Get Off Facebook

Why, hello March! Let’s play with intention and starting small. And let’s practice doing things daily that sustain me, but are so easy to let slide when things get busy!

And when I’m worried I can’t do all these new things, just remember – get off Facebook.

1. Nurture local friendships

I moved to the Bay Area just over a year ago. I am in that period where I’m longing for good, strong local community, but it hasn’t really gelled yet.

I have lots of good people in my life and lots of acquaintances. But with life being hard and busy right now, I’m finding myself reluctant to lean heavily on people I am just getting to know.

Life has felt heavy for most of this past year. I want to connect with people in lighthearted ways in addition to being able to lean in for the heavy parts.

I would like to connect with people I’m already connected with, and be open to meeting new people as well.

2. Walk or meditate in the morning before getting online

I started this after a Facebook confession that my morning habit was usually to get directly on Facebook. It’s a terrible way to wake up to the day, so many inputs, articles to get distracted by, pictures to comment on.

I would eventually like to have a different relationship to Facebook, one that’s more intentional about my desire to connect, and less about my desire to check out from whatever I’m working on. But I wanted to start small with something that felt doable and concrete. I already started this habit a few days ago, but I want to continue it this month because I know how pernicious Facebook is.

3. Writing 5 minutes every day

I want to be writing more. I have so much to reflect on right now, tons of blogging material.

Yet I’m usually tired of being on my computer by the time I get done with work. It’s one of the perils of working a full time job from home and then wanting to do some work on the side, also from home.

In setting this small goal, I get worried that there is not enough time. If I set a goal of 20 minutes per day, will that encroach on my meditation time? Can I really meditate for 30 minutes, write for 30 minutes, go for a walk, work for 8 hours, and have time for friends, feeding myself, etc, etc?

I don’t believe this is possible.

Yet, I also am afraid to count up how many hours I spend on Facebook. Or watching TV. There is likely time.

I’m starting small to not freak out the parts of me that believe in “NO TIME!” We will see how it goes.

4. Practicing restoration when I’m tired

I am often reluctant to rest.

Tired? Eat something for an energy boost. Or check Facebook to take my mind off whatever is bothering me. Or push through and hope my work is engaging enough to get me a second wind.

I have had a few emotionally draining days lately. And it’s true – I don’t have a lot of space to just stop and lay in bed for 10 hours.

But perhaps there are options between sleeping 10 hours and ignoring the fact that I need rest. To try:

• Restorative yoga poses
• Create a safe room for the part of me that’s super tired and overwhelmed
• Step outside for ten deep breaths
• Drink water
• Take a 20-minute nap (or fake a nap)

Getting the Hang of Level Two

This month’s goals looked different than I expected. I rewrote January’s goals, wanting to deepen into them. I got what I needed, even if I didn’t exactly achieve these goals.

1. Meditate for 30 minutes every day. Including (and especially) while on vacation with my family.

While I found it hard to maintain meditation while on vacation, I meditated two more times than I normally would have. Progress.

Even more exciting was how easy it felt to return to meditation after I got home. I’ve meditated every day, a minimum of 15 minutes, and 30 minutes or more most days.

I’m finding it hard to talk to people about how easy meditation feels right now. For folks who are struggling with meditation, it touches their pain at how hard daily practice can be. People who have been meditating daily for ages don’t remember when their practice solidified. I’m so excited about this, and it’s hard not to easily talk to people about it.

2. Use the even greater cuts at work to focus on what is absolutely essential.

At my mid-month check-in, I changed this to “How do I relate to work in a way that is sustainable?”

In addition to meditation, I also started some daily practices to help with entering work mindfully, and finishing the day by releasing it. Some combination of these practices are allowing me to interact with my work in a different way. While the work is still impossibly hard, I feel a lot more spaciousness around it.

I review these phrases daily:

• I forgive myself for any pain and suffering I have caused myself or others due to my own ignorance and confusion.
• I ask forgiveness from all those whose pain and suffering I have caused due to my ignorance and confusion.
• May I show kindness and patience for the world by being kind and patient with myself.
• May I show love for the world by loving myself, just as I am.
• May I learn from any mistakes I made today, and use what I have learned to benefit all beings.

3. Ask (everyone) for help.

I am getting a lot of help. It’s sometimes hard to fully take it in, as I am not getting help from some key places where I am expecting it. It’s easy to get sucked into the stories of pain that come up when I’m told help is coming and it doesn’t appear.

But that’s not all of what’s happening. There’s a lot of help coming from unexpected places. And there’s even more help available, if I just ask for it.

I’m noticing I feel a lot more ease in asking for help, in identifying who to ask for help, and taking it in. I think it’s about time to drop this story that I’m bad at asking for help.

In the spirit of receiving for help, I’m looking for a few good folks to step up as my posse in my latest journey.

4. Be Nourished By Everything

In my daily practices for entering and exiting work, I start the day with five things I’m grateful for and end the day with five things I have learned.

Naming the small, beautiful things in life reminds me to be nourished by all that is good in my world. Framing the hard parts as lessons learned helps me remember how fucking up nourishes me too.

Intensity + Practice Brings Movement

January has been an intense month. I started the year with family in Indiana, having also just traveled to Colorado to visit friends. I came back and stepped into greater leadership at work. I also started working at home full time, which has its own set of challenges. All this intensity has been coupled with a lot of emotional and energetic movement. All kinds of old stuff is being released (yay!), but it’s been intense.

My intentions this month have been critical in supporting me! How did I do?

1. 30 minutes of meditation. every day.

Since I started January 4, I have meditated 30 minutes or more for 24 of 26 days. One of those days I had an intense somatics session in which I was deeply in touch with what was going on in my body. The other day, I meditated 15 minutes, before I ended up in bed trying not to get sick. Both of those “failures” actually seem like great examples of bringing mindfulness of the body off the cushion and more fully into my life. So I will count them as successes.

This is an amazing transformation in my life. Just three years ago, I was working on a daily meditation practice in which I would meditate 2 minutes per day. Working my way up to 10 minutes was a major achievement. For major periods, I have had no daily practice and have just tried to attend as many meditation classes as possible to make sure that I get regular mindfulness classes in. To have sat for 30 minutes nearly every day, mostly at my own house on my own cushion, and to have that flow with ease – this is a testament to the intention I kept even when my practice seemed so minimal. I kept doing intentional practice anyway, and it’s finally bearing fruit.

2. When in doubt, “What’s the next right thing to take care of myself?”

As I noted, this worked in the most sneaky way possible. I get completely lost about the next right thing sometimes. Especially if I’m torn between taking care of myself and taking care of something on my to do list.

This month, I took the decision making power out of my hands, and just randomly decided. I don’t care if it’s sneaky, because it’s totally working.

3. Be laser focused at work

I have had to be even more focused than anticipated, as a co-worker has been out sick for 10 days. That leaves just me to do everything.

A lot of my “I’m all alone!!!” buttons have been pushed this week, exacerbated when some of my requests for help have been turned down. As has been true of a lot of my buttons that have been pushed recently, it’s really just the last remnants of an old button that has been healed. The one last step is to notice that the structure of the button is still there and needs dismantled. It’s been a review of all my old issues, and a confirmation of all the healing that has happened.

4. Be nourished in friendship

I have both taken in a lot of connection this month, and felt really isolated this month. Some of the isolation is very specific – I have few people to process work-related things with, without feeling like my friends should start invoicing my workplace.

I also am just reaching that one year mark after moving, and I know the typical feeling at this point is that I have many local acquaintances, but few local people with whom I can be fully, authentically me.

Given those challenges, I feel like I’ve done a good job at taking in the nourishment that is available to me, and seeking out additional support and connection even when it feels awkward. I made several new connections with people that have the potential to deepen into the kinds of relationships I want. And that feels good.

A Meditation on Panic

Breathe in. This is panic. Breathe out. Panic feels like this.

I spent 40 minutes tonight meditating on the experience of panic. Something about my day set off the cascade of emotions and body sensations that I call panic – racing pulse, tightness in my chest, cascading thoughts, an edge of tears. I knew today was going to be hard. The rush to leave town is always hard, and I’d packed in an unreasonable amount of responsibilities into a 12 hour period. I’d spent the weekend partying with friends, so I was less prepared for Monday morning than I like to be. So when everything I’d planned took longer than anticipated, and I realized that I was going to be working much later into the evening than I would like, I freaked.

Even when I anticipate the hard, the bodily experience still overwhelms me. I can rationalize as much as I want, and I worked this strategy hard today. “This time tomorrow you’ll be on the boat. This time tomorrow all this will be put into perspective. In the broader scheme of things, will you even remember any of these things you are so frantic about today?” But rationalizations totally miss the irrational experience of panic.

I went to the dharma center tonight, mostly because I was too pissed to let my work interfere with my meditation practice. As I drove to the center, the tears welled up as I let myself feel the overwhelm that I’d been holding at bay all day. I arrived, sat down, and closed my eyes. Breathe in. Ah, panic. Breathe out. I see you, panic.

I sometimes expect meditation to “fix” my emotions for me. But breathing did not make panic subside. Panic increased when I actually let myself feel it. I let the tears flow as silently as I could, worried that I was interrupting other people’s time for silent meditation with my need to sob.

I covered my face. Oh oh oh, I’m so ashamed. Ashamed? I thought we were feeling panic? Why is shame showing up? I’ve learned to ask less questions, and just go with it. Breathe in. Ah, shame. Breathe out. Shame feels like this. I’m letting so many people down. So many depending on me, and I told them I would be there for them. And I’m not. They are expecting me to be there for them, and I’m dropping the ball. So many old feelings, old messages, old ways of being.

As I let the shame cascade, so little of it is about now. And that finally helps me feel a little better, knowing that I’m letting go of some old feelings, and I’m not really feeling that panicked and ashamed of my current situation. It’s hard when current situations trigger old feelings – my rational mind kept saying, “Really, I don’t think things are that bad. So why the hell are you freaking out so much?” And while my rational mind was completely correct, it was also true that my body & emotional self had some old freaking out to do.

Breathe in. Feel. Breathe out. Feel.

Off the Typical Yoga Trajectory

I went to a new yoga class this Sunday. Near the end of the class, we held the position of Downward-Facing Dog for 5 full minutes. For non-yogis, in Downward-Facing Dog you have your hands and feet on the ground, tail high in the air. Your body makes two sides of a triangle, with the floor being the third side.

Instructions on Downward-Facing Dog, from Yoga Journal

The teacher gave instructions for holding this length of pose, similar instructions that I’ve heard from other yoga and meditation teachers. “Often in life, we don’t push ourselves. We would rather be a little lazy or take the easy route. Use the length of this pose to challenge yourself, to push yourself beyond your comfort zone.”

As we entered the pose, I thought to myself, “What if I’m the type of person who never takes the easy route? The person who is always pushing myself to work harder & longer, who skips lunch and drinks with friends so I can get more done?”

As my head hung down between my arms, I felt in my body the truth that no matter what the instructor said, I needed to apply the pose to my own needs. I don’t need to learn how to push myself harder. Instead I need to learn to relax, to listen to the subtle indications from my body that it’s time for a break, and to actually take that break so my body knows fully that I’m listening.

Three minutes in, I lowered to my hands and knees and rested comfortably. Instead of feeling guilty, I savored the experience of learning just what I needed to learn.

What is Practice?

In Buddhist circles, people talk regularly about our “practice.” In introducing ourselves, we ask “How long have you been practicing?” Most people have a simple answer, “Oh I’ve been practicing about 15 years now” or “I just started practicing a few months ago.”

When I’m asked this question, I panic. My story of practice has always felt more complicated than that. I usually fumble through an answer, “Well, I’ve been applying Buddhist principles to my life for 8 years. About 5 years ago, I started seeing a therapist who helped me calm down and learn to be mindful of the experiences going on in my body. But up until the last few months, I completely panicked if I sat in meditation for more than 5 minutes. So, um, some time in there my practice started.” When I’ve actually launched into that, people just look a little confused and unsure whether to tell me when they think I started, or just go talk to someone else who is a little less complicated.

I’m going to use my panic as a sign to look more deeply. What is practice? What does it mean to “start a practice” and what activities are required in order for one to say, “I have a practice”? I am writing a series of posts that look at my own history with mindfulness practice, to try to make sense of this seemingly uncomplicated question of “How long have you been practicing?”