The Usefulness of Mindfulness During a Stressful Time

On March 15 we received a phone call at 6:30 in the morning from our son-in-law, Christian, saying that our 38 week pregnant daughter, Emily, was in intense pain and they were going to the emergency room. Their neighbors would stay with our two year old grandson Ollie until we got there. We sprang into action and got to their house within an hour. Soon after, Christian called again: they were going to do an emergency C-section. Then no call for three hours!

How does one bring mindfulness to terrified thoughts which were coursing through my brain at that time? My conditioning from my parents is to expect the worst and hope for the best. Until we got the call that Emily and the baby were OK, I found the best response was to turn on the TV and watch Curious George with my grandson Ollie. He sat contentedly in my lap, my arm wrapped around his body. Whenever the terrified thoughts came, I acknowledged those parts of myself that were terrified, and then I looked at Ollie and gently hugged him closer. Even after Sophia's birth I had to deal with fears about her and Emily's health. From Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems, I have learned that those parts of me that expect and fear the worst are parts that were formed in my childhood and that those parts are trying to protect me. Rumi's famous poem The Guest House tells us that it is important to welcome those parts. Thich Nhat Hanh taught me how to welcome those parts: "hello old friend fear, come sit with me." During those three days when intense feelings arrived, I was able to welcome them. If I was in the middle of something, especially with Ollie, I would simply acknowledge them. If I had more space, I would feel the places in my body where they resided and take a few mindful breaths. Sometimes, I would radiate loving-kindness phrases to myself and our family: may I/you have moments of happiness, moments of peace, moments of freedom from suffering.

After the birth, Yvette and I realized we might be there for a few days, so we settled into watching Ollie. All he knew was that mama, dada, and baby sister were at a place called hospital and that he couldn't see them now, and he is two and we are seventy-four. Welcome to a marathon. So how did I practice mindfulness now that the worst had not happened?

First, I made the intention to pace myself. Three years after the aortic dissection which nearly killed me, I do not have the amount of energy that I had before, partly because of pills I take daily to lower my heart rate and blood pressure. I have learned during this time how to monitor my lower energy levels so that I don't crash. So I made the intention to be aware of moving more slowly throughout the day. I was often aware of taking a few breaths mindfully, and I made sure to take breaks when I realized that my energy was getting dangerously low.

I also identified situations that would likely trigger some reactivity on my part, for example, walking into the kitchen and their big golden retriever jumping up on me or walking in my path, and times when I was more likely to feel challenged by Ollie, like meal times and other transitions. Because of my intention to remember these situations, I was able to generally make appropriate responses-not yelling at the dog or being irritated with Ollie.

While Yvette and I are generally in agreement about how to deal with our grandchildren, we don't always agree. As the days wore on, we were more tired and there were moments of irritation with each other. In those moments, it was so helpful to remember the four questions the Buddha encouraged people to ask before they spoke: Is what I am about to say true? Will it be helpful? Can I say it kindly? and Is this a good time to say it? Most of the time, I could not answer yes to all four questions, and so I kept my mouth shut in those moments. Fortunately, Yvette also knows Buddhist psychology, so my silence was understood.

The only times during those three days that I actually meditated were when I was putting Ollie down for his daily naps and at bedtime. As I was lying in bed and he in his crib, I would sometimes simply breathe in and breath out for a while, sometimes I would practice a body scan, and sometimes the loving-kindness phrases, directed to him, Emily, Sophia, and Christian: may you be happy, moments peaceful, free from suffering.

On the evening of the third day Emily, Sophia, and Christian came home. Yvette and I drove back to Keene and collapsed, relieved that the worst had not happened and joyful for Sophia's arrival.

The next morning I was in the grocery store and realized how irritated I was. My wife and I had worked hard to keep it together during those three days and now was the predictable letdown. When someone was in my way, I was able to remember to feel that space between stimulus (they are in my way) and reactive thought (get out of my way), and I remembered that I had choices about how to respond. While I could have asked them to move, I realized that I was really irritated and that I probably couldn't make that request without irritation in my voice. I decided they didn't need to feel that irritation directed toward them, so I chose to move on or go down a different aisle and then come back later.

I used other practices and strategies, but this is already long. However, it gives a sense of what mindfulness looked like for me during these four days, and I know that there are many other practices and strategies that were also available.

Addendum: This last paragraph is for parents and grandparents of young children. Ollie has had moments of what I would call acting out or terrible twos but which my daughter calls "having big feelings." Here is how she handled one situation differently than Yvette and I did 35 years ago. The whole family was in the king size bed and Ollie started hitting Emily. Her response was to ask Ollie: "are you feeling like hitting me?" When he nodded his head affirmatively, she said "you can't hit me because it hurts. Would you like to hit the pillow?" He smiled and nodded. So he hit the pillow several times until he didn't need to anymore. Interestingly, this resonates with Jon Kabat Zinn's training for teaching Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, where he used aikido to model a different way of responding to aggressiveness. The aikido response is to meet that aggressiveness by acknowledging it and working with it as opposed to suppressing it

Habit energy: What's not working

Today's essay starts with a wonderful story from Martin Seligman, one of the pioneers of positive psychology.

One day he was out weeding in his garden with his daughter, Nicki, who was almost six. Martin is a serious gardener and also confesses that he is not really that good with kids. While he was focused on weeding, Nicki was having fun: weeds were flying up in the air and dirt was spraying everywhere. At one point, he yelled at her.

"Nicki got a stern look on her face, and she walked right over to me. 'Daddy, from the time I was three until I was five, I whined a lot. But I decided the day I turned five, to stop whining. And I haven't whined once since the day I turned five.’ Then Nicki looked me right in the eye, and said 'Daddy, if I could stop whining, you can stop being such a grouch.'"

Waking up on the wrong side of the bed
The other day I got up 'on the wrong side of the bed' and was generating a lot of negative thinking. At one point I caught myself and was able to turn the day around, and this is something that is actually quite accessible to anyone who has practiced the basics of mindfulness.

ACTION/OBSERVATION COMMENT/THOUGHT
I woke up and realized that because of my sore hip, I had slept on my back all night. Damn. My back aches.
I got out of bed. The bottoms of my feet were puffy again. This has been going on for months. What's going on?
I poured some psyllium husks into a glass of water. Some of the medications I take cause constipation, so I take psyllium and use other measures to address this. Today I don't sense much movement in my colon. I didn’t pay enough attention to fluids and fiber yesterday. Damn.
The bucket under the water filter overflowed onto the counter top. Damned water filter wasn't made well.
I couldn’t find the pan I use to cook eggs. Damn. This kitchen is always too cluttered.

Angeles Arrien: what's not working
Years ago I read Angeles Arrien’s description of one shadow side she called ‘focusing on what’s not working.’ I have realized that this is a long time habit of mine, learned from my father. I realized that this habit was operating strongly at this point. I acknowledged that I could continue to be negative or simply acknowledge the 'not working' thoughts and also focus on what is working.

Thich Nhat Hanh: habit energy
In a talk in 1997 in Plum Village, France, Thich Nhat Hahn (also referred to as Thay, which means 'teacher') mentioned "habit energy." He stated that we have positive energies which we can cultivate and we have negative energies which we can transform. The practice “is to recognize the energy of our habits and smile to them. And also to cultivate the new habit, the good habit, until the new habit begins to produce energy." I recommend Thay's whole talk on dealing with habit energy which you can access HERE or you can copy and paste this url into your browser: https://sites.google.com/site/tnhdhamma/Home/test-list/taking-good-care-of-our-habit-energies

Applying these ideas into my own life
For the first several months after my aortic dissection last November, I was so happy to be alive and then happy that the repair surgery was successful, that I was carried by this positive energy. However, in the last month or so I have noticed that a tendency to slip back into the 'what's not working' energy. I realized the other morning that some intention to focus on this habit energy would be wise.

I want to highlight Thay's articulation "to recognize the energy of our habits and smile to them." Thay emphasized that mindfulness practice is not about suppressing those parts of us that we don't like and want to get rid of, but rather bringing that same kind of loving attention to these parts that we would bring to a young child who is clearly upset about something.

So that morning, once I realized that I was being sucked down the rabbit hole of this energy, I just laughed used a practice that Thay had described in another talk. I smiled and said "Hello old friend, I can see you are suffering. Come sit with me." And I felt that part as I practiced loving-kindness toward it: "may you be safe and well, may you be peaceful, may you be free from suffering."

Victor Frankl comes in too
I also remembered that great quote from Victor Frankl: “[B]etween 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." In that moment, I was able to change my response to my growing irritability. A half hour later when I realized that I had forgotten to pour my decaf coffee out of the coffee pot before making my wife's caffeinated coffee, I just laughed.

Internal Family Systems
It is important to emphasize that it's not just Buddhist practice to deal with negative habit energies with kindness, it is also an essential component of a psychotherapeutic framework called Internal Family Systems which I wrote about in my August 12, 2019 blog post which you can access HERE. I worked with an IFS therapist for some time many years ago to ‘unburden’ my 'I’m not good enough' part.

What isn’t working and what is working
Since that morning last week, I have recognized the "what's not working part" many times each day. Sometimes I catch it early, sometimes not until it's a full blown storm, but I have been catching it more often. One day, when it was particularly strong, I told my wife that I probably should be by myself for awhile because my "what's not working part" was throwing a fit. She thanked me.

There's a lot in my life that's not working now:

  • I am dealing with the trauma from the dissection which almost killed me;

  • with having so little energy: the other day I went a a small gathering of people for two hours and then spent the rest of the day in the recliner watching TV and then in bed reading;

  • with the inability to lift more than 20 pounds;

  • with not being able to take care of my garden;

  • with having to monitor daily my blood pressure, my fiber intake (otherwise I'm constipated), my potassium intake (the medications I take lower my potassium levels), and more;

There’s also so much that is working, that is wonderful, including two friends who have volunteered to help me with gardening! When I remember and acknowledge what is working, it makes the hard stuff so much easier to deal with.

It's a full time job to be mindful. I’m not planning on retiring from that job soon!