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Welcome to our first installment of a new column, Your Best Life. In this space I plan to introduce and explore concepts and the latest findings on ideas around health and wellness, practical steps you can take to feel, live, and function better, from daily routines and nutrition to sleep and breathwork.
So, why should I be writing this column? I don’t even play a doctor, sociologist, or philosopher on TV, but I am a passionate experimenter with these things. My kitchen cabinet is stocked with adaptogenic mushrooms, algae, and MCT oil. I welcome information from many sectors. As a journalist, I will always look for scientific backing and credentials, but I am open to trying things before they have scientific backing. Things like adaptogenic mushrooms and breathwork exercises have been used by cultures around the world for thousands of years before anyone agreed to fund a study about them.
Let’s talk about consciousness. I mean, why not go big the first day? As you read these words, your body is processing them from light patterns through your eyes, which then get reinterpreted as patterns you recognize from learning your ABCs in kindergarten. But who is thinking and reacting to the meaning of the words? Science has not been able to locate the physical source of consciousness — we’ll discuss this in another column - yet it is there.
Someone, somehow, somewhere is putting an emotional spin on these words, making connections to memories or other concepts they’ve heard in the past. That moment, that space, is where the magic lies — the expanse holding both the you that you have been and the one you can choose to become.
Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
That concept alone can help you build a more beautiful life. Of course, it’s easier said than done.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy offers a visual illustration. A person is walking and falls straight into a hole. The next frame, I think the person sees the hole a little too late, and trips. By the last frame, the person sees the hole and walks around it.
I’m not sure which came first, but here’s a poem about the same concept, including a sneaky stage where the person pretends not to see the hole and still falls in (therapywithemy.com/recovery-whats-your-hole-in-the-sidewalk).
Most of the time, all of us are instantly reacting, and in a predominately negative way, letting our survival-conscious brain run the show. Our ancient brain stem is doing its best every minute to scan for saber-tooth tigers. Today our challenges are less life-threatening, but our brain doesn’t know the difference. The reactions can be external, in comments or action, or purely internal, as in thought-chains like “My boss didn’t answer my email — why don’t they like me? I’m probably going to get fired.” It’s these internal thoughts that are powerful drivers of our actions, and discovering what those are is the key to choosing a better life.
Many traditions steeped in mindfulness note the power of that moment. The moment is always there, but when we are “triggered” by words or actions we find unpleasant, we steamroll past it to our emotional reaction. So how do we slow down, gaining some grace between event and reaction?
For me, it was meditation — a concept that science is catching up to the benefits of. I began with the Headspace app, which is an excellent on-ramp if you’ve never meditated before. Staring with bite-sized meditations as short as one minute, the soothing English accent of Andy Puddicombe backed by a team of adorable, animated creatures just made it so easy to do every morning. This type, and the type most often promoted in the West, is mindfulness-based meditation. Yes mindfulness has become a buzzword, but don’t let that stop you.
Typically, you are asked to focus on something, which could be your breath, counting, saying a mantra, or listening to a sound. When thoughts inevitably creep in, you are meant to notice them like clouds floating by, or a train passing. It’s touted as boosting attention, among other things. To paraphrase Headspace, the blue skies are always there, but sometimes they are obscured by clouds.
After a couple of months, I was in conversation with my beloved husband when things were getting tense. I remember time felt like it slowed a beat. Before I answered him, I noticed I had a choice — my well-worn knee-jerk response that would take us to a familiar place — and a more measured, less combative, less passive-aggressive response. I don’t recall what it was about, but I remember my own relief and the extra oxygen it brought into the conversation. The better I get at this, the richer and easier my relationships become.
Since Headspace, I have tried several modalities of meditation, both guided and freeform, once or twice a day. I forbear the raised eyebrows of my family when they see me meditating in the morning because I notice heightened anxiety and reactivity when I skip it. They may not realize it, but I’m really doing them and all the people I meet that day a favor.
If you are saying to yourself “I’m too chaotic/busy/Type A to meditate,” I beg to differ; you absolutely can. Many people think the goal of mindfulness meditation is to banish thoughts. The point is to see your thoughts, but from a slight distance, without the sense of ownership and emotional attachment we usually feel towards them. That’s why it helps boost your attention span — you are paying more attention, not less, but as an observer instead of a participant.
When the thought comes up, you can notice without analyzing or judging them, as in “Yep, thinking about my boss again,” and pop right back to your focal point of choice - breathing or counting or even chanting. Eventually you get so used to doing so that fewer thoughts slip by unnoticed — those are the ones that usually cause trouble.
This part can be uncomfortable, but this is where real change happens. After all, presumably most of your life is in a non-meditative state. You’ll notice patterns in your reactions, like you get tense whenever you are running late, or don’t know anyone at a party. Then you choose your response. Maybe you talk yourself down off the ledge, by asking questions like “Is what I’m thinking really true?” “How important will this be in one year/five years?”, or if you can’t, you take a minute to breath and calm down before engaging with other humans.
I’ve heard that in the best-case scenario, when you catch yourself having a negative thought or emotion, is to be able to say, “Oh good — a learning opportunity.”
I’m not quite there yet, but I’m working on it. What about you?