Working Meditation

Observations on Human Connection & Contribution

#95: The timing and sequence of experiences

Life experiences shape us, and some leave us drastically altered. We all know this. There is a layer to this equation though that isn’t always visible ― it’s the timing of those experiences and the sequence in which we experience them.

For instance, two 35-year-olds may have both experienced the loss of a parent, the emotional high of a plum job and accompanying financial rewards, parenthood, and job loss but the age and order in which those events occurred will shape them differently. For simplicity, let’s say the rest of their lives, lifestyles, and influences have mostly been similar. Now imagine if one of them lost a parent at 8, became a parent at 25, lost a job right after at 26 and finally got that plum job at 35 after years of struggle. Let’s imagine the other getting that high-paid job right out of college at 22, becoming a parent at 27, losing a parent at 32 and their job at 35.

We can picture how the first person might have been impacted by that early loss of a parent and job loss shortly after new parenthood. When they finally get the financial safety and career success at 35, they’ve likely experienced years of emotional and financial vulnerability. For the latter, we can picture the stability that a complete family and early financial success created such that they were likely better resourced to navigate loss when it eventually came. These examples are of course hypotheticals and our individual stories play out in larger contexts of other lives lived. For instance, if the former had a large and loving extended family, the shock of early loss was likely buffered in some way. If they had a caring partner that was also financially stable, they probably didn’t feel the zing of that job loss as acutely.

There are many other unexamined nuances here so I’m oversimplifying the larger scenario to make this one point ― Who we are is not only determined by what we go through but when we go through it. Because where we are in our lifecycle when we meet different life experiences shapes our experience of those events. The same things land differently at different points in our lives.

“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Novelist

#94: Body as an instrument

I was recently unwell in a way where a concoction of things, chronic and acute, had me in bed for a few days. Eight punishing issues were cropping up at once. I tried not to add value judgments, which helped reduce mental chatter and made it easier for me to go with the flow. I alternated work-in-bed, Netflix-in-bed, reading and rest based on what my body could handle. By the second day, the observer in me starting seeing each issue as a thread of human experience: gastric distress, back spasms, inflamed adductor, twisted pelvis and grief just to name a few. I thought of people who had dealt with these threads at one point or another. I examined the threads that were new to me.

For example: When people had back problems, I understood theoretically but not until this experience did I really “get it”. I felt from inside how completely debilitating a back spasm could be. How all bodily movements, not some, are silently supported by our core. I knew that our core includes our back and not just the abdomen, and that true abdominal strength comes from deeper muscles and not just the surface-level 6-pack muscle. Yet, not until this event did I patiently isolate and feel the firing of different layers of core muscles. I finally played with the exquisitely designed jigsaw puzzle made of bones, muscles and tendons from inside my animal.

There is sometimes a struggle in spiritual practice about whether it’s more important for us to nurture the spirit or the body. The body is seen as temporary while the spirit more lasting. And I absolutely get this wisdom; I’ve personally benefitted from feeding my spiritual wellbeing in dark moments. But…we are clothed in this earthly bodysuit till our dying breath. If we don’t have a body, we are literally not alive. Like all animals, we have sophisticated abilities for functional activity, growth, reproduction, and continual change before eventual death, and we also face periodic glitches. I have come to see that this glitch-ridden experience inside our frequently painful bodysuit is how we unlock our spiritual practices. Body is where the nuggets of insight, wisdom and empathy live.

We can’t each go through the countless human experiences to be had. But we can go through some. Some of us will face cancers, heart attacks, severe burns, while others will face chronic migraines, irritable bowels and weak bones. Some will have the ache of untimely loss, addiction, and postpartum depression, while others will have to care for a parent with Alzheimer’s or a schizophrenic sibling. Between all of us, we cover the entirety of human experience.

Modern tech would have you believe that intelligent life can operate without a body, while simply simulating the predictive capacity of the brain. What we completely miss is that true intelligence isn’t just prediction, it’s also compassion and resilience birthed from painful surprises. This is the valuable journey that a human body allows. Over time, we can become instruments of all that is tender and powerful at the same time. Like a tree that filters environmental toxins and releases oxygen.

“It is not our job to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves
Like the trees, and be born again,
Drawing up from the great roots.”― Robert Bly, poet

#93: Ecosystem awareness

Let’s start with an experiment. You can select any body part of your choosing; I’ll use the right foot as an example.

So, pay attention to your right foot. Really tune into it and wiggle it if you can. Slowly move it around to feel into the bones and muscles. Is there tightness, fluidity, achiness, a combination of these, or something else? Close your eyes now and continue to do this for 5 breaths. Really. Try it please and then move forward to the next sentence.

Now one question: When you were doing this, were you aware of your knee? Likely not, if your knee is pain free. This exercise is not about your body. It’s a simple way to note that when we become hyper-focused on one thing, we naturally lose awarenss of other things. It’s practically impossible to pay high quality attention to everything all at once. Working-caregivers know this struggle well. We can toggle attention from one thing to the next, but it’s hard to pay attention to everything all at once.

Yet, complex problem solving requires us to be aware of inter-related parts. It needs an ecosystem awareness. Some everyday examples of ecosystem awareness from my world:

  • My husband was replacing the faucet in our clawfoot tub. Mid-way he realized that his movements yanked the pipe connecting the faucet with the shower head, which yanked the curtain rod encircling the tub, which yanked the wall anchor that the curtain rod was tied to. His movement at the faucet split the wall anchor.
  • Years ago, I was cutting my nails while sitting on the balcony at my home in India. Upon seeing me, my Mom requested I do this in the bathroom sink because she didn’t want the sparrows to eat and choke on my sharp nail clippings.
  • When we moved into our new home in Seattle, I did the “Graha Pravesh Puja”. This prayer ceremony is done to bless a new home. I had never personally done this before and was blown away by the sense of connectedness embedded in this prayer. It wasn’t only to request blessings for us, it was also to thank every entity that made space for us in their ecosystem — the insects, animals and plants. I was also reminded to thank the humans that built this home in 1906 and those that took care of it over the decades.

Ecosystems consist of organisms (or parts), their interactions and relationships, and the environments in which they interact. They are relational by definition and interconnected in complex ways. We all live in ecosystems that both impact us and are impacted by us. But it can be overwhelming to understand a system if we keep widening our lens endlessly. So we zoom out and define boundaries to know which pieces of the system we need to focus on for now. This allows us to see the key parts and grasp how they relate to each other.

Without some boundary, our attention doesn’t know where the container ends. Boundaries are a way to invite-in focus and remove overwhelm. But they are often arbitrary and defined by our limited perspectives. At some point in the process, we may be well-served by redefining or even erasing boundaries. Because our ecosystems and their interconnections never end.

“The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those that have not viewed the world.” — Alexander von Humboldt: German geographer, naturalist and explorer

#92: Action after awe

We’ve all experienced awe at some point in life. It’s the feeling of wonder when we’re in the presence of something that alters our understanding of the world. It’s often an encounter with vastness that snaps us out of our small realities. Some awe-inducers include: endless stars in the night sky, majestic redwood forests, birth of a child, the overview effect astronauts experience upon seeing our fragile earth from space, hearing an accomplished musician live, being in the presence of a wildly respected human, or learning about say the theory of relativity*.

This fascinating research on awe mentions that all forms of awe are characterized by two phenomena: “perceived vastness” and a “need for accommodation”. “Perceived vastness” comes from encounters with something or someone that is vast or profound, or from observing something physically large. Since this vastness often violates our normal understanding of the world, awe-experiences evoke a “need for accommodation”. This means that this state lends itself to modifying the mental constructs that we implicitly use to make sense of the world and act in it.

Here’s a perfect summary, verbatim from the awe-researchers —“This need for cognitive realignment is an essential part of the awe experience. Awe is also accompanied by feelings of self-diminishment and increased connectedness with other people. Experiencing awe often puts people in a self-transcendent state where they focus less on themselves and feel more a part of a larger whole. In this way, awe can be considered an altered state of consciousness, akin to a flow state, in addition to an emotional state.”

So now that we know this, think back to your last encounter with awe: What did you do after that memorable camping trip in the great outdoors? What action did you take after absorbing ancient wisdom from that wise sage? How did you cultivate the awareness that your local symphony orchestra unlocked? What did you do after hearing that brilliant and engaging professor speak? How long did the heart-opening after the birth of your child last? 

There is power in awe but there is forgetfulness in life. We can feel dwarfed and tap into wonder in the presence of the vast night sky, ancient wisdom, music, deep intellect or a tiny human. But what we do after feeling joyfully speechless is the key to creating the world we want to live in. We are taught discontent at every turn but awe drops us squarely in the middle of gratitude and human-connectedness.

Awe is a profound gift in our short-term focused and often fear-driven lives. But it’s only a gift if we channel this fleeting awareness back into our thoughts and actions somehow. The ultimate promise and value of awe is full-bodied, openhearted presence and action…we can’t stay stuck in awe. 

“However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act on upon them?”— Buddha

*In case you’re interested – Albert Einstein, in his theory of relativity, found that space and time were interwoven into a single continuum known as space-time. And events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at different times for another.

#91: Dressing for the weather

I recently went for a walk with a friend. We live about 2 miles apart and planned to meet midway and continue together. It was a bit cold and windy so I wore a full-sleeved top and grabbed an extra layer. When I bumped into my friend though, she was in shorts and a sleeveless tank top. She said it felt warm and windless in her neighborhood. Even though we’re geographically close, it sometimes seems we live in different microclimates. I’ve noticed on prior walks how spring and summer flowers in her less-shaded neighborhood seem to open ahead of the ones in our shaded backyard. She also lives in a south-facing home that traps heat and keeps her warm.

Even metaphorically, we dress for the weather outside our front door. Our day-to-day circumstances being the weather we plan for and our thoughts, emotions and actions being the metaphorical dress. How we “dress” is also based on the data points we’ve lived through. We assess our current circumstances but then call upon our personal histories while making decisions on how to behave. The unseen assumption is that our data points are complete and accurate, and our responses are based on the full picture. It’s easy to forget that our history determines what data we collect, and that our current reality is often different from another’s. 

Going back to the metaphor of clothing—we clothe ourselves based on context and when the context changes, we alter our outfit. It gets hot on a hike, we take off that extra jacket. It gets cold, we pull out our gloves and scarves. We don’t waste energy or get attached to the way we were dressed 30 minutes ago. We don’t question our actions or berate ourselves incessantly. We respond to the changing weather without attaching our identity to the artifacts of clothing. The response feels seamless.

Obviously it’s hard to be so detached from the trifecta of our thoughts, emotions and actions. But understanding the current and historical “weather” we or another human has lived through creates an awareness about the context within which they have had to operate. It creates flexibility, and is the first step towards relational ease and eventually shared sense making. It helps us know why they came to the walk in a tank top while we showed up in long sleeves.

“Perception precedes reality.” — Andy Warhol, artist, film-director