This month, I am finding my morning meditation practice filled with strong emotions, thoughts and concern for others. I don’t believe I have good answers for the very complicated and difficult situations currently occurring in Israel and Palestine and their borders. I do know that watching from afar has been impactful. It’s during times like this that my mind wandering during morning meditation goes to “what if”, “what can”, “what will”, “wonder how”, “wonder who”, etc. My morning meditation practice is filled with kind and firm redirection these days.
At times in the last few weeks, I’ve found myself reading and getting lost in trying to understand and make sense of the difficulties that I’ve heard or seen on media. Awareness shows me when I’m going into overwhelm and I S.T.O.P. and choose my most skillful response for proceeding. I am typically able to gain a more regulated/stable state and decide my next steps.
After a few experiences with overwhelm from strong emotions, thoughts and worries, I decided to experiment with working with difficulty from a lighter touch. Dr. Rick Hanson’s talk on YouTube for attending to intense experiences, thoughts and emotions has been useful. He encourages being mindful of our states, pausing when we note the “temperature” is rising and creating space/buying time for ourselves in order to make reasonable and helpful choices when triggered. I recently chose to focus on an experience that presented difficulty at a much lower level. Reflecting on what was helpful/not helpful during a low intensity challenge allowed me to resource myself with some clearer understanding of what’s useful for me when presented with difficulty and needing to make choices about responding. Perhaps my example will assist in helping others access useful ways to identify resources that help when presented with challenge and/or higher-level difficulties in one’s life.
We trained all summer and into early fall for a century bike ride on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with another couple. They had never been and were very excited to try their first challenge of riding 100 miles in one day. Unfortunately, the weather forecast predicted lots of rain. Bicycling in the rain is not only unpleasant, often it gets dangerous. We all agreed not to be overly predictive about the weekend and developed a we’ll see attitude. Our discussions focused on what was most important to us about this bike ride and identified our purpose and intentions for engaging in this kind of activity. After arriving Friday evening, we reviewed the forecast for the next day. We realized that it made sense to adjust the plan. We brainstormed and created a plan around what we identified as reasonable and possible with our identified priorities and purpose and intentions in mind. Afterwards, as we congratulated ourselves and reflected on the choices we made, I realized that the approaches we used can serve me well in other instances in my life. For me, this is informal mindfulness practice serving me well: acknowledging difficulty/challenge and creating space to resource so that I can make reasonable and helpful choices.
I challenge you to attend to low level difficulties in your life that can inform you when you are presented with more challenging situations. Trust that your formal and informal mindfulness practice will support you (and maybe inform you) in times of difficulty.
Wishing you peace and ease,
Karen
A brief meditation for working with difficulty:
What to Do When You Get Triggered (Dr. Rick Hanson):
Brief practices for Pausing on Purpose and STOPping:
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