On one of the nights in the last two weeks when the Olympics were on, I got up from my home office chair, left the computer, and went into the TV room where all three of our kids were blissfully watching whatever Olympic event was on. I mumbled “hey, guys” and sat down on the couch next to one of them. After a minute or two, Marin said, “Uhh, mom . . . what are you doing?”
I paused for a minute and then said, “I’m watching the Olympics with y’all.” She looked at me quizzically, exchanged confused glances with her siblings, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Oh, okay.”
I didn’t think much about it until today, when I was talking to some friends about downtime. Time when you just “do nothing.” I had suggested that “doing nothing” is like kryptonite to me.
[Armchair psychologists, get out your clipboards.]
It makes me feel crazy to “do nothing.” I start to feel antsy. I can feel my heart rate accelerate. I start to get nervous just thinking about all the things I need to be doing-the dishes, the laundry, sweeping the floor, responding to emails, grading assignments, writing papers, blah blah blah, you get the picture. I need to be up and doing things, checking things off my to-do list. Check check check. And once everything’s checked (or usually long before everything’s actually checked), I make a new to-do list and start fretting over it until it’s time to make a new one.
And then I remembered a book I had read back in March called The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubormirsky. It’s a great book full of all sorts of research findings about what makes people happy and what the happiest people do (and don’t do). It has numerous quizzes-How Happy Are You?, a Depression Scale, The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, and the Person-Activity Fit Diagnostic. I loved all the quizzes. I loved figuring out which types of activities suggested in the book were the best fit for my personality. I took all sorts of notes. I dog-eared the pages.
And then I got busy and didn’t do any of the suggested things.
So here we are now, months later, and I’m having this conversation about doing nothing.
Houston, we have a problem. Chapter 7 of the How of Happiness book is called “Living in the Present.” I am an epic failure at living in the present. As I read the book, I realized how little of life I enjoy, how few of life’s daily moments I savor. And yet I consider myself a basically happy person. The two activities suggested in the book if you’re someone like me who fails to live in the present are:
1. Increase Flow Activities. A flow activity is something you do that is so engrossing, you completely lose track of time. Nothing else seems to matter. Someone named Cihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term, and defined it thus: “a state of intense absorption and involvement with the present moment.” Engaging in a flow activity does not mean you’re just vegging on the couch. It has to be more intentional. It’s challenging and engrossing and stretches you. You do flow activities for the sheer sake of doing them.
This concept is genuinely baffling to me. I’m trying not to overstate this (but my husband has called me “Heather Hyperbole” a time or two), but I can honestly say I cannot relate to this at all. I can’t think of a single time when I am awake and conscious AND unaware of what time it is. It just doesn’t happen. I always have my eye on the clock (whether an actual clock or just ticking the minutes away in my head).
2. Savor Life’s Moments. According to Lyubomirsky, you savor the present by “wholly living in, being mindful of, and relishing the present moment.” When you savor the present, you step outside the experience and review it, whereas flow involves a complete immersion in the experience.
I’m sad to report that I also do not savor life’s moments. I’m too busy worrying about what dang time it is to savor anything. I’m more likely to just want to push through whatever moment/activity I’m in so that we can move on to the next. During the month of July, for instance, I taught three classes at work (which is an overload), and summer school is already on double speed, so the result was that I had way too much to do. I noticed one day that I microwaved my lunch and ate it as I was walking from my class to a meeting. I ate the whole thing while walking. No sitting. No stopping. Just shoveling food into my mouth. And this was at 2:30, so I was really hungry but hadn’t had time to eat. The next night, I ate dinner while driving my kids somewhere in the car. Uncool.
This really is too much mental for one blog post. This requires an intervention, I fear. But I’m too busy for that. So for now, I’ll just ask:
Does anyone else feel like this? Do you feel like you never get so engrossed in an activity that you lose track of time?
Are you good at savoring life’s moments, or do you find yourself like me, rushing through things, checking things off a to-do list like a hamster on a wheel?
And most importantly, has anyone been in my shoes and changed? Can you teach yourself to savor the moment or is this just an unfortunate character flaw?
I do this often…while on “vacation” this summer (I use quotes b/c it was a one night stay, not a long leisurely trip which would drive me batty) all I could think of was, “In 1 hour, we need to get out and shower. In 2 hours, we meet Megan for supper” etc, etc…I didn’t stop and say, “Man, this is fun right now.”
That’s a lie…I did twice. When I was sitting alone on a pool chair, getting a drink. Then I stopped and enjoyed the moment. The rest of the time I was worried about what happens next.
We have our work cut out!
My ADHD diagnoses two years ago was enlightening, learning how my brain works and what “normal” supposedly is. I am not “normal”. I go so deep into flow activities that I forget everything else. I set my iPhone alarm so I remember to pick up my kids from school. I have never completed a to do list without medication. (no joke) I purposely sit daily cross-legged and do nothing except watch my crazy mind, and I don’t think I COULD eat in a hallway and not notice my lunch.
That must be why I like you so much. Let’s just stand close by, and together we will be balanced! (I’ll send you my to-do list.)
Reading has always been a flow activity for me. I just get completely lost in the book. However, I noticed that as I was reading Middlemarch (which I just read and LOVED — go read about it in Staff Stacks!) that I had a very difficult time slowing down and getting into the rhythm of the book. It was dense and wordy and had lots of footnotes and I had to build up my attention to remember how to read like that because I am so used to half reading a million things on Facebook and my iPhone. When the school holidays started and we were watching films together as a family, I had to force myself not to have my phone right there with me. Plus, it’s just really hard when you have all the kid’s schedules and you are the person making everything happen.
So, I think it’s personality + fast pace of culture + habit. I do think you can get out of the habit of running all the time.
Heidi, you DO think you can get out of that habit? How? I’m serious!
Believe me, I so get the panic part, but I think we need fallow periods to be at our best when we work, create, parent etc. But we’re so programmed not to stop (and Mormonism is such a DOing culture). Maybe practice focusing on one thing at a time, let the panic of not doing something rise and fall and see what happens? Practice sitting through the panic and see if you can relax into the moment. Sometimes you just can’t and it’s better to get up and do something, but I would bet that sometimes it will pass and you can get down to enjoying whatever you’re doing.
Sometimes I don’t think we realize how tired, stressed, inefficient we are until we’ve relaxed or taken a break.
I guess Stephen Covey, in one of his books, talked about the importance of “sharpening the saw.” Relaxing periodically so that you can be more efficient later. Brent often uses this phrase against me when he’s trying to get me to go to a movie with him. It’s hard to argue against. ;)
I think I do too much back and forth–too much of one minute on this task, then two minutes on a different one, then a third one, then back to the first one, blip blip blip.
So, my question is how long you can keep this up before experiencing a nervous breakdown? I get exhausted just reading about your life.
Colin, I don’t know! It feels like a very real problem, so even though my post is somewhat flippant, I feel like I need to change. Adapt in order to survive! ;)
(back to me again)… what I’ve learned from yoga/ayurveda and my ADHD diagnosis is that we are all made up of different stuff. Some people run and that is their way of being happy, some people are more still – both in physical and mental activity.
What I do know is that the mind needs rest. It needs to be witnessed if we want to be conscious and remove ourselves from the auto-pilot treadmill. I see a lot of people who go antsy and crazy sitting in meditation. They rarely come back to meditation/yoga class, but they really do need it. I also see a lot of people who space out and daydream rather than pay attention, and they really need training too. It’s the paying attention to your knee-jerk reactions that’s important.
If your busy life makes you happy and you feel that your energetic level is sustainable, then there’s no real problem. Right?
Good point, Laurie. I think busy is generally a happy mode for me. But lately, I have well exceeded the level of business that makes me happy and comfortable. So I need to dial it back, somehow . . .
And I’m one of those people who has done yoga once or twice and was antsy and going crazy. And I wasn’t even doing meditation. It drove me absolutely NUTS to sit in the yoga studio where there was NO CLOCK, anywhere.
Heather – you need a very vigorous style of yoga, methinks. Something so challenging that you have to pay close attention and have no choice but to let go of time.
In yoga terms… we would say you are RAJASIC… (look it up!) THe knee jerk solution is to sit more, but that only makes rajasic people insane. Better to give that mind a direction like vigorous yoga, walking meditation, or even walking to settle the mind. THe mind is like the body, it needs training.
I totally get you on the switching gears discussion. It’s impossible to get in a flow when we are chopping up our day into tiny pieces.
I’ll get a little personal here because I think this is a really important question you’ve raised, Heather.
I have a history of obsessive compulsive disorder. It has been a long, hard road, but I am pleased to report that I’m doing extremely well now and have not had symptoms for several months.
One of the most destructive aspects of OCD, besides the pain of the anxiety itself, is the way it takes you from the present moment. You are constantly stuck in your thoughts — never-ending loops and cycles of all-consuming worries. I can honestly say that until about a year and a half ago, when I really began to seriously tackle the work of getting better, I had never spent much (any?) time actually living my life. This struck me as incredibly sad, so I made it a point to learn to be present. For a time, this meant being present with unpleasant thoughts and severe anxiety. While it made them more potent for a while, it was still better than the alternative, and is one of the primary factors that has facilitated my healing.
Here are a few things I’ve done to develop an awareness of the present moment…
1) A formal practice of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation is the practice of learning to notice your thoughts and feelings and turning toward them, instead of away from them. It is not about changing them, analyzing them, or obeying them, but simply seeing them and letting them be what they are. I’m not a meditation master by any stretch of the imagination, but even my small forays into meditation have been incredibly effective. To begin with, I practiced about 30 minutes a day with a CD for a 30-day period. I now meditate about 15 minutes a day 3-5 times a week. It is incredible the difference this has made in my life.
2) A lot of self-compassion. I’m a recovering perfectionist, so if you’re at all like me, if you set presence as a “goal” you’ll only get discouraged and give up. It’s not possible to be fully present 100% of the time — you have to recognize that that’s part of the deal, and with love and a sense of humor simply return your wandering mind back to the present when you notice it’s gone astray.
3) Keep notes. When I was beginning my journey toward presence, I kept a little notebook with me and jotted down two moments each day: a pleasant experience and an unpleasant experience. Even if I wasn’t fully present as I experienced them, I tried to remember all the details: how my body felt, what emotions I was experiencing, what thoughts were running through my mind. Knowing that I needed to pick two moments each day to write about helped me remember to notice the moments!
4) Choose one everyday task to be present with. Make a point to consciously choose presence with one short, everyday task for a period of a few weeks. It could be doing dishes, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, whatever. Before you begin, remind yourself that you’re going to be present for these short few minutes.
5) Know why you want to be present. It is difficult to change deeply ingrained thinking patterns. You have to know why it’s worth the effort. For me, I knew that if I wanted to be free from OCD and love the people in my life as well as possible, I needed to develop the ability to be present. That was very important to me, so I kept at it, in spite of the frustration and discouragement I felt at times.
Sorry this comment is a million years long. But this has been one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done, and I wanted to share. :)
Katie – thank you for sharing… I love your feedback.
Love this, Katie. Thank you for taking the time to do this for me!
I think I’ll start by getting a notebook and doing as you suggest. That feels like a good starting point.
Awesome, Heather. Keep us posted on how it goes. :)
Do you feel like you never get so engrossed in an activity that you lose track of time?
Yes, often, though not as frequently as I’d like. It happens to me for periods of time when I’m reading. And when I’m crafting complex spreadsheets with detailed formulas in them. I rate movies based on how fully absorbed I get while watching them. Same with plays. And it happens most frequently for me while meditating, though it’s not a daily sort of thing, except when I’m on retreat and meditating all the time.
Are you good at savoring life’s moments, or do you find yourself like me, rushing through things, checking things off a to-do list like a hamster on a wheel?
Never as good as I’d like to be; much, much, much better than I used to be.
And most importantly, has anyone been in my shoes and changed? Can you teach yourself to savor the moment or is this just an unfortunate character flaw?
Good news and bad news. The good news? I’ve been in those shoes and can attest that change is possible. The bad news? The way that change happens is through practice sitting and being incredibly uncomfortable. Just sitting down with the intention to hold still and *not* to accomplish anything on a to-do list for 20 minutes can be really hard when starting out. Then actually holding still enough to see all of everything arise in the mind? Harder. But it works. There are specific meditation practices designed to develop and enhance “flow” states of mind and concentration. And they work. But just like playing the piano requires practicing scales, mind-training is also possible, but requires its own version of piano scales.
I have been in your shoes and I have changed! It’s been gradual and happening over a long time. It did involve a diagnosis of a mild case of OCD, some cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to deal with that (especially loved the book “Getting Control” by Lee Baer), some meditation and yoga classes, and realizing just how unhappy and unhealthy all the stress was making me. I stopped wearing a watch, for one thing. You know the trick where people set the clock in their car to be a few minutes fast, so they aren’t late? I started setting mine to be ten minutes slow, so I wouldn’t stress about being late. (Honestly, life goes on. Stuff can wait. Most things don’t start on time anyway.) I began titling all of my to-do lists “Things I Can Do Today If I Decide that I Want To.” And I put some of those “just for fun” activities on there (go for a walk, go outside and watch sunset, etc.). Yeah, it’s been a long road, and I do remember some of that uncomfortableness of sitting with the anxiety. But, and I have a strong testimony of this, I think a lot of the “do-do-do” was stuff that I was using to distract myself from my own anxiety and from the discomfort of not really feeling very good about myself. In a lot of ways, I didn’t feel like I was “enough”–my self-worth was derived from what I was doing, who I was serving, etc., rather than just appreciating the intrinsic worth of my soul. Now that I’ve learned to slow down and just spend time with myself (if that makes sense), I’ve learned that I AM enough, and I like myself a lot better.