OK, just in case anyone has the illusion that I don't give homework, let me offer some to the 1200 or so folks on the list. Here is a little homework assignment. Do you want to see how minds work? Or, would you like a chance for a little "pay back" for all the stuff your mind has done to you? Here is an opportunity to tease your mind. Woo hoo! Good fun! This is a sample from my forthcoming book from New Harbinger--Mindfulness for Two. Some of you who have consulted with me individually or have been to workshops in recent years will recognize the flavor of the exercise.
Sitting Inside Irresolution: Thank you Messrs. Camus and Elliot
If you want to see how fused we can be with solutions, try the little exercise below. The exercise involves either eating or not eating a meal and spending some time with not knowing which. You should only try this if you are one of the fortunate in the world who are not one meal away from starvation. If you want to see how minds work, here is a preparation to watch your mind go. It is a little unfair to minds, so you have to be willing to tease your mind a bit. But considering the way it has deviled you, turn about seems fair play. So far, I have never heard of a mind dying from this, so you don’t have to worry about your mind’s tantrum.
Sit down to the table, good and hungry. Dish up a plate. Pour a favorite beverage, and, set out some plastic wrap. Pick up your knife and fork. Smell the food. Move your knife and fork towards the food. And then just stop, linger a moment. Cut a bite and pick it up with your fork. Then just stop again. Now, raise it towards your mouth and stop at the cusp right between eating and not eating. If you find yourself not eating, gently move in tiny increments towards eating, but do not eat. Linger right there at the cusp. Find that place right at the tipping point between eating and not eating. Your mind will not like this. It will tell you that there is no such thing as the place between eating and not eating. “If the food is not in your mouth then you are not eating!” it will tell you. “If it is in your mouth, then you are eating. It is that simple,” it will insist. If your mind delivers this objection, please thank your mind for that observation and come back again to that place right on the very cusp of eating and not eating. (See if you can notice that the mind makes a pretty strenuous objection to something that doesn’t exist. I mean, if it doesn’t exist, what is the trouble? Right? Goodness teasing minds is so much fun.)
Chose to not know whether you will eat the meal or not. Again, your mind will object. It may even say “To hell with you, we are going to eat!” And, thank your mind for that. Just sit in that place in between. “Fine, we won’t eat then!” Watch what shows up in your internal world. “But the food is getting cold!” “OK, how long do I need to do this?” “This is stupid.” “This is wasteful.” “What’s the point?”
And then, just sit. Let yourself go quiet. Let yourself come to your own breath. Settle into your own body, what it feels like to sit in your own skin. And, watch the objections rise up. Notice your own body. Notice how intolerant you are of problems (I am hungry) and a solution so close (a meal before you).
In the end, either eat the meal, or wrap it up for later and do not eat. Let whether you eat or not be undetermined until you are finished with the exercise. (And, notice the huge sigh of relief your mind makes when you finally chose.) Let me further encourage you to leave the length of time spent at that cusp be undetermined. Notice all of the reactions well up as you wonder how long you will wait or if you will eat at all. Notice how much you want to resolve that before the exercise is over. Notice how insistent mind is in the face of the undetermined. Notice how intolerant mind is of the unknown, even when the unknown is as trivial as whether or not you will eat a single meal.
If you actually do this, and perhaps even if you don’t, notice yourself objecting to me. Perhaps writing a story in your head right now about why you don’t need to actually do this. Or better still, “Oh yes, very good, I will do that…later.”
Minds do not like the places in between. This is what T. S. Elliot was speaking of as the still point. Camus likewise knew this place:
“…waterless deserts where thought reaches its confines. At that last crossroad where thought hesitates, many men have arrived and even the humblest. They then abdicated that which was most precious to them, their life. Others, princes of the mind, abdicated likewise, but they initiated the suicide of their thought in its purest revolt. The real effort is to stay there, rather, in so far as it is possible, and to examine closely the odd vegetation of those distant regions. Tenacity and acumen are privileged spectators in this inhuman show in which absurdity, hope, and death carry on their dialogue.
Albert Camus, An Absurd Reasoning, 1955
You can use the little exercise above to take you to a place that minds will assert does not exist—that still point between doing and not doing. As Camus suggests, your inclinations will be to jump. You will want to jump in (and eat). Or, you will want to jump out, to retreat (wrap the plate and leave the table). Or, perhaps you will find your mind wandering to other matters—an endless stream of befores and afters.
See if you can reflect back on the exercise and notice the relationship between that exercise and your work with clients. Isn’t it often that intolerance of the unresolved that drives us to act or retreat? And, do we not see the same in our clients? Lurching ahead on a new effort to “get it together” and by turns retreating again into the house, into the bottle, into some respite from uncertainty. Moving in either direction can function as a means to avoid uncertainty.
And, looking a bit further still, see if this uncertainty is not present in every truly significant value in your life. Consider getting married. How will that turn out? Consider a career change? How will that turn out? Consider having children. How will that turn out? And, working with clients, how do we bind our anxiety when that world gets uncertain? Do we know in advance how that will go?
Uncertainty lies all about us. We cannot eliminate it, but we can blind ourselves to it. But, what if it is the case that there is no way to blind ourselves to uncertainty that does not also blind us to our values. We can hide out in certainty and sometimes we will settle for \the illusion of control. But, in doing so, the beasts do not go away, we just can’t see them anymore. The good news is that, for most of us, since leaving the savannah, the beasts are mostly psychological beasts. I have never been eaten in my office, though I have often feared it.
And just a bit further still, Camus knew this place, and, knew also its remarkable bounty. What freedom would you possess if you could sit in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty without having to act. If you could allow yourself to settle in and become intimate with “the odd vegetation of those distant regions.” Where terror lives, there is also bounty. We do not like these places we do not know, but it is in precisely the places that we do not know that possibility lives. If there were something possible for you in those distant regions, would you travel there with me? And, would you travel there with your clients?
peace all,
Kelly
from Wilson, K. G. & DuFrene, T. (forthcoming). Mindfulness for Two: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Approach to Mindfulness in Psychotherapy. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.
(please quote with pemission kwilson@olemiss.edu)