As long as humans have had conscious awareness, they have had had the opportunity to borrow worry or anxiety about their past or their future. This is why, as long as 7000 years ago in the taoist traditions, there were mindfulness teachings. So often, we think about our past experiences, and have feelings about our present life based on those. We also worry about our future; will I be able to provide for my family? Will I be able to go on vacation? Will I be able to retire? You will never find me saying those things do not matter, but they often take our attention away from what we can do right here, right now.
Today, in my daily dose of mindfulness, Russ Harris - the author of The Happiness Trap - reminded me about the concept of diffusion. It is something I have been working on a bit with my riding, especially this weekend. Diffusion in psychology can be described as 1) realizing that we are having thoughts and feelings 2) reminding ourselves that we are having thoughts and feelings and 3) noticing that we are reminding ourselves that we are having thoughts and feelings. It's like taking a camera lens that is zoomed in, and backing it out to the actual perspective.
I noticed this over the weekend. My last offroading experience on my dual sport left me with a bruised tail bone. Since then, I've been on a couple of gravel patches (very minor) and physiologically experienced anxiety - all my body hair stood on end, I felt fuzzy in my mind, my breath got shallow. None of these patches were long enough for me to practice any anxiety management skills. (Meanwhile, I've been riding black diamond single track on my dirt bike with no anxiety. But I digress.) Yesterday, we went on a dual sport ride with a great group of people. As we started getting closer to gravel, I started to feel my blood pressure rise. My instinct was to breathe, to calm my heart rate. But, all this mindfulness practice this month has reminded me that the more I try to avoid this anxiety, the stronger it may become. So, I did breathe, but I also let my mind notice what I was thinking. I was locked into my thoughts and feelings about the past and the present; the 24 is in two weeks, I don't want to be injured for that. My last dual sport ride ended with a bruised tail bone, a MOST unpleasant experience, and I don't want to deal with that. To take a step back from these, I said to myself "I'm feeling worried about the past and the future." It sounds small, but whether our thoughts and feelings are true or not, simply noticing that we are having them allows us to take a step back from them. My mind tried to remind me that the last ride was not so successful, yaddy yadda yadda. I have a busy mind. And I simply stayed present. "I'm feeling worried about what happened last time. My worry is there, even though that is not today." I was able to then take the next step and say "I notice that I am worried about the past." The lens zooms out again. It's like seeing myself outside of myself. I am not my thoughts and feelings, they are there. I do not need to reach out and hold onto them. I start to let myself notice my other thoughts and feelings. "This forest with the changing leaves is beautiful. I notice I am thinking about the forest." "This road is wonderful for riding, I notice I am thinking about the road." I tuned into the smell of the rain, the sounds of the wind rushing by my helmet. So many thoughts, no reason to be caught by anxiety.
And, the pleasant end to this story was that I just accepted that this anxiety wanted to walk with me for a while. I think the anxiety wanted to protect me, but in reality, if I let it hook me, it will pull me away from my other thoughts, feelings, and skills. So, I let it walk run beside me, joining me for my ride, until I got onto the gravel. And then the anxiety, like an elusive deer, disappeared into the forest. Because, as it turns out, I do know how to ride my bike on a gravel road. And I do know when to challenge myself and when I am getting tired. The anxiety did not appear for the rest of the day, and I didn't even really remember it until later, when recounting it's disappearance.
I don't think of myself as an anxious person by nature. Perhaps until motorcycles, I just have not pushed myself outside of my comfort zone enough. Either way, I haven't had great skills to deal with the anxiety that has come with riding motorcycles. What I have learned in the last four years, however, is that when I fight with it, ignore it, deny it, or otherwise try not to participate in the anxious experience, it sticks around. And, when someone tries to help me with it, I get quite locked in to giving reasons why my anxiety makes sense. When I simply notice and accept the anxiety, I can shift my attention from anxious thoughts and feelings to what matters in the moment, and that allows me to think about other things as well, such as avoiding the cones of fire (ie proper body position/counterleaning), using forward momentum to my advantage (ie going faster), and sliding my back tire (ie not jamming on the damned front brakes, since that's what caused my last crash.) And the best benefit to not engaging in this struggle? My energy level for the activity is higher not being all used up by anxiety, so I get to have THAT MUCH MORE FUN! And isn't that what life is all about?
No comments:
Post a Comment