Category Archives: mindfulness

Immensity: A Practice in Self-Awareness

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What are your body signs of stress?

Mine was neck pain for the longest time. I could usually relieve it with a brief massage until starting a very stressful job, where I quickly developed daily pain, stinging and tight. Then nothing helped, neither massage nor ibuprofen, only vacation, for 5 years until I left. During pandemic lockdown, low back pain emerged as a new physical manifestation of mental stress. 

For the past month I have had varying degrees of lumbar pain, but it did not occur to me that it was stress related. I must be doing my dead lifts wrong, I thought. I must need to stretch. But nothing seemed to help after a while, and it got worse after Thanksgiving. That weekend, I found out in no uncertain terms how I had hurt someone very close to me. I always had an inkling, but the full impact of my actions became clear in one starkly honest conversation. In the emotional overwhelm, I could only process a little at a time, mentally (hence the I Wish I Was Better For You post–I was actually thinking of a different relationship, but the idea for that post brought up multiple relational regrets all at once). The rest landed squarely and heavily on my back. It was sore during the days, and woke me up from sleep at night with severe pain and stiffness. I was not limited during my Ethos workouts, though–in fact, I felt better during exercise. After a relatively easy session last Sunday morning, I sat the rest of the day writing, and that night felt like I was both 100 years old and got hit by a truck. It was slowly dawning on me, the origin of my physical pain: The full depth and persistence of my relational fuck-ups was unfolding into conscious awareness, and it was painful, quite literally. Looking back, I was also much more tearful than usual in the past month–like leaks of extreme emotion springing forth, portending.

As is often the case, conscious awareness brought alleviation of pain. No NSAIDs, no physical therapy, no yoga, just an emerging understanding and acceptance. And insights: I realized this week that when I get sad, I get sedentary. I lean heavily toward stillness, with a strong urge to write for release, instead of moving, which is how I relieve anxiety and anger. This past month my workouts diminshed and verbal output escalated significantly. Writing helped untangle and clarify thoughts (I knew I was projecting self-loathing, I just didn’t know why), but I think the lack of movment may have perpetuated repression of feelings, thus diverting them into spiraling physical pain. Now I know, Opposite Action helps: Under stress, doing the opposite of my wallowing tendency can keep me healthy. Hopefully the next time I experience profound sadness (or guilt, or shame), I will resist the pull of the comforting though potentially counterproductive chairs and instead get on the elliptical.

My friends also helped this week. When I told them my sorrowful discovery, they held space for it so lovingly, so patiently. No platitudes, no false positivity–only empathy, validation, and compassion. They shared their own hardships, and I helped them hold it, too. How lucky am I, to know these wonderful people, to have them in my corner? The mutual uplift is absolutely synergistic and exponential, as is my gratitude.

I wrote about forgiveness last month, and how withholding it harms the (un)forgiver. Today I understand acutely how it also hurts and plagues the unforgiven. My loved one forgives me, thank God; I think I can forgive myself more easily now that I know that. We shall see.

“Big feelings” don’t just happen to kids. We grown-ups experience big, hard, complicated emotions as much as anyone. ”So much, so much,” as my friend’s daughter used to lament. ’Immense,’ as it occurred to me this week. Elation, gratitude, grief, guilt, regret, joy, humility, connection–it can all really be so much–sometimes too much for a mind to hold. So it puts it in the body for a while.

After several days of chasing–analyzing, journaling, thought experimenting, self-flagellating–I finally ran out of evaluative fuel and just let the feelings be. Rather than mixing, kneading, stretching, and folding, impatiently trying to shape the nebulous into a smooth ball of cognitive comprehension, I put it to sit and ferment a while. It didn’t take long for a form to rise, to show me what it was made of. I see now what’s been happening. Hopefully I can take the learning and apply it next time. [HA! Who knew a post on dark emotions could include a fun sourdough analogy?]

My back feels fine today, better than it has in weeks. Fascinating.

Onward. 

I Wish I Was Better For You

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Dear Person I Knew Before,

Looking back, I wish I had been better for you. When you knew me, I was young in the work. I was well trained and I understood the task in my thinking mind. But I had (still have) a lot to learn about relating to people who are different from me, people whose behavior I don’t understand easily, who rub me the wrong way at first.

I wonder if you felt disliked by me? I hope I was professional/amiable enough, but I know I wear my feelings on my face. My tone and words can be terse and even cold when I feel disconnection. I hope you still felt respected, attended to, even cared for. If not, I own it. I remember you because I knew it at the time–knew I was not my best with you, and yet I could not help it. I had only yet begun the inner work journey that has brought me to today.

I know so much better now. I am so much more self-aware, humble, honest, and accountable. I withhold most judgment now, unlike before. I engage with difference now in openness and curiosity, and take few things personally. I am so much more peaceful inside. Even when I get triggered these days, it’s much less intense and lasts minutes, maybe hours, instead of days. I am far better at asking direct questions to clarify meaning, calling out disrespect, and connecting better or amicably exiting a poor relationship. I don’t let things hang or fester like before.

If/when we meet again, I welcome the chance to reconnect and apologize. I want to show you how much I have learned and grown since you knew me, since I had my potentially negative impact on you. I was doing the best I could, with what I had, at that time. I still am. There is no substibute for experience and time.

Please know that my relationship with you, through its challenge and difficulty, has been the pebble in my shoe making me more mindful, more intentional. I thank you for crossing my path, showing me my deficits and calling me to address them. I hope my future relationships will show my progress, so that even if I cannot make direct amends to you, I can avoid doing similar harm to others. You have made me better.

Wishing you peace, and people in your life who show up better for you than I did. I will stay on my path, and if we meet again, I will smile.

I Just Forget

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“I know what I need to do, I just don’t do it.”

I hear this from patients regularly.
Translation: I don’t want to talk to the dietician or exercise physiologist; they’re just going to tell me what I ‘should’ be doing and I’m just going to feel bad that I’m not already doing it.

My colleagues and I talk all the time about judgment and how to avoid and manage it in our practice. We are human and thus subject to social norms, pressures, and biases of weight, physical appearance, etc. And yet I know of no other group of people who practice self-awareness and self-regulation more consistently and humbly. Our objective is always to meet you wherever you are, and help you get to wherever you tell us you want to go, with realistic, sustainable suggestions and support. Still, we cannot control anybody’s response to our consults and feedback.

It feels defensive, the ‘I just don’t do it,’ and ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ responses. Maybe people judge themselves harshly, and also anticipate judgment from us? Who wants to bring that on themselves if they can help it? It makes me wonder, when I get defensive about something, what’s behind it in me? How am I filtering an otherwise benign or even benevolent message? My colleagues and I understand the myriad extrinsic barriers to ideal habits, and how thin the threshold can be between doing something healthy and not. For example, a bowl of whole fruit may sit on the kitchen island for days, untouched. Cookies and candy are much easier to grab and go. But when someone cuts the apples and peels the oranges, they disappear in minutes. Where can we each find our cut fruit equivalent for health habit (or any habit) change?

As I completed another amazing conditioning workout at Ethos this weekend, lying on my back feeling where my paraspinals were tightening and recalling some knee swelling of late, I thought back to the one stretching session I did at home in the last week. DUH, my back felt better in subsequent days. Coach Ryan taught me how to do knee CARs months ago, and it always helps. It occurred to me there, recovering on the floor, that I just forget to do these very helpful things. It’s not that I don’t want to feel better, it’s not that I don’t care about my health; it’s not that I don’t believe that stretching and rotating will reduce pain and swelling. It’s just that I haven’t yet made them into a habit. I do cat-camels and CARs before every workout at the gym and at home, just not at any other time. I might do a few standing quasi-knee CARs in the elevator on the way to the office in the morning–why it only occurs to me to do it then, I have no idea. But it occurs to me sometimes, yay!

This realization came with no shame or guilt, no self-flagellation or judgment. “Huh, that’s interesting,” was my main takeaway. And now I’m wondering how many months of aches and pains I could have saved myself before now. So as I write tonight, I consider how I might create cues to get on the floor and take care of my body in this way more regularly. I can make progress, and that’s what matters. Even once a week will be better than what I’m doing now, and I know I’ll feel better after only a few sessions.

Tomorrow when I see and talk to patients, how can I show up so we can all stand in the ‘Huh, that’s interesting’ perspective, and brainstorm together, with curiosity and possibility, how to bridge the ‘know what to do–actually do it’ gap?

We’re all here doing our best. Assessment of current state–what’s already good and what could be better–can be done without shame, guilt, judgment, or negativity. And everything doesn’t always need to be better! Satisfaction and reveling in what’s already great today has absolute value. So if someone tells me they’re good where they are, I’ll stand with them and bask in the goodness. And we can always reassess later–or not.

Off to stretch my back and rotate the knees, my friends! Have a great week!