Worry and Rumination

 

Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no purpose. — Eckhart Tolle

Years ago, a good friend of mine walked me through the story of her husband's heart attack—how the morning unfolded, how she found herself calling 9-1-1, how she got herself to the hospital , and how she handled the medical decisions that had to be made. These are longtime friends of ours—our age—with whom we've raised our babies, survived potty-training, planned NYC trips, and celebrated milestone birthdays. I couldn't wrap my head around how this could even happen. 

I remember listening—heartsick— as she told her story, and thinking, "I could never handle that." In my wildest imagination, I could not fathom how I would get through something so unexpected and traumatic. I tried to picture scenarios in my mind in which I would be OK, but I only came up with images of myself crumbling, unable to do the things required of me.

And yet, as my friend continued her story, I heard how—in the moment—she did handle it. It was surreal and uncomfortable, but she did the things that needed to be done. And—in her words—she found moments of profound peace, comfort, and even humor throughout the unfolding of that day and subsequent weeks. 

What I saw that day and a hundred more times since then is this:

We have precisely the resources we need in the actual moments we need them—NOT in the midst of an imaginary movie playing in our head. 

Minds—ALL minds— tell compelling, dramatic stories. That's just what they do. They worry about imagined future events. They ruminate about past events and how things could have or should have gone differently.

Then, they say things like, "I can't relax and be at peace until I get the biopsy results." Or, "I'll finally get a good night's sleep after I see for myself how my dad is doing." 

The mind pretends that worry and rumination are helpful and relevant; that's how it keeps you on the hook to keep paying attention to it. 

But here's the thing:

Your mind will keep you on the hook for as long as you're willing to engage. Minds are designed for constant, never-ending activity. They have nothing better to do than spin stories in hopes that you will pay attention to them.

Your attempt to manage, suppress, and control the mind's stories provide the energy that keeps them going. It's the gasoline on the fire, so-to-speak. 

Two of the mind's favorite stories are "It could happen because it has happened before" and "Oh, this story must be really true and important because it keeps playing over and over again." 

Every time you fall for and attempt to manage stories like these, it will feel awful.

Believe it or not, the suffering is not a cruel design flaw of the mind and body. The racing heart, the pit in the stomach, and the pressure in the chest are BRILLIANT. 

The human body is ingenious in the way that it alerts us to the fact that we are lost in an imagined, made-up scary world in our head. The sensations and stress-related symptoms in the body are there to bring you back to reality, back to the this present moment in real life. The body's shitty sensations are GIFTS. (In my coaching forum, we call them the "shitty golden tickets").

Worry and rumination are never problems on their own. They don't need to be managed, silenced, or pushed aside.

The suffering we attribute to worry and rumination is actually the result of our fighting, resisting, and attempting to control them or make them go away. 

Telling dramatic—even scary—stories is just a healthy, normal mind's activity. I think of it like a puppy chewing endlessly on a bone just for the sake of chewing. It's an activity—not a problem. 

Once the mind is free to play any movie it wants, no matter how urgent or repetitive, the resistance to it and the attempt to manage it will end. In time, the movies will begin to fade away from lack of attention.

Your worry-movies have masqueraded as "helpers" for long enough. Let the movies of worry and rumination play as often as they'd like. Notice them. Smile because you're onto them. And then let them play, freely.

When the moment arises that an actual response is needed in real life, you will be moved, guided, and lived in the moment of requirement. 

A few months ago, I was visiting my parents for our weekly breakfast. My dad collapsed on the floor quite unexpectedly. In the moment of requirement, actions were taken and decisions were made. I found myself calling 9-1-1, leading the first responders to my dad, and then lying on the floor next to him, telling him stories about Martha's Vineyard as the paramedics did their job. There were moments of deep peace, gratitude, and love. As the events of the morning unfolded, I was held. I was lived. And so was my dad. 

Chronic Hives and Other Beautiful Gifts

 

"Once you begin to heal, what you discover will not be the new you, but the real you. The you that was there all along; born with love and joy."

—Desmond Tutu

In 2018, I found myself in an unexpected season of chronic hives, accompanied by relentless anxiety and depression. There were moments I felt like my life as I knew it was over. I lost hope of ever returning to the "me" I had been for 47 years. The thoughts and stories that played in my head day and night were filled with what I often described as "gun-to-the-head terror." I was consumed by fear and hatred of my physical symptoms. My world became very small. 

Ironically, that season turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of my entire life. 

I was given an opportunity to be still and get really curious about who I was beyond the habitual, repetitive stories my mind created. 

As a lifelong perfectionist and people-pleaser, it never occurred to me to question the narratives in my head. My head was where I lived! I was constantly planning, analyzing, comparing, projecting, and figuring things out. Vigilance was the name of my game. My mind was like a sonar on a submarine, continuously scanning for what might go wrong so that I could manage and control all potential outcomes. I embodied the mantra, "If it's to be, it's up to me!"

Thankfully, a prolonged season of hives, anxiety, and depression showed up as a brilliant course-corrector. 

I was given an opportunity to learn how to live in the world rather than in my head. 

With the help of some patient and compassionate mentors, I began an excavation—an un-learning of old beliefs and patterns.  

I began to understand that all experience is filtered through my mind—that I don't experience the world as it is; I experience it as I am—through a lifetime of unquestioned beliefs and conditioning. I saw that I would never be able to pin-down any experience long enough to stake my happiness and peace in it. 

As a result, I stopped trying to manage my experience—my thoughts, feelings, emotions, and physical sensations/symptoms. 

The first thing to fall away was vigilance. It no longer made any sense to track emotional states, symptoms, thoughts, and visceral sensations. My attempt to manage them had been exhausting. 

There was a palpable, physiological shift in the midst of that surrender. 

I found myself relaxing more in the natural momentum of Life. Instead of putting my faith in my mind's interpretation of  each moment, I began to see that there was something beyond my intellect's grasp that was more trustworthy and stable.  

Then, something interesting happened. I had moments of suddenly realizing I felt joyful again. There were moments of unexpected peace and bliss.  And then moments, weeks, and even months with no hives. 

In the absence of my attempt to control life, I was being lived. Effortlessly.

I realized how long I had been under the spell of belief that my experience was THE truth rather than my mind's clumsy interpretation of it. I had been buying into the dramatic stories of what my hives meant, and what my anxiety and depression said about me. 

I had been confusing my bodily sensations of overwhelm, urgency, and fear as evidence that my mind's stories were true and real. When I felt overwhelmed about an upcoming event, I assumed that the awful, visceral sensations that accompanied the story were saying, "Yes, the story is TRUE. Now, you must do everything in your power to get control of this situation. You must avoid the overwhelming thing at all costs." 

And then, thank God, I woke up from that 48-year-old belief. 

I realized that the uncomfortable sensations of overwhelm and urgency are NEVER an indication of the truth of my mind's stories. They are never pointing to anything outside of me. They are only and ever pointing me back to the truth of who I am.

They are saying, "Hey, you! You are identifying with a grossly inaccurate, me-centered, dramatic version of reality. Come home. Come back to the truth of who-you-are. You think this is somehow on you, but it's not."

There is a space that is untouched by our mind's stories. We can't intellectualize it, define it, manage it, or control it.

But we can be open to sensing it, knowing it, and trusting it. 

In that space beyond our mind's grabby reach, our bodies relax. Our nervous systems settle. Our hands stop gripping the proverbial wheel so tightly. 

We heal. 

It took a brilliant season of hives, depression, and wicked anxiety to wake me up to that ineffable space beyond my mind's narratives.

In the discomfort, I discovered that there is far less for me to do, figure out, or manage than I once believed.

Now that I understand what the discomfort is, it is welcome.

I am beautifully held in it. 

 

I'll Be OK When...

 

Let what comes come. Let what goes go. Find our what remains. 

—Ramana Maharshi

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again. 

—Joseph Campbell

Imagine standing at the ocean's edge with your bare feet planted securely on a stretch of firm, wet sand. As the waves lap onto the beach, your feet begin to sink  into the shifting ground below you. What appeared to be a stable, reliable foundation is now washing away beneath you. 

Just like the sand at the ocean's edge, everything in our perceptual world is continuously shifting, changing, and moving. Sights, sounds, tastes, and even thoughts are in unceasing motion; as impossible to secure as the sand beneath your feet. We couldn't hold our world in place if we wanted to. 

And yet, there is a belief that we can somehow pin our security and OK-ness on things that are always in motion. Things like health, money, image, weight, relationships, and emotional states. Our minds say, "I'll be OK when my children stop struggling, when the chemo ends, when the bills are paid, or when the anxiety abates."

Somehow we know not to trust the stability of the shifting sand, but we don't know not to trust our equally precarious thoughts and beliefs. 

We fall for the myth of relief—that fleeting, seductive feeling when a problem is resolved, health improves, or a child finally finds their way. 

But like the shifting sand at the ocean's edge, relief is already falling away as soon as it is felt. Your mind will never let you stay in the story of relief for very long. 

Why?

Because, to your mind, enough is never enough. 

The mind's fundamental job is to keep itself relevant. That voice-in-your-head, the one that narrates your day and makes meaning of everything, is designed to solve problems—even if it needs to create them. 

Among the mind's favorite narratives, "I'll be OK when..." is probably its most compelling. 

That little mind is so clever and so brilliant at its job that it always keeps you on the hook for just one more achievement or milestone.

It says, "I'll be OK as soon as I have...a partner, a baby, a financial security." And then it will let you relax and breathe for just a minute before it says, "Now I'll be OK when I have a college fund for the kids, a clean bill of health, a plan for my aging parents." 

Life becomes a never-ending narrative of, "I'll finally relax when..." 

And, here's the cosmic joke: That narrative never ends. 

It can't end because that would be the end of the story-teller. It would be the death of that little voice-in-your-head whose job it is to solve problems and keep its story of you relevant.

But, there is GOOD NEWS in all of this. 

That voice-in-your-head, the one that never stops talking, does not belong to you. Its stories are not personal, and they have no relevance to who-you-are. They are a product of a lifetime of conditioning and circumstances, processed through what amounts to a simple yet incredibly efficient machine. 

YOU—that complete, uncontaminated, resilient bundle of aliveness that you were on the day you were born—are simply a space for those stories to pass through like clouds passing through a blue sky. You are the timeless, stable, expansive space in which stories arise and dissolve. You get to watch the stories without becoming identified with them. 

The story, "I'll be OK when..." is remarkably predictable, so it's simple to notice when it arises. 

Just like your refrigerator predictably cools your food and your washing machine predictably washes your clothes—your mind can be counted on 100% of the time to tell you what you need in order to relax and be OK. It's just a machine doing its job.

When that meaning-making, problem-solving machine in your head tells you what you must have in order to be OK, you can simply observe it. You can thank it for doing its job so well. And then, you can watch how quickly that story passes all on its own, allowing space for the next story to arrive on its heels. When the story is seen for what it is—a cloud passing through the sky— it loses its power.

There is a quiet space that is untouched by the mind. That space is who-you-are, and it is always OK. 

I Don't Know.

"We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace." 

—Elizabeth Gilbert

When my daughter Megan was 13 months old, we took her to visit her grandpa and two uncles—Andrew and Matthew—in Columbia, South Carolina. Shortly after we arrived at my father-in-law's home, there was a knock at the door. With Megan sound asleep in her car seat in the hall, I answered. There in front of me stood a police officer, a woman who appeared to be a minister, and two other people I did not know. 

The next few minutes remain a blur, but I distinctly remember my father-in-law, Lou, who had just lost his wife to pancreatic cancer a year earlier, crying out, "Why? Why is this happening?" His son —my brother-in-law Andrew— had drowned, caught in the undertow of the Saluda River at the age of 19. It was the day before Father's Day. 

The officer asked my husband Pete to accompany him to identify Andrew's body. After that, we did the things you do to plan a funeral. When the service was over, we sat together in alternating moments of numbness and despair. Why in the world did we lose Pete's mom and brother in a single year?

Why?

Today, I often talk with people who feel stuck in needing to understand why something awful has happened or is happening. It is as if their peace and ability to "let go" or relax is dependent on the answers to unanswerable questions. 

Why were six million Jews and five million prisoners-of-war allowed to be killed during the Holocaust? Why are human beings indiscriminately brutalized, lynched, or otherwise tortured simply because of the color of their skin? Why, today, are perfectly kind and wonderful young people targeted and made to feel broken simply because of their gender identity or sexual orientation? Why? 

I don't know. 

There are a million different experts who hypothesize a million different reasons for these things. But in truth, how do any of us really know why horrific things happen?

We are human beings living in a very human world. Since the dawn of time, there have been atrocities, injustices, and horrific, heart-shattering events. There have always been people who, because of what looks real and true in their minds, do unimaginable things to other people. 

And in the same moments as these atrocities, there have always been stories of exquisite kindness and compassion; stories of heroes brave enough to stand up for what is right at the risk of losing their reputation or life. In the midst of hatred, fear, and grief, Love has always been there, holding it all.

As I have grown more interested in what we all are beyond our bodies, minds, and psychology, I have seen the absolute wisdom and freedom in these three words: I don't know. 

I don't know why human beings do things to hurt other human beings. I don't know why babies get leukemia diagnoses or why fathers die before they get to walk their daughters down the aisle.

I don't know. 

But I do know this. Maybe we aren't meant to know some things right now (or ever). And the not-knowing has nothing to do with our ability to be completely at peace.

Believe it or not, the not-knowing is never the thing standing in the way of our peace. 

The only thing temporarily veiling our true peace in any moment is the belief in a story. The story, "I need to know why things happen" is one of our mind's favorite and most compelling narratives.

When it looks like our intellect is the thing that has gotten us this far in life, we tend to listen to it. So, we go to work figuring things out. 

But, when we have a sense of the momentum of Life that is always there—moving us forward, carrying us reliably from moment to moment—we rest in the not-knowing. We rest in the present moment, which is all we really ever have.

From a place of rest, we find ourselves naturally drawn to do the things that make sense in real-time (rather than in our imagined future). We donate money, help a friend, show up for the cancer treatment, join a peaceful protest, or lead a military combat mission. We bake a cake or plant a garden so that our joy can radiate out into a world desperate for more lightheartedness.

Our minds will never give up the search for answers to the unanswerable questions.

But, beyond our intellect, there is a space in which nothing needs to makes sense and, paradoxically, where everything does make sense. 

Thankfully, our true peace and our ability to show up in the world have nothing to do with our mind's stories and demands. 

Even in the unimaginable, we are immersed in the infinite peace and wellbeing of Life. 

I'll see you next week. 💗