It has
been said that thoughts create suffering.
When we obsess about things that happened in the past or things we hope
will or will not happen in the future, we become stressed and anxious; and we
become disconnected from the present moment.
The implied suffering is emotional, but I would argue it can also be
physical.
After
college, I chose to forgo a traditional career path for a stint with the Peace
Corps in Perú. However, during my
service I got frighteningly ill with a stomach virus and was forced back home
to recover right before my service ended.
At this time I was physically emaciated, mentally ashamed, and
emotionally devastated. I felt I had let
myself down and failed on my commitment.
My thoughts were telling me: “You
are not enough. You are not enough. You are not enough.”
Returning
from Peru is also when I began to control food.
I needed to control my food to recover the weight I had lost due to my
illness, but more importantly, I had to control my eating because it was one of
the only things I thought I could control in my chaotic life. I gave my power away to food and developed
disordered eating patterns. The world
was a dark, scary place and my life was dominated by fear. My days became a series of mindless routines
and I hid away in my small studio apartment/cave, avoiding interactions with
others.
Let me briefly
illustrate what it was like to live in my head during social outings. I would begrudgingly agree to plans to go out
to dinner with friends. The night before
I would be worrying about the menu and thoughts about how I would be perceived
and how to get home as soon as dinner was over.
Would I find a healthy option?
Would I be expected to have a drink and would I oblige? What could I wear to hide my skinny
body? What questions were they going to
ask me? How would I answer? Then when I made it to the restaurant, I
hardly tasted the food because I was too busy debating if it was nutritious for
my body. When I did catch a friend’s
story about her professional successes or beautiful family, I felt ashamed and
lonely for my lack of clarity and absence of companionship. The “you are not enough” sirens would begin
to sound. This was not just one day, it
was most days.
One
day, at the height of my anxiety and depression, I looked into the mirror and
had the urge to put on red lipstick. As
I looked at myself, it was as if I was really seeing myself for the first time,
pure and unencumbered by my mind’s pollution.
I wasn’t looking at Keri, the broken woman who was full of fear, but I saw
the perfect being I am. For the first
time since returning from the Peace Corps, I felt pure love. I felt an unbounded love for myself and for
the entire universe. And although it
gradually faded to a more grounded feeling, it created an opening in my life to
explore the stories I had been telling myself.
From
there I discovered mindfulness and meditation.
I started with simple exercises, where I would sit and focus on my
natural breath or sensations in my body or on the sounds around me. By turning inward through meditation, I became
more aware of my limiting thought patterns and beliefs. Mindfulness and meditation has allowed me to
be able to recognize when emotions come up and deliberately choose not to
believe the thoughts that triggered them, bringing my attention back to the
present moment. When things happen to me
now, I am able to take a pause, feel the emotions, identify and abandon the
thoughts my mind creates, and choose a response to the situation that is more
compassionate and productive, for both myself and others.
Now I
am a different person. I am more
spontaneous and open to try new things.
I take the time to literally and figuratively stop to smell the roses. I actually taste food and listen to my
body. I am alive. And, when thoughts come up, I notice them as
they make their way on by, with a smile as if I were honoring old friends. I say friends because I believe thoughts are
well-intentioned and the more they are around, the more practice we get at
bringing our attention back to the beautiful, wondrous moment that is happening
right now.
The
only moment that exists is the present moment.
You can only truly experience the beauty, sounds, and smells of the
present moment. Connections with others
are made in the present moment. All of
life happens in the present moment. Thoughts
distract us from living in the present by bringing us back into past memories
or forward into future worries.
Mindfulness and meditation helps us practice returning our minds back
into the present moment. We observe our
mind and the moment we realize our mind is escaping the present moment, we are
actually in the present moment. We are
home.
