Working Meditation

Observations from a life in motion

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Feeling: Observations related to feelings

#75: What is attention?

Is it intense pin-pointed focus on something or is it open awareness of the present, regardless of the object?

Does it come and go or is there an attentive part of us always waiting to be called upon?

Does it live in the body, like in the case of professional dancers or athletes? Where, over time, it takes the shape of muscle memory and mental interruptions are the last thing we need. Or does it live in the mind, like that of a scientist or a writer, deep in focus?

Is it in the achievement of the flow-state, where attention just courses through us without any sense of time? Or is it in the attentive preparation and effort that enables the sought-after flow state?

Is it better for attention to be unmediated by technology, like when we stare at the night sky and dream? Or can technology help us see what we couldn’t without, like a telescope that helps us see the contours of the night sky?

Do we create the world with our attention or is what we give attention to defined by the world we live in?

Is attention scarce or do we have enough of it and the struggle is really about where to apply this attention?

Could all of this be true?

“Before our minds create our world, the world creates our minds.” — Gabor Mate,  Hungarian-Canadian physician and author specializing in treatment of addiction

#64: Walking with fear

Just because we want to do something in life doesn’t mean it can’t scare us. Fear might make an appearance exactly because we want to do this thing. But fear is also a broad word that covers a large terrain. Is this thing truly dangerous or are we afraid of the odds and the possibilities ahead? Are we afraid of failure, are we unsure of what to do next, are we lonely in our pursuit, do we wonder if we have the stamina to get to the finish line, or do we fear that life as we know it will change beyond recognition? It can be hard to know what’s beneath the resistance. It could be one of these things or several, or perhaps something entirely different.

We often look away from fear because not only is it hard to face, it can also be hard to understand. It’s complex and a shapeshifter. One day the fear shows us one side of the story and just when we think we’ve nailed it and addressed the cause for unease, it starts reflecting a different shape and color. How much time can one spend trying to understand their fear and resistance? We can live in our minds and keep analyzing till the end of time; it may not help but it will certainly exhaust us. We can’t look away though and keep doing what we were doing. Tuning things out and turning away our attention means we’re resisting the emerging future.

The only real antidote to fear is action. Small, imperfect, sometimes tear-filled and anxiety-ridden action. It’s not to say that another flavor of this exact same fear won’t return but imperfect action is the only way the world and lives are built. We’re all like that little child—first tentative and maybe afraid of the new face in front of us but then as we start interacting with them, the fear dissipates.

Before we act, it helps to look at the fear directly to try and see what part of us it’s trying to protect. This is different from analyzing or problem solving. The goal here is to create a silent space and direct attention to whatever wants to surface today. As it is. With zero judgment. When I’m really fearful though, it’s harder to sit in silence but easier to move in it. A moving meditation like a walk, swim, row, yoga or even slow improvisational dance makes this inquiry more bearable. But we can’t just stay in inquiry-mode; the key is to move ahead and take action holding our fear’s hand knowing that tomorrow, it might tell us yet another story and make us taste yet another bitter flavor.

In my most recent walk with fear, I noted that life is asking me to be a certain type of vessel for its work…and I’ve resisted and crumbled repeatedly. Silence allowed me to pick up those pieces, re-tape them to create that beaten up and patched-up vessel so life can start flowing through me again.

Life will be full of these fear-filled speedbumps, especially when we really want to do something.

“I’m a spring leaf trembling in anticipation of full growth.”― Maya Angelou: poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist.

#53: Getting stuck and unstuck

Humans tend to live out a cyclical pattern of getting stuck and unstuck; certainly over the years, months and weeks but sometimes over shorter windows of days and even hours. Our approach to getting unstuck makes a material difference in who we become. Getting stuck and unstuck might look different for each of us from the outside but what is likely similar is the internal environment. 

For me, “stuck” has felt first like a mental followed by an emotional valley, moments where everything seems just a bit harder and solutions don’t come easy but the questions keep surfacing. Where the mental chasm between life’s demands and what I feel prepared to handle might increase a bit. When all of a sudden, in the mornings, the bed feels more magnetic and just a bit safer. Where the recurring internal optimism is met by a faint but definite voice of a cynic that sows seeds of self-doubt, calling that optimist a fool. Where the wiser me doesn’t jump in to troubleshoot because it hasn’t been fed the nourishment of solitude, reflection and self-care. When I find myself in such a space, I often realize that it had been on slow boil and I failed to see the signs and “weed the mental garden” in time, only to now find the mind overrun with aggressive vines. It’s often such a subtle shift at first when the thoughts start marching on a downward trajectory. I have also noticed that this always happens when the connection to self is lost and my actions lose the benefit of oversight from my steady, wise and compassionate internal observer.

Getting stuck for me is an entirely mental thing.

The unstuck similarly doesn’t arrive with a big bang. It often begins with the simple yet hard-to-do act of listening to my body. Historically, it’s has been a challenge for me to pause and tune into the embedded wisdom in the body when the mind is running in loops. My particular internal programming would rather I do all the work first and then anything else. When the stress knots arrive, my tendency is to push harder on the gas pedal as if I could outrun and outwork the knot to make it dissolve. It never does. What does happen is that the tasks become Sisyphean―laborious and ineffective. When the mind is overrun with action, the last thing I want to do is take an active pause; by which I mean a pause to understand the fear that underlies all that action and stress (yes, it’s always fear of some sort). That knot in the belly, the labored breathing, the sleeplessness, the tight jaw are often the physical manifestation of a deeper undercurrent, and it’s hard to wade through the pulsating fear when we’re already overwhelmed. This is where things like journaling, breath work, yoga, and other rhythmic movement practices like hiking, walking, and dance come in. They create a safe silence that allows the spidery fears to start crawling out from the nooks so we can see them for what they are.

All fear―fear of failure, fear of not amounting to anything, fear of not being understood, fear of losing trust and respect, fear of losing physical or mental faculties over time…you name it―is ultimately the fear of being othered, of being cast out of the tribe, of not being loved for exactly who we are. Imperfect, afraid and yet deeply desirous of love and belonging. And these fears don’t just create emotional pain, they turn into physical aches and pains. 

Getting unstuck typically requires some physical shift followed by a connection to trusted others. And the thing that felt so big starts to dissolve and lose its hold.

Our fundamental human need to belong and be loved is often at the root of getting stuck, and that unconditional belonging and love from ourselves and others is often what gets us unstuck to propel us forward. The hardest thing of all is to show to someone that we are afraid and need them. The mental and physical shifts are certainly important but they are a precursor to then asking our trusted humans for support and care.

We can stop the work at the mental and physical shifts and get back to productivity or we can add that extra splash of human care and make the journey both fruitful and worthwhile.

(I am deeply and lovingly grateful to my humans who got me unstuck last week!)

“A life truly lived constantly burns away veils of illusion, burns away what is no longer relevant, gradually reveals our essence, until, at last, we are strong enough to stand in our naked truth.”— Marion Woodman

#49: Hidden talismans

Our places and spaces are often sprinkled with personally meaningful symbols and artifacts that are usually invisible to others. These are small everyday reminders of what we value and how we aspire to live. They travel alongside the humdrum of our days and fade into the background such that we mostly forget they are there, until we need them.

Two examples from my spaces—I have a small tattoo on my wrist that reads “Momento Mori”; it is my foremost note-to-self in life that reminds me of the inevitability of death. Reflecting on this reminder helps me dissolve doubt and fear. Mostly though, when I randomly glance at it during the normal course of my days, I surf the surface of the text without actually absorbing this message. In these moments, my wise tattoo is simply a collection of letters that are permanently etched on my body. The meaning steps forth in intentional moments when need mixes with solitude. The second example: WordPress asks me to select a specific time to publish my blog posts. I wanted to pick an early morning time that was reflective of my US Pacific Coast residence and rather than selecting 6:00am, as was my initial thought, I picked 5:55am PST.  5.55am is the time of my birth. Since every time I write it feels like I’m accessing an un-birthed part of myself, I felt this slight time adjustment was symbolically appropriate. This was also my way of honoring my parents, who nourished me with life, love and dreams.

These and the many other talismans of my life stay mostly hidden, even from me, until I need them.

It may seem silly to share our personal talismans broadly because, by definition, they lack emotional resonance for others. Nevertheless I share mine because in reflecting back I see that they have been valuable guardrails that helped me stay the course during difficult solitary moments of slog. It can be hard to devote waking hours to life if it feels bereft of meaning, especially when we are walking on a slow and painful path. In those moments, personal talismans can feel like micro reminders or…prayers, as if the soul is bowing its head in respect.

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”― Thomas Merton

#47: Marking Time

I have an orchid that blooms diligently year after year; it was a house warming gift from a friend. The first year it bloomed from scratch in my new house, I shared its beauty with my family over video calls and messages. I had planted several interesting indoor plants in this new home so the orchid was one of many but what differentiated it was that, unlike others, it flowered. Then later that year my brother, who was a part of this message thread, passed away unexpectedly.

Since then every time this orchid blooms, I think of him with an achy heart. Not because he had any attachment to orchids but because the first time it flowered in my new home, we shared the joy. There is also a sweetness to this experience since the flowers appear only once a year over the summer. The unique shape of the flower along with annual blossoms may make you think that it’s a fickle plant but that’s not the case. It’s my easiest to care for plant with a flowering cycle that I can count on. And so I await this orchid’s flowers with a bittersweet feeling. Sweetness that my wait gets showered with the gift of a flower and the bitterness of marking time’s travel from my moment of loss.

This year, just as three buds started to appear, I adopted a cat named Fern. In her inquisitiveness, Fern sniffed and bit off one bud and the other two got dislodged while moving the orchid to a less accessible spot. In one fell swoop, I lost one of my key markers on this very private journey of loss. Before this episode I hadn’t acknowledged the role this flower was serving for me and now that I’ve lost it, I have been thinking about how its annual rhythm helped me navigate personal time and loss. The orchid didn’t create or remove the sadness of loss. It was more like an etch-a-sketch clock, self-created and impermanent. If it wasn’t an orchid, I would have likely anointed something else with this meaning. It seems to me that these personal markers infuse private meaning to time. While our focus is on time and not the markers themselves, if we didn’t have the markers…would we understand time’s passage the same way? If we didn’t have a sense for what a minute, hour, or year means in very personal terms, would we be able to infuse our compressed lives with so much joy and meaning? These markers give our aches, joys, and loves a time-bound container. They are like a metronome, keeping the beat of our lives, reminding us to live in alignment with our innermost nudges.

Even though my orchid’s fate next year lies in Fern’s self-control abilities, I think for now it will continue to serve as my private marker of love and loss.

“We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads…

You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city
Inside us, and inside us

There go all the cars we have driven
And seen, there are all the people

We know and have known, there
Are all the places that are

But which used to be as well. This is where
They went. They did not disappear.”― Alberto Ríos