Life Soup Keeps Cooking - Impermance and OCPD

Everything must change. Even the most solid building tumbles sometimes, and even a little ant can begin to pick away at the foundation. This impermance is a main truth in my Buddhist mediation class, and it can totally change how I relate to anxiety and my self.

So if I'm feeling all wrapped up in something - dirty glasses for example - it takes over my mind, its all I can see, its perfect for fail, do or die. Well, at least it seems that way. But the glass is decaying. I am decaying. My situation, and my emotions, can't be solid.

I can't quiet put my hands around my anixety and hold it still. It's always growing or dissapaiting. I can try to control if it goes up or down, but I can't stop it.

I'm not anxious about dirty glasses now, or about anything else. But soon I will be, and then again... I won't be. And so on. Until this body too moves into impermance.

Deep huh? But its just a way of relating "nothing lasts forever" to negative feelings. After all, if everything is moving and change, what is it that I'm so hung up about?

It's easy to take this as - "Well if nothing is solid or stable then nothing matters! Pass me the bottle of wine!". But it does matter.

If everything is moving and changing then I have the power to change it. If I am positive, if I take the view that "this too shall pass" and smile at someone then I have set in motion a good change. There is no way to tell how far one smile can go to brighten someone's day. Ever seen that movie "Pay it Forward"?

So I'm getting over the way things look - solid. I know they aren't so stable, and my body, my mind, my life is in constant evolution and motion. The dishes, the make up, the perfection - these things a moving in and out of my life.

Actions and emotions all make up my "life soup" - just one big swirling pot of soup that keeps on cooking. The flavors change, it can get better or worse. . Once the heat is on it, the cooking doesnt "pause" or suddenly stabilize. It just gets warmer , the veggies and broth keep changing in reaction. I can't make it stop, not without turning off the heat. I can add salt or pepper, I can stir it. I can make the best damn soup I can, so that when the heat goes off and my "life soup" is off the stove it tastes amazing, full of the positive memories and impacts of a life well lived. But until the day my light goes out, I have no choice by to keep cooking.

Taking it Personal - Cleaning and OCPD

Sometimes the kitchen feels like a battle zone. And not just because of any food issues or tempting cookies in the fridge. It's New York tiny, cramped with two ego's and one obsessive, both of which are trying to eat and drink without too many bruises. Only one of which cleans up. Guess which one?

I do the dishes and I don't mind - we don't really cook or use that many. But its hard to to attached my "pass/fail" logic to how clean my kitchen is. I try not to obsess about it, as nothing will ever be totally, perfectlly clean. Mostly I keep all this domestic worry inside.

But then he wanted a cup. I heard him rummaging. I asked what he needed, eager to make him stop messing up the cupbord.

"Oh I need a cup, and they all look kinda dirty" He grabs one cleanish on to examine and started to leave the kitchen. He didn't sound hostile- just a fact to him. But to me? It was a condemnation.

I started by apoligizing, anger and hurt coming though. He was taken aback. No big deal he said. "I feel like a failure!" I responded as I began to haul out all of cups from the cabinet, into a soapy sink. I had to fix this!

He came back into the kitchen, and stopped me. I paused. Time for mindfullness. We looked at eachother. "Not a big deal" he repeated" I nodded. I saw it now. It really wasn't about a cup.

I took a breathe and fessed up to my obsession with a "perfect" kitchen. He understood, I was honest that it didn't make sense to care so much but I did anyway. He listened.

The cups stayed a bit foggy, but our relationship just got a little clearer.

Seeing the River- Mindfullness of Mind and OCPD

I am taking a meditation class at the Interdependence Project and our last lecture was on the Four Kinds of Mindfulness. It went into some pretty deep Buddhist stuff, but a lot of it could be helpful to anyone with anxiety.

One of the kinds of mindfulness was of the mind. It is observing and watching your mental state, being aware of the "tone" of your thoughts. Silent Mind Open Heart has an article that explains it in more detail. Its not so much emotion, but what effect emotion has on your mind. Tricky to explain, but if you try it for yourself it helps!

Ok an example- I feel sad about a friend canceling plans. If I pause and feel the "mind" inside, I can see my thoughts are running a million places all at once. Plans to do something else, to eat, to sleep, rehashing the conversation, wondering if I did something wrong- all these bombard the mind like a waterfall. I know the "tone"- it's anxiety.

Through "Mindfulness of Mind" I try to look at all these anxious thoughts like an observer, even a scientist. I give it a name, a label- "anxious". Once I label it, maybe I can work with it, recognize it, and not get so caught up.

The river of thoughts can be rushing, rapids, languid or just plain muddy. But if I stop, pause, and try to observe that river, I can figure out how to cross it. If I just jump in, without being aware of just what that "thought river" is doing, I risk getting swept away by strong currents.

Being aware of our mind gives the tools to cross even the most deadly rapids, because we do the work to find and navigate each stone. But it is work! You have to be willing to pause, which is hard in daily life.

This weekend, I'm going to work with the "Mindfulness of Mind", and try not get swept away by any currents that push and pull the river inside my head.