A Spring Cleaning Tip for the Mind & Spirit

I originally wrote the article below for the Mountain Mirror. http://www.mountainmirror.com/

Several nights ago, I went to the drug store to pick up an antibiotic for my husband who has been struggling with the same flu and cold that seems to be afflicting almost everyone this year. I spoke to the pharmacy tech and they said his prescription was not quite ready and she said it would be 10-15 minutes. And so I milled around the store and found a few other things my husband needed. 15 minutes passed and my name had not been called, and so I went up to the desk to inquire if his order had been filled. The tech told me they were more backed up than she thought, and said it would be a few more minutes.

At this point I felt frustration rise in my chest. It was 8:30p at night and I hadn’t been home in over 12 hours. I was exhausted and ready to get in my bath robe and decompress before bed time. As I felt myself getting irritated, I took in a deep breath and did a quick mental check and reminded myself that I had a choice in this moment. I could be angry and allow the cortisol levels in my body to rise substantially or I could choose to find joy and live in the present moment. I thought of the poet Rumi’s words, “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you ever be polished?” I then felt myself calm back down and embrace the moment.

Now I am not saying I always make the choice to recognize what I cannot control, but I am learning that the practice of mindfulness helps me to notice when I am starting to react. And once I notice my reactions, I have the opportunity to hit the pause button and choose my response. We have a choice to find a softness and lightness in our body when difficulties arise, or we can harden up to life and to one another. How often do our reactions keep us from being “polished” and from finding freedom and joy in life?  So the spring cleaning tip I am offering, is to learn to respond to daily adversities that prompt anger, by hitting the pause button when we feel ourselves starting to react, so that we can find our way to a softer response.

I’m not implying we should never be irritated. Anger is a normal and healthy emotion and there are moments when we need to feel it and even speak up and be assertive. However, we must not allow every rub to irritate us, because we lose too many precious moments when choose to constantly respond to our reactions. So is it worth it to always be in a mode where we over react and/or complain? The holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, offered this perspective, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” When I do find the space between a provocation and my reaction to it, I am much more likely to choose to calm myself down.

I also think it is important to remind ourselves that sometimes we react to others, but we also need to be mindful about how we react to ourselves. We have plenty of moments where the choice in front of us is to respond to ourselves by being kind to ourselves or we can beat ourselves up. How will we ever be “polished” if we constantly critique everything we do? For example, do we chastise ourselves after a presentation at work because we thought it went badly? How can we soften our reactions to ourselves and know we did the best we could do? So spring cleaning for our mind and spirit also involves hitting the pause button, when we start to speak unkindly to ourselves.

It was frustrating that the wait at the drug store was longer than I expected, but my choice to choose another response actually led to a beautiful moment. As I waited with the drug tech for the antibiotic, the Tao Cruz song, Dynamite, came on the loud speaker and then all of a sudden the pharmacy tech and I were smiling, singing, and laughing together to this upbeat song as I waited on the medicine to be filled. And as we sang the song, it elicited a memory of this song being played at my wedding reception. I also found myself moving to the music and I noticed how diligently the pharmacist and her assistants were working to get my prescription filled. Instead of the anger I felt minutes before, there were now a feeling of empathy and even camaraderie with the pharmacy team at the drug store. This empathy softened my spirit even more. And then there was no longer irritation and only joy. There I was in the drug store experiencing life and freedom, swaying to the music, and then not long after the song ended my prescription was filled and I was checking out and could make my way home!

What are the rubs in our life? Maybe we get easily irritated when we experience: a meal at a restaurant that isn’t up to par, traffic on our way to work, a colleague who pushes our buttons, a friend whose constant advice rubs us the wrong way, a family member who is dogmatic about politics, or when our significant other neglects to take out the trash. How can we hit the pause button and find our way to a response that will bring abundant life? Maybe we are the type of person, who when life hits us with an unexpected challenge, we tend to react more harshly to ourselves than to others. If this is the case, how can we react more lovingly to ourselves?

It is now the time of year where the warm weather compels us to clean up our porches, our garages, and yards, but how can we also do some spring cleaning for our mind and spirit? My tip for us this spring is to keep noticing our reactions, to ourselves and one another. When we find ourselves reacting, let’s take a deep breath and hit the pause button and ask ourselves if being angry is really worth it. We can choose annoyance or we can hit the pause button and experience peace, life and freedom in the present moment.

Happy Spring Cleaning,

Christy