Is there anything worse than
being stuck in a traffic jam? Few things
in life are more stressful. Heavy traffic
can often bring out the worst in us. Do
you ever notice how one minute you can be in your car happily singing to the
radio and the next moment you are enraged at the driver who is driving too
slowly in front of you or furious at the person who almost ran you off the road
with his reckless NASCAR wanna-be driving style? In a matter of seconds, you go
from being happy to turning into the Hulk?
How about when you are running
late on your morning commute and you get stuck behind a very slow moving log truck
or school bus? How do you feel? Do you ever realize that the little voice in
your head (your ego) automatically labels almost anyone driving slower than you
an “idiot” and anyone driving way too fast for your tastes a “jerk” (or worse)?
Do you ever notice the emotions
and physical sensations that may arise from driving in a traffic jam or in a
heavy traffic morning commute? Perhaps
you get caught by a stop light. In any
other circumstance, you’re a mild-mannered friendly individual, but this particular
traffic light turning red at this particular moment is going to make you late
to an important meeting with your boss.
You stomp on the gas to pass the light, but then you hesitate as it
turns yellow, realizing you aren’t going to make it. You freeze for a second, then you slam on the
break and your over-priced venti cup of coffee spills all over your brand new
outfit. Forgetting your kids are in the
back seat, you unleash a stream of profanities.
You can feel your heart beating out of your chest. Your palms are
sweaty. Your kids, who are frightened,
are now crying. How does this happen? One minute you are singing Maroon 5 to
the radio at the top of your lungs without a care in the world, and everything
is hunky dory. The next minute you are
slamming on the break, dropping F bombs in front of the kids, and hating life
in general!
Your blood pressure is rocketing up and your
heart rate is through the roof. What
are you going to do? You need to drop
your kids off to school and rush into work to make the meeting on time, but
then this light has the audacity to turn red!
What’s going on here? If this is
how the first hour of your days starts off, can you imagine how the rest of
your day is going to be?
Even if you live in an urban
environment where you take the subway and don’t have a morning drive to work,
you get the picture. You know what I’m
talking about. This is how many of us
live, subservient to our thoughts and emotions.
There is a better way to live.
The truth is that our minds are
wonderful “devices” for assisting with our survival but they are terrible at
making us happy. We have these things
that occupy the streets of our minds called thoughts, and just like cars and
other vehicles traveling like mad on morning commutes on superhighways, our thoughts
dash in and out and often congest the roads of our minds. Outside in the real word there is always some
kind of commotion coming from traffic.
Our inner-traffic is no different- so much confusion and noise, always
speeding through our minds. Guess
what? You are never going to stop the
traffic on the highway. The same holds
true for the traffic in your head. You
are never going to stop it. However, you
can learn to deal with it.
Jon-Kabbat Zinn, the godfather of
western mindfulness, has a wonderful quote about thoughts,” You can’t stop the
waves, but you can learn to surf.” Let’s
take a look at our minds, the way or thoughts work, and how to deal with the
waves/traffic.
Scientists have long debated and
disagreed over how many thoughts we have during a twenty-four hour period. Estimates usually range from 50,000- 70,000
thoughts per day. If we go with the
assumption that we have 70,000 thoughts per day, that averages to about 49
thoughts per minute. I don’t believe there is any way to know that exact
number, but for argument’s sake, there is a ton of traffic circulating around
your mind and honking for your attention at any given time.
Do you ever notice that the vast
majority of your 49 thoughts per minute are either centered ruminating in the
past or worrying about the future?
Typically, we are fixated quite a bit with what we perceive is “just
around the corner.” Most of the time, we
spend time worrying about things that never happen. This is because our minds are wired to
protect us from these perceived threats.
We were created (or programmed) with a survival instinct called the
Fight, Flight, or Freeze response. This
was helpful when we lived in prehistoric hunter and gather communities, not so
much in today’s sedentary digital age.
We have a physical response (rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, etc.) and
mental response (racing thoughts) to any perceived threat. This was helpful in prehistoric days when a
violent tribe was attaching our huts, not so much when we are on our morning
drive to work in our Prius.
Instead of dwelling in the past
or obsessing about the future, our true happiness lies in our ability to be
fully engaged in the present moment. If
you think about it, the past is dead, and it’s not coming back. Dwelling in the past is like chaining a dead
animal to your foot and dragging it around.
Why on earth would you do this?
Furthermore, the future is usually just a fantasy. Why would you want to
hang out there? As we learned from Marty McFly in Back to the Future, nothing good happens there.
The present moment is the only
reality you have. The whole essence of
mindfulness is about getting stuck in the present moment. Mindfulness is about living in the present
moment without judgement (or as little judgement as you can have). Living in
the present moment does not mean you ignore the past and the future. By all means, you learn from the past and you
plan for the future. However, you do not
need to be a slave to either the past or the future in the highways of your
mind.
The first step to becoming mindful
in my approach is not meditation (We will get to that in future chapters). The first step is to start THINKING ABOUT
YOUR THINKING. This begins with the way
in which we see our thoughts. Descartes uttered the
famous lines, 'I Think Therefore I
Am.' From a mindfulness perspective,
I don’t like this quote. Anyone can and
does think. The key is knowing when not
to think and to not be bossed around by the constant traffic in your mind.
The first step in
learning to slow down the traffic in your mind is to start seeing your thoughts
as MENTAL ACTIVTY, NOT ABSOLUTE TRUTHS.
Say it over and over in your head; “Thoughts are mental activity, not
absolute truths.”
Just like running
and jumping are physical activities, thoughts are mental activity. It is important to realize that you are not
your thoughts. Start seeing yourself as
the observer of your thoughts. Getting
in the habit of doing this will enable you to ease much of the suffering from
your anxious and self-doubting thoughts.
It is important to
note that you will always have anxious and self-doubting thoughts to some
extent. It is the ego’s job to do
this. Remember, the mind is good at
protecting us from perceived threats, but not so good at making us happy. Don’t hate the ego; just bring awareness to
what it is saying. By “calling it out,”
it dissipates and the voice will eventually stop. By being able to stop it
after a while, we don’t ruminate in it and become enslaved by our negative
thoughts. This enables us to make more
mindful/rational decisions.
Realize that there
is a difference between simply acknowledging what our ego is saying at any
given time and trying to mentally resist what the ego is saying. Have you ever tried NOT to think about
something? What happens? It makes you think about it more! Mental resistance will only make negative
thoughts stronger. Instead of trying to
fight what is going on in your mind, bring gentle awareness to it and acknowledge
what it is saying.
Bringing awareness
to what is going on in your mind also brings you back to the present
moment. Instead of getting stuck in your
thoughts and going down the deep, dark rabbit holes of the past and the future,
you are alert and thriving in the present moment. You can actually function in the present moment,
unlike the past of the future.
Don’t stop with
just bringing awareness to your thoughts.
Also do it with your feelings and emotions as well. In this regard, mindfulness will help you
develop better emotional intelligence.
When you get angry, acknowledge it. Say to yourself, “I’m mad,” and deal
with it, instead of blowing up at something or someone. It’s better to acknowledge a feeling or
emotion instead of blowing up or over-reacting and regretting your actions
later. Do it when you are sad, mad,
scared, jealous, etc. Make it a habit. You will be able to unclog much of the
traffic in your mind this way, and it will get you back into your destination:
the present moment.
Next time when you
are running late and you get caught by a traffic light (either real or
imagined), take a moment to get centered and back to the present moment by
trying Dr. Elisha Goldstein’s S.T. O. P. practice:
S: stop
what you are doing
T: take a breath (or several)
O: observe what is going on (both inside
and out)
P: proceed
