So Much Happier Blog
Entering the Quiet
“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
While the next month will be a flurry of activity for many of us, I find it helpful to recall that before the advent of modern technology, the darkest, coldest times of the year were considered to be a time for rest, gratitude for the year's harvest, and envisioning plans and desires for the year ahead. Right about now (in the northern hemisphere) we would have been slowing down, spending more time with family and friends, enjoying the fact that fewer hours of daylight meant fewer hours in which to work, and going to bed earlier. The limitations of light and weather meant that the cycle of the year was not negotiable. Working within it meant that people were almost guaranteed to benefit from this slower time of year.
Since we now have the ability to work 24/7 through the wonders of technology, we are beginning to have trouble stopping or even slowing down at all. You now have a choice about when and how to do this, but if you want to be happy and healthy, it must be done. Rest and relaxation are necessary for rejuvenation of body, mind and spirit. Only when rested do we have sustainable access to our greatest creativity and palette of skills, so as you move through the end of this year, make sure you carve out some time for yourself. Plan to do very little for some of it, and also, at some point, take time to review the high points of the year to better see your present life in context, and then think about what you'd like to create in 2018. Your wish list could include achievements, but also progress you'd like to make on character traits or skills that are more incremental. You might yearn to improve a relationship that's important to you. You might want to add new, supportive habits to your routine. Perhaps you'd like to take a trip to a place you've never been, or to see friends and family you've been missing. Whatever it is, now's the time to play with the virtual chess pieces that might be involved in your mind, and begin to imagine the way forward.
What you set into motion now through contemplation and imagination will build in momentum in the new year, but in order to bring your most productive self to bear in your projects, you need to replenish your energy stores and your heart before you start trekking toward them. This is an excellent time to do some high-quality rejuvenation. Don't miss out on it by letting this busy time blow by without making some room for the relaxation and creative time you need for yourself. This time spent in quiet will help you to ring in the new year with anticipation, joy and intention—so much better than with the frazzled confusion that is your alternative!
A Small Light in Darkness
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
In a previous blog, I wrote about the importance of basic meditation as a foundational tool, and the balancing effect of having a regular, deep experience of quiet and focus. Now I want to move on to one of the practical uses of this tool: Leveraging your intuition.
Now, before you decide that this is a “woo woo,” impractical concept, give me a moment to illustrate one of the ways in which your intuition can make a positive difference in your life. Every day in my coaching, as I use EFT (meridian tapping), my clients and I are often struck, and sometimes astonished, by the useful information that surfaces from unseen depths of the self. This is particularly noticeable in cases where we’re working on physical pain that we suspect or know has an emotional component. If the client has any experience at all with meditation, it’s usually not hard for her to ask a leading question of herself and wait quietly and calmly for an answer. That question might be something like, “What is the upside to having this problem, in other words, why might I be afraid to let it go?” While the client’s conscious mind might be certain that she is ready, willing and eager to move beyond the problem, given a few moments of quiet and space, some other part of the self may answer that the problem is a part of her identity, and she’s not sure who she would be without it. Other objections that surface might be that once the problem is gone, there’s no excuse for not being successful, and that might feel like a lot of pressure, or that if the client lets go of the problem and is able to succeed, others might not like her anymore. Often, when such an answer reveals itself, she will say that she truly had no idea that this objection was in there. With the new information on our side, we can make progress for her. Without her ability to find quiet, that little voice would have been impossible to hear. Usually once we start working with the new information, the pain will move, change, and lessen, sometimes permanently. This process is just remarkable to be a part of. But if the mind is always whirring like a hamster on a wheel, it will be harder to bring these natural moments of insight to the surface where we can leverage them for real, noticeable change.
Some people seem to be born with more intuitive talent than others, and some people are sure that they don’t have this capacity at all. I think it’s possible for everyone to have a valuable relationship with their intuition, but cultivating that relationship takes some time and effort—just like any relationship, whether we’re talking about one with other people, your body, mind, or spirit. Some other areas in which a relationship with your intuition can bear fruit are your ability to zero in on what you need in any given moment, or what direction will be best for you to take in the pursuit of a goal. Getting more in touch with it can also help you get a clearer “gut feeling” about someone else’s character or intentions, or whether someone you’ve just met has potential as a good friend or business associate for you. What’s difficult about opening up this capacity is that in the beginning, you have no idea whether an impression is right or not, and you’re likely to feel like you’re just making it up. Your conscious mind will try to tell you that only it is valuable, and that your efforts in this regard are ridiculous and futile. It’s only by allowing yourself to relax and wait, acknowledging but then releasing mind chatter, that you have a hope of becoming more adept at sensing something genuinely helpful.
When I’m going for an intuitive answer, I have made it a habit to stop when I feel unsure if my logical mind is making things up, clear thought away, and try again. If the impression really came from my intuition and not my mind’s machinations, it will come back in a similar way a second and even a third time, and I gain confidence that this idea might be helpful enough to run with. It’s fine to apply your mind to the question of how to use that information, and it’s a great idea to keep your wits about you as you choose how much to invest in it, especially in the beginning. This is not an exact science, and it’s always good to have a backup plan! As you keep playing with this process, you may find yourself gaining confidence in your relationship with the less conscious parts of yourself. I can tell you from experience that they have a lot to offer.
If you want to get started on opening up that intuitive box, experimenting with Tapping really is a great way to start. For instance, if there’s something you’ve been resisting tackling, you might not be sure why you keep finding reasons to procrastinate. If you start tapping and state how you’re feeling, how you just don’t want to do that thing even if your own inaction is starting to frustrate you, and then ask yourself why you don’t want to do it, you might be surprised as the clarity that results. The tapping will probably increase your ability to focus and be patient, and wait for any answer that might come up. If nothing does, well, no loss! You’ve just spent some time doing something that calms the body’s stress response and increases the likelihood that you’ll get a good night’s sleep! If you do this for just a few minutes each day, I strongly suspect that you will have an experience before too long that will prove to you that this Tapping thing really does do something. As mentioned last week, if you stay focused on your intention to improve the flow of your intuition and just keep trying without pressuring yourself too much, you increase the likelihood of success, as well as your ability to notice it when it happens.
Once you start to build some confidence in your ability to intuit information that is personal to you, you can then move on to greater orders of magnitude (for most people, at least), such as sensing information about subjects less related to you. I do find that we all have different intuitive propensities, just as some people find that they’re better at math or learning languages rather than learning about history once they start delving into those subjects in school. Some find it naturally easy to understand what someone else is feeling, while others might find that they can sometimes get a sense for who is calling on the phone without consulting caller ID. This can be a fun area to experiment in. Again, just use your common sense and tread lightly in relying too heavily on this kind of information. It’s only one aspect of the sum total of all information available to you in any given moment.
I hope you are able to see how even just this one benefit of a meditation practice can contribute measurably to your progress, even if only in very specific pursuits like using EFT. Sometimes people don’t make an effort to learn to meditate because the benefits don’t seem immediately practical, but what if your practice could lead to letting go of even some of a physical discomfort you might have? What if it could help you become more confident in the life choices you make for yourself every day? Getting started with meditation may not be the easiest thing you’ve ever done, but you can start small with just a few minutes here and there and still make overall gains. I know I’m never sorry that I’ve spent time on this because of all the ways in which it contributes to my life positively. There are many different philosophies and techniques out there. Dig around and find one that makes some sense to you and give it a try. Even if you never become more than a casual meditator, there are benefits waiting for you.
Silence Is Golden
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
Even if you’ve never meditated, you’ve probably heard that one of the benefits of many kinds of meditation practice is supposed to be a quieter mind. Since most cultures today place great value on the use of the mind, the benefits of a quiet mind can seem mysterious. Use it or lose it, right? Aren’t we supposed to be exercising our minds in order to stretch their capacities and keep them nimble? Well, just as our bodies need both weight-bearing exercise, cardio, stretching, AND rest in order to function at peak capacity, our minds need various kinds of use and rest in order to provide us with the capacities we want from them.
Modern life is so hectic, demanding, and distracting that we don’t generally get much time for silence and reflection. This leaves is with a mind that is mostly running at high speed all the time. With a mind so busily engaged, it’s harder to notice the patterns that are running on autopilot, keeping us stuck in ruts that we never seem to be able to break out of for reasons that elude us. When we put ourselves into a situation where nothing is required of us, and practice meditation with the aim of quieting the mind, we allow the mind to rest a bit; by the way, this in turn allows the body’s stress response to calm down, which is great for physical health—a bonus side effect! While it definitely takes practice to make progress in disengaging from normal patterns of thought, so that benefits may not be immediately felt, over time, it’s possible to build familiarity with new mind states. This familiarity makes it easier to take them with you, or recreate them when you’re experiencing something difficult, so that you can function more smoothly throughout your life. A hyper mind isn’t necessarily a resourceful mind, just as a chronically tense muscle isn’t always useful—it needs to be able to relax and stretch in order to do everything it’s meant to do.
When you’re meditating for the ability to quiet the mind, there are numerous benefits that I know I immediately experience, and you may as well, such as:
· As I head toward greater quiet, my mind will usually chime in a few times to reveal things I need to do or remember, which is legitimately helpful. I can make note of these and continue the process. Without giving myself a few minutes of quiet, I would not have remembered these, and opportunities would have been lost.
· As my mind slows down, I become more aware of my body, and anything about it that I need to address.
· I start to notice more about what is really going on with me, how I really feel about things that have been going on recently in my life. I begin to feel more like myself and less like someone just running around at the behest of every distracting thing I encounter every day.
· I begin to feel that there’s more time available to me than I would otherwise.
· I begin to feel calmer, more at peace, and more powerfully able to define what’s important and where I will choose to put my energy and focus.
· I feel more in touch with my intuition.
· My body feels more pleasantly calm and peaceful.
· I feel like my to do list falls away and I’m able to recognize the goodness of just being alive, which at this point is much more a feeling than a thought.
Once you’ve practiced an expanded state of mental quiet, there are many other meditation techniques to pursue depending on what you want, but being able to create that quiet space is a foundational skill without which only certain kinds of progress can be made. This state also becomes something you can remind yourself to revert to when you find yourself getting hyper for any reason. It can immediately help you to regain helpful perspective on the ways in which you may have been contributing to your own stress. Bringing a greater sense of calm to challenge allows you to stay more creative, less reactive, and more reasonable. You’re then more likely to be able to solve problems and work well with others, which makes you less likely to spend your time feeling stuck and confused.
In a seemingly unlikely way, spending time creating mental quiet leads to greater focus and energy, which can make it seem like you have more time rather than having lost it in the pursuit. Even if you don’t think you can spend more than a few minutes practicing, you can still benefit from the attempt to create a few minutes of internal quiet throughout your day here and there. I highly recommend making this a little game that you play with yourself. You may have other mental games you already play, like doing crossword puzzles. This is just another category of game that builds capacity your brain needs to function with excellence.