“We always may be what we might have been.” ~ Adelaide Anne Procter
“I spend so much time and energy complaining and blaming – I mean, a lot of time and energy. It’s hard for me to imagine that it’s much fun for others to be around me. If anything does not go my way, I stew about it, find fault, yell a bit, pout about it, and tell anyone who will listen about my frustrations. And I can hold a grudge like nobody’s business. I have so much of what I want – good job, great family, nice house – and I cannot seem to enjoy any of it for very long. I am not sure how it happened, but somehow I have become a resentful, ungrateful, entitled turd.”
These are the words of one of my clients. As I listened to him, I couldn’t help but smile – there was a time when I would have said almost exactly the same things about myself. While I would definitely not have used the words “resentful, ungrateful, entitled turd” to describe my client, it was obvious that he was struggling to find some peace in his daily life.
I think that this is true for many of us. We get into patterns of worry, complaint, and blame. Our attention gets focused on what isn’t the way we want it to be and life feels pretty unsatisfying. It is completely normal to want life to be the way we want life to be. It is completely normal to be upset or disappointed when life is not the way we want it to be. AND, we do have the option of how we relate to life when it is not the way we want it to be. As Buddhist nun Pema Chodron puts it, “There isn’t any hell or heaven except for how we relate to our world.”
My client and I put together a set of practices to cultivate the life he actually wanted. I am confident that if you practiced these things regularly, you would find, as he did, that your relationship to life becomes more graceful and powerful.
1. Remember it’s all practice
Everything you do either builds, reinforces, or dismantles networks of neurons in your brain. If you are fueling resentment in traffic, complaining about a coworker, or spinning in your head about a problem outside your control, then you are practicing these things and you are going to get better at them. You cannot keep life from showing up, but you can choose where you put your attention and energy. When you are feeling anxious, stressed, upset, or stuck, you can take a breath and ask yourself “what am I practicing right now?” You are free to acknowledge what you are feeling and what you are doing – then you can make a choice about where it would be most useful to put your energy.
2. Be with discomfort
We put a lot of energy trying to get rid of discomfort. The reality of being human is that life contains discomfort – emotional and physical. We can learn to accept this reality and put our energy into the commitments, goals, and relationships that we value most independent of comfort or discomfort. Here are some simple practices for doing this
Sit silently for 5-10 minutes everyday. Just sit with whatever is going on inside you. It can be helpful to pay attention to the sensations of the breath as an anchor. When you notice that you have become wrapped up in a thought or feeling, just notice it without doing anything about it and return your attention to the breath.
Take a cold shower. Choose to do something uncomfortable like showering or bathing in cold water and notice all the resistance that you add to the situation. Notice all the internal debate and all the physical contraction before and during the shower. This is all unnecessary. Contracting your body does not make the water warmer or the experience of the cold water more pleasant. You could just let go and experience what it is like to take a cold shower without adding any resistance.
Listen to others without trying to fix them. Just listen. Imagine what they are feeling without offering a solution. Ask them questions like “why is that important to you?” and “how can I support you?” Other people are experiencing discomfort just like you and they don’t always need your solutions. You can practice just understanding that the person is uncomfortable because they are human.
3. Say thank you
Gratitude is a powerful practice that positively impacts our psychological, emotional, and physical well-being. There are few practices that have more of a lasting effect than consistently connecting with a reason to say thanks.
Cultivate gratitude. When you wake up in the morning, you can start the day with a mental or written list of some of the things and people for which you are grateful. The key is to actually feel gratitude rather than just having an intellectual experience. You can stop during your day, take a deep breath, smile, and say thank you for the fact you exist. You don’t have to know who or what you are thanking and you do not have to have a specific reason to be grateful. You can simply practice being grateful.
4. Connect with compassion
We can soften some of our learned self-protective tendencies that do not serve us well. Being kind to others and to ourselves is connected with all kinds of benefits including resilience, motivation, and positive interpersonal relationships.
Wish strangers well. Walk into a grocery store, a coffee shop, an office building, or a train station and look around. There are people carrying great weight – you can see it on their faces and in their posture. Many people are trying to escape their burdens by staring at screens, eating, drinking, yelling, or quietly beating themselves up. We all carry the struggle of being human – we wrestle with the disappointment, upset, frustration, and dissatisfaction that comes with life. We can look around us and wish with deep sincerity that people will find peace and grace in the presence of their challenges.
Cultivate self-compassion. Try looking into a mirror until you can feel some genuine warmth and appreciation for the person looking back at you. You do not need to say or do anything other than let any resistance or discomfort pass. Practice connecting with the feeling that you are as deserving of your love as anyone else. This can feel quite awkward at first, but
5. Let go of being right
No matter what you do, people are going to see the world differently than you do. One of the challenges of being human is that we have a nervous system that can prepare us to defend our ideas as if we were defending our physical selves. This can lead to a lot of struggle, wasted energy, and damaged relationships. We have the choice of letting go and accepting that others think, feel, and believe different things than we do.
Notice the physiology of disagreement. When someone is presenting a viewpoint you disagree with, notice how your body feels. Observe where the sensations occur and the intensity or nature of those feelings. Bring your attention back to the other person and practice accepting that this is how they see things. If you really want to practice, then reflect back what you have heard using their words.
6. Access awe
The fact that we are conscious beings defies explanation. You and the chair you are sitting on are made of the same basic building blocks – electrons, protons, and neutrons – one of you knows that and the other does not. The fact that anything exists at all is crazy. How often do we stop and marvel at the miraculous nature of existence?
Wiggle, walk, breathe. Wiggle your fingers and ask yourself how you are doing it. How does a thought become the activity of millions of nerves, muscles, blood vessels, tendons, ligaments, and bones. Bring your attention to the phenomenon of walking. You do this everyday without giving it any thought, and it is profoundly complex. You can take a breath and look around. Try explaining the existence of any of what you see. Let the miraculous nature of it all sink in.
7. Take responsibility
Ironically, taking complete responsibility for what you practice is a great source of freedom. Other people, the weather, the markets, which feelings and thoughts pop up – these are outside of your control. You cannot control how others think or feel about you – you are free to stop trying. You can put your energy into what you value most deeply – some people will like it and others will not.
Replace apologies. Experiment with acknowledging exactly what you have done rather than say you are sorry. Often when we say we are sorry, we are seeking something in return, such as forgiveness. You can practice “I forgot our meeting, and I want to take responsibility for that. I know that was inconvenient and frustrating for you.” Maybe they forgive you, maybe they don’t. The point is that this is your life and you can own your words and actions without getting anything in return.
Would you like support in practicing a graceful and powerful relationship to life?
Dave gives individuals and teams the tools they need to live and work peacefully, positively, and purposefully. If you are seeking greater well-being, stronger relationships, more effective communication, or healthier culture, then contact him at dave@appliedattention.com www.appliedattention.com