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3 reasons why you deserve a break today
I’ve heard this several times in the last few days so I think you and I ought to start paying attention.
1. Breaks and circular thinking (rumination)
Among research I was doing for another blog post, I learned that taking a break is one of the best ways to interrupt rumination – that insidious circle of repetitive, brooding thoughts that you can get into when feeling depressed or facing stressful circumstances.
The problem with rumination is that you do it because you think if you pay enough attention to your problem, you will solve it. But that’s not what happens. Rumination only increases negative thinking which leads to pessimism, depression, and reduces your ability to problem-solve effectively.
So the very thing you’re doing to solve a problem is actually inhibiting you from solving it. And your mind just keeps going around and around in the same thought-cycle, trying to work things out but only making matters worse.
Researchers have found that distracting yourself via enjoyable activities such as going to a movie, spending time with friends, jogging, or going for a walk can disrupt your ruminative thinking which then allows you to solve your problem more effectively.
Take a break from all that thinking! Do something different to get your mind out of its repetitive pattern.
2. Breaks and grieving
Taking a break and distraction can be very helpful for people who are grieving. During the painful spasms of grief that occur early in the process, giving yourself a break from the constant thoughts of your loss can be a great coping mechanism.
The important thing to remember is that, when you take a break from grief, it doesn’t mean that you have forgotten your loved one or are in any way disrespecting her. You are actually honoring her by honoring and taking care of yourself for a bit.
Spend time with friends, laugh, engage in a favorite hobby. It’s okay to take a break from the pain.
3. Breaks and creativity
Ever wonder why you can be stumped by a problem during the day and then wake up at 3 am with the solution?
Jonah Lehrer has one idea about how these experiences occur. He’s the author of Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer writes that scientists are discovering that the simple act of being relaxed and in a good mood sparks creativity and innovation.
When you look at where insights come from, they come from where we least expect them. They only arrive after we stop looking at them. If you’re an engineer working on a problem and you’re stumped by your technical problem, chugging caffeine at your desk and chaining yourself to your computer, you’re going to be really frustrated. You’re going to waste lots of time. You may look productive, but you’re actually wasting time. Instead, at that moment, you should go for a walk. You should play some ping-pong. You should find a way to relax. – Excerpted from an interview of Jonah Lehrer from Npr.org
So there you have it. Taking a break is a good thing. It promotes creativity, innovation, and good mental and emotional health.
Go on. You deserve it.
Takeaway points: Taking a break and distracting yourself from your inner world can be just what you need to solve a problem or feel better. Give yourself permission to take a break and have fun or just relax.
Is it easy or hard for you to allow yourself breaks?
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Bounce Boosters: 5 quotes to help you bounce back in life
Vulnerability is not about weakness
This month’s edition of Bounce Boosters is about vulnerability.
How is vulnerability related to resiliency and bouncing back in life?
In her latest TED talk, shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown asks the audience, “Honestly, when you think of being vulnerable, how many of you equate it with weakness?”
The majority of the audience raised their hands.
Brown continues, “Now, when you think about the presenters you’ve seen here at TED, how many of you have looked at their vulnerability as courage?”
This time the entire audience raised their hands.
Dr. Brown looked intently at her listeners.
“Vulnerability is not weakness.”
Vulnerability creates change
Then she told a story about how, after her first TEDx talk, she received many calls from businesses and corporations asking her to come speak.
“’But, Dr. Brown, we don’t want you to mention shame or vulnerability.’
“What would you like me to talk about?
“’Innovation, creativity, and change.’”
She smiled and looked fully at her audience again.
“Let me just go on record: Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”
So many times we think that when we are feeling vulnerable it means we are weak and being weak means we are not resilient, that we can’t bounce back.
The opposite is true: vulnerability creates change, it shows strength and vitality, and it’s really the only way to move forward in life.
I hope this month’s quotes inspire you to honor and practice your own vulnerability.
I understand now that the vulnerability I’ve always felt is the greatest strength a person can have. You can’t experience life without feeling life. What I’ve learned is that being vulnerable to somebody you love is not a weakness, it’s a strength.
2. Madeleine L’Engle
When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable.
3. Brené Brown
Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
4. Criss Jami
To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.
5. Stephen Russell
Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. The new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.
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How to get more out of life by looking UP!
I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.- Charlotte Bronte
Do you ever feel bogged down with the daily grind of life? Like you’ve been walking through your days with your head down, just looking at where your next step is going to land?
Me, too.
But I learned something several years ago that helps me to release my narrow focus and get a fresh perspective.
I was at a seminar being led by a Native American shaman. He was explaining the ways of his tribe, the Ojibwa people, and ended by telling a story about a walk he took in the woods.
As he plodded along, looking at the ground, lost in his thoughts, he heard a voice inside him say, “Look up!”
Suddenly, he realized how much of his present experience he was missing. He looked up and saw the way the tree branches laced together over his head. How the sun peeked through the forest, dappling the growth and his path before him. How the squirrels chattered and played overhead, leaping with breathtaking grace from limb to limb.
Ever after, he always remembered to look up.
A narrow focus
And I have tried to remember this simple, wise directive as well.
I find that my mind too often becomes narrowly focused, worrying about the next thing or lost in replaying a past event, rather than being right where I am in the present. In these times, I’m often looking down at where I’m walking or at whatever is in front of me.
When my shallow breathing and downward gaze come to my awareness, they are my cues that I’ve allowed my inner world to exclude what is happening around me. I hear the emphatic phrase, “Look up!” and I follow its wise command.
What do I see? I’ve never seen a vision or anything extraordinary.
But the true essence of looking up is that I’m reminded that there is more.
Looking up allows me to see more of my world. I notice that there is more than what is just in front of me.
There are trees and buildings and the Google blimp (really!) and reflections off windows and clouds scudding across the sky and cobwebs in corners and funny patterns in the ceiling plaster.
And I realize that there is more to this moment than what is going on inside my head. There are possibilities and opportunities and things to be grateful for and lessons to be learned and the chance to take a deep breath.
I find that I have more choices in what I do and feel. I don’t have to walk with my head down, feeling the grind-ness of my day. I can choose to look up and around and remember that there are always, always options and each day brings a new batch of them.
And sometimes, just sometimes, when I look up, I see a hawk or a great bird of the sea soaring high above me and I am thankful, even more, for the wise shaman’s advice to look up!
Takeaway points: It’s so easy to become narrowly focused on the routine of our day, where we’re going, or where we came from. The exercise of literally looking up reminds us that there is so much more to our experience.
What does looking up do for you?
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Grandma’s gifts: 5 guides to aging well
Gettin’ old ain’t for sissies. – Various sources including my elderly neighbor.
Several years ago while visiting my ninety-eight-year-old grandmother, I knelt down next to her chair and looked her in the eyes.
“Grandma,” I said with mock seriousness, “I think you’re finally getting old.”
She laughed. “Well, yes, I think I finally am!”
In some ways, I wasn’t kidding. My grandmother has always been active and fit, gleefully turning a somersault for her five-year-old great-grandson when she was seventy-five. Taking care of “the old people” at her senior apartment complex well into her late eighties. Buzzing around the crowded room for her ninety-fifth birthday party, chatting and joking with her friends.
Then, suddenly, she got old. Her voice weakened and she finally started using a walker for balance. I could see the difference in her eyes: Once bright and curious, they now had softened into a gaze of subtle resignation.
“Grandma,” I asked her, “Do you want to live to be a hundred?”
She thought about it for a moment.
“Well, I do,” she said with a mischievous glint returning to her eyes, “But I don’t want to live the two years in between to get there!”
How do old people adapt?
That weekend of my visit, I continued to watch her and think about her long, long life. Always an in-command person, what must it be like for her now that she is, as researchers term it, “the oldest of the old” and having to rely on others?
Of course, it made me turn to the research to learn about resiliency and the elderly. How do they adapt to the aging process with its cascading losses – physical, mental, and personal? How do they bounce back?
In my reading, I found some resiliency skills of the elderly that can teach us younger people a few lessons.
Lessons from the elderly
First of all, the elderly use similar resiliency skills as the rest of us: social support, acceptance, using different perspectives, problem-solving. But they put a special spin on these skills. They seem more adaptive to me.
For example, there is a characteristic that is helpful in successful aging called flexibility. This entails being able to respond differently to a situation than the rote response one is used to. This is a skill that we all need to have and one we often use.
However, elderly people face so many changes as they age that they are called upon to be flexible more often than us younger people. The resilient elderly are the ones who are able to continually let go of abilities, not to mention friends and family to death, and adapt to a new way of being in the world.
My grandmother gave up her driver’s license when she was eighty-four because she realized her reaction times had slowed too much for her to safely drive. However, she quickly adjusted, learning to use the bus system to get herself and the “old people” she helped to doctors’ appointments.
Another characteristic of the elderly that we might envy is their greater range of coping resources. By virtue of their long lives, they have established an arsenal of ways to manage change and adversity. Also, they tend to be less reactive to losses than younger people because they have learned through experience how to handle loss.
Having a sense of openness allows seniors to re-create themselves continuously. Being receptive to new ideas, resources, and experiences allows them to redefine themselves even as their external worlds continue to shrink.
Resilient elders also become more accepting of dependency. While being dependent is not valued in younger people, many older people realize the need for adapting to their circumstances which may include allowing for increased dependence. However, one of the ways they are able to do this is by adjusting their perception to realize that whatever they are still able to offer others is a good exchange for receiving from others.
Finally, older adults demonstrate resilience by generating meaning from their personal memories and stories from their long lives. The ability to see one’s past growth and continue to strive for growth throughout life is extremely adaptive and rewarding.
Summary: What can we learn from “the oldest of the old”?
1. Even when life throws a multitude of changes at you consistently, you can still maintain flexibility to adapt to your circumstances.
2. It’s important to pay attention to and collect a wide range of coping resources.
3. As mentioned in my last post, sometimes you must redefine who you are to be able to bounce back in life. Maintaining a sense of openness allows you to more easily achieve this redefinition.
4. The things that we think less of now may actually be good. Old people show us that allowing people to help – being a little dependent – is actually a very productive skill.
5. Looking for and generating meaning and growth in the events of our lives will not only help us bounce back now, but be more resilient as we age.
Even though my grandmother teased about the two years she must live to reach one-hundred, she continues to inspire me with her constant, remarkable adaptation to her old, old life.
I want to be her when I grow up (and old.)
2018 update: Grandma did live those two years to make it to one-hundred, and more! She is now 104 years old and she’ll turn 105 in early 2019.
Takeaway points: We can learn a lot from our elders about resiliency. The crux of the lessons is all about adaptation: being open to changes and new ways of being in the world.
Resources:
Rosowsky, E. (2009.) Challenge and Resilience in Old Age. Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging. 33 (3), p.100-102.
Langer, N. (2004.) Resiliency and Spirituality: Foundations of Strengths Perspective Counseling with the Elderly. Educational Gerontology, 30, 611-617.