I’m sitting here in front of my computer, trying hard to engage in what I am doing. My mind is telling me all sorts of unhelpful stories. None of them are new. I know all of them intimately. They come to visit almost every time I write. Loudest today is the ‘fraud’ story. This one points out that if my readers knew me well — if they could see all the times I get lost in my own psychological smog, or allow my feelings to push me around, or run from my painful emotions instead of making room for them — they’d be horrified. They’d see me as a fraud, a fake and an impostor and denounce me as the world’s biggest hypocrite.
Almost as loud is the ‘boring’ story. This one tells me I have nothing new to say, that I’m just regurgitating the same old stuff and my readers will be bored out of their minds. It is accompanied in its chorus by the ‘impending deadline’ story. This one tells me how many thousands of words I still have to write, and how little time I have left to do it.
Tagging along at the back is the ‘too hard’ story. This one is whispering seductively in my ear: ‘Give up, give up, give up.’ It’s very quiet, but very persistent. ‘It’s all too hard,’ it murmurs, ‘you’ve run out of steam. You’ve got nothing new to say. Give up, give up, give up.’ And then it tempts me. It speaks to me of fun, of pleasure, of movies, of food, of sleeping, of reading, of music; of all the things I could be doing that are so much more enjoyable than writing.
I notice the struggle arising within myself. Anxiety and frustration surface and I feel the urge to fight and resist these feelings.
Then my mind brings out the stick and starts whacking me: ‘Why do I do this? Why do I bring this on myself? Why do I agree to these ridiculous deadlines?’ And there’s that whispering again: ‘Give up, give up, give up. Why don’t you give up writing and do something easier?’
I notice the urge to pull away, to quit and run.
I notice my desire to escape from this discomfort, to get rid of all this tension.
And it would be so easy to do so. All I need to do is get up from my computer, walk away and do something less challenging.
‘Yes,’ whispers the voice. ‘Just walk away.’
The smog is thickening and, beneath it, hot emotions bubble away.
What should I do?
In the midst of this emotional storm, I drop an anchor.
I push my feet firmly on to the floor.
And I take a slow deep breath.
First I exhale, pushing all the air out of my lungs. Then I allow them to fill by themselves from the bottom upwards.
My chest expands. My belly rises.
I can feel myself opening up and expanding.
There is a sense of space and lightness in my chest: a sense of opening up around my heart.
I am coming home. I am coming back home to my body and getting in touch.
I feel my shoulder blades sliding gently downwards.
I tune into my heart. I feel it opening. There is warmth, tenderness and fear.
I breathe into it once more. There is a sense of opening, of flowering.
With childlike curiosity, I observe my mind. It is slowing down, speaking more softly, laying down the stick.
I breathe and expand, softening and opening.
I remember to be gentle with myself.
I scan my body for any remaining resistance. And I rapidly find it: two thick cords of tension, running down my neck and into my shoulders.
I breathe into the tension, making no attempt to get rid of it; aiming purely and simply to give it space and allow it to be. And as I do so, it releases.
And noticing that flow of breath, of warmth and of kindness, I bring my attention back to the task at hand. Is it meaningful, is it important?
Yes, it is. This work matters to me. It is deeply aligned with my purpose.
So, gently and patiently, I return my attention to the task.
I am coming back home to my life in the here and now; coming back home to the tasks that I choose to do.
And I ask myself: ‘Can I let go of having to “do it right” or “get it finished”?’
This is meaningful work. I don’t want to rush through it with a sense of obligation or resentment. Can I bring an attitude of openness and curiosity to it? Can I do it calmly and peacefully, from a place of caring and giving? Can I infuse it with simplicity and compassion?
Yes. I can.
So I sit up in the chair, straighten my back, place my fingers on the keyboard and I do what matters.
***
And that is what writing is like for me. Again and again, I get hijacked by my own thoughts and feelings. They catch me off guard and I forget to respond mindfully. Instead of presence, defusion and expansion, I get lost in the smog, or I clutch at control, or I allow myself to be controlled.
And then . . . I remember. And I get present.
And then I forget again.
And then I remember again.
And so on. This is the nature of presence.
Moments of presence are easy; sustaining it is difficult.
Our attention loves to wander; it is hard to keep it in one spot for very long. So we must practise catching it. Our attention drifts, we notice it has gone and we catch it and bring it back. We get lost in the smog, we notice we’re lost and we get present. We get pulled into a struggle with our feelings, we notice we’re entangled and we expand. And we do this again and again for the rest of our lives. We never reach some perfect state where it is no longer necessary to do this. No one is fully present all the time — not even Zen masters. It’s the same for all of us: in some moments we are present; in others we are not.
Of course, some people are far more present than others and this is largely due to the amount of practice they do. Now so far in this book, I’ve only spoken about informal practice: quick and simple mindfulness exercises that you can do throughout the day. But if you’d like to really develop your capacity for presence, you may also want to consider a formal practice, such as mindfulness meditation or Hatha yoga or Tai Chi.
There’s one particular formal practice that is incredibly useful and I highly recommend it: mindfulness of the breath. It involves focusing attention on your breathing and bringing it back repeatedly, no matter how often it wanders. In Appendix 2, you’ll find a detailed description of the exercise. A word of warning, though: if you’ve never done an exercise like this before, you will be shocked at how challenging it is. If you can stay focused on your breath for even ten seconds before your attention wanders to something else, you’ll be doing well.
One of the greatest challenges in self-development is perfectionism. We all know that there’s no such thing as being perfect — we all have flaws, we all make mistakes, and there’s always room for improvement. However, most of us have a tendency to forget this. Our minds are quick to tell us that we should be trying harder, we should be doing better, we shouldn’t settle for anything less than the best. And before we know it, we are slaves. We bang the drum and toil away, sweating, tense and nervous, terrified we might not reach our full potential. We double-check and triple-check for mistakes, never quite trusting we have found them all. We repeatedly go back and start again, or we give up altogether because we’ll never measure up to our own expectations. And we are merciless when we fail or ‘underachieve’; we crack the whip and beat ourselves senseless.
Of course, perfectionism is just another version of the ‘not good enough’ story. As are all the personal stories I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: ‘fraud’, ‘boring’, ‘too hard’ and ‘deadline’. Clearly the ‘not good enough’ story takes thousands of different forms, but we deal with them all the same way: notice them and name them.
Trying to be perfect doesn’t help. Mindfulness skills can never be perfected; they can only be improved and every moment of practice makes a difference. Even if we spend a whole week lost in the smog — or even a month or a year — the moment we catch ourselves, we are free. We are free to choose. We can choose to stay in the smog, or we can choose to do something far more fulfilling: to notice and name the story and get back to the present.
Now I have to admit, when it comes to applying this knowledge to myself, there is plenty of room for improvement. I have good days and bad days, strong moments and weak ones. But over time, I have got better. These days I do much less running from the reality gap, less fighting and railing against it. Instead, I tend to come back to the present and look with curious eyes on my life in this moment. And I ask myself this question: ‘What do I want to stand for in the face of this?’ This is one of those big questions that we will all need to answer many times. And it leads us on to the next section of this book.