Hurry Hurry Disease

A new disease is rampant among us. Contagious as the flu, persistent as a bad cough, the “hurry hurry” disease is a malady of the mind. The symptoms are a frequent feeling that we must rush through our lives because we don’t have enough time to do all we have to do, that we are somehow running out of the precious commodity of our days and hours and minutes. The disease can become chronic, so our entire lives feel rushed and frantic, leaving us continuously grumpy, exhausted, and overwhelmed.

Despite what one might think, no one is immune to “hurry hurry” disease. Even those of us who live seemingly quiet uneventful lives can be regularly wakeful in the middle of the night, as our minds churn over and over the things we tell ourselves must be done the next day.

How does “hurry hurry” play itself out in any given day?

v We start the day with a drill sergeant inner voice pushing us out of bed, reciting an extensive list of what needs to get done, and chanting “gotta get going, gotta get going.”

v We are continuously aware of the “to do” list. As we rush through the day, instead of feeling satisfied by what we check off, we focus on the things we haven’t done.

v We sometimes think yearningly of something relaxing we would like to do; pick up a book, go for a walk, or take a nap. We immediately reject the thoughts and return our focus to what we have to do right now. We tell ourselves that we’ll do it later, but at some level we know there’ll never be the time.

Our minds are like harried children that need a time-out, and that is something we can provide them in brief moments throughout the day. We don’t have to be controlled by a compulsion to be constantly busy and productive. We can do small things that pull us back into ourselves, that refresh and re-energize us.

These things are easy because all you have to do is disengage your mind from the clock and your list, and connect within yourself. It may be a relaxing stretch, a deep breath with an exhale that releases the tension you have been carrying, or a smile that connects you to a stranger in the grocery store.

As you do these things, you will gradually free yourself from the “hurry hurry” loop. You build a fresh attitude toward time that supplants the stressful thought, “I don’t have enough of it,” with an encouraging and reassuring, “All in good time.”

You will find that the less you live by the clock, the more you inhabit your life. “Hurry hurry” disease will fade, and the moment and your life will brighten and you will become more at ease.

Thank you for this Day

Moods are strange things. They come and go, almost like weather patterns. One day we may rise from our bed as bright as a summer day, filled with twinkle and bounce, and on another wake to clouds of grey that settled over us while we slept.

Our moods also rise or fall in a moment because of tiny things: a surly word, a loving smile, a bit of good or bad news. Every day is full of events that influence us–the actual weather, an angry program on the radio, trouble with our computer, a happy child.

It is almost as if we are sailing ships that are at the whims of the weather and the vageries of the ocean. But there are ways to maintain our mood balance, tools we can use like outriggers to keep emotionally afloat.

One very helpful way to maintain a more steady and positive mood is to start our mornings making a decision to accept with gratitude what the day will bring. I was at the eye doctor recently and as he was checking my eyes, he clicked lenses in and out and asked, “Is this better or worse?” It reminded me how useful it can be to equip ourselves with a positive lens each morning.

Here is a traditional American Indian “positive lens” practice, that is as powerful as it is simple.

Each morning when you rise, take a moment to face east, open your heart, and think these words: “Thank you for this day.”

That’s all there is to it. You may want to think, “Thank you Mother Earth,” or “Thank you God, or the Universe”…you can use any words that have meaning for you.

The important thing is that you are opening your heart to gratitude for the day before it unfolds. You are expressing trust in creation, trust that whatever happens will be the right thing for you. You are saying in effect, “I will not wait to see how the day turns out before I decide whether or not to be grateful. I accept and give thanks in advance for the gift of this day and whatever it contains.”

Making a conscious decision to accept and embrace each day this way doesn’t insure that the day will go smoothly, but it does dramatically impact how we respond. It pre-sets our gratitude filters. Give it a try.

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror

My Name is William Tell

My Name is William Tell:
when little oppressions touch me
arrows hidden in my cloak
whisper, “Ready, ready.”

—William Stafford

This poem made me laugh out loud. It brought to mind all the times I surprised myself with a strong reaction to a petty annoyance. Don’t we all have periods when we are on edge and overreact to almost every little thing? It might be a driver cutting in front of us, an off-hand remark that we take the wrong way, or an annoying trait in someone we know, but sometimes we are just waiting for a chance to lose our arrows.

I was talking to a friend recently about the concept of mirrors. Simply stated, it is that the world around us changes day-to-day and moment-by-moment in sync with our own thoughts and feelings. If we enter our day with a bright and optimistic outlook, we experience people around us that are cheerful and friendly.

If, however, we go through our day in a dark cloud, the people we encounter tend to be grumpy and irritable. Our negativity colors our world, and those “oppressions”, as poet William Stafford calls them, are really reflections of our own attitude.

The wonderful thing about the mirrors concept is that it reveals the great control we have over our surroundings. If we shift our attitude in a positive direction, we may be very surprised at what happens. Something as simple as thoughts about small things for which we are grateful: the warm sunshine on our face, a wagging tail welcome from our pet, the smell of baking bread, can shift our energy and brighten our world.

Just recognizing that we have control over our moods and attitudes toward things small and large, gives us alchemist power to turn darkness into light.

For fun, try experimenting with mirrors and how they reflect your attitudes in the small oppressions around you. Try changing them by changing your attitude. Next time I’ll talk about how we can set our attitudes where we want them for the coming day.

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Soul Food For 2012

While my mind was meandering through possible journal subjects with which to begin the new year, I received an e-mail from my dear friend, Lainey Shea. Her beautiful note gave me just what I was looking for. Here it is:

 It’s been on my mind to tell you that yesterday, after an energetic meeting on the Arts here in my living room, flooded with winter sunshine, I didn’t do what I had planned to do for the afternoon: my taxes. Quite faithfully reading your Heartlines, January 10th suggested something else: so I got in the car and went out to Charlie and Betty’s to pick up eggs (and leave the money in the Folgers can) and drove on out beyond the paved road to the gravel, where I parked and walked for about an hour or so, poking around a deserted house, taking some photos. It was so mild and still that even my sweater was too much. Hard hit by the summer drought, the pastures were clipped but the ditches were full of the natives, enduring in predictable degrees of tenaciousness. I picked the majors: Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Switchgrass and Indian Grass and to the chorus, added a few minors. When I got home I washed my collection of old and odd bottles and lined seven of them on my windowsill over the kitchen sink. Each bottle has a slender stalk or two. The satisfaction they give me is more than any florist’s bouquet. They may be even more outstanding at night, in stark relief against the black windowpanes.

 The Heartline to which Lainey refers says: “I honor my gifts and talents. I give myself permission to enjoy self-expression and let some of the business of my day take a back seat.”

I can’t imagine a better intent for me to carry into 2012. I’m going to move “honoring my gifts and talents” out of the “things I want to do” folder and into the top folder, “things I will do.”

There are many ways it can be done but the way Lainey used is one of the best—she embraced spontaneity. Spontaneity is a wonderful crack we all can make in our lives of work and duty to let our creativity shine through. I want a lot more of that soul food interwoven into my days.

 How about you?

A New Holiday Story

While I was shopping for a greeting card in Walgreen’s the other day, I overheard a woman lamenting to her friend that she had done nothing to prepare for Thanksgiving or Christmas. As I listened to the litany of tasks she had yet to do, I remembered the old familiar feeling of being burdened and overwhelmed by the work of getting ready for the holidays.

There was a period in my life when thoughts of Thanksgiving and Christmas carried very little joyful anticipation and delight. That time of year had become so laden with laborious traditions it became something I had to tell myself to knuckle down and get through.

I remember a particular December in my late thirties when the painful onset of arthritis overshadowed everything else. I also had graduate school finals looming over me, and all the “must do” holiday traditions came to a screeching halt. It simply wasn’t possible to do all the things that I felt were necessary to be a good mother, wife, daughter, and friend.

That was a tipping point. I had to do less, and so I began the journey of making choices about which traditions I would keep because they still had strong meaning for me, and which I would release. The surprising thing was that I didn’t miss anything I removed—just the opposite.

I felt freed. Elaborate Christmas Eve dinners transformed into chili suppers. Christmas cards lists almost disappeared As presents and parties were reduced, I found that my ease and joy in the celebrations and in the people around me blossomed.

Interestingly, as many of the old trappings disappeared, wonderful new opportunities arose. The holidays were quieter and I had more time to really enjoy my friends and family. I felt better and stronger, so I was more fun to be around. Because I listened less to the “have to” voice in my head, I had more room to listen to the “want to” voice in my heart.

I do not intend this as a criticism of holiday traditions. There are many that I still do and enjoy, and they are an important way for me to feel the Christmas spirit. But I’ve learned that as we hold less tightly to our cookie-cutter image of all we should be, we can relax into the moment and become more spontaneous. We allow space for fresh energy to infuse our celebrations with joy.

Leonard Cohen has a wonderful song, “Anthem,” in which he says, “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” Sometimes reducing our holiday ‘must dos” creates cracks that allow more light to get in.

Here is a poem my husband, Tim, wrote years ago , which expresses for me some of the light that illuminates Christmas.

Our Place in the World

Gathered in a rough circle beneath the piñons,
we reach into the gunnysack of time
for Christmas fruit.
With the sharp blade of intent
we peel away anger and sorrow
and drop the dark rinds into the fire.

We bite into the fruit’s crisp flesh and taste
pale cream and bright snow, sweet memory,
carols and Christmas mornings and gatherings
that leaven the weight of winter.

Above our heads our hearts twine into a tiny goldfinch
which rises through the swirling snow till it joins
the vast circle of birds made in their ways
by Maori and Masai and Zunis and all
the other families of man.

The circle expands until it spins around the earth,
and the earth ceases to wobble, and its voice
clarifies into the high ting of a rung goblet,
and the angels pause in their work
to cry the perfected note.

Meditation Lite

In the last few months I began meditating. I don’t know why it has taken me so long, perhaps because I thought of meditation as a mysterious and challenging spiritual practice. I imagined all sorts of complicated rules you were supposed to follow to meditate, and pictured llamas in remote Tibet, stoic and unmoving for hours. Of course I also knew people who had interwoven meditation into their lives, but it never seemed something I wanted to do. Now I practice meditation by just sitting in a chair for fifteen minutes, and doing nothing.

For many years I have taken quiet time in the morning. I journal, read, do tai chi, and think about how I want my day to go, as a natural part of my daily routine. But those activities are “doing,” and I had been yearning for something else. One day out of the blue I started meditating. I just went to my comfortable chair and sat quietly for fifteen minutes.

My mind wasn’t still—it was as busy as ever. As time has passed, though, those thoughts and worries have become boring. I allow them to pass unnoticed, like transient clouds floating across the sky of my mind. I don’t pay them much attention, and they seem to move on by.

Over time I’ve added a couple of rituals that help in this sitting time. I focus on my breath, and feel it moving in out in an easy, relaxed rhythm. Then I decided to add a few words to go with my breath. It took a while to find words that resonated with the stillness I was creating, but I finally found something that fits. I think, “I’m,” when I inhale and “home,” when I exhale. For me, “I’m home” symbolizes acceptance, being settled and comfortable in my mind, body, and spirit.

I’ve found that my quiet fifteen minutes in the morning extends peace into the rest of my day. Sometimes during the day I will breathe, “I’m home” in the midst of a frustrating or anxious time, and it’s as if I have connected to an anchor of stability and centeredness. What I seem to be doing is making new brain pathways that help connect my thoughts, feelings, and body, into a more unified whole.

Meditation is still mysterious to me, but now in a way that I want to embrace. The simple act of sitting in a chair and giving myself fifteen minutes of uninterrupted quiet, opens me to a deeper relationship with myself. All I need to do is show up.

Stop Your Fussin’

It seems as if our world is growing more and more angry. People are increasingly locked into “I am right and you are wrong” positions. We are losing our ability to simply disagree and allow others to hold differing opinions.

Much of it comes from the media, who have discovered that anger and fiercely held positions increase ratings. But wherever it’s coming from, we are losing our ability to talk civilly to those on the other side.

 At some level we know that it’s not good for us to carry strong beliefs on every conceivable subject about what is good or bad. It weighs down our lives with anger and indignation.

 Although it feels good to be flushed with the adrenalin of self-righteousness, the energized feeling is short-lived. As it wanes we are left tired and drained. Arguing, judging, and complaining steal our energy, separate us from friends and neighbors, and erode our well-being.

 As I have become aware of the increasing presence of addictive negative vibes that surround me, I have begun to look at my own negativity and listen to myself. I was surprised at the extent to which I have been adding to the situation.

 I am giving myself a sabbatical from all the noise, unplugging and disengaging where I can. It’s time to center myself by searching out more quiet time, reading good books, connecting with nature.

 The discipline parents use of time-out is a wonderful tool for adults as well. When we send a child to their room or to sit in the corner, it gives them a chance to rebalance, disengage from a squabble with a brother or sister, calm down and be alone. We all need more time-outs in our lives.

 I have been listening to a good song lately called “Stop Your Fussin’.” That short title reminds me to just smile and lighten up.