So I'm making this concerted effort to be a mindful advocate, to respectfully disagree whenever I run into a difference of opinion... especially on the Internet... and especially around politics. There's so much digital yelling out there, it's unmindful, and the more I see the less I want to be a part of it.
But then I also know passions are high and these decisions are vital. We should all stand our ground in the fight against injustice and inequality. It's important, so it's easy to get caught up in it. What I'm searching for is a balance--being an advocate for progress but also toning down the rhetoric, turning up the kindness, and maybe using the simple act of a respect to actually sway people to your cause. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so the saying goes. This is true in pretty much all aspects of life, but it especially applies to political persuasion. Who in their right mind is going to change their right mind when you unmindfully toss insults? Let's be clear though, taking a mindful approach to politics doesn't require silence in the face of injustice. While it's true that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, sometimes those flies are total douchebags and need to be swatted away. When someone is contemptuous, when their stance harms you or your people, when they resort to cruelty, when they throw all ration out the window, when they support a level of ignorance that could lead to the destruction of our species (like climate science deniers), by all means call them out. Don't stand for it. Don't ever kowtow to hate, bigotry, corrupt ideology, or downright treacherous zealotry. But when you call them out, don't stoop to their level and be a douchebag in return. If you really want to advocate for your cause, it's time to stop the irrational anger. Stealing a few cues from mindfulness, here are some suggestions to help us all get there.
Every time we respond to someone who disagrees with us we have a choice: come at them with the force of a thousand poo emojis, or respectfully disagree. That choice is the difference between our sanity and high blood pressure. It's the difference between a sleepless night and warm fuzzy dream. It's the difference between entrenched opinions and persuasive arguments. I know this isn't easy, I get angry over political differences too. But next time you start to fume, take a mindfulness break. Step away from the laptop or your phone, take a deep breath, and think about what you are about to say in return. Does it foster a positive debate? Will it educate and inform? Will it encourage people to reconsider their opinion? Or are you responding to their douchebaggery by becoming a douchebag yourself? Don't be a douchebag, respectfully disagree. Mindfulness at the Music Festival
4/28/2016
Music festivals get a bad rap. They’re exclusively for debaucherous, druggy, alcoholic, celebrity-wannabe, spray-tanned, trust-fund, scenesters, who most likely can’t even name one of the bands playing that day...or at least that’s what the Buzzfeed list and semi-sophisticated-Salon-snark-piece would have you believe.
But I love going to music festivals--I just got back from Coachella--and besides my fondness for beer (I didn't find the IPA until the last day, for shame), I can't be categorized by any of those Buzzfeed music festival memes. That's not because I’m an exception to the rule, it's because I am the rule. Even if there are elements of that scene at a music festival, there are also a million other much more powerful elements as well. These are the elements that keep me coming back, and the biggest element for me is mindfulness. When you think of Coachella I’m sure the last thing you think of is mindfulness. It’s not as if everyone sits in the middle of the Empire Polo fields meditating silently over the three-day weekend. But as regular readers of the blog already know, I tend to find mindfulness in the darndest things. ~~What if mindfulness was found in a ear-pluggingly loud place, where the noise overruns your mind leaving you no other option but to be present. ~~What if mindfulness was a moment in a massive crowd, freeing you to simultaneously lose and find yourself. ~~What if mindfulness was conjured through connection, sharing a series of meaningful experiences with your closest friends. ~~What if mindfulness was discovered through random interaction, encountering something as simple as a smile from the unknown passerby. ~~What if mindfulness was an inspiration, grown over a series of passionate musical crescendos and poetically profound lyrics. ~~What if mindfulness was the surprise of feeling so minuscule at the grandiosity of it all, and by proxy, in the grand scheme of life. There are a hundred opportunities for mindfulness at a modern music festival, and it's because the necessity for these real life communal experiences are ingrained in our DNA. Music, friendship, entertainment, and fellowship all take us away from the anxiety of life. It's an ancient method of relieving stress and it still moves us to this day, no matter how many burdensome digital distractions we chain to our modern psyche. Beyond the scene or the beer garden, a music festival is a place where people choose to put down their phones (for the most part) and participate in a real life adventure with thousands of companions and comrades. So no matter what you've heard, the real drug of choice at Coachella is mindfulness, and every year when it’s done I can’t wait to go back for another dose. Once in awhile, more and more lately, I find myself reading the comments.
I know, rookie move, especially if you’re someone making a brave attempt to find peace in today’s convoluted digital world. We are all aware that the comments, the trolls that populate them, and the attempts at righteous persuasion that unwittingly feed those trolls, are the landfills of the Internet. It’s where good ideas get flogged to death and bad ideas spread like the zika virus. So why do I keep getting drawn into that mess? It's all due to that quadrennial tradition known as the American presidential election. In this digital age, the traditional ruthlessness of politics has gotten worse, and it's too bad, because the decision we're debating is more important than ever. My quest: give a damn about politics because I know the consequences are major, but stay mindful in the process. It’s a tall order, I know. My friends, welcome to the Great Election Hurricane of 2016. The river of opinions has swelled for months now. What started as trickle of ideas and endorsements has become an incessant downpour of rants, a cascade of comment wars, and a deluge of slant pieces and snark memes. The rising tide of anger and frustration inevitably breaks the levee--again--impassioning friends to turn on one another, to toss out vicious insults, and level infantile cries of ignorance toward anyone who dares to challenge their preconceived notions. I'm no noob, I know the game of politics is complex and messy. Possibly little known fact to many readers of this blog, but I hold a master's degree in public policy and I worked in political advocacy for years. Other than mindfulness and nature, politicking is my bread and butter. So I've watched and studied this sport for decades, observing the stick-to-the-issues idealists, the nothing-but-smear-campaign demagogues, and every candidate in between. I'm also acutely aware of just how important all this is. It's a vital part of democracy that we have different ideas and debate them heartily. More than that, it's absolutely necessary that all of us actively participate in our political process, because the decisions our leaders make are often the difference between life and death. But as much as I want to engage this critical pursuit, I also don’t want to engage myself into insanity. To me, this year feels starkly different than elections of the past. The age of social media and the lack of mindfulness it provokes has made for a perfect storm of political aggravation. This digital tempest of competition inevitably leads to a slew of unmindful behavior. So how do we calm the storm? How do we stay mindful within the whirlwind election season? In this new election age, we must strive to become mindful advocates. Someone who listens to different opinions. Someone who stays true to themselves without becoming self-righteous. Someone who leads by example instead of prescription. Someone who stays respectful in the face of disagreement. Someone who doesn't always have to be right. Someone who turns the other cheek instead of responding with a taunt. And none of that is easy, trust me I know. Go to the Facebook page of any presidential candidate and (just for research) read the comments. There's a flood of rage out there overwhelming the dam of rational sanity--opinions stated as facts, opinions becoming insults, opinions inciting outrage. When I see this, I start to get outraged myself. Sometimes my own opinion has lead me to waste a good hour formulating a comment that I don't actually end up posting. Sometimes I see friends who agree on the need for progress toward a fair and just world, belittle each other over a slight disagreement on how we achieve that progress. Sometimes I see caring Americans who agree that we want to better our nation, level vile insults at each other because they disagree on the definition of “better.” Usually at the end of a day I’m left dispirited by it all, exhausted by all the time I’ve wasted watching and/or participating in it, saddened by the savagery I’ve seen it foster. But being a mindful advocate means we still participate---we don’t give up our identity or passion, we don't stop advocating for our candidate, and we always speak up to injustice. We just do all that with civility and respect. And we do so because we are at a crucial time in our civilization. Historically, the debate of ideas in politics has never been simple or easy. Neither the ancient Greeks nor our founding fathers pulled any punches. The liberal and the conservative side of our democracy, today’s Democrats and Republicans, have always been at odds. At one point this conflict even led us to civil war. But most of the time, when push came to shove, our leaders compromised and worked together for the good of the country. Today the decisions we make as voters, and by proxy the leaders we choose, go even further and have the potential to affect the good and bad of the entire world, be it poverty, war, or environmental calamity. It behooves us to look toward our deep commonalities and to nobly convince others of our ideas for change rather than resort to attacks, lies, and conspiracy theories. When we treat our fellow man with respect not just to have a better shot at changing minds, but to have a better shot at saving our planet from uncertain doom. So I pledge to be a mindful advocate and an activist for good. To trumpet my beliefs without tearing others' down. To debate at the appropriate time, but do so with respect. To speak to those I encounter as if they were real people instead faceless digital avatars. To accept that we can differ on the policy but still agree on the end goal. To inspire rather than incite. To love rather than lash out. To show by my example that, in this day and age, such civility is even possible. This is how we make America great again. This is how we save the world. This is how you convince people to vote for your candidate. This is the way of the mindful advocate. "It’s easy to get mindful when you’re in an actual jungle, but how do you get mindful in the urban jungle?" Check out this new piece I wrote for Elephant Journal.
It's called "Mindfulness Anywhere" and it seeks to explore how we go from the relative ease of finding mindfulness in nature, to the real struggle of minding that same mindfulness in the chaos of the city. We can choose to wallow in the struggle, or we can lean on our friends to lift us out of the muck. I choose friends. Enjoy! Oh, the wretched relief of change. It's a certain struggle (the wretched), but also one of most important facets of our existence (the relief). Just when you start to get used to a different and exciting experience--a fresh new way of living--it inevitably and abruptly ends, and the winds of the change push you in a new direction. This constant shift is a central element of life. We need both beauty and brawn. We need both the amazing and the awful. But it goes far beyond those two basic and diametrically opposed emotions. Within both the amazing and the awful--even within the mundane that comes between--we require variety. You might take the same path to work, go to the same class at the gym, or wake up every morning at the same time... but still each day there are different people on that commute, there's a new exercise routine at the gym, and the song on your alarm clock is the new big hit. It's that balance of variety, no matter how subtle, that keeps life fresh, keeps us going, and keeps us growing. There's been a lot of change in my life this past year. If you've ever read this blogl, that's no secret. But the shifting winds have been gale force of late. Through it all there's one major thing I've learned: no matter what happens in life there's always a yin and a yang--a balance. Over the course of one recent week I went from a very definitive yin to a whole other extreme yang. One day I was meticulously gussied up at the Academy Awards, and then just a few days later I was antithetically grubbied down in a dusty tent at Death Valley National Park. This situation of contrasts was an accident of sorts. First of all, I don't work in the entertainment industry, so it was of no effort on my part that I ended up attending the Oscars. My partner, Jonathan Herman, was deservedly nominated for writing Straight Outta Compton. I'm proud of my man and grateful I got to tag along for the ride. And what a crazy, magical, amazing ride it was--from hob-nobbing celebrities, to red carpets, to Chris Rock’s daughters' Girl Scout cookies, it was the apex of glitz and glamour. And even though I'm more of a down-to-earth-hippie-granola-kinda-guy, I loved every minute of it. Second of all, it wasn't particularly my intention to visit Death Valley again. I had just traveled there a few months prior, but Mother Nature, El Niño, and the superbloom she kindled had other intentions. I wanted to see that naked and desolate landscape spring to life. I wanted to marvel in yet another beautifully twisted contradiction of nature. So, while still hungover and starstruck from the decadent Vanity Fair Oscar party, I packed my tuxedo away on the closet, readied my camping gear, and dusted off my tattered national parks passport. I was ready to follow the prevailing winds that were yet again guiding my life. Eagerly adaptable and willing to shift from one apex of life to a completely opposite, yet still resoundingly amazing apex. You see, balance in life isn't just about ups and downs. Sometimes balance is about both regular ups, and other, totally dissimilar, but still completely awesome ups. It’s also about both terrible downs, and other dissimilar, but equally debilitating downs. It's also about a variety of discernible dimensions in between. I've been through periods in life when downs compounded upon downs, and I thought there would be nothing left for me in life but more of them, in perpetuity, ad nauseam. But alas, as usual, the ups eventually returned. They all repeat and cycle, each time in new, profound, and inexplicable ways. That's life. Assorted ups, miscellaneous downs, and a whole slew of gray areas in the middle. Routine feels safe, but rarely is it real. You can fight the prevailing winds all you'd like, but eventually they will knock you down, lift you up, and shove you from side to side. That bluster of variety is what makes us unique. It’s what life is all about. It's kind of magnificent. The Crutch of Convenience
3/10/2016
We rest on crutches far too much in life.
And, why not? The modern world affords us a million conveniences that mankind developed over centuries to make life a little bit easier. But in our efforts to simplify our everyday tasks, haven't we lost something? Our ancestors had to fight to survive and thrive. Every day was a gift because every day you had to overcome any number of natural obstacles in order to continue your existence. With the properly planning and knowledge, you might starve to death, or get eaten by a bear, or run out of water, or end up murdered in your sleep due to a particularly violent neighboring tribe. Without those life and death complexities of survival to deal with, we end up resting on our laurels. Without struggle and resistance, we fail to gain strength. Without loss, we forget to appreciate our blessings. Now of course, this is undoubtedly a first-world problem. There are lot of people on this earth that do have to struggle to survive, and that’s not a good thing. We should all do everything we can to bring comfort and kindness to everyone on this planet. But for the rest of us, by not having to deal with the types of struggle that were once ubiquitous in our corner of society, we've missed out on some vitally important life lessons. I was camping recently and it suddenly seemed so obvious--out in the semi-developed wilderness of Death Valley everyone takes liberal advantage headlamps, gas stoves, air mattresses, running water, smartphones, and the nearby market for supplies. All things that make life easy, all things that we want, but nothing that we particularly need. I'm not saying you aren't allowed to hold on to some comforts in life, we fought long and hard to achieve them. I'm just saying there’s a lot to be gained from giving up a few of them, at least once in awhile. It's when you to give up a little, that you start to gain a lot. Giving up the headlamp and depending on the moon teaches you just how much you can already see. Packing away the stove and cooking over your fire teaches you the importance of the simplest things. Storing and rationing water teaches you to use what you need--and only what you need--instead of living life as a free flow of excess. Putting the phone in airplane mode strips away the digital distractions and let's you enjoy real life again. The lessons from a campsite are no different in our modern life. Our everyday reliance on crutches is a choice we make with everything we do. Our over-reliance on comforts leads to ungratefulness and juvenile quibbles. Our over-reliance on comforts has led to water scarcity, oil dependence, and global warming. Our over-reliance on comforts and this finite amount of resources is slowly squeezing out our attempted dominion over this earth. Get off the crutch and stand up. Take a few steps forward. Real life is the grit of the hard ground, Not a delicately cushioned pillow. See how real life can feel. Attempted Sanity in the Digital Age
2/12/2016
The heart of this blog is about navigating the complicated waters of our modern times. Yeah, mindfulness is in the title, and sure, I write a lot about nature and hiking and travel, but those things are just methods -- important methods -- I think we all need in order to thrive in this day and age.
The key question I like to ask then is: how do we do that? How do we thrive when there so much digital distraction out there trying to hold us back? The ability to succeed in life, to me, is centered around two distinct yet interconnected sociological arenas. One is our personal world, the life that only we know about because it takes place in our own mind. The other is the social world, the life we show everyone around us. Both feed into one another. Both are fundamental. Our society, social structure, and the way we process and understand it, was developed over centuries. We figured out all sorts of ways to deal with one another. Time, experience, and technology then alter the paradigm and advance us forward. That progress. So it's impossible not to imagine the digital age having some effect on us. I was born around the time some experts deem the start of the millennial generation, but just barely. That means I do remember life before technology, but I also saw the transition start early on. The first time I remember noticing a computer in my daily life was around the 2nd grade, and it grew from there. It started with a few computers in the school office, then a computer lab, then a computer in every classroom, then a computer in every home. Later it became a computer for every person, then a computer and a phone, then a computer and a smartphone and a tablet and a Google and an iTunes and a Netflix and everything you could possibly imagine at your fingertips. These were all fun new gadgets that set out to make life easier, and they did. But in a broader sense they were quickly changing us on a much deeper level. They rapidly progressed a shift in our collective societal mindset, where all the ways in which we communicated went from a naturally sluggish human pace to a modern frenetic digital pace. Let’s take a brief trip through the past then... At one point in time we would make a plan to have dinner with a friend, and there might not be any other moment of communication between the plan and the dinner. There were no direct messages in the interim. No keeping up through Facebook posts. No texts at the last minute to let your friend know you're running late, even though that tardiness was of your own creation. You just met there for dinner, and then you caught up. It was slow and cumbersome, but it was real. I pretty sure this is the way people used to make plans because I’ve seen it in the movies. At one point in time we were slowly introduced to a new friend over time. We met at a party, got together over coffee, talked on the phone from time to time, and maybe got together with mutual friends. It took time and you had to put in effort. There was no method, beyond a private investigator, to dig into someone's past other than to simply ask them. There was no Facebook or Twitter history to explore. I believe I vaguely recall a life like this, sometime before Friendster and the subsequent onslaught and exposure of our personal world onto public mediums. At one point jealousy totally existed, sneaking into our psyche, causing us to covet the experiences of others. We would regret the decision to break up with that one guy or quit that one class. Worry was ubiquitous as we went about our day, and especially after the evening news of an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries”. All these emotions existed, but they took time to evolve. We weren't unavoidably reminded of the things we should fear and things we were missing out on via social media. I remember feeling all these emotions from time to time, but not as much as I do now. At one point gossip and cruelty were a part of our social world. People have always talked behind other's backs and there were always mean girls and mean guys. But you had to be mean face to face. You couldn't sulk and hide behind a digital avatar as you spit venom while claiming victimhood. I know assholes existed in the past because I did everything I could to avoid them. They’re not as easy to avoid nowadays. Our modern digital age has sped up the typical human socialization process, making it much easier to jump into these age old emotions. It facilitates and encourages laziness, impatience, jealousy, and cruelty by placing a rapid succession of updates in an easily accessible newsfeed. It leaves the normal pattern of social graces by the wayside. It discourages living in the present because this ability we now have to keep in touch so easily, is so easily addictive. And before you troll me with a “get off my lawn!” comment, I’m not saying the digital age is a bad thing. Information and communication is at our fingertips, and those are two key elements to thriving in life. What I’m saying is that the changes the digital age has so quickly foisted upon us demands our careful attention. The more we breeze through life without consideration, the easier it is to fall into the traps of jealousy and insensitivity towards our fellow man. We can live in the digital age and still take with us a reminder of the way things were. And really, all that is is being mindful. That’s how we maintain our sanity in the digital age. That's what this blog is about. Slow Down, to Move Forward
1/28/2016
New motto: you need to slow down in order to move forward
We live in a frantic, fast-paced, eat-or-be-eaten, shit-or-get-off-the-pot kind of world. And it’s counterproductive. In the modern age, people expect instant everything: instant social media updates to show everything you're doing, instant gratification/likes to validate everything you're doing, instant answers to every possible question, instant responses to every text, instant and incessant every-speck-of-news channels, instant traffic updates with expectations of every green light, instant political poll results to show every mood swing, and even instant ramen that's ever so basic. But what does instantaneousness get us? The instant answer is usually thoughtless. An instant update takes you out of the moment. Instant gratification is typically insincere. Instant ramen never tastes as good as the real stuff. In short, the instant world gets us nowhere fast. I propose we slooooow doooooown. I've had to learn to slow down the hard way. I’m a fairly active guy and I try to stay at least somewhat fit, but for years my exercise routine was crafted for expediency, particularly around jogging. Going for a run can be a great way to burn calories and I've written on the mindfulness benefits I gained from it in the past. But I also often used it as a way to absently power through an exercise just to get it over with. If I didn't stressfully rush through traffic to my typical spot at the reservoir to stomp out a lap, I would opt to run on the streets near my house, exacerbating my shin splits on the unyielding pavement. I never quite stretched or warmed up as much as I really should have and I started wearing those hip new minimalist shoes that provide very little support, without giving my legs time to get used to them. I did all this while training for a half marathon in an expedited schedule. It was a risky recipe. By the end of that marathon, my shins, my ankles, arches, heels, toes, and hips were all quite angry with me. They all pleaded with me to slooooooow dooooooown. So I did. Following the half marathon I went on a long solo camping trip I called "Journeyman." Instead of running quickly through all the beautiful natural environments I visited, I hiked and did so thoughtfully, deliberately, soaking it all in. By slowing down not only did I get the benefits that exercise brings to your body, I got the benefit of spiritual renewal that's always available when you commune with nature. I was able to find mindfulness with each step, and to this day hiking inspires most of what I write on these pages. My personal parable is applicable to all sorts of situations in our modern world: when we take a moment to gather our thoughts before responding, our reaction is more authentic. When we stay in the moment instead of jumping to Facebook to post a photo of every event, we get to relish in it. When we don’t expect a digital thumb up for every social media post, we feel more confident in our self worth. When we're patient on the road, we're able to chill and let road rage shift to road relaxation. When we wait in line for 30 minutes for the good ramen place, our tongue is happy and we’re more satisfied, and that's just fact. Patience is a virtue, in all things. Don’t fall for the immediacy trap our modern technology has set out for us. Slow down, so you can move forward. The Phone Productivity Myth
1/6/2016
The other day I spent some time on my phone.
I took a few minutes updating my reminders and to-do list...it's a busy time of year. I scrolled through Facebook and Instagram, a like here and a like there...keeping up with friends. I checked how many steps I had taken that day...exercise is key. For a second there I felt productive, but then I realized, I hadn't really done anything at all. Updating a to-do might tell me what I need to get done, but it doesn't mean I'll actually do it. Liking a post on Facebook might remind friends I exist, but that's not actually keeping in touch. Keeping track of how many steps I took gives me a calorie count, but rarely does it encourage me to walk more. During the time I spent on my phone I could have worked on a project, gotten lunch with a friend, or gone on a hike, actually achieving the things I pretended I was achieving with my phone. There's motivation to be found on our modern devices for sure, but don't let it fool you into reliance. Get off your ass and do real things. Real things are how you really move forward. New Years Reflection and Expectation
12/30/2015
It's New Years, which means it's that time when everyone comes up with their year-end reviews, top ten lists, and judgements on their personal successes and failures of the past year. There's both good and bad in that. Reflecting back on your life can be a healthy exercise, but it can also be a precarious game that will easily drag you away from mindfulness. Like most opportunities in life, it really depends on how you use it. When you're looking back on the past year as an exercise in renewal, you have two options: Option #1: reflect on both the ups and downs of the past year, take from them the life lessons they extol, and use this new found inspiration to make the next year a better one. or Option #2: reflect mostly on the downs of the past year, regret them, curse them, use them as an example of why the past year was terrible, and then believe that engaging in this exasperated act of faux reflection will somehow make the next year a better one. I would say the choice is pretty obvious, but that’s just me. Maybe I'm just perpetually hopeful, but I've never been disappointed in a year. Sure I’ve had intensely difficult times in my life making certain years seem better than others, but even in those bad years there has always been love. There has always been light to be found somewhere in the darkness. Things always eventually get better, so I always expect them to. I also believe that reflection is something we could be doing every day of our lives, no matter what the date. Waiting for a certain day in a calendar to learn from life can lead you to neglect your well-being on all the other days. But I know there's something about New Years that gives it that extra weight, and there's nothing wrong with using that weight to your benefit. That's the key: New Years has the power to make us pause and reflect, so we should use that power to improve our lives. for this and all the coming years. Next year isn't going to be better just because it's different. We can beat ourselves up all we'd like over the failures of the last year, but that won't changing anything in the future unless we decide to learn from our mistakes and grow from the tragedies. Instead lamenting the past and then hoping for the new year will make it all better, take whatever made the past year suck and use it to inspire a better future. Instead of resting your hope in the New Year, rest your hope in yourself. Mindfulness Anywhere
12/9/2015
It's easy to find mindfulness in the natural world, that's no secret--getting outside in the wilderness helps you discover peace, discover the world, and discover yourself. I know this first hand.
But I realize most people don't have access to the wild like I do. I'm lucky enough to live in an area (southern California) and to live a certain lifestyle (not fully employed) that affords me with regular access to some exceedingly zen natural environments. I’m truly grateful for that. But most of us live in cities that are situated great distances from the world's natural wonders. We have jobs and families and lives that keep us endlessly busy. We're surrounded by suburbs where the wild landmarks are all landscaped. One day I’ll likely have to get a real world desk job again, so one day I’ll need to figure out a way to be mindful while surrounded by the noise of the city. You know, like most everyone else. It's easy to get mindful when you're in the actual jungle, but how do you get mindful in the urban jungle? The typical lifestyle magazine answer is: just be mindful, it's always up to you. But I hate that answer, it’s trite. We all know that within the chaos of a city, it's never that simple. In our real, everyday, complex lives, we get by with a little help from our friends. Now don’t get me wrong, I really do love cities, I live in fairly large one myself after all. But then there’s New York City--the Big Apple and I haven’t always had the most stable relationship. The “wild” there has much more to do with the latest preposterous fashion trend or the hottest new club, than the mountain hikes to waterfalls I’m more accustomed to. The last time I visited NYC, it gave me a brief, but extremely unmindful panic attack. It was last summer, and in the months leading up to it I had spent the majority of my time alone in the wilderness and multiple national parks--camping, hiking, traveling, taking pictures, living free--what I like to call being a journeyman. When I arrived in New York after all that, the buzz and excitement I normally felt for the city was completely absent. Instead I felt petulance--looking out over the skyline I was irritated by the cement and glass, indignant every time I heard a car horn or police siren, irked as I imagined the uniquely wild Hudson Bay that once surrounded lower Manhattan. I felt a little like Charlton Heston at the end of the Planet of the Apes... “You finally really did it. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” I had traveled to New York with my husband and and we soon met up with a few old friends, so I wasn’t alone. After a good hour of quietly freaking out to myself, it dawned on me that I was surrounded by a safety net, ready to stop my freefall and set me back up on my own two mindful feet. I opened up to my man and my friends and told them about my fluster. As soon as I did so, without them even saying a word, I started to see the folly of my thinking. They rightly did their best to convince me of my foolishness, through both support and a little ribbing, just as any good friend should do. Lack of wild nature or not, I had people who love me who want to help keep me sane. Taking a moment to be appreciative of my support network immediately cleared my head. Mindfulness was always there, I just had to open my heart a little wider to see it. Since we had spent most of the afternoon in my friend’s lofty condo tower, we decided to go on a walk, and soon found ourselves in a nearby park. It wasn’t a desolate mountain landscape like Griffith Park that I’m used to back in Los Angeles, a John Muir-esq canyon trail of wonderment like I’d visited in our national parks, and it wasn’t even the truly special and somewhat-wild Central Park--it was a small block-long strip of land with some foliage, benches, and a playground. “Hey look Jason! We’re in the wilderness!” they joked. But behind the laugh was an important truth. Lack of wild nature or not, there were still trees, and dirt, and people enjoying the simplicity of the outdoors. Taking a moment to be appreciative of even the smallest drop of wilderness brought me joy. Mindfulness was always there, I just had to open my eyes a little wider to see it. Back when I first arrived in New York, I carried with me a sense of entitlement over my newfound success finding mindfulness in the wild, and it drove me a bit crazy. But after that struggle, the city quickly taught me that I could keep my head on straight anywhere, just by opening my eyes and looking around me, and by falling back a little on my friends for support. Lack of wilderness or not, grieving at the site of a paved street is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Lack of wilderness or not, mindfulness isn't determined by an external force or environment, it's an internal choice that is always available to us. Lack of wilderness or not, we can always look to our loved ones to help keep us in check and remind us how to find joy and mindfulness anywhere. Beauty Will Always Win
12/2/2015
I'm never in a great mood after mass shooting, but when it happens in such a large scale as it did in San Bernardino, and so near to where I live, it makes things particularly difficult. Silly old emotional me also had a powerful yoga session this morning, so to come out of it to find that terrible people were actively shooting up developmentally disabled facility nearby, it was a little rough.
But I soldiered through. I went about my day. Took over a table at Starbucks. Got some writing done -- powerful yoga sessions tend to inspire that. When I was leaving, still feeling melancholic from the day, I discovered a monarch butterfly garden. Now I walk through this area almost weekly and have never noticed it, but it was today that I finally paid attention. Today was the day I was meant to notice it. Today as the day I needed to notice it. The monarch story is a sad one as well -- too many Monsanto insecticides and not enough milkweed is leading to their demise in California. But right there off the sidewalk, a good person planted the vital milkweed they need to survive. Low and behold, a small family of them moved in. I watched as the regal butterflies danced in the autumn afternoon sun, and silly old emotional me teared up yet again, but this time it wasn't for sadness, it was for happiness. And hope. And love. No matter what, no matter how much shit bubbles up in the world, there is always beauty. And beauty will always win. Out of the Loop, For Your Sanity
11/17/2015
What a strange weekend it was to be in a remote wilderness and mostly away from all the terrible news from Paris. At first I felt out of the loop, not able to follow all that was going on. Sticking my head in the desert sand instead of reacting with everyone else. But then I saw some people tearing each other down instead of uniting in solidarity, and people responding to the vitriol with even more anger...petty arguments about profile pics or which deadly attack is worse.
Suddenly I preferred my place outside the loop. I took a deep breath, turned my phone off, and returned to the freedom of disconnection. Staying away from the news/opinion/anger on FB/NPR/CNN didn't mean I was ignorant, it just meant I was giving myself the space to have a solemnly personal response instead of the knee-jerk public reaction our social media demands. Though I highly recommend it, you don't have to go to Joshua Tree to have a moment of peace amongst all the negativity. What if we each turned down the noise a bit? What if we all shut up for ten seconds to respond instead of react? What if it gets so quiet we start to actually hear ourselves again? This is mindfulness, and I think the world needs it now more than ever. My Love/Hate Relationship with my Phone
11/12/2015
I'm changing my Facebook phone- relationship status to "it's complicated."
I both love and hate my this little pocket machine. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic tool for connecting with friends and family, educating ourselves, being prepared for the weather or traffic, becoming budding artists/photographers/writers, and overall allowing us to be more interested and aware people. On the other hand though, it distracts from the real world around us, encourages FOMO and jealousy, thrusts douchebaggery to the forefront, hides us behind an avatar curtain so we sometimes end up acting extra douchey ourselves, and the list goes on. One reason I love hiking and camping is that, more often than not, there is no phone reception. It’s a trick I use to escape, decompress, and reconnect with myself and the world around me. Recently though, I visited Death Valley National Park, and while the vast majority of the park is cell-phone-free, the small town where I camped still had a few bars of service. Cue the complicated mix of love/hate emotions: I loved that I could text my mom and my man that I arrived safe. I loved the ability to text friends when I got bored. I loved that I could post to Instagram because photography gives me joy. I loved that I could Google lists of Death Valley hikes and sites instead of flying solo. But... I hated that I wouldn’t be able to feel the freedom of disconnection. I hated that I wasn’t forced to be bored, and forced to be OK with it. I hated that after I had a little whisky I started checking Facebook to pass the time, instead of reading, writing, or just being. I hated that it all made me feel less mindful. I’ve written before about how the distraction of our smartphone is a distraction of our own making. Quite simply, we can log off any apps that bother us or just put the phone down. But you you know as well as I, that’s way easier said than done. We all have a complicated relationship with our smartphones. Sometimes we laugh the afternoon away texting with a friend and sometimes we thumb-type seriously stupid things in anger. Sometimes we snuggle with our phone in bed and sometimes we want to throw it across the room. The trick for me, and with most things in life, is to find a balance. In order to be mindful we shouldn’t have to give up on all modern conveniences to live in a shack in the woods. I should be able to use all the great and worthy features of my smartphone but also be OK with setting it down for periods of time. There’s room in this life for both mindlessness and mindfulness. I'm about to head to Joshua Tree National Park with a small group of friends for a stargazing weekend. I stayed at this very campground last August so I know for sure that my phone won’t work. I’m looking forward to it, and getting out in nature is a great way for any of us to get a little more mindful. But in two days I’ll be back in the city. The phone and my love/hate relationship with it will still exist. You can’t just run away from your problems, you have to face them head on. So I’m going to make an effort to learn from my complicated relationship -- let the things I love about my smartphone help me use it more wisely, while letting the things I hate about it remind me to take a break once in awhile. It’s a worthy endeavor, for all of us. Make a list of all the things you both love and hate about our modern technologies. Then use both the negative and the positive to inspire you toward balance. On Mindfulness & Dogfulness
10/29/2015
This article is cross-posted with Elephant Journal: www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/on-mindfulness-dogfulness Finding mindfulness isn't like flipping a switch.
Most of us can’t simply will ourselves into a state of zen like a Tibetan monk—the modern age and our overactive minds simply won’t allow it. So I look to the outside world for help. Be it through nature, exercise, apps, travel, everyday choices, or habits, we can use all sorts of methods to nudge ourselves to a more present state. One significant piece of my own personal outside world is my dog, Rocco. To put it bluntly, I love him to death. He always makes me smile and helps me forget whatever worry has been overwhelming my mind on a given day. I was thinking about him, and the larger infatuation many of us have with our pets, and suddenly it dawned on me—my dog is another one of the ways I nudge myself, often subconsciously, to get out of my head and live in the present. My dog teaches me mindfulness. The connection we have to our pets is multi-layered. No doubt, they provide us with companionship, unconditional love, snuggles and a great way to connect to other similarly passionate pet people. But there’s a deeper attachment that goes beyond the obvious. I propose a new theory—that we’re fanatically attached to our pets because they constantly teach us an important lesson about ourselves. Our pets take us out of our complicated adult lives for a moment, and back to a more mindful time—a time of youthful exuberance, a time before we were corrupted by the modern distracted world. They remind us of how we were then, and as such, remind us to try and a be little more like that again—right now. My dog Rocco is possibly the most zen being I know. He doesn’t worry about the future, except perhaps starting around four o’clock in the afternoon, when he knows dinner is imminent. He doesn’t stress over the decisions he makes, for instance—choosing which sunbeam to sleep in. He doesn’t regret his mistakes, even after tearing apart one of his favorite toys. He’s always enthusiastic when I take him on his morning walk, even if he had to wait while I procrastinated on Facebook. He jumps for joy at every treat, even if he’d always rather have bacon. He accepts all the snuggles and love I give, not worried about what other thing he might be missing out on. He’s also a big part of my favorite trick to get more mindful—nature. I hike a few times a week. The trails provide me with a level of exercise that keeps me physically fit and a level of peace and beauty that keeps me mentally fit. I often take Rocco on these hikes, and rather than take away from the moment of zen the wild gives me, he adds a whole new layer of zen that only enhances the experience. The exuberance he displays when I untether his leash adds to the exuberance I feel when I untether from the stress of city life. His curiosity to explore a new landscape—the trees, shrubs, vistas, wildlife and of course smells—brings me to a more mindfully aware state that bleeds into the rest of my day, on the trail and off. His consistent desire to stay close to me as we hike brings me an understanding of uncorrupted loyalty that I can carry with me into the human relationships of my everyday life. As a hiking partner, not only is he good at keeping up with my pace, he’s good at setting the pace for a mindful existence. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Rocco is my little yogi zen master. He doesn’t tell me how to live my life, but instead, he provides an example of a simpler way to live. Obviously, not all dogs are the same, and maybe I’m just lucky to have such an interested and present pooch. But I do think most dogs, most cats (I grew up with many) and most pets in general, have all these qualities to some degree. And it’s for those reasons we’re so drawn to them. When I’m feeling down, angry, stressed or worried about the future, I can look at Rocco and see a better way—a more simple, honest, mindful way. Maybe this is one of the reasons I love him so much. We’re all complicated humans, so it’s unrealistic to expect to live our lives with the same sincerity as our pets. It’s the cross of self-awareness we have to bear as a species. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our furry companions—that we can’t take a moment to be with them in the moment, or that we can’t take the smile they give us and carry it with us as we go about our convoluted day. In that way, our pets are giving us the gift of mindfulness all the time. It’s up to us if we choose to accept it. |
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blog searchauthorMy name is Jason Wise. Life's all about the journey, man. Find me on Instagram and Facebook. archives
May 2020
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