3rd Way Thinking

THE COST OF WITHHOLDING

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 00:53:26 +0000

Ever wonder why we withhold the good that is within us? As though extending it outward is going to cost us something. Yes, a little something indeed, the price – our ego. That part of us formed early on in childhood which keeps us separate by using its cunning, deceitful tools of victimhood and grief.

Case in point – one I happen to know well, myself. There are many to choose from, but I’ll share perhaps the biggest one that I’ve had to contend with in the past two decades. It is the experience I have as the mother of a special needs daughter with autism. I know this ego experience well and through time it has kept me closed and separate. My false self tells me that it is for my safety but it’s really only safe for the survival of my ego defense mechanisms. And they need to go.

I’ve probably always identified with this little “ego being” which either feels superior or inferior but never peaceful, let’s be honest. But the intensity of pain and loss really ramped up when I (my ego) felt hopeless and helpless as she failed to advance with her peers. Looking back, I thought I was a fairly positive, “see the glass half-full” kind of person, but now I see it was just projected outward and not consciously internal. When faced with pain my “ego being” would arrive right on time and project myself as a victim and the whole world (if I let it) as the perpetrator.

When my Molly was young and trying her best to navigate the overstimulated and frightening world, I would find myself wishing someone else might share our experience so that I wouldn’t feel so alone. I actually found myself thinking, “maybe their life will change and then they’ll see how it is.” Misery loves company they say, and I felt alone. Ultimately, I’d feel guilt and shame for thinking those less than Christian thoughts and then I’d have to have a glass or two of Merlot to not feel all the guilt and shame. But it never helped.

Sometimes when our lives got more and more difficult, I would harbor thoughts of “I hope they…. fill in the blank “some bad thing”! Isn’t that awful? Yes, it is, but I understand why the thoughts were there. It is awful in the sense that we fall into the pit of otherness and then idiotically figure the way to try and claw our way out is by pushing someone else into the pit as well. Even if we do in in our minds – where we think it won’t hurt anyone. That is an illusion because it hurts the person holding the thought – us. If everything is energy, then our thoughts have consequences. And our thoughts shape who we become, and I didn’t like the person she was turning into.

I’d find myself seeing pictures on Facebook showing everyone’s perfect outsides while I struggled with our less than perfect insides, trying to just get Molly to not meltdown any and every time we went out into the community. The feelings of jealously and envy were strong as I’d scroll on by without stopping to “like” or “love” anything. My ego wouldn’t let me. For if I did, I’d tell myself it wouldn’t be truthful. How could I like seeing their kid’s dance recital or prom pictures when I secretly wished it was us and that our roles were reversed? That is the ego incarnate in all its petty judgmental nature and it kept me from giving.

Ultimately, I began to learn the skills of mindfulness meditation and I realized my over-identification with the forms of thought. Through a lot of journaling, therapy, talks with trusted friends and contemplative practice I began to see my ego being for what it was – just this scared, frightened part of myself that kept me separate from others and the world. One secret of its operating system does this well by withholding love.

It was in a session with a client recently where we spoke about our tendencies to withhold our approval, love and forgiveness. It appears to happen to all of us under a wide berth of differentiating circumstances. But the end result is that we suffer for doing it. I gave my own examples of this and shared how I now understand (but don’t always see) how this only hurts me in the end. Whenever we withhold out of fear, loss, shame, sadness, grief, and anger – we lose. We think to ourselves they don’t deserve it, or we say, “she hurt me, so I’ll just not go to her birthday party and then she’ll be sorry, and she’ll reach out and say what did I do wrong? and I’m so sorry you were hurt, I’ll never do it again.” Isn’t it just comical and tragic at the same time to see the ego mind at play? But see it we must if we ever hope to change it. That is why mindfulness is the first step in gaining freedom from our thoughts.

Giving away love costs nothing! Not. A. Thing. Withholding love costs a lot. Giving our love doesn’t have to do be an outside gesture, word or action, although those things can be very good if given authentically. Extending the love in your heart is all that is necessary. It changes the field. The Course in Miracles states that “anytime there is a shift in perception from fear to love, miracles can occur”. The world needs a boatload of miracles these days. I for one am going to practice more opening into love no matter what. I am through with withholding. The cost is too great to bear and the gifts too precious to leave unopened. Who is with me?

FINDING BALANCE & TRUTH IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 16:49:17 +0000

Currently we find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, COVID-19, causing widespread fear, anxiety and panic arising to levels unseen before for numerous people. Living through this crisis is going to require us to act effectively with skillful means; stepping into new ways of processing our thoughts and emotions; ultimately allowing our behaviors to evolve into solution focused ways of being in the world. We can do our part by being smart and following the guidelines set in place for our safety and by maintaining, even enhancing our best emotional, physical and spiritual health during this time.

Many people are feeling off-balance, myself included, and so it’s understandable that we’ll reach toward some “information” that feeds our confirmation bias in the moment, providing us with the comfort we so desperately crave to feel. Oftentimes our search leads us, or keeps us, in our comfortable echo chambers of news or social media streams that again, confirm what it is that we want to hear. However, the ultimate truth right now is vague and uncertain, so finding the middle ground in this information overload is even more crucial in order to gain insight and equilibrium.

Our emotions are necessary guideposts in life’s journey – they are essential to tap into and reflect the larger message of what we’re experiencing in the present moment. Equally important is our rational, logical and fact-based mind which is here to balance us when the emotional mind becomes inflamed and over-reactive, oftentimes causing us undo stress and pain. Where these two intersect is called Wise-Mind, a construct within Dialectical Behavioral Therapy that validates our experience while at the same time grounds us in rationality in order to make the best decisions.

In this time of viral contagion we must be aware of emotional contagion. We actually can catch other’s emotions. Emotional contagion is a real phenomenon and it refers to the subconscious “sharing” of moods among people in a group. Mirror neurons in our brain fire when we observe a behavior and activate the parts of our brain that reflect that behavior. Research from Facebook found that the number of positive or negative posts a user saw influenced the content of users’ future posts – evidence that emotions can be contagious even in the absence of face-to-face interaction and nonverbal cues.

Pain, fear and uncertainty can easily lead us into judgment and blame. Carl Jung said, “Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.” When we don’t feel in control we will find a “bad other” to be the scapegoat. Be careful not to fall into this trap. Lately it’s disheartening to see such an increase in judgment and blame, much of it not rooted in logic or truth – mostly just emotional reactivity, posted on social media, probably making the person who shared it feel better in the short term, I suppose. Metaphorically, it makes me feel like I need to wash my hands. It’s just too contaminating!

Truth, now more than ever, is a virtue that needs to be embraced and protected. Truth needs a vessel – us! When I think of a vessel carrying the water of truth, I see it balanced yet holding the tension of both sides without spilling. This calls for us to peer over the walls of our own silos and consider, “Do I have the complete information here or does this just fit my own narrative?” How do we do this? Discernment. Discernment is the process of making careful distinctions in our thinking about truth. I believe this requires some digging on our part and let’s face it, this action is not something we willingly want to do most of the time. Maybe we need to engage in conversation with someone who holds the opposite opinion and try to understand the truth of their reality? Or heaven forbid we turn the channel on our TV or news feed to see what the other side might be saying. It’s not natural for us to do this. We want, as a matter of safety and survival to remain in our own belief system or control tower. But if we want the facts we must be willing to become uncomfortable. Succinctly said in the words of Oscar Wilde, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple”.

Realizing and ultimately understanding we cannot change much of what is occurring right now leads us into acceptance. You cannot change what you do not accept. We are in a new reality – one that many want to reject or deny. However, the sooner we move into acceptance, our ability to cope increases. It certainly doesn’t require that we like it or agree; only that we accept the reality of now. Non-acceptance is a function of the egoic (false) self which will always find a way to be dissatisfied with the reality at hand. We don’t want to feel what we don’t want to feel so we blame and lay it on the “bad other”. The egoic self uses non-acceptance to move into blame very quickly and I would add, unconsciously. It’s what Jung called the shadow – those aspects of the personality that we choose to reject and repress. We blame what we feel we cannot change or control. We blame when we feel uncomfortable. We blame that which doesn’t fit our mental image of “what’s supposed to be” and so we reject that which doesn’t fit (example: the other political party, the Chinese, the media, your spouse, etc.).

What is being called for now individually and collectively is expansion; now is not the time to be small! Expand yourself in ways that you’ve always known you need to become, but have put off for whatever reason. We all know our edge – the parts of us that need to be tweaked in order to be our best self. Don’t waste this opportunity to do some of your best potential development. Again to quote Jung, “The best political, social and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.”

The most intelligent experts on the planet are working on solving this crisis with the thinking mind and rest assured, they will! Perhaps individually, we can contribute by healing the discord and disconnection that is present right now by managing our over-reactive emotional self. How can we do this?

By staying in the present moment (begin/enhance a mindfulness or contemplative prayer practice)
By operating in Wise-Mind (balance emotions with logic)
By engaging in compassion for self and others (watch out for judgments and blame)
By connections (reach out to others, make phone calls, donations, etc.)
By expanding yourself (push against your comfort zone and embrace your shadow self)

Now is the time.

Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Now is the time to change.

FIELDS OF FORGIVENESS

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Sun, 29 Dec 2019 18:43:40 +0000

American author, Mark Twain, poignantly said, “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” To truly understand forgiveness is to be the heel as well as the violet, for how else can we know the undeniable power of releasing someone from their wrongs unless we too, have participated in that “wrongness” ourselves.

When working with clients, I often find myself guiding them into spaces of forgiveness; for themselves and for others. It’s interesting and heartbreaking to see how stubbornness, pride and fear can keep us locked in false prisons woefully crying for freedom while all along we hold the keys. I include myself in this penal system from time to time; partitioning myself off from the connection and community afforded to those not in solitary confinement.

What creates this barrier? What constructs this chasm that prevents us from stepping into forgiveness and peace? It helps to understand basic developmental stages formulated in our childhood years. Two early childhood developmental masters, Piaget and Kohlberg discovered that children don’t have an unconditional view of forgiving. Findings show they are influenced by whether or not they can get even, or what their peers would think of them. They found that only in the developmental period of emerging adulthood do people realize they can forgive as an act of unconditional kindness toward an offender, even without the offending person showing remorse or apologizing. It is an evolutionary process and at times we find ourselves resisting the natural flow of spiritual development or perhaps we’re not fostering it to begin with.

Resentments are a feature of failing to forgive. Whenever you are noticing a resentful feeling, “dig deeper”, I tell my clients. What is there to forgive? Maybe it’s a judgement laced with some “wrongdoing”. Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, states “we are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people’s wrongness.” It’s the ego’s way of keeping us trapped in dualism and separateness instead of a holistic presence with all of reality, even if that reality appears as “bad other” in the form of ethnicity, culture, gender or political affiliation to name a few.

Understanding how perception plays a role in judgment is essential but often difficult to do when we are only seeing “our viewpoint”. Everyone has a slightly different perspective and it takes practice to develop this skillful means of pausing, stepping back and asking “how might this person be seeing this differently than me?” Isn’t that what we most want from others? To see as we see? Yet we are often stingy in offering this to others, instead labeling them or categorizing their views as “wrong”.

When I was young and growing up Catholic we were often instructed to forgive as Jesus did on the cross; which is entirely correct but left me wondering “how”? Just the words? Cause that’s what I did when my sisters and I hit each other and our mom made us say “sorry!” and “I forgive you”. Which we weren’t and we didn’t – let’s be honest. Still today I can bring up memories and feel that nasty resentment toward my bigger and meaner sister. I didn’t let it go and whenever I want to justify why our relationship is strained I can go right there and say “SEE!” And I can be correct and unhappy in my “rightness”. But not for very long as the saying goes “would you rather be right or happy?” Our true self wants peace and closure of past errors whether we were the victim or the perpetrator – it makes no difference.

Getting to the middle is the goal. How to successfully do that in a forgiveness practice begins with mindfulness and a willingness to let go of the conditioned mind with its willful way of demanding “my way or the highway”. It’s a skill of interpersonal effectiveness that first recognizes we have an emotional tone attached to the event. Naming what we’re experiencing and giving validation to it requires insight and reflection. But stopping there is where we often fall short of completing the loop of forgiveness. Henri Nouwen shares this, “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”

Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past can be any different than it was. We cling to the past far more than necessary, especially when it comes to negative aspects. It’s as though we believe churning it around the mind-made milstone one more time will make it somehow miraculously change, when really the only transformation comes in letting it go. Best described by the Sufi mystic poet, Rumi, “ Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.”

Let’s all move to that field.

From <https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-forgiving-life/201904/reflecting-30-years-forgiveness-science>

ALIGNMENT

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:42:58 +0000

Avoidance has cost me some peace of mind recently. I hadn’t written nor posted anything for two whole months. Why didn’t I write and post for two months? Most likely it’s due to trepidation, distress and dismay. In other words fear. The more I bring awareness to the reality of life, the more I realize how fear impacts the quality of life. The fear of not doing enough, the fear of not enough time to do enough, the fear of failing, the fear of succeeding. It’s just crazy when I observe it through my mindfulness eyes – but when I’m in it – and this time I was in it mindfully at times – I can spin. The more I spin the more I go into fear and movement stalls.

So where did my “yes” go? On some level where it always goes – on the shelf. When life starts to spin for me (and it often does) I tend to park my “yes to life” on a shelf and reassure myself that I’ll pick it back up when “things settle down”. In reality I have every opportunity to say yes, but I resist it – as if that will make it more palatable. In reflection of the past sixty days, I might be being a bit hard on myself. I did meditate daily (almost) and did practice daily (almost) yoga. Hey, that’s a whole lot better than I used to be! What I didn’t carry with me though, was the sense of well-being that I feel when doing meditation and yoga throughout my day. Looking back I had too much on my plate and too many commitments to honor; that’s a pattern that I am beginning to see more and more and only through nonjudgmental observation of my pattern am I starting to shift and move into the place where my “yes” feels authentic.

So now it’s April and those two months are gone – but not without lessons that I’ve learned and will honor. One lesson that came through loud and clear was “I know what I know and I don’t need to change my system – it works just fine”. So it was about trust – trust in myself and when I didn’t practice that simple foundational truth, I suffered! I was all tied up in knots and tightness – in my body, my mind and my spirit. Another lesson was “the more life speeds up, the slower I need to go”. This lesson is about calibration for me as I take on a frenzied, almost panicked, sort of inner dialogue and I know its roots are planted deep within my younger self – always fearful that I am not enough somehow. The younger, fearful, me-in-my-mind starts the spinning and even in my mindfulness moments, I could observe that she was in charge more than she needed to be. So my message to her is one of “oh yes, I see you and you’re scared” and “it’s okay, I’ve got this – you can rest knowing that and trusting this new speed of just enoughness.” It is about saying yes.

After reflecting on my two months this past weekend, I decided to name my month Alignment April. I often do that – naming my month – something a good friend inspired upon me. But it serves as a touchstone, so to speak. Something I can fall back into and regain my intention whenever I drift and need to find my foothold. The word alignment came to me as a metaphor –“A line” – a line in the sand. What am I no longer willing to compromise? For me this is honoring the promises to myself – the ones we all make in our heads around health and well-being – but for me it comes back to mindfulness. I am making a commitment to be aware and not compromise the truth I know at my core about what’s right for me. I might still have to make choice that I don’t like, but I want it to be done with full awareness – with all parts integrated – body, mind and spirit.

Beginning with physical and committing to daily yoga and mindfulness of food and drink. I am committing to asking, “Is this what I want?” Mindfully pausing and dipping my toe into the pool of inquiry about what I really want this physical vehicle to “feel” like. I recall that not so many years ago, my focus regarding the body was one of “how do I need to look?” and then I’d punish myself into a relentless striving toward an elusive perfection, never pleased and always unkind to myself in the end.

The mental component of Alignment April consists of stepping more and more out of the “thought stream”. Committing to asking “Is this real, now?” as often when I’m in the fast moving current of thoughts it’s hard to differentiate what’s reality. Again, inquiry will be the touchstone for bringing me back, again and again. “Is this real, now?” helps me step out of any judgmental thoughts I might be having about my time travel and with that freedom I can just be present with what is happening in this moment – allowing space for whatever was just there a moment ago to be released. I’m adding a component regarding relationship – both with self and other. The question is, “What am I experiencing?” So often the me-in-the-mind wants to bypass experience and jump right into problem solving and usually that includes some judgments on self and/or other. You know the voice, “If he would just….or if I could only….tomorrow when…” So this question of what am I experiencing brings me back into the body of sensations and out of the thinking mind.

Alignment in my spiritual practice includes, of course, meditation and prayer; but I’m also adding service to other(s). I intend to make that a daily practice. Not just the routine service that is present in my life as mother, wife and therapist, but seeking out an additional way to send out service in love to the universe. It could be a conscious smile and eye contact with the clerk at the grocery store, it could be an online donation, it could be a loving kindness meditation moment when my shadow self comes up in the form of another’s irritation in me. Spiritual alignment for me is asking the question, “What can I do to connect with God?” – and it’s all about connecting with source. This life is always showing me ways to be with the divine through my interconnectedness with everything and everyone. I just need to step into it and participate with my yes.

As my earlier posts mention, intention lays the foundation for change and change is happening all the time. I want to be in flow with that change and that means to recognize any forms of resistance to the natural current of this life force. Whenever my energy gets fragmented and scattered like my last couple of months showed me, I realize I’m not meeting my life with yes and I’m in resistance instead of acceptance. I’m grateful for the lessons these two months taught me-on some level they’ve always been there in the background waiting to be learned-yearning to align me back into acceptance and yes.

(originally written 4/16/16)

FEAR LESS

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:40:17 +0000

The theme of fear is something that appears to be more and more prevalent in our world these days. I suppose it has something to do with it being an election year. But ever since I’ve embarked upon the practice of mindfulness I’ve been noticing just how much fear pops into my own thoughts and if I’m not careful I’ll find myself a passenger on the Fear Express. It’s a train of thought that propels me into a land of “what if’s” and its journey is subtle yet sabotaging.

Just this weekend I experienced a situation where I noticed the fear of future impede on my present peace/happiness. My sister and I took my daughter, Molly, to a camp for special needs kids in the Ozark region. Needless to say we had a long drive – nine hours behind the wheel can make anyone tense. I’m sure my fight/flight/freeze brain was escorting me onto the fear train many times during the journey. Thoughts like, “is that truck crossing the center line?” or “will we make it in time for the check-in?” or “what if Molly’s anxiety causes her to react inappropriately – how will I handle it?” And on and on and on-these little annoying anxiety provoking side excursions. I know the thoughts are moving me on and off the train – it’s pretty automatic and most of the time I’m not even aware of it. But we did make it on time and no truck hit us and Molly did great. It wasn’t until the next morning that I recognized and gave some space to process just a bit how fear was impacting my mood. We were staying in a lovely resort hotel and enjoying a fabulous breakfast overlooking Table Rock Lake when I began to notice how my feeling of fear was encroaching again. “Investigate”, I told myself. “It’s the cloud cover” – “looks like we’re in for rain” people were saying. Immediately my thoughts are going to “what if we’re caught in a storm?” and “I hate driving in the rain” and “it is still tornado season” and my mood shifted into one of pensive, quiet, contracted fear – small, but no less fearful. However in that moment of mindful awareness I noticed “Ah, yes…that’s just future fear/anxiety and I can just observe it within me without any judgment – it just is.” And it left – just like that I got off the train. Later in the day while driving in the rain my sister remarked that she noticed how I had become quiet and sullen during breakfast. I realized that when traveling on the fear train I disconnect to some degree – even in that little moment I wasn’t open and honoring my “yes” to life’s experience.

The author Marianne Williamson explains that according to The Course in Miracles, “A miracle is just a shift in perception from fear to love. I am trying to remind myself of that daily and mindfully practice this shift when the tickets are cheap on the Fear Express. “How can I bring love into this moment? How might I be different if I acknowledge the fear yet soften the edges with love?”

Back to the election and whatever emotion it invokes in me – can I stay open to my intention of mindfully choosing yes and accepting whatever arises? Or will I be a passenger yet again on the Fear Express? All I know for sure is that I’m growing tired of riding trains to nowhere so I’ll set the intention to choose mindfully.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INTENTION

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:35:19 +0000

According to Webster’s dictionary intention is a mental state that represents a commitment to carrying out an action or actions in the future. Intention involves mental activities such as planning and forethought. Since mindfulness is all about “the now and the present moment” how does intention with its future focused bent relate? For me the two are inextricably linked; for until I recognized the essentialness of intention I couldn’t/wouldn’t make the space for my mindfulness practice to grow. And that is true of all things relating to intention. Intention lays the groundwork and paves the road. It keeps me on the path and whenever I acknowledge my intention I am more inclined to stay the course, but only if I’m mindful. For it takes that awareness to come in and reaffirm “oh yes, I am choosing x,y,z”. Over and over and over again. Most of the time the automatic pilot mode (mindlessness) that we find ourselves in doesn’t pause long enough to consider intention and consequently we often only wake up to unwanted realities through pain or despair.

So my mindful “yes” to life showed up this week in the usual ways through frustrations and joys, irritations and kindness. An example I shared with our dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) women’s skill building group at work was a story about making the bed. I often notice that while I am engaged in any activity I’ll have a mental narrative playing in my head. Sometimes my story is positive but if I am honest and when I really check in and observe, I notice that many of my thoughts are negatively toned with a storyline of “me, me, me and my, my, my”. This particular morning as I was rushing around trying to get Molly and myself ready, make her ketogenic diet foods for breakfast and lunch, I stopped to make the bed. A short back story is necessary at this point. My husband, Jerry, gets up at 5 AM every morning, works out, meditates, makes his own breakfast and then walks around the house or outside when it’s nice looking at things (I think). Great for him. I used to be jealous of his peaceful morning routine until I started getting up a bit earlier myself to have a little me time to read my daily reflections, do yoga and meditate. However, I’m still usually running about ten minutes behind schedule – just not a great morning person. Perhaps this is due to growing up on a dairy farm and being forced to get up at 5 AM every day – I’m just conditioned to rebel. Now my mind’s morning playlist is one I know well. It’s usually “Am I the only person in this house who sees this needs to be done?” and “What the hell is he doing walking around looking at the plants!” or my favorite, “Is he that flipping oblivious?!” As I straightened and tucked the sheets on my husband’s side I noticed that the fitted sheet was popped off the corner and my petty, immature self said “just leave it that way and maybe he’ll blah, blah, blah, blah.” My mind was in the thought stream and it was flowing strong. But in a moment of awareness I caught myself and remembered my intention to say yes. Dang! I was caught. I couldn’t just leave the sheet untucked. I chose to say yes to what is and no to the narrative in my mind. And when I did, I noticed that I felt a little more spacious – like I was really honoring something significant, even as small as it was. Now the story didn’t end there. I realized also that if I wanted to edit my playlist then I’d have to take an action step toward change. So as he’s filling his third cup of coffee I confidently ask if he thought maybe he could make the bed at least half of the time. Easy. Why didn’t I do this a long time ago? Resistance. Oh yeah, now I remember I silently say to myself as I hear his storyline unfold about how much he does around here, blah, blah, blah. I just listened and validated his perspective and it ended well because I no longer expect him or anyone else to read my mind. That usually happens whenever we use our voice and ask for what we need. But it has to first start with an intention to listen internally and to mindfully choose our response. Viktor Frankl said it best when he wrote “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 freedom.”

The more I wake up to mindfulness the more I realize that intention is always guiding me toward my best self. And it’s the small things that make the biggest difference. Like catching my thoughts and without judging them, just reflecting a moment to gauge whether or not they fit my intention. Another intention I have is to not believe everything my thoughts tell me. Most of them are inaccurate. Most of the time however we’re not even questioning them. Inquiry is paramount. For when I examine the contents of my mind two things immediately happen: 1) I recognize that I left the present moment and 2) I realize this is a re-run thought. A re-run thought is one that I’ve probably been recycling over and over again and that neural network is thick in my brain. If I want to create a new pathway that forges a trail into new brain territory, then I have to give up my attachment to the re-run thought and bring myself back to the only true reality – now. And it is then, according to Mr. Frankl, that we really are powerful, that we really are growing, that we really are free. Amen

THE GIFTS OF RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:29:21 +0000

Radical acceptance is a continual process. We never completely arrive at a place where we say “I’ve done it! I have no need to radically accept any more.” If we do I believe we are just kidding ourselves and possibly tempting fate. Rather I’ve learned it’s an ongoing trek through layers of life’s unfolding; each awareness opening us up to greater possibilities for growth and freedom. It is in that sacred moment of pausing that we recognize this opportunity and essentially that is really what mindfulness is asking us to do. Pause and just observe, refocus – perhaps choose radical acceptance in that moment – and then observe again, this time through a slightly different lens. The more I practice this the clearer my lens becomes.

This week’s experiences for choosing mindful yes in my life were varied but all significant when I reflect back on them. Most noteworthy is my daily practice with Molly. It took me a long time to begin to feel comfortable in my “mother of a special needs child” skin years ago when she was first diagnosed with autism and the origin of my depression began in that non acceptance. Sometimes deep learning can only come through pain. So as Molly’s mother and through the practice of radical acceptance I again and again get the opportunities to practice patience, kindness and compassion. Things have become somewhat easier and at the same time more difficult as she’s become a teenager with all the unrestrained moodiness afforded to adolescence. I find myself saying “yes” even as it’s tinged with pain whenever her frustrations morph into an outburst in behavior at others or herself. I find that by saying “yes” to the situation instead of my egoic conditioning to recoil against, I am more present to assist her in whatever difficulty is arising in her life. And her life is one filled with difficulty. Simple things are difficult and she knows this – painfully knows this. Several years ago when my mindfulness practice was still in infancy I can recall a moment one day when Molly’s inability to accomplish a simple task of putting on her socks frustrated her and myself as well. Being the emotional empath she is, I am certain she could feel my anger (no, rage) at our life situation. I recall screaming internally “where is God!” and feeling so disconnected in that moment from anything remotely associated with love. But in a strange flash of insight/awareness/presence, I knew the answer “right here on the other side of this separation.” And that was a moment when I began to get it. I began to see that my rejection of this experience was a rejection of life and love for it is only in this one moment that our life is ever being revealed. So when I push against it of course I am rejecting life and love and God. I was keeping myself separate instead of accepting the reality of my life. Then I began to see God in my life in ways that I couldn’t imagine before. By choosing acceptance I embrace patience, kindness and compassion. And I have to do it over and over and over again. I guess I am rediscovering God again and again.

So back to my daily practice with Molly. It’s become easier (no essential) to say yes in acceptance for this life journey we’re traveling together. I find myself saying yes to daily acts of service for her well-being instead of holding resentment which at one time enveloped my being and drug me deeper into depression. As I assist her with life’s challenges I now remark at how much she’s accomplished and praise her for her efforts. I do this mindfully and I truly do download the positive experience I feel when she achieves another milestone. Recently that has been the ability to wash her own hair and get dressed independently. What a gift!

By mindfully allowing the present moment to be as it is and choosing to accept I sense more space in my beingness. My energy shifts and I can allow for more to come in – more experience, more awareness, more compassion, more joy. And I see things that were previously unseen.

THE ART OF UNDER REACTIVITY

susanmilnertherapy@gmail.com — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 23:49:36 +0000

Recently I read an article which spoke about the benefits of “under-reacting” when life’s difficult situations unfold and it got me thinking. In my own life I can often observe the full spectrum of emotional reactivity – on one end I sometimes may magnify and over-react all the way to the other where I’ve minimized mine or another’s viewpoints or pain. Initially I reflected on the times I have over-reacted and made a situation worse by escalating tension in myself and others; always in that moment feeling justified for “using my voice” and not being a victim. In those moments the only thing that matters is the discharging of emotional energy – to just let off steam and vent out the frustration boiling up inside me, but I never felt very good about myself afterwards. Usually the perspective of me, my and mine was the only view in sight and it wouldn’t be until much later that I could wipe the lens of my egoic filter and see through the wounded eyes of those I had hurt.

Mindfulness, when I practice it, is helping me clean the lens and take another’s perspective which isn’t easy when you’re triggered. And often we’re not even aware that we’re being triggered – we’re just in that automatic defense of fight, flight or freeze.

Which is why it so essential to practice mindfulness – because it’s only then that we can begin to see the origin of the trigger. And right behind the trigger is usually a cascade of judgments and interpretations that are ready ammunition to inflict harm onto ourselves and others. We feel justified in that moment to fire those words and actions but unless we’re really threatened (which we usually aren’t) those bullets can quickly tear into the heart of our relationships.

I often tell myself and my clients that we are each other’s mirrors. Those things that hurt us when inflicted by our spouse or coworker might just be the same things we’re doing without conscious awareness. The anger and frustrations we feel about the state of the world might in some way being mirroring our own self-deprecating thoughts about how we’re in relationship to our own life. So paying attention to the signs is critically important and delving further into inquiry can provide useful insights and help connect the dots. And when we know more, we can process more within ourselves and ultimately relate that knowing to the outside world without inflicting more pain.

Which brings me to the art of under-reactivity and what that might look like in my own life. Believe me I’ve spent a lot of my life over-reacting – if not in the actual moment of the situation then certainly later whenever I could offload my frustrations and vent to a trusted friend with the usual diatribe of
“and then he said this….can you believe that?….I’ll never talk to her again, etc..”

Lately I’ve been more aware of how that feels in my body, mind and spirit and it’s just not good. Don’t get me wrong I think it is healthy to share events and experiences with loved ones, but what I’m noticing is that I’m rarely able to just state the facts without adding layers of judgments and interpretations. This generally produces over-reactivity. I mean what’s the point? The event or experience is over at this juncture so why get elevated?

Of course we should acknowledge our hurt emotions and name them because to invalidate our own experience is to be in a state of denial and repression soon follows.

So instead of:

“Can you believe what so and so said to me? She’s so negative and thinks only of herself. I bet she did that because she really wanted to make herself look good in front of our boss. She does this all the time and I’m done dealing with her. She’s going to be sorry for treating me that way!”

The alternative might be:

“So and so said this to me. I felt hurt. I don’t know why she said it. I feel a loss of trust. I might need to talk to her about it later, but right now I feel sad and am unsure about the relationship.”

This is an exercise in just naming the facts and noticing that there might be some consequences for behaviors that aren’t healthy for us and our relationships. When we’re practicing mindfulness of our emotions in this way we’re creating the environment for “neurons that fire together wire together” and we’re literally changing the structure of our brains. Over time and with enough practice we can achieve a more healthy response to the stressors in our life.

If we set an intention to say “yes” to life and to allow current events to unfold as they are without clinging or striving for life to be different, then practicing “under-reacting” becomes a tool to use in those stress filled situations where we often find ourselves regretting behavior later. In fact some psychologists have said we actually may “think or imagine ourselves into almost any emotional state”. That’s how much power we really have but it’s not available if we’re already on a train of thought leading us toward fear and negativity.

So in my mindfulness practice I have been using the tool of under-reactivity and I have found that when triggered, I pause and just notice the pull toward saying or doing something in that moment and underneath that I also give some space to notice:

I’m aware that I have this thought about so and so.
I’m aware that I’ve just now had a judgmental thought that may or may not be true.
I’m aware that I feel my pulse increase.
I’m aware that I have a tightness in my throat.
I’m aware that I want to run away
I’m aware that I want to complain about so and so

And in this process I’m pausing more and not rushing right into the story of me, my and mine. I’ve actually chosen a different response and the neurons in that part of my brain are wiring together while the old pathway is becoming a weedy area ready for pruning.

I’m setting an intention to be more “cool, calm water” when it comes to the stressors in my life. When I think about where cool, calm water lives, it’s usually under the surface of the bumpy, choppy waves and I can only find it when I drop down “underneath” my own egoic nature and tap into the wellspring of living this moment in the present.