by Russ Harris
Chapter 13
COMING HOME
I’m sitting here in front of my computer, trying hard to engage in what I am doing. My mind is telling me all sorts of unhelpful stories. None of them are new. I know all of them intimately. They come to visit almost every time I write. Loudest today is the ‘fraud’ story. This one points out that if my readers knew me well — if they could see all the times I get lost in my own psychological smog, or allow my feelings to push me around, or run from my painful emotions instead of making room for them — they’d be horrified. They’d see me as a fraud, a fake and an impostor and denounce me as the world’s biggest hypocrite.
Almost as loud is the ‘boring’ story. This one tells me I have nothing new to say, that I’m just regurgitating the same old stuff and my readers will be bored out of their minds. It is accompanied in its chorus by the ‘impending deadline’ story. This one tells me how many thousands of words I still have to write, and how little time I have left to do it.
Tagging along at the back is the ‘too hard’ story. This one is whispering seductively in my ear: ‘Give up, give up, give up.’ It’s very quiet, but very persistent. ‘It’s all too hard,’ it murmurs, ‘you’ve run out of steam. You’ve got nothing new to say. Give up, give up, give up.’ And then it tempts me. It speaks to me of fun, of pleasure, of movies, of food, of sleeping, of reading, of music; of all the things I could be doing that are so much more enjoyable than writing.
I notice the struggle arising within myself. Anxiety and frustration surface and I feel the urge to fight and resist these feelings.
Then my mind brings out the stick and starts whacking me: ‘Why do I do this? Why do I bring this on myself? Why do I agree to these ridiculous deadlines?’ And there’s that whispering again: ‘Give up, give up, give up. Why don’t you give up writing and do something easier?’
I notice the urge to pull away, to quit and run.
I notice my desire to escape from this discomfort, to get rid of all this tension.
And it would be so easy to do so. All I need to do is get up from my computer, walk away and do something less challenging.
‘Yes,’ whispers the voice. ‘Just walk away.’
The smog is thickening and, beneath it, hot emotions bubble away.
What should I do?
In the midst of this emotional storm, I drop an anchor.
I push my feet firmly on to the floor.
And I take a slow deep breath.
First I exhale, pushing all the air out of my lungs. Then I allow them to fill by themselves from the bottom upwards.
My chest expands. My belly rises.
I can feel myself opening up and expanding.
There is a sense of space and lightness in my chest: a sense of opening up around my heart.
I am coming home. I am coming back home to my body and getting in touch.
I feel my shoulder blades sliding gently downwards.
I tune into my heart. I feel it opening. There is warmth, tenderness and fear.
I breathe into it once more. There is a sense of opening, of flowering.
With childlike curiosity, I observe my mind. It is slowing down, speaking more softly, laying down the stick.
I breathe and expand, softening and opening.
I remember to be gentle with myself.
I scan my body for any remaining resistance. And I rapidly find it: two thick cords of tension, running down my neck and into my shoulders.
I breathe into the tension, making no attempt to get rid of it; aiming purely and simply to give it space and allow it to be. And as I do so, it releases.
And noticing that flow of breath, of warmth and of kindness, I bring my attention back to the task at hand. Is it meaningful, is it important?
Yes, it is. This work matters to me. It is deeply aligned with my purpose.
So, gently and patiently, I return my attention to the task.
I am coming back home to my life in the here and now; coming back home to the tasks that I choose to do.
And I ask myself: ‘Can I let go of having to “do it right” or “get it finished”?’
This is meaningful work. I don’t want to rush through it with a sense of obligation or resentment. Can I bring an attitude of openness and curiosity to it? Can I do it calmly and peacefully, from a place of caring and giving? Can I infuse it with simplicity and compassion?
Yes. I can.
So I sit up in the chair, straighten my back, place my fingers on the keyboard and I do what matters.
***
And that is what writing is like for me. Again and again, I get hijacked by my own thoughts and feelings. They catch me off guard and I forget to respond mindfully. Instead of presence, defusion and expansion, I get lost in the smog, or I clutch at control, or I allow myself to be controlled.
And then . . . I remember. And I get present.
And then I forget again.
And then I remember again.
And so on. This is the nature of presence.
Moments of presence are easy; sustaining it is difficult.
Our attention loves to wander; it is hard to keep it in one spot for very long. So we must practise catching it. Our attention drifts, we notice it has gone and we catch it and bring it back. We get lost in the smog, we notice we’re lost and we get present. We get pulled into a struggle with our feelings, we notice we’re entangled and we expand. And we do this again and again for the rest of our lives. We never reach some perfect state where it is no longer necessary to do this. No one is fully present all the time — not even Zen masters. It’s the same for all of us: in some moments we are present; in others we are not.
Of course, some people are far more present than others and this is largely due to the amount of practice they do. Now so far in this book, I’ve only spoken about informal practice: quick and simple mindfulness exercises that you can do throughout the day. But if you’d like to really develop your capacity for presence, you may also want to consider a formal practice, such as mindfulness meditation or Hatha yoga or Tai Chi.
There’s one particular formal practice that is incredibly useful and I highly recommend it: mindfulness of the breath. It involves focusing attention on your breathing and bringing it back repeatedly, no matter how often it wanders. In Appendix 2, you’ll find a detailed description of the exercise. A word of warning, though: if you’ve never done an exercise like this before, you will be shocked at how challenging it is. If you can stay focused on your breath for even ten seconds before your attention wanders to something else, you’ll be doing well.
One of the greatest challenges in self-development is perfectionism. We all know that there’s no such thing as being perfect — we all have flaws, we all make mistakes, and there’s always room for improvement. However, most of us have a tendency to forget this. Our minds are quick to tell us that we should be trying harder, we should be doing better, we shouldn’t settle for anything less than the best. And before we know it, we are slaves. We bang the drum and toil away, sweating, tense and nervous, terrified we might not reach our full potential. We double-check and triple-check for mistakes, never quite trusting we have found them all. We repeatedly go back and start again, or we give up altogether because we’ll never measure up to our own expectations. And we are merciless when we fail or ‘underachieve’; we crack the whip and beat ourselves senseless.
Of course, perfectionism is just another version of the ‘not good enough’ story. As are all the personal stories I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: ‘fraud’, ‘boring’, ‘too hard’ and ‘deadline’. Clearly the ‘not good enough’ story takes thousands of different forms, but we deal with them all the same way: notice them and name them.
Trying to be perfect doesn’t help. Mindfulness skills can never be perfected; they can only be improved and every moment of practice makes a difference. Even if we spend a whole week lost in the smog — or even a month or a year — the moment we catch ourselves, we are free. We
are free to choose. We can choose to stay in the smog, or we can choose to do something far more fulfilling: to notice and name the story and get back to the present.
Now I have to admit, when it comes to applying this knowledge to myself, there is plenty of room for improvement. I have good days and bad days, strong moments and weak ones. But over time, I have got better. These days I do much less running from the reality gap, less fighting and railing against it. Instead, I tend to come back to the present and look with curious eyes on my life in this moment. And I ask myself this question: ‘What do I want to stand for in the face of this?’ This is one of those big questions that we will all need to answer many times. And it leads us on to the next section of this book.
PART 4
TAKE A STAND
Chapter 14
WHAT’S MY PURPOSE?
In my mid-twenties, I often thought about killing myself. People who knew me at that time are always shocked to hear this. My friends, family and work colleagues had no idea how miserable I was because I was excellent at hiding it. I managed to convince everyone around me that I was happy, fulfilled and content.
And certainly, to the outside observer, there was no good reason for me to be miserable. If anything, I seemed to ‘have it all’. I had emigrated from cold, rainy England to warm, sunny Australia. I had bought a lovely house in a funky neigh bour -hood in one of the world’s most exciting cities (Melbourne). As a young doctor, I had a highly respected, well-paid and very stimulating job. I also had an unusual and very rewarding hobby: stand-up comedy. I regularly performed as ‘Dr Russ’ around the comedy clubs of Melbourne, which was not only a fantastic buzz, but also earned me money, praise and fame. (Not huge fame or money, by any stretch, but it was a good earner and I did get several appearances on prime-time Australian TV shows such as Tonight Live and The Midday Show.)
And yet, even with all this, I was deeply unhappy. There were several contributing factors, not least of which was a harsh ‘inner critic’: an ongoing stream of self-judgemental thoughts. But first and foremost was a pervasive sense of meaninglessness.
‘What is it all about?’ I often wondered. Sure, I had a good job, a good house, a good income, a good hobby, but so what? Was that it? Was that all there was to life? I had all sorts of ways of generating pleasure — buying clothes, books, CDs; going to the movies; eating out at top restaurants; drinking fine wine; taking up interesting hobbies such as scuba-diving; going on exotic holidays; and so on. But while it was all enjoyable, none of that fulfilled me. I had no sense of purpose. I was just going through my days, ticking the boxes and trying, without much luck, to feel happy. Surely there had to be more to life than this?
Eventually, my misery started me on a quest: a journey to find the answers, not just for myself, but for the many patients I saw who seemed to struggle with very similar issues to my own. And what I discovered was that in order to find the big answers, you first have to ask some big questions:
• What truly matters to me, deep in my heart?
• What do I want to stand for with my time on this planet?
• What sort of human being do I want to be?
• How do I want to behave towards myself, others and the world around me?
• What personal qualities do I want to cultivate?
Consider these ‘big questions’ for a while before reading on.
***
Presence and purpose are intimate partners. Purpose gives our life direction, and presence allows us to make the most of the journey. If you have presence without purpose, it’s like being on a yacht without sails: you are adrift and at the mercy of the elements, with no control over your direction. Many people think that purpose can be found in something external — such as a relationship or a career. But the truth is, purpose is something you find within yourself.
I certainly found this to be true in my early years as a doctor. You might expect that a career in medicine comes pre-loaded with purpose: caring for others, healing the sick, compassion for those in pain. But it is not necessarily so. I am embarrassed to admit that as a junior doctor, I lacked compassion for my patients. I was disconnected from them and insensitive to their thoughts and feelings. I saw my job as basically to get them better and get them out of hospital as soon as possible, through efficiently providing the best medical treatment. So if they got sicker, or failed to recover quickly, instead of compassion, I felt annoyed; I saw them as a ‘nuisance’, making my job harder. The idea of forming a deep, compassionate connection with my patients never even popped into my head. On those rare occasions when I would catch sight of a colleague having a truly caring, heart-to-heart talk with a patient, I would shake my head and wonder in amazement: who has time for that?!
This disconnection and insensitivity towards my patients made my job very unsatisfying and it took me a long, long time to realise it. Funnily enough, what first opened my eyes was a Hollywood movie called The Doctor starring William Hurt. The Doctor is based on the true story of a heart surgeon who is technically brilliant at cardiac surgery, but lacks empathy and compassion for his patients. However, all that changes when he gets a taste of his own medicine. When he is diagnosed with throat cancer, he finds himself in the care of a doctor much like himself: technically brilliant, but cold and insensitive. And he doesn’t like it. So he transfers to the care of another doctor who is kind, caring and compassionate. I don’t want to tell you the whole story; I encourage you to watch the film. However, what I can tell you is that by the end of the movie this cardiac surgeon has discovered the incredible importance of compassion.
I first saw The Doctor in 1994, by which time I was working as a GP in private practice — and it was a ‘light bulb moment’. I thought to myself, ‘That’s how I want to be: compassionate, caring and sensitive.’ And the very next day, I consciously started bringing those qualities into my work. I started to slow down my consultations and take the time to ask my patients about their feelings; to empathise with their pain and their fear; to infuse my speech and my gestures with genuine caring and kindness.
The results were amazing. Not only did my patients respond positively, but my work became far more satisfying and so much more meaningful.
However, there were other consequences that weren’t quite so wonderful. You see, as I became more caring, my consultations grew longer. And longer. And even longer. In my early years as a GP, they had averaged eight minutes, but within a year of making this shift in my attitude, I was averaging thirty minutes per consultation. And during these sessions, we would spend at least half of the time talking about my patients’ feelings, challenges, hopes, dreams and aspirations — rather than their medical conditions. All well and good, but what I hadn’t foreseen was this: as my consultations grew longer, my income went down and down.
You see, back then in Australia, the Medicare system worked like this: GPs who saw a large number of patients for a brief time each, earned far more money than those who saw a small number of patients for a long time each. So by the time I was averaging thirty minutes per patient, my income had dropped by half! And yet, surprisingly, I didn’t really mind. Why? Because I was far more fulfilled. My life was much richer and the trade-off was worth every cent. Indeed, I found this caring, compassionate connection with my patients so rewarding that I ultimately changed careers so I could have even more of it: I retrained as a psychotherapist. And guess what happened to my income? That’s right, it dropped even further — to less than a third of what I had once earned as a GP.
But again, it was well worth the trade-off. As my income plummeted, my sense of fulfilment soared. And that is why I have never once regretted that decision. It took me on a long and winding path, which ultimately led to a much richer and fuller life (and to writing books such as this one), and it con -firmed to me the old saying that money can’t buy you happiness. (That old saying, by the way, has also been confirmed with lots of good scientific research.)
Finding Purpose
Every action we
take serves a purpose. From doing the washing to eating an ice-cream; from getting married to filling in a tax return; from zoning out in front of late-night TV to going for an early morning jog: underlying each and every action, there is always some sort of intention — we are taking action to make something happen. But how often are we conscious of this intention? And how often do our actions consciously serve some greater purpose that personally matters to us?
For most of us, the answer to both questions is: ‘not too often’. Our tendency is to go through life on autopilot, rather than consciously choosing what we do and how we go about doing it. The problem with this is that we may end up spending large chunks of our days acting in ways that are largely unfulfilling. However, if we consciously align our actions to a chosen purpose — to a cause that is personally important — then everything changes. Our life becomes imbued with meaning. We develop a sense of direction; of creating the life we want. And we experience a sense of vitality and fulfilment that is wholly missing from life on autopilot.
When I ask my clients about their purpose in life, the most common reactions I get are confusion, anxiety or ‘I don’t know’. (The few exceptions are clients who already have a strong sense of purpose either from their religion or from previous personal development.) So I ask them the ‘big questions’ as above, and this starts to get them thinking. In ACT we refer to this process as clarifying values, and it’s a very important thing to do, because it’s our values that infuse our life with purpose.
