Ungrateful Pre-Teens?

So I've been using this "Gratitude Log" on line (yes, I know I could use a "real" journal - but then, would I?) for about a 4-5 weeks now. Well, frankly, not every day - but often, more than once a week.

I saw this article about how researchers at UC Davis did a study where they had people write journals recording a variety of things. Some of them wrote down things they were grateful for and those people were measurably happier, nicer and more considerate of others, more likely to complete long term goals, and a bunch of other good stuff.

I have been giving it a try, and I have to say, I think it might have some good long term benefits for me. It remains to be seen.

The thing that interested me was that I heard an interview on public radio this morning (I believe the larger topic involved parenting research) and they talked about how someone followed up with using gratitude journals with middle school kids - perhaps those most in need of it. As someone who has been using a gratitude journal and the parent of a middle schooler, I listened intently. It turns out, they got statistically NO benefit from the exercise. They really are a completely different species for a few years, as it turns out.

The Black Hole of the Mind

The brain is an odd thing. It can take visual information in, recognize it as a certain type of data, interpret it, and then stop.

I went to the Northwestern Health Sciences University website's Continuing Ed page to check out my class listing, and found it on the calendar page. After I noted that it was listed and that the dates were correct, I moved on. A couple of days later, late in the evening, something clicked in my head. Did I really see what I thought I saw? I went back to the website and there it was, the tuition for my class listed at twice the actual rate. It had taken that long for the information to register.

I've done it, we've all done it; read several paragraphs of a book and had no idea what I've read. Drive somewhere and have no recollection of how you got there.

Being present is a many layered phenomenon. There's being physically in the room. There's directing your sensory organs toward the environment. There's turning them on. There is even the act of performing the motions of engaging with the environment. All these things can happen and still, we are not there. We are not present.

Presence is like.....a distillation. A star, collapsing down to a point of infinite density. It is the moment where an alchemical melding takes place, and all things come together to make gold.

Emerging From the Hole to Reach For a Pillow in the Night

You know that scene in the movie "Raising Arizona" where John Goodman emerges, pulling himself from the sucking mud after tunneling out of prison? I sort of feel like that.

One of the things I found useful in pulling myself out into the air and the rain was a talk at the MN Zen Center by Tonen O'Connor on Compassion (thanks Steve and Drew). Sometimes you go to a class or a lecture and it's good because you get lots of new information, and sometimes it's good because it lets you know you're on the right track. This was very much the latter.

Opening with a request for definitions of compassion, I jumped right in with mine ("Yes; Miss Granger?"). I don't know that I've shared it in this venue before: Compassion is a dispassionate state in which one can be completely present with another's suffering.

Tonen jumped right on the word "dispassionate" and referenced it several times, but it seemed to sit badly with some members of the group. With others, I think it went right over their heads.

The use of the term dispassionate in this context is an attempt to dispel the notion that empathy is either necessary or a virtue in expressing compassion. Empathy is he beginnings of making compassion about the practicer. It becomes about feeding the needs of the giver.

Dogen said that compassion should be like a hand reaching back to fix a pillow in the night. In other words, it should be without thought, or doubt. There is a need, and it is filled.

Brad Warner speaks about compassion the way I wish I could (and would, if I was an ex-punk rocker Zen Priest who was free to pepper his writing with salty language) in his blog. But suffice it to say, if you're trying, you're trying too hard.

Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams Stuff is Made Of

YOIKS! It's almost June and I haven't posted since March.

I've been a bit overwhelmed; I've taken on another job that starts at 6:00 am. Yes. 6:00 am. I'm thinking I'm going to cut back a bit on the number of hours I'm working; 20 hours along with everything else is TOO MUCH. Especially at 6:00 am.

So, I've been feeling a bit hip-deep while I integrate my new schedule. On top of this, I have a pattern that I've been following for years. Like most things though, it's hard to get perspective on it when you're in the middle of it.

What happens is that I start to get a little bored, a little frustrated. I begin to feel like I've reached a dead-end in my work, like maybe I've maxed out my potential, or maybe the potential of my work. I start to wonder if it's time for a career change.

To some extent, I am able to recognize that it's happening and that it's part of a pattern, but I also wonder if this time, it's for real, not just a transitional state. That's where I was this time, feeling like I'm spinning my wheels and wondering if I should just throw in the towel.

But then what happens is that something happens. I read something, I have an experience at the table or away from it. There's no way of knowing what will trigger the shift, but it happens, and it seems to be happening now.

I saw a quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer that says that matter is no more than a state of information. Oppenheimer was the theoretical physicist most commonly known for his involvement in the Manhattan Project. He was an important force in quantum mechanics, but was considered to never have lived entirely up to his potential in terms of developments and discoveries because he had such diverse interests. This endears him to me very much as I've been characterized similarly (not so much in the brilliant theoretical physicist way).

So what's been happening is that when I tune into a pattern, I allow myself to become completely present with it, and then recognize it as a thought form or idea, information becoming matter. Then I let it go. I don't do anything "to" it, I just recognize it for what it is, and, metaphorically, walk away.

The other thing I've been bringing to the table (literally) is a deeper awareness of my relationship with the client. (I wonder, how much further can this go?) What I have found myself doing is asking myself, "If the world came to an end right now, is this the space you would want to be in? Is this how you'd like to be with this person?"

These two pieces are going to come together somehow. I'm curious to see how.

My Big Brain

I am in the middle of a study group of sorts (Spring Practice Period) and the theme is "Silence and Expression". Our homework was to find our barrier, get in the middle of it, and then express something about it in some creative fashion. I wrote this:

"You’re in charge. Take care of her.
She needs you. You know how she is, she is so easily distractable – she might get lost, or start the house on fire.
I don’t know what she’d do without you. She is so lucky to have you."

"She’s too blonde. Defend her virtue.
You know how flaky she can be. Make sure she’s taken seriously.
She’s so sensitive; she feels things so keenly. It’s a good thing she has you to protect her."

And now my Big Brain thinks far too much of itself.
Swollen with a sense of its own importance, it has no sense of boundaries.
It stomps around, crushing the garden.
It falls asleep in the middle of the hallway and no one can get past.
My big brain chokes me. It leaves my mouth too full to chew, too full to speak.

So. There I am. All flayed and exposed. Or a good part of me anyway. I speak of the power of vulnerability, so I'm walking my talk. I hope you find something worthwhile in this.

Mindful Self-Indulgence

I am in a bad mood. The kind of bad mood I'm in is not grumpy or mean; it's bad because it has equal parts self-recrimination, self-loathing, and self-pity. Are you seeing a theme here? For convenience sake, I am saying that I am blaming my homeopath.

About 5 or 6 weeks ago I took a homeopathic remedy. We're talking classical homeopathy here. The kind of deal where my intake was over two hours long, and ended up with my being sent one very tiny pill. I popped it down on a Sunday morning and went on with my life. The most immediate result was that I became ADD girl. For that whole day (and probably then some) I was interrupting people, failing to provide my attention appropriately to those who were sharing their important feelings and experiences with me, and, most disturbingly, spilling confidences.

The interesting part of this was that I could see myself doing these things and yet felt helpless to stop it. I don't know which part I am suffering from the most, knowing that I did them or bearing helpless witness to it. It has been a fascinating exercise in mindfulness as I have also been watching myself go through the suffering I've felt as a result of my actions. This level of observance has somewhat mitigated my suffering as the attending personal drama is being fed less and I have a different perspective - less blindly immersive in the experience.

I still feel bad. Nausea inducing, hide under the covers bad sometimes, but being able to step outside of the experience a little bit has kept it from becoming overwhelming and allowed me to see that there is some part of me that is outside of this experience. It does not define who I am.

The Sky is Falling

Last Friday was a weird day. It began with a phone call at 7:15 am from my mother saying, "I don't know if you have the national news on..." The last time she did that it was about the same time of day on 9/11/01, so I was a little weirded out. This time she went on to say, "A plane crashed in Clarence Center and I wanted to let you know that we're okay." It was a mile from their house.

Along with watching a fair amount of CNN that morning, I watched myself. I noticed what I was and wasn't thinking and feeling, and my reactions to the fact that I was thinking and feeling what I was or wasn't.

It was: shocking, exciting, cool, interesting, sad - kind of in that order. I couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with me for putting sad at the bottom and exciting near the top. I was also aware of my emotional distance from the circumstances. Although I was all of these things, I was never very much of any of them.

Some conclusions I have drawn:

• Despite our best intentions, we are all nascent gawkers at heart. Curiosity is an important human trait and crucial to our survival as individuals and as a species, we just have to remember to have manners.
  
• It is easy to be conditioned to believe that you must feel sad/bad/glad on behalf others, or you are cold, unfeeling or indifferent to the well-being of others. Tragedy can be acknowledged without enmeshment.
• Tragic circumstances are generally an excuse for us to indulge ourselves in drama. Drama is an addiction that feeds on itself and off the indulgences of others, and tragedies are great justifications for throwing ourselves into it head first.
  
• Disasters have a coolness to them that it is okay for us to acknowledge. Pyroclastic flow from a volcano is nightmarish (currents of hot gas and rock which travel at speeds as great as 450 mi/h, at temperatures of about 1,000˚C), but as any 8 year old boy will admit, incredibly cool. Acknowledging the coolness does not detract from the tragedy. It is, among other things, a way of being comfortable our lack of control over circumstances.

I will admit that it took me a couple of days to understand that my distance, and my ability to observe and question my actions and reactions, was something I should see as an accomplishment of sorts. It is a measure of "skillfullness" in relationship to my goals of experiencing greater equanimity. I strive not to be Chicken Little.