Living Skillfully: Your Mind and Health

This is the second of two posts on improving your interpersonal life. There’ll be more in the future, so if this is an interest of yours, please subscribe.

This little practice is short enough that you can do it in the shower, while waiting for a bus, while having breakfast, or in any of the many other interstices of everyday life. It is simple enough that you should be able to memorize it easily, or write it out on a small card to carry with you.

It is deliberately phrased so that it can be used by people of any, or no, spiritual background or belief. Although most of its inspirations came from the Christian tradition, including the Lord’s Prayer, there is nothing in its language, content or structure which restricts it to members of that tradition or any other.

1. The Intent:
“I want to listen
to what is highest and best,
to all people,
to everything that exists,
to my own body and my true self,
so that I may understand and love more deeply.”

2. The Five Gladnesses: “I am glad that…”

3. The Three Annoyances: Choose three people (perhaps one from the media, one from your past and one from your present) who annoy you. Think about why they annoy you. For each, say: “[person’s name] annoys me because he/she… just like me.”

Extra credit: Express a wish, hope, intent, affirmation or prayer for positive change which covers the people who annoy you and yourself, and addresses the issue that annoys you: “I hope we…”, “May we…”.

4. The Welcoming: Observe any negative feelings that arise. Welcome each by name: “Welcome, [feeling]”. Breathe in and hold both the breath and the feeling for a moment; then let them go.

5. The Desire: “I want to use these practices throughout this day and throughout my life.”

Commentary

1. The Intent sets the tone of the practice; you are listening in order to understand and love.

Substitute “God” for “what is highest and best” if that language works better for you. Or not, if not.

2. The Five Gladnesses can be Five Thanks if you prefer. (Credit: Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity.)

There is research around this; Improved Lives cites a study by Martin Seligman and colleagues which found that a similar exercise was the most effective of several exercises they studied at increasing happiness and reducing depression. The point here is to set a positive tone, to recall what is good about your life. Don’t feel restricted to five if you can think of more.

The underlying psychological principle is that when you are in a particular mood, you tend to recall memories which match that mood. It works the other way, too; if you deliberately summon up memories that are linked to a particular emotion or mental set, you tend to get the mood along with the memory.

3. The Three Annoyances is the challenging part, and the heart of the practice. If you don’t do any of the other parts, do this.

This exercise was developed out of a phrase in Arjuna Ardagh’s The Translucent Revolution by a couple of friends of mine. There is a debt to the Gestalt tradition here as well.

photo credit: JelleS

What you are doing here is to acknowledge that what annoys you in others does so because it is an alienated aspect of your own behaviour that you prefer not to own. Possibly, too, it is something you wish you could do but feel you don’t have permission for, or can’t do as much as you want to because the other person is doing it – for example, they may be drawing attention to themselves, so you can’t have that attention.

The mere act of appending “just like me” begins reintegration, the recovery of your projections. Even more so if you can express a positive hope for yourself and the people who annoy you. Then, you become responsible to change. It’s likely that if you start to change – or even just admit that the behaviour is yours also – the other people will start to annoy you less, even if they don’t change.

My wife used this with a very irritating and toxic colleague, and found that their relationship improved out of all recognition.

You can group several people who annoy you for the same reason together.

Examples:
“A and B annoy me because they want attention, just like me. May we get the security we need so that we can let go of wanting to be the centre of things.”
“B annoys me because she doesn’t listen, just like me. May we learn to pay attention to other people.”
“C annoys me because he’s negative and destructive, just like me. May we find positive ways to express our criticisms.”

4. The welcoming practice is based on the Welcoming Prayer, developed by Mary Mrozowski in the Centering Prayer tradition founded by Thomas Keating. I’ve written about it, and the brain science behind it, in more depth before under the title One Simple Step Towards Managing Emotions.

5. The Desire opens the practice out into the rest of your life.

You are developing ways of dealing positively with life, and by doing the practice in the context of everyday life – in the shower or at the breakfast table – you set yourself up to use the parts of it at the times that they become relevant. It isn’t locked away in a special “spiritual” category, outside of normal life.

Give it a try. I think you’ll be surprised at the results.

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