Mindful Raking

Mindful Raking

    A story is told about a Buddhist monk who was asked what he did before he attained enlightenment. He responded, "I chopped wood and carried water." He was then asked what he did after achieving the highest state of enlightenment. "I continued to chop wood and carry water." The point is that living a mindful, spiritual life does not always lead to dramatic changes in our or behaviors, although it indeed may. Living a mindful, spiritual life changes us on the inside; it changes our perspective on life. What we do may not change, but our mindset while doing it will likely shift. 

    All that I just shared with you came to my mind early this week when I was raking leaves. If you were to walk by my house while I was raking, you might think to yourself, "There's a guy raking his lawn." This would be true, but what you might not realize is that what you are also observing is a guy who is having a spiritual moment. 

   I actually love raking leaves. I have been looking forward to it for weeks and am so excited the time has come again here in Wisconsin for this annual ritual. Raking the brilliantly colored leaves reminds me of both the beauty and the impermanence of life—all the more reason to live more mindfully in the present moment. Raking the yard can be mindless work, or when done mindfully, it can be energizing and even comforting. 

    All of us have numerous mindless tasks that we do regularly: brushing our teeth, taking a shower, making meals, taking care of the kids, doing the laundry, taking out the garbage, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and paying the bills. Like the leaves that are falling from my trees right now, all of these tasks are constant. These are the givens of life. 

   What is optional, though, is the mindset we will bring to doing these things. Will we do them with impatience or resentment, wishing we could get on with something more important or more pleasurable? Or will we do them with a spirit of acceptance, being fully present in the moment? Can we find a way to be grateful that we have a yard to rake, kids to care for, or a house to clean? Attitude will not alter the time needed to perform a task, but it will determine whether we end up feeling content or exhausted when we are through.

  The next time you have a repetitive task to do, try making it a mindful task, doing it with presence and gratitude for all you have and all you have been given. Remember, it won't take any longer to do, and it just might make a difference in your well-being and the well-being of those around you. 

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

A Closer Listen

A Closer Listen

   In the middle of a Zoom call that my wife and I recently had with some friends, I had a genuine aha moment, one that reminded me of an important lesson I had learned years ago. Knowing that my wife is an avid reader, my friends asked her what she was currently reading. She explained that she has just finished an excellent book entitled, The Housekeeper and the Professor, written by Yoko Ogawa. Our friends were curious to hear more, and so they asked her lots of follow up questions. The more questions they asked, the more details she shared. And that is when I had my aha moment.  

  After we ended our call, I shared my insight with my wife. I explained that I had, of course, noticed her reading the book about which she had just been talking. Until the Zoom call with our friends, though, I hadn’t known anything about the book, nor anything about how much she loved the book. The reason I didn’t know any of this was apparent. I had never asked. I had never asked her about the book itself nor about her reaction to it. Insert facepalm here.

 I don’t think I am alone in what I experienced. I’m guessing that most of us have had a similar experience of learning something new about someone close to us by listening to them speak with others. 

  Just before the pandemic hit, Kate Murphy’s new book entitled You’re Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters was released. In it, she introduces the term closeness-communication bias, which the book explores. Here’s what she said about her preparation for writing the book: 

  “During my two years researching my book on listening, I learned something incredibly ironic about interpersonal communication: The closer we feel toward someone, the less likely we are to listen carefully to them” 

   As Murphy explains, it is easy for us to become complacent when it comes to listening to our family and friends. We may feel that we already know each other so well that there isn’t anything really new to learn about each other. On the other hand, when we interact with people we don’t know well, we will find ourselves being much more curious and attentive to what they have to say.

  For most of us, the pandemic is shrinking our social network, and so we may find ourselves interacting with the same people from one day to the next. Rather than seeing this as a limitation, perhaps we could reframe it as an opportunity to get to know these people better. 

 I hope my aha moment will inspire you, as it did me, to take some initiative to be more curious and to listen more attentively to the people with whom you are spending so much time. 

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

Staying Sharp

Staying Sharp

 This week's column will be shorter than usual because I am about to practice a little self-care, the subject about which I am writing today. The column's brevity is related to the fact that it is an unusually warm and beautiful fall afternoon here in Wisconsin, and I need to get outside for a trail run before the sun sets.

 Yesterday, while preparing lunch, I tried to cut one of our last summer tomatoes with a very dull knife. My initial attempt to cut into the tomato was not successful because of the dullness of the blade. Feeling a little frustrated, I tried again, this time putting a lot more pressure on the knife. The results were predictable. The tomato collapsed, and the insides of the tomato squirted all over the counter. I consider it a lesson learned—always use a sharp knife while cutting a ripe tomato.  

So what does sloppily puncturing a tomato have to do with the topic of self-care?

During these challenging times, it is easy to neglect caring for our own well-being. When we do, we lose our edge, and like the knife I was using to cut the tomato, we are unable to cut through the tasks and challenges that would ordinarily be easy for us. Furthermore, I know that when I become dull from lack of self-care, I typically make a mess of things. I often make more work for myself (and others) in the long run by thinking that applying more pressure to the situation will help, and instead, I make a bigger mess.

 For each of us, self-care can look a little different. Most of us already know, though, what helps us to be sharp. I know I do. I just have to remember to be disciplined enough to do it. For me, it’s meditation/prayer, daily runs or bike rides, intentional time connecting with family and friends, eight hours of sleep each night, and significant time away from screens (TV, computers, and phone) each day.

 So with just a little more than one hour of daylight left right now, I have to run, literally. 

Please remember that self-care is never selfish. In fact, it is essential if we want to stay sharp and make fewer messes during these challenging times.  

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

Choosing to Be Response-able

Choosing to Be Response-able

  There have been occasions during this pandemic when I have been less response-able than I wish I had been. Note that I wrote response-able, not responsible. It’s the former, not the latter, that I have struggled with on occasion.

  I define response-able as the capacity to respond calmly and thoughtfully to others even when under pressure, rather than mindlessly reacting, in a way that is rarely helpful. Stress significantly increases the chances of our being reactive, and there has been no shortage of pressure in most of our lives and our world lately.  

  There is a significant difference between reacting and responding to stress. When we are reactive, we often feel out of control and then typically blame someone else, or something other than ourselves, for our reactivity. “If you hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t have reacted that way,” is a common excuse—certainly one I have used myself at times. Responding is different than reacting in that it involves our being able to pause and then choose the response we wish to make. This ability to choose our response is what I mean by response-ability. A person who is self-reflective and consciously trying to develop a sense of emotional wellness will, when they find themselves in a stressful situation, slow down and realize that they have various responses from which they can choose.

  I created a diagram a few years ago (see below) to show the difference between reactivity and response-ability. Note that either style can reinforce itself and create a cycle that builds either constructively or destructively.

  Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, wrote a highly respected book called Man’s Search For Meaning about his experience of surviving in a concentration camp during World War II. The central point of this profound book is that no matter how bad things are, nothing can ever take away the fact that one still has a choice about how we will respond to what is happening. “Between 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,” says Frankl. He understood the critical distinction between reacting and responding. As he states, responding is a choice, whereas reacting is something we do immediately with little conscious thought or intention.

  The first step for me to be more consistently response-able is to remember that response-ability is a choice I can always make. Recognizing this means that if I do get reactive, I can more readily acknowledge that I am being reactive and break the cycle right away. Taking responsibility for our reactivity, and then apologizing goes a long way to getting an interaction back on track. 

  Stress happens, and there is a lot of it right now. Response-ability happens, too. Especially when we remember that choosing to be response-able is what will, in the words of Viktor Frankl, greatly enhance “our growth and our freedom.”

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

Panda Drum

Panda Drum

     I had no idea how much fun a Panda Drum could be. Heck, I didn’t even know what a Panda Drum was until this past Tuesday night. I didn’t actually get to play one myself, but getting the chance to watch a colleague play one during a Zoom meeting made me smile and laugh long after the meeting had ended. 

   The Zoom gathering was part of an online program on personal wellness that I am co-leading for two churches in my community. We were talking about balance, and I asked the group how they knew when they were starting to get out of balance. The answers included, “I get grumpy and irritable,” "I take things way too seriously and lose my ability to laugh,” “I numb out in some way,” and “I over-work myself.” 

   The conversation turned to the importance of making time for play as being essential for emotional balance. All agreed that play was lacking in their lives and that the pandemic had taken away so many of the ways in which they used to play and renew their spirits. One person offered, “I used to laugh a lot more,” and I saw many heads nodding in agreement. Right at that moment, we all started hearing some unusual sounds floating through our computer speakers. At first, no one knew where they were coming from, but then it became clear that the sounds were coming from Meredith, one of the other co-leaders of our group.

   “What on earth are you doing, Meredith?” someone asked. “Why I’m playing my new Panda Drum!” was her response. She then repositioned her laptop camera so that we could all watch her improvising a variety of sounds as she used mallets to strike her drum. She explained that, like many people, she spends a lot of time in online meetings, and so in between meetings, she de-stresses by playing her newly purchased instrument. 

   There was such delight in all of us as we enjoyed this wholly spontaneous and unexpected moment. We were no longer talking about the importance of humor and play; we were experiencing it. The smile and delight in Meredith’s face were as contagious as the creative sounds she was making, and it brought joy to my face as well. One of the great things about Zoom is that I could look around at each person's face that night and see that they were each shining with delight as well.

   To be honest, I struggled with whether to write about this or not this week. I wondered if it was frivolous to write about something so small and silly when such heavy and tragic things are happening all around us. I decided to go ahead and share this experience because I’m guessing I’m not the only one who needs help renewing their spirits right now. I just didn’t expect to find that renewal in the form of a Panda Drum in the middle of a Zoom meeting.

   May you be blessed by similar moments of laugher and delight in your life this week, however small and unexpected they may be. It might be just what we need to give us the strength and resilience to face the challenges in our collective lives.

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.