Moving On From Difficult Interactions
Last month’s Musing focused on having a conversation with someone with whom we’d had a difficult interaction. This month the topic is about how we might move on without having such a conversation. Difficult interactions with others can lead us to feel many different negative emotions, such as anger or resentment, and may result in us going over the event repeatedly, trying to understand what happened or imagining how things might have gone differently. Often this does not accomplish much except to make us feel worse. Getting caught up in the story of what happened in the past does not change the events although we still can learn from them so that similar situations might have a different outcome in the future. When we find ourselves in these situations it can be helpful to pause and assess what is happening. First, is it even possible to take any action regarding the others involved? If we can address it with the other person directly then we might choose to do so as was discussed last month. But what if we can’t do this, perhaps because it was a one-time interaction with someone we don’t know, or if we choose not to because it is too difficult or there is too much risk?
Mindfulness Renewal Course to Be Offered Starting March 6 This four-week course is designed for those who want to renew their mindfulness practice and who have competed an eight-week mindfulness…
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“Inviting our thoughts and feelings into awareness allows us to learn from them rather than be driven by them.” -Daniel J. Siegel When we choose to try a sitting meditation, we are making a special time and place for non-doing in our lives. The regular practice of sitting meditation provides the opportunity to wake up to this moment, the only moment we truly have. Our lives move at such a hectic pace that it can become a blur of lived but un-noticed moments. It can be as if we are sleep walking through life, moving in a type of automaticity, not noticing how we really feel, what we really think, how we truly want to live. The days can become weeks, the weeks can become months, the months can become years and before we realize it, much time has passed, and we have missed most of our life. Mindfulness is waking up to the present moment on purpose without judgement. It is setting our intention to pay attention and then focusing our attention and observing the underlying attitudes that show up. It’s about letting go – letting go of expectations and letting the present moment be as it is. It’s about developing patience and openness towards ourselves with kindness and curiosity, being aware of the tendency to push to achieve an outcome or to resist those experiences that are unpleasant. It’s about the tendency to judge.
Unwinding Anxiety – Part Three
"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." -Maya Angelou S-T-O-P Stop: Pause, notice what’s in the body in this moment Take a breath: feel the breath as it flows throughout Observe all that’s here: Stressed? Angry? Anxious? Bored? Proceed: after recognizing what shows up, knowing there’s freedom to choose. We’ve been talking about unknowingly feeding into our anxiety over the last two Musings. What “feeds” do we gravitate towards when feeling anxious? There was an invitation for us to take a mindful moment before surfing our social media by pausing to collect some data before automatically engaging with Instagram, grabbing that candy bar, checking our email or twitter account. Pausing to notice what sensations are here in the body, where they are felt, and what thoughts or emotions are provoked before proceeding. With this information we can ask ourselves, who’s in the driver seat, me, or my anxiety? Here’s a little science behind how this works. It’s called operant conditioning or reward-based learning. Our minds set up habit loops based on the results of our actions. These results are interpreted by the brain as “rewards”. These rewards shape our behavior. With positive reinforcement, we learn to do more behaviors that make good feelings continue.
Put your New Year’s resolutions into action by taking a mindfulness course through the Mindfulness Center. The Mindfulness Center will be offering a wide range of courses starting in January…