The other day, I sent my friend some information I felt certain was correct. In fact, as I sent the text, I felt my spine straighten, and my chest broaden into an “I’m right” and “I’m so smart” posture. Then, a feeling of doubt tapped me on the shoulder, and I double-checked my facts. On second look, what I sent was inaccurate. In response, I texted her three potent words: “I was wrong.” As I did so, I felt my jaw unclench, and my shoulders drop. Suddenly, I felt lighter, as if I’d put down a heavy bag of groceries I didn’t know I was carrying. The Protective Nervous System One of my meditation teachers, Julianna Raye, the co-founder of Unified Mindfulness, often references the innate defensiveness of our nervous system in her teachings. It’s not a bug, but a feature of a system designed to protect us from physical, psychological, and social threats. Being defensive – holding tightly to my opinions and beliefs to save face – is a normal reflex. It also feels good. Believing I’m right, even if I’m not, lulls me into a state of self-satisfaction. And yet being defensive – continually feeling as if I’m holding up my fists in front of my face – or asserting I’m right is energetically costly. It also creates discord. I mean, is there really only one way to load a dishwasher? My husband certainly thinks so. Whenever we tussle about this, though, I can’t help but feel as if we’re two bald men fighting over a comb. I know it doesn’t matter in the scheme of things, and still, it’s hard for me to admit that his dishwasher-loading methodology is more efficient – even more elegant – than mine. I also don’t like being wrong – as I’ve just learned – about the best way to harvest the lettuce in our garden bed. Apparently, you get more bang for your buck if you do so leaf by leaf instead of ripping out the whole head at once. These are some of the reasons mindfulness is a practice (old habits of wanting to be right die hard) and why I keep at it. I do so not just by meditating but also by relying on the attitudes that support mindfulness – one of which is openness, which I also think of as mental flexibility or having enough humility to see someone else’s point of view. Humility as an act of self-forgetting The Christian author C.S. Lewis suggested that true humility was an act of self-forgetting, rather than self-deprecation. It involved focusing on others instead of myopically on yourself, and presumably any need to be right. For me, one way to embrace humility is to acknowledge when I’m wrong, or at the very least admit there might be other ways to do things – including loading the dishwasher and pulling lettuce from the planter bed. Admitting I’m wrong isn’t about acquiescence or people pleasing; it’s about letting go of my attachment to being right. What’s delightful is that when I’m able to do this, my body rewards me with a bone-deep stability – not with contraction or agitation, but with a grounded openness that welcomes possibility. Where in your life are you too attached to being right, and what would it be like to acknowledge you could be wrong?

On My Mind   I‘ve just written quite a bit about something that Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, author, and mystic, says more succinctly than I have. “Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.”

 

The other day, I came across a definition of grace that was so insightful, I stopped and reread it several times.

Grace is what “happens when you stop trying so hard,” writes Willa Blythe Baker in The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom.

It’s worth lingering over those lines and noticing whether your shoulders drop after you read them.

Baker is referring to the grace in which animals, dancers, and athletes move when they forget themselves and allow their natural inclinations or training to take over.

Reframing Grace

But framing grace in this way has implications beyond how we move.

It was revelatory to me – not only because “trying hard” has been something I’ve done since I started crawling – but also because I’ve long thought grace was something I had no part in. It was something bestowed upon me.

Guided by Baker’s perspective, I now think grace is something I can invite by becoming more mindful of my relationship to effort and by noticing the quality of energy I bring to any endeavor.

Changing Our Relationship to Effort

The other day, while driving in traffic, for example, I noticed I was clenching my jaw, as if doing so would move the cars ahead of me out of my way. Then Baker’s line floated into my mind.

In response, I parted my teeth and let my jaw go slack. I was amazed how the rest of my body followed suit, creating a small miracle of relaxation, if not grace.

I then wondered: What if I let my day informally unfold from one activity to the next instead of planning blocks of time and piling them on top of each other like a Jenga tower? What if I just opened the refrigerator and improvised something for dinner, or made paying attention to the visceral sense of letting go on each exhalation a moment-to-moment mindfulness practice?

Learning to Let Go

Either way, entering a state of grace seems to point toward the same threshold. It’s the moment when we relinquish our attempts to force or control things. It’s the moment we stop trying to manage, to improve or defend ourselves, and give way to something greater.

The Christian contemplatives call it letting go and letting God. The Buddhists call it non-clinging or do nothing. The Taoists refer to it as wu wei. And psychologists call it flow or even self-compassion.

Grace isn’t passive. It’s a means of discernment, a way of finding a wise relationship to effort. It’s also about letting go and trusting that in doing so, something ineffable and benevolent will enter when it’s needed most.

When I was going through breast cancer treatment, grace was something I experienced regularly, mostly because I didn’t have the energy to manage or control a single thing. But it emerged from more than a lack of energy. It came from a bodily state of ease accompanied by a peaceful mind and a faithful heart. Unlike the stability of equanimity, grace is what arrived in the wake of my letting go.

Inviting Grace into Daily Life

How might we invite grace into our daily lives?

With students and clients, whenever I notice they’re being too hard on themselves, I intentionally let them off the hook. I help them see things through a broader lens, and in doing so, I’ve witnessed grace enter the fray.

I might say: “Of course, you haven’t meditated consistently because you’re caring for your ill mother while working full-time and taking care of four children under the age of 10!” or “Of course, you’re anxious. You’re about to start a new job.”

Sometimes, giving ourselves grace means taking into account the context in which we’re living. It means giving ourselves – or having someone else give us – permission not to always live up to our ideal standards. In this way, grace is a form of self-compassion.

I’m a practical person by nature, and, if possible, I like to turn insights into something tangible. So here are a few of the mindfulness practices I developed to invite a state of grace into my daily life.

• A Mindful Mantra: There’s energetic power in the word grace itself. Simply taking a few moments to close your eyes, relax your body, and silently and gently say the word grace to yourself can coax the body, heart, and mind into a state of ease and release.
• What am I adding to this experience? Over the years, I’ve found that letting go requires me to first acknowledge what I might be unnecessarily clinging to or adding to an experience. Sometimes, while sending a text, I notice I’m bracing my abdomen, or when having guests over, I realize I’m rigidly holding the belief that only cloth napkins will do.  Asking myself what I might be unnecessarily adding to a situation helps me relax back into the flow of my life.
• The Memory Door: Meditation teacher Loch Kelly teaches a practice called the Memory Door, which he uses to help people connect to a form of effortless mindfulness. We can also use memory to recall a time when we felt we were in a state of grace. To do so, find a comfortable posture, close your eyes, and recall a time when everything felt just right or when, despite a challenge, you knew things would work out. Once you land on a memory, let it play out in full technicolor in your mind’s eye and notice how doing so feels in your body.
• What’s the effort or quality of energy I’m bringing to this task? Have you ever found yourself responding to an email as if you were driving a racecar? If so, you’re bringing way too much energy to the task. Sometimes I find it helpful to simply stop and notice the level of effort or the quality of energy I’m bringing to whatever I’m doing. Am I gripping too much? Is my mind racing? Checking in this way can be humbling. One time, I realized I was pulling weeds in the garden with the urgency of an air traffic controller. Whenever I recognize that the effort or quality of energy I’m bringing to a task is a mismatch (i.e., I’m stressing out too much), I stop, take a breath, and give myself some space and grace.

On My Mind

The other day, when leading a mindful eating practice, a participant shared how the flavor of a small square of dark chocolate lingered on her tongue long after she’d swallowed it.

Doing so not only allowed her to savor the sweetness of it but also the joy of eating it far more than she usually would.

Her insight points to something we forget in our daily hustle: there’s so much beauty and pleasure in lingering.

Staying with it

Staying with the flavor of chocolate on your tongue, tracing the arc of a sparrow in the sky until it’s out of sight, or listening to the last note of a song until it fades into silence, enhances our appreciation and enjoyment of those experiences – as long as we’re not clinging to them. 

Lingering also gives us a sense of completion.

When I finish a piece of writing, staring at the page for a few moments longer gives me a sense of well-done fulfillment I’d otherwise miss if I leaped up from my desk and moved on to the next task.

I feel the same if I stay with an emotion – even a challenging one, such as sadness. Being with sadness until it runs its course lets me gather any information it may offer me about my life. Instead of compounding the pain of it through avoidance or distraction, I’m left with a sense of resolution, even poignancy for having felt it at all.

We don’t linger much – on anything – these days.

The Increased Pace of Life

We hurry and rush, truncating experiences so we can move on to whatever comes next. We cut conversations short or stand up from the dinner table before the last dish gets cleared.

The pace of our lives has undeniably sped up, leaving us with seemingly little time to spare.

Arianna Salazar-Miranda, an assistant professor of urban planning and data science at the Yale School of the Environment, recently analyzed recorded pedestrian behavior in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. Her team compared data from the late 1970s to 2010. What they discovered is that we’re literally moving faster.

Walking speed had increased by 15 percent. Lingering? Cut in half. As a result, fewer people nowadays interact in groups or spontaneously with each other.

Miranda’s research suggests that moving through our days as if we’re on a conveyor belt comes at a social cost. We miss out on the connections that are so vital to our well-being.

The other day, while taking a walk before hunkering down at my desk to work, I ran into two neighbors.

One complained about a drain that was leaking rainwater into his garage; another told me she was off to see the doctor. These weren’t momentous interactions, but as I listened and connected with my neighbors, I realized that making time for them is what my sense of community and belonging is built upon.

The Art of Lingering

To linger requires us to stay longer in a place or a moment, and resist the tug and pull to launch ahead into the next event.

Of course, there are times I don’t need to linger. I never want to stay in an airport bathroom longer than I need to.

But practicing lingering is a worthy and mindful experiment.

The next time you find yourself abruptly moving on to the next experience before the current one is truly over, take a few moments to savor the experience.

Hug your friend a little longer, enjoy that last sip of coffee, and go ahead and let out a sigh of grateful relief as you ease yourself into your favorite chair before opening a book or turning on the television.

Pause and notice what you discover when you linger.

On My Mind

 

 

The other night I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept fixating on a work project and how long it was taking to figure it out and finish it.

I was stuck in what I call “postage stamp perspective.”

It’s like sitting at a table with a magnifying glass, inspecting a postage stamp, focusing on minute details while ignoring everything else within and around us – the sights, sounds, sensations, and other perspectives on the problem we’re facing.

Why We Get Stuck

When we’re stressed, our nervous system naturally narrows our attention to focus on the problem.

In psychology, this is called cognitive tunneling. Traffic engineers also encounter this when they optimize individual intersections perfectly but create gridlock across the system. They’ve solved the local problem while missing the bigger impact on traffic flow.

This narrowing is automatic and protective, but when we’re fixated, we often lose access to the broader context and inner wisdom we need to make good decisions, find solutions to problems, or simply see things differently.

As Einstein said, “A problem cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created it.”

How to Step Back

So how do we counter the postage-stamp perspective?

First, recognize you’re stuck. If all you can focus on or talk about is the problem without making progress, you’re in a postage-stamp perspective. Other hallmarks: tension, agitation, anxiety, confusion, and rumination.

Acknowledging and even accepting that your mind is working overtime can help you bring self-compassion to your mental agitation and respond skillfully.

During that restless night, I caught myself. I appreciated that my brain was working so hard to solve this problem – even at 2 am. But I also knew I didn’t yet have the information I needed, nor was I settled enough to find a creative solution.

So instead of wrestling with my thoughts, I let the mental agitation be there while shifting my focus to the space within and around me. I focused on the whole-body feeling of my breath and the vastness of the early-morning silence. The expanse of the ceiling above me helped shift my perspective to something larger than myself and my problem.

This didn’t give me an answer, but it loosened my mental grip and gave me space to sit with uncertainty until clarity came.

Four Ways to Zoom Out

Next time you’re stuck in a postage-stamp perspective, try these mindfulness-based practices to find some mental space:

Notice the whole breath: Instead of narrowly focusing on the breath, widen the lens of your attention to feel the whole wave of the breath rising and falling through the core of your body – the belly, the rib basket, the chest.

Broaden your view: Look out a window or up at the sky. Remind yourself that you and your problem aren’t the only things happening. Soften your gaze, taking in the periphery for 30 seconds or more.

Expand your listening: When we’re lost in thought, we tune out sounds around us. Instead, let your attention open to the entire soundscape – the hum of the refrigerator, distant traffic, the silence between sounds.

Connect with others: A conversation that doesn’t focus on your problem naturally draws attention away from yourself and soothes your nervous system. Listen mindfully to whomever you’re with – giving them your full attention.

On My Mind

Cleaning out my closet the other day, I came across some old diaries.

Taped to the opening page of one was this quote from a Yogi tea bag label.

“The difference between a weed and a flower is a judgment.”

The truth of it made me sit on the edge of my bed and reflect on how our perceptions shape our experience.

Mindfulness helps us see things more clearly and even shift our perspective to consider what else might be true.

What would change for you today if you saw a weed as a flower?”

Sports are a metaphor for life, and few life lessons play out more dramatically than on the Olympic stage. At this year’s winter games, which ended Sunday, there were memorable triumphs and failures for U.S. athletes. But more than winning or losing, what’s inspired me is the presence, grace, and accountability the athletes displayed, regardless of their performances. Presence over Performance Figure skater Alysa Liu became the first woman to win a gold medal for the U.S. in 24 years. But winning wasn’t her aim. Before her exuberant free skate, Liu told USA Today: “A medal? I don’t need a medal. I just need to be here, and I just need to be present…” Liu remarkably said she doesn’t feel Olympic pressure; she just “lets it all in.” Whenever I feel overcome with self-doubt or too obsessed with results, I’ll remember Liu’s words and repeat them to myself like mental mantras. What makes Liu’s Olympic performance even more inspiring is that she left the sport for two years because of mental burnout, only re-entering it, according to the Guardian, after reclaiming something simple: Her love for moving her body. Need I remind you that Liu is just 20 years old? Her abundant wisdom is a reminder of what we often forget when pursuing something that matters to us: to find joy in the doing. The joy you discover needn’t be bold. It can be as unassuming as the pleasure of having a few quiet minutes to yourself when you meditate, or the subtle satisfaction you feel after tidying up the kitchen before going to bed. The Grace of Honest Failure Olympic athletes also showed us how to handle the devastation of defeat with grace and honesty. Lindsey Vonn, who, a week before the Olympics, tore a ligament in her knee but competed anyway, crashed just 13 seconds after leaving the gate, fracturing her leg. Writing on Instagram from her hospital bed, she encouraged others not to feel sorry for her but to take strength from her example. Vonn, who is 41 years old, is another comeback queen – a model of determination and grit, but also of acceptance when whatever you’ve been so desperately wanting to happen doesn’t happen at all. And then there’s Ilia Malinin, a generational figure skating talent who is so self-assured he named himself the “Quad God” for his ability to perform flawless quad jumps. Rather than win a much-anticipated gold medal, Malinin fell twice in a disastrous free skate. Moments after turning in one of his worst performances, Malinin acknowledged his mistakes were mental, saying simply, “I’m still trying to process what happened.” No deflection. No blame. Just honesty. Inviting it all in with Mindfulness I can’t vouch for whether these athletes practice mindfulness, but they displayed qualities mindfulness helps us cultivate. Mindfulness allows us to invite in the whole of our experience – the disappointment, confusion, and joy – and to relate to it all with steadiness and self-compassion. And while it’s a cliché, being mindful truly does help us stay more focused on the present – keeping us from anxiously anticipating the future or endlessly rehashing the past. All of this takes practice. Olympic athletes train for hours a day, seven days a week, for years to hone their physical and mental skills. The good news for all of us is that we don’t need to train like Olympic athletes to emulate them. Even just 10 minutes of mindfulness a day can help us: Stay present with what’s happening and let go of the results. Acknowledge failure with self-compassion and honesty. And find fulfillment in the process of mastering a skill, performing, or simply doing a task at hand. None of this will win us a gold medal. But it will certainly make us feel more fulfilled and even joyful.

On My Mind Sometimes a well-framed question can jolt you out of autopilot and reconnect you with what matters most. Lately, I’ve found the following question from Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, profoundly helpful in doing just that. Ask yourself the following question with curiosity and honesty, then make space for whatever bubbles up. What’s one essential thing I’m underinvesting in?  When I asked myself that question recently, the answer was exercising, which I’d been leaving until the end of the day, and approaching with as much dread as cleaning the cat’s litter box. (Despite what I’ve written above, it’s very hard to find joy in cleaning up cat poop.) So, I’ve reprioritized my time by exercising first thing in the morning. I feel more energetic as a result, and my mood has improved, too. Another bonus: I’ve started to enjoy working out again.

Mindfulness Coaching The right support can make all the difference — especially during periods of stress, change, or illness. Mindfulness develops skills and resources for focus, resilience, and well-being. If you’re looking for one-on-one mindfulness coaching rooted in compassion and real-world experience, learn more about mindfulness coaching at www.kellybarron.com or get in touch with me at kelly@kellybarron.com