Provision #583: Step Back

by Bob Tschannen-Moran

LifeTrek Laser Provision

When life is swirling and twirling, it's important to step back and stay calm. That's not always easy to do, especially when you have evidence to the contrary (and we've had plenty in recent weeks). But there are practices that can bring us back to center. This Provision explores three simple yet challenging steps: shifting perspective, seeking connection, and studying meditation. I hope they will mean as much to you as they mean to me.

LifeTrek Provision

The optimist looks at the glass and calls it half full.
The pessimist looks at the glass and calls it half empty.
The appreciative person looks at the glass and calls it beautiful, just the way it is.

That's the shift I am learning to make when it comes to my overactive nervous system. It does not help to either romanticize or catastrophize the data. To pretend that I have no symptoms, my doctor reminds me, can lead to real trouble were I to actually be having a cardiac event. Half full is not the whole story. So take an aspirin and have things checked out, my doctor advises, without overreacting.

To imagine that I know all the symptoms, my experience confirms, can also lead to real trouble. Half empty is not the whole story. We may think the sky is falling when it's not. As a homeless woman with a happy countenance once told me, "When things get bad, I've learned to wait three days before reacting. By then things usually look different." So take stock and go deep, my experience suggests, without overreacting.

The notion that experience is a many-layered thing assists us to look for and appreciate the beauty in things, just the way they are. When my nervous system kicks up, I find myself reframing the uncomfortable externalities as expressions of more intriguing internalities. "What is really going on here?" I've learned to ask myself, "and how can I best value the experience?" Such questions take us beyond the daily roller-coaster to the deeper truth of life: win or lose there is much to appreciate in the moment. It's important to consistently grasp and cherish that deeper data.

Seeking Connection. I don't know about you, but I am never more engaged than when I have a strong sense of purpose and connection in life and work. This past week, for example, I had little time for panic -- albeit the market tremors -- because I was connecting with my daughter as well as with her friends and colleagues in Los Angeles. So, too, with my run this morning. In a few weeks, I will again be leading the 4:45 pace team at the Baltimore marathon. This morning was my final tune up, running 20 miles at my Baltimore pace. I had little time for panic -- given the pacing requirements -- because I was focused on my purpose and connection with the people in Baltimore.

Full engagement will do that. It calms the nervous system by connecting us with people and projects that are important. They may not be important to others, but if they are important to us (like my daughter and the 4:45 pace team) they have the capacity to work miracles when it comes to our emotions.

The key, in my experience, is to seek connection rather than control. The more we try to control people and projects, the more agitation we experience. That's as true for global markets as it is for personal mastery. The secret is embedded in now-famous Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Now here's the kicker: the only thing that I can ever really change is myself. We cannot change other people and we cannot change projects; we can only ourselves in relation to other people and projects. So that suggests the following revision of the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change about myself,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Once we get to that place, we can seek connection with people and projects in ways that lead to full engagement rather than to frustration. Take note that "seeking connection" is a behavior, not a state of mind. It is something we must do actively if we hope to experience it at all.

Studying Meditation. Although shifting perspective and seeking connection are necessary to managing our emotions, they are not sufficient. That's because it's easy to fall back into old patterns of thinking and relating. Just when we think we got it, we lose it.

The Buddhist's refer to such distractions and delusions as the Monkey mind: being "unsettled, restless, capricious, whimsical, fanciful, inconstant, confused, indecisive, and uncontrollable". In the West it's called being scatter brained. And the antidote is always the same: slow, deep, rhythmic breaths. It takes the wisdom of the body to counterbalance the distortions of the mind.

I like the following description of a Taoist breath meditation technique:

"When one breathes in and out, one's concentration causes the generative force to rise and fall (in the microcosmic orbit) thus slowly turning the wheel of the law. Count from one to ten and then keep counting, up to one hundred breaths, with the heart (mind) following the counting to prevent it from wandering outside. When the heart and breathing are in unison, this is called locking up the monkey heart and tying up the running horse of intellect."

So simple and yet so challenging. I am not master of the practice, and I do not do it often enough, but I have learned that whenever I take the time to breath slowly, deeply, and rhythmically my mind calms and my emotions settle. It is an essential practice when it comes to lifestyle management of anxiety, panic, and other negative emotions.

I have written before about numerous biofeedback devices that support the development of a meditation practice. I encourage to read my most writing on the subject by visiting CelebrateWellness.com.

These three, then -- shifting perspective, seeking connection, and studying meditation -- commend themselves to all who would look for the deeper truth in life and work. Forget, as David Whyte urges, "the news and the radio and the blurred screen." Instead, look for that "one good word" that is "bread for a thousand." It's there to be found; we need only to look in all the right places and all the right ways.

Coaching Inquiries: What practices assist you to calm your nerves? How do you step back and stay centered when life is swirling and twirling? Who can you connect with for comfort and encouragement? How can you take the time to make it so?

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LifeTrek Readers' Forum (selected feedback from the past week)

Editor's Note: The LifeTrek Readers' Forum contains selections from the comments and materials sent in each week by the readers of LifeTrek Provisions. They do not necessarily reflect the perspective of LifeTrek Coaching International. To submit your comment, Email Bob.