Move from Burnout toward Beauty
How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened.
—HAFIZ, from “The Gift,” Daniel Ladinsky, translator1
On many occasions, my patients come to their medical visits with family caregivers. The latter are often responsible for the physical and emotional well-being of their ailing relatives—and it can be an exhausting job. Although not the identified patients, I look for ways to engage the caregivers so that they can carry on in better spirits. Linda always accompanied her ninety-year-old mother, Millie, to my office. Millie was suffering from a wide array of age-related conditions: cardiovascular disease and congestive heart failure, a leaky aortic valve, high cholesterol and blood pressure, a minor stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes, severe neuropathy in her feet (a side effect of the diabetes), and a form of vascular dementia that didn’t leave her as forgetful as Alzheimer’s would. In fact, Millie remembered all the struggles in her life in exquisite detail, and couldn’t stop reciting them tearfully to herself and everyone else who came in contact with her in an endless litany of suffering.
Millie had been a vivacious, intelligent, and beautiful woman well into her mideighties, so Linda was grief stricken about what had become of her over the last few years. As Millie’s condition worsened, Linda became increasingly haggard and distressed. Even though she wasn’t my “patient,” I felt she needed at least as much attention as Millie did. Spiritual writer L. Thomas Holdcroft has written, “Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up, depends on us.” I could see the toll Millie’s care was taking on Linda. It was clear to me that she was on the verge of burnout.
Caregiver burnout, especially among family members, has potentially catastrophic and widespread consequences in the United States. Only a tiny fraction (4–5 percent) of people needing care receive it in institutions such as nursing homes.2 Consequently, most people turn to family and friends for help. In fact, the proportion of adult children providing personal care and/or financial assistance to a parent has more than tripled since the late 1990s. Currently, 25 percent of adult children, mostly Baby Boomers, provide care for their parents.3 In 2009, AARP’s Public Policy Institute estimated that more than sixty-one million households in the United States had family caregivers in place.4 Given the aging of our population, that number will continue to grow.
Family caregiving can also have severe financial repercussions that can create additional psychosocial problems. Many people adopting the role must quit their jobs or turn to part-time work because of their responsibilities. In 2011, MetLife Insurance Company published a study showing how devastating lifetime income loss can be due to family caregiving responsibilities: total wage, Social Security, and private pension losses over a lifetime due to caregiving could typically range from $283,716 for men to $324,044 for women, or $303,880 on average. When this amount is multiplied by the 9.7 million people age fifty or more who are caring for a loved one, the amount totals nearly $3 trillion. Financial hardships may be stressful enough, but staying on the job while maintaining the caregiver role is equally difficult. The MetLife study also reported that adult children over the age of fifty who continue to work while providing care to their parents are more likely to have only fair or poor health outcomes themselves when compared with those who are not caregivers.5
Burnout is widespread not only among family caregivers—clinicians can suffer from it, too. In fact, a Mayo Clinic survey of 35,922 physicians showed an increase in burnout symptoms from 45 percent in 2011 to 54.4 percent in 2014. That means more than half of all physicians were found to be experiencing symptoms of professional burnout.6 This can create profound repercussions. Often, the first thing to go when doctors reach this state is not the ability to prescribe a drug or perform a surgical procedure. Rather, it’s compassion, the ability to listen, and patience—the most important ingredients clinicians need to form a healing connection.7 One of the earliest symptoms of burnout among doctors is depersonalization. That’s when they see their patients as objects or diagnostic codes rather than human beings with life stories to share. What’s worse, research has shown that the more emotional exhaustion medical students experience, the more likely they are to cheat or perform dishonest acts.8
How do caregivers preserve a sense of balance—neither withholding attention nor giving beyond their limits? It is possible. In fact, not only can caregivers maintain wholeness, they can even find joy, meaning, and wisdom in their role. But first, they must recognize and deal with burnout.
THE SOURCES OF BURNOUT
Neuroimaging studies have shown that the same networks in the brain are activated whether people receive a painful stimulus themselves or are merely witnessing someone else receiving the stimulus—the mirror neurons at work again.9 Empathy consists of this capacity to recognize another person’s emotions and share in them. Indeed, empathy training activates centers of the brain (the anterior insula and midcingulate cortex) associated with pain and negative mood.10 Caregivers feel with the other person. (The word comes from the Greek empatheia, or “suffering with,” and is influenced by the German Einfuhlung, which means “feeling into.”) So they experience joy when a loved one is happy, sadness when she is unhappy, and pain when she is suffering.
Although empathy is crucial for successful social interactions (people lacking empathy are said to be sociopaths), researchers have found that disproportionate sharing of others’ negative emotions may be maladaptive and can constitute a source of burnout.11 An empathic person literally feels the pain of the other. “If you hurt, I hurt.” This can lead to empathic distress, a state in which caregivers cannot distinguish their own feelings from another’s—and share the anguish to excess. It is contagious and flows from one person to the next, especially if helpers feel they need to fix another’s suffering. But that’s a setup for failure because suffering cannot be “fixed.”
Unfortunately, empathic distress can evolve into an aversion to the person or situation. To protect themselves, caregivers withdraw, or if they’re unable to retreat, they can feel trapped and become resentful. And so they experience burnout: the sense of being totally overwhelmed and burdened without any hope of reward or change. This matches the classic definition of stress, which is the perception that one cannot meet the demands of one’s environment.12
A similar breakdown among doctors and other professionals usually arises when they’re asked to see more patients in a day than they can possibly manage well. They cram peoples’ lives into fifteen-minute-or-less office visits that leave them little time to create a meaningful connection. In this unsatisfying process, they never get at the root of their patients’ problems. They don’t know what their patients really need and consequently feel guilty and inadequate. They lose the ability to connect.
I am not immune to burnout myself and will withdraw if I’m drained. In my practice, it is essential for me to sense my patients’ stories. This mutual feeling enhances our connection and gives both of us insight into information we’ll need for healing. But when I am exhausted, this skill is the first to evaporate. I don’t feel my patients, and they turn into a list of complaints to which I attach a disease label and for which I prescribe a drug. We can all feel the expanding distance. Consequently, they suppress parts of their story, I am less effective, and the recovery we’re seeking eludes us.
Professional burnout can also occur when clinicians encounter a person who resists their help by constantly offering excuses or getting angry if they dare suggest changes. This can be frustrating, so I find it more therapeutic to reframe the patient’s defensive behavior as part of a healing process. I tell my medical students, “Never work harder than your patients.” Caregivers may step back from helping these challenging individuals, but they need not give up on them. One strategy is to recognize that they may be in what has sometimes been called the “precontemplative state.” Students are taught to recognize that these patients are still in an early stage of the healing process—perhaps in denial—and aren’t yet ready to reflect on their true situation or consider taking action. In this case, doctors can guide the steps of change by encouraging self-reflection, without pushing patients too much or too early.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF BURNOUT
Family caregivers often devote eighteen hours a day or more to their loved one—far more than they would have spent working at a job. They can be on call around the clock, without opportunities for vacations or respite. This puts them at great risk for burnout. People can’t assist suffering individuals if they are suffering themselves, so burnout is a dangerous state for both. Common physical and emotional signs include headaches, backaches, insomnia, and gastrointestinal disturbances; physical and mental exhaustion; rashes; persistent colds; heart palpitations and chest pain; frustration, irritability, and anger; sadness and hopelessness; difficulties concentrating; resentment; low self-esteem; and depression.13
I believe that the potential for burnout is unique for each caregiver. However, from my experience, it looms particularly ominously if people don’t maintain their own personal equilibrium; keep good social connections; recharge; and reconnect with what gives their lives meaning, value, and purpose. There is no right balance—only what works best for each individual—but there are ways to seek and attain it.
FINDING BALANCE AND GOOD HEALTH IN COMPASSION
It’s important to note that in addition to empathic distress, feelings of empathy can give rise to a second, more positive emotion: compassion (“co-passion”). This is a sense of warmth and concern toward the person who is hurting that’s coupled with a strong desire to improve his outcome. Visualize a young child in the hospital with an upset and anxious mother. She can hardly bear to be near her sick son. Instead, she avoids intimate contact with him, pacing back and forth in the hall as she awaits word from the doctor.14 Now imagine that same child, but this time his mother sits at his bedside, holding his hand and comforting him with her gentle, loving words. It’s easy to see which scenario is more soothing and helpful to the child—which conveys empathic distress and which conveys compassion.
Compassion is the antidote to empathic distress. It implies, I may not be able to fix your suffering, but I can simply be with you as we both turn toward its cause and walk to a better place together. This is the feeling of interconnection in which two individuals are joined in the same process, and it is an effective helping strategy. Indeed, research shows that individuals who feel and express compassion are able to give more than those who rely on empathy alone.15
The good news is that scientists have now also proven that being compassionate not only helps the person in need but also benefits the caregiver emotionally as well as physically.16 The positive emotions that arise from feeling compassion elevate immune function as compared with anger, which depresses it. These feelings engage the neuroplasticity of the brain by activating the prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum, regions that are also stimulated by social connection, maternal affiliation, and romantic love. This brain activity helps reverse the negative emotions associated with burnout, thus strengthening resilience.17
Indeed, recently, researchers at the University of Buffalo showed that caring for others enhances a caregiver’s health. The act of volunteering protects people from stressful events in their lives, and this in turn has a positive effect on the long-term survival rates and the distress levels of the volunteers. Interestingly, this stress-buffering effect worked only for individuals who had positive views of others and were not cynical.18 I believe that oxytocin plays a role in the longevity of these volunteers. It increases when people connect and drives them to build social relationships while reducing inflammation and protecting the heart.
Another fascinating study published in 2014 explored the potentially beneficial effects within the brains of people who give support to loved ones. In this experiment, twenty romantically attached couples completed an fMRI session in which the female partner underwent a scan while her partner stood just outside the scanner and received unpleasant electric shocks. The women were provided with one of two coping mechanisms. Either they were to squeeze a stress ball when the shocks were administered to their loved one, or they held his hand and thought about sending love and support. The stress ball did not change the women’s brains at all. But in those women who offered caring and intention, the reward-related region called the ventral striatum, the same area activated by compassion and maternal behavior, lit up. There was also less activity in the amygdala, the structure that responds to fear.19
This is a great example of how opening and engaging the source of suffering can create a biology that builds courage, hope, and resilience, establishing a catalyst for the connection. Offering love and support can also be a form of self-care—as people turn the same intent upon themselves. These studies teach us that compassion produces intention for others, and in so doing, it’s also the best way to reduce one’s own stress.
Other researchers looked at how compassion enhances health by comparing immune reactions of three groups of subjects. The first group generated caring and compassionate emotions by one of two methods: watching a video of Mother Teresa ministering to the sick and dying or shifting their attention to the area around their hearts (where most people experience positive emotions) and meditating on loving and compassionate emotions within themselves. The second group generated angry and frustrating thoughts either by recalling difficult incidents from their own lives or watching specially edited, disturbing clips of war scenes. A third group acted as controls. The researchers found that those who meditated on compassionate emotions produced a significantly stronger and longer immune response (as measured by an infection-fighting antibody in their saliva called IgA) than the study participants who focused on anger and frustration or who did no visualizations at all.20
Curing is linear and goes in one direction from the caregiver to the patient. But, as we’ve seen, a healing connection is circular. In the process of healing another, people also heal themselves. When individuals reach out with compassion, they’re not serving someone other than themselves—they’re serving one interconnected process that includes themselves. It becomes increasingly clear that in order to help others, caregivers must first start with being compassionate toward themselves.
I believe that the best way to do this is to engage in compassionate mindfulness meditation. This activity derives from Buddhist contemplative practices. It reinforces inner calmness, a strong mind, and the courageous determination to help someone who is suffering.21 Fortunately, it can be learned and is a valuable part of a caregiver’s armamentarium. Engaging in this meditation is also associated with many health benefits for the caregiver including a reduction in inflammation. This lessens the risk of many chronic diseases22—such as diabetes,23 cancer, and Alzheimer’s—that are dependent on inflammation for their progression. Research has established that people who practice compassionate mindfulness meditation have down regulated the genes that promote inflammation with less interleukin-6 (a marker of inflammation) circulating in their blood.24
Another excellent avenue to expand compassion is the loving-kindness meditation, which is found in Appendix A. This exercise evokes compassion, kindness, and acceptance toward oneself and others. Practitioners send out feelings of loving kindness in expanding circles first for themselves and then to people near and far. Research comparing empathy to compassion showed that people experience more positive affect with compassion training.25 During this meditation, individuals activate regions of the brain that light up with love and pleasure and produce more oxytocin. As they feel and express love, they experience less burnout. It is hard to be irritable and impatient when one is connected to oneself and others in this loving way.
MINDFULNESS ALSO FOSTERS CREATIVITY IN CAREGIVING
Pausing and being mindful may help create space that invites creative thought. New ideas come from the process of people getting out of their habituated neuro-networks, which allows for new neuro-networks to form and become reinforced. In fact, international research has shown that openness during mindful meditation can lead to creative insights. In one investigation, conducted by psychologist Lorenza Colzato at the University of Leiden, subjects were asked to practice two types of meditation: one group focused on a part of their bodies during inhalations and exhalations, and the other meditated on statements such as “I’m open,” “I let go,” “I expand my consciousness,” and “I accept myself as I am.” The latter is related to mindfulness because when emotions arose, the practitioners observed them without judgments.
Next, all of the participants were given two tasks. One involved convergent thinking. They were provided three words (“time,” “hair,” and “stretch”) and asked what they had in common. They had to collapse three concepts into one idea. (By the way, the answer is “long.”) This is the type of concrete thinking needed to find an answer. Then they were given a task that highlighted divergent thinking. They had to list as many possible and unusual uses as they could for six common items: brick, towel, shoe, newspaper, pen, and bottle. Divergent thinking requires creativity. It turned out that the people who practiced the more open meditations were quicker on the divergent tasks than were the more focused meditators.26
The outcome of this research has two lessons for caregivers. First, when individuals don’t attach themselves to any one belief, they’re open to creativity. Openness allows them to develop new insights into their patients’ reality. The “letting go” meditation practice breaks people out of their critical, analytical, convergent thinking—their habituated neuro-networks of comfort—which can get them stuck in old biases laid down in the brain years ago. Through the miracle of brain plasticity, creativity helps caregivers build new synapses that allow them to appreciate patients’ lives in novel ways. When they leave behind the conditioned mind and projected beliefs and start seeing others as they truly are, they move toward the more authentic reality of beauty. So, when sitting with patients, caregivers do focus on them, but they should do that with an openness to whatever comes, without judgment. People suffer. Caregivers shouldn’t judge their suffering, but be brave enough to turn toward it in an open and accepting way.
The second lesson is that mindfulness meditation enhanced the participants’ ability to be creative and make mental leaps. These sudden flashes of insight provide a sense of awe. Perhaps not surprisingly, that feeling has health benefits, too. A stagnant, stuck brain is an unhealthy brain. The same is true for the body. It is much better to experience “Aha!” moments that allow people to appreciate the mystery and beauty in life. These sudden perceptions are also how neuro-networks form in the brain. It’s what creates the pathways that are needed for neuroplasticity to occur. I think of it as an established highway (old brain) now branching off into new roads that allow the person to experience images of beauty. This is what connects us to awe . . . the vision of something novel and inspiring. Johann Sebastian Bach, the famous musical composer, resonated with this when he was asked about how he was able to create such beautiful melodies. “The problem is not finding [melodies], it’s—when getting up in the morning and out of bed—not stepping on them.” 27
For me, seeing the human potential to heal is always an “awesome” moment. But caregivers won’t entertain that possibility if they’re too busy judging and analyzing without taking the time to engage in and appreciate the connection. Both are vital but need to be put into an order that is most efficient. Open first, then use that information to plan a strategy toward health.
When reaching out with compassion to an ailing friend or loved one or even to a patient or client or coworker, the connection can restore one’s sense of purpose as a helper, healer, and supporter. Ultimately, as two people connect, both experience the power of their own potential, gain greater appreciation for each other’s truths, heal each other, and find a sense of beauty.
MOVING TOWARD BEAUTY WITH A “SPIRITUAL ANCHOR”
A “spiritual anchor” is an object that reminds people of what gives their lives meaning and purpose and consequently why they may want to change their behavior. It’s a talisman that connects to the most powerful neuro-networks in the central nervous system—those that influence behaviors. This is because meaning and purpose are strongly related to emotions that “emote movement” toward healthy choices—choices people make because they are associated with what matters most to them.
My spiritual anchor is a small stone. Sometimes I keep it on my desk, but most of the time, it resides in my pocket. Why is this stone so important to me? Many years ago, my family and I were at a beach that was covered with lots of little stones. My youngest child seemed to be staring at a pile of them for no less than twenty minutes. Finally, he came over to where I was sitting and presented me with a black one. It was round and smooth and earthy. “Dad, I found this for you,” he said proudly. My heart soared. This was so beautiful. My son was searching for the perfect stone for his father. His act of love touched me deeply.
When I’m having a bad day, or I don’t get a grant I’ve been working on for months, or I have an argument with my wife, I will stick my hand in my pocket and connect with what gives meaning and purpose to my life. It’s a reminder for me of why I want to move ahead, to be a good person, to spread positive energy. Even in the bleakest of times, it helps me recall the goodness of our lives. That’s what spirituality is—a connection that gives our lives meaning and purpose. (The range can be broad here: watching one’s children grow and marry, living to see one’s grandchildren, traveling, making significant contributions at work, and so on.) Sadly, due to our constant busyness, we often need reminders that bring us back to the basics. For me, it’s this small stone.
I use this tool in the clinical setting with my patients all the time. I ask them to share with me what they consider their spiritual anchor. We talk about it and use it to help them keep on track for healing and recovery. One patient, Jeff, went through the difficult work of renouncing alcohol. When I asked him how he accomplished this, he told me, “I wanted to be a gardener and to cultivate a healthy soil for my children to grow and flourish in.” He knew that his drinking was setting a bad example for them, and that motivated him to stop.
But soon, as happens so often with alcoholics in remission, Jeff became addicted to something else. In his case, it was food. His uncontrolled eating led to obesity coupled with diabetes. So I said to him, “It looks as if food is making you unhealthy the same way that the alcohol did. Two weeks from now, I’d like you to bring to my office a physical object that reminds you of why you would want to watch what you eat and why you want to lose weight. I want you to be able to keep this on your body so you can connect to it when you need to, especially before you open the refrigerator.”
Two weeks passed, and Jeff presented himself in my office empty-handed. So I asked him, “Did you find a spiritual anchor and bring it with you today?” Silently, but with a twinkle in his eye, he lifted his right trouser leg and pulled down his sock. On the inside of his lower leg was a new tattoo of a gardener hoeing a garden. “If I want a dessert,” he told me triumphantly, “I look at my tattoo. It reminds me of my children and their welfare. It’s going to help me lose weight.” Today, Jeff still has diabetes, but he has it under much better control because he has successfully slimmed down!
Whenever people have a sense of control, it provides focus and allows them to have confidence and the belief that they can overcome their current adversity. For the caregiver’s part, this means concentrating on and structuring the chaos, fear, and uncertainty and then turning it into pragmatic steps that patients can take to overcome their suffering, anxiety, and illness. A spiritual anchor can be a useful tool in this process. To be sure, knowing what people want their health for is essential. It’s the fulcrum of change. Awareness of its significance stimulates emotions that motivate new, more healthful behaviors. Caregivers need to know what really matters to the person they want to help or she won’t change. And they have to help her understand for herself why she would be better off conducting her life differently.
When caregivers encourage this kind of self-reflection, it helps their patients or those they love appreciate the discordance between what they’re doing and what they really want in life. The recognition of this disconnect helps them stop a detrimental behavior. They ask the person who loves to eat, “What do you like about your current lifestyle? Do you want to be around to continue enjoying great meals with your friends and family?” Once they realize how their behavior conflicts with their life’s meaning, they often decide to change on their own.
The spiritual anchor is a symbol of why people want to live better lives. But it has to come from within each individual. Caregivers can encourage others to find theirs. I’ve got my stone.
FINDING BEAUTY IN SUFFERING
At 2 a.m. one morning while I was still working in Driggs, Idaho, I was awakened by an emergency call from a nurse at our small hospital. She summoned me to the ER to see a patient who was complaining of devastating headaches. Somewhat begrudgingly, I dragged myself out of bed and headed to the hospital. When I walked into the ER, I saw Becky curled up in a fetal position on the gurney, rocking back and forth. Pale, with disheveled blond hair and trembling hands, I could see that she was really suffering. My initial perception was that she was a “chronic pain patient.” Believe me, part of me was thinking, How do I get her out of the ER as fast as possible so I can go back to bed? I am only human, after all. But as a small-town doc, I also wanted to do all I could to help her. If I didn’t, who would? So I needed to get at the root of Becky’s problem. I sat down to talk to her.
There, in the wee hours of the morning, this young woman shared with me a history of shocking abuse. I took great interest in her situation and continued to explore her issues with her during follow-up appointments. Soon we became good friends. Becky experienced fewer headaches after these compassionate talks—for which she was quite grateful and so was I. And when I got set to leave Driggs, she gave me a meditation robin made of blue glass as a memento of our friendship. I keep it on my desk as a constant reminder of how beauty can shine through suffering.
Had I perceived Becky as merely a “chronic pain patient”—sending her on her way with a shot of pain meds but without our having had the chance to talk deeply—I wouldn’t have been any better off, and she certainly wouldn’t have been any better off. But her struggle had great meaning for me, and now I also had a lovely spiritual anchor to remind me of her and the good that comes when approaching caregiving tasks with a loving and open heart. At times like these, I feel that I should pay my patients instead of them paying me.
From my work since then, I have often found beauty to emerge from the profoundest despair. This is true not only in medicine. Glorious music, literature, and art have come out of suffering. Singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman grew up in an abusive, poor, and challenging environment, yet out of those difficult times she wrote deeply meaningful music. J. K. Rowling, the author of the wildly beloved Harry Potter books, was homeless and lived in her car with her daughter for a while. Going back in history, Vincent van Gogh is an obvious exemplar as are Edgar Allan Poe and Beethoven (who wrote some of his most admired works while totally deaf). So much beauty can be forged in difficult situations.
Yet some people believe that caregiving is a draining enterprise. That it can leave one mentally and physically exhausted and is best relegated to others with more “saintly” or self-sacrificing temperaments. I have found the opposite to be true. Rather than sapping me, when I engage all of the elements of the compassionate connection, the caregiving process not only energizes me but also enhances my health and lifts my spirits.
Psychologist Dr. Mitch Golant has spent years conducting research for the Cancer Support Community on the benefits of psychosocial support for cancer patients and their families. Before he began this phase of his career, he led the very support groups that he later began to study. In fact, by his count, he has facilitated nearly fifteen thousand groups. He told me that whenever he explained to people what he did, their faces fell.
“That must be so depressing,” they would say to him, mournfully. “I can’t imagine doing that kind of work. It must be so difficult.” He could almost feel them backing away.
“On the contrary,” Mitch would say. “It’s the most uplifting work you can imagine. People are so motivated to make positive changes in their lives. Their strength and resilience as they join their medical team in their fight for recovery is totally inspiring. It’s the most exciting work I’ve ever done.”
One can approach caregiving as an exhausting experience that leads to withdrawal and depression, or like Mitch Golant, the same process can be perceived in a new, more optimistic way with love and compassion. Some would say that individuals are born with a certain attitude toward life, but I think everyone is trainable. This reminds me of a parable that Rachel Naomi Remen tells of three stone masons building a cathedral in the fourteenth century. Briefly, it goes something like this:
A monk who was supervising the work wanted to assess the attitudes of his workers so he approached three masons cutting large stones for the cathedral. The monk asked of the first mason, “Tell me about your job.”
“It’s awful,” he replied. “I break my back and work these long hours, for what? I’ll never see this cathedral finished. I don’t get paid very much. My boss is a jerk. I wish I could do something else.”
The monk went on to the second mason and asked him the same question. “Oh, it’s not so bad,” he said. “I make enough to put food on the table, a roof over our heads, and clothes on my kids’ backs. I’ve been able to pay for their schooling, so they’ll have a better life than me.”
The third mason had a different response altogether. “What a privilege it is to build this beautiful church. I get to practice my skills in the service of others. And centuries from now, people will still come here from all over the country to pray and connect to God,” he said with eyes aglow.
This mason had found the beauty in his work.
OPENING
A few years ago, I participated in a five-day silent retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn in the Catskills—a mountainous, wooded setting in upstate New York. Kabat-Zinn is one of the modern founders of the mindfulness meditation movement, and I was eager to attend because I wanted to pick his brain and absorb his knowledge. I’d hoped that he would impart to me his many pearls of wisdom.
I arrived, unpacked, and joined the group. After initial introductions, we laid on the floor and did a body scan, during which many of us fell asleep. The synchronized snoring prompted giggles around the room. We were an exhausted group of hard workers, after all. Then Kabat-Zinn asked us to grab a cushion for a sitting meditation without speaking to anyone. That lasted for about an hour. After that, we stood and did a silent walking meditation, during which we paid very close attention to each step we took without looking at anyone else. It was a really slow thirty minutes. Then we did another sitting meditation. And another walking one. This went on morning, noon, and night with silent breaks for meals. Some teachings were interspersed but not many.
In their everyday lives, people get used to constant activity, interaction, and thought. But when their minds are busy, and they’re told to be silent, they can experience withdrawal from the chaos of life. So, day 2 dawned with me feeling frustrated. I wasn’t getting what I’d come for. I wasn’t downloading enough information. I wanted to do a mind-meld with my mentor, but he wasn’t talking all that much! Even though it was maddening, I continued on through days 2, 3, and 4 with no change in routine. Just sitting, walking, eating, repeat. Sitting, walking, eating, repeat.
Then at 10 p.m. on day 4, it happened. During the walking meditation, I felt a gentle breeze through the aspens. The leaves tinkled like crystals on a chandelier. The full moon illuminated our surroundings. Suddenly, everything came alive—like in a scene from the movie Avatar. The forest pulsated with life. I felt hyperaware of the environment. I had gotten out of my head. It was so touching and beautiful. The radiant moon, the leaves on the trees, the rhythm of the forest were all palpable.
Then, as we prepared to go home on day 5, our silence ended. And after not making eye contact or talking for three or four days, we were asked to do just that. I sat in front of a Midwestern businessman, and we looked each other in the eye. Both of us started crying. We weren’t sad. After getting out of the clutter of the mind, we saw the beauty; we could feel it. There we were, just two guys looking at each other and weeping. But when we started to talk, the beauty began drifting away. Once we got into our heads, we wanted to tell each other what we’d learned. Now, there was pressure. And slowly we reenculturated into our lives.
I sit with people as they die. Many of them have never seen that beauty until they’re on their deathbeds. Some seem to glow before the end. They forgive their childhoods. They turn toward what was most important in their lives. And they are grateful for those transcendent moments.
Most caregivers don’t go to those places that matter most unless they are brave enough to turn toward suffering. In my career, I have heard many accounts of abuse, trauma, alcoholism, drug use, homelessness, and injustice. The experiences that caused the suffering and harm are not beautiful, but the process of turning toward them and giving them attention helps us find a path that heals. If caregivers open themselves to how those traumas affect a person’s life, they can feel that they are touching an authentic truth within. This becomes beautiful when we are able to explore the source of the emotional pain so that healing can occur. Everything suddenly snaps into focus. Life is more vibrant, less “gray.” The experience is energizing and joyful. It leads to new insights and creative energy. It points toward meaning where two people are able to find a common road toward a better place. And once both give suffering their attention, they develop the profound connection that gives them the ability to heal and be healed.
The potential to sense beauty such as this is in all of us. We just have to open to it.