Falling Well: Finding your ability to Cope under pressure

Who are you when the going gets rough?  And are you prepared if life gets even rougher?  How will you handle it?  What will you discover about yourself?

We actually have no idea what version of ourselves we will discover in a given situation until we are actually in it.  Will we be brave?  Or run like hell?  And will we be able to tell if and when either one of those responses is or was the right one for us personally.

Catastrophic Thinking is one of the ways we walk ourselves right into a mental corner and become convinced that under certain circumstances we won't be able to cope with a given situation if it were to occur.  We say to ourselves, "I won't be able to handle it."  "That will be too much for me."  "I'm sure that would be the point of no return."  "I can't do it."

One method for countering this kind of thinking is to "decatastrophize" the situation by using a few thought experiments in which you walk a little farther into the situation in your mind and imagine that instead of being paralyzed into inaction, you find your way out.  In other words, rather than allowing your mind to just shut down at the thought of imagining the worse-case scenario, to instead visualize seeing yourself handling the situation to the best of your ability.  Even if it means hardship.

With Catastrophic Thinking we tend to overestimate danger, and underestimate our ability to cope with it.  For instance, as we age we might become fearful of falling.  This can lead to an overestimation of how bad a fall would be, how much damage might come from such a fall, and an underestimation of our ability to handle both the fall and any injuries that might come from the fall.  But a thought experiment, including information about the ways athletes fall and martial artists learn to roll or prevent injury during falls, can give us material to come back to our thinking and imagine a way in which we might cope much better during a fall than we ever imagined.  The Catastrophic thought can be decatastrophized and you create a way in your mind's-eye to see yourself "falling well".  And not only falling well, but recovering from any fall injury, well.

Decatastrophizing includes avoiding the overestimation of danger by looking at our fears more realistically.  This can be used in any number of situations in life where we can reinterpret the situation and see a more realistic view with possibilities and better outcomes.  It also means a more realistic look at our ability to cope in life, based on our history, skills, advanced reasoning, and a better estimation of our ability to stay in the game and cope well in many situations.

Take a look at your most frequent recurring fears and ask yourself if you are overestimating the danger and underestimating your ability to cope.  Rather than continuing to fall into the Catastrophic trap of believing you cannot ever allow bad things to happen because you wouldn't be able to handle it, try on the thought experiment of decatastrophizing the situation in your mind.  It makes all of the difference in the world between becoming paralyzed with fear, and pushing your comfort zone.  

You can read more about Catastrophic Thinking and Faulty Thinking Styles from my March, 2018 blog entry here

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do"     ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Thanks to Lisa Ann Yount for the great image, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en

The Moving Mind: How we see the World

There is an interesting Zen story about two monks who are looking up at a flagpole. It goes something like this:  "Two monks spend two months looking up at a flagpole as part of their practice.  One says, "The flag is moving."  The other says, "The wind is moving."  They argue back and forth, unable to agree.  When the Zen master walks by, she says, "Neither the flag nor the wind is moving.  Your mind is moving."

There are many versions of this story, but the general interpretation, meaning or lesson is similar in all.  That we are so busy wanting to explain things and have a solid answer, and then defend that view or belief, that we actually miss the present moment and remain unable to see that it's the internal filter of our own minds that make our particular and personal reality what it is.  So attached to our own judgments, interpretations, opinions, views, and expectations, we miss what is really there, right now.  

Your mind is moving.

Where can we see these similar lessons in life?  Two people arguing over how to make the brownies.  Walnuts or no walnuts?  Both missing the reality of their moment together, alive and breathing. Or how about two owners of the same pet arguing over how to have the dog groomed.  Short or with design?  Both missing the potential of a co-created event, and instead miffed about the outcomes.  Then there is the local politics.  Two parties arguing over how to use the town funding.  Invest in local ponds or build a new shooting range?  Each sure of their stance and all missing the opportunity for real compromise in the present.  Finally, what about the warring countries?  Each defending their personal view, politics, or religion, and overlooking the destruction of bombs on an already dying and environmentally threatened planet they share.

It was the American Zen teacher, Joko Beck, author of Everyday Zen and Nothing Special, who wrote about how it is our minds that create suffering and separation, and she spoke at length about how we humans can be so cruel and harmful to one another since we all judge and react from that place of the moving mind.  That internal filter we are so attached to and so defensive of.  Not one of us is free of this human flaw.  But we can get a little better over time if we realize the Zen master was right.  "Your mind is moving".  It's not a good or bad thing.  It's just something to notice and pay attention to.

When it comes to things like depression or anxiety, even anger or resentment, we could say, don't blame the flag or the wind.  Look instead to your one moving mind.  What is it doing?  How is it hanging on to its own view, its own belief system, its own judgment about your depression or anxiety?  Look for the purest awareness of reality you can find.  We could argue at length about the causes of these as well as anger and resentment.  But what is real?  What is opinion?  What is belief?  What is actually happening?  Do you truly know?  You can theorize it's the traffic or your irritation with your spouse, but if you pause you can try one step further in looking with your purest mind's awareness and see that no matter the cause, your mind is having its say about it.

Sometimes we interpret situations as more dangerous than they really are.  This sends messages to the body that there is danger when there isn't and the body reacts.  Sometimes we see things happening in the world and tell ourselves, "It's all hopeless", when it isn't.  This sends messages to the body to give up, and it reacts.  We can look out at our country today and see the behavior of fellow citizens and we create a story in our head.  "It's the flag moving", or "It's the wind".  But don't forget what makes those views your own.  Your Mind is Moving

You can read more about mindsets and cognitive restructuring in one of my earlier blog entries from February 2020 here

"Anxiety is always a gap between the way things are and the way we think they ought to be"     Joko Beck

Thanks to Kitty Terwolbeck for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en