For more of my adult life than I care to admit to, I’ve felt like a rudderless boat in a sea of emotion . . . searching for calm seas and a safe harbor.

“We are addicted to our emotions.” said my Tai Chi teacher Saturday morning as we were warming up. He was in a very talkative mood. It’s one of the many things I enjoy about his class. We talk about the mind/body connection, philosophy, religion, balancing life, etc. It’s never just mindlessly going through the motions.

“Back in the good old days people spent most of their time taking care of the necessities of life and were too concerned with getting enough food to stay alive to be bothered by their emotions. Nowadays we want more and more emotional stimulation.”

I couldn’t argue with him there.

Swinging his body from side to side in our next exercise, he added, “If you could go back in time and bring a soldier from WWI to this time and put him on a roller coaster, he would think it was torture!”

“Look at a horror or suspense movie from the 30s and they’re boring. Only one person dies every hour. In movies nowadays someone dies every few minutes and you see all the gory details.”

That probably explains why I like older movies. I never could get into the slasher films, they’re too over the top. The really good movies will use your imagination in addition to what they reveal on screen. Maybe that’s why my black dog is so difficult to deal with. Its honed my imagination to a fine point where I can imagine a bleaker future better than Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan put together.

“We want more emotion in everything we do. We’re never satisfied. We always want more of an emotional extreme. Higher highs and lower lows.” he went on.

Wow, well I think I have the lower lows down pat. I would like to experience a few more highs but they haven’t  shown up in a while. Right now I’d settle for less of the lows which in itself would make it seem like a high. Imagine that, what to most people would feel like a so-so day, to us feels great. Normal is our high.

Like trying to get into the ‘Flow’ all we can really do is set things up so that it’s more conducive to a lighter moment/experience. You can’t make ‘flow’ or ‘happiness’ appear. There is no forcing it, but you can practice setting the stage so that they’re more likely to come along.

If we don’t exercise how are we going to get the endorphins to work their magic? If we don’t make the effort to eliminate ruminating then it will be difficult to reap the rewards of re-wiring our thinking process away from depressive black dog thoughts. A healthy lifestyle takes effort when you feel good/normal and it’s down right difficult when you’re depressed.

Several years ago I read Norman Cousins’ book Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient. It’s an inspirational piece about a man taking charge of his own illness & health. Using humor and his mind to heal himself from what doctors thought was a disease he would never recover from.

A Little Brain Fruit

How do you use your mind to heal your mind? That’s the challenge.

The mind is a lot like a body of water. When you stir up the water you get a lot of waves, ripples and sediment. You can’t force water to calm down. You have to let it sit peacefully and then slowly the sediment sinks to the bottom and the choppy surface turns to glass.

For me, in addition to TLC, I practice mindfulness in the form of seated meditation, Tai Chi and guided imagery meditations. Most days instead of eating lunch I sit in my office and listen to a guided imagery cd that helps me relax.

The mind is not separate from the body. To balance things I try to exercise in the form of running, walking and yard/house work. When you’re busy doing things with your body, it’s more difficult (although not impossible) to ruminate and obsess over your problems.

Recently I tore up an old gravel path that ran down the side of my house. It had become over grown with weeds and looked like hell. I shoveled it out and refilled it with crushed limestone which becomes very firm when you tamp it down. It was a lot work but it kept my mind occupied and gave me a sense of accomplishment.

Because my house was built on old farm land there’s still rows of depression-era hedge trees. Hedge is a very tough tree that provided excellent wind breaks and helped keep the soil from eroding. One tree that I had cut down was well over 80 years old. It was interesting to count the rings and see when the lean, dust-bowl, years were.

Unfortunately they also make hedge apples which are giant balls of green fruit that have a brain-like texture on their surface. In making my path I also had a hundred or so of these apples to pick up.

The exercise and mindfulness helps my mind to calm down. I can then watch my mind like a disinterested 3rd party (without emotion!) and view my thinking and see how it affects my moods. This in turn helps me see when I’m ruminating, when I’m too attached to certain views, memories, etc. It helps me to let go.

When you combine this with TLC it goes a long way to calm your body and mind. It is your boat’s rudder in the choppy seas of life.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 5:47 am and is filed under anti-rumination, exercise, flow, mindfulness.