At the end of the MBCT group this morning, someone asked what my experience was, and since she was a doctor and the other student was a yoga instructor, we had something in common to talk about. We addressed that guilt suffered by teachers and therapists that they are not as perfect as their teachings, but agreed that people get into these roles partially to serve, and largely to learn.
I'm constantly astounded at the wise things I say to clients that I don't apply to my own life. Or at just what they are teaching me if I can listen. For instance, the yoga teacher talked about managing her mood by asanas that opened up the chest, and as I got lost in the back streets trying to find a way through the Bay to Breakers street closures, I realized, hey, that might work for me too! And sure enough, just pulling back my shoulders started shifting my mood towards something lighter and more open.
It's funny how our basic needs can elude us. What I often come back to is my need--I should stress that, my need, is to feel that I'm serving and that I'm productive. Whether under that is a need to feel connected, that's probably there with service and productivity being the vehicles for that relationship. I don't feel fully alive without that, and I certainly don't function very well without them. Whether it's because of something everyone needs, or just my idiosyncratic needs, I feel like the best way of relating to this is in a real functional mode: without these relations in my life, I don't function, so I do them in the same way I eat my greens. Maybe something sacred should be there too, but it seems most important to me to orient myself in these ways is just necessary, period.
For me--I'm seeing this today at work, which on the weekend can often feel like a little island floating in the middle of an ocean--I'm really seeing how I need to feel in motion in order not to start a depressive reaction. But the trick here is not to fall into the compulsive thrashing in order to feel energy, but to look for the motion that is already in my experience. And it's there, even in the gray-sky days of my life. But it requires faith and look/feeling carefully into what's in front of me. It means taking a deep breath and observing, and not allowing myself to panic. It also means holding a vision/belief/image of motion to counter the inner vision/belief/image of stagnation that can be triggered.
That last bit is a fascinating piece for me, how important the use of imagery is in managing mood. Maybe in the ultimate sense it's unnecessary, when you're grounded in mindfulness to the degree that you are never seeing life from thought, but only from experience. Till then, though, images are a huge determinant in our lives, whether you're aware of them or not. And so telling yourself a good story, with enough evidence not to make it a delusion, is really really important. It is the undergirding that supports you when you lose your direct exposure to reality. Stories are not true, but they are very very useful at times. They can be traps, but they can also be very good friends, when they are resonant with reality. Saying, "All things are impermanent" is not the reality or experience of impermanence, but it is a languaged expression of something that is true, which makes it a very good story.
And again, until the story function of our brain collapses, it's going to be telling a narrative, and it behooves us to have a good one.
