Hi everyone,
It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 441.
So Pema Chodron calls chapter 19 of The Places That Scare You,
Which is the book that we've been working with,
Heightened Neurosis.
And she explains what she means towards the end of the chapter when she quotes her teacher,
As saying that awakening warriors,
Which is,
That's all of us,
Would find themselves in a constant state of anxiety.
And that personally,
She found that to be true.
And I definitely have to,
I have a lot of anxiety.
When I first noticed it or became mindful of it,
I thought I was developing it,
That anxiety was something that was coming on.
But now I don't think that's the case.
I think anxiety has been my companion for a long time.
So I was raised by an anxious,
Unhappy mom and a passive dreamer dad.
And they loved my brother and me and they did the best they could,
But they didn't pay much attention or provide much of a refuge.
I'd say they instilled some really good qualities like good work ethic,
Determination,
Curiosity,
And my childhood was a kind of recipe for anxiety.
Or in the language of mindfulness,
Anxiety was one of the natural outcomes of the conditions of my early life.
And so my strategy was push through,
Hold everything together,
Strive.
And then there were the conditions of the law,
Which I went into early,
Age 24,
Where,
The four perils that I always talk about were front and center,
The huge volumes of work,
Cultivating an issue spotting mind,
Zero room for error,
Living surrounded by conflict.
Those conditions supported me developing a huge capacity for work,
Which continues to serve me well and continually points me towards taking on ever more,
Even now.
A quick mind,
Perfectionism for better and for worse,
And an ability to stand my ground also for better and sometimes worse,
But also they were a recipe for anxiety.
So again,
My strategy,
Work hard,
Push through,
Keep my head above water,
Wake up after five hours of sleep and do it all again.
I stumbled on mindfulness,
Which everybody here pretty much knows.
I took a class back in 1993,
Just because that was what was happening on a rare weekend when my ex was willing to take care of our daughter.
No one had told me mindfulness would be helpful,
Probably because I hadn't shared with anyone that I needed help.
And the reason for that is because I hadn't shared that with myself because I didn't know.
Because even though I was flat out terrified during those early years of being a single mom and trying to support my tiny family and find my footing in the law,
I had definitely drunk the Kool-Aid.
I believed I couldn't be weak,
I couldn't show the whites of my eyes,
And I had to have an attitude of,
I've got this every day,
All the time.
So I did,
And that was my strategy,
Even though I felt very much the opposite.
Even though I felt like things often were falling apart.
But it's what we do as lawyers and as humans in the 20th century and 21st century,
Right?
We're fine,
We're busy,
We've got it covered.
And when I did notice fear,
Shame,
Anger,
Really anything difficult,
Then my strategy was to turn away,
Which is one of the traps Pema says we encounter in practice.
She says,
We wish to surrender our useless baggage,
But in the process,
We use the teachings themselves to distance ourselves from the unsettling,
Chaotic quality of our lives.
In an attempt to avoid the fact that our partner is an alcoholic or we're addicted to marijuana or we're in yet another abusive relationship,
Or in my case,
We feel like we're in over our head.
We train to relax into spaciousness,
Openness,
Warmheartedness,
And in my case,
In an attempt to avoid the inadequacy and helplessness I felt,
I did that,
I cultivated an open,
Loving heart.
That was my strategy.
And then I touted that,
Which is the second trap Pema says we lay for ourselves.
We use our training to feel superior or to increase our sense of feeling special,
Or we're courageous to do this training.
We're turning our lives around.
We're proud to be doing something rare in the world.
And then I fell into the third trap,
Which Pema says is to practice mindfulness in order to become a better person,
As opposed to the terrified person I actually was.
Or the way she puts it is,
Trying to jump over issues to attain some idealized notion of all rightness.
So there was the anxiety I was feeling,
And that I began to notice through the practice of mindfulness.
And then there were the traps I fell into,
The strategies of using the practice to solve for anxiety by either distancing myself from it,
Which I became proud of,
And also by believing it would enable me to attain a more idealized anxiety-free life.
But as Pema says,
Welcome to the human race,
Meaning this is how we roll.
So the question is,
If mindfulness is not about solving for anxiety and all of our other troubles,
What is it about?
Well,
It's about getting comfortable with them.
It's about being able to settle into whatever the moment brings.
Really settle into it,
Whether that's anxiety,
Fear,
Or any difficult state of mind.
And we could be forgiven for thinking that this isn't the good news,
Or even for considering giving up on the practice of mindfulness if that's where we're pointing.
Because who wants to practice mindfulness for years and spend all that time developing courage and grace and the spiritual warrior abilities,
As Pema says,
And then not solve for the hard stuff?
But the truth is,
And this is what Pema's been teaching us all along,
We can't solve for anything by trying to make sure it doesn't happen.
Fear is going to come up.
Anger is going to happen.
Terror is going to visit us and maybe stay a while.
Again welcome to the human race,
Or maybe a bit more compassionately,
Welcome to how hard it is to be human.
To be human and a human lawyer means to encounter pain and suffering,
But not to solve for it.
So here's what Pema says.
She says,
After a while,
I realized that since the shakiness wasn't going away,
And by shakiness she means the shakiness of not being able to solve for the hard moments of life,
Not being able to not have them come up,
Right?
After a while,
I realized that since the shakiness wasn't going away,
I might as well get to know it.
When our attitude towards fear becomes more welcoming and inquisitive,
There's a fundamental shift that occurs.
Instead of spending our lives tensing up as if we were in the dentist's chair,
We learn that we can connect with the freshness of the moment and relax into compassionate inquiry into our moods,
Our emotions,
Our thoughts.
This is how we get to the place where we stop believing in our personal myths,
And I would add our strategies,
The place where we're not always divided against ourselves,
Meaning I want to feel this way,
But I really feel that way.
The place where we're not always resisting our own energy.
This is how we learn to abide.
And I would add this is the place where we learn to stop strategizing and finally relax.
So with that,
Let's sit.
So finding your comfortable posture for right now.
The posture that you can move your body into and then not move,
Become still for just 10 minutes and sensing into the body,
Just the weight of the body sitting in the chair or maybe you're on a cushion or maybe you're in your car.
Couch,
Laying down.
Just that sense of the body being held to our beautiful blue planet by gravity.
This force that grounds us.
And doing a little body scan,
So starting at the top of the head,
Bringing the attention to the top of the head,
And then letting the attention flow down through the head and the neck and the torso and the arms and the legs and the feet.
And seeing if there's any relaxation that you can bring to the moment,
Any additional letting go that you can offer yourself.
Maybe again,
Scanning the body from the head down through the body to the feet.
Letting go of anything that's not necessary right now.
Any ways in which you might be solving for something difficult,
Strategizing to feel better or be better.
And if another body scan would be supportive,
Then go for it.
And if it would be more supportive to bring the attention to the breath,
Then simply attending to each breath as it flows in and out of the body.
And noticing as you pay attention to the breath,
The body,
Is there any holding,
Any clenching,
Any trying to strategize or to make the moment a little bit better,
A little bit more comfortable?
Is anxiety present and trying to solve for anxiety?
Is mindfulness present and trying to solve for that?
And if so,
And you can just let go of the solution piece and stay with what it feels like to be restless,
To be anxious,
To be fearful,
Keeping in mind or noticing that these feelings arise and pass away.
They're not permanent.
They come and they go.
And so we don't have to label ourselves as an anxious person or a fearful person.
We can flip the syntax and just say,
Anxiety is present.
Frustration is here.
Seeing what each of these states of mind,
States of heart,
How do they feel?
What do they feel like?
And remembering to do that with a lot of love,
A lot of self-compassion,
Because it's hard.
It's hard to turn towards my fear,
My anxiety,
My anger.
And then for today or for however long,
Take that peace with you.
Take that love,
Take that self-compassion with you.
That these hard moments,
They just arise and we can be there for them and they pass away and open up into joyful moments.
And we get to be there for those as well.
Thank you,
Everyone.
Thank you so much for being on the wake up call today.
I'm still traveling,
So I don't have my bell.
Imagine you're hearing a bell and fluttering the eyes open if they're closed.
And have a wonderful day and a wonderful week.
Take good care.
Be safe out there.
I'll see you next Thursday.
