Try Softer: Working With Change & Grief

An essential aspect of our meditation practice involves training ourselves to very consciously and compassionately navigate the truth of constant change, instead of allowing ourselves to become so unconsciously distracted by the swirl of it that we end up missing out on the life we’re actually living. This talk explores how we can use our mindfulness practice to discover more kindness, presence, and a sense of safety - especially during the more major periods of change and grief in our lives. It includes a 10-minute meditation at the end.

Transcript

So most of you have listened to my talks before have heard me confess that in large part I usually end up writing about something that I myself am trying to practice right now and this month's talk is no different and so the topic that I want to explore is both a very current practice in my life and also just a kind of never ending one really because basically it's an essential element of what our meditation practice itself is training us to do which is to very consciously and compassionately invite ourselves to learn how to navigate the truth of change in our lives instead of sort of unconsciously allowing ourselves to become so distracted by the speed and the swirl of change that we end up missing out on the lives that we're actually living right now and the word I want to emphasize here is unconsciously right which is so often how we tend to distract ourselves from our lives for so many different reasons and for the most part the majority of these more unconscious coping skills or strategies just tend to be habitual and automatic especially when we're feeling stressed overwhelmed maybe over obligated or maybe just plain exhausted and to be clear we all tend to have these different strategies that we've adopted and truly they're all ways that we're just attempting to take care of ourselves really unfortunately a lot of these habits just aren't very good for us right so for example we might maybe find ourselves overeating or drinking too much or indulging in hours and hours of television or the internet or fantasies etc or maybe we're finding ourselves just saying yes to too many things right like we're somehow trying to fill up every single hour on our calendars or maybe just somehow unconsciously keeping ourselves so busy that we really don't have the time to truly think about all the things that might be bothering us and at least temporarily all of these coping strategies do tend to distract us for a little while right they really do work for a while but sadly almost predictably in the end as we all know they usually just end up making us feel worse because the truth is whatever that we've been avoiding by being sort of unconsciously distracting ourselves is still going to be there staring us in the face if you will when we finally stop trying to run away from it and for those of us who practice meditation specifically for this and other reasons I fully recognize that I'm sort of singing to the choir here and for this talk what I want to suggest is that sometimes there are times in our lives where we might actually need some sort of conscious distraction from our busy minds or our aching hearts so distractions that might actually be beneficial for us just as an example instead of maybe thinking we're gonna go all in and try to sit down for 30 minutes or longer and practice really opening ourselves up to everything we're feeling and experiencing we might instead choose to very consciously and intentionally allow ourselves a distraction from our thoughts in a way that is not going to necessarily take us away from the present moment but it's going to allow us to be in the moment in a way that just feels more loving and gentle and kind because sometimes when something appears in our lives for instance that kind of topples it in some way or maybe creates a substantial or even a life-changing shift that change can very often feel like it's just too much for us to really sit with or be with for a while so these big changes in our lives can include things like a relationship ending or maybe when we've made a big move or maybe we've been fired from a job or maybe we or someone we love is become injured or they're in some way ill or when someone we love has died or when maybe there's been a crisis in our personal life or our circle or maybe out in the world that has just completely shifted everything.

What I find interesting is this could also be kind of good change right like maybe we've had a new baby or we're in a new relationship suddenly or we've moved to a new town that we're really excited about exploring all of those things are great and wonderful and they also tend to be really stressful because again they all involve major change and for those of you who might be interested the term for this is called eustress e-u-s-t-r-e-s-s which is when we experience the stress that often accompanies even the good changes in our lives and so what I'm talking about here is really anything that happens in our lives where it might feel like we've sort of suddenly fallen off a cliff and as we're falling we're becoming more and more aware that there's really nothing for us to hold on to.

So you might imagine the reason that change can often feel like this is because what's happened is that our sense of the familiar has become somehow torn or fractured and sometimes feel like it's been totally ripped away.

This very often includes our sense of self it's like maybe we thought we were or we thought others were or the way we thought the world should be or was supposed to be that has suddenly changed and when this happens our world tends to then feel much less solid or reliable which of course means that we're also going to then experience a corresponding amount of fear depending on how tall that particular cliff that we've fallen from feels like to us.

So for instance maybe we've only taken a short leap off of some cliff in our lives and for the most part we can kind of see where we're gonna land you know we have some good idea of how we're gonna negotiate that change.

So in this case we might recognize that yep there's been a shift or a change in our lives but we're a little more ready for it we're a little more confident that we can handle the landing if you will.

But there are those times in our lives where it can feel like we've suddenly fallen into something completely cavernous right those times when we just can't see what's below us and we have absolutely no idea when where or how we're gonna land and because none of us tends to like the feeling of having nothing to hold on to we might also notice that while we're going through this while we're in the middle of falling if you will our minds tend to get very busy trying to figure it all out or busy trying to find something to hold on to.

So this can often take the form of watching our minds kind of frantically attempting to find some sense of solidity or some sense of ground beneath our feet.

And here we might recall the Buddha's teachings on suffering which is that we suffer mostly because of the truth of impermanence which is Anicca in the Pali language.

And I know this is really a bit of an obvious truth but it's also one that we all tend to want to avoid if we're really honest with ourselves which is that life ourselves all of it everything that we experience is always and forever in a constant never-ending flow of change.

And so really throughout our lives we are in essence always falling.

We're always and forever saying goodbye to what was and facing the uncertainty of what's next.

This is always true.

In fact one of the main reasons that change is so often difficult is because it also involves loss always which means that change is also intimately hooked onto a sense of grief.

And when this is especially big or again maybe even life-changing our practice is asking us to be very conscious and compassionate about how we care for and tend to ourselves and our hearts during this time of change.

This is because grief is an actual physical process that our brain goes through after significant change.

In fact to get a little geeky on you here we as humans developed a complex limbic system in our brain and it holds an internal image of life as we know it which as you might imagine is just vital for us right?

To be able to function in this world and to remember who we are and who other people are and where we live etc.

We need that.

But whenever a change takes place new neuropathways need to be built in order for us to accommodate an updated version of our new reality.

So if we think about it this can sometimes be really good news because our experience of grief can sometimes very powerfully introduce a crack in our limited and limiting versions of our reality.

So for instance we thought it was one way or maybe we believed it was one way but now it's not that way anymore or maybe it was never that way to begin with but we just believed that it was.

As an example we might go years or even decades with some relationship that is not working or maybe with a belief about ourselves or our lives that's not working and once we finally allow ourselves to feel fully the grief of this we might then suddenly be able to see things in a new light or invite a new reality to emerge.

But again building this new picture of reality quite literally takes a lot of time and energy for the brain to process depending on the nature of the change and if we don't understand that grieving is a necessary process in order for us to move forward we might find ourselves becoming impatient and wanting to skip this very unpleasant period of time.

So for instance a clue to this might be when we find ourselves telling ourselves things like my god why can't I just get over this already or this is just taking too long what is wrong with me those kind of thoughts.

Unfortunately we might even receive subtle or even not so subtle messages from other people in our lives about this where they're in some way implying or maybe even flat out telling us we're just taking too long to process some big change or loss in our lives.

So we can notice these messages because they can feel a lot like others are trying to fix us or maybe cheer us up or maybe worse even judge our very natural grieving process when what we really want and actually need is for those that we care about to just be with us or hold us as we're taking the time we need to adjust to our new reality.

We actually really do need this time because from an actual survival perspective science has suggested that grief and the accompanying sadness that we experience is actually hardwired into us and it's designed to keep us safe after significant loss.

So we might for instance notice that the experience of grief is associated with a feeling of heaviness or sleepiness or maybe a withdrawal from activity or social connections.

So when we feel these things it can be really helpful to remember this is actually expected it's completely normal.

This withdrawal might make even more sense when we consider that grief or again the time our brain is updating you know you can think of that little wheel that's spinning it actually causes things like impaired short-term memory,

Decreased concentration and attention span,

Absent-mindedness,

Forgetfulness,

Distraction,

Etc.

And so in privative times if we experienced a major loss or a big change it would truly be unsafe for us to go hunting or gathering.

At the same time it's also very natural for us to feel afraid or vulnerable when we're grieving because again from a more primitive perspective if it wasn't safe for us to go hunting or gathering it really was a real threat to our survival and so it's just natural for us to feel unsafe whenever there's big change.

We might even experience that sense of if I let myself feel this I think I'm really going to actually die from it.

I might feel that way.

So this is just one of the reasons why when people who are relatively new to meditation practice want to sign up for one of the meditation retreats I offer especially the longer ones I always first ask them whether or not they've experienced any major loss or change in their lives recently and I do this because again when we're just beginning to process and integrate any major change or shift in our lives more intensive meditation practice can often be counter-indicated especially if we're new to it because it can sometimes just be too intense or even maybe reactify or intensify any negative thoughts or feelings especially.

Which brings me back to the beginning of my talk which was about how we might more consciously and compassionately invite ourselves to be with ourselves and our grief and our process in a way that is just much more gentle and loving and kind.

I know many of you have listened to my talks before know that I love the practice of using very short phrases to remind us of some of the more profound Buddhist teachings or practices which I affectionately like to call Buddhist sticky notes because they can usually fit onto a sticky note we can put them up somewhere right and if we can actually put them up somewhere where we can see them often the great thing is that they really can become a part of our automatic thinking and they can arise into our minds at the exact time that we need them.

People tell me that all the time it really works and so I wanted to offer you a short new phrase that I think can be really useful for us to remember whenever we're experiencing any kind of big change in our lives.

This one comes from the title of a great poem that was written by my friend James Cruz who wrote this honor wherever you are honor wherever you are whether the door to your life has blown off its hinges or you find the simplest joy sitting in a patch of winter sun on that corner of the carpet where you love to stretch try softer not harder giving yourself a safe place to land your attention resting in this threshold moment through which wind snow and light all enter alike and here you may have noticed the sticky note phrase that I want to offer are the words try softer not harder or maybe simply easier try softer try softer that whole poem I think really addresses the theme of this talk which is how we can learn to find those safe places to land our attention when we find ourselves in those big threshold moments and then invite ourselves to rest there however it is either in the warmth of the sun or in the midst of the door of our house being blown off its hinges and to go back to the beginning of the talk again sometimes this kind of rest can involve a very conscious intentional compassionate distraction one that can give our minds and hearts some time to process what just happened so that we'll be better able to know how to handle the change we've experienced in the wisest most compassionate way a few years ago a friend of mine Kyra Jules a wonderful teacher who spent years as a nun in Thich Nhat Hanh's order of interbeing wrote an article for lion's roar magazine that really spoke to this I thought in her article Kyra told a story about a time about 20 years ago now when she and a group of other monastics were traveling with Thich Nhat Hanh to Berkeley where he was supposed to give a talk the day that they were traveling happened to be 9 11 2001 right we all know what happened that morning and so when the monastics heard about the attack they all immediately started brainstorming about how they could publicly respond the next day but when they told Thich Nhat Hanh what they were planning he said no no I don't want you to do that yet tomorrow we're all going to the beach and as you might imagine the monastics were just all kind of stunned Kyra wrote the beach there had just been a terrorist attack and we needed to respond we needed to act we didn't understand but since he was our teacher the next day we all went to the beach rather than speeding up we slowed down and were deeply nourished we played and ate together and swam in the ocean it ended up being a really important time to connect with each other and to feel safe we can't create safety for others if we don't feel safe ourselves the following day we did all the things we were planning to do but those actions came out of a different place than they would have if we had gone into action right away I just love that story because in essence the monastics had very intentionally allowed themselves a time of distraction which gave them the time they needed to nurture their own compassion and wisdom along with a sense of safety this made all the difference in how they responded to that big change in our world you may have noticed here that what they did was not only very conscious was also a healthy distraction and they also took it knowing that they weren't going to stay there at the beach forever but they knew they first needed to nurture their own sense of groundedness and presence safety before they could go on and so what I want to suggest here is that during times of big change in our lives especially we want to use our mindfulness skills to do this type of thing more consciously as a part of our kindness and compassion practice to really recognize when we ourselves just need to slow down instead of speed up and offer ourselves our own sense of emotional safety many years ago a very dear friend of mine Mary Vandivanter who's a long-time vipassana teacher offered us some really great advice about this Mary said in the midst of the most painful confusing difficult emotions the heart needs good company a friend a poem a walk in the woods a cup of tea the feeling cannot be left alone with the unkind opinion of its feeler until we can access that within ourselves we need to find good company and that great advice from Mary actually always reminds me at a time when I was living in Brooklyn New York and I was standing outside on the sidewalk with a good friend and I was telling her about a big estrangement process that I had been going through with some family members that was really painful but necessary and I was actually kind of embarrassed because I was standing in the middle of this really busy street in Brooklyn I was just sobbing really and my friend just suddenly gently put her hand out onto my shoulder and she smiled and she said come on let's go get some ice cream and honestly that very simple gesture and thought was so kind and it was just exactly what I needed and I'll never forget it my friend just knows me very well and she intuitively understood that what I needed in that moment was a little light distraction and some kindness and also some fun right she could sense that I was what I was experiencing was becoming overwhelming for me so in other words she could sense that I was very caught up in my negative narrative about the whole situation and was just spinning around in it you know which is what we all tend to do when something really big in our life happens we just all do that so in a very real way she was really mirroring exactly what we were being asked to practice when we are experiencing something simpler for instance we might notice that the very first thing my friend did was to recognize that I was struggling and was in pain which is something we're all asked to do for ourselves and of course we all know this is not always easy because so often we aren't even aware of how much we're struggling with something you know many times we just somehow want to deny it or avoid it or maybe in some way tell ourselves we're fine we're doing great or like the monastics in Thich Nhat Hanh Sangha you might just initially want to figure it all out and speed up and fix it but in these times as Thich Nhat Hanh suggested what's actually needed is for us to very consciously slow down again to offer ourselves a sense of kindness compassion and safety and again from a more scientific point of view this is actually really important because whenever we're experiencing a lot of stress which change induces we tend to go into what's called the fight flight freeze response which is you know when we either want to fight what's happening by maybe trying to somehow frantically figure it all out or we find ourselves running away somehow or avoiding or numbing or we just sometimes freeze which is you know when we become kind of paralyzed with anxiety and we just don't know how to proceed or what to do so we freeze and by the way all of these responses tend to flood our bodies with toxic chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol and weakens our immune system when we have a big change it also tends to set off the red alert alarm in our brains which means it starts scanning for threat and overreacting and it also makes our brains fuzzy so we end up just not thinking very clearly or making good choices or decisions it also means that we're usually just not able to be truly present with whatever we're doing or to be with whoever we're with which of course includes ourselves and so during that time in brooklyn my friend recognized that this was happening for me and again this is something we can use our mindfulness practice to do for ourselves we can train ourselves to learn how to see this or to recognize that we have just become completely caught up and so along with this the second thing we want to do for ourselves is something my friend also did for me which is to immediately offer kindness or meta in the Pali language and by the way the root meaning of the word meta is mitra which means friend and so with our meta practice essentially we're being asked to be a good friend to ourselves which means we in no way want to judge our feelings or our thoughts or even ourselves for feeling whatever it is that we're feeling which is often a lot of pain we simply want to recognize that what we're experiencing is pain and then wishing for that pain to end that's really the essence of meta it's a wish for our own and others happiness along with our wish for the pain to cease and so once we've connected with our wish for our pain to cease the next thing we want to do is to offer ourselves our own compassion or karuna in the Pali language and compassionately allow ourselves to be with whatever we're feeling again without trying to fix it or judge it just like my friend stayed with me that day as I was out there crying on the street she wasn't trying to fix me or judge me she was simply loving me and being present with me and my pain and all my messiness and snot probably and imperfection you know which is exactly how we want to be with ourselves Thich Nhat Hanh describes it this way he says mindfulness is like a mother recognizing and embracing suffering without judgment so the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness when a mother embraces her child that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to figure out what the difficulty is just her act of taking the child into her arms with tenderness can already bring relief and so just like a compassionate friend or a mother we don't immediately try to figure out why we're feeling the way that we're feeling we just simply want to recognize that we're suffering and offer ourselves our own kindness and compassion there's actually a great short phrase that comes from the teacher Sylvia Borstein that we can use for this type of recognition where we can simply say to ourselves something like sweetie or buddy my friend you are in pain sweetie you are in pain I actually just love that one so much because it's just immediately kind it starts with the word sweetie and it's also just a simple recognition of our pain you are in pain no judgment and our teaching Sylvia takes this phrase even further by adding the words relax take a breath let's pay attention to what's happening then then we'll figure out what to do and so the idea here is that we want to spend time holding ourselves with kindness and compassion and then when we feel ready we might ask ourselves something like okay what is this feeling need right now or maybe what's the most compassionate response right now to this pain or to the suffering and the shorthand version of these questions that I also like to think about maybe is another one of those sticky note phrases you can use is simply what does my heart need right now what does my heart need right now and in the case of my friend noticing my pain in Brooklyn this meant realizing that I needed some sort of conscious distraction and some good company like my friend Mary suggests and some ice cream which is always great always good to have some ice cream and this truly was the best choice because this light distraction was not only kind and compassionate it also helped me to temporarily get away from the barrage of my negative thinking and find a sense of safety in the present moment which was just sitting in an ice cream shop with my friend enjoying some dessert so it's like even though I was standing on the streets of Brooklyn in my mind I was really falling off that cliff and straight down that vast canyon when my friend sort of reached out and pulled me back up into the present moment with her right and so this is something we can all learn to do for ourselves in any moment we can choose to kindly compassionately remember that we can discover a sense of groundedness and safety and even hope in the present moment if we can train ourselves to remember it so in the Pali language the word mindfulness is called sati s-a-t-i and sati means to remember and what we're trying to remember is that we are not living in the past we're not living in the future we are always just right here right now with whatever we're doing or whatever we're feeling and that moment is where we can always and forever begin again in every single moment one of my teachers great Sharon Salzberg tells us quote in times of great struggle when there is nothing else to rely on and nowhere else to go it is the return to the moment that is the act of faith from that point openness to possibility strength patience and courage can arise moment by moment we can find our way through moment by moment we can find our way through and again I know that whenever we're experiencing a big change especially sometimes finding the present moment can be really challenging so it can be helpful to remember that if we can just set the intention of trying to slow down and to reconnect with the present moment maybe even by consciously and compassionately distracting ourselves from the barrage of thinking even for a moment this can help us to slowly rediscover our sense of groundedness and safety so that we'll know how best to proceed right just like Thich Nhat Hanh Sangha was better able to know how to respond after they'd taken that short break on the beach with one another and so with the time that I have left I wanted to end by offering us a simple practice that can help us to come back to the present moment however it is so that we can be better able to more consciously move into the newness of our lives maybe with less fear and with more of a sense of hope and possibility and so if it's available to you you might find a comfortable place and a quiet place to sit for a moment listen to my words close the eyes if you're out walking you might take a moment to pay attention to the bottom of your feet on the earth kind of grounding yourself and the act of walking notice the body walking and the movement of the body bring your attention into the body into the breath if you're driving again become a little more embodied maybe by feeling your seat and the cushion of the car your hands on the wheel maybe again noticing your breath maybe noticing whatever you're seeing or listening to as well coming into your senses for all of us maybe taking a nice deep breath nice deep inhale slow exhale maybe a couple of rounds of those on your own just to connect with the body and the breath and invite yourself to maybe just slow down just a little bit you might even slow down the exhale it's a way to help you to do this so let the exhale be just a little longer than the inhale bringing your attention inward then allowing what might be hard to soften so you might notice the whole area of the face just let the forehead be smooth eyes soft in their sockets letting all the cheek muscles relax you might even let the jaw soften let the teeth be parted tongue soft still aware of breathing you might soften the neck and the shoulders let the shoulders drop and for this practice you might even if you'd like to just place one hand on your heart one hand on your belly just notice the act of breathing on your fingers just the inhale the exhale you might even allow yourself to take some deeper breaths all the way down into the belly really sense the rise and fall that little balloon there the inhale the exhale and as you're doing this see if you can imagine sending yourself your own compassion and kindness right through the fingers as if someone else's you'd be touching your heart or holding you let's take some time with that breathing in and as you're ready i'm going to offer you a short phrase that i'd like to invite you to repeat to yourself that can help us to become aware of the present moment in our bodies it's a very simple phrase and it involves silently repeating the words right now i'm aware that or maybe simply i'm aware that and then noticing any of your senses whatever's arising so noticing any sense of touch or hearing smell taste or even sight so for instance right now for myself i'm aware of my feet touching the hardwood floors which are a little cool i'm aware of the sound of the wind outside i'm aware of the smell of incense so those are some examples and you don't need to do it fast you can just allow whatever you're sensing to arise naturally until the next thing arises just really trying to stay with your body and whatever you're physically sensing and this might include any emotional feelings like sadness or anxiety but here you might try exploring these on a more physical level by maybe for instance noticing i'm aware of a sense of heaviness in my chest or i'm aware of a sense of squeezing in my throat etc so just noticing without judging any of the feelings and also noticing how they maybe change and if and when your mind naturally wanders off into thinking which it will no worries whenever you notice just very gently and kindly bring yourself back to your breath to your body and then to whatever you're sensing in each moment and if at some point you just want to sense without adding the words right now i'm aware that you can just let that phrase go and just be with whatever's arising maybe without trying to label the sensations at all just experiencing them so right now just taking some time to try that noticing all your senses and maybe using that phrase right now i'm aware that finally to end you might just listen again to james crew's words and remind yourself of their truth honor wherever you are whether the door to your life is blown off its hinges or you find the simplest joy sitting in a patch of winter sun on that corner of the carpet where you love to stretch try softer not harder giving yourself a safe place to land your attention resting in this threshold moment through which wind snow and light all enter alike namaste and blessings

Reviews

Thank you for sharing this talk. I'm going through a big life change. I needed to hear this.