign has made me aware the women are more likely to have heart attacks, increasing the attention I should give to the coronary-artery disease. It works out that many of the things that one does to avoid Alzheimer's are the same as those to prevent my genetic challenges.
Many years ago, I attended a "Mind-Body Medicine" conference at Duke University Medical School, one of two or three pioneering research universities to explore out ability to control our physical fates. It has been way too long for me to remember who the speaker was, but I distinctly recall a description of the impact our DNA has on our long-term health. "Think about DNA," he said, "as providing us a door to a disease. Our lifestyle choices determine whether we open the door."
The decision, made by my parents when I was 10 and my brother was 7 to shift us to a low-fat diet to reduce our likelihood of opening the door to coronary-artery disease, was a fortunate one. My decision as an adult to continue to reduce my intake of "bad fats" while increasing consumption of "good fats" has continued to help me avoid opening that door. My decision in my early 30s to begin running daily and to continue exercising regularly continues to support that decision. Those two decisions have combined to keep my weight in the healthy range, which reduces the likelihood that I will get diabetes. According to Dr. Barnard, those decisions have had the additional benefit of protecting my memory.
By contrast, the treadmill of working long hours in recent years which seems always to race faster has often precluded my daily exercise, With that said, even in bad weeks, I usually get my heart rate up for at least 30 minutes two or three times a week. It ends up that my decision to get rid of my car in 2010 and depend on my feet, a decision originally made to protect the environment, has been a good one for these various health challenges as well.
Most often, when I've rounded the corner on exercise, it has been because I want to make sure my customers are well served. However, I am realizing that perhaps I've been making a false choice about exercising. I've framed the decision as "Do I serve my customers well?" or "Do I not serve my customers well?" With my increased mindfulness, I now see that the real choice is "Do I go beyond reason on customer service?" or "Do I choose to keep the doors to my DNA closed so I may enjoy long-term health?" Although I tend not to be motivated much by money, there may have been days when I made the decision between "Do I skip exercise to put in the 10th or 12th hour of the day to get a miniscule bonus at the end of the year?" or "Do I skip the bonus and choose health?" Those are very different choices.
At a regular meeting of people interested in mind-body medicine at Duke in the late 1990s, one of the Kaisers of Kaiser Family Foundation spoke about the next 20-25 years in medicine. What he predicted then has now significantly come to pass in the 15 years since he spoke. He said that by 2020-2025 we would understand the causes of most debilitating health challenges, and we would hold the ability to determine our health in our own hands.
As I've just discussed, we now know how to prevent or delay coronary-artery disease, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. In the years since, we've learned to avoid if not prevent certain kinds of cancers. I don't think we've got to the point the speaker described when we can avoid diseases altogether, but then again, it isn't yet 2020-2025. I would add to his comments that we not only hold or will soon hold the ability to determine our health in our hands, but we also hold that fate in our consciousness.
Which brings us back to intention and mindfulness. Will we bring the intention to have health to life by being mindful about the choices that we make moment by moment? I would like to think that I could and would. I know I have the intention. Yet intention without the mindfulness to choose in each moment to support that intention is empty. I certainly have discovered that my willingness to be honest with myself about the choices I am actually making to close the door on disease and to open the door to a long and healthy life with support my intention.
My own family medical history predisposes me to coronary-artery disease and diabetes. A recent public service advertisement campaign has made me aware the women are more likely to have heart attacks, increasing the attention I should give to the coronary-artery disease. It works out that many of the things that one does to avoid Alzheimer's are the same as those to prevent my genetic challenges.
Many years ago, I attended a "Mind-Body Medicine" conference at Duke University Medical School, one of two or three pioneering research universities to explore out ability to control our physical fates. It has been way too long for me to remember who the speaker was, but I distinctly recall a description of the impact our DNA has on our long-term health. "Think about DNA," he said, "as providing us a door to a disease. Our lifestyle choices determine whether we open the door."
The decision, made by my parents when I was 10 and my brother was 7 to shift us to a low-fat diet to reduce our likelihood of opening the door to coronary-artery disease, was a fortunate one. My decision as an adult to continue to reduce my intake of "bad fats" while increasing consumption of "good fats" has continued to help me avoid opening that door. My decision in my early 30s to begin running daily and to continue exercising regularly continues to support that decision. Those two decisions have combined to keep my weight in the healthy range, which reduces the likelihood that I will get diabetes. According to Dr. Barnard, those decisions have had the additional benefit of protecting my memory.
By contrast, the treadmill of working long hours in recent years which seems always to race faster has often precluded my daily exercise, With that said, even in bad weeks, I usually get my heart rate up for at least 30 minutes two or three times a week. It ends up that my decision to get rid of my car in 2010 and depend on my feet, a decision originally made to protect the environment, has been a good one for these various health challenges as well.
Most often, when I've rounded the corner on exercise, it has been because I want to make sure my customers are well served. However, I am realizing that perhaps I've been making a false choice about exercising. I've framed the decision as "Do I serve my customers well?" or "Do I not serve my customers well?" With my increased mindfulness, I now see that the real choice is "Do I go beyond reason on customer service?" or "Do I choose to keep the doors to my DNA closed so I may enjoy long-term health?" Although I tend not to be motivated much by money, there may have been days when I made the decision between "Do I skip exercise to put in the 10th or 12th hour of the day to get a miniscule bonus at the end of the year?" or "Do I skip the bonus and choose health?" Those are very different choices.
At a regular meeting of people interested in mind-body medicine at Duke in the late 1990s, one of the Kaisers of Kaiser Family Foundation spoke about the next 20-25 years in medicine. What he predicted then has now significantly come to pass in the 15 years since he spoke. He said that by 2020-2025 we would understand the causes of most debilitating health challenges, and we would hold the ability to determine our health in our own hands.
As I've just discussed, we now know how to prevent or delay coronary-artery disease, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. In the years since, we've learned to avoid if not prevent certain kinds of cancers. I don't think we've got to the point the speaker described when we can avoid diseases altogether, but then again, it isn't yet 2020-2025. I would add to his comments that we not only hold or will soon hold the ability to determine our health in our hands, but we also hold that fate in our consciousness.
Which brings us back to intention and mindfulness. Will we bring the intention to have health to life by being mindful about the choices that we make moment by moment? I would like to think that I could and would. I know I have the intention. Yet intention without the mindfulness to choose in each moment to support that intention is empty. I certainly have discovered that my willingness to be honest with myself about the choices I am actually making to close the door on disease and to open the door to a long and healthy life with support my intention.
Sunday, June 7, 2015
The What and How of Mindfulness
Last week I coached and co-facilitated an agency-wide leadership program that I had helped design 15 months ago. I shouldn't be surprised then at the content, but to a certain extent I was. Major themes of mindfulness kept emerging throughout the five days. While I recall the team talking about mindfulness, I think my mild surprise came more from where I am in my life than the content.
There is a Buddhist quote, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Last week I think I was ready for the teacher to appear.
Mindfulness has been described as "being here now." In other words, our minds aren't darting off to what we will do tomorrow or next week, nor are they ruminating on what happened last week, last month or last year. They are here, empty of expectation, ready for what will present itself in the next moment.
One of my most important paths to mindfulness has come in my relationship with food. There are others to be sure, but food just seems to always be "in my face." That journey began early in life for me--at the age of 10. My father was diagnosed with a hereditary disease, which my brother and I would almost certainly inherit if we didn't take steps early and consistently to avoid it.
As our friends were choosing foods, based on what they wanted to eat, we learned to choose what would keep us healthy, long before either of us probably understood the implications. That does not mean that we never ate what our peers did, but at least for me, the pizzas, hamburgers, and hot dogs and other ubiquitous teen foods that my friends regularly scarfed down were occasional treats to be savored. While the appreciation was about "what" we were eating, the rarity of the treats resulted in appreciation of each bite in a way that I think my peers didn't delight in quite as I did.
In my 40s when I discovered that I had a wheat allergy, I added another layer of consciousness of about what I would, or safely could, eat. I continue to be surprised that upon learning of my allergy how many people will say, "Isn't there something you can take for that?" Of course, there is. I took allergy medicines for decades, but I always felt tired. When I stopped eating wheat, it was like being shot full of energy. If I could experience that aliveness by just being mindful of what I was eating, why would I want a pharmaceutical solution?
Regular readers of this blog know that in recent years, my struggle with mindfulness in my eating has come with my relationship with sugar, as I give it up each year for Lent, and then usually I have found myself quickly slip-sliding back into that addiction. I am pleased to say that, although I have eaten sugar since Lent this year, I have been able to do so mindfully and very rarely. This has been a huge step in mindfulness for me.
In Cleveland this week, however, I was graced with a presentation by Dr. Susan Albers. Her book, Eat.Q., is about the "how" of mindful eating more than the "what." Although I wouldn't consider myself a master of the "what" of eating, I am light years ahead on the "what" than I am the "how."
What Albers encouraged us to do was "be here now" with our food. While I wasn't aware of what I was doing at the time, I can now reflect back on relishing those foods that I knew I should avoid as a teen and young adult and know that I was very mindful of being totally present to each wonderful treat. Once or twice a year on a special occasion, I will eat a small amount of something with wheat in it. (I wasn't going to be in Italy and not eat any pasta.) I am completely mindful of both the experience...and the potential risks...even as I value that moment intensely.
In her talk, Albers encouraged us to bring that level of consciousness to everything we ate--the how of eating. She reminded us of how often we eat at our desks or in front of the TV or computer, while doing three or four other things and end the meal without remembering or even tasting a bite of it. There are countless other ways that we mindlessly exit our meals.
I live alone, and, as an introvert, mostly I get along OK with that. However, eating alone is one of my challenges. My routine has been to come home, make a large salad, and sit down and watch the previous evening's "The Daily Show." Jon Stewart and I have dinner together. (I will miss my frequent dinner companion terribly come August.)
As Albers talked about the "how" of eating mindfully, I recalled a few years ago when for Lent, I gave up doing anything else when I was eating. It had been an exercise in the kind of eating she described. The entree salads that I make almost always fill a dinner plate, and most of the time, I finish them. During my Lenten exercise, I found that, when I ate mindfully, almost every day I realized that I was full by the time I was halfway through the plate. I'd scrape what was left into a container and have it for lunch the next day. Day in, day out. When I was present, I could actually be aware when I was full.
There are other things that we do mindlessly. Probably 25 years ago I became aware that when I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work, I was still in my rush mode from the day.
As I grabbed the cart, I would notice that, by just shifting my mind into the moment, my breathing relaxed, my shoulders dropped, and I was present. I didn't move any more slowly; I just noticed how I was moving.
I've begun how often people will ask "How are you?" and then upon being asked the same question of themselves, they will repeat the same question without realizing they've already asked it. There are times when I am tired, and I don't go to bed because it is too early, and other days I am not tired, but I do go to bed "because it is time." I find myself going to a job that doesn't nourish me spiritually almost every day.
So, last week in Cleveland shook me from my complacence about mindfulness. This student is ready. I know as with any spiritual discipline, mindfulness is a practice, and I will need to practice over and again. I am happy that the teacher, in the person of Albers and the lessons built into the leadership program, appeared last week.
There is a Buddhist quote, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Last week I think I was ready for the teacher to appear.
Mindfulness has been described as "being here now." In other words, our minds aren't darting off to what we will do tomorrow or next week, nor are they ruminating on what happened last week, last month or last year. They are here, empty of expectation, ready for what will present itself in the next moment.
One of my most important paths to mindfulness has come in my relationship with food. There are others to be sure, but food just seems to always be "in my face." That journey began early in life for me--at the age of 10. My father was diagnosed with a hereditary disease, which my brother and I would almost certainly inherit if we didn't take steps early and consistently to avoid it.
As our friends were choosing foods, based on what they wanted to eat, we learned to choose what would keep us healthy, long before either of us probably understood the implications. That does not mean that we never ate what our peers did, but at least for me, the pizzas, hamburgers, and hot dogs and other ubiquitous teen foods that my friends regularly scarfed down were occasional treats to be savored. While the appreciation was about "what" we were eating, the rarity of the treats resulted in appreciation of each bite in a way that I think my peers didn't delight in quite as I did.
In my 40s when I discovered that I had a wheat allergy, I added another layer of consciousness of about what I would, or safely could, eat. I continue to be surprised that upon learning of my allergy how many people will say, "Isn't there something you can take for that?" Of course, there is. I took allergy medicines for decades, but I always felt tired. When I stopped eating wheat, it was like being shot full of energy. If I could experience that aliveness by just being mindful of what I was eating, why would I want a pharmaceutical solution?
Regular readers of this blog know that in recent years, my struggle with mindfulness in my eating has come with my relationship with sugar, as I give it up each year for Lent, and then usually I have found myself quickly slip-sliding back into that addiction. I am pleased to say that, although I have eaten sugar since Lent this year, I have been able to do so mindfully and very rarely. This has been a huge step in mindfulness for me.
In Cleveland this week, however, I was graced with a presentation by Dr. Susan Albers. Her book, Eat.Q., is about the "how" of mindful eating more than the "what." Although I wouldn't consider myself a master of the "what" of eating, I am light years ahead on the "what" than I am the "how."
What Albers encouraged us to do was "be here now" with our food. While I wasn't aware of what I was doing at the time, I can now reflect back on relishing those foods that I knew I should avoid as a teen and young adult and know that I was very mindful of being totally present to each wonderful treat. Once or twice a year on a special occasion, I will eat a small amount of something with wheat in it. (I wasn't going to be in Italy and not eat any pasta.) I am completely mindful of both the experience...and the potential risks...even as I value that moment intensely.
In her talk, Albers encouraged us to bring that level of consciousness to everything we ate--the how of eating. She reminded us of how often we eat at our desks or in front of the TV or computer, while doing three or four other things and end the meal without remembering or even tasting a bite of it. There are countless other ways that we mindlessly exit our meals.
I live alone, and, as an introvert, mostly I get along OK with that. However, eating alone is one of my challenges. My routine has been to come home, make a large salad, and sit down and watch the previous evening's "The Daily Show." Jon Stewart and I have dinner together. (I will miss my frequent dinner companion terribly come August.)
As Albers talked about the "how" of eating mindfully, I recalled a few years ago when for Lent, I gave up doing anything else when I was eating. It had been an exercise in the kind of eating she described. The entree salads that I make almost always fill a dinner plate, and most of the time, I finish them. During my Lenten exercise, I found that, when I ate mindfully, almost every day I realized that I was full by the time I was halfway through the plate. I'd scrape what was left into a container and have it for lunch the next day. Day in, day out. When I was present, I could actually be aware when I was full.
There are other things that we do mindlessly. Probably 25 years ago I became aware that when I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work, I was still in my rush mode from the day.
As I grabbed the cart, I would notice that, by just shifting my mind into the moment, my breathing relaxed, my shoulders dropped, and I was present. I didn't move any more slowly; I just noticed how I was moving.
I've begun how often people will ask "How are you?" and then upon being asked the same question of themselves, they will repeat the same question without realizing they've already asked it. There are times when I am tired, and I don't go to bed because it is too early, and other days I am not tired, but I do go to bed "because it is time." I find myself going to a job that doesn't nourish me spiritually almost every day.
So, last week in Cleveland shook me from my complacence about mindfulness. This student is ready. I know as with any spiritual discipline, mindfulness is a practice, and I will need to practice over and again. I am happy that the teacher, in the person of Albers and the lessons built into the leadership program, appeared last week.
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