When is it useful and is there a place for escapism?
I’ve enjoyed a variety of meditations for the past 15 plus years…healing imagery, rainbow relaxations, and visualizing chakras. I’ve scanned myself from head to toe to induce deep relaxation, elicited the relaxation response, focused intensely on my breath an hour or so at a time (only occasionally dozing off), used vocalizations to achieve a meditative state, masticated (that means chewing, people) silently for an entire meal, and was silent for a full day (okay, I had really bad strep throat but it was an interesting parenting challenge too). I get the beauty of mindfulness on a deep level. Sometimes. When my yoga practice is focused, it really is as BKS Iyengar promises, a meditation in action. Practicing and teaching yoga bring a constant awareness to the present moment, the present alignment of the body, oftentimes demanding isolating actions from your body, while diffusing your awareness and integrating the experience to the whole. It is consuming in the best possible way, and the focus on the very present moment throughout the practice or class seems to burn through the fog of thoughts that otherwise cloud the mind.
Then, I roll up my mat.
Whether it is metaphorically or literally, with that simple action, so much of what I achieved in my meditation or yoga practice or mindful eating just e v a p o r a t e s
Yelling at my children – check. Calling someone names from the driver seat of my car – check. Adult tantrum when darling children won’t listen to me – check. Passive aggressive behavior aimed at husband –oh, never that! The fact is, there are lots of instances where the oneness that I feel in body, mind and spirit during these focused meditations and mindful practices just don’t carry over into “real life.” I’ve spent some time of late working on transition periods. My theory is that the longer I can stretch the great peacefulness I feel from yoga practice or class to each subsequent activity, the more that my yogi brain will leak into my crazy mom brain, changing the current wild and weedy forest-like landscaping to something more like a soothing Japanese garden. I am a big fan of neuroplasticity.
And you know what? It works! It really does. I’ve become very mindful at putting my yoga props away and rolling my mat. Getting dressed with care and awareness. Treating those in my path with respect, kindness and friendliness. Taking care not to disturb the flora or fauna on the way to my hybrid car. Smiling at the other drivers on the road and courteously giving the right of way. Many of these gestures are returned with gratitude as someone working behind a counter receives a simple smile, eye contact and a few pleasant words. I feel that I really taste my food in a fully sensory way, connecting to the journey of how it came to be in my hands, and the holistic cycle of it. I feel a gratitude for the air I breathe, and the water I drink, the blessings made over common experiences bringing me into the miracle of the human body and my awe for God.
However, at some point, conflict arises. Oh yes, you know that little niggling feeling of dread when your favorite characters in the beach read you’ve bought have the classic case of misunderstanding on page 130, and we have to spend 50 pages reading them work through it to get to our happy ending. Well, it may be a necessary literary device, but I could certainly do without it in my day! However, conflict is inevitable. When it rears its ugly head (like when the siblings begin their kicking, hitting, spitting, yelling, pulling, licking (by far the worst crime) routine with each other), how can one even desire to be mindful in such a moment? I don’t want to have my lofty Japanese garden overrun with such little heathens! I just want to escape the screeching, uncivilized present. Immediately.
Okay, deep breath folks. I started getting sweaty just writing that. I think that the instinct to escape such tough situations is something to really examine.
We often can’t physically escape these challenges, so we instead find a way to check out mentally.
We actually have what is now considered another appendage available to us 24/7; whenever we want to check out from what’s going on around us. Yeah, you may be reading this right now from it. I haven’t ever tallied the number of times I’ve turned to my phone for comfort, but it’s embarrassingly high. And social media is such a vampiric friend, looking to suck all of our attention, providing the desired escape, that hormonal fix to just avoid the chaos around. When we do look up from the device, perhaps conflict was resolved amongst the wild things. Maybe. Sometimes, ignoring really is the right answer. I have found that parental involvement in children’s conflicts seems to be on a real supply/demand loop. They usually work out their own stuff better than when I come in as the lawyer, judge, jury and warden.
However, we are also doing a bit of damage in building this sort of habitual pattern. Every time we ask our phone (or tv, or cigarette, or booze) to distract us from our suffering, and let’s not kid ourselves, it IS suffering, we are escaping a precious opportunity to feel the pain of the moment, apply some of our yogic or meditative skills in that moment, and work through the temporary turbulence. What’s on the other side is another moment. One in which you literally transformed your external environment, and your internal environment (YOUR BRAIN!) with perhaps one long deep breath.
You know what else is on the other side? Confidence in resilience. Proof that you are able to practice what you practice (yoga in real life!). This makes the next time just a smidgen easier.
That doesn’t mean that you don’t ever get to escape into your phone, or binge watch an awesome series, or enjoy a delicious glass of wine. Hell, go enjoy all three at once! But I’ve found that the more present I am in life, through the good, the bad, the conflicts, the blessings, the chaos and the bliss, the smoother it all is. I feel like I can ride out my challenges, and when I truly focus on those challenges, with as much attention and compassion as I can muster, I sense that they really are not quite as deeply troubling as they are irritating on a superficial level. A more balanced nervous system seems to be able to receive these irritations, to absorb them, process and then…l e t g o