The Muppets of Thought

I've been loving the abundant use of Muppet characters to personify the voices in our heads.

Earlier this month, Mindful Magazine used the Statler and Waldorf heckling duo from The Muppets to personify our Inner Critic.

My favorite animated movie Inside Out  presented its own adorable muppet-esque characters to represent five of Paul Ekman's six universal emotions: Sadness, Fear, Anger, Joy, and Disgust (leaving out Surprise).

I love this phenomenon because imagining these voices as muppets completely disarms them. In my head, there are more than a few voices who are often fully locked and loaded, ready to fire at anything that moves, like: 

The guy at the coffee shop who is laughing too loudly.
The woman at my panel discussion who wouldn't smile when I looked at her.
Anytime I get in front of more than five people to share something I know.

Any of these events can trigger the peanut gallery and the commentary rolls in:

There are other people working here, sir.
What happened to you this morning? Wait, what am I doing wrong? Why don't you like me? 
I don't know anything, and I need to get out of here before they figure it out.

These trains of thought can be incredibly powerful and completely derailing. They can impact how we respond to others (I've on more than one occasion glared at THAT guy). If we aren't careful, they run around without us even realizing it, driving us to do things that we wouldn't choose to do. We need to do some work to put them in their place.

Step 1: Notice you're having those thoughts. Creating quiet unstimulated space each day often brings thoughts to the forefront. They eagerly present themselves to your consciousness, filling any empty space you give them. This doesn't have to be anything formal. Keep your phone in your pocket for a few minutes of your bus ride, while on the loo, or while walking down the street. Get curious about what's going on up there.

So let's say we start gaining that awareness and noticing we are having those thoughts. Then what? 

My first instinct is always to fight 'em (I've got a bit of a fiery personality): 

Relax! It's not such a big deal.
Stop being so judgy and such a coward! You don't know what's going on with her.
Shut up.

There's a back, a forth, and before you know it, World War III is taking place in my head. 

Unless. Unless I...

Step 2: Imagine them as Muppets. This helps me in a couple of ways. 

One. It helps me remember my thoughts aren't me. That is, they are some separate beings that don't have to be taken too seriously, and I don't have to blame myself when they say something terrible or embarrassing. I've heard it said that the brain secretes thoughts like the mouth secretes saliva. Our thoughts are just going to keep spinning whether we like it or not, and they are going to be all sorts of crazy, so we best not get too attached to them. 

Two. Muppets are cute, and cute things are hard to take seriously. Even the grumpy ones are fuzzy and soft. So when I consider them as Muppets, I feel less annoyed at their existence. It is much easier for me to look upon them with compassion, which both defuses them and my sometimes overly aggressive reply.

This is easy enough to remember in my calmer moments, but how do I remember it during the more chaotic moments when they Muppets are on a tirade, and I can barely hear myself?  We need to train when things are relatively easeful if we most want to have access to that rational chill part of self that can laugh at our Muppets. 

Step 3: Train in the emotional off season.

Because of my more hot-headed nature, my teacher, Vinny Ferarro, prescribed me compassion meditation at a retreat last year. When I spoke of the silly annoyances I found arising through our silent practice— like the person who would walk through my mindful walking space, for instance— he suggested combating those "Muppets" gets you no where. Instead, I was told to try actively cultivating a compassionate voice. 

So I put aside my skepticism and have added repetition of the lines below into my daily practice. (Into the blank space you can insert "I", the name of a friend or family member, or even an enemy if you've filled your heart up first with some warm fuzzies.)

May _______ be happy.
May _______ be healthy.
May _______ be patient.
May _______ be peaceful.

You can adapt these lines to fill whatever quality you are trying to cultivate. When I speak them to myself in meditation, I try to notice what it feels like in my body. It turns out that even sending the wishes to others still has the bonus benefit of creating the sensation of warmth and expansiveness in myself.

That warmth and expansiveness help me keep perspective. The sensation helps me remember my thoughts are nothing but Muppets, and are best dealt with in good humor and compassion. Every now and then I can even laugh at myself and the ridiculous things they find to be worried, angry, and frustrated about. 

So to the Muppets: I hear you, loves. I hear you.

Am I legit?

When have you done enough— enough studying, training, practicing, experiencing, researching, retreating — that you are legit?

Which of us get to be the teachers of this world, and who needs to sit back and do some more learning before they even approach the front of the room?

I have been thinking a lot about these questions recently, as I step onto a new path where I am 100% a newbie teacher.

Am I legit?

The first thing I am tempted to do in the face of this question is list the experiences that "legitimize" my teacher status. My grandmother was a yoga teacher, so it's in my blood. I have been practicing yoga seriously for over ten years. I am a certified yoga teacher and did my yoga teacher training in 2010, then taught at various points for the next five years. I have been intensively studying mindfulness in schools these last few years. I have committed myself to a particular lifestyle, and practice regularly, so I have a wealth of personal experiences to draw from.

My initial reaction to this list is that it's a middle of the road to bottom of the barrel resume, by any spiritual practice standards.  I can hear voices immediately naming that "real" teachers have studied in India for decades, sat silently in ashrams for months at a time, and studied with a teacher intensively in order to enhance their knowing. Or, in the secular movement, legit teachers have created their own evidence-based programs associated with high-powered institutions and conducted years of research on their work.

There have been a number of criticisms lobbed against both yoga and mindfulness for churning out unprepared teachers who offer superficial experiences and understandings of deep and ancient traditions.  My own yoga teacher trainer, Devarshi Steven Hartman, recently disowned the term "yogi" on his Facebook page for the highly commercialized corporatized empire he self-admittedly had a hand in building. And I, too, have had that response to the Lululemon exercise yoga craze that sits on top of a deeper, more complex, whole practice. I understand much of the mindfulness I practice is distilled from a deep Buddhist tradition.  I am left to wonder where the line is between superficial bum strengthening affirmation exercises and meaningful practice?

Furthermore, I am very aware that I am still early on this path. I still struggle in the morning to stay off my cell phone from the moment I awaken. I still fight sitting on my cushion. I still say mean things and wish I didn't. So am I "allowed" to be a teacher?

A few things have helped shape my answer to this question.

As I was talking through this with a friend, she pointed out something a teacher of hers shared: Buddhists don't have a trademark on mindfulness. The same could be said for Hinduism. While Buddhism certainly created many of the amazing practices we apply to secular spaces, they are not the only one with a tradition of mind-clearing and focusing exercises. Every spiritual tradition has some element of that. I attended a Quaker college, and a major component of that school's tradition is sitting in silence until you feel moved to speak. It is quieting the body and mind to hear something deeper. That's something anyone can do, of any or no religious background, and there are a million different ways of talking about how to get there.

And yet, I still wondered if I embody my practice enough to facilitate experiences for others. Ankati Heather Day and I hosted a yoga retreat last weekend, and we had women come who had deep practices and decades of experience steeped in their own spiritual traditions, from yoga to Judaism. What happened at that weekend reminded me that sometimes the role of the teacher is simply to create space and get out of the way.

I did not teach these women anything they did not already know. I held space for them to explore that. They brought their own deep knowledge to the table and together we co-created understanding.  I was transparent about my intimidation around the wealth of knowledge around me, and then again about the deep gratitude I had for them bringing their whole selves forward. Part of learning to trust myself as a teacher is trusting others to get what they need from an experience.

On the opposite end of that spectrum, I sat on a wellness panel this past week representing mindfulness alongside women from Harvard, Mass General Hospital, and a prestigious independent school. We were there to share our knowledge with parents who wanted to learn more about wellness in schools. I found I had things to say. And my perspective was valuable. Even if I wasn't conducting research as my fellow panelists were, I had experiences of kids practicing mindfulness to draw upon, and could speak to its beautiful messiness and complexity. I had my data from years of reading and studying. I had personal anecdotes. I found my voice had value there, too, even if it wasn't from the top of a well-established institution. I didn't have to be able to say all of the things, just the things I knew.

We need yoga teachers who move us safely through asana and don't talk about flattening our bums or abs the whole time. We need mindfulness teachers who have sat with themselves and fully understand what it feels like to be in a space of equanimity. We need them both to be able to give us lots of metaphors, cues, anatomy lessons, and data, that explain these practices so we can find something that resonates for ourselves. We need well-trained practitioners who have committed to living their respective practices.

And we need them to be honest and humble, recognizing both their own strengths and limitations. We need them to be able to say when they don't know, and come out of postures when their backs hurt, and apologize when they make mistakes.  And we need them to trust us to take what we need from them and leave the parts that do not resonate. We need them to know they don't know everything about everything, and yet their experience and perspective still has value.

I strive to be that kind of teacher.  I am legit in that I can offer what I know and have learned, and admit there is much I still haven't experienced. I know there are teachers who have trained in their respective fields for much longer than I, and they offer a perspective from a different place on their path. But that doesn't mean that I what I offer is not valuable. So I continue on this path as student and teacher. But it is only through my honesty with what I do and don't know that I legitimize myself.

I aspire to the confidence of the sage MC Hammer's line,"Too legit, too legit to quit."

Gif credit to: Time Magazine

My deepest fear: Manual transmission.

I am currently engaging in one of the most terrifying stunts I have ever undertaken in my adult life:

I am learning to drive a stick shift.

The first time I got behind the wheel in the abandoned parking lot, I was literally shaking with fear. The shaking has not stopped in the month that I have been puttering around town stalling out, rolling backwards, and, on rare occasion, seamlessly shifting.  I take deep breaths and hum to myself.  Sometimes I have to have my boyfriend drive us back because I am too riled up and need to decompress.

People have fallen into two camps when I seek public support for this feat during various conversations and on social media platforms.  On the one hand, they are supportive and congratulatory. They say things like,

Or they tell me a story about how hard/impossible it was for them to learn it, and good on me (thanks guys!)

On the other hand, they say things like,

"It's really not that hard."

and

"I had to learn driving from one side of the country to the other. You'll be fine. (subtext: stop being a weenie)"

The problem with this side of the argument is that it ignores what is actually making driving this car so hard. They're probably right that the mechanics of driving a stick shift are totally manageable. Anyone who can simultaneously pat their head and rub their belly should be able to get this down eventually. But that is not really my biggest stumbling block.  It is my FEAR of driving the car that is so hard to overcome, justified or not (though I would argue that in a hilly city like Portland, the very real chance of rolling back into someone makes it justified.)

For those of you who can't possibly understand my terror, I ask that you suspend disbelief for one minute and imagine yourself doing something that is, in fact, very scary for you. Maybe putting your head in a lion's mouth. Maybe it's working with twenty-four bonkers middle schoolers by yourself. Whatever that scenario may be for you is what I face every time I get behind the wheel.  The heart pounding, muscle-shaking, hard-breathing is my physiology reminding me that I am ready to fight or flee. The fear is real.

To tell you the truth, I was kind of hoping that I would be able to escape this kind of fear when I decided to dedicate my life to mindfulness and yoga. Don't you, get, like, a free pass from being human when you're studying this stuff? Shouldn't you just be able to breathe yourself into a blissful calm and approach all scenarios with that grace and centeredness? Perhaps my set point is particularly low, and I just need A LOT of work to get there, but in the meantime I'm constantly bumping up against my humanity in all of its glory.

There was one article in Outside magazine that I recently read that gave me hope. It was about the great stuntman Felix Baumgartner who was getting ready to jump from 24 miles above the earth for the highest BASE jump ever. However, he was stymied from completing the feat, despite his impressive stuntman record, because of his overwhelming fear of one aspect: his spacesuit. He would put it on and panic.  It got so bad that he had to be slowly coached into wearing it, one body part at a time, by Michael Gervais, sports psychologist to the elite athletes (Baumgartner did eventually complete the jump successfully in October of 2012). This guy is no stranger to death-defying stunts, and surely had managed to get his fear in line on many occasions before. But this suit was really an obstacle for him, and he had to do a lot of work to overcome it.

My point is that we all have fears, even crazy stuntmen, and when we are confronted with them, we have to figure out how to manage that fear.

Today I texted my boyfriend, proudly reporting that I had driven around the block. By myself. I literally took a right, and another right, and a third before gliding back into our parking spot. But what a relief it was to do it!  It wasn't the driving I was proud of. I was proud because I sat with that nervousness, breathing and observing my body challenging me to take off running from this stressful scenario. I sat until my blood stopped pumping so hard through my veins, so I could turn on the ignition and make the loop.

I still (not-so)-secretly hope that we will be gifted a new car with automatic transmission (anyone trying to get rid of theirs?) I am in no way enjoying this process, as I don't really like driving in the first place, and there are lots of extra steps to think about now. But I am trying. And I am proving to myself I can do scary things. I guess that might be worth it.

The Trees Don't Care

Chewonki

The Trees

The trees do not care about
   your voice quaking when you speak in public
   that flap of skin that dangles from your upper arm
   the unanswered emails piling up in your inbox.

They sigh only in response to
   the wind.

Nor do they care about
   the countless hours you've sat in meditation
   the rugged mountains you've summited
   the "A" you received on your Spanish midterm sophomore year.

They applaud only in response to
    the wind.


One of my biggest fears is to become a Spiritual Egoist. You know the type. They may have an abundance of culturally appropriated items— bindis, mala beads, henna ink — adorning their body. They may speak to you in Sanskrit, have a spiritual name, and end every exchange with "Namaste."  Every yoga class is an opportunity to show off their press handstand, and every conversation becomes a time to share stories of how much gratitude they experienced after spending time in India, with those who have so little. They are conspicuous because they lack authenticity. They are "so far long along their spiritual journey" that they see no way to learn from the voices and experiences of people around them.

Most of us in this community have some of these elements in our lives. After all, cliches only become trite after overuse, but are first rich nuggets of truth. The elements alone are not what make us inauthentic. For some, they are deeply meaningful displays of who we are. A close friend of mine was given a new name after a powerful ceremony, and to her that embodies who she is. I see nothing wrong with that. Another friend lives in India half the time because it is there that she feels most fulfilled. I, myself, have a set of mala beads that I wore around my wrist from my yoga teacher training, imbued with the love of all the yogis in my class. It is when we use these things to pump ourselves up, to shore up our identities as spiritual people, that we've gone astray.

I had to catch myself in these moments of egoism this past week when I spent four days with thirty amazing educators at a Teachings In Mindful Education (TIME) retreat at Chewonki, an environmental education organization an hour outside of Portland. There, we were invited to explore self care and mindfulness in a community of teachers from up and down the East Coast. Having spent the last year and half studying mindfulness in education, and implementing programming in my school, I had to hold back from jumping in on lectures and answering questions. I knew the answers! I wanted to tell everyone what I knew!  In truth, I also wanted everyone else to know I knew.

When I noticed myself seeking this, I recoiled in disgust. I was being that person. I was unavailable to hear from other participants because I was so eager to share with everyone what I thought.  I wanted affirmation. And I wanted it, I came to realize, because of insecurity. I am about to embark on a new adventure, providing mindfulness education to young people and teachers around New England. In those moments, I needed assurance from others that I was qualified. That I was someone they would trust to bring mindfulness to their school. 

But spending my energy showing off left me unavailable to take in what was being offered right then. In order to really soak in that experience, I had to be present for it. And in fact, in order to really offer anything to others, I needed to move my ego back and heart forward. Indeed, the moment when I felt most useful to anyone involved saying very little. It was a deep listening exercise when I was tasked with hearing someone's dilemma, without fixing, critiquing, or judging, but just listening deeply.  It was being present in that moment for this brave soul that I felt most skillful. In not trying to prove myself, I had proved myself. The more I let go of trying to be something specific, and was receptive to what was there, the more I was to able to offer and soak in. 

It is not possible to get rid of ego (Unless you are enlightened, I hear. And then, well, congrats). The more I berate myself for this part of me, the part that puffs up in front because of the insecurity it hides, the smaller I feel. But if I can look gently at that part of myself. If I can acknowledge and hold space for, rather than judge, the insecurity and the bravado that springs forth, then I can offer that to others.

The most valuable advice I got this past week from one of my teachers (who got it from one of his), was, "Get on the cushion and love the sh** out of yourself." He meant this for all parts of ourselves, and particularly those that we have not made peace with, the scared parts and conceited parts. I like to imagine those parts as muppets (a la Inside Out) who have their own agenda and don't need to be taken too seriously nor held too harshly. They just need a little space and some love.

I started with a fairly critical view of those trying to inflate themselves in the spiritual community. In fact, we have seen the heavy consequences of this with guru-types who have built themselves up for a big fall when their fallibility becomes obvious (John Friend took out my favorite style of yoga, Anusara, on his way down. Now it's hard to find people who teach it because no one is willing to affiliate with it anymore). However, it does me no good to begrudge them for their overinflated sense of importance, nor their fears that they are likely hiding underneath that. The more work I do to reconcile those parts of me in myself, the more I can hold others with that kindness. Likely the disgust I feel for them has much to do with the disgust I feel for that part of myself, and toning it all down may help open me up.

So can I be like the trees? Can I hold all the parts of myself, and all the parts of others, without acclamation or condemnation? With compassion? Even this Spiritual Egoist? I sure hope to learn.

Keeping life in three dimensions

As a teacher, I relied heavily on my computer. I used my computer as a tool to collaborate with other teachers that were in the same room with me, or supplemental to late night phone calls. I had it connected to the smartboard, and used it to organize class periods and share information with my students. I communicated with families and other staff throughout the school in great volume through this amazing tool. 

But I also spent the majority of my time interfacing with my colleagues and students face-to-face.  I hugged their bodies, ranging from pint-sized to ginormous, as they entered my door each morning. I absorbed their joys, sorrows, and frustrations as they grappled with the challenging task of learning. I smelled the sweet middle-school funk each day as they crowded into my room after gym. Everything was loud and vibrant and tangible. 

Since starting my new career, I have found myself staring at my screen for hours at a time. I understand this is not radical for many people. I understand this is "normal." But my recent conversion to this role of Computer Worker has given me insight into what it means to be facing a computer for hours at a time. 

I am staring at a glowing screen and communicating through my fingers pressing plastic keys. Conversations are silent. Emails never quite capture sentiment, emoticons and all. I can't feel the people to whom I'm "talking," nor smell them (for better or worse). Everything it, literally, flat.  It is amazing how much time one can spend in two dimensions. 

And on top of the work elements, there is so much socialization that happens through my computer and phone. Text messages, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (I just signed onto that and it's completely overwhelming). What a beautiful curse to be able to share everything in our lives with others. What a strange compulsion to want to. I read once that we get a dopamine hit from our pleasure center every time we get a like, an email response, or a comment on our wall. I definitely notice a little rush from these electronic affirmations. 

The crux of this is that, however good it may feel, it is nothing compared to the hit we get in the three dimensional world. And when we limit ourselves to our screens, we limit our ability to absorb the energies of others, to smell the salty breeze that flows in through our windows, to taste the sweet and tart juices of the apple as we take a bite (I am embarrassed to admit the number of times I've eaten while futzing around on the computer). I don't again want to miss one minute of the awe-inspiring sunset as we cruise across the gentle waters out to Peaks Island because I had to send one final email. 

There's nothing evil about the electronic world, and many of us have to learn to work with it. In this strange new world, I know that I need to be intentional about time away, about leaving my phone in my purse or (gasp) at home. I need to stand up from my computer and chat with the person next to me at the coffee shop every so often. I need to be intentional about when I engage, and when I put it away. 

Because this world is too rich to spend all my time in two dimensions.

Off the mat, into the world.

It is embarrassing to admit how many years it took me to realize that contemplative practice is not just for that time on the mat or cushion. I loved the stretching and movement of yoga and the centering of sitting. I loved the momentary respite from doing and worrying that (sometimes) came during that time. I loved the fleeting peace.

When I first found yoga, it was because I had been a gymnast for twelve years and wanted to continue challenging my body. Under Haverford College gym's buzzing lights, yoga was for playing with postures that came easily to my limber teenage body. It was purely physical, though I found myself enjoying the lying down part that came at the end. Even after I grew curious and started exploring the other limbs of yoga, I still was limited to those moments and the delicious afterglow.

The problem, I learned, was the afterglow only lasted so long. As I began teaching years later, that would be only through my first period of class of wily middle schoolers (if I was lucky).  By lunch time, I was already grasping for the equanimity that seemed so available on my bike ride to work, when I soaked in the sunrise and noted the birds twittering happily along the roadside. If I did nothing else, by 4:15 I found myself flat on my back across the desks wondering where I had gone wrong. I thought I needed to go to more yoga classes, to sit longer, to dig deeper into the literature. How many yoga classes or meditation sessions would it take to keep my sanity? Twice a day?? Four hours at a time??? I couldn't possibly do it.

Luckily, somewhere along the way I learned that I don't have to. It is the short moments of awareness throughout the day- a deep breath as I glance up from my computer, feeling my feet as I walk to the grocery store, listening to the children play in the splash pool- that reconnect me to my center. As Chris McKenna, program director of Mindful Schools, helpfully reminded me again and again this past year, "Short moments of awareness, repeated many times, become autonomic and continuous." Though my last year was a challenging one in the classroom, it was activating these mini refuges for myself- closing my eyes for a breath when the hallway felt particularly chaotic, waiting a moment to talk to the student who had just detonated before my eyes- that allowed me to respond as I wanted. I found an iphone app that would periodically remind me to breathe. I glanced out at the sky to gain perspective on the tiny classroom world.

The more formal and lengthy practices are critical, to be sure. I personally need an half hour of sitting a day to maintain my ballast that rights me when I get knocked down by the world. I do yoga to invite openness, work out stress, and build strength in my body. These more concentrated practices give me something to reconnect with in those shorter moments. They provide depth and stamina. They provide wisdom. But I can't just stay there, and I can't just rely on basking in the afterglow. Remembering to connect to my anchor throughout the day is what makes the day more livable.

So as I step off my mat and into the world, I actively seek moments
to listen
to see
to smell
to taste
to breath
to anchor.

On the Eve of the Eve of My Departure

Warning: it's about to get mushy.

Pull out the metaphors, folks. It's a no holds barred scenario- transition time. We need all the wisdom and cliches we can gather to make sense of all that come with any huge transition, and this one is a doozy.

I have been in DC for five years, the longest I've ever been anywhere since childhood after a series of transitory seasonal jobs that defined my 20s. In DC, I've grown magnificent relationships with my colleagues through the blood, sweat, and tears of trying to tame the wild beasts of the middle school classroom. Just as deep were some of those relationships with aforementioned beasts, who taught me more about myself than I would have liked to know if given the choice, but this ultimately led to such profound growth. At home, I was invited into a wild web of friendships and found myself loved from all sides by musicians, artists, writers, DJs, nurses, do-gooder lawyers, environmentalists, and many other world-enhancing folks.

Because of this radiant extended family, I scaled mountains in California, painted myself into an art show, played music on stage, immersed myself in yoga, completed triathlons, and handed off eighth grade poetry to author Rebecca Skloot. I found myself in hysterics watching friends attempt to teach the worm on New Years Eve, crying alongside them when parents passed on, and sitting contently with them in the woods in deep meditation.

I do not try to push down the waves of sadness that overcome me as I hug my coteacher for the last time, as another's children refuse to leave the car because they don't want me to leave, as I sit amongst a going away brunch surrounded by the very chaotic joy I have chosen to forsake.

Instead, I breath it in deeply and feel the sadness push against my chest and pool in my belly. I notice the moment it rises into my throat, then swirls and falls away, giving me access to peace once again. Having the luxury of time during this move has allowed me to observe how emotion moves through me. Because of the time to practice sitting, I think, the waves have been swells that come and pass, rather than roiling tsunamis that crash overhead and bury me in despair. I am not anguished, but gently melancholic.

My gratitude sits solidly in the midst of this, a rock to find solace on as I ride the waves that come from letting go of something so dang good. "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard," said Winnie the Pooh. I feel that so deeply, on this eve.  How truly lucky I am.

So I leave with all of the emotions, for as I look back, I, too, look forward. I will return to the land on which I was raised- of pine trees, craggy peaks, snowy streets, and salty ocean air. My family will sit an hour or two south and long time friends down the street. There's a two bedroom apartment in the West End of Portland waiting with my name on the lease. My sweetheart is coming with me. Other than that, there are many unknowns yet to be penciled in.

When describing the impending birth of his child, my friend Mark noted, "It's like we're standing at a trailhead and it's really foggy. Everyone keeps describing the steep beautiful mountains behind the fog, and we know they are there, but we can't see them. We are about to go on an epic hike, and we're excited, but we don't really know what it going to be like." As I walk towards the next chapter in my life, I feel similarly.

On the eve of the eve of my departure, what is happening is this: I sit amongst some half filled boxes in an echoing room, reflect back, imagine forward, and land here. I breathe in. I breathe out. A helicopter groans overhead. I yawn. I breathe in. I breathe out. Everything else has gone by or is yet to be, and so I give thanks for this moment too.

Now what?

There's nothing better at bringing you back to the real world after a week-long retreat than an indecipherable email from your incompetent land management company claiming your house owes "nearly $1000" (apparently they are unclear on the exact amount) from some time over the past 2 years of it being inhabited (with the full ledger attached) and requiring we "send send" a check right away.

After one week of retreat, of sitting in silence for 2 1/2 days, of listening to profound talks and inspiring lessons, there was only one response.

I had to rapidly shoot off a mouthy email to my roommates: This email is f***ing insane!"  I only realized aforementioned management company was still looped into the email chain as I watched "sending" repeat on the bottom of my screen.  I haven't enabled undo send on my email yet(put that on my to do list), so my rapid thumb-punching had zero impact on the progress of the transaction.  It was done.

Oops.  

Mindful Erica= 0.  World= 1.

   

I spent a few minutes post-send swallowing a huge lump back in my throat and enduring waves of panic. 'I was in super ninja mindfulness training camp and THIS is my first move back in the world???'  I couldn't believe it.  My head started to spin.  'I want to teach this to people?  I'm an idiot!   The oldest mistake in the book!! Gahhhh!!'  And on and on until...

"Now what?" 

 The question came to me.  The same question I had spent cultivating in the hours and hours of meditating from the week before. Okay, so I screwed up.  What happens next?  With that question I noticed my mind pause.  And so I asked again. And again. Each time I asked my mind slowed for a moment and I noticed breath. The chatter of folks around me. The hum of the bus wheels churning against pavement.  

"Now what?"  

I wrote an apology email to the management company for my message born from frustration.  My roommates were delighted at my faux pas and wrote back in glee.  My mom laughed with me as I noted the great irony of the situation.  

It was an unskillful response, no doubt.  My mindfulness was a bit delayed out of the gate.  But the, "Now what?" let me recognize where I was and stop the story I was making up, so I could clearly see what was actually happening next.  So that I could choose a skillful response.  

Mindful Erica= 1/2?  

The Human Mirror

I left teaching at my current school for many reasons.  Mostly, I didn't like the way I was feeling emotionally on a day-to-day basis, despite all the self-care strategies I was using.  I was sleeping well, eating well, exercising, and meditating in the mornings.  I still left at the end of the day feeling ragged.  My Sundays were still spent with a heavy lump in my chest pouring over lesson plans and student work for the coming week.  I was working really hard for my happiness, but it just felt...bad.

I felt like I needed some time away from the classroom, so I started constructing a vision of an alternative life as an outside provider of mindfulness, or tutoring, or teaching yoga, or monitoring a rock wall.  I imagined coaching willing participants through yoga poses and meditations.  I imagined waking up on Sundays and taking leisurely runs without the strain of Monday looming.  I imagined coming home on a Thursday night and staying awake long enough to see the darkness of night.  I imagined feeling peace.  It felt...good.

But then, as fate/well-meaning mothers would have it, my mom forwarded me a job posting for teaching middle school English at an expeditionary learning school in Portland.  One of the best in the country.  Exactly the role I filled at my old school.  It was too perfect.  I had to apply.  I had to get on a plane to interview.  I had to be offered the job.  I had to accept it.

All of this with so little thought, but lots of dedication, to the cause.

Until things started to get shaky.  My certification that we were all waiting on was taking forever.  When it came through, I was missing 12 English credit hours.  I spent 24 hours straight (I didn't sleep that night) wracking my brain about how I could take 4 classes in the next two months. There are online self-paced classes.  I could study every spare minute and eek it out.  I could do it. But I can't.

As I agonized over this decision, I bounced it off of friends near and far.  They had so many suggestions and words of encouragement.  Can't you long-term sub?  Can't they work something out? You can push through this sumer and get those credits in!  I found myself growing angry with them.  No, no, and no.  It's a big bureaucracy.  There are no loopholes.  I can't do that much work while traveling and moving.

In fact, my primary response to this whole situation was rage.  Rage at the injustice of it all.  I have a certification, a master's degree, and five years of teaching in the very role they are seeking to fill. You're saying I'm not qualified?  This is how the system works?  A first year teacher straight out of school would be a better fit?  I could not accept it.

Until.

Until I explained the whole situation to a friend over the phone, who stated simply, "Well, it sounds like you just don't want to do it."

Huh. I hadn't really fully digested that possibility.  Maybe I just don't want to do it.  My primary emotion was anger around the absurdity of it all, not disappointment at not getting to teach next year.  I was frustrated with my friends for trying to fix the situation. Maybe I didn't want it fixed.

Until my friend provided that mirror for me, I couldn't see clearly what I really wanted.  My vision was clouded by the perfection and ease of the possibility of working at that reputable school.  By the knowing that I would be great in that role, and the school could really use me.  By the security of moving with a job and salary lined up.  These are all incredibly valuable truths.

But maybe not the only Truth.

There are people who believe the universe, or God, helps us align with our true calling.  Or that, "Way Opens," according to the Quakers.  I've never really settled into any particular belief system without my fierce skepticism quickly tackling the idea and wrestling around with it, but I also never fully walked away from this line of thought.   It is comforting to think that perhaps it wasn't meant to be in a grander sense, and that the universe has other plans for me.  I don't know if it even matters if that's the real truth if it serves me.  And the universe did seem to be listening on this one.

Moments after I had mentally and emotionally let go of the prospect of teaching, my dear friend announced to me over chat that she was coming back to Maine to lead yoga retreats.  In less than half an hour, we had the seed of a business plan.

I don't yet know how this is all going to unfold.  There is a slight chance the school will get back to me with a work around.  The dreams with my yoga lady friend are still just dreams.  But I feel more at peace than I have through this whole process.

Our emotions serve as important cues that we are quick to ignore in the face of logical choices.  My ire, instead of disappointment, was an important nuance that I couldn't see at the time until someone came and saw it for me.  I didn't see my friends' questions and suggestions as support because I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to solve the problem.  Sometimes we need others to help us more clearly see our own path.  If we don't like what they say, that's information to collect and interpret.  If we resonate with their beliefs, that's also information to ponder.

So to all my mirrors: I thank you.

Mindful Schools Student Evaluation

This was my favorite part that you can't see on my first infographic:

Want to understand Baltimore? Ask an eighth grader...

I made the mistake of watching videos of the riots in Baltimore in my classroom this morning. For someone trying to maintain peace and equanimity within the context of the (now seemingly) minor chaos that is my school day, tuning into major chaos that has erupted just north of D.C. was unwise. It took more than a few deep breaths to bring myself back from the fear, sadness, and anger that filled me. As we exchanged official documents and computers for my students to test on, my assistant principal and I remarked how odd it felt to ask kids to test when there was so much heightened emotion from the last few days. But what was to be done?

The conversations started bubbling up organically even before testing began...the four boys in the back of the room, frequently jumping off the walls, huddled to share what they had seen on the news in homeroom...a couple of students passing in the hallway from lunch stopped, and we talked about our observations and concerns...

We needed to talk about it. To wonder and worry collectively about it. To make sense of it.

When it comes to talking about issues like the death of Freddie Gray, I try to find my students solid sources of information, ask them prompting questions, and then listen. I try to listen not just with my mind, but with my heart. As a Caucasian teacher who works with primarily African American students, I am keenly aware how little I understand their experiences of the world in the context of their racial identity. Furthermore, for those who come from single-parent homes and resource-deprived neighborhoods, my understanding is even more limited. Their perspectives on their own lives, as well as the events that impact our community, are valuable. So I listen.

When my crew, my small advisory group of eleven, came together, there was plenty to listen to. They all had watched videos, seen TV, and/or talked with their parents about the events that had occurred. Most were dismayed that Freddie Gray had died in the custody of police with so little information around his death. They acknowledged the anger of the young men destroying businesses and cars while chiding them for their violence. They recognized that there are bad police and good police.  They called for mentorships and opportunities for deprived neighborhoods. They proposed some sort of racism sensitivity training. They spoke with all the nuance and courage you would hope from national news outlets, that instead insist on flattening the issue into click bait.

When one student had identified racism as a major issue, another responded, "We should make all the racist white people be slaves, and see how that feels." Many students attacked this notion as ludicrous ("slavery is so over," pointed out one young man). However, I thought there was something powerful in that statement. While slavery was an extreme example, the truth is that there is a need for people with racist beliefs to develop empathy for people of other races. In fact, there is a need for all of us to understand the experiences of others who have different perspectives of our own.

And to do that, we need to listen. We need to listen with our ego aside. With our defenses down. With our hearts open.

Fight or flight.

Sometime this past fall, my students became my enemies.  I had to fight them to get them to learn anything.  They were rude, disrespectful, ungrateful, and unkind.   They talked back, talked over, lied, and threw tantrums.  They needed my help, but refused to listen when I tried to support them.  The only thing consistent about them was their irrationality.  

Furthermore, my workload was unmanageable.  Grading and planning and teaching and reporting shrunk my personal time to nothing. I hated weekends where I was scribbling lesson plans on Saturday mornings and responding to emails late Sunday evening.  I loathed the frequent late week nights required of me to help families in their search for a best fit high school. Every email asking me for something else made my skin crawl.

Was it true?  Sure.  

Was it the only thing that was true?  Absolutely not.  

This year, I had to decide if my work was to be around changing the circumstances or changing the narrative I had constructed around them.  

It is not always true that we must abandon ship at the slightest hint of dissatisfaction, as our culture suggests.  We currently elevate the pursuit of happiness as the key to life.  Get a new cell phone every two years.  A new car.  A new marriage.  A new job.  Life can have the feeling of being disposable.

However, throughout history, people have endured, and thrived in, the most horrific of circumstances.  Even when they cannot change them, they have managed to find happiness in the darkest of spaces. Perhaps most famous mentor on this topic is Victor Frankl, a German psychologist and Holocuast survivor, who said, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”  He noticed in the concentration camps that there were those who died from the psychological burden, but also noticed there were those who were able to survive.  In his eyes, the difference was perspective; it was the story these people told themselves that most mattered.

Now, least you think I am comparing my teaching experience to being in a concentration camp, I want to assure that I am not.  In fact, I teach at an incredibly life-affirming school.  Many of the complaints teachers cite for burn out- lack of support, lack of agency, test-centricity, boredom, isolation-- are not the issues which I have faced.  The school is highly collaborative, the professional community is smart and loving, and the curriculum is ours to generate and mold as we deem necessary.

Despite this, I have found myself inching towards the door, a glance cast permanantly back in wonder that I would even consider leaving.  After all, if I can't survive such a teaching utopia, with so many parts that I love, how can I trust this urge to move on?  How do I know I will not always be slightly dissatisfied, and I just need to dig deeper?  I just need to sit longer, sleep better, exercise more-- really amp up the self care-- and dig back into the work itself, of challenging young minds to explore the world through text.  

Could I just change the story?  After all, I created a narrative of burn out for myself.  

Furthermore, it is hard to escape this belief that I'm a mindfulness failure.  Shouldn't real mindfulness ninjas be able to sit with anything and maintain peace and equanimity?  In recognizing these stories I have created, shouldn't I just be able to sit with those thoughts and move on?  

If I HAD to stay, I probably could do all these things and find ways of sustaining.  But I also have the freedom to choose a different situation.  Perhaps something where I don't have to work so hard to change the story because the reality presents fewer challenges.  Or maybe the challenges are just different ones that I want to tackle, rather than shirk from.   

I have always said teaching middle school provides unlimited "opportunities" to practice mindfulness.  It's a great training ground for noticing my own way of being when challenged.   But perhaps it's okay to go down a level to a place where the obstacles are not so constant and demands so not rigorous. Perhaps a move made in self-preservation is not failure but an opportunity to grow in a different way.  

After five years of teaching at my school, I have decided to move on.  Interestingly, in doing so, my narrative shifted naturally. Suddenly I felt so grateful for the care my students could muster for one another at unexpected moments.  I saw their brilliance and appreciated their struggle to become fully formed people in a world that doesn't always treat them kindly. I saw their desire to learn, and frustration when they felt they couldn't, clearly again.  I saw their beauty.  

And the work seemed to ease up.  I remembered to set time limits and say enough was enough.  I got excited about learning how to engage students more deeply in the process of grappling with complex text.   And I extended myself to pursue projects that I felt most excited about--teaching mindfulness to anyone who would have me in their classroom.

In the end, it took letting go of my position to shift my narrative.  I reconnected with my deep love for my students.  I found more forgiveness.  I felt  capable and effective again.  These were all things that were there throughout the year too, but weren't as much a part of the prevailing story I had constructed.  I am now weaving them back through, even as I prepare to depart.

I have wondered if this means I should stay.  Maybe I just said it was unbearable to justify leaving, and now I have proven myself wrong.  But that unease this year gave me the freedom to explore other opportunities and reinvision a life where I can give more to the world. I can be a better version of myself.   So I will still move forward in pursuit of growth, while soaking in the new warmth towards what is true now.  And I am grateful for it all.  

Back on the Wagon.

It's been a long time since I've written.

During that time, my aspirations to become a mindfulness ninja slowly deflated into a limp plastic mass that I would trip over every once in awhile.   I immediately started missing office hours for my Mindful Schools training, fell behind in reading and weekly video viewing, and most discouraging, couldn't find the strength to get up and sit in the morning.  While I started the year sitting with my eighth grade class twice a week, and found some buy in, as the semester wore one it was pushed out by the intensive high school search process, until it became a footnote we would squeeze in every now and then.  I began to wonder if I had put too much faith in this practice.  If I had overhyped it in my mind into something it could never be, in reality.   There was too much life getting in the way.

It is amazing how easy it is to feel like life is happening to you.  Like we don't create it for ourselves, but someone else is making us do it.  In my last post from October, I reflected on how caught up in education crisis culture I felt, and I vowed to make more time to do the things that I wanted to do. But even that was doing.  I did run, and have dinner with friends, and go to the gym, and take parkour classes, and climb.  I did get away on weekends.  All of that making space for myself filled my life with goodness, but also left me feeling perpetually on the verge of crashing and burning.  I can't just balance out too much work by adding too much play.

Indeed, it wasn't until Christmas break when everything ground to a halt that I could even start digging back into the annals of fascinating video chats with neuroscientists and useful teaching methods. It wasn't until then that I reset and recommitted to my seated meditation each morning.   It wasn't until then that I remembered, if not for the first time, that I am the creator of my own life.

For the past 28 days (according to my mindfulness timer app), I have restarted my sitting and gratitude practice.  I made time for them because I need them to appreciate the rest of my life.  These practices of awareness and reflection seem to actually change my experience of each day.  To slow it all down.  To experience moments within the busy-ness.

My students are studying world religion right now, and we just covered Buddhism.  The Buddha spent six years on his quest to obtain enlightenment, and vowed to continue that process of retreat throughout his life, taking 3 months of the year, and a 3 times throughout the day, to withdraw into himself.  To know.  It is all too easy to get swept up in every day life.  The good and the challenges.  No matter how many minutes I logged in August, if I don't make space in January, I am operating at a deficit.  I need the moments throughout the day, and the longer moments throughout the year, to withdraw.

Not only do we need space to turn inward, in order to connect outwardly, but we need to cultivate the sweetness in life.  Just recently Chris McKenna, one of my mindfulness teachers, reminded me of this.  Because of our negativity bias, we perceive everything as a threat, a vestigial response to a formerly oft-threatening environment filled with predators.  Basically, we are wired to not get dead, and are hypervigilant about anything that might lead us to that fate.  Conversely, the good things in our life didn't require this fine attunement, because they didn't require reflexive responses in order to get them.  So, in order to soak in a brilliant sunset, a good meal, a luxurious bath, or a moment of quiet, we need to enhance the experience on purpose.  We need to bring our attention to that moment and grow it.

I begin the process again.  Of re-remembering the things I've had to continually relearn. Because what's the point of living if I'm not there to appreciate it?