Mindfulness - Nuance

Bastien Confourier, Flickr

One of the most important things we learn as we get older is nuance: There are always two sides to a story. Nothing is entirely black or white (even the notion of race has its limits!) But fine lines are hard to draw, and balance is hard to find. Until you apply mindfulness.

Relationships

This controversial quote popped on one of my social media accounts today:

"The world ins't filled with "haters" and "toxic people". It's filled with people who are hurting and trying, ineffectively, to give themselves relief. So distance yourself if you must, but try do do it with empathy, not judgement. The only cure for "haters" is love, so try to show them more kindness than they showed you. This is how we can slowly make the world a more loving place". (Lori Deschene)

It did not take long before comments started to appear below it, and most of them were outraged: individuals who had been abused, verbally, physically, psychologically, could not fathom offering even more love and kindness to those who had hurt them so badly. That poses no question, no more than the fact that your own safety and sanity - physical and psychological - should always come first. 

Notwithstanding the very important exception of abuse, there is nonetheless some truth to Deschene's quote. Working with children and teenagers, I have often reminded myself that few youngsters make the wrong choices deliberately (or at least not entirely) - many factors come into play. Interacting with irritating or even offensive adults, I have often remarked to myself that the source of their unpleasantness is most likely a personal struggle that I know little about.  

I still put my well-being first, and I have cut ties with a small number of "toxic people" in my life, but this knowledge has helped me remain zen in "milder cases".

Pleasure

In my approach to pleasure, I have had a tendency to assume that any unproductive or potentially harmful behavior is the sign of our need to compensate for some form of suffering, or worse, an addiction in its own right. For example, overeating would have its roots in another unfulfilled need that we are failing to address. 

This can and is often the case, of course, but I am realizing that sometimes, our exaggerations don't stem from something so problematic. In the overeating example, we might simply have fallen prey to the temptation of pleasure! The food is good, eating it provides us with a lot of pleasure, therefore we keep eating even when we aren't hungry anymore. The same can apply to overspending: we see something beautiful in a store, and even if we don't need that item, the pleasure of acquiring it feels very compelling. 

The real problem arises, addiction or not, when indulging has undesirable repercussions. We feel unwell after eating too much. Our finances are tight because we spent too much. At a milder level, even if we feel well and keep our finances in check, eating or spending too much can get in the way of our goals (overeating even slightly is not conducive to a very active lifestyle, especially if you want to be competitive, and overspending even slightly can prevent us from saving for bigger items or experiences we really want to be able to afford). 

In short, behaviors that are unproductive, that do not fulfill a true need and that might have adverse effects don't always deserve to be demonized. A life without pleasure would be very sad. Where to draw the line, that is the question, and mindfulness is probably the only way to discover the difference.

Death

During a discussion at my guided meditation class, a senior participant mentioned that she finds it hard to reconcile the detachment we should ideally have toward our own death, and her very strong (and very natural) will to live.

She also mentioned finding it hard to enjoy life when she knows she is getting closer to her "expiry date", and stressing out about losing her independence. 

Upon discussing it for a little bit longer, we did agree that the awareness of your own mortality can have another, more positive effect: it can encourage us to make the most of life. What if this is the last time I see a sunset? I might as well savor the sight, taking it all in.

No matter our age, finding balance between preparing for the future and enjoying the moment is a challenge... but I think it's a beautiful one.

Mindfulness this Week

Does any of those examples of nuances speak to you?
Does any other example come to mind?

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Mindfulness - Relationships

JD Hancock, Flickr

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget 

what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." 

(Maya Angelou)

These past two weeks, while D was on the other end of the planet (literally - he was in Japan), and then sick, I had to face a few crises on my own, including the loss of a loved one, two basement floods, an insect infestation, and car problems. In the midst of it I also turned 40.

Those events taught or reminded me of a few things:

1. First, that in any difficult situation, taking a deep breath is always a good option.
2. Second, that paying real close attention to what is going on (inside or outside of yourself) usually helps you cope with the situation at hand.
3. Third, that we all have hidden sources of strength, resourcefulness, and resilience.
4. Fourth, that the things we think are important really aren't that important in the face of a crisis.
5. Last, but not least, that in most cases, others, and our relationship with them, make an immense difference.

If it hadn't been for wonderful family members, friends and neighbors, those two weeks and the events that punctuated them would have taken a whole other direction. More importantly, they would have felt much different for me, and not in a good way. 

That is not so surprising since, in this life full of good and bad surprises in equal measure, relationships are often what "makes it or breaks it".

Think of times in your life when you felt lonely, misunderstood, ignored, disrespected, unloved, rejected. Chances are it took over everything else, and made you feel miserable independently of what was going on in the rest of your life.

Now think of times in your life when you felt well-surrounded, validated, included, recognized, respected, loved. Chances are it made everything else easier to deal with.

This is how important relationships are: they change everything.

Indeed, happiness is closely related to the quantity and quality of your relationships. A Harvard study, presented in a TED Talk by Robert Waldinger, has demonstrated that relationships are the number one criteria for a good life. Feeling connected is crucial for overall well-being. I know that even in good times, when I don't need help or support, and despite my love of "alone time", a pleasant interaction with someone can be the most rewarding part of the day. I love the feeling that stems from helping someone, or simply from having a stimulating conversation.

This need for human connection is so important that researchers have now established that "the opposite of addiction is connection", suggesting that your relationships (or absence thereof) could prevent or exacerbate drug abuse. 

On top of influencing our well-being and whether or not we become addicted to substances, relationships have an effect on our physical health:

"When others betray us or we feel neglected, when we feel angry and sad at the way others have treated us, the power of our immune system declines dramatically." (Dalai Lama)

This is not to be taken lightly. Our interactions with others leave a trace. Some states of mind would even be contagious. For example, one can be exposed to "secondhand stress" and suffer the consequences. Don't you get tense around anxious or angry people, even when you have nothing to do with their negative emotion?

What this all means is that while we need to feel connected in order to remain healthy and happy, we also have to pay attention to the type of connection we have with others. To that effect, mindfulness is the best approach.

In my adult life, I have become aware of the nature of my interactions with others, and it has changed my approach drastically, in three main ways:

1. I remain authentic no matter what - I stepped away from trying to gain approval and admiration, because too often, that means being untrue to yourself. I respect others and strive to treat them fairly, but I respect myself, my needs and my values just as much.
2. I invest more in the interactions and relationships where both protagonists leave feeling good.
3. I invest less in the interactions and relationships that don't feel so good.

The third case has been my main challenge, as I grew up thinking that I had to get along with everyone, and that no effort was too big to that effect. Consequently, in my younger years, I devoted time and energy to the wrong relationships, tolerated more than I should have, or tried to change others. Some relationships do deserve a certain amount of compromise, but there is a line to be drawn. If someone demeans you, uses you as their therapist (as opposed to mutual confidences and support, which feels very different), or tries to control you, it might be time to step away.

Now, one crucial aspect of stepping away is to do it quietly. There is not need to argue, confront, justify, or take all the blame. If simple, respectful communication has not worked, then it might simply mean that the individual needs and wants are not compatible. This is especially important in cases where something more powerful is at play, such as a personality disorder. 

The point is not to diagnose people, of course, but to realize that some situations stem from complex and stubborn factors that we would be wise to avoid fighting, lest we turn ourselves in some form of modern Don Quixote.

I take people as they are, focus on the positive, stop holding specific expectations about how they should treat me, do communicate how I feel, but definitely don't try to change them. Then if it turns out that the relationship feels draining, I can simply let it go, or at least take my distances.

If, on the other hand, I am pleasantly surprised by the direction a relationship is taking, I know it would be wise to nurture it. These two past weeks made it impossible to ignore the love, generosity and kindness I am surrounded with. I feel very, very grateful for that, and I hope that I will be able to respond in kind. 

Mindfulness this Week

How do your interactions and relationships affect your daily life and your overall state of mind?

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Mindfulness - Food

Tighten Up, Flickr

"If you slow it down, eat in courses, your body, mind, stomach 

will catch up with this full feeling and you won't eat as much." 

(Guy Fieri)

I don't know for you, but I have a long history of finding comfort through the mouth: I sucked my thumb longer than most kids, and when I stopped, it wasn't long before I replaced it with another bad habit: a tic that involved biting the inside of my cheeks. I also developed a sweet tooth early in life. And apart from early childhood (a period during which I am told I was not a big eater - perhaps the thumb blocked the way?), I never really knew when or why to stop eating: feeling full wasn't a notion I even considered. I never focused on the stomach. If it looked, smelled and tasted good, and I still felt like eating, I ate. It seems like my mouth enjoyed working overtime. I even talked too much. If I hadn't been so terrified of the side effects, I would have been a prime candidate for smoking.

Regular physical activity probably "saved" me from becoming overweight (apart from a short period after my second child was born), but I am scared to even think of the amount of sugar that has entered my body in those forty years of life.

A few years ago, with no more than ten pounds "to lose" (BMI was already fine), but tired of my relationship with food, I decided to take the bull by the horns, met with a nutritionist, hired a personal trainer, and started journaling the entirety of my food intake, every single day, for a full year. What did I learn? 

I learned that I need way less food than I thought I did: portions shrank and shrank to the point where my plate looked like a toddler's, but interestingly, it did not make me hungry. 

I learned to incorporate more of the good stuff (leafy greens, berries, seeds) and less of the not-so-good stuff (for me, dairy and sweets). 

But more importantly, I learned to listen to my body. In fact, I learned to listen to specific parts of my body. My mouth was always up for more food, especially the sweet type. Now I learned to listen to my abdomen and to my head instead. I realized that they had a lot to tell me if I paid attention. My stomach had a message I had been ignoring: "I'm full!" (It was surprising how fast my stomach became full, long before my mouth was even considering taking a break.) My head, too, had some unheard messages for me: "Please don't eat/drink this, it will hurt!"

As it turns out, some of my favorite foods were doing me the most harm: Sugar. Dairy. Red wine. It was a sad discovery. It was also a thrilling discovery: by avoiding sugar, dairy and red wine, I felt much, much better, both in the belly and in the head. In the process, I shed a few pounds, and lowered my body fat percentage. I was full of energy, mental and physical.

I do not want to make this journey sound easier than it was: there were a lot of challenges, frustrations, and discouragement. One of my realizations was that my relationship with sugar was closer to an addiction than I had ever been willing to admit. And more often than not, my mouth tried to scream louder than both my stomach and head: "We're not done! I want more foooooooood!"

But all in all, my main victory, and the secret to the success of this endeavor, was mindfulness. Slowly but surely, I became mindful of my relationship with food, how I felt about food, how I reacted to food. I already knew that I ate some of my emotions (stress, boredom, fatigue). Now I noticed that I was often on automatic pilot when food I liked was on display (at parties, for example: I would just reach out and get it, even if I wasn't hungry). I noticed I reacted to ads about food (where else would a sudden, intense craving for a specific type of cake or ice cream come from? Once I saw an article about a power plant in France that uses cheese as fuel, and that was enough to make me crave a piece of Camembert.) I noticed that I ate too fast. Reading Thich Nhat Hanh, I learned to eat slowly, mindfully (my trick: practice with grapefruit; it takes so long to prepare that you have no choice but to slow down and enjoy). I realized I don't even like S'Mores, so why do I always have a few when I go camping? And so on.

My mindfulness toward food did not stop there. I started wondering: Where does my food come from? Is it produced locally? Ethically? Is it fair trade? In season? Wholesome? Humane? Environmentally friendly? I was already not a big fan of juice boxes and steak, but this new perspective made me even more aware. To paraphrase Socrates, I began to say "The unexamined food is not worth eating".

Mindfulness was the most important tool I used to conquer my relationship with food, and I had not invented the concept: it seems that mindfulness can indeed help you achieve your weight goals.

Mindfulness this Week

How is your relationship with food? Please share!

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