March Madness

March Madness, as the NCAA basketball tournaments are frequently referred to, is here again.  The fields have been chosen, and a favorite team may have been selected or not, leading some of us to feel either happiness or disappointment. Now, over the next three weeks, many people will be focused on their brackets and their favorite teams, perhaps to a state of madness.  Madness has a number of definitions according to dictionary.com, at least two of which might apply now.  The first is intense excitement or enthusiasm. This is how many people feel during the tournaments, especially watching their favorite team, or a team that is important to their bracket.  Another definition is senseless folly. This might be how people who have no interest in basketball view the whole affair.   However we view March Madness, as is the case for anything that elicits strong emotions, it can be an instructive time to pay attention to our present moment experience.  If we really get caught up in the tournament, we can notice the emotions that arise- happiness or even elation when our favorite team wins, sadness or anger when our team loses.
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The Space Between Stimulus And Response

While driving recently, I was wondering what to write for this month’s Musing when I came to a stop sign.  Seeing the red sign with STOP written on it brought my attention back to the present moment.  “Aha!” I then thought - I’ll write about STOP, an acronym that reminds us to pause to practice mindfulness in the moment. The importance of pausing is well described in the quote below often attributed to Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, although I have been unable to find a reference to him actually saying it.  Instead, according to the Viktor Frankl Institute, “The true origin of the quotation is somewhat involved. To put it shortly, the author Stephen R. Covey used to recount that he found the quote in a library book and thought it fitting to describe Frankl's views - but he did not note down the book's author and title.”  Whatever the origin, this is still a very powerful statement: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  Pausing allows us to pay attention to our present moment experience, and in pausing gives us the space to choose our response, rather than just reacting to our circumstances.
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Perspective

I have been thinking about the importance of perspective recently.  As our society becomes more and more polarized, it seems it has become harder and harder to appreciate the perspectives of those who may see the world differently than we do.  We all have views on the way things should be that are largely based on our upbringing and other formative experiences.  These views are deeply held and we often don’t even recognize that we have them.  When someone says or does something that is counter to these core beliefs it often triggers a strong reaction in us.  On the other hand, we tend to like when our core beliefs are supported.  Social media companies and news organizations recognize this, and thus our feeds are full of reinforcing information that often focuses on the positives of our beliefs and the negatives of other beliefs. This can lead to greater and greater polarization. Yet if we want to solve difficult problems, we often have to not only acknowledge but even understand and appreciate the beliefs and views of others.  This can be very hard because we often move from feeling negatively about an action to making negative assumptions about the person doing the acting.  Rather than try to understand them, we judge them.
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Joy

This time of the year is often associated with joy.  According to Dictionary.com, one of the definitions of joy is “the emotion of delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying”.  There are often many opportunities to experience joy now- giving and receiving gifts, noticing the sense of wonder that can arise in children, feeling our own sense of wonder, perhaps in relation to our religious traditions.  Last weekend I participated with some of my family and 5000 or so others in the Tacky Light Run in Midlothian, a four-mile run/walk through neighborhoods with houses decorated for the holidays in a variety of often extravagant ways.  I experienced joy in spending the time with my family, in seeing the decorations myself, and in watching others’ reactions to them.  As with many positive emotions, joy can be missed or overlooked in the context of ongoing negative events.  We may be caught up in worrying about these events, which can range from global to personal. 
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Thanksgiving Mindfulness

Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity to practice mindfulness.  The day is devoted to giving thanks, and we can pay attention to all of the things for which we can be thankful: family, friends, food, activities.  We can Intentionally notice our experience as it arises, becoming aware of being in relationship with others, and really paying attention to what we are eating, drinking, and doing. Thanksgiving is also an opportunity to notice when we wish things were different than they are. We might find getting to wherever we are planning to go challenging.  We might be spending time alone when we would prefer to be with others, or we might be with people we find difficult.  Our favorite sports team might lose.  When faced with these moments, we can see if it’s possible to just be with things as they are, noticing what we are feeling without judgement.  We can notice the thoughts that arise and recognize the choice we have in getting caught up in them, which may only serve to amplify our suffering, or in letting them go.  This doesn’t mean we have to passively accept our situation, but rather to observe it so that we can choose the most skillful response. 
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Capturing Moments of Mindfulness

I was giving a talk on mindfulness recently and someone in the audience noted they had tried to meditate for 10 minutes and when they finished, their email inbox had filled up with work messages they had to attend to.  They implied this made it seem that the time they had spent meditating had a higher cost than benefit. This situation applies to many of us when we try to find the time to practice mindfulness.  How do we find the time to practice when we have busy schedules and seemingly more to do than there is time to do it all? Even though our lives are very busy and it seems that there is no time for meditation, often there is if we really have the intention to practice.   When practicing, any time spent intentionally paying attention to our present moment experience is beneficial, and more time is better.  Just like with exercising, if we want to make it a regular part of our lives we have to make the commitment to do it, set aside the time, and then do it regularly.  Often this works best if we have a schedule and a time carved out every day, perhaps half an hour every morning after we get up.  This is my favorite time to meditate.  If half an hour is too long, we might try 15 minutes.  If it’s only 15 minutes, we might even get up 15 minutes earlier to do it.  Ideally, we will set an intention for how much we will meditate, decide when we will do it, and then practice every day.
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