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People acknowledge that there is a lot of stress in the world and personally right now.  There is stress with work, family obligations, with children and parents.  There is financial stress, and stress with communicating with others. Advertisements and articles all tell us to practice self care to alleviate stress.  But what does it mean to practice self care?

People have different tools to deal with stress.  Some work for us in the short term, some are healthy, and some are unhealthy.  What has worked for us before, may not work for us today.  Some options we might try to practice self care are to take a bubble bath, or drink a glass of wine and watch some Netflix.  Some may get on social media, or play video games. Some might eat some junk food. Others might try retail therapy, shopping for things either online or at a brick and mortar store.  Planning a vacation may relieve the stress of the moment. Some may exercise to excess, falling exhausted onto the couch or into bed, too tired to think about the stressful situation.    And while many activities do help with stress in the short run, many of these can be more numbing than caring for the self.  They feel like self care because the immediate stressful object is not in the forefront of our mind anymore.  And sometimes they are helpful as a short term solution.  But real self care is different.  

What does it mean to care for the self?   How do we determine what needs care?  When we think of a child or a friend, the first thing we might choose to do if they are feeling a strong emotion is to sit with them.  Give them some attention, and listen to what is ailing them.  Giving that same level of attention to ourselves is the first step of care.  

Through mindfulness we learn to sit with whatever is happening right here and now.  This does not mean accepting it forever, or not trying to do things differently in the future, but to simply acknowledge that this is how it is right now.  And to notice where it is we are sensing this strong emotion.  

What does care mean? We do have a way to discern what the best way to care for ourselves is.  First and foremost, we learn to be kind and gentle with ourselves, no matter what has happened previously.  This isn’t to say we aren’t going to change things going forward, either changing our own behavior, or creating a boundary with someone else.  But we can be kind to ourselves, the person who did the best they could in a difficult situation.  Sitting with kindness is the first step to true self care.  There are many ways to care, but they all start by listening to ourselves. 

At first, listening might be difficult.  We are not accustomed to listening when before we’ve only calmed ourselves in the moment by diverting our attention.  Mindfulness offers a way to listen to our bodies and the wisdom it can provide.  

True self care might be difficult.  It might mean taking some time to do yoga or gently stretch our body rather than watching t.v.  It might mean cooking a healthy meal instead of of ice cream and potato chips.  It might be taking a walk outside enjoying the natural world around us.  It could be journaling, or finding a therapist, or taking time each day to meditate, even if that means getting up early.  It could mean going to bed early.  Whatever ways we find to truly care for our body, mind, heart, or soul, it starts with listening to ourselves.  

Mindfulness and Mindful Based Stress Reduction offer tools that help us to truly care for the self.  Please contact me to discover future classes.

612-432-0662 or mscott1254@msn.com 

“Everything can be taken from a man [person] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

 (Man Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, as cited in Kabat-Zinn, 2013).

Ask people to name their stressors, and we find that there are many.  Can you identify with any of the following stressors?  Money, family, relationships, technology, work, traffic, news, politics, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, house upkeep, health, thoughts or emotions?  My guess is that some of these resonated with you. 

What happens when we are stressed?  Some of our reactions are automatic.  Some common physical sensations might be in our body such as our heart rate increases, some tension in our muscles, maybe a headache. If we are stressed long enough without relief, we may have trouble sleeping and digestion troubles, and other chronic illnesses may occur. These are just a few of the automatic physical reactions we have to stress in our lives.  

Some of our reactions are habitual.  We all cope with stress in different ways.  We may have found something that worked for us in the past, and we continue to use the strategy.  Maybe it still works for us, but maybe it doesn’t - it’s just a habit that we aren’t even aware we have.  Some ways of coping are helpful to us in the short term, but then become maladaptive.  Recognizing how we typically react to a situation can help us to be more aware of whether these habits are working for us presently.  

Through meditation, we learn other ways of responding to stress that may lead to a more long term solution.  The first awareness might be just that this situation is stressful.  Meditation does not take away stress, but helps us meet each situation with a clear head.  It is powerful, to be aware of stress without trying to change anything.  We rest in this awareness.  We notice what it feels like right here right now to have this stressor.  If we are aware of our stress at the moment, we can choose how we respond.  We can put a space between our habitual response, and think about what the best action might be.  

The STOP method is an acronym to help remember the steps to disengage for a moment in order to facilitate choosing a response.  

 S= Stop, pause, look down or away, don’t engage. 

T=take a breath to notice the full cycle of the breath right now.  

O=observe the physical sensations in the body first, then thoughts and emotions.  Be curious about what is happening. 

P= Proceed.  Think about what feels like the next right action in this moment.  Notice that this step may or may not be doing nothing.  It is simply taking a pause first to stop the cycle of automatic habitual responses.  

Many of us want the stress itself to go away. It may seem impossible to think that by changing something within ourselves, the stress can feel more manageable.  But it is possible.   And through careful discernment, some may choose to change our environments to get away from a particular stress.  Awareness can bring choice back to our lives.  

“It is not the potential stressor itself, but how you perceive it and then how you handle it that will determine whether or not it will lead to stress.” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013)

James Joyce — 'Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.'

Body Scan Meditation

One of the first meditations we do in MBSR is the Body Scan.  In this meditation, you may be lying down on your back in a comfortable position, but not so comfortable you might be tempted to fall asleep.  If this position is too uncomfortable, you can also try a sitting or standing position.  No matter what the position, we start by simply noticing what body sensations are present.  I say simply, because this is really all it is. However, we spend so much time in our heads, that what sounds simple is sometimes difficult.  We focus on different body parts, generally starting at the toes, and over the course of the meditation, ending at our head.  We notice whatever is present, whether it be coolness or warmth, a sense of softness or tightness, maybe a buzzing or tingling.  Moisture or dryness.  Maybe we notice the feel of our clothing, or a breeze on our skin.  We are not trying to change what is happening, or judge it, but just to be friendly with our body, how it is right now.  We notice whether these feelings are pleasant or unpleasant, not trying to change anything, but just being aware of what is present. 

Numbness or not much during the Body Scan

Sometimes, we might feel not much at all.  This also is okay.  We are not trying to force a sensation when there isn’t any.  This feeling of neutrality or numbness can feel like we’re doing something wrong.  We are predisposed to look for pleasant sensations, and try to keep them going, or look for unpleasant sensations, and try to get rid of them.  A neutral or numb sensation can be boring.  Just like with the pleasant and unpleasant sensations, we just try to become aware of the neutral or numb sensations, and then also be aware that our mind is resisting this numbness, trying to recategorize the sensation as either pleasant or unpleasant, to feel something.   Awareness of body sensations, whatever they are is what we are trying to accomplish, if we are trying to accomplish anything at all.  

Difficulty during the body scan 

What is the most difficult, is feeling nothing at all.  We might find, over time, that what was once an area of numbness, we can gradually or suddenly have a feeling there.  Some sensations are more subtle than other sensations, but still a sensation.  Sometimes these sensations are related to the physical body, but sometimes we can find that our body is reacting to our thoughts.  We can notice our shoulders tensing up when we are thinking about a stressful situation.  Or we might feel a bloom of heat across our chest and face when we are angry.  You might notice similar sensations in reaction to emotions, or you might have different ones.  It is so valuable to notice these sensations for ourselves, not something that has been told to us as an experience we ‘should’ have. This body we have is personal, private, while many of our experiences are similar, it is our own journey of discovery that is important.  

Judging mind

Inevitably during the body scan, and many meditations, our minds wander.  We start thinking about whatever our mind tends to think about.  Our mind might get lost in these thoughts, and when we come back to awareness of the present moment, we might not even be aware of where we are in the body scan.  At this point, we can just notice, ah, thinking, and then join the meditation right where we are.  It is natural for the mind to think and wander, this is what it does.  There is no expectation that you will stop thinking.  Through the gentle act of continually bringing our attention back to the meditation, in this case the body scan, we are training our mind to be more attentive. But like all meditation, there is no expectation that our thinking stops.  Noticing what our automatic thoughts are, and being aware that they are just thoughts, not the current reality, is valuable.  

The point of this meditation, if there is a point at all, is to become aware of our body even when we are not meditating.  Eventually through repeated meditations, we might notice while walking that our mind is 3 feet in front of us, and then we have the tools to come home to this body, right here, right now.  We can learn to live in this body, and to be aware if we are living a short distance from our body, like Mr. Duffy.  

Everyone I know is stressed in some capacity. It feels like people are more stressed now than they were 20 years ago.  People seem to be stressed with diminishing capacity to handle it. And I get it.  There are a lot of pressures all around us.  But some stress is just a fact of life.  There doesn’t seem to be a way to live without stress.   Teaching is a stressful job.  It always has been, but it does seem to be getting more stressful.  My friends in other professions say the same - there are more demands placed on them. This seems to be the way of the world right now.  

 I know that mindfulness can help teachers, parents, and all adults to meet that stress in a different way.  In changing our relationship with stress, we can learn to respond differently to what is happening in our lives.  I want to be a part of this movement where people learn to be fully aware of their lives and respond in new ways that feel more authentic to who they want to be.  

For a long time, I didn’t know it was possible to teach meditation.  I didn’t know I could combine my love of meditation with my love of teaching, to help others who are feeling stressed.  I wanted to learn MBSR because it was nonsecular, and had been scientifically researched.  This method could help a broad base of people.  When I took the course, I learned a lot of different styles of meditations, which deepened my personal practice. I learned the science behind mindfulness and stress, and what is happening in our bodies when we are stressed, and what happens when we meditate.  I learned how to apply both the science and the mindfulness outside of the meditations to situations as they were happening in my real life.  

I learned that I could choose how to meditate, to find a way that fit what I needed at the moment.  And I learned that no matter what was happening in my internal world, my immediate environment, or the world as a whole, I had an inner resource I could call on to bring a sense of calm.

People around me could see the change.  My relationships improved.  I was better able to respond to family, friends, students and colleagues because I was more regulated.  I became more open and flexible in my thinking to find solutions that I never thought possible.  And I want people to have that same opportunity to be fully present in their own lives.