Mindfulness and the Myth of Patience.

There’s a lot of talk these days about the benefits of mindfulness and how it can help everything from depression to business practices. Mostly this chatter gets on my nerves. This is for any number of reasons, some of which are nothing to do Mindfulness™ only with those who have taken the concept on as the zeitgeist panacea, almost hipster-esque in its self-satisfied ubiquity. Ahem.
In order to help define mindfulness, the website Mindfulnet.org uses a quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn founder of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) , "mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally." Jon Kabat-Zinn , "mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally."

As a (hopeless example of a) Buddhist of the Soto Zen variety I’m pretty familiar with the concept of mindfulness and its uses. I also know how hard and frustrating it can be to try to develop the capacity to practice mindfulness effectively. Soto Zen, based on the practise of Dogen-Zenji, teaches that meditation (zazen) comprises Shikantaza – literally, nothing but precisely sitting. Shikantaza is characterised as “resting in a state of brightly alert attention that is free of thoughts, directed to no object, and attached to no particular content. ….the highest or purest form of zazen, zazen as it was practiced by all buddhas of the past (Dogen)”. Sounds like Mindfulness™ to me.

Now, I don’t profess to any kind of expertise in the field of Buddhism, meditation or mindfulness (or anything really) but I do have personal experience of beginning and struggling to maintain meditative practice over the last eight or nine years and I can tell you it ain’t easy. If you sit cross-legged on the cushion with the expectation that staring at a wall for half-an-hour will make you enlightened I can pretty much guarantee that disappointment awaits. What’s more, mostly this is done at a time set aside, in a quiet room away from distraction, often following ritual whose purpose is to set the scene and connect the participant to the activity. How much more difficult it is to practise when you’re at work or out shopping, anxiety or panic is rising, or when the noise around is deafening and jarring, or when surrounded and engulfed in a vortex of chaos. You get the idea.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that I’ve come to feel that the myriad organisations, articles, Radio 4 programmes, pseudo-psychology pieces, etc, etc. seem to present mindfulness as a quick win, a way for people with mental illness to feel better, for all of us in the superfast modern world to engage with life rather than just coast through, for people of all stripes to experience rather than surf over the surface, for businesses to get their employees to perform better – and all with a minimum of time and/or effort. And maybe all this is true.

Now, Buddhism isn’t a religion – it’s a practise. There’s no deity to worship or beg forgiveness from. The rules are common sense (although there’s no such thing, but that’s a whole other article…) and when you actually break them down they’re good ideas rather than commandments. However, the co-opting, re-branding and commercialisation of what is essentially a two-and-a-half thousand year old practise just seems to typify much of what’s wrong with The West, at least in my eyes. Maybe I should just be glad that (presumably) more people are finding their way to mindfulness, however they do it.

So having stayed with me through the preceding six hundred words you’re thinking “hold on, this article was meant to be about patience. Wasn’t it?”, yep it is.

Patience is often held up as the exemplar virtue to which we should all aspire. Children are taught to be patient whether waiting for an adult to speak to them, or for an ice cream, or for Christmas. Well I’ve come to the view that patience is a holding mechanism (bear with me). It seems to me that Patience requires inherent anticipation of a future state, reward or event. Patience is the ability to wait for something better to come along. Just as another ‘virtue’, tolerance, requires something to be tolerated (i.e. something we adjudge to be inferior, offensive, bad, etc.), patience infers that our current state is somehow unsatisfactory and that something better will come along at some point. This would appear, to me at least, to be the opposite of Mindfulness, or, at very least, just something to implement whilst Mindfulness is unreachable, the next best thing. If we have ‘infinite’ patience is it possible to practice real mindfulness? Do we need to? Is it worth the effort? Does the practice of meditation require patience or is that actually a barrier to the development of mindful states?

I don’t know (see, an expert in nothing).

What I do know is that I will endeavour to further my own ability to be in the moment (ahem!) through Shikantaza and taking the time throughout the day, whenever I remember, to practice what zazen has shown me. Until there’s more mindfulness than mindlessness in my day, I’ll try to be patient.

Thirty Days to a Better Man - Days 1 - 4

Day One:  Define your values (AoM suggests listing five).

Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes. Psychologists have identified some of the factors that make someone resilient, among them a positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback. Even after misfortune, resilient people are blessed with such an outlook that they are able to change course and soldier on.

Psychology Today Magazine.

Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences.

American Psychological Society.

When life hands you lemons say "Oh yeah, I like lemons, what else have you got?".

Henry Rollins

Many years ago, as a Governor of a primary school, I took part in a group exercise which sought to facilitate the governing body and wider school ‘family’ in writing a vision or mission statement.  Key in this process was thinking about the type of children that we wanted to mould, what would we like teachers at the schools to which our students were going to say about them?  How would we want them to be described?  In our groups we talked about the various characteristics that we valued in the children – kindness, courage, being hard working, friendliness.  My choice of attributes was resilience and this was remarked upon as unusual by some of my colleagues.  Perhaps it was just that resilience doesn’t spring instantly to mind when thinking about five to eleven year olds.  But maybe it’s also that to consider the most important characteristic that children can develop to be the ability to take that which life regularly throws at us, and to shrug it off and thrive takes a degree of pessimism about the world.  And not a small amount of misanthropy when considering the actions and motives of our fellow humans.

Looking back I stand behind my choice and, over the last ten years, I feel that I’ve deepened my understanding of resilience through experience; my own and that of others whom I know or have met.

There is always a fly in the ointment.  Once you are reconciled to this fact and accept it as unavoidable certainty, life will throw you fewer curve balls.

Resilience is my first value.

For my second value I choose loyalty.  I have been unfortunate to experience the disloyalty of someone to whom I had shown great loyalty, someone who I had defended to others when I wasn't convinced of their actions myself.  Someone who had thought enough of me to share very personal events in their life, difficult things.  Someone for whom I had appeared in a legal setting in order to give evidence to support their case.  This person knew what they'd done, to the point that when they had to meet with me they made sure that there were two people between us; now that's cowardice - the opposite of value three.

Two is Loyalty, Three is Courage.

In the words of a song, I'm not a coward I've just never been tested, I'd like to think that if I was I would pass.  I've been tested a little bit on occasion in the past and I hope that I acquitted myself reasonably.  I've often thought that courage is the ability to do the right thing even (especially?) when it scares you to do so. I'd like to think that I try to stick to this.

The fourth value is Compassion.

Compassion for others, whether we know them or not, whether we like them or not.  Whether it's easy to feel compassion for them or very, very difficult.  Whether we love them or find them repulsive, whether we can empathise with their plight or think that their circumstances are their own fault.  When I think about it, for me, compassion that we demonstrate is a reflection of ourselves not of those to whom we're compassionate.  Looked at this way compassion is not a selfless value.

Compassion for ourselves - not beating ourselves up for what we have or haven't done.  Do it right next time instead.  I hope we're all get more right than wrong every day.  I think we probably are as most of us are still here.  Just about.

Finally, the ability to Wonder.

When we lose the ability to experience the wonder of new things, of old things presented in different ways or that we had forgotten.  The wonder of small things as well as momentous occasions.  Keep an open mind.

Day two: Shine your Shoes

Now, this one was super easy.  Every self respecting Skinhead knows the importance of a shiny pair of boots.  I actually like shining my boots and shoes and even take pride in shining the kids shoes (sad git).  So, with a bit of Dr Marten's Wonder Balsam task two was achieved with a smile.

Day Three:  Find a Mentor

I thought I'd take a slightly different approach to this, I didn't think that I could find a mentor in one day.  The task made me think about all the people who I've known over the years who I would regard as having been a mentor for greater or lesser periods of time.  It also made me think that, although I tend to try to think about people as 'good' or 'bad', it's generally shades of grey (as my good friend - one time mentor? - Graeme would say).  Most people let you down at some point, or show a side that we don't like, air a view that we don't agree with, like a shit band (unforgivable).

It also made me think of the old Zen/Martial Arts adage - When the student is ready, the master will appear.  Lots of people have taken prominent roles in my life when I've been ready to hear what they had to say, when it would make the most difference.

So Day Three is dedicated to the man who discussed weight lifting and the importance of squats with me and checked how I was getting on when I bumped in to him every so often. To everyone who's not just showed me how to build or fix something, but in doing so given me the confidence to try.  To the man who gave me a way of relating to the world and the behaviour of my fellow humans that made sense.  To the woman who showed me how to understand and work with people to try and help them even when they, their lives and their addictions seemed to thwart us both at every turn.  To the man conquers his own demons and persists in martial arts in part to help others.  To the woman who showed me what compassion looks like through caring for others when everyone else had given up and turned away. To.... well, there's a lot of people who have mentored me in some way.

Finally, when I was thinking about this task I thought about my dad.  I came to the conclusion that although he has essentially mentored me for nearly forty two years, he's not a mentor.  He's way, way more than that.  He's my father, and that needs a category all on its own.

Day Four:  Increase your Testosterone

If like me you're in the hinterland between youth and middle age, you'll know what it's like to feel your life essence ebbing away (not that I'm melodramatic or anything).  Testosterone is a big part of who we are - both women and men - and it could be said that this little hormone has helped shape the world, for better and worse.

I'm not going to get in to the pros and cons of testosterone, you can read Anthony Clare's excellent book 'On Men' for that.  But even if we note T's part in maintaining healthy mood we can agree that halting the inevitable decline that accompanies aging would be a good thing.  So here's my recipe all of which I did on day four:

Good fats:  

I use coconut oil in cooking.  I take high strength omega 3, quite a lot of it.
Protein:      

Eggs, fish, whey, nuts (good fats), Quorn.  Yum.
Resistance training:  

I lift twice a week, one day press and squat, one day deadlift and bench. Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 or Dan John's Simpler Strength are my favourite programmes. Both days rows or pulls or snatches, plus swings.
Sleep:       

I don't often get good quality sleep, I have some apnoea that can often leave me feeling markedly worse on waking.  I go to bed as early as I can and I have mastered the art of napping (so, so good).  I also take...

ZMA

Which seems to help with sleep and also increases T as of itself - or so some evidences shows.

I'd never do anabolic steroids - that seems to be accruing a larger debt that'll need paying off later on - but anything that I can do - that's got an evidence base - to naturally increase my free circulating testosterone, I'll give it a go.

So that's my first four days down.  It's interesting and it's certainly giving me food for thought and an incentive to write.  Whether I'll be all the better for it though...

Thirty Days to a Better Man - Challenge Accepted

Usually I keep well away from things like this but Dan John linked to this in his weekly Wandering Weights newsletter and, as you may already know, I've got a lot of time for Coach Dan. The Art of Manliness sounds lke something that I would give a seriously wide berth, like something that would pride itself on 'Laddishness' and 'banter' - for which read chauvinism and unreconstructed sexist bullshit. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised to find an ebook with some interesting and easily read bits of writing.

So, what I thought I'd do, as I struggling with writing for this blog at the moment, is to try the thirty challenges/activities over the course of October.

Ill try to update on a daily basis, but definitely a few times a week, to post how I've got on and my thoughts I've done. Hopefully it'll make interesting reading.

Oh, and as a bit of a twist, I haven't actually read the whole thing..... I wonder how this endeavour will end?

All the Small Things

Small Things:

Over the years I’ve been consistently amazed – as well as pleasantly surprised - by the small things that we all remember others saying or telling us, sometimes in passing, other times as parts of much longer discourses. 

As a treatment/therapist/advice worker clients would often approach me days, weeks, months, and even years after conversations with a variation on the theme “I remembered what we talked about” or “I’ve been thinking about what you said” before going on to tell me how this had caused them to think about things in a different way or to do something differently.  And I’ve been the same.  I can think of three occasions off the top of my head – one from ten years ago – in which fractions of conversations have positively influenced what I’ve done; whether that’s been losing weight or how I’ve viewed my own employment and some of the choices I’ve made in it. Similarly, sometimes there may be a paragraph or phrase within a book, article or paper that just makes sense of the world.  Perhaps we have to read it over a couple of times but it resonates within and explains or clarifies something that had been puzzling, or maybe it just makes sense full-stop in a “yes, now  I get it!” kind of way.

What we say to others can take on a life of its own.  We cannot control the effects, the ripples that emanate  following the words leaving our mouths (or maybe even our pens).  In his excellent book ‘Single Session Therapy’ Moshe Talmon  shows great insight and self awareness when he writes;

…on the whole, I realised that I had taken my interventions and my words too seriously.  Patients reported following suggestions that I could not remember having made.  They created their own interpretations, which were sometimes quite different from what I recollected and sometimes more creative and suitable versions of my suggestions.

Brilliant.  Words, once uttered, are beyond my control.  They take on the meanings that the hearer gives them.  Of course, Wittgenstein got there first on this but he doesn’t speak with a common tongue!

The things that we say in the moment can also harm.  Little things, throwaway (we assume) things that last an age in the life of those at who they are aimed, detrimentally effecting them more than we will know, certainly more than we ever intended.

Is there a take away message?  Maybe it’s important to give a little bit more thought to the language that we use, really it’s all we have to communicate our ideas about the world and, importantly, to help others with.  On the other side of the coin, listen.  Listen.  Listen.  You never know what you might hear.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda....

I am amazed at how often synchronicity seems to be at work in the thinking, reading, watching, listening and conversing that we do. Recently, following a bout of flu and a chest infection, I've been trying to get my training mojo back – particularly difficult when it's cold and dark after work, you're tired, and all you want to do is have a sit down, a warm drink and watch Brooklyn Nine Nine or The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on TV. But I digress....

Anyway, when I'm trying to get some motivation I often turn to my collection of books about training or scrapping, particularly those old favourites that spark something off in my brain, reminding me of what I love about training whether it's rolling around on mats, hitting things (or more likely being hit), or picking up heavy(ish) objects and carrying them somewhere else or just putting them down again. Dan John is one of my favourite authors for the following reasons:

1. He's even older than me and he's still lifting, throwing and carrying heavy things.
2. He's a world class rambler (and I'm not talking hiking).
3. Unlike a lot of internet authors he's actually done stuff and achieved, and then coached others to do stuff. Successfully.
4. He's got some good stories – a coach load of student athletes coming across a serious car accident. In the mountains. At night. Caused by a deer?!?! We can learn from these stories, honestly.
5. His stuff works/is true/is often fun to do.

What more could you want in a Strength and Conditioning coach? Anyhow, the search for a motivational kick up the arse often leads to Coach Dan's literary works and the quest resulting from my recent slump has been no exception.

In his article '40 years of insight' Dan talks about the value of consistency:

When I first began throwing the discus as a 118- pound tower of terror, I won a lot of meets. No matter what, the kids at the other school would tell me, "If (insert name of fat kid) would've been here, he would've beaten you." I used to believe that crap. Whenever I win something, especially now in the Internet age, I always find out later that "somebody else" would've won it if, of course, they'd just shown up.

Folks, it's a truism that should be stuck to your bathroom mirror. "Show Up!"

There's so much truth in this I don't know where to start. For me it's always brought home to me when someone at the gym asks me how long I've been training. I always hem and haw because I know that for the length of time that I've been going down to the gym I should be a lot better than I am. Why? Because I've been so damn inconsistent and out of 10+ years I've missed vast chunks of time, literally years on a couple of occasions. Had I shown up just once a week, week in, week out I reckon that I could be..... well, much better than I am now. Both Dan John and Jim Wendler (To quote T-Nation “If you don't know who Jim Wendler is you're probably not very strong”) talk about the benefits of going to the weight room when you planned and getting the work done. You don't have to kill yourself while you're there, just do what you planned to do, the essential stuff that allows you to progress next time you train. Make a deal with yourself, “I'll just go and do X, then I'll call it quits”. Occasionally you'll probably do more than just X just because “well, I'm here now, I might as well...”.

I have an outstanding facility for negative self-talk, that voice in my head that makes me question whether I really want to train, am I not too tired, what about that little niggling injury? I previously wrote about this in relation to making time to train and although it continues to be something of a problem for me I have managed to diminish it through challenging my own thought processes – Just go, if you're hurt you can stop. If you're tired you can go light, take breaks or just watch the teaching part and learn. What's the worst that can happen? I might just learn something.

Challenging negative thoughts can be quite an involved process and is a key component in forms of cognitive behavioural therapy.  If you're interested in this there are some good example questions with which to challenge your thinking here.

Anyway back to synchronicity. Speaking to Nathan, the Coach at the gym I train at, we got talking about the practise of coming to training – not the training itself per se, rather the act of showing up and taking part especially when your mind is tricking you in to thinking that you'd rather do something else, sitting on the sofa watching American hit comedies for instance. This action can be seen as one of the integral and key lessons of martial arts training; self-discipline. It's probably one of those magical Mr Miyagi-esque lessons that transfers effortlessly from the Dojo to real life – the ability to make yourself do stuff when you don't really wanna, when you're tired or just plain bored. You know, the kind of things that parents want to instil in their kids so they sign them up to Karate.

So here endeth the lesson: When in doubt, just show up.

Of course not showing up can easily become quitting, but that's an article for a different day...