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A few years ago, my wife and I were at a school meeting and the teacher, a seasoned elder, was telling the parents about the various challenges our kids were facing. As we concluded she said, “You’ve got great kids. The thing is . . .” She paused and seemed hesitant, and then set her jaw and continued, “Look, I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I hope you’ll take this the right way because it’s important. Your kids lack grit.” As she scanned our faces, I think she wanted to say that many of us adults lacked grit too.
We still have certain hardships today, but because life is undoubtedly easier for most people, it’s quite possible to live a normal lifespan with very little grit. Although this grit deficiency is widespread among modern people, the upside is that we generally have higher emotional intelligence than our ancestors did.
There’s a big difference between managing intense emotions because we’re emotionally intelligent versus being unaffected by emotions because we don’t feel them. Grit often goes along with emotional suppression, which was probably a more common coping mechanism in previous generations, in part because we just didn’t talk about our feelings much. The downside was a narrowed experience of life and lots of dysfunctional relationships.
My point is that what we call “grit” often comes at a high price. But grit and emotional intelligence aren’t mutually exclusive qualities. We can be tough without being shut down emotionally. In fact, the better we understand our emotional landscape, the more resilient we are, the healthier our supportive relationships are, and the less daunting it is to step out of our comfort zone.
The cultivation of both grit and emotional intelligence requires a willingness to be uncomfortable. When you think of a person with grit perhaps you imagine them sleeping on the ground, plodding through snow in order to deliver the mail, getting thrown off a horse and climbing back on, or having to use non-organic soymilk in their latte. (Soymilk is almost synonymous with grit, am I right? 😉)
We’d be best served with a combination of both qualities. Grit without emotional intelligence implies a person who can be tough and tenacious, but won’t get to fully experience the journey and rewards of whatever they invest their grit into pursuing. As for emotional intelligence without grit, a person may fully understand what they’re feeling but be unable to stand up to their emotions when they threaten to take over, nor to stand up and say what needs to be said in order to clear the air, maintain integrity, and honor their boundaries.
One silver lining of this pandemic is that I've seen more emotionally intelligent grit in people than ever. It takes grit to make do with shortages of food and toilet paper, to find ways to get our kids educated when schools are closed, to figure out how to make ends meet when our jobs and businesses disappear, and to change our behaviors to reduce the spread of a contagious disease. The emotional intelligence aspect is not letting our fear be the driver, instead being guided in all our adaptations by homing in on what's most important. For instance: family, community, service, vibrant health, kindness, and ecology. It
means honoring the choice that mere survival isn’t enough.
This brings us to the crux of emotionally intelligent grit, which is that having a higher purpose is essential. Without it, we adapt without heart. To me, a high purpose always implies an intention that goes beyond personal gain. It inspires the willingness to be uncomfortable as we develop and maintain these muscles, and the world is made better by this sacrifice.
Be well, and not too comfortable,
Peter
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[post_date] => 2022-11-30 23:10:21
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Of all the things one could do to be healthier and happier, I consider meditation to rank among the top practices on the list.
We spend most of our lives thinking . . . judging, worrying, processing, planning, pondering, analyzing, and rehashing. Most thinking isn’t bad, per se, but it’s an unconscious, incessant habit. We rarely recognize that there’s a difference between consciousness and thinking. Our minds are constantly trying to grab our attention and monopolize our awareness, and usually we give it away freely.
What’s the problem? Well, although we have some necessary functional thoughts – e.g., “I’m almost out of gas and need to refill the tank” or “I need medical attention for this severed limb” – most of our thinking is less intentional, and it tends to distance us from the here-and-now. When thinking becomes our default state, it’s no longer a choice. It’s like defaulting to being on your phone whenever possible.
The mind is constantly saying, “I have something important / tragic / interesting / worrisome / outrageous / unfair / juicy, etc. Give me your awareness!” Over decades of doing so, we forget who/what we really are; we most strongly identify with a collection of thoughts, beliefs, and memories. Further, in letting our thoughts define us, we impose tremendous limitations on ourselves.
In my opinion there are two fundamental points of meditation: (1) to take a break from the habit of thinking and doing (2) to experience awareness itself and remember what we are beyond our thoughts. This is the opposite of what most of us do all day.
Can we have awareness without thinking? Of course. As a short exercise, rest your gaze on something in the room or out the window. See it and experience it without talking about it to yourself (or talking to yourself about something unrelated). As soon as you feel your mind about to break through with a thought, pick up your attention and put it on something else. Do this for a minute or so, then come back here.
How was it? What did you notice? Could you feel the squirminess of your mind itching to get back in the spotlight? It’s almost like the feeling of being deprived of a drug. Why should it be so uncomfortable just to experience reality without thinking? That alone should tell us something is out of order.
While there are innumerable meditation techniques, I think it’s always worth coming back to the basics. We’re taking this time to experience awareness without thinking. We’re not trying to manipulate ourselves into a spiritual state or make something mystical happen. We’re just giving the mind a rest and basking in the space that opens. Even the psyche can eventually experience it as a great relief.
This form of meditation is a bit like putting a child to bed. You’re sitting next to their bed and they sit up and say, “I forgot my water bottle on the playground!”
You lovingly rest your hand on their chest and say, “It’s ok. You can rest now.”
A few seconds later they sit up again. “Guess what happened at lunch?”
You lovingly rest your hand on their chest and say, “You can tell me later. For now, you can just rest.”
A few seconds later they sit up again. “What if Mason tries to take my money again?”
You lovingly rest your hand on their chest and say, “Later we’ll make a plan. But right now, you can rest.”
This is what you’ll do every time your mind brings up a thought. Gently and firmly say, “No, thanks,” or “You can rest now,” or “Take a break,” or “There’s nothing to attend to” or, more simply choose not to give it your attention. Even when the thought is something like, “I haven’t had a thought in like two minutes!” Every thought stream starts with you latching onto it. Unlatch.
Over time, you may notice that giving your attention to a thought takes you out of a state of peaceful stillness. Or it’s like profoundly shrinking your focal point from a vast openness to a tiny idea. With practice and repeated recognition, you’ll start to loosen the habit of thought-dominated-awareness. Your perspective will broaden – even when you’re not meditating. Thoughts will arise and instead of instantly running away with you, you’ll witness them in a context of inner space where there’s more choice about how to respond.
Please give it a try, even if it’s just for one minute. And feel free to share your experience in the comments section below.
Be well,
Peter
[post_title] => Meditation: Keep it Simple
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For the holidays we gave our eight-year-old daughter a set of indoor monkey bars. That meant I spent a day with my arms above my head, screwing eye bolts into her bedroom ceiling. She can now get from the doorway to her bed without setting foot on the floor, which is useful because she tells me it’s made out of molten lava.
At bedtime I reached out to turn on a faucet and suddenly my mid-back locked up. It was incredibly painful and I felt unable to move without worsening it. I made the mistake of bending down to touch my toes, thinking it would help, but was then frozen in that position.
I’ve treated this same condition in countless patients. Often this type of back spasm is crippling for at least a few days – meaning missed work or travel – followed by a lingering stiffness and pain for a week or more. Frequently the locked area, even as it begins to release, is prone to getting retriggered if we move or sleep the wrong way.
Luckily, I knew what to do. I started locating and massaging effective acupuncture points on my hands and arms that began to release the locked up muscles. Meanwhile, I used certain visualizations and breathing techniques that facilitated the loosening of my back. Eventually I could move enough to lie on a small ball to put pressure on the muscle spasm while continuing with the breathing, visualization, and self-acupressure. I went to bed about an hour later than I intended, but with my back feeling 80% better. The next day I released the rest of the tension.
Several times throughout the process I thought, “This would be so much worse if I didn’t know how to do this.” I would have to find a practitioner and wait for an appointment. But what kind of practitioner, and which one? What if they weren’t available during the holidays? Would I have to be immobile during our holiday party? Would I be reliant on pharmaceutical painkillers? Would I be in a daze? Would I find it hard to get off them?
This conundrum is why I created an online course called Live Pain Free. It started with the advice I found myself giving hundreds of pain patients in my office over the years – and the realization that I didn’t have time to explain everything I wanted to teach them. Little by little, the course grew to include virtually all of the techniques and lifestyle modifications I have found useful for self-treatment of pain. It’s more comprehensive than anything else I’ve found.
Are there other things like it? Yes, of course. There are plenty of books and courses that teach pain relief techniques, some of them very useful. But most feature a single approach to pain, and I’ve never found a single method that works for all – or even most – pain. Even for a given individual, some things work one day and not the next. This is because there are many “ingredients” in pain, especially long-term pain – our history, psychology, lifestyle, body mechanics, etc. – so we need a blend of multiple approaches.
During the years I spent crafting this course, I discovered that beyond helping people to make their pain go away, much of what I wish to share deals with releasing ways of thinking that are restrictive and keep us trapped in discomfort. Although pain management is the issue that often leads people to look deeper, the ultimate resolution may be something so much more than mere physical relief: liberation from our resistance to life, the opportunity to accept and live in the present moment, the recognition of patterns that have held us back, and more.
The feeling of gratitude I had the other night – I want that for everyone. If you deal with frequent pain, if you would like to help a loved one with their pain, or you just like the idea of being prepared and knowing a wide range of strategies – some based in modern science others in Eastern medicine – check out Live Pain Free.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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A few years ago, my wife and I were at a school meeting and the teacher, a seasoned elder, was telling the parents about the various challenges our kids were facing. As we concluded she said, “You’ve got great kids. The thing is . . .” She paused and seemed hesitant, and then set her jaw and continued, “Look, I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I hope you’ll take this the right way because it’s important. Your kids lack grit.” As she scanned our faces, I think she wanted to say that many of us adults lacked grit too.
We still have certain hardships today, but because life is undoubtedly easier for most people, it’s quite possible to live a normal lifespan with very little grit. Although this grit deficiency is widespread among modern people, the upside is that we generally have higher emotional intelligence than our ancestors did.
There’s a big difference between managing intense emotions because we’re emotionally intelligent versus being unaffected by emotions because we don’t feel them. Grit often goes along with emotional suppression, which was probably a more common coping mechanism in previous generations, in part because we just didn’t talk about our feelings much. The downside was a narrowed experience of life and lots of dysfunctional relationships.
My point is that what we call “grit” often comes at a high price. But grit and emotional intelligence aren’t mutually exclusive qualities. We can be tough without being shut down emotionally. In fact, the better we understand our emotional landscape, the more resilient we are, the healthier our supportive relationships are, and the less daunting it is to step out of our comfort zone.
The cultivation of both grit and emotional intelligence requires a willingness to be uncomfortable. When you think of a person with grit perhaps you imagine them sleeping on the ground, plodding through snow in order to deliver the mail, getting thrown off a horse and climbing back on, or having to use non-organic soymilk in their latte. (Soymilk is almost synonymous with grit, am I right? 😉)
We’d be best served with a combination of both qualities. Grit without emotional intelligence implies a person who can be tough and tenacious, but won’t get to fully experience the journey and rewards of whatever they invest their grit into pursuing. As for emotional intelligence without grit, a person may fully understand what they’re feeling but be unable to stand up to their emotions when they threaten to take over, nor to stand up and say what needs to be said in order to clear the air, maintain integrity, and honor their boundaries.
One silver lining of this pandemic is that I've seen more emotionally intelligent grit in people than ever. It takes grit to make do with shortages of food and toilet paper, to find ways to get our kids educated when schools are closed, to figure out how to make ends meet when our jobs and businesses disappear, and to change our behaviors to reduce the spread of a contagious disease. The emotional intelligence aspect is not letting our fear be the driver, instead being guided in all our adaptations by homing in on what's most important. For instance: family, community, service, vibrant health, kindness, and ecology. It
means honoring the choice that mere survival isn’t enough.
This brings us to the crux of emotionally intelligent grit, which is that having a higher purpose is essential. Without it, we adapt without heart. To me, a high purpose always implies an intention that goes beyond personal gain. It inspires the willingness to be uncomfortable as we develop and maintain these muscles, and the world is made better by this sacrifice.
Be well, and not too comfortable,
Peter
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