I’ve written before about the book 14,000 things to be happy about by Barbara Ann Kipfer. I think that focusing on happy thing of the things we are happy about is a fabulous strategy for improving health and happiness. So, I decided to do a monthly blog post about my happy things. Finding things to be happy about in January was a little tough. But, that’s probably when I need it the most.
January is the month of my deceased daughter’s birthday and this year it was the month when my mother died. If that’s not bad enough, it was also my mother’s birthday. This involved frantic travel to get to her before she passed, the painfully sad event, and the family drama that frequently rears its ugly head around such events.
If I wasn’t intentional about it I could have easily missed all of the things I’m grateful for and feel happy about.
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines responsibility in several ways. The two most relevant to this post include:
1. the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone
2. a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of: individuals have a responsibility to control personal behavior.
In Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D., the term is broken down into “response” and “ability.” The concept is that it involves an ability to respond and has nothing to do with blame. One may not always be able to respond to a situation, but they can still respond to the pain it might have caused.
Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D. also uses the idea of response-ability, describing the capacity to choose and remembering to be in charge and make careful and thoughtful choices. This is the ability to respond to life without placing blame upon one’s self.
Why is this distinction important? Many people confuse taking responsibility with assigning blame. Blame is disempowering or victimizing. Taking responsibility, in part or in whole, for what is actually mine is empowering. Am I responsible for an approaching hurricane? Of course not. Am I responsible for making decisions about how I’m going to deal with it? Absolutely.
Another reason why this distinction is important is that people feel responsible for the feelings, actions, and situations of others. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t some aspect that may be mine to manage or respond to, but I only have limited response-ability. Other people maintain the right to be wrong, make mistakes, interpret comments, and respond with their own feelings. I’m not response-able for those. Can I learn to be careful with my speech? Yes, to some extent. But, the choice still belongs to the other person about how to interpret what I’ve said and it often involves patterns from the past that I cannot predict or control.
I find it important to check if my sense of “responsibility” is really located in the present moment rather than a worry about the future or a carry-over from the past. Then, if it is in the present moment, I actually ask myself if the current concern is really within the area of my own “hula hoop.” Is it that close to me? Can I do anything with it? Is it really someone else’s response-ability rather than mine? Then, I can choose my response. If any of those questions suggest that this issue isn’t really mine, I can interrupt the tendency to blame and shame.
Boundary setting is an important part of this process. If my boundary is punctuated by gates that I control it will be helpful when considering my response-ability. If my boundary is open, without gates that I control, it is very tempting to take ownership of someone else’s responsibility even if there is no response-ability on my part.
The basic question for me is always, “Does this belong to me and is there a way that I can reasonably respond.”
Showing Up is one of those expressions that seems to be used more now than ever before. Frankly, I’m not a fan. When I ask people what they mean when they say they want to “show up” they usually can’t really explain it. Labels and expressions such as this one seem to interfere with self expression and communication. Since most people I talk with can’t describe showing up I decided to dig into it a little bit more.
What does it mean to show up? At the most obvious level it means being in a specific place. Woody Allen is famously noted to say that 80-90% of life was just showing up. I don’t know for sure, but I think he was talking about this level of showing up. According to thesaurus.com synonyms for showing up include arrival, presence, manifestation, actualization, and emergence. Antonyms include departure, absence, leaving, and end. Melmagazine.com writes that showing up means doing what you say you will do and not flaking. OK. That wasn’t helpful. www.mindful.org may get a bit closer. They say that showing up means being intentional, open, and acting skillfully.
Team Tony (Tony Robbins) says that showing up is about participation. This includes being fully present and really being focused on the other person (in a relationship) instead of focusing on the past. I think we are getting even closer. Kaitlin Kindman LCSW, describes “showingupness” as reliability, empathy, care, intentionality, thoughtfulness, and embodiment of “just being there” that someone demonstrates.
So why are so many people using this expression? I suspect there are many different answers. One is that it is thrown around a lot on social media platforms and has just seeped into common discourse. Also, people are genuinely yearning for deeper connections with others as our lives become more distant and fragmented. If you are going to be in the same place at the same time and for a limited amount of time, you want it to really matter.
I think showing up could just as accurately, and possibly more accurately, be expressed with the words mindful and intentional. Instead of saying I want to show up, I could express that I want to engage with you fully and intentionally. I don’t let my mind wander to things from the past or skipping forward to concerns of the future. I want to be in the here and now and feel whatever is going on NOW.
One of the activities I use when working with therapy clients is the Personal Mission Statement. Clients frequently use this expression when writing their Mission Statements. In the personal mission statement exercise they often use showing up to mean not dwelling in the past or worrying about the future. People instinctively know that either of those is not the pathway to joy or contentment. Their answer lies in remaining fully present in the here and now. Although this can be difficult, the effort can be worth it.
I am sure you have heard the word mindfulness. In my lifetime it has evolved from a “hippie” word to a mainstream buzzword. I think that is for good reason. It can be helpful to think about mindfulness as both a group of techniques and a lifestyle. For me, mindfulness as a lifestyle is more aspirational, but I do believe that frequent practice of the techniques can lead in that direction. I define mindfulness as the practice of actively engaging the full mind in the present moment without simultaneously carving out space for reviewing the past or planning the future.
Mindfulness is often associated with meditation. They can can go together, but I prefer to see them as separate. I consider meditation as one technique or one method to engage in mindfuless. It can also be practiced in other ways that don’t seem particularly meditative or spiritual.
Two examples that come to mind include mindful toothbrushing and mindful eating. Toothbrushing and eating are often done without any mental focus or effort. If you switch your toothbrush or fork to your nondominant hand, you have to come into the present moment and focus on the mechanics. There is no mental space for reflection on the past or projecting into the future unless you want to make a mess.
Mindfulness meditation is also beneficial, but can be strenuous. Most people think they are terrible at it and have unrealistic expectations. My first real experience of this was at a 2-day meditation retreat. That’s right! I started with 2 days! This is something I do NOT recommend. I had the expectation that my mind should be clear of all thoughts and I would avoid all distractions if I was doing it right.
What I experienced was almost instant and continuous monkey mind. Sitting in silence felt painful, and I didn’t do much better with walking meditation. I noticed everything around me and started mentally describing everything I saw. It took real effort to return my thoughts to the present moment over and over again.
I thought I was getting the hang of things on the second day…until the bird flew into the window. At that point I started worrying about whether or not it was dead. That storyline continued all the way to wondering whether cats eat dead birds. If that wasn’t enough, my brain engaged in comparing myself to the others at the retreat. They all looked like they were doing it right.
Yes, it is hard. It makes one wonder, “why try?” There are so many reasons.
Mind mastery. If you can repeatedly return to the present moment in meditation practice (or while brushing your teeth), you will be more likely to be able to do it in real life situations.
Greater joy in the moment. Being fully present while eating that fragrant, visually beautiful, and incredibly tasty pizza will bring so much more pleasure than worrying about whether they will find something awful when you have your colonoscopy 20 years from now and how you will handle that.
Decreased anxiety. If you consider anxiety as unproductive thinking about a future possibility that has not yet happened, mindfulness or being in the present moment does not allow space or energy for anxious thinking.
There are many books and references about mindfulness. I recommend Good Morning I Love You, by Shauna Shapiro as a good introduction. Easy to read, well-written, and gentle, it includes practical exercises for readers at all levels of mindfulness and meditation practice.
Accept that it will not come naturally at first. That’s ok. Mindfulness is not a destination. It is simply a practice.
