Tiny Buddha

Author: Linda Carroll

  • What to Do When You’re Stressed, Distressed, or Overwhelmed

    What to Do When You’re Stressed, Distressed, or Overwhelmed

    “Picture a pattern of upright dominoes that have been positioned just far enough away from one other to highlight the gap between them, but just close enough to hit each other if one of them tips over. Hit a single domino and it sets off a chain reaction. Oftentimes, our own actions, reactions and counter-reactions, criticisms and defensive responses function like dominoes. When we’re not able to access our mindfulness, reactivity takes over.” ~Alicia Muñoz

    Before my husband and I were married, he lived in New Zealand and I lived in the States. One way we coped with the distance was by making cassette tapes for each other, which we would send via snail mail.

    Sometimes we shared news of the day, personal information, and future dreams. Occasionally, in the middle of the night, the messages were passionate and deeply private—as only 3 am messages in the grip of longing and limerence can be.

    One day, I had a client who was interested in the teachings of a meditation instructor with whom I was acquainted, so I offered to make her a tape of a session from the instructor’s workshop. I grabbed a blank tape from a nearby basket, used my recorder to dub one of the sessions, and passed the tape on to her.

    A few days later, she asked if she could come by my office for a moment. When she arrived, she was uncomfortable and flustered as she handed the tape back to me.

    “Uh, I—I don’t think you meant this for me,” she stammered. Then she abruptly left my office.

    My heart seized. I knew which tape it was before I even listened to it. It was a recording so steamy I hadn’t even sent it to Tim. Somehow, instead of getting thoroughly erased or tossed in the garbage, the tape had found its way into the blank-tape basket.

    I can’t find the words to describe my feelings. Crushing embarrassment surged through my body. When I made it home, I flung myself onto the couch and lay there for ten minutes, paralyzed with shock.

    “How could you have been so careless?” I berated myself. It felt like the end of my career. As my shame and self-castigation mounted, my ability to discern my options plummeted. I began to consider moving to another town.

    Suddenly I remembered a training session on stress management I’d recently attended. It had advocated pausing long enough to take a slow, deep breath whenever we feel overwhelmed and then doing something different.

    I forced my leaden legs to stand and set the goal of touching an oak tree in the backyard before heading back to the couch. With effort, I got up and walked outside. When I reached my goal and gently touched it, I noticed a heron perched in a nearby tree, eyeing my fishpond with sinister interest. I moved into action, scaring it away by yelling at it.

    By the time I returned to the couch, I was breathing normally. Although I was still embarrassed, the magnitude of my emotions had moved from a ten to a three. I’d begun to see I would not die of embarrassment, and my client would also recover from her shock. Pausing long enough to do something different stopped the chain reaction of the domino effect.

    This is the biology of what happened. We each have a nervous system that operates outside of our conscious awareness called the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s activated when we are at rest and not in distress.

    Essentially, in our normal conscious life the lights are on at the front of our brain, where the frontal lobe resides, and we make decisions that are reasonable, responsible, and rational. Our heart beats normally, and we generally eat when we are hungry and rest when we are tired.

    When we are distressed, as I was when my client returned the tape to me, our brain switches gears and mobilizes the sympathetic nervous system, which causes the “lights to go out” in the frontal lobe and the “lights to go on” in the back of our brain where the amygdala (the brain’s 9-1-1 center) resides. So we react from another center, the system that tells us we are in danger, are embarrassed, or are under some other kind of threat.

    Our heart beats faster, our blood circulation slows down, and our body reacts as though we are under attack—even if the attack is coming from our own thoughts, as it was for me. Some of us don’t eat, others eat more than they need, some people collapse into sleep, and others stay awake with tingling limbs and racing thoughts.

    None of that is fun for anyone. The good news is, it’s totally fixable if we can remember to take a moment to pause. Working with our breath and moving our body—touching a tree as I did, for example—reassures the body that the danger is gone, and the lights can come back on at the front of the brain.

    My story is a reminder of how important it is to manage our own internal reactions before we can respond to a situation in a healthy, productive, reasonable way. Taking a moment, a breath, or a stretch helps us rebalance in the face of distressing interactions; we can think wisely about what to do next rather than act from panic and reactivity. I call this skill the pause.

    Four Small Steps to Help You Pause and Rebalance

    1. Notice when your body is tense and stressed. Accept your reaction without judging it as wrong. Take a few deep breaths to slow yourself down. Tense and relax the muscles in your limbs.

    2. Do something to get back to your body. Go for a walk, run, or do some other kind of exercise. Touch a tree and scare away a heron, as I did. Take a shower, chew on an ice cube, or smell some lavender.

    3. Do something that quiets the mind. Listen to a soothing piece of music. Say a prayer, practice a mantra, or recite a poem.

    4. Notice again what is going on in your body. It will probably feel different now.

    You might have picked up on this already, but practicing the pause is inextricably intertwined with practicing mindfulness. Pausing involves observing your emotions and noticing your mind’s desire to react from its fear center, and it also involves redirecting the mind’s attention to more soothing, physical rituals like breathing and moving.

    At spiritual retreats, it’s a common practice to ring a bell at unexpected times throughout the day. People are asked to stop what they are doing for a moment when the bell rings—they must stop folding clothes, put down their forks, or take a break from their conversations—and turn inward. This develops the practice of becoming still enough to take a breath and check in with our wise and centered selves rather than giving in to our first reaction to what is going on in the outer world.

    —

    Adapted from the book Love Skills. Copyright ©2020 by Linda Carroll. Printed with permission from New World Library

  • How to Be Whole on Your Own and How This Strengthens Your Relationships

    How to Be Whole on Your Own and How This Strengthens Your Relationships

    “Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.” ~Harriet Lerner

    Three decades ago, I married the man with whom I knew I would spend the rest of my life. We each had a rough childhood and had learned a lot about surviving, defending, and protecting ourselves. However, we did not know much about how to maintain a successful relationship.

    We took numerous classes on communication, learned to fight fair, and filled our goodwill bank accounts with lots of positive actions. However, despite our best efforts, something was still missing.

    There were times that the relationship felt smothering, and new types of problems kept arising. I got sick of saying “we” all of the time instead of “I.” Once when I was sick and slept in a different room, I was equally fascinated and worried by how much I enjoyed being by myself.

    Yes, we had learned to reconnect, to repair our troubles, and to deepen our intimacy. However, we had not yet figured out the crucial step necessary for keeping your relationship healthy.

    When it comes to love, we have two essential tasks. One, as most of us know, is to learn the skills and practices that allow relationships to thrive. The other lesson is less familiar to most people, but it is even more important. We must also learn how to love ourselves.

    By self-love, I do not refer to the type of vanity that is fed by money, power, influence, a gym-toned body, and the admiration of others. What I mean is the kind of love that leads to self-care, not only of our physical health but also of our minds and hearts.

    It’s the kind of love that creates for ourselves the time and space to develop and to use our talents. It’s the kind of love that frees us to discover and to foster our true purpose in life.

    To become truly wholehearted in our loving, we have to look at when we have acted in a “half-hearted” manner and when have we been “closed-hearted.” Also, we have to examine when it is that we have responded in a “hard-hearted” way.

    Our biggest challenge is to achieve the “whole” in wholehearted. In order to love anyone in a wholehearted way, we need to make ourselves whole first. We must integrate the two forces—the “me” and the “we.”

    Let me be clear about the three things that are not wholeness:

    • A constant state of happiness
    • An ongoing state of acceptance, love, and balance
    • A perpetual feeling of well-being

    Wholeness truly means accepting “the whole enchilada.” The hard, the sad, the mad, the scared, and the glad are all parts of you. The gratitude and the resentment together make you whole.

    Your acceptance of all the pieces of yourself makes you whole. Here are five practices that can each help us find our wholeness.

    1. Spend quality time with yourself.

    I once heard someone say that spending time with yourself is the greatest practice you can do, and I didn’t understand at the time what the speaker meant.

    While alone, I always felt like I was “by myself.” I mistook being alone for loneliness. It took me years to discover the pleasure of walking in nature, exploring an art museum, or hanging out at a farmer’s market loving my own company as much as with another person.

    2. Each day, check to make sure your self-esteem is balanced by your self-criticism.

    People sometimes mistake self-love for self-indulgence. Challenging myself when I am not living up to my own standards is important, but it must be done with compassion. Learning to love yourself despite your imperfections allows you to accept other people’s imperfections.

    3. Find a practice that centers you.

    Sitting in a lotus position and concentrating on breathing allows some people to find focus; there are also other practices like Zen meditation, walking meditation, Vipanassa meditation, and many more.

    In addition, there are methods of centering that are just as powerful for self-reflection; dance, art, writing, and prayer are just a few examples. What they all have in common is that we can use them to check in.

    4. Take an inventory of where you are right now. Explore it in your mind.

    Body: Am I satisfied with the ways I nourish my body? How can I make even better choices? Examine your nutrition, exercise for strength, flexibility, endurance, and cardiac wellness as well as all of the other kinds of self-care you can practice.

    Mind: Am I feeling fed, challenged, expanded, and interested? Am I growing?

    Spirit: Am I satisfied with the definition I have for spirit? How can I get more in touch my spirit? Is there a place within me where I can find peacefulness, wisdom, and guidance?

    Emotional: How am I coping with my current challenges? Is there a flow of different feelings, or do I find myself stuck on one emotion? Do I feel balanced?

    Social: How am I connected with the people in my life (family, friends, partner, coworkers)? What’s working, and where do I want to make changes?

    5. Develop a daily gratitude practice and begin by showing yourself appreciation.

    Ask yourself about the victories you have had during the week. Acknowledge when you did something that was brave. Thank yourself for taking the time to feel gratitude.

    As you explore these five techniques, you might discover others. You will find you already have wholeness inside; you just have to find the keys to open the door.

    When we feel good about ourselves, we’re more likely to feel generous toward others; it’s a symbiotic relationship. We feel grounded and centered enough to take risks and to reach out to others. We feel safe by acknowledging our shortcomings and forgiving ourselves, so we are able to open up to our partners wholeheartedly.

  • What to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone Who’s Grieving

    What to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone Who’s Grieving

    “Remember that there is no magic wand that can take away the pain and grief. The best any of us can do is to be there and be supportive.” ~Marilyn Mendoza

    My mother, an articulate and highly accomplished writer, began to lose much of what she valued a few years ago. Her eyesight was compromised by macular degeneration, her hallmark youthful vigor was replaced with exhaustion, and many of her friends began to die. Finally, and cruelest of all, her memory began to go, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed.

    Her struggle and her suffering in the last two years of life were excruciating to watch, and I was helpless to stop what felt like an avalanche of cruel losses.

    Sometimes in that last year, she would call me several times a day with distress and confusion. When she finally died, after five ambulance trips to the hospital in six weeks, my first response was thankfulness that she was out of the struggle and, to my surprise, relief. I had been grieving the mother I had known for the last year of her life, and she had already been gone a long time.

    It would be another month before I found my grief, and I suspect that it will be there forever; but my immediate feeling was not sadness.

    People feel so many things at so many different times about the death of a loved one: loss, anger, devastation, confusion, guilt, and fear, to name a few. If we assume anything about how they are experiencing their loss, we can make them feel worse. Here are a few suggestions about how to reach out, starting with what not to do.

    Don’t assume you know what I am going through.

    I was surprised by how many people came up to me and said, “I know just what you’re going through.” Even worse, they would tell me, “This will be the saddest thing that will ever happen to you,” or “You won’t know who you are for years after this.”

    We all know that losing a mother is a major life event and it changes many things. What we don’t know is how. It is different for each person; we cannot overlay our own experience on someone else’s and assume it’s the same. For me, whose first feelings were that her death was that of a reprieve, it caused me to doubt the validity of my response.

    Don’t use religious clichés about this life or another. 

    Religious clichés such as “Jesus called her home,” “God needed another angel,” or “it’s in the hands of the Lord,” were infuriating. For one thing, my mother was not a Christian, nor am I. I love the Jesus story, but it doesn’t resonate for me as the only true story, and it sure doesn’t help me feel better about my mothers’ death.

    Don’t say “there is a reason for everything.” 

    Then the cards began to come filled with familiar clichés: the worst was “there is a reason for everything.”

    That feels to me like a way to do a “wrap up” on something that is fragile, personal, and unknown. How do you know there is “a reason for everything?” It insults grief by trying to dilute it into a rational cosmic plan.

    You cannot explain, rationalize, or sum up my loss in a tidy little cliché. My reaction to those messages was not to feel more comforted, but to feel more isolated.

    Don’t talk about her “passing.”

    Talking about people who have “passed” feels like minimizing what happened and avoiding the word “death.” It is a tough word, it is final and irreversible and filled with loss. But it is a true word. It is what we have to manage, and the hugeness of the word, death, in its finality and brutality is what allows us to find our necessary grief.

    There were people who said things that did comfort me.

    1. I wish I had the right words, just know I care.

    2. I don’t know how you feel, but I am here to help in any way I can.

    3. Would you like me to bring you some enchiladas on Tuesday?

    4. What was this like for you? I’d love to listen if you would like to talk about it.

    Here is the most important thing for you to know.

    Each of our relationships has a bubble around it. Within that bubble is the history of what we have shared. Grief is a part of the human experience, and we grieve not just for the person who has died, but also for the part of our history they take with them.

    Losing a mother is a major life change regardless of what the relationship was like. But we don’t know what that is like for anyone but ourselves. When we assume we do, we belittle their experience and lose a chance to know them better.

    Although we may intend to connect with the other person, sometimes the opposite happens and what we say makes them feel worse. When we invite them to share their own experience, we help to break down the isolating walls of loss and inspire a true connection.

  • How to Speak to Someone About an Unspeakable Loss

    How to Speak to Someone About an Unspeakable Loss

    “It’s not about saying the right things. It’s about doing the right things.” ~Unknown

    Years ago, my family and I moved to a bucolic little town in New Zealand, where we were immediately swept up into a group of ex-pats and locals. We felt deeply connected to this community by the time I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in the local hospital.

    When our son was three months old, a doctor heard a heart murmur. Twenty-four hours later, he died.

    In the days and weeks that followed, I wandered in my own fog of grief as I went about the necessary tasks of ordinary life: shopping for food, taking our other kids to school, doing the usual mounds of laundry.

    Meanwhile, my new friends kept their distance. I saw them take great care to avoid me: to cross the street, switch supermarket aisles, literally do an about-face when they saw me coming.

    Invitations stopped coming. The phone went silent. My grief was marked by a deeper isolation than I’d ever known.

    Later, many of these people apologized. They told me they were terribly sad and distressed about what had happened, but hadn’t known what to say. My loss was so enormous that words seemed inadequate, even pitiful.

    They said nothing, out of fear that they would say the wrong thing.

    This sort of experience repeats itself in many different forms: a friend gets dumped by the love of her life, a colleague is given notice at a job he’s held for two decades, or a loved one receives the dreaded news that she has inoperable cancer.

    What can you say?

    While it’s not an easy question to answer, one thing is certain: It’s worse to say nothing than to say the wrong thing. Here are five ways to respond helpfully to people who have suffered an enormous loss.

    1. Manage your own feelings first.

    When we learn that disaster has befallen a loved one, we initially feel shock. Our heart rate increases, our thoughts either speed up or slow down, and we may experience nausea or dizziness.

    The anxiety we feel is real and personal. Our instinct, though, is to ignore it, find ways to numb it or minimize it. That’s a mistake.

    If we address our own anxiety first, we’ll be in a much stronger position to respond well to the person most directly affected. Do the things you know how to do to manage stress. A walk in the woods, some meditation or yoga, or talking to a trusted friend can help.

    Make sure your own body and emotions are regulated before you turn to the person in grief.

    2. Now focus on the other person.

    Remember that the isolation they feel is almost as painful as the shock and the sadness of the loss itself. If you avoid them because you don’t know what to say, this avoidance serves only your needs.

    Our friends and other loved ones need our comfort, support, and involvement during times of sorrow.

    Although there isn’t a right thing to say, there are some things to never say. They include the current favorite, “Everything happens for a reason,” or “I know just how you feel.” How do you know there’s a reason, and what difference would it make to a grieving person, anyway? And you don’t know how they feel—only they do.

    3. Admit that you don’t know what to say.

    That’s a good start. Try something simple that breaks the ice and starts a conversation, or at least sends a message to the other person that they’re not alone.

    “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I wish I could say the perfect thing, but I know there’s nothing to fix it. I just wanted you to know I care and am here with you.”

    4. Listen.

    If the person is willing to talk, listen. It’s the single most vital thing you can do.

    Listen to their story without interrupting. Don’t turn the conversation back to you with statements like, “I know what you’re going through—my dog died last year.”

    Don’t tell them what they will, or should, feel. Simply acknowledge their pain and listen to what it’s like for them.

    We all have different styles of managing shock and distress. Some people are angry, while others seem numb. Still others turn to gallows humor. Your job is not to correct them but to give them space to be the way they need to be.

    5. Rather than saying, ”Let me know if I can do anything,” offer to do something practical and specific.

    Taking on an ordinary task is often most helpful. Offer to shop for groceries, run errands, drive the kids somewhere, or to cook a meal or two. Ask if you can call tomorrow, or if they want to be left alone for a few days.

    When Survey Monkey’s CEO Dave Goldberg died suddenly, his wife, Sheryl Sandberg, wrote the following:

    When I am asked, “How are you?” I stop myself from shouting, “My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am?” When I hear “How are you today?” I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.

    Today, as I recall the loss of my own infant son, I think about the one person who did truly comfort me. She arrived at my house with a bottle of fine brandy and said, “This is everyone’s worst nightmare. I am so, so sorry this has happened.”

    Then we sat on the lawn and she poured me a drink as she listened to every horrible detail.

    As I look back now, I still feel how much her gesture helped me cope through those early days of pain. She didn’t try to fix me or try to make sense of what happened. She didn’t even try to comfort me. The comfort she gave came through her being in it with me.

    You can’t fix what happened, but you can sit with someone, side by side, so they don’t feel quite so alone. That requires only intention, a willingness to feel awkward, and an open, listening heart. It’s the one gift that can make a difference.