|
Cultivating Spaciousness
We humans really like to fix things, and while that's great for bridges, businesses, and broken bones, it does not work very well with depression and anxiety.
With wild moods, trying to control them through fixing leads, ironically, to a diminished sense of control (check this in your own experience to see if it's true). What actually works is more akin to how you might handle a wild pony: if you give it a small coral, it's going to kick out fences, knock over troughs, bruise up trainers, etc . But if you give it enough space, a large paddock to run around in, it has only so much energy to burn and eventually becomes tame, simply through the lack of resistance.
So giving depression and anxiety little resistance functions in a similar way: instead of them getting stronger, when more confined (i.e., our attempts to control them), they naturally burn themselves out, or move through our systems naturally. With mood, giving space and non-resistance is the most basic, and perhaps most important, strategy to "solve" the problem.
So here's a little exercise to cultivate a sense of space:
1) Get comfortable (leave off with the heavy machinery). With any mindfulness exercise, it's always important to check into your body and make it as comfortable as possible, to act as the "base" of the work. Whether that's rigid back, stiff and upright, or laying askew on the floor-the form does not matter at all, only the subjective experience.
2) Close your eyes (for now, you can try open eyes later if you wish). Imagine a mild to moderately stressful, real-world situation happening in your life. Bring it up in detail.
3) Notice what (if any) fix-it mind arises (that impulse to label the stressful situation a "problem" that then demands fixing). Don't engage, or pull yourself back from engaging, this fixing-just notice it as it arises.
4) Holding the situation in mind (as image, as thought, as memory, however it shows up), just let it float in your awareness. Attempt to do nothing with it.
5) Now, expand your attention "around" the situation, by letting in the field of sound in this moment, whatever the contents (specific noises/sounds) may be. Let your awareness hold the situation within the greater space of sound, which is not the stressful situation. It's just sound, coming and going, in different configurations, with different sources and qualities.
6) Now, if not already obvious, feel/sense into the quality of space in this field of sound. For instance, if your mind locks onto a particular sound (say, the blaring of a car alarm), notice the space within the sound, as it oscillates, or as it disappears and then reappears (as with the alarm). Stay with this until the quality of space/spaciousness becomes obvious. But make sure you're also aware of the life situation; let the two be in contact. Don't simply switch to just the sound or sense of space.
7) Then, just notice what happens as you hold in mind these two "objects": the real situation in your life, and this sense of space within the field of sound. What actually happens? Give yourself some time to explore this experience and practice. Keep inquiring and be curious.
Using the field of sound to connect in with a sense of spaciousness is often an easier route into "bigness" then some other focuses (say, using your imagination) because it's quite tangible, obvious, present-focused, and most often fairly neutral. But the point is to access a real sense of space, not the sound per se, to give that larger paddock to the pony of our "problem." And just like with the pony, without doing anything directly, the "problem" naturally resolves itself.
|
As usual, San Francisco is at odds weather-wise with Elsewhere, with today being one of the most beautiful days of the year. May wherever you are be, in its unique way, also so beautiful (it's all perspective).
"wild