Paying attention to something more interesting than our thinking
New growth, notes from the writing desk, conserving mental energy
Welcome to new subscribers, I’m glad you’re here. Grab yourself a cuppa and settle in for this weekly round up of photos and reflections from this still fresh immigrant to the US. The post may be truncated by your email provider but if you click through to the app you can read it in full.
Saturday morning here and I pick up the draft created earlier in the week to polish and refine it, as is my habit. The weather is once again warm and inviting. The changeability reminds me of Wales.
Tuesday
The weather has turned. Drizzle and mist greeted me this morning here in Skagit County. After the splash of sun and warmth last week, it is a welcome invitation to draw inwards. Spring is beguiling, even in the mist, no, especially in the mist, the new green growth on the dark conifers flaunts itself like the flash of emerald lining glimpsed in the folds of the tango dancer’s skirts.
When the sun is out, I long to be outside soaking up the warm rays, drinking in the light and colour of forests, mountains and water bursting into life. I can hardly stand to be in. I don’t much want to walk even, just to be outside. Is this the legacy of growing up on a wet and grey island in the Atlantic whose green fields and trees glisten like jewels when warmth and sunshine finally bless the days after the long bleak winter months?
The English, even more perhaps than the Welsh, Scots and Irish become fanatical sun worshippers when the temperatures creep above 16 degrees centigrade, especially on a weekend or bank holiday. They can be found lining beaches on the south coasts. Pale limbs gradually turning lobster red as winter cosseted skin gets long and unaccustomed exposure to the burning rays of the almost forgotten sun.
The pause in the razzle dazzle show here in the Pacific Northwest has me in reflective mood.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
‘A schedule defends from chaos and whim.’ How many of us are lucky enough to create a schedule for our days? More often the activities of the day are dictated by outside forces: survival, family, animals, weather, line manager, boss, clients, board members, staff, customers, subscribers, neighbours, teachers, friends, traffic, paying the bills, politicians or the actions or non actions of others.
We may not have much control over our day to day activities but what about our state of mind during our doings?
How we relate to our ever changing state of mind transforms our experience
Resist, argue, fight and judge your experience and it gets stuck. Try a little tenderness and relaxing around it and it flows on through so much easier, the ups as well as the downs. There’s always more experience coming on down the line (until we finally cross the threshold).
Our state of mind goes up and down all day long. It changes as quickly as the weather in Tasmania where they say if you don’t like the weather now, come back in ten minutes and it will be different.
Common sense tells us our perspective in a low mood is going to be distorted.
When you leave the house in a bad mood, it’s amazing how many irritating and inconsiderate people you seem to come across! Conversely when you are in an open, relaxed or curious state of mind, it’s amazing how many wonderful, interesting and considerate people you run across. The hidden variable is our state of mind. We begin to notice just how much the world changes depending on our state of mind!
What I didn’t know is that if you don’t pay too much attention to your state of mind it flows up and down more easily, all by itself.
How different the world would be if we learnt to leave low grade thinking alone
Something I’m still learning is that in a low state of mind my perspective is probably off and so anything I see, think or feel probably isn’t very trustworthy. Whereas when I’m settled and clear, if there is something that needs addressing, it will be obvious to me. Better to leave my thinking alone as best I can and pay attention to something more interesting.
The opposite of this is to worry, fret, judge and ruminate about … something out there and then about ourselves. We do this innocently. It is often invisible to us because in an anxious state of mind what we think about can be very compelling. Then we dig in and think harder, worry more and get more and more stressed and anxious, not realising we could just let worrying thoughts float on by.
In their place something helpful will often occur if there is something for us to do.
Whenever you get a feeling of stress or tension in your mind or body, it is a signal that you are holding onto thought that are designed to just pass through. It’s like flagging down every car in the road to check out everything about the car. It holds up the traffic, you aren’t really getting anything out of the exchange other than a pile of information that will be out of date as soon as they release another model.
Instead, you could just notice the cars as they go by and carry on your day.
The cool thing is, the mind body system actually prefers to rest in equilibrium, not expending unnecessary mental energy thinking about ourselves or our thoughts. When people get caught in anxious, fearful, angry or fearful cycles of thinking, they tend to think harder and try to manage or control their thoughts, their world or other people to try and prevent the feelings of anxiety, fear, anger or sadness.
This is a lot of unnecessary work and usually unsuccessful. It comes from an innocent misunderstanding that our suffering is caused by: other people, the world, our past or our genes.
When actually most of our suffering comes from holding onto or resisting the experience we are having. We hurt ourselves with our thinking all the time, without awareness. The clue? Our feelings are the guide.
If you feel uptight and tense, it’s a signal to leave your thinking alone and let your mind settle down
The mind settles down all by itself if you stop holding onto thought, like a snow globe. If you stop shaking it, the snow settles.
Given that snow, rain, hail, mist, fog, heat, cold, storm, drought and still calm days come and go whatever we feel about them, isn’t it about time we learn to roll with our feeling states? We’re designed to feel the full spectrum from despair to delight. Nothing is wrong with feeling every emotion.
We may not actively enjoy some states, but like the weather they change without us needing to do anything.
So why not shift our attention from trying to manage our feeling states and see what else draws our attention when what’s wrong isn’t preoccupying us? There’s a whole dimension of being that doesn’t involve thinking. Now that looks more interesting to me.
Like new Spring growth, every moment, there is a new experience on offer. If we step back, we may notice ourselves filling with awe and wonder at the incredible power of the mind in all its infinite variety.
Questions
If you knew in your bones, any feeling state is 100% guaranteed to pass, all of its own accord, what would you focus your attention on instead of how you feel?
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Small Joys
the colour orange
books: I love to see them piled up waiting to be read
the sound and smell of onions frying
the feel of an insight landing, ahhh
wildflowers
Wild flowers from the forest
Threads that pull me
Book: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Recommended by my daughter, Maddie. Gorgeous storytelling of the relationship between Achilles and his trusty companion and lover Patrocleus. The prose is mesmerising. Writers like this inspire me.
In an author interview at the back of the book, the author reveals she spent five years writing the first draft, then discarded all of that and wrote it from scratch, taking another five years and that the first draft was absolutely essential.
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Notes from my writing desk
Many of my new subscribers are also writers and as I love hearing what’s going on under the hood as it were, I thought I’d add this section to share more of my writing process. First off, following a prompt from
Confession: why do I really love writing?
the feel of touch typing
the feel of different writing implements on the page: ink pen, ballpoint, and rollerball
the feel of heavy weight paper with just the right finish in a journal
the anticipation when I open hit + in Scrivener (the software I use for writing)
the miracle of words pouring onto the page or screen
the wonder of where those words come from
the thrill of a beautifully turned phrase
writing can generate awe
the secret pleasure of just me and my writing
I get to explore my experience
writing generates ideas and insights
writing sometimes takes me into another dimension of being
I get to re-fashion all the beautiful words and phrases I consume in a life spent reading
I get to be myself or anyone I fancy being!
the blank page has no expectations of me
the blank page doesn’t judge me
the blank page or screen gives itself to me wholeheartedly
I think I want to be like the blank page (ah!), with myself
How I know ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore Toto’
A regular slot for things that catch my eye and tell me I’m no longer in Ferryside, West Wales, UK.
That’s all folks. Thanks for checking in. Press the little ♥️ if this post entertains or inspires you. Share or restack the post if you want to help me build my readership.
‘Til next time.
Juliet
Find more of my writing elsewhere
A Life Less Serious: Real life stories from women to inspire, uplift and encourage new perspectives on living by George Halfin. My essay, The Gift of Travel closes the book. Buy UK. Buy US.
Hope - A Scrapbook by Catriona Knapman, author of Notes from Saving the World. My poem, Hope for the Family is included.
I love your word craft and turn of phrase 💖
I didn't expect so much Mexican food as far North as you are Juliet - loved these photos and reflections.