Constancy

Constancy.  It’s why I get extra good stuff at my regular lunch place.  It’s why I know how to play the piano.  It’s how I made (and kept) most of the friends I have.  It’s how I keep improving in spin class. It’s how I wrote a novel in the 7^th grade (not a good one J ).  It’s how I developed a consistent meditation practice.

Perhaps some people are born with a calm mind, incredible musical abilities, perfect technique at [fill in the blank], a chiseled body, and a line of people out the door to befriend and love them.  But I doubt it.

People develop these qualities over time, through constancy.  Notice that I didn’t say “by perfecting their abilities,” “honing their craft,” “working harder and faster than everyone else,” “spending all their time on this activity,” or “following a carefully defined path.” No.  It's constancy.

I’m not talking about becoming an Olympic gold medalist or the greatest writer of all time, although constancy DEFINITELY plays a part in those achievements.  I’m talking about marked improvements and marked stability that we "mysterious" build up in certain areas of our life.  

I’ve often heard people use the words “consistency,” “frequency,” and “repetition,” but something about “constancy" speaks to me.  A friend brought it up at the Houston Zen Center a few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to forget it.

He was referencing Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, in which Suzuki discusses the Japanese word “nin.” Its usual translation is “patience.”  But Suzuki posits “constancy” as a better interpretation. Suzuki discusses it quite eloquently, and I highly recommend looking this passage up. But I want to discuss what it means to me.

My friend at the Zen Center said that when he started thinking about developing “constancy” in certain situations, instead of “patience,” he felt a powerful energetic shift inside. I did, too. Neither term is better than the other, but “patience” connotes something akin to "waiting" for me. I feel like I’m often being asked to wait and “have patience,” and I rarely excel at it – much less enjoy it.  Whether I need to be patient waiting in a line, or when dealing with another person’s behavior that might annoy me, or when dealing with myself and the qualities I wish I was developing or getting rid of sooner, patience comes up again and again.

Patience feels kind of helpless to me. All of life might be waiting, sure.  But maybe that's why I hate all of life sometimes.  I feel like I'm being asked to just sit there and wait for things to develop.

In contrast, constancy implies action.  Constancy (as my friend explained it) means that when I’m sitting there, annoyed at myself because I’m not doing something quite well enough, I keep doing whatever I’m doing. I could be sitting down to meditate, and my mind is going everywhere, just like it always does.  I could stop, or I could keep sitting every day.  It means that when I have a low-energy day at spin class, I don't stop going out of frustration.  I keep going, even if just once a week.  Or when someone in my life is doing something that annoys me, I don't totally change my course to avoid that person.  I keep doing what I'm meant to do, even if that person has to be around while I'm doing it.

I often picture myself at a pottery wheel, trying to make a bowl or something.  I am not happy with how things are going.  If my mind says, “Be patient with yourself," I think, "Whatever.  I’m not getting this.  I’m just going to stop now.”  In contrast, if my mind says, “Constancy, Michelle. Constancy," I turn my attention away from my angry or frustrated thoughts and focus instead on the task at hand. The more bowls I spin, the better it will be. 

Sure, I could also read pottery books, take more classes, learn better technique, and study the different kinds of wheels and clays available to me.  But I will see results even if all I do is just continue to put clay on a wheel and make bowls.  I will get better.

This applies everywhere.  I will eventually make friends if I keep showing up and talking to at least one person at my regular haunt. I will eventually get better at the piano if I keep practicing new songs.  I will develop stronger legs and cardiovascular conditioning if I keep going to my spin class. I will finish my novel if I keep writing a little bit several times a week.

I don’t have to be the most outgoing person and talk to a dozen people every time I go to certain meetings or meet-ups. I don’t have to practice the piano two hours a day. I don’t have to work out six days a week to see results.  I don’t have to write for an hour every day to finish a book.  And I don’t have to meditate an hour every day before sunrise to gain a little enlightenment.

For me, one person is enough. Twenty minutes a day is enough. Three days a week is enough. Fifteen minutes every other day is enough. Five minutes a day is enough…

I tried to start meditating many times and couldn’t stick with it. I would be very consistent for a few days or weeks but then stop.  I knew that meditating was changing something in me and that I wanted to do it every day.  But I couldn’t get myself there.  It wasn’t until a therapist said that scientists had done an experiment where they had looked at the neural pathways of people receiving certain stimuli, doing certain activities, or thinking about certain things. They mapped their brains at the beginning of the experiment and then had the participants meditate for five minutes every day for two months.  At the end of the two months, neural pathways had actually changed.  And the participants overwhelmingly reported changes in mood and reactions.  Five minutes per day.

That released me.  Somewhere in me, I thought I had to meditate at least 20 minutes for it to be meaningful.  SO WRONG.  Many days, I can only get seven minutes or 12 minutes in.  But the fact that I do it every day keeps me going for the next day.  Even when I don’t see a difference in my thoughts or behavior, I keep doing it.  I trust that meditation is where I want to be.

I do the same thing where I can elsewhere in my life.  I think that having patience with myself often translates into me being way too lenient or lazy about behaviors I honestly do not like. Things get boring and stagnant when I allow myself to drift into certain old habits, and I become unhealthy.  Constancy has energy.  It pulls me into flow. Even when I think that whatever I’m doing is pointless, I feel a special energy in my life when I remain constant.

Constancy is not like pushing myself to do a million things every day and feeling guilty if I don't accomplish my goals. Constancy is continuing on, even when I can't get everything done that I want to get done.  Constancy is continuing on.

Sometimes, that's all I can do, really.  Just let go and continue on.  I'm grateful to my friend at the Zen Center for the good word of the month: constancy. 

In the Pocket

Someone told me something interesting this week: If we don't know exactly why we are where we are and why we're doing what we're doing, we’re probably in the right place.

This flies in the face of what I've believed for years. I thought that a feeling of certainty meant I was on the right track, but I'm beginning to think I was wrong. 

I've been categorically unsuccessful at guiding myself to happiness and contentment for years, despite many methodical (and less than methodical) plans and schemes. I'm smart.  I'm a good problem solver.  I should be able to find the best path, right?

Not so much. In recovery, my work is not to uncover the right path. My job is to be fully present in this moment, to develop and nurture my connection with a higher power, to do a daily personal inventory, and to take the steps that my higher power lays out in front of me one after the other.

If I do those things, I often find myself in places that make little sense. But they are usually places that feel… somehow… okay. If I had made my own way, things would make sense.  I would know what happened and how I got there.  When I let go and let something greater than myself carve out my path, it's a bit disorienting. But it's so much richer than the security of being able to tie together all the pieces.

How much more delightful life is when it doesn't make sense!  Sense is boring.  Sense gives me security, but it's bland.

Interestingly, when I look back on those moments of disorientation, they make sense. They make a beautiful sense. That is comfort enough for me.

This past month has been one of looking inward and staying connected with HP (my higher power).  I've managed to integrate mindfulness into my daily habits better than ever before. 

I've noticed that I stop more frequently throughout my days, letting questions come up like, "Why am I doing this?  Is this what I should be doing? How do I feel right now?"  Time and time again, the answer is that I feel good in the moment.  I feel good.  I feel secure.  And that's all that matters. I move on, through the thoughts, just like I do during meditation.

I can feel confused and unsure but also good.  I can have no idea where I'm going or why I'm doing what I'm doing and still know I'm doing the right thing.

It has taken many years to get more familiar with this feeling.  I call it being "in the pocket." When I'm in flow and feel wholly safe and loved, I'm "in the pocket."  I live for that feeling.  It makes everything and everywhere safe.  I'm being carried through circumstances that make little sense to me, but I am on the path I'm supposed to be on. The only way to get off-track is to get out of touch with HP.

I might ask:  Why am I in this class?  Why am I taking this drive?  Why did I decide to walk outside?  Why am I calling this person?  Why am I choosing to sit and do nothing when I have 20 things I could be doing?  Why am I drawing this picture?  Why am I sitting down at the piano?

The answers don't matter.  What matters is that I really live those moments.  And if I do, I'll enjoy every piece of my life… and also move out of each piece at just the right time.

Refuse to Choose Guilty Thoughts

I have a lot of experience managing my thoughts.  I have learned that it is possible to encourage certain kinds of thoughts and discourage others. It's a matter of attention.  If guilt-ridden thoughts like, "I should be making more money," or, "I should be thinner," get my attention, my brain will try to use these thoughts to motivate me.  It seems to work, and my brain uses what it thinks works.

What my brain doesn't seem to realize is that these guilt-ridden thoughts cause other issues. The berating motivates me, but in the end, I feel worse about myself and want to rebel against those thoughts.

The same thing goes for food-related thoughts. Food has historically soothed me, so my mind brings up thoughts of food to comfort me in difficult times.  Little does my brain know that this is creating an unhealthy dependence on a single coping mechanism: food.

In the past, I thought I needed to pay attention to every thought I had, convinced that every thought had some nugget of truth or wisdom that I needed to learn from.  Even if the thought was clearly negative and hurtful, like, "Look what I've done by eating all this food.  My body is not as attractive as it was five months ago," I was convinced that I needed to mine these belittling thoughts for virtue.  The logic goes: Perhaps I need to hear how ugly I am to feel motivated to eat more carefully. The only way I will change how I behave with food is by feeling bad about what I've done in the past. 

It took many years to realize that not every thought has virtue—that I can choose to move past thoughts that are not helpful or supportive. What I have learned is that I do not miss out on life lessons by disregarding these thoughts. Instead, my brain learns to rephrase the thoughts so that they motivate and support me. "Look at my ugly body" can go away.  "How can I love my body?" will come up soon after.

My brain already knows both negative and positive ways to frame thoughts. By disregarding the negative, hurtful thoughts, I train my brain to offer up more supportive, kind thoughts. The positive thoughts are no less motivating than the negative ones.  In fact, positive thoughts provide more long-term motivation because they don't come with the self-sabotaging side effects of the negative thoughts.

I get to choose not to guilt myself into action.  A while ago, I challenged myself to see if I could lead a life I was proud of without guilt.  My family has historically been driven by guilt. My great-grandmother guilted my grandmother. My grandmother guilted my mother into action.  And my mother guilted me. None of them realized what they were doing.  Now, I tend to guilt myself.  Fortunately, I am aware of the pattern and can escape it.  I can live a brilliant life without guilt-based motivation. I hypothesize that if I move past guilt-based thoughts and only hold onto non-guilty thoughts, my brain will make more non-guilty thoughts. I will still achieve all the things I once believed I needed guilt to achieve. (This pattern of thinking is a project I work on daily.)

This isn't to say that I should ignore any thought that says something negative about me.  Mostly, I concentrate on moving past thoughts that tend to guilt me.  Thoughts like, "I have a very low tolerance for X person," or, "I tend to seek attention at the expense of others," don't send me on a guilt trip.  I can accept those observations and ask questions like, "What in me is irritated by X person?" or, "What do I like about attention?" Those thoughts are not the same as, "X person probably hates me," or, "I want too much attention."  Those thoughts judge me and the people around me.  They may hold some truths for me, but I don't need to pay attention to them.  If I move past the negative thoughts, positive thoughts with the same message will come through. I don't need to worry that I'm missing out on a major life lesson.  My brain knows how to rephrase its thoughts.  I just have to train it to pick more positive phrasings.

I'm excited to finally relax a little more. Guilt leads me to food, because food blocks out the guilty feelings. Without guilt, it's easier to make healthy choices based on factors outside of emotional avoidance.  We don't have to pay attention to negative thoughts, even if we think they might be helpful.  Our brains are smart.  They can rephrase.

Too many of us have taken the advice, "Take every thought captive," far too seriously.  It sounds like a smart thing to do at first, but in practice, it's a recipe for neuroses.  Sure, some people don't reflect on their lives or thoughts enough.  These people chronically turn to  distraction. Maybe they need practice in taking thoughts captive.  But many of us naturally reflect on our thoughts and try to analyze every thought that breaks into consciousness.  By trying to take every thought captive, we become captive to a myriad of overwhelming ideas and suggestions.  Even the chronic distracters out there may spend so little time considering their thoughts because they don’t realize that they can actively choose which ones to focus on.

Brain studies show that only a very small percentage of thoughts make it into consciousness.  That means that when we choose not to give time to a conscious thought, a dozen more wait to break through.  Of those thoughts, we can choose to give time to only the truly helpful ones.  Don't be afraid to ignore thoughts. I assure you, a bevy of other thoughts wait to take their place.

We may not choose all of our thoughts, but we can choose the ones we want to give time to. We can choose how long they stay in consciousness.  Some unhelpful thoughts may come up over and over and over, but by moving past them, you can train your brain to pick other thoughts.

It's tough.  Ask for support when you need it.  I'm only now to a point where I really understand what it means to choose my thoughts.  Meditation has helped, and I can't recommend it enough. Spending a few minutes actively choosing to let thoughts go has been immensely helpful, and I think I'm getting better at it. 

However you decide to train your brain, go for it, and refuse to run your life on guilt.