Coronavirus, zen and therapy: the sound of one hand washing.

 Like most of you I was not anticipating our civilization grinding to a halt suddenly over a virus. I am a very fortunate person. I have a freezer & pantry full of food always, I have Costco sized supplies of toilet paper, paper towels, coffee, vitamins on hand as usual. I also have a career I love in a very low traffic office that minimizes person-to-person contact. We got rid of the waiting room magazines today. We keep the touchable surfaces treated. The goal here is to minimize anxiety over catching or spreading the virus. This week I added a videotherapy (“teleshrink”) option. So let’s break this issue down and see it like my tribe sees it. Coronavirus: 1) It’s a real threat. Not a made up one, not a diabolical plot, just the inevitable result of too little regulation, too many people and too slow a response time. People were allowed to buy and eat wild animals which were not tested and cleared by any inspection process (I’m talking to you, Ted Nugent!) Even though we went through this with avian flu, SARS, Ebola, mad cow somehow we weren’t prepared, again. We were misinformed, marginalized and caught flat footed and a lot of people are going to die 2) you are probably not going to die but you might get pretty sick. Take no comfort in this whatsoever, because, guess what: 3) you may very well kill other people with your carelessness. Always act as if you ARE infected and your behavior choices should be obvious. 4 ) the reason people panic is because our culture has insanely high levels of fear in these times. Anger, greed, retribution, exclusion, hoarding, blaming, all different serpents of the hydra head of fear. 5) If you know me, you know I teach one immutable truth. Everything that is not love is fear 6) Where does fear come from? Mostly the media, social media, controlling people and a default circuit in our brain that begins every new stimulus sweep with “what here could hurt me?” That and the fact that “news” is mostly billionaires telling millionaires to broadcast lies to middle class people that poor people are the problem. You can replace the word poor with any “other” adjective to get the whole spectrum. Try: foreign, illegal, gay, radical, feminazi, Muslim, black, brown, non-English speaking, young, bloggers, you get the picture. 7) The solution should be obvious. Take any FUBAR you see and ask yourself, “What here needs more love?” you can substitute many words for love, like; blankets, meals, medicine, support, peace, hope, encouragement, chocolate, therapy. You get the picture. 8) In a nutshell, “What would Mr. Rogers do?” Did you know Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister? That is what a Christian looks like, accept no impostors. He also embodied a zen attitude that started with a fresh mind, an honest and thorough appraisal and a plan of action for himself to address.the situation. Practical, hopeful, accountable, responsible Truth and love have a lot in common, a Venn diagram of inclusion. Hate and love have very little in common. “Ain’t no time to hate”. Lies and love have very little in common. Your job is to speak the truth, spread the truth, confront lies and refuse to engage with the enraged. Do what you can. In my Nextdoor.com app of neighbor to neighbor communication there are now quite a few offers of personal help for people less able to survive these changes. Do what you can.

“this, too, shall pass - Lao Tze

“Trust Allah but tether your camel” - Mohammed

“Praise the Lord Anyway!” - my favorite bumper sticker

Peace and Love, Jeff

The Skiing Piece

The Skiing Piece

I was standing on a mountain, scared, cold , watching my breath fog and freeze, planting my poles firmly to keep from plummeting downhill to certain doom. I was 35, a newbie to downhill skiing and all I could think was “I paid a lot of money to be frozen, terrified and physically beaten by the simple act of sliding down a mountain”.  To make matters worse every few minutes a class of 4 year olds would wiz by at breakneck speed, laughing, fearless and happy.  I was in luck that day because my ski school class was small and getting smaller as other students had to leave.  Eventually it was just my instructor and myself … and the mountain.  We had bonded over lunch, both graduates of Western Michigan University, both interested in mental health issues.  He had headed up the school ski team, had worked in developmental disabilities, he had even taught people with Down’s Syndrome to ski.  Well, now he had me, another challenge.

 Carl was patient, he was relaxed and he was an optimist.  “Your problem”, he told me, “is you’re trying too hard and you are not having fun.  I insist you smile down this next stretch.”  Earlier he had us pick totem animals and imitate them as we skied down stretches of powder.  That was fun, if a little silly.  He was showing us how the 4 year old class was outdoing us through games and attitude and, he noted, “their center of gravity is 10 inches off the ground”.  Then Carl said something that changed how I skied and saw life forever.  He was quoting a popular book on the psychology of skiing and told me to imagine my fear on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high).  As I prepared to take the next drop down a chute he asked me to yell the number on my fear scale on every turn.  So down the chute I skied, screaming “three, four, two, five, five, two, one, three” and so on.  When he rejoined me at the bottom of that run he asked how I felt.  I felt great!  I had detached from fear just enough to rate and rant and it did not own me.  My awareness of fear became an observation, not an obstacle, like noting I was cold or my feet hurt, but it did not matter very much.  Then he told me to look back uphill at the chute I had mastered.  “Congratulations”, he said, “that was your first black slope and you skied it well!”  I was flabbergasted.  He had taken me on a maze of trails to enter the chute where no trail signs would tell me that I was on a black (advanced, expert) slope.  If I knew that I would not have tried, or I would fall and give up.  This day I did neither.  A little ignorance and a big helping of detachment through observation brought me a great experience.  I skied it again later, quietly saying the numbers, rating my fear (This time I had company, fellow skiers who might wonder if I was screaming a phone number or ski lock combination).  It worked wonders.  Carl ended our lesson with a run across some manmade “whoop-de-do’s” by the lodge teaching me to enjoy the bumps and “getting air” as my skis left the ground briefly.  This, he said was the secret to mastering moguls, enjoy the shift in your stomach, the gravity field of dropping, rising, falling and digging in at every turn.

            Sixteen years later I still shiver thinking about that mountain and what I learned that day.  At one rest break he saw me look in envy at skiers schussing downhill with tight linked turns and impeccable form.  “They”, he said, “skied exactly like you do now once upon a time.  The difference between you is that they live here and practice a lot.  If you want to ski like that just keep taking lessons and keep practicing.”

            Like many of you readers, I don’t ski now, physical trauma takes it’s toll and I’ve hung up my skis for awhile.  I don’t know if I will do it again, I hope to introduce my children to that mountain someday if only to buckle their helmets and send them off to ski school while I read and drink hot chocolate by the fireplace .  What I want to share from this experience is the magic of using observation to detach from intense sensation.  The closest analogue to pain in the human body is fear.  Both are called “feelings” although this descriptor is inexact.  Fear is an emotion.  Pain is a complex matrix of sensation, perception, understanding, reflex, patterns and behavior.  Yet both, at first, in their most virulent form compel behavior.  In extreme fear or pain, our behavior is automatic, unchosen,  reflexive.  At the milder levels we are heavily influenced to choose a behavior pattern to escape the intensity.  And in both circumstances detachment is possible, even inevitable, if we practice observation.  Like the meditation practice of “watching the breath”, we disconnect the link from “feel” to “do” by giving a name to the awareness of the feeling.

            Try this exercise to master a pain episode (or fear, or panic or rage).. Start a diaphragmatic breathing (“belly breathing”) pattern, tummy going out on the in breath, down on the out breath.  Every out breath rate & say the number of the feeling.  Do it for 20 or more breath cycles.  You will be amazed at the control this gives you.  Congratulations.  That was your first black slope.  Thank you Carl.

Muse - Meditation Made Easy

Muse is the first tool in the world that gives you accurate, real-time feedback on what’s happening in your brain when you meditate.

Start practicing meditation with sessions as short as 3 minutes with Muse, your personal meditation assistant.

Get 15% Off Muse by following my affiliate link.

Commissions made from my affiliate link will provide Muse to those who can’t afford it.

https://mbsy.co/muse/38847267