Elana Kirsh

Tag: thinking

  • Working from Home is the Enemy of Mindfulness

    On the face of it, I have a fairly ideal work-from-home situation right now.

    For starters, I have a job – already going better than millions of people around the world. And I actually love my job. I feel like I’m doing good for the world, the people I work with and myself every day, which gives me a steady sense of purpose and meaning. Added to this, my husband isn’t working at the moment, so the bulk of childcare responsibilities – of which there are many – fall on him. This means that apart from feeling guilty about not spending more time with the kids, and not helping him out more, I’m able to work largely uninterrupted for hours on end. Not a luxury that most working parents with young families have right now.

    The cherry on top is my workspace – a granny-flat-turned-home-office on the roof of our apartment. It’s comfortable, quiet, and breezy, and our new dog (I’ll share musings on him in a separate post soon) keeps me company while demanding very little. He also never interrupts Zoom meetings and pulls faces behind me while I’m talking to potential clients, so that’s another win.

    My point is – I know I’ve got it pretty good. And I’m grateful for these circumstances every day…

    And yet.

    I’m finding it really fucking hard to ever finish work these days. To draw a line and switch over to family time, to time with my husband, or even *gasp* to me time. I’m constantly thinking about work, going over challenging conversations, mentally fiddling with budgets and ideas, planning future difficult conversations, building road maps. Writing back to texts and emails and Slack messages while the kids are in the bath.

    It’s better on the weekends. Even if I work for a few hours on Friday morning and a couple more on Saturday evening, in the time in between I’m largely able to enjoy time with the kids, meandering walks with the dog, a family dance party on the roof, maybe even a movie on Friday night. Well, the first 20 minutes of a movie before I pass out on the couch. Really I just stay awake for the ice cream.

    But on work days, mindfulness is eluding me.

    I realized yesterday that part of it is the absence of a commute. We bitch and moan about traffic jams and late trains and how much time we waste commuting, yet it serves a purpose other than just moving from us Point A to Point B. Being in physical transition facilitates a psychological transition, too. My drive to the office takes about half an hour, and gives me time to mentally go from home to work, from work to home. After getting everyone up and ready in the morning and dropping them off, the drive gives me time to switch from being “mama me” to “work me.” And even when I rush out of the office on my “short” days, to pick up GG and Little A from kindergarten and spend the evening with them, I’m usually able to process whatever I was working on, mentally leave work, and ultimately be present with the kids until they go to sleep.

    At home it takes me less than a minute to get to “the office,” and I’m usually carrying or dragging some combination of laundry, a whiny child, a dog, dishes and a computer with me, and often already on a work call, to boot. Half of my mind is still downstairs with the family when I’m up at work, and when I come down, say to have lunch with them, a good chunk of me is still in the last call and writing up an email summary and scanning and re-prioritizing my to-do list.

    It’s exhausting.

    And basically the opposite of mindfulness.

    I wish it was just affecting me, but it’s not. My husband told me yesterday that sometimes it feels like I’m not really here, and I couldn’t even argue with him. He’s right. I’m not here. Not all of me anyway. And if he feels like this the kids probably do, too.

    Trying to meditate
    Meditating together doesn’t work, just FYI

    As always my unexpected guru, he made a suggestion that I’m gonna try this week. Sounds silly but I believe in environmental reminders to trigger behavioral changes. He suggested that instead of coming “home” from work through the internal stairs, that I leave the building via the elevator, take a walk around the block – not on a work call – and then walk in the front door. Maybe this way, even in a few minutes, I’ll be able to trigger that transition that I usually get on the commute. To leave work behind, even for a couple of hours, and just be with the kids.

    I also know that – as is so often the case for me – meditation is part of the answer here. My practice has been rocky lately. I still meditate every morning, but so often I find that the bell dings after half an hour and I realize that I’ve basically just been sitting on my ass on a pretty cushion, legs crossed, back straight, face relaxed… thinking about work. When my mind is all over the place like this I find that a stricter, less spacious and all-encompassing technique is more effective at holding and cultivating my attention – so I think I’ll try some body scanning and super-zoomed in attention practices this week.

    None of this is going to change the fact that we’re all kind of going nuts with this social distancing, the kids need their routine, my husband needs to be able to focus on his work, and the extrovert in me is killing to see other people. But something tells me that a bit more mindfulness and presence might take the edge off the suffering. And shine a light on the beauty in every moment, too.

  • Tricks of the Mindful, Part II

    Several weeks after writing about my efforts to mindfully release some painful thoughts, I’m pleased to report marked success in the next phase of my little operation. Whereas a few weeks ago I was really suffering over a crisis with my relative, Vanessa, I now feel much better about the situation, and have even managed a calm conversation with her to share some of my feelings – without pointing fingers or dredging up the issue.

    To recap, the first step was to mindfully note whenever the thoughts in question arose. This helped to distance myself from the mental churning, and even stopped thoughts dead in their tracks at times. To neutralize the threat altogether, I planned to cultivate some “lovingkindness” or compassionate thoughts – by consciously reminding myself of how much I love Vanessa and her family, every time the topic arose in my mind.

    Full disclosure: In the meantime, some events transpired that helped put things in perspective. Birth, death and war – would you believe. The big things that have a habit of making us realize how little the little things really are.

    In any case, back to the second step, the lovingkindness plan: Each time I notice a thought about Vanessa, I note it as above, and then I take a deep, slow inhalation. As I inhale, I imagine I’m breathing in love and kindness – simple as that. Yes – it feels a bit contrived, I’ll admit. But it’s working. I’m noticing more and more that the thought is followed by the realization of it – rather than seconds or minutes of stewing angrily – and then almost immediately, feelings of forgiveness and kindness start to bubble up before I even start my dorky love breathing.

    On top of these changes, I’ve noticed a pleasing by-product. Little by little, my mind is starting to follow these simple steps for all sorts of scenarios – before getting sucked into going over unpleasant situations. Instead, I’m noticing a spark of looking for the good in people, an almost undetectable deep inhalation of lovingkindness. They’re just glimpses of progress at this point, but I’m optimistic that they will grow.

    Ultimately, I know I can’t control my thoughts – that understanding is one of the main gifts that I’ve received from mindfulness meditation. But I can choose how I react to them. And more than that – I can create the conditions for thoughts which serve me well to thrive – and work out ways to minimize the damage caused by thoughts would do me harm.

    Peace of mind, here I come. Piece of cake (almost).

  • Tricks of the Mindful, Part I

    There’s a personal, family situation that’s bothering me at the moment – swimming around and around in my head against my will, despite my having decided numerous times not to confront the issue. A few moments free to mull and my mind inevitably ends up there, rehashing an extremely uncomfortable conversation that took place a few months ago, drafting emails and SMSes that I will never send, scripting phone calls I will never make, and imagining responses that will never eventuate.

    With the dispute itself months in the past, it’s no longer my relative that’s making me feel bad; now it’s my mind – dredging up uncomfortable feelings over and over again in some sort of demented, hopeless effort to make me feel better. Such is the mind; we are largely powerless to control the thoughts it entertains. But I do believe we can nudge it in the right direction, and that’s what I’ve decided to do with this little battle.

    The first step – as is often the case – is awareness. Every time I notice the chatter in question – whether I catch it a second or a few minutes in – I note it. I mentally say to myself “thinking about Vanessa*” And surprisingly, the effects have been almost immediate. By naming the occurrence, I am straight away distanced. It becomes clear that it’s my mind – and not ‘me’ – which is going over and over things, and I am able to walk away from the noise in a way that I haven’t been even vaguely successful in doing so far. It totally, magically deflates the process, takes the pain out of the mental churning.

    The bottom line is that I do want my relationship with Vanessa to be better, to get back to normal. After literally hours of talking, thinking, and writing, I’ve decided not to do anything further about our disagreement and just get on with things, but my mind hasn’t caught up. So inevitably, thoughts of the conflict keep arising. Rinse and repeat – I note the self-chatter and it simmers down, again.

    But this noting alone won’t be enough to make things right. I still need to find a way to feel better about it all – to cultivate lovingkindness, rather than hurt and anger, into my thoughts and feelings about her.

    Here’s the plan: Every time the thoughts in question come up and I shine a light on them, I will add in a conscious, positive thought. Something about how much we care about each other, and about her good (though misguided) intentions. I’m hoping I can gradually take the sting out of the conflict by massaging my mind in this way, so that eventually the thoughts can just flicker by like the host of other crazy shit that goes through my head, without getting stuck on the big screen, so to speak. And in time, they’ll be gone, or at least barely noticeable in the babble of everyday life.

    Stay tuned for Part II to see how it goes.

     

    *I don’t know anyone called Vanessa; I totally made up that name. The rest of the post is true, though.