Slow and Quiet

 Who has time for quiet?

Who has time to slow down?

Many people have studied the dangers and pitfalls of basing one’s life and one’s decisions on fear. I agree with this idea. We need and use “fear” to keep us safe from harm. However, it can be a dangerously strong emotion and can become a serious mental disorder that needs professional support- I’m not writing in that capacity. I’m writing because I’m grappling with another idea that I think may help us to not be swayed by Fear’s allure for a quick and protective response.

Slow down and be quiet.

Without any of the term’s baggage, that’s what is at the heart of “mindfulness practice”. I’ve written many pieces over the years on rhythm and stillness. Breathing, seasons, waves on water, sunrise and sunset: there are examples all around of us of things that occur at certain natural speeds and times.

Where do patterns, fear, mindfulness, quiet, rhythm, and slowing down intersect?

Allow me to bring in yet another human concept: vacation. We take vacations to break away from our normal patterns of life. We willingly throw some chaos into our living to experience an unfamiliar rush. Even if that “rush” is to end up sitting by a pool or natural water body. It’s different from our “normal”. We crave a change, and in fact, everything is changing. It’s all in motion.

Motion. Nothing is locked in place.

 I’ve tried to draw out my thoughts. (I didn’t label the X-axis as time, because I just attempted to read Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time and my one takeaway (other than an appreciation for his lyrical style) was that time is not linear.) The red line is a hectic experience of living that can lead one to ask the two questions I posed at the beginning of this piece. What happens when we experience an unexpected, loud sound? We jump. Our hearts race, like the red line on my graph leaping wildly and picking up speed like an EKG. The same reaction happens when we feel pressured at work, when we can’t pay the bills, when we feel alienated from others, or when we feel threatened by someone we perceive as suspicious.

A little bit of chaos and fear is beneficial- it can protect us from legitimate threats, feel good, or inspire us. However, those oscillations can get so wild, we can begin feeling like flotsam on an angry sea- completely adrift and without any control. Those are perfect conditions for massive growth in experiencing fear, founded or not.

The causes of chaotic living, that red line, are many. Some are from our personal choices. Some stem from the choices of others. Others are physiological. We’ll never get rid of them all, but we can decide to try to moderate that chaos through individual and group effort. In addition, we have many green patterns both in the world around us and within us to use as metronomes.

Life’s patterns can feel boring, but they are the vital buffers everything hangs upon.

We can return to these patterns and gain comfort from them- if we so choose. The red patterns can blot the green ones from our view, but that does not mean the green ones cease to exist. And thus, I return to my initial questions:

Who has time for quiet?

Who has time to slow down?

To me, the answer is: everyone must.

Before Mindfulness With Mindfulness

I bet some people still look at the term “mindfulness” as a joke and consider the practice a waste of time.

An article in today’s KQED Mind/Shift newsletter caught my eye: How Making Time for Mindfulness Helps Students. From my experience, mindfulness cultivates grounding, leading to a sense of peace and a reduction in how anxious I feel.

It’s extremely windy here today. Winds like these want to keep things stirred up; they work to pull and twist things out of place. I like the contrast. Our inner world and outer reality can feel just as wild as this windstorm- even wilder.

The KQED article does a great job outlining some keys to successfully putting mindfulness into practice in a school setting. It even mentions the need for staff to have “buy in”. For anyone who agrees with the first sentence I wrote, I’m hoping to increase your buy-in.

To begin, not everyone has the luxury of practicing mindfulness. If you’re reading this, you probably do.

Living paycheck-to-paycheck. Unexpected expenses. Overwhelming debts. Overdraft fees. Payday loans. Chronic medical conditions. Eviction. Loss of utilities. Unemployment. Fear of unemployment. Underemployment. Violence. Bills. Accidents. Hunger. Addictions. Isolation.

People who live with several of these (and other) types of pressures on a daily basis exist everywhere. These are windstorm generators and no one is immune. Some people experience more due to the choices made by others. You yourself may feel drawn to one or more of them.

Imagine being a child with these types of fears surrounding you every day. That’s a big part of the push for mindfulness in schools. Without other options, survival instincts can lead to choices that include lashing out, withdrawing, hiding in past times, making excuses with generalizations, or practicing self-harming behaviors that begin by “feeling good”. Everything we adults do to survive, our children will try.

I’m looking out at all the broken branches littering the snow-crusted ground. I hear the winds moaning outside, wildly whipping the bushes and skeletal trees. But I don’t feel the cold, because I am safe inside a warm house. I’m wearing woolen socks so my toes are toasty and my hands are warm on the keyboard. I smell the coffee still in my mug and the lingering smoky trail of bacon from this morning’s breakfast. I can smile at these truths.

That last paragraph is a bit of mindfulness. It’s what is now (whether I like it or not) and what I have now. It’s an appreciation. From there, I can consider beyond. 

Why bother?

From What's Under Your Cape

Survival instincts can hurt both ourselves and others. They can blind us to others’ pains and to other options that could help everyone involved. We’re capable of so much goodness. We have to be open to working through the roughness, though. These are things that must be noticed, taught, and learned again and again.

How much are we really suffering? How many gifts do we really have? What other options might be out there for us? Who can we go to for help? Who can we reach out to in order to help? These are the types of questions we can answer by using mindfulness instead of simply surviving. If we’re capable of it, we should try.

Juggling Then, When & Now

I almost slid completely off the back end of the treadmill today.

It was a reminder: “Pay attention to what you’re doing now, Susan.” It’s one of the reasons why the shutoff clip is on the machine in the first place.

I’ve mentioned previously how I listen to KPop when I’m running. (2017 has been a great year- Michael Choi is running a nice poll of The 50+ Best Kpop Songs of 2017 on Ranker.com if you’re interested in sampling a bit.) Music was the key to get me to exercise regularly. With rhythms that beg to be followed and variety in style and message, KPop keeps me focused and distracts me from wallowing in the bits I dislike. I need help with both.

My mind still manages to wander, however. 

Today, I was chugging along, nothing fancy. My goal was to just get a run in without stopping- I’ve been having problems with that lately. Despite that goal and the music’s call, I started thinking about other things. Writing topics. Speech scripts. What to do during winter break. The kitchen repainting I’ve just started.

That’s when it happened. My attention wavered and I slowed. Suddenly, all the tread was ahead of me and I sensed my back foot was hovering over air and not rubber. I scrambled to regain my footing and advanced back to the control panel. What a perfect example of a well-known fact:

Multitasking leads to a drop in quality.

We’re all struggling every day, juggling care for our bodies, minds and spirits and interacting with a bunch of other people doing the same. That’s tough enough. When we add our worries of both the past and the future, it can become a tornado we become lost in. The job at hand stays the same; we are the ones who affect the outcome by leaving the moment.

Mindfulness allows us to truly experience our lives.

Mindfulness: immersing in the current moment completely, unmoved by judgement. My extra thoughts of what happened before or what could happen in the future led to a reduction of my current physical speed. My mind left my body in the dirt. I clearly wasn’t exercising as intently nor was I even enjoying the music filling the air around me as I typically would (sorry, Super Junior!). Or as I should.

It wasn’t a catastrophe. It was just a little blip. However, those blips can add up over time. What are the other treadmill slips happening over the course of our days?

We have right now. 

We have what’s around us and what we are. Now. We have the breath coming into our bodies and the gust as we exhale it back out again. That’s it, but it can be amazing if focus on it and really feel it.

A long series of well-experienced “Now”s can lead to a lifetime of growth, learning, and happiness. The “Then”s and “When”s won’t.