The reason so many of us are drawn to the idea of getting unstuck is because feeling stuck in life is such a common experience. Maybe we continually get distracted at work as projects mount or get hooked into the same arguments in our relationships, or just can’t seem to get back on the treadmill.
Feeling stuck is part of the human experience. So how do we get unstuck?
Maybe it’s because we live in the information age or that media has become more sensational than ever. It seems like for a while now kids have been getting labeled with one diagnosis after another with an overemphasis on their negative traits and less emphasis on the hope and possibility that there is something inside that is quite beautiful.
Buckminster Fuller said:
“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”
Perhaps it’s because our minds are geared toward fear and so anything that resembles ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, Depression, Anxiety or any other number of disorders are quickly attached to the child by friends, family, teachers, and even health professionals.
It can be as blatant as a sledge hammer hitting us in the face or as subtle as supreme ninja. The art of blaming is rampant and goes on to help absolutely nobody.
Pema Chodron writes:
“We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others. Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”
And why not protect our hearts when there have been so many experiences showing us that it so easily bleeds?
There is a poem by Portia Nelson called 5 Short Chapters that speaks to the natural unfolding of learning that happens when we work with becoming more aware of the mind traps in our minds. What are mind traps?
Mind traps are those habitual thinking styles we get caught in that inevitably trap us into a cascading snowball of reactivity that leads us to greater distress. Look this over, see if you identify with any of them and then we’ll get back to 5 Short Chapters.
These include, but are not limited to:
Here is an adapted version of a post I wrote over a year ago and it is an oldie but a goodie so I thought I’d bring it back into awareness. Enjoy!
There’s a funny print cartoon that has a man and woman sitting on the couch staring at a TV screen and the caption below reads, “It’s 12 O’clock, do you know where your mind is?” As time goes on and we grow up from children to adolescents to adults, for many of us, somewhere along the way life begins to become routine.
Day in and day out whether we’re walking, driving, talking, eating, going to the grocery store, or being with our families our minds get kicked onto auto-pilot and continue to develop their habitual ways of thinking, interpreting, expecting, and relating to other people. These habits of the mind can keep us stuck in stress, anxiety, depression, or even addictive behaviors.
In an earlier interview, Christopher Germer, Ph.D. explored with us why compassion is getting so much attention lately and how it might heal the prevalence of unworthiness in our culture. Christopher Germer, PhD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts and author of the recent book The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions
Today Christopher shares with us the radical notion of accepting our difficult emotions, some neuroscience behind it, and a bit of advice for the rest of us.
Elisha: You suggest something radical in your book, which is the practice of accepting our difficult emotions and even responding to them with compassion. Can you give us a practical example on how someone might go about this?
There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. So for today, here is a quote by Shantideva:
“All joy in this world comes from wanting others to be happy, and all suffering in this world comes from wanting only oneself to be happy.”
Somewhere along the way many of us develop this notion that the goal above all else in life is for us, individually, to be happy. We begin to focus on ourselves to the exclusion of others. One major problem in depression is this painful self-focus as the ruminations just go on and on. And if our goal is to be happy, but others get hurt or ignored in the process, I promise there will be no happiness.
The fact is, we are not islands.
Albert Einstein said it well in a letter published in the New York Post (1972):
There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. So for today, here is a quote by Don Miguel Ruiz
“You see everything is about belief, whatever we believe rules our existence, rules our life.”
Of course, whatever we believe colors the lenses of how we see the world and our very next interaction. If we believe we can’t give that speech, lose that weight or live without our Blackberries or IPhones every minute it’s going to be a heck of a lot harder if not impossible to do so. The same goes for getting through anxiety, depression, or addiction.
We start to integrate fundamental beliefs in this world from the time we’re in the womb. We’re already beginning to sense the environment around us, taking in and processing information.
As life progresses we start to integrate this information as truths.
We’ve all heard it takes 30 days to create a habit. How we relate to those first 30 days may make all the difference. Today I have the privilege of bringing you Ariane de Bonvoisin, author of The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Making Any Change Easier
Ariane is also CEO and founder of first30days.com, an organization developed to help people transition through any change, whether it’s career, health, lifestyle, relocation, or personal relationship changes. She has been named MSN’s Life Change Expert and her advice is sought by thousands around the country.
Today Ariane is going to talk to us about why it’s so hard for people to make sustained changes in life, and what we can do about it.
Recently, a new report came out in the Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine that stated that engaging in bad habits such as excessive drinking (more than 3 drinks/day), smoking, not exercising (2 hours/week) or eating our veggies and fruit can age us by 12 years. Well, it’s not really news that being unkind to our bodies over time can lead to an unhealthy state. However, here is a little anecdote that is interesting and might explain how it we can seem aged by 12 years.
Read over the following progression from A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook
1. Intention shapes our thoughts and words.
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