Waking Up at Work

I decided to take a slightly different approach these last two weeks. Instead of settling on a specific regular action done continuously throughout the day, I decided to focus on one activity during a portion of my lunch break. In this case I chose a belly-centered meditation.

The method specifically is this:

Each day, around and after lunch, I spend 15 minutes concentrating on my perceptual center, two inches below and inward relative to my belly button.

The specific location of concentration is called different things by different people in many traditions: Kath, Hara, Tan T’ien, one-point, and more. It is a very important meditation in my life, and useful for disidentifying so heavily with my thoughts, and going a bit more deeply into my body. It was a perfect choice for work.

The most challenging part of this whole thing was finding a space to meditate where I would not be interrupted. I did end up finding a good spot, but in case someone from work reads this, I am choosing not to divulge its location. I will most likely utilize it again.

What I noticed right away was that after these meditations came some of the most full and present moments I have ever had at work … EVER! My perspective on my workplace was certainly altered as a result of this method.

An unexpected result of this was that it also gave me a clear view of how powerful a simple 15-minute meditation can be. The sense of clarity that stayed with me was remarkable. I also found it interesting to be able to watch my familiar sense of self begin to solidify in my psyche as I began to go back to my tasks post meditation.

I also met a lot of personal resistance with this method. The past two weeks at work had some fun projects in them. Some that I kind of wanted to keep doing instead of taking a break for “boring old meditation.” One day I put it off and then completely forgot to do it later! 

I am paying attention to this behavior in general, because it appears to remain a consistent theme. I love the term “inertia” regarding habitual patterns of action like this. There is an “inert” quality to my ego. If it is lazy, it wants to stay lazy. If it is active, it feels the need to stay active. Whatever it thinks I am, it takes that to be true and wants to keep me doing that.

To deal with such an inert ego getting in the way of what is really happening in the moment, I feel that one or two meditations a day, are very helpful. However, there appears to be a great deal of benefit practicing a more consistent awareness method throughout the day, such as those I have practiced in previous entries.

Before I get into this entry’s method, I have to face a reality. It takes me two weeks to complete a posting. It just does. It’s taken me two weeks to do each of the last four entries. After one week I feel like I have just gotten started, and there is no time to process what has happened. So, that is that, I now am on a two week cycle with this blog … POOF!

Also, because I have been doing WUAW for a while now, I have started to notice some inertia around the whole process. The honeymoon is over. I am resisting, feeling bored, wanting to try something different. There is a little kid inside of me that doesn’t want to have to write in a journal.

This is when things start to get interesting.

Folks who know me well, know that this is where I struggle. For anyone familiar with the Enneagram, I am a Seven. So, in an effort to move through my habitual patterning, I am going to continue with the blog, as I find it beneficial to my life…. POOF!

On to the method!

Winter had settled in, a new year was upon us, and my body wanted to wake up. So I decided to incorporate this realization into a method. Thus the stretching method was born.

It goes thusly:
Every fifty minutes, I take a five-minute stretch break, doing the stretch of my choice.

This was a great method! And a surprisingly challenging one as well. I was faced with what felt like a triple set of inertias: One, though my body wanted to get some life flowing through it, it was not wanting to move that much. Two, psycho-emotionally I was resisting the experience of “waking up” so to speak (there’s that kid again who just wants to sleep in… I continue to wonder about him). And three, I just wanted to “get on” with the work-day, and not be bothered with things like staying present and in the moment. I was a wanting to go with the status quo of what was happening.

One of the most valuable things that I have learned from The Diamond Approach is in regards to resistance and inertia. I am so happy that I feel allowed to allow my inertia and resistance, while remaining interested in their origin, instead of having to “figure it out,” or “fix it.” So that’s what I did, I let them be there, and I am still working with them now. I don’t fully understand what this resistance is about, but I am exploring it, right here, right now, as I write.

This resistance manifested in things like forgetting to set a timer through the day. Remembering to set the timer, and then judging myself for “not doing the stretches correctly.” Ignoring the timer and not doing the stretches, saying things like, “oh, I will get to that in a second.”

In regards to waking up to the present, this method acted as a springboard for me to experience the resistance that I was feeling. Had I just gone with the flow, my resistance would have remained unconscious and I would have been asleep to something that was, and is still very real in me at the moment.

As I write this, I realize that this resistance I am feeling is in regards to a fear of failure. A fear I am avoiding. A thought occurs, “If I quit this blog now, I do not run the risk of failing.” Just like the stretches, some part of me assumes there is a “right way,” to write it. It’s if it is some kind of competition, as opposed to something valuable for myself that I want to share with others.
 
I just learned something: part of this practice is not just in the result of doing it, but also in understanding myself by seeing how I respond to doing it.

For instance, in doing the stretching method, my body felt more vital, clear, and alive throughout the day. And, I learned a great deal by seeing how I reacted to the prospect and action of doing the stretches. It’s a subtle differentiation, but an important realization for me.

As to the types of stretches I chose to do, I got some simple “at desk” stretch ideas from an iPhone app called Yoga MD. They were useful at first, but eventually I wanted to do some standing stretches, so I went back to some of the Iyengar Yoga standbys I know and love, as well as some warm-up exercises I enjoy from Aikido.

All in all, I did not see the full value in the stretching method until I say down and reflected on the past two weeks in this blog. I guess it’s a good thing I decided to keep doing it!

So between visiting my sister for her graduation, getting the flu, and the holiday season being upon us, my normal work schedule has been far from normal. But amidst the last few weeks, I decided to give the “Reactivity Awareness” Method a try…

Throughout my work-day, I paid attention to the times when I was wanting some experience other than what was happening in the present, or when I was rejecting something in my experience. I am trying to notice these “reactions” without attempting to judge or manipulate myself.

It was a perfect holiday choice!

Now this might just be me, but I notice that people tend to get a bit reactive during this time of year. Take family dynamics, the stress of purchasing gifts, wrapping up projects at work before vacations, cold weather, illness, social comparisons around relationships and their quality, and mix them all together. It’s a recipe for emotional struggle, even for the most stable of souls.

I chose this method as I began to see my levels of reactivity start to increase. It got me curious, so I ran with it. I also chose to not use a timer once again, however, I believe that going forward I am going to bring in some kind method of time keeping for all future methods. When I am in a place of ease and full presence, the timer is not as important. But when I am struggling, it seems helpful to have some external mechanism in place to remind me of the practice. 

Here are some thoughts surrounding my choosing this method as a means of deepening contact with the present. The reactions themselves are a kind of mini-illusion. My mind is imagining something other than what is. What “is” is the present moment, thus reactions to the moment, either positive or negative are “not what is.” This creates an internal conflict that is challenging to deal with when another part of myself in convinced that staying with the present task is what I truly wish to do, and what is most important. Sometimes I find it useful to inquire into the depths of where my reactivity is stemming, but sometimes my mind is just chattering away and I need to just do the task in front of me.

In this practice, doing what was in front of me, while letting to chattering be there, is the practice.

Results were mixed. There were times when I felt like I was swimming through my mind, navigating through the reactions, moving deeper into harmony with my true and present nature. There were times when I acted out my reactions with an occasional, “fuck this, I’m done,” or a, “oh let’s see what funny videos are on the Interweb.” You know, the normal fare.

What I appreciated about this practice was that it was again, aligned with where I was. I was reactive, and so this gave me a way to study that reactivity while still completing my work and getting in touch with the present. It got me through, and when times are challenging, sometimes something to get you through is what is really needed.

Here’s to thriving, surviving, just making it through, or taking the holidays in whatever way they show up for you! My warmest wishes to you all, and I leave you with two lessons that I have found to be true this year when “Waking up a Work”

1) Use some kind of time keeping mechanism.
2) Choose a practice that speaks to what is being struggled through in the present.

Happy Holidays

I am a pretty heady person. In terms of the geography of my body, my feet are about as far away from my head as it gets.  They have been attached to my body for as long as I can remember, and yet I am barely aware of their existence most of the time. My feet are pretty lonely.

The Feet Method goes as follows: 

As often as possible, I sense my feet.

This was by far the most challenging work-week I have had in a while. I logged 76 hours. This is about 3 times as much as I would prefer to work, and about twice as much as I am expected to work normally. You might be wondering if amidst this I had thoughts of, “how can I sense my feet at a time like this, it’s ridiculous!” If you were thinking that, you would be correct. However, the point of this practice is not to read too much into thoughts, so I went ahead and did it anyway.

I was working amidst pressure.

How did this pressure come about? Let me break it down with the help of abstraction. Some people in one group wanted the people in my group to make something, and make it fast. And because my group likes this group, and wants them to stick around and help support our group, my group agreed to it. My group also asked me to build the thing, and do it by the time the other group wanted it done. Both groups had an expectation on what the outcome would be, and I was told to create this outcome.

This expectation, and my commitment to it, pushing up against what I expect my days and weeks to look like, pushing up against the rest of my web of commitments and expectations, created a psychological pressure. A cluster of opposing expectations as to what I “should” be doing.

This pressure is what the Buddha would call, “suffering.”

Added to this “suffering,” were my thoughts about escaping the experience somehow. Amidst this however, I came to an interesting realization. Sensing into my feet amidst the challenge was oddly comforting. I felt supportive of myself throughout the experience.  It makes sense, that my feet would be a gateway to support. They literally support my physical body.  Without their support I would have to find another way to get around. I actually feel pretty grateful for them.

My feet are also pretty grounding. Again, they literally make contact with the ground. My feet aren’t heady. They aren’t prone to daydreaming, imagining about the future, or reminiscing about the past. They are probably some of the more “present” parts of my body.  In this way they support the truth inherent in reality.

This clear view of the reality of my situation, coupled with the supportive quality I experienced emerging from my feet, gave me a will to persevere amidst the challenge.

The will to continue came from within as I realized that there was no possible way I could meet the expectation placed upon me because it was based on a cluster of ideas, not reality. What could be more supportive than allowing myself to be who and what I am in the moment? This freed me to go at the pace I could, but with an added sense of inner support that allowed me to work long and hard without melting down.

Though much of my time was spent completely absorbed in my tasks, and a lot of it in thought, and I experienced a lot of reactivity and pain versus sensing my feet, it doesn’t matter.  I am realizing that the number of times I come back to the practice is less important than my continued commitment to it. Practices like this bring me closer to my experience, in all its flavors.