“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present— love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure— the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.”
One of the emotions I find myself avoiding most is overwhelm. When the demand for our time or energy or money is greater than our capacity we feel overwhelmed. I used to think this was how every mom felt most of the day–and especially at dinner time. Then I learned some amazing tools that helped me feel calmer and happier in the midst of overwhelm.
It was “happy hour” at our house, 5:00 pm. It was a far cry from the happy hour you might be imagining of colleagues gathering for a relaxing time after work. My baby had a death grip on my leg and was whining “hold you!” while I tried to sauté garlic. “Ugh, I should have cooked dinner this morning so it wouldn’t be so crazy tonight” I thought as I tripped over some magnetic letters strewn in front of the fridge. “The house is trashed, my kids never clean-up” I mumbled as I took a deep breath, picked up my baby. My older daughter looked over from the table and asked if I could help her with her math homework. I left my cutting board full of veggies and turned off my half-sautéed garlic in the pan. I sat down thinking, “I’ve got to try to be patient or she’ll have a melt down.”
We had only made it through a couple of problems when the baby pulled the table cloth and spilled the cup of water. “I hate this time of day. I don’t know if I can handle one more thing!” I thought as I stood up to get a paper towel. Comic relief arrived just in time—a pillow case monster just the size of my middle daughter came barreling down the hallway bumping walls and people to be as scary as possible! I hardly had time to smile before she knocked right into the chair and cut her toe. Of course, tears and wails followed—and not from the monster. I set the baby down to get a band aid. I felt guilty as I thought. “I know I should be more compassionate but hello, what did you think would happen when you walk around with a pillow case on your head!”
The baby started whining again, my older daughter reminded me she still needed help with math, and there was still the fountain of band aid tears…my overwhelm exploded. “Everybody just calm down! I’m just one person, I can’t help everyone at the same time.” I yelled. Everyone stopped. Their eyes were big and then my shame attack hit.
For many years, this was a familiar scenario for our family—and not just at dinner time. Overwhelm and irritation were my constant companions. And of course, discouragement was a close cousin. I didn’t know there was any other option; I thought everyone felt overwhelmed in demanding situations. My feelings just seemed like the natural result of the things going on around me. I felt exhausted and guilty a lot of the time and so frustrated I couldn’t seem to be the mom and person I wanted to be!
In the last few years, I’ve learned something very powerful. It has changed everything.
This may seem like a simple concept, but it’s been around a long time. Two thousand years ago Epictedus the Greek philosopher taught, “Humans are disturbed not by things but by the view they take of them.” The Buddha taught a similar truth. “Suffering comes from thoughts not what actually happens.” The bible teaches us, “As a man thinketh, so is he.”
Three of the greatest teachers on earth taught this same principle. This truth means that we have the remote control to our own feelings. We can choose what we want to feel and create it by how we choose to think. We aren’t dependent on anything outside of us.
Let’s circle back to vignette of “happy hour” at my house as a case study about how this can help us:
This is powerful stuff. If you would have told me a few years ago that 5 pm-6 pm could actually be one of the happiest hours of the day, I would not have believed it. The practice of changing my thoughts about this time of day has changed “happy hour” into an actual “happy hour!” It’s not rainbows and unicorns every night of course, but it’s certainly a lot more smooth. When I supervise my brain and deliberately substitute these types of thoughts for the other ones, I feel peaceful, empowered and loving! And, I don’t have to yell to get things done…which means I don’t feel guilty either.
We have the ability to choose our own feelings by deliberately choosing our thoughts. In other words, happiness is a skill! We don’t have to wait for anything around us to change in order to feel different.
What’s a time you feel overwhelmed?
Stop and notice what thoughts you are having during this time. What feelings do they create? Replace those thoughts with thoughts that create a more helpful feeling.
There isn’t any one “right” thing to say to someone who has lost someone, and everyone experiences grief differently however there are a few principles that might help guide interactions with people who are experiencing grief.
Most of us experience difficulty in our lives, and feeling the love and support of others can make this experience so much better. After my mom passed away, many people reached out in love and generosity. I appreciated ALL these kind overatures. They encircled my family in arms of love during a very difficult time.
I also learned a lot during this time about what types of interactions are most helpful.
This seems like such a noble motive. It’s natural to feel bad for someone when they suffer. Our inclination is to make them feel better so they won’t suffer any more. We might be inclined to say things like, “You’ll see them again.” “They are in a better place now.” “You have so many things to be grateful for.” While well intended, the problem with this type of comment is that it fails to validate how the person is feeling.
It never feels good to be told how to act or what to feel–especially if the person hasn’t been through the same experience. In fact, comments like these may even give the indication that you don’t think the loss really is a big problem. Feeling misunderstood can cause people to hold onto emotions longer and be less able to move through them to other emotions when they have processed them.
Ask questions to allow someone to share how they are feeling. Sometimes it is awkward when a person is struggling. We like to hear that people are doing well. However, what they often need is just to be able to express how they are doing and feel that it is understood and accepted. This helps them process feelings, which is actually what allows us to let them go. I remember when a friend said simply, “How are you?” That was the kindest thing they could have said.
I remember when my mom was going through chemo, and my Dad was trying to balance a career and fill the roles of both parents, many people did kind things that were so thoughtful. One neighbor came over on garbage day and took the garbage cans out to the curb. It meant so much to my Dad who had so many things going. Some friends came and planted flowers in our flower pots on the front porch–something my mother would have loved to do herself but wasn’t up to. Other friends brought a thoughtful gift and left in on the porch every week while my mom was sick to give her something to look forward to. The Christmas after my mom passed away our Aunt Katie had ornaments made for each of us that represented something each of us individually loved about our mom. There were so many sweet things people did, it is impossible to name them all–but each of them made us feel loved.
As humans we want others to know we care and understand. In an attempt to help others know that we recognize how hard this situation is, we might be inclined to assume how someone is feeling. We might share our own experience, and our own feelings with it.
Sometimes this CAN be very helpful. But other times it’s not. For example, when someone loses a child, we might be inclined to say, “I know how you feel–my grandparent just passed away.” It was well intentioned, however it could actually be hurtful to someone to think you are comparing the magnitude of loss of the passing of a grandparent to the magnitude of loss of a child. This can cause someone to feel that you don’t understand.
Sometimes people who are struggling with loss DO want to talk to people who have been through what they have experienced. Each type of loss is different; loss of a parent, a child, a sibling, a spouse, a grandparent, a friend, suicide, homicide, traumatic death etc. When we have experienced the same type of loss as someone else, they are often more open to our experiences. However, even two people who have been through a similar experience–or event the same experience–may grieve and process the experience in a very different way. There are no “shoulds” when it comes to what to feel during loss.
One of the things my family did during the time my mom was in her final days was to solicit any memories of my mother. People sent them by email, posted them on her blog, mailed them, called them in and told us themselves. It was so uplifting to see the incredible impact she had had on so many people as we read her the notes and sentiments people shared. After her passing, those tributes stand as a monument to her legacy and remind us of who she was.
I really appreciated all the wonderful people who had lost their mothers who listened and shared with me after I lost my mom. I remember my Curtis cousins who had lost their mother to Ovarian Cancer a few years before, all sent us flowers that would grow through the winter as a symbol of hope and growth. They all came to the funeral which meant a great deal. The Westover Family in our ward who had lost their mother 5 or 6 years earlier (also to cancer) brought over a box of presents for each of us for our first Christmas without our mom. My Aunt Nanny who had lost her mother, invited us to her home for a few days to talk about grieving and to process together. These and so many more beautiful gestures were so meaningful to us.
When we know someone is struggling, another inclination we have sometimes is to awfulize how the person must be feeling and try to communicate that to them. We might say, “That is SO hard.” Or “You must be struggling so much.” or “I don’t know how you do that.” Sometimes this can be helpful to the person. However, if the person isn’t feeling those things it can make the person feel awkward–that maybe they SHOULD be feeling a particular way and they aren’t.
We might say, “I could never handle it, if my mom dies.” We mean to express that we recognize the magnitude of the experience. However, on the receiving end it can feel awkward–the person did not choose this difficulty because they thought they could handle it. It simply happened, and they are getting through it the best they can.
Rather than assuming how someone is feeling, it is better to ask them. “How are you doing?” “How are your spirits?” Follow their lead–if they want to talk, then listen. If not, they know you care. I remember when I flew back to China after the funeral and my friends Rosemay and Ryan showed up at my doorstep with dinner and hugs. I remember my friend Anny took me out to lunch after my mom died and just listened and asked questions. It allowed me to process and be exactly where I was in my grieving process.
After several months had passed, it can be common for people to say things like “Are you healed?” Or, “Are you over it?” The interesting thing with grief is that is does become less acute over time, but it never fully goes away. It is episodic and comes and goes at unexpected times. As an outsider, it can feel like after a reasonable amount of time has passed, that people should “move on.” While it is true that staying in sorrow too long can turn into self-pity, it is never helpful to judge when it’s time for someone else to be less consumed with grief. Sometimes pointing this out to someone in grief or self-pity can have the opposite effect of what’s intended–causing the person to dig in their heels deeper into grief and self-pity in order to show how deeply they are hurting.
Assume the person will always have some level of grief over their loss. A kind statement is, “How has it been for you?” Or, “What has that been like?” This allows the person to share without the overarching message that healing is a phase that should be completed.
Sometimes because we are worried we will say the wrong thing, we don’t say anything at all! Or, because we don’t know what to bring, we don’t go visit. This is understandable, but actually this can be more hurtful than saying or bringing the wrong thing. Often when someone is grieving, they feel particularly vulnerable. When they feel avoided it can feel even more lonely, and awkward and can even be more hurtful than saying or doing the wrong thing.
Even if it isn’t the perfect approach, ere on the side of action. Saying or doing something is always better than nothing. When my mom found out she had cancer, some of her friends showed up at her home with just a hug. My mom said it was one of the kindest things anyone did for her. After my mom died, someone sent my Dad a letter saying, “I’m not even sure what to say, but I just wanted to tell you I care.” It was one of his favorite notes. I remember I appreciated when people simply acknowledged my mom’s passing. “I’m so sorry to hear about your mom.”
It can be painful to hear comments of those who are trying to help–but may not understand. Their comments may at times sound insensitive or naive. Be careful not to shut people down or they will stop reaching out. You are in a vulnerable place, and the love others offer can be a healing balm even if it is a little awkward or imperfect.
One thing I found helpful was to consider all the overtures people made as little love notes; like I was collecting this elementary school box of valentines from all these people who cared. Some were more helpful or meaningful, but all were intended to show love. Thinking about the comments and efforts of those who reached out allowed me to feel an incredible outpouring of love without being offended if people didn’t offer it in exactly the way I would have hoped.
My Aunt gave me some invaluable advice after my mom passed away. She suggested when you are the one grieving, create space for people to help you grieve. If people don’t ask the question you want to share about, share what’s in your heart. Try to picture their motive, not their words. Open your heart to others even if they don’t hold the space perfectly. Sharing some will be so much more fulling than ruminating about how they didn’t respond correctly. We’re all in this together; figuring out how to help each other.
On the first mother’s day after her passing, my aunt Natalie sent this picture and poem. It helped to capture how I was feeling and provided healing balm to my hurting heart.
. Is there something on my back? By Caitlyn Connolly
Heavy
By Mary Oliver
That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,
as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry
but how you carry it –
books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
This lovely creative offering was a way of offering feeling empathy without assuming, judging, or giving advice. It simply acknowledged the event and offered validation.
Most of us ask ourselves unhelpful questions frequently and we don’t realize the negative impact it has on us. Changing the type of questions we ask ourselves can improve the way we feel and help us be more successful in our lives.
Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” Questions are a powerful tool you can use to change your life and the lives of others. They affect how we feel and how we act. When we ask good questions, the brain goes to work generating answers. It’s like giving the brain a puzzle and it begins looking for pieces to fit together. Even when we are not consciously focused on a question, our brain continues to work on it. When your brain has something to figure out, it begins to notice new information or connect old information to solve it.
What questions do you ask yourself on a regular basis? Do any of these sound familiar?
What’s wrong with me?
Why can’t I lose weight?
What is my problem?
Why can’t I keep better track of my money?
Why can’t I pull it together?
Why am I so stupid?
What if it doesn’t work out?
Most of us ask questions like these without even realizing we are doing it. When we ask negative questions like these—we answer ourselves with a list of negative answers.
One question I’ve been asking myself a lot recently is, “Why can’t I pull it together?” I often think this when I’m running late.
It feels like a helpful question—like it’s somehow going to help me actually “pull it together” and be on time. The problem is I rarely do pull it together to be on time—even though I’ve been asking that question for many years. Not only has it not helped me pull it together, I realized recently it is sabotaging my efforts to be on time.
Here’s how I know. I’ve been watching myself. When I ask myself that question, I know the underlying answers are something like, “I’m not a very good mom.” “I’m always late” “I should have been more prepared.” My negative thoughts cause me to feel discouraged, inadequate and unsure how to be better.
If we want to find a solution, we must ask the right kind of questions.
Negative questions and their answers won’t get us anywhere. In fact, they will take us farther from changing our behavior because we’ll be stuck in negative emotion.
Positive questions yield more useful answers. Instead of asking, “Why can’t I pull it together,” I’ve been trying to ask, “How can I use this moment to teach or love my kids?” or “How can I be the mom I want to be in this situation?” or “I wonder what type of preparation people who arrive on time do?”
These questions have generated much more useful answers such as: “It’s okay if the kids are a little rushed, it’s important for them to learn to be on-time.” Or “I’m going to choose to be a little late so that I can be the mom I want to be in this moment.” Or “Next time I think I’ll have the kids set out their backpack and socks the night before.” These answers leave me feeling much more optimistic and empowered to actually “pull it together.”
The quality of the question will determine the quality of the answer. We do our best work when we are creative, confidant and open minded. Asking ourselves the right questions can be a powerful tool for putting our minds in this frame.
What questions do you ask yourself regularly? In his book, Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins suggests some questions that may be useful to ask ourselves daily—or at least regularly.
*What am I happy about in my life now?
*What am I grateful for in my life now?
*What am I committed to in my life now?
*Who do I love?
Who loves me?
*What kind of mom do I want to be today?
*What feels like love in this situation?
*How can I be an example of what’s possible?
*What choice would benefit me and everyone around me?
*How can I have fun and clean at the same time?
*What can I do to feel my emotions instead of eating them today?
*What can I do to laugh a lot today?
*What can I do to make someone’s day a little better today?
Ask yourself one question every day. Consider writing the question on a sticky note in a place you’ll see it often and remind yourself to work on the answer.
If an answer requires a lot of effort or if it requires sacrificing something to make a decision, sometimes the brain will often answer, “I don’t know.” The brain likes to be efficient and it doesn’t like to work hard if it can help it. It doesn’t like to be uncomfortable or do anything painful. It will avoid it if possible. It will procrastinate doing hard things.
The problem with “I don’t know,” is that it blocks your brain from finding answers. It seems innocent and reasonable, but really it means we don’t want to do the work to find the answer, or we don’t believe we’re capable. Both of those beliefs will keep us stuck.
When your brain tries to say “I don’t know…” open your mind again by saying “I’m learning.” Or “I’m figuring it out.” Take a guess, try something out and see. Sometimes the wrong way helps us realize what the right way is.
What is one question you ask yourself regularly? Are the answers useful?
If not, consider substituting the questions you ask yourself for a more useful question. Observe the results in your life.
Most of us assume that the way we see things, is the way they are. But have you ever disagreed with someone about what happened in a particular situation? You both KNOW you are right? There’s a scientific explanation for why different people can have a totally different idea of what the truth is! The explanation can also improve your happiness.
I remember when I was young, my mother would burst into singing during dinner when we forgot to use the words, “please,” and “thank you.” You might remember the song, “There are two little magic keys that will open any door with ease. One little word is ‘thanks’ and the other little word is ‘please.” I learned it as gospel truth that it is nice manners to say “thank you” when someone helps you.
When we moved to China, we employed a woman to help us with some cooking, cleaning and child care. She worked so hard, and amazed me with her efficiency. As the mom of 3 little ones I was SO thankful for her help. When she was at my home, I would often thank her for all she did. I noticed that she looked very awkward when I said “thank you.” Our communication was fairly limited since she spoke Mandarin and I spoke English so it was difficult to flesh out what was going on. At first I thought maybe my pronunciation was off and I was saying something rude unintentionally!
However, I learned later, that culturally it is rude to say thank you to someone who is close to your family. Family members and people in the inner circle of friends consider it essential to be loyal to each other. Serving each other is something that is expected. Saying thank you carries the connotation that the person is not part of your inner circle. I was floored. I had never considered that saying “thank you” could be rude! In my culture saying thank you was kind, but in China, in this context, it was not.
This is a fascinating principle to apply to the mind. At any one time there are multiple truths that exist at the same time. Our brain is used to seeing things in one particular way and it’s most efficient and comfortable for the brain to keep thinking about things in the same way. However, keeping an open mind to the possibility of multiple true perspectives can be powerful in feeling happier.
In his book “The Happiness Advantage,” Shawn Achor, a positive psychologist suggests that at any one moment there are multiple realities that are true and available to us about any given situation. He asserts that people who are happy often have the ability to discern multiple parallel realities, and select the most beneficial one.
There is so much information coming at us at any one time, it is impossible to synthesize all of it. The brain uses shortcuts in order to select relevant information and process it in a meaningful way. While this is essential to our survival, it also means that the “truth” we see is filtered.
These filters can be anything from our belief system, to our culture, to our anxiety to preference, to fatigue and many more things. We don’t mean to skew our reality but it is a product of being a human. The good news is, that if your reality isn’t working, there are several true realities for the same situation.
Here is an example of how this concept increased my happiness. Although I grew up in Colorado, which is a four season climate, I don’t love winter. As winter starts approaching, it’s easy for me to start feeling sort of anxious and trapped—even edgy. The default reality that I think of related to winter is the one where my fingers feel stiff and cold, I have to bundle my kids to go out and find lost mittens, I have to scrape windshields and shovel sidewalks, and the cars slip on the roads. The landscape is monochromatic, and people hurry between their cars and their inside destinations.
However, there is an alternative reality—equally believable to me—that exists as well. There are things I do love about winter. I love a white Christmas. I enjoy skiing, sledding with my kids and playing Fox and Geese. I love their rosy cheeks from the cold as they come in after being outside. I love the excuse to put on sweaters and boots. I love drinking hot herbal teas and hot chocolate and I love winter baking. It’s nice to have an excuse to cuddle up and read or watch a show.
Both realities are true, but one will create more happiness and less feelings of resentment and isolation. Turning into a Polyanna who can’t see the truth will not be helpful. We absolutely need to recognize all the factors, but we don’t have to allow exclusively negative information we take in to form our view of reality. At any given moment in the winter I will take in lots of information–everything from cold fingers and scraping the windshield to feeling cozy and noticing my children’s rosy cheeks. As my brain chooses data to process, I can purposely choose to notice things I love and things I enjoy and spend more time thinking about those. There will still be the negative, but I don’t have to allow those details to inform the chatter in my brain or my view of life. I choose my reality by what I choose to focus on. Choosing to live in the most beneficial true reality will increase our happiness.
What drags you down?
If you had to write a newspaper article about that situation or person or event, what would be the title of it? Explore more than one reality about it. Could you write a different newspaper article about the same situation that was equally true and but highlighted different facts? Choose to highlight to your mind the facts and stories that bring the most happiness.
When most of us think of luck, we think of shamrocks and superstition–like luck is something that happens to us. But lucky can be a feeling we have about our lives, and whether or not we feel it is not dependent on finding our Leprechaun or pot of gold. Feely lucky is something we can feel at any time, and we can feel it simply by choosing carefully what thought we compare to our current situation.
When my husband was attending law school in Boston, we lived in row houses. There was a community laundry that was a few doors down. Boston winters are no joke…the temperatures get so low they freeze the little particles of moisture on your lips. One winter morning, I found myself trying to tromp through knee deep snow with my 4-month-old, a hamper and soap in order to do my laundry. I had to prop open a heavy wood door open with my bottom to try to load everything piece-meal inside (including my baby) and get it all down the stairs to the wash room. When I got down there I discovered I was short enough quarters! “This is so hard” I thought. I dreamed of having my own washing machine and carrying a basket of clothing through a heated home to drop in the washer. That would be so much easier, I complained to myself. Meanwhile my baby was crying and I had to trek out to get more quarters. Every week was the same. Multiple trips in and out of the snow and stairs. Each time I became a bit more disgruntled and frustrated.
One afternoon I attended a lecture up at the university given by a positive psychologist named, Shawn Achor. He was doing research on law students, who are known to be some of the least happy in their careers compared to others and and have some of the highest suicide rates of any profession. In his early research on happiness, one of the biggest determinants of happiness was the thoughts that individuals compared to their situation.
He shared a scenario of a man who walked into a bank and was shot in the arm. He asked people if the man was lucky, or unlucky. About half of the people responded that he was unlucky, because most of the time when people go into the bank they are not shot. However, half of the respondents said that he was lucky, because he could have been shot in the heart and died. Interestingly, the thought they compared to the situation determined how they thought and felt about it. I was fascinated by the idea of determining my perspective by choosing the thoughts I compared my situation to.
The next week when I did the laundry and caught myself grumbling about how hard my task was, I stopped. Instead I thought about when I had lived in Africa. We had to haul water up from the well in buckets. Then, we heated it and washed our clothes by hand with powdered soap in buckets. The red dirt made clothes impossibly stained and it seemed like no amount of scrubbing remedied the mess. When we had washed and rinsed the clothes, which often took a couple of hours, we hung them them to dry on clothes lines. We took them down when they were hard and crispy from the African sun a couple of days later.
When I compared doing laundry in my public laundry in Boston to my experience in Africa, suddenly tromping through snow with a baby and carrying multiple loads through doors and down stairs didn’t feel so hard. The convenience of a washing machine and access to warm water through a hose felt luxurious. Being able to simply push a button felt almost magical. Having liquid soap that dissolved easily and having stain removers I could spray on my clothes seemed like such a blessing. Being able to put a load in the dryer and pull out warm, dry clean clothes seemed incredible.
Changing the thought I compared my laundry experience to, changed my whole experience from resentful to grateful–unlucky to lucky.
What part of life feels unlucky to you?
Feeling lucky is available any time you would like simply by comparing your situation to another situation that helps you see it as lucky. If you just can’t get there, try getting out and working in a less fortunate situation like a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Even watching a movie about war torn countries or challenging times in history can give insight into the abundance that exists in your situation.
In stressful situations, our brains often go into survival mode. We try to get through the situation with the least amount of damage possible. Unfortunately this isn’t always the best way to approach a stressful situation. Programming how we want to handle stress ahead of time can make it much more enjoyable and much less taxing.
Widespread panic overwhelmed the island of Oahu, HI early on a Saturday morning when this text message appeared on cell phones. “Ballistic missle threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”
Immediately people made desperate attempts to find their loved ones and to seek shelter. One woman hid in a bathroom with her children and prayed. Some tourists were taken to concrete bunkers. Parents stuck on the freeway worried they might never see their children again. Given the high tensions with North Korea, and the closer proximity of Hawaii compared to the mainland US, Hawaiian residents were already on edge. People had been told they would have about 12 minutes after a text alert before a bomb would hit.
I was particularly interested in the opposite responses of two of our friends. One friend called her loved ones to say good-bye, and then hid under a table. Another friend called her loved ones to say good-bye, and then went surfing. At first it seemed a bit cavalier to head out surfing in the face of a bomb threat. However, as I thought more about it, the idea intrigued me. I love the image of her riding the waves instead of running around in panic.
Thankfully the text was a mistake. There was no bomb and no obliteration, just 38 minutes of terror. We had just moved off the island when this incident occurred, but having lived there for the last 3 years the threat felt very real to us. If I knew I might be obliterated, what would I do with my last minutes? I’m not suggesting anyone should actually go surfing during a bomb threat–especially if there were children to protect or concern over the nuclear blast affecting surrounding areas but I think the idea of thinking beyond the instinctual defense is an interesting one.
This is an intriguing metaphor for how we respond to events that happen around us. While I have never experienced a nuclear bomb threat, I have plenty moments in which I have to make the same kind of choice about how to respond to an overwhelming circumstance. Sometimes my reaction feels so instinctual I have to remind myself that I do have a choice about how to think and how to respond in a given situation.
One of these moments happened the other day when my two-year-old melted down in shrieks and tears when she saw that we were having salmon for dinner instead of pizza. By the time she was on the floor wailing and flailing, my brain was wailing and flailing too. It was almost like a bomb of emotions went off in my brain and it was hard to think clearly. My immediate thought was, “This is ridiculous.” I sighed, rolled my eyes and felt irritated. When I’m irritated I rarely show up my best. I’m more likely to yell or respond impatiently, or try to escape the drama by eating or checking my phone. When I yell, my child feels guilt in addition to her initial emotion of disappointment. At the end of the night I feel discouraged about my mothering. I feel stuck– essentially trapped under a theoretical table.
Using our metaphor of surfing instead of hiding under a table—I tried to think about what type of response would help me go “surfing” instead. I knew that my response started with the thought I chose. I decided to flip my thought on my head. Instead of thinking, “This is ridiculous,” I decided to think, “This is normal. I’m so glad she’s developing as a healthy two-year-old. If she never had opinions or expressed them, I’d be concerned!” This thought helped me feel thankful instead of irritated. Gratitude is an open emotion that allowed me to respond with love and kindness. I let the tantrum run it’s course, and when it was over I was able to scoop up my girl, hug her and carry on with dinner. No drama. No emotional “bomb shells” all over. I was able to “surf” even amid the threat.
The next time a “bomb” of emotion goes off in your head, notice what your default thought is. If it’s one that might trap you in more negative emotions—try thinking the opposite thought. Notice if it helps change your feeling and your result. Surfing is a lot more fun!
We don’t have to WANT to do something, to do it. And in fact, the best way to change the way we feel about something is to do it. Positive outcomes actually reward the brain with happy hormones and the brain learns doing something hard is more desirable than the saved energy or the emotional exposure that we protect by not doing it.
When I was a freshman in High School, I naively signed up for Cross Country not knowing what I was getting myself into. I showed up the first day in my canvas skimmer shoes, hobbled my way through the 3 mile run and came back red in the face, out of breath and dead last.
My calves hurt, my feet hurt, my EVERYTHING hurt. I was embarrassed and out of shape. I did NOT feel like going back the next day.
I had an amazing Coach—Coach Fergeson. He ran beside me and encouraged me during practice. It was mainly because of him that I kept going back. Slowly my muscles began to be conditioned and eventually I was able to run the whole 3 miles without stopping. I was still last, but not quite so miserably.
If we believe we must “feel” like doing something in order to do something, we will have a difficult time accomplishing much. In psychology, this is called Emotional Reasoning. It’s a concept that means you make decisions based on how you feel. Feelings should certainly be consulted when making a decision. But if we left all our actions to be determined only by the feeling centers of our brains, we would stay in bed, eat chocolate chip cookies and watch Netflix all day. Rarely does the brain WANT to do work, WANT to open up and be vulnerable or WANT to do things that are challenging.
In fact, in the new book “What the Brain Wants and Why We Should Do Exactly the Opposite,” the author explains that the brain’s primary motives are geared toward basic survival. This means avoiding pain, increasing our efficiency and seeking pleasure. While these things may have helped our ancestors survive, in a modern world they can actually sabotage our happiness.
There are very few physical threats, life is already very efficient and pleasure is available at the touch of a button or by opening a package. In fact, we need to learn the difference between when these basic survival skills help us (such as when we touch a hot stove), and when they hurt us (such as not getting out of bed).
Even though I never FELT like going to practice, I stuck with it. Pretty soon, other things besides my coach began motivating me. I made friends on the team, I started working for personal bests on my time and I discovered running had the most amazing after-run high.
I went on to run four years of Cross Country with my high school time and running became a life-long sport for me. During college, I built up to running half-marathons, marathons, and tri-athalons. I recently ran my first Spartan Obstacle Race.
Because I was willing to overcome my brain’s desire to avoid pain, I grew to love and crave exercise. I notice my day isn’t the same without it. The physical and emotional health and sense of accomplishment I have gleaned from showing up when I didn’t feel like it has blessed me over the past 20 years.
When our higher brain knows something is good for us but our lower brain doesn’t FEEL like it, we would be well served to follow the Nike slogan, “Just do it.” When you can’t, channel your inner Coach Fergeson and encourage yourself along the way trusting that once the brain gets enough times of recognizing the benefits, the lower brain will take over and begin “feeling” like it.
What do you often not FEEL like doing?
1. Recognize your brain is doing it’s job to try to avoid discomfort and be efficient. But also recognize that in this case you might need to override your brain’s base motivation with your higher brain knowing you’ll be happier in the long run.
2. Just do it. Doing the thing you least feel like doing is the best way to reinforce to your brain that this activity actually is beneficial!
They way we feel is the product of what we think. Just as with physical gardening, we plant seeds in our minds constantly. Sometimes we choose them, other times we don’t. However, whether a seed flourishes depends entirely on how we care for it. In other words the way we think about something that happens will affect how much it grows and impacts us much more than the fact that it happened. A productive yield of happiness requires both planting and nourishing gratitude and abundance as well as weeding and pruning dissatisfaction and lack. As we do we’ll find we can grow happiness anywhere.
My Dad loved to garden, and he put all of his daughters to work planting, weeding and watering each summer. Frankly, I thought it was hot and boring a lot of the time; I tried to avoid it whenever I could. One of the pay-offs of our hard work was the tender, rich acidic flavor of red home-grown tomatoes that we picked on summer nights and ate for dinner.
A garden’s yield is directly correlated to the effort put into it. I remember one summer when we were fairy lazy about watering. Then, we went on a family vacation and returned to find the garden sparse and mostly dried up. I remember my sister running into the house sobbing because it meant there would be no home-grown tomatoes that year.
The law of the harvest states that we will reap what we sow. If we want the home-grown tomatoes, we have to plant them, water them, and weed them.
Because I grew up spending Saturday mornings with my fingernails buried in the dirt weeding and watering our backyard garden plot, I find particular poignancy in this quote by Sarah Ban Breathnach about the gardens in our minds.
“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present— love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure— the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.”
This quote hung on my refrigerator for a couple of years to remind me that the law of the harvest applies to my mind. The thoughts I think are like seeds that germinate and grow into plants of feelings and actions and eventually yield the fruit of my overall happiness and relationships and contribution in the world. I determine my yield by the thoughts I choose, and the paradigms I tend and cultivate.
I love the concept that at any time, there are two mental gardens existing at the same time. In any situation, relationship or even with our own self-image, there is always abundance and there are always things lacking. It’s easy to feel that our external situation is the cause of our lack. However, ANY situation has abundance and lack simultaneously. The abundance we feel is directly correlated to how diligent we are in tending the abundant thoughts and allowing the gardens of lack to shrivel up and die.
My husband is a diplomat, which means our family gets to move frequently to various places around the world. When we embarked on this lifestyle I was optimistic about the many ways we could serve and the blessings it would have for our family. I love to travel, explore new places, try new foods, and experience how different cultures do things. I hoped to broaden my children’s minds.
The reality of life abroad however, brought many challenges. I discovered that even the smallest daily tasks were harder than I had experienced in the United States. The water wasn’t safe, so we had to use purified water to brush our teeth and get a drink. We had to bleach all of our veggies and fruits to kill bugs and bacteria. Finding simple items was an epic challenge; there was no Target or Office Depot like I was used to. One day I remember spending over 7 hours driving around the city looking for paper clips and came home empty handed. The difference in time zones made it difficult to call home, and our internet was slow and cut out frequently. I can remember sometimes having to call 6 or 7 times just to make it through a short conversation with a sister.
Driving was challenging. Many of the streets were not marked, and not knowing the language made it difficult to ask for directions. There were times I spent hours lost and driving around with a crying baby in the car. Traffic was oppressive–one time it took me over 3 hours of white knuckled driving to get my children to school. They struggled with bilingual schools; they felt overwhelmed in an environment where they understood nothing. There were no libraries, and the pollution was so bad it often prohibited going to the few rusty parks nearby. Medical care was not always optimal, and sometimes it was in a foreign language.
On difficult days, I would compare my experience there with the idealized life in America I imagined…the mini-van, the cul-de-sac, walking to elementary school, clean water, and the list goes on. When I compared my life abroad to this, things seemed difficult and unfair. Without even realizing it, I began to tend my mental garden of scarcity. The more I noticed how much harder life was, the more I collected evidence of the challenges in my life and my resentment about our lifestyle grew. My garden of scarcity grew and began to take over some of the real estate in my garden of abundance.
My husband and I accepted a posting in Hawaii–I did finally get a little home with a yard on a cul-de-sac. We could brush our teeth in clean water, shop at Target and my kids could speak English in school. I could communicate easier with my extended family. I had all the things I had dreamed about in an American life. My ideal of life on a cul-de-sac—while wonderful had just as many challenges as my life abroad. They were just different. We lived in a small home, abundant with bugs! We had no A/C and it was oppressively hot. The schools were not as stimulating as our previous experience and everything was SO expensive. My children still struggled, but with different things. I still felt discouraged and frustrated. And, I found I missed many of the wonderful things about our ex-pat life.
I realized it didn’t matter where I was–there would always be lack as well as abundance. I was focusing on where I was, trying to get to the right place–thinking that the abundant garden was an actual physical place or situation–I realized it wasn’t. The abundant garden is in our minds. We get the abundant garden by the positive thoughts we plant and nourish by intentionally focusing on. Lack will always be present as well. But we dry out that garden as we give it less attention.
With this shift in my understanding of abundance, I began to see my life in a new way. The challenges didn’t evaporate, they stayed the same, but I began to notice the abundance in my life and focus on that. I could walk to the beach! My children could go slip-and-sliding in the backyard and we could be outside year round! There were breathtaking hikes just minutes away. We made some wonderful friends and we had lots of family come and visit. Hawaii became my garden of Eden…not because of where or what it was, but how I thought about it.
Similarly as we’ve moved abroad again, I have found a life full of abundance in our ex-pat life as well. The difficult things of living outside of the US are still part of our life. There is still traffic, food and sanitation issues, and language barriers. None of that has changed. At times I get frustrated by them, but I’m learning to prune those thoughts and not allow them to overtake my garden of all the abundant things I do love about our life. When those thought arise, I just allow them to pass through, but don’t let them take root. I try to think of the inconveniences as part of the package deal that comes with so many benefits for our family.
I spend a lot more time noticing the amazing education my children are getting, nurturing relationships with other ex-pat women who have lived all over the world, and relishing our family outings on Saturdays to ruins, natural wonders and historical treasures. I try to stop and notice things; the other day I saw a man riding a bicycle stacked high with cardboard boxes several times taller than himself riding through a developed intersection full of cars. I thought about how fascinating this life is–and how amazing it is to have a car to drive.
This mental gardening has helped my emotional garden of abundance to grow and has helped to prune back my garden of lack. It has indeed caused “the wasteland of illusion to fall away, and allow me to experience Heaven on Earth.” (Or at least moments of it. 😉
What area of your life do you want to improve?
When you think about that area, what is in your emotional garden of lack? What about your garden of abundance? Tend the garden you want to grow. Nourish the thoughts of abundance by thinking of them often, talking about them, writing them down. Acknowledging the lack is fine, but dwelling on it will diminish the sense of abundance.