My daughter’s swim meet was at 8 am this morning. I love watching her swim, but it also means a great deal of down time between her events. She swims the Free, the Back, and the Breast Stroke. Although it would be great for us spectators to have these events run “back to back,” it might leave many young swimmers with respiratory failure, so it\’s probably for the best. What this means for me is a great deal of down time. Time for me to be bored, which means my brain switches to low power mode, allowing the emotional lowest bidder (frustration, anger, judgment) to have its say…
“I’m hungry. Not really, but if I was hungry, I could go to the concession stand. At least I could walk around. Why are bananas the same price as a snickers bar? Ridiculous! Of course, I’m going to choose the Snickers, who wouldn’t? It’s the fault of Big Corporations messing with kids and their choices over fruit. This shirt is itchy. Why do I keep wearing it? I should give it away to the Salvation Army. What person would want to buy an itchy shirt? God, it’s freaking hot in here. So many people. I have to go to the bathroom. Not really, but at least I could walk around…again.”
I could come up with a whole host of things to brood over when I’m waiting or bored (obviously, I do). Excessive ‘down time’ is the perfect breeding ground for my little “Mental/Emotional Cavities” (spaces in my brain where emotional irritation sets in because I’ve tuned out to my feelings). Seldom do I see these ‘cavities’ fester when I’ve focused my attention on something I deem worthy. Treating patients, running a race, being engaged in a conversation with my kid that could be critical to where he ends up going to college. Those external situations demand better…require my focus, attention, and mindfulness! The minute I find an ‘external situation’ that I believe I can just mentally ‘turn off’ and not have to be mindful…well, I close shop. Forgetting the one person in my life that needs my awareness, attention, and mindfulness more than anyone…
Myself.
Our thoughts, emotions, and actions become less intentional and authentic when we allow our ‘spaces in between’ to be governed by external circumstance. In line at the grocery store; waiting in traffic; waiting for my daughter to swim (she is an amazing swimmer…but the length of those meets tests my parental resolve like nothing I\’ve ever experienced). The truth is, any time that we pay less attention to ourselves and how we are feeling, we end up expending a great deal more mental/emotional energy cleaning up after our reactivity and emotional tantrums. Our mental/emotional cavities get filled with irritation, frustration, and anger, and we are completely perplexed about how just one hour at the DMV could have completely energetically wiped us out!
Forethought, mindfulness, and staying aware of how you are feeling keeps the ‘spaces in-between’ from being quite so energetically draining. They allow you choice, not in what you need to do, or where you need to be for the moment in your external environment, but how you are going to react to it. By choosing to remain mindful of yourself and your emotions in every situation, you determine your experience of it. The way you think about the situation you are in, the words you choose with others around you, and the mindful actions you take, allow you the opportunity to find your equanimity, and be fully present and content.
After my great and fruitless ‘mecca to nowhere’ around the aquatic center, I decided to engage a bit with my daughter before her meet. Talk with her before and after her races. Talk with other athletes from her team, and give advice if I saw fit (I do swim once in a while :). The entire morning I spent interacting with my daughter and with the swimmers that I knew. Just making that deliberate mindful choice, left me feeling emotionally centered, and saved me from pondering a world where healthy bananas could be WRONGFULLY given the same monetary value as an evil corporate Snickers bar… ;).
