Meditation

I started meditating about a year and a half ago while I was almost immobilized with pain (you can read about that here if you feel like it). Breathing hurt, so my attention was de facto focused on it most of the day (hard to stop breathing just because it hurts!). In between sessions of sitting and being aware of my breathing (the basics of meditation), I read a book called Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn, which deals with meditation and mindfulness in everyday life. This got me more interested in the formal practice of meditation, which led in turn to a little internet search that turned up a great site for meditation beginners, called www.learningmeditation.com. Over the course of a few weeks and months I found other sites and books, took a course, and had the opportunity to meet with teachers and other practitioners. I now try to incorporate some amount of meditation practice, or at least mindfulness, into my daily routine.

The great thing about meditation is that it gives you a break… from yourself. When you sit quietly and focus on your breathing, the constant noise that buzzes around your mind becomes very apparent. By training yourself to focus on your breathing, the noise slowly recedes into the background. Of course thoughts continue to intrude into the peace; personally I’m not at the point where I can eliminate thoughts from my mind altogether. However I can usually let them go. As one teacher told me, just because you see a train of thought coming doesn’t mean you have to get on that train. Acknowledge the thought, then let it go, let it drift away like a cloud going by the window of your awareness. Don’t dwell! Even if it seems very important, don’t break your meditation to write it down—it will come back later, and it will be clearer for having come to you in a quiet mental environment.

Often when meditating, emotions come to the surface, sometimes accompanied by images, if not by actual thoughts. Don’t ignore these emotions or try to repress them; rather, feel them. Observe and acknowledge these emotions, and let them manifest physically (cry, for example, or laugh). These emotions need an outlet, and meditating is giving them the space they need to be processed.

Another great thing about meditation is that it can induce deep relaxation, which is extremely beneficial for stress reduction and stress management in general. One of the first steps in meditating is to relax; as you get more experienced you can feel where the tension is located in your body, and, by breathing into that spot, start to let it go. Often tension is tied up with emotion; in releasing one you can release the other. Tension is a result of our hectic lifestyles; just sitting for 10 minutes and letting the mind slow down can do wonders. Sometimes I’m surprised at how long 10 minutes actually is. This slowing down, letting go, and entering a state of deep relaxation can help you sleep better at night, reduce the frequency and intensity of headaches, be a calmer person, and reduce anxiety; it also has myriad other physical and mental health benefits.

Meditation practice shows us just how fast we live today. If you really try to focus on each breath, one at a time, you enter a slow-motion world where 10 minutes can undo 6 hours of craziness; when meditating, 10 minutes goes by as slowly as an Eisenstein film, whereas 6 hours of modern life zip by like a Hollywood action movie. Give yourself a break; you deserve it.

There are many “styles” and techniques of meditation: you can meditate on lovingkindness, you can meditate on a mantra, you can meditate on gratitude or love or compassion or prayer. You can do guided meditations or visualizations. You can follow Buddhist traditions or Hindu traditions or transcendental meditation or many others. Meditation is usually defined as focusing on one point, but I have also heard it defined as “becoming familiar,” namely with your own mind. No matter what kind of meditation practice you follow, the end result is that you know your self much better than when you didn’t meditate.

In later posts I will elaborate on different types of meditation, and different aspects of meditation, but for now I would say the best way to get started, and the most beneficial, is simply to sit comfortably and pay attention to your breathing, one breath at a time. If you can take 10 breaths without letting your mind stray too far, you’re off to a very good start. It’s better to sit for 5 minutes a day most days of the week than to aim for a half hour or more and never get around to doing it. One teacher advised simply taking three deep breaths every time you look at your watch. When you bring your focus back to your breathing, you bring your attention to the present moment, which is the essence of mindfulness. Even if you have no interest in the spiritual side of meditation, this attempt to live mindfully has its own advantages.

Finally, a word of encouragement: meditation is a practice, a process in and of itself. It is not a cure-all, and it does not provide immediate results. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t slow the pace of your thoughts every time you sit down to meditate. Rather, imagine a swiftly moving stream; now, bring your attention to the river rocks lying on the bottom beneath the current. The stream, like your thoughts, doesn’t stop, but the rocks over which they flow can be your anchor in this hectic world.

Achieve Sleep Nirvana!

Make sleep your best friend. Get to know it well, and learn to enjoy its company. Don’t feel guilty about getting reacquainted with this old companion. Without enough quality sleep you eventually turn into a quivering blob of tears and frustration; with enough quality sleep you feel you can run a marathon with a smile on your face. You get to choose.

For years I was a chronic insomniac. I know my livingroom couch like the back of my hand. I’ve read a lot of books between the hours of 3:00 and 6:00 am. I know more than I want to about the nocturnal guy who lives across the road (why would anyone keep that much string in their garage? Who invites someone to take pictures of their house at 2:00 in the morning? Why doesn’t he throw anything away?). I can pour myself a bowl of cereal without turning on the kitchen lights or making any noise.

But those days are over. I have learned to embrace my inner sleeper. Every night before going to bed I sigh, “Aaaahhhh, I love going to bed.” It drives my husband crazy.

How did I do it, you ask? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. And by that I don’t mean practice lying in your bed for 8 hours a night not sleeping. I mean take some time during the day to learn how to let go, physically and mentally. Before, when I was an insomniac, I had no idea how to reach a state of complete and utter relaxation, which I think is key for achieving a good night’s sleep, especially if you’re a chronic insomniac. I used to wake up in the morning (if I hadn’t already been awake all night) clenching all my arm muscles. The second I awoke I was tense. I had no idea why, and no-one even understood my complaint (one physiotherapist recommended sleeping with more pillows). Only now do I realize that I constantly maintained a state of heightened vigilance and alertness, even when I was sleeping. I probably rarely entered deep, stage four sleep, which is absolutely mandatory for a wide range of bodily and mental functions, including muscle repair.

When I had young children it was even worse. Mothers seem to have a sixth sense—they often wake up in the night even before their child starts crying. For me this reflex never shut down. Even now I usually wake immediately when a child enters my room. But I used to be on my feet at the first peep, worrying. Now I can reassure myself that if they really need me, they’ll come get me, and even if I’m in a really deep sleep they can shake me awake.

I achieved sleep nirvana by practicing deep relaxation techniques, especially meditation and body scanning. I would say that the latter was most helpful for shutting down physically, and the former helped me learn to settle my mind. Together they get me out of most insomniac situations. (Note: I also took care of some of the emotional baggage that kept me awake at night.)

There are many body scans you can use. I like one by Jon Kabat-Zinn (click here for link to CD or tape). When you first start practicing, you should set aside about 45 minutes to an hour per day, at least a few times a week (the more the better), to listen to a guided body scan. You begin by lying down on your back, feeling your body sinking into the mattress. Focus on your breathing—make sure it’s your belly going up and down, in and out, and not your chest. When you feel ready, focus your attention on your left toes. Feel yourself breathing into your left toes (you can even go toe by toe) and out from your left toes. Repeat this, gradually shifting your attention to the bottom of your left foot, the top of your left foot, your left heel, your left ankle, and so on. With every exhalation, let go of the part of the body you’ve been focusing on. Gradually make your way up your left leg, then do your right leg, left arm, right arm, torso, neck, parts of the face. It’s much easier to do this with the recording to guide you and keep you focused.

Once you master the body scan, and get familiar with the feeling of letting go, you can use the tool however you like. Sometimes I use it to take a nap during the day (something I could never do before when I was a non-sleeper; now I find it really helps me to recharge and deal more effectively with the evening family routine if I’ve gotten up very early). Usually before going to bed I start doing the scan in my mind; I’m usually out before I hit my left knee. Similarly, if I wake in the night and I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back to sleep, I start the scan and it usually works.

Being able to turn off your mind and let go of your thoughts complements letting go physically; you can achieve this by practicing meditation (link forthcoming).

There are many other techniques for getting a good night’s sleep, such as going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, not watching TV in bed, turning off the computer or TV at least an hour before bedtime, using your bed only for sleeping and sex, and so on (click here or here or here for sound advice). But unless you really know what it feels like to let go, turn off, and shut down, you may not achieve consistent, deep, replenishing sleep. And if you’re recovering from burnout or any other illness, this is what you need most. Listen to your body: it will know when it’s getting the rest it needs and when it’s beginning to replenish its resources. Until then, sleep as deeply and as well as you can, as much and as often as you can. And don’t forget to practice.

Recovering From Burnout

Recovering from burnout can be very long, and very difficult. It can seem even longer and more difficult because, generally speaking, people who suffer from burnout are not usually very patient with themselves to begin with, and are not used to sitting on the sidelines of life watching everyone else “get ahead” or have fun. If nothing else, burnout recovery is an exercise in patience.

Burnout creeps up on you over a matter of months or, more realistically, years; don’t expect it to disappear in a matter of days or weeks. Surrender to your body and its needs: if it is telling you to stop, then stop, don’t try to keep going. A simple week-long trip to the Caribbean will not cure you (although of course it won’t hurt!). Depending on the severity of your symptoms, you may not even be able to consider going on a trip. The thought of packing your bags will probably seem overwhelming. Nevertheless, it will be essential to get away somehow: perhaps find a quiet place in your home where you can be alone for a significant portion of each day, or go somewhere where someone else can look after you. (Most people who suffer from burnout are not used to being looked after, so this can be a real challenge.) I had a great friend who took my kids overnight twice in two weeks—the longest I’d ever been child-free in my house. The main thing is to try to “turn off” for as much of every day as possible. Your system needs to reset. Sleep, read, watch TV, rest, write if you can. Do all of this as much as possible, even if (especially if) it means taking time off work. (I realize this isn’t possible for everyone; check with your doctor, your employer, and your insurance company to see what’s possible.) Give yourself the gift of time. But remember, bodies are like nature: think of how slowly the passing of the seasons takes place. Winter doesn’t suddenly become summer; rather, over the course of several months, the temperature fluctuates significantly, the snow melts and then falls again, flowers start to push up from the ground only to be dumped on by the next storm. Finally one day you realize it’s summer and you’ve forgotten all about the sub-freezing temperatures and snowstorms. You can only see progress when looking back over long increments of time. Burnout recovery is the same. Most of the people I’ve spoken to that have suffered major meltdowns say it takes years, not weeks or months to recover from a full-scale burnout.

From day to day you may see no improvement, feel no better. But after a few months go by you’ll realize that you’re awake for more of the day than you were before. You may even feel significantly better. But try not to get discouraged if suddenly you seem to be back to square one: it’s always two steps forward and one step back. You feel better, you push yourself a little more, your body and mind react, and you find yourself in a setback. This will keep happening for a long time, possibly the rest of your life, unless you’re really really careful about balance (work-life balance, activity-rest balance, doing things you don’t like but have to do vs. doing things you don’t have to do but love to do, etc.). Sometimes things you are doing to help yourself recover can set you back: in my case I signed up for a very low-key yoga class, which helped enormously at first until I suffered a severe upper back spasm doing a simple gentle move; that spasm and the mechanical problems underlying it became my main source of extreme pain for over a year following.

Try not to succumb to despair. Stay focused on anything positive, no matter how tiny. Surround yourself with supportive, positive people, and eliminate negative people from your life. Feel all the emotions that surge up inside you; don’t hold them in. There are no time restrictions to healing, and the body won’t heal if the mind stays unhealthy. Find a therapist to help you work through all of the emotions you will undoubtedly have to deal with. Things will come up from the past: let them out. You will feel discouraged by the slow pace of progress: find a way to lower your expectations.

Remember, it is enough to just BE. You don’t need to achieve, accomplish, or prove anything. This need to DO can be an extremely hard habit to break. Balancing being with doing may be the best investment you can make while recovering from burnout. Looking to the animal kingdom can provide you with role models! Do what you have to do to meet your needs, and spend the rest of the day lounging in a sunny spot.

Here are some of the things that I, and the people I’ve spoken to, have found helpful while recovering from burnout (over the next few months they will be linked to other blog entries): meditation, yoga, prayer, practicing gratitude, exercise, walking, walking aimlessly, seeing good friends, hobbies, tai chi, cooking/baking, writing, spirituality.

Most importantly, take care of yourself EVERY DAY! Eat well, sleep well (this may take some practice; many burnout victims haven’t slept well in eons), laugh, and do something you like just for pleasure every single day.

Burnout

Many people use the term “burnout” loosely, to describe the way they feel when they’re tired, run-down, over-worked, under-nourished, in need of a break. But real burnout, as originally described by the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s in his books Burnout, Women's Burnout, and others, although it may start with run of the mill exhaustion, goes far beyond it to a place where the sufferer wonders if they should check into a hospital or just crawl under a rock to live out the last few moments of suffering on this earth.

I may be exaggerating, but only a little. Real burnout implies not only physical collapse of one sort or another, but also psychic, emotional, psychological, and spiritual collapse. It necessitates change. The victim of burnout has no choice but to profoundly alter their way of living or suffer even more dire consequences.

Usually burnout sufferers have been living with chronic stress for some time. The stress can come from external sources such as work and family, but is just as often self-inflicted or the result of internal conflict. Even if the source is primarily external, it is usually the individual who has allowed the external sources of stress to augment over time, often through his or her incapacity to say no to extra demands, for fear of not being liked, of being thought weak or incompetent, of not wanting to let others down, and/or for a whole host of other reasons.

To further aggravate matters, often people on their way to burnout thrive on being busy, and love the excitement and stimulation of demanding careers and bustling family and social lives. These are often “Type A” personalities, always driven to seek an adrenalin rush of one sort or another. But it’s important to remember that “Type As” on their way to burnout are not necessarily obvious over-achievers. They can just as easily appear mild-mannered and calm: it’s what’s going on inside that really matters, and people that are prone to burnout have often developed an uncanny capacity for hiding and disguising their inner lives. Some burnout survivors have even seen themselves as spies, constantly shifting their identities to blend in with their environment, never revealing their true nature, their true feelings. Often not even to themselves.

And therein I think lies the core of the problem. People who are on their way to burning out have hidden their true selves¬—their true desires, their past, their true nature, the person they once were but haven’t been for some time—they manage to hide all this not only from everyone they know, but often even from themselves. They may feel this hidden identity as a form of agitation, of knowing that they want to be doing something else but not knowing what it is or how to integrate it into their lives; often they think they aren’t “allowed” or don’t have the right to follow their hidden passion or reveal their true self for some reason. The more they run from their true identity, the more the inner conflict builds, often to the point of exploding. Many people forestall, or perhaps even experience burnout by diverting all of this nervous energy into extramarital affairs, drug addictions, excessive risk-taking, and various other poor decisions. These activities may provide an outlet for a while, but eventually in one way or another the individuals will pay the price. Those who manage to avoid making catastrophic decisions may in fact experience the effects of burnout in a more immediate way; if there is no outlet (good or bad), the inner conflict and agitation will force one.

The physical effects of burnout can be devastating. The chronic stress and resulting exhaustion can result in irregularities in the production of cortisol, one of the “fight-or-flight” hormones (click here to read more about cortisol, stress, and burnout). Irregular cortisol levels are common to burnout, fibromyalgia, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Chronic stress can wreak havoc with one’s muscles, which tend to collect tension, thus causing pain, which increases tension, which ramps up the pain, and so on in a vicious (and I mean vicious) cycle. It can interfere with sleep, which aggravates all the symptoms I’ve already listed, which in turn interfere with sleep, and so on in another vicious cycle. The exhaustion one feels leading up to and immediately following burnout is indescribable: it’s like your very life force has been used up, like the pilot light on a gas stove that can no longer ignite.

People who thrive on constant stimulation may not experience stress in its negative sense, but can still suffer the same physical consequences because they are constantly turned on, revved up, over-stimulated; they rarely pull the plug or decompress for any length of time. When external sources of stimulation are missing, they keep it going internally, either by letting their thought patterns get carried away with negative or excessive imagery, or by making excessive demands on themselves (write that book, start that business, run that marathon!). Often people prone to burnout are afraid to turn off; they are running from something, have been running for a long time, and don’t intend to stop anytime soon. Invariably, they are running from some element of themselves: their past, their lost dreams, their grief, their dashed hopes, their pain, their sorrow. Anyone would rather run on adrenalin than wallow in sadness. It’s as good a drug as any other.

People prone to burnout often have difficulty really looking after themselves. Yes, they take showers regularly, are well turned out, keep in shape, and to the outside world seem to be in fine working order. But it’s that inner self, the one they’re keeping hidden from the world, that they ignore. Burnout is that inner self’s way of making itself heard. The more you ignore it, the louder it will scream. The longer you leave it locked away, the hungrier and more desperate it will be when it finally gets out. The sooner you start looking after, or at least paying attention to, that vulnerable being hidden away inside, the sooner he or she will be able to heal and be reintegrated into the rest of your identity. Listen to the quiet, fragile voice of that long-lost child.

Gratitude

“Every morning, when you get up, think of ten things you are grateful for.” This was the advice given to me by a good friend when I was going through a very rough patch in my life, suffering with debilitating chronic pain and fatigue. Just getting out of bed was extremely difficult physically, and the thought of spending another day unable to accomplish even the most basic tasks without suffering agony did not make for a very easy start to my mornings. The practice of gratitude provided a tiny pinhole of light in the darkness of my life at that time; it did not dull the pain, it did not always lift my spirits, it did not really change anything, but it did provide a much-needed window out of my uncomfortable prison and onto a better world; that window gave me hope.

Today, more than a year later, I still practice gratitude, although the effect, now that I’m feeling better, is somewhat different. The other day I went downhill skiing for the first time in over two years. On top of that mountain, with the sun shining on my face even as the cold wind blew, looking out over a sunny landscape of evergreens, snow, and frozen lakes, able to actually move and use my body in a way I haven’t been able to for so long, I felt immense gratitude. When I told my husband that I was grateful for being able to ski again, he asked, somewhat caustically, “Grateful to whom?” He was missing the point. If I didn’t feel grateful, I would essentially be discounting all of the suffering I had gone through. If I had taken being able to ski for granted, when at one time I wasn’t sure if I would be able to walk again, it would negate all that hard work I had put into getting better. It would be flippant and disrespectful, to myself if to no one else. Gratitude doesn’t have to be offered to God or anyone in particular; it can simply be felt. It’s true that the expression of gratitude does tend to search out an object, someone or something to whom one is grateful; I’m not sure if this is a bad thing, even for avowed atheists like my husband.

Being grateful also makes you acknowledge how important people are in your life. I once heard Bob Marley say, “My life is people. Without people I am nothing.” I find that when I think about what I’m grateful for, it is most often people. If you are not grateful for the people in your life, it’s probably a good indication that you need to get a new circle of friends and acquaintances. I often also feel gratitude for certain happiness-enhancing activities; I’ve been surprised to notice that although I am of course grateful for my relatively privileged lifestyle, the things that really sustain me are people and fulfilling activities, not material goods.

Recent research into happiness (a burgeoning field of study: see The Art of Happiness for a starting point) indicates that practicing gratitude can indeed make a huge difference to one’s overall level of happiness. In one study, the research subjects were divided into three groups. One group was asked to keep a gratitude journal, in which they wrote down 5 things for which they were grateful every day. The second group kept a journal in which they wrote whatever they wanted, and the third group kept no journal whatsoever. On questionnaires designed by the researchers to evaluate happiness levels, those in the first group rated significantly higher on the happiness scale than those in the other two groups.

In the song “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls, there’s a line, “Darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable; lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.” For me, gratitude has become one of the qualities that keeps me attuned to the lightness in life, while helping to keep the darkness at bay.