Pavlov's Rings and Pings

       About three weeks ago, I got my first ever smartphone!  One day while scrolling through the many available screens, I saw a couple of friends had left me voicemails.  Here’s the thing:  I had been checking texts, emails and WhatsApp, but hadn’t realized there was a separate voicemail feature from the phone feature.

      There had been all these pings, bells, and tinkling sounds, but I didn’t know what those sounds were signaling.  So I would hear them, and then simply return to whatever I had been doing before I got distracted by the sound.  When I mentioned to Stephen that I didn’t know people had left me voicemail messages, he teased me that the Pavlovian conditioning hadn’t yet kicked in for me.  I laughed with him.

       The things is I can’t say I was being truly mindful by not reacting to the sounds.  I heard them and knew they were summoning me, but I didn't know where to look.  After a while I just heard the sounds and ignored them because they made no sense to me.  I began thinking of them as arising phenomena, which I noticed and then dazedly ignored. 

       Now that I know what these sounds mean, how will I respond?  Or will I react?

       Will I give in to the conditioning that every time there’s a tinkle or bleep, I’ll drop whatever it is I’m doing, and move my attention to its summons?

       This is how habits are formed.  The association of one thing with another, and the automatic repetition of an action.  In this case, sound with the shifting of attention and the body towards the sound.  The actual hearing of the sound is a moment of mindfulness, as it is an arising phenomenon in the moment; i.e. something has altered or changed the environment around us and we notice this change.  The reacting would be to stop what you are doing because you are compelled by habit, curiosity, worry, or fear to immediately find out what is summoning you. 

        With mindful awareness, you can sit with the thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations that arise when you hear the sound, but don’t immediately get up to attend to it.  This trains you to notice the cascade of reactions that happens as a result of one stimulus occurring.  A sound happens, your ears hear it, there’s an associated thought and a bodily feeling, and then you act. Every time you do this, you strengthen the habit.

       When we pay attention to what’s happening in our internal and external environments, we grow knowledge about how we are influenced by our thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations, and by other people, situations or relationships.  This knowing grows our emotional intelligence.

       Emotional intelligence is knowing our inner and outer worlds and what affects us, and managing our behavior or actions accordingly.  After recognizing what’s happening in and for us, we will become attuned to recognizing similar feelings, thoughts, and impulses in others.  In this way, we begin with ourselves and then the practice of being attentive, responsive, and compassionate spreads to our relationships with coworkers, partners, children, and parents. This is how we improve both our inner and outer relationships.

       Getting back to the phone: obviously you need to do what you need to do.  But the next time your phone beckons you with a ring, song, chirp, or bell --  take a breath and observe what's happening in you.  At the very least, by breathing or waiting a moment you can lessen the habit of reacting.

      Life is a series of moments – moments of choice to respond or react.

      Which one will you choose when your phone next calls out to you?

If you are interested:  there are mindfulness apps for your phones; see the links tab on my website!!

 May you meet this moment consciously.

Noticing -- is enough!

A friend was telling me about her child who never seems to enjoy any activity, outing or trip they take her on.  No matter if the trip was to the zoo, hiking, beach or the movies, her daughter invariably struggled with enjoying herself or expressing enjoyment.  As her mother, my friend was sad and concerned about this ‘quirk’ in her child.

I asked her if she thought maybe the child’s expectations were too high? Or maybe the child's vision or her idea of how “things should be” causes her to be disappointed?  To ease my friend’s worry, I reminded her that noticing what’s happening for her child is the first important step.  The simplest way to teach our children is to pay attention to our own actions and words. As children learn from modeled behavior, I hoped this gentle hint would also help her (the mother) to begin noticing her own levels of expectation and perfection.   

 In a culture which emphasizes doing above being, the drive to attain perfection causes us to try and ‘fix’ things, and to do so as quickly as possible.  And we -- body, speech, accent, you name it – aren’t spared from this ‘improving’.  With missionary zeal, we set out on the journey to do something to better ourselves, and we don’t give ourselves the time and space to become clear about what is right there, right then.  Jon Kabat Zinn points out "we are tending to ourselves simply by paying kind attention to what is unfolding right in this moment." (Whereever you go)

With the heavy demands we carry, much of our life slips past without our knowing.  The mere act of noticing – focusing our ‘eye’ on the issue, the worry, the fear, the situation – is sufficient to bring about a transformation, a shift, a relaxation, or whatever the moment is asking of us.  In that moment of paying deep attention, we don’t have to do anything.  Rather it becomes our declared intention to be fully available to ourselves just then.

One way we can become available to ourselves – don’t panic!, I’m not suggesting you increase your already overloaded schedule – is to take a couple minutes each day when readying for bed, upon waking, or in the shower to check in with yourself.    

Here’s how you do it:

Move your attention (as if it were warm honey) down your body, emotions and mind. Discover what’s happening there.  Your role is the detached observer. Try not to wish for anything to be different.  For instance, if you notice you are feeling anxious about the day ahead -- then simply look at how anxiety manifests in your body and mind.  Are your thoughts racing?  Are you feeling tense?  Are your palms sweaty?  Observing with kind curiosity is how you become aware of what’s happening in the moment.

After checking in and seeing what’s there, you have options.  You can sit with the feeling and see what else comes up, or you can leave things as they are.  If you feel compelled to challenge your thinking or to do something, then you can figure out what course of action to follow.

The beauty of following this slowing down process is that:

·         it monitors the reactivity and shutting down that automatically occurs when we are  faced with something we don’t like

·         we become responsive and not reactive

·         it helps recalibrate us to what’s happening now. 

And in the present moment, exactly as it is, is the only place we truly exist.  

May this article heal, transform and empower you.