Letting Nature Bring Peace

Sometimes I naturally notice the calm and peacefulness of the closing of the year.

More often there’s so much going on, either in my own life or around me, that I feel
restless, worried, a kind of agitation of body and mind that clouds my thinking and makes it difficult to settle.

For me the thing that helps most is creating space: space to breath, in the middle of a busy day, time for a walk, indoors and out (especially out, no matter how freezing).

There’s something about being in nature, no matter how postage-stamp-sized the place, that eases my worried mind (thanks, Eric Clapton).

I hope you can be outside this next week, even a little. I hope you can breathe some crisp, clean, air,  and take in the wondrousness of nature, even as she sleeps.

If you’re feeling restless or worried, I hope it eases your worried mind.

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 470. How are your holidays going? I hope you’re doing well, not stressing too much, not worrying too much, enjoying the moments as you can. 

It’s the ending of the year -  happy almost solstice – and we’re been looking at the trainings of the Five Hindrances, desire, aversion, sloth & torpor, restlessness & worry, and doubt. We’re not training to cultivate these qualities but to recognize them, investigate them, let them attenuate and let them go so that we can recollect, and return to, clarity of mind, clarity of heart, and ultimately we’re training to appreciate them for the insight they offer…and appreciate that mindfulness enables us to do all of that.

I’ve shared some thoughts about desire, aversion, and sloth & torpor. Today I want to explore restlessness & worry. 

Of the Five Hindrances, this is the one we may be most fluent with in the legal profession and really, in the world. I’ve been thinking about why, and the most obvious reason, to me, is that there’s plenty to worry about, to be restless with. There are the holidays – how will they go, will I feel happy or lonely, so many variations of that; there’s the political situation or transition in the U.S., and elsewhere, too: things are uncertain in so many places; there’s the weather, the climate – completely unknown; and then there are more personal things like will I make my hours for the year, will everyone else, will my syllabus be ready, how impacted are my students and how do I create space for that in my classroom (that’s me, right now), and then there are singular worries and elements of restlessness we all bump up against. And that’s all “off” the cushion, and then these Hindrances of restlessness & worry, like all Hindrances, also show up on the cushion. 

The classic image for restlessness and worry is of a mind like water whipped up by the wind, waves crashing, agitated and unclear.  Restlessness in the body shows up for me as a kind of unbridled energy coursing through the body. When I’m sitting on the cushion, it feels like my body wants to get up, shoot up, move. I can’t settle. I want to scratch my nose instead of sitting with the sensation of the itch. I want to fidget (under the guise of correcting my posture) instead of paying attention to the sensation of the body, sitting. When I’m not on my cushion, restlessness manifests in a kind of perpetual doing, whether that’s going to my to-do list the moment I’ve finished one project, and taking up the next, or cleaning the dishes, then cleaning up the house, then finding something next; or never feeling like I’m getting enough exercise and pushing for more mileage, more sun salutations, more laps. 

Restlessness in the mind – as it’s most familiar to me – is persistent thinking or scattered thinking. The mind is going a mile a minute and not in a focused, productive way but swinging from thought to thought. This happens at night, when I wake up with something on my mind, which swings into the next thing, and the next. The restless mind is like a monkey swinging from branch to branch, hence the nickname “monkey-mind.”

Worry may have that element of swinging from thing to thing, but it also has forms. Sometimes it’s regret, what I think of as shoulda/coulda/woulda mind, the “why didn’t I, how can I rewind, what was I thinking, what were they thinking, why, why, why?” mind. Inhabiting past. Sometimes it takes the form of anxiety: how will the holidays go, how will my end of year go, how will the inauguration go, how will the next four years go, how will the earth, or the humans, survive? Small things and gigantic things, and swinging from worry to worry truly feels to me like a mind whipped up by the wind, agitated, so unclear.

Gil Fronsdal says that “having [any] Hindrance is like walking through a maze, staring at the ground.” That feels so true for me. I’m lost, and I’m not in (mindfulness of the body and mind) and I’m not looking up (not taking time in nature or at least to see nature from my window). I’m lost, but all I’m doing is staring at the ground. 

Restlessness and worry that are profound or pervasive may be best addressed in therapy. But with “ordinary” restlessness and worry, it’s the same prescription as for the other Hindrances: we look in and look up. We practice mindfulness. 

The first thing to do is what the Tibetans call, changing the pasture for the horse. Create a larger space for the thoughts and worries and body to move around in, so they’re not banging so intensely on the sides of a small container. Meaning for me, get outside if at all possible, be in nature. Go to the park or the river or the lake or the ocean or river if that’s safe and available, or to the mountains or woods. Or find a small urban space that’s large and safe enough to move through with physical ease: a botanical garden, your yard, your auntie’s yard, a friend’s garden. Locate a place of physical space where there’s some grandeur – something larger than yourself – and walk in that space, attending to the body with gentleness and love. 

Doing this might be all that’s needed to begin to work with BELLA: first being with restlessness or worry, and then examining them. Maybe slowly, gently beginning to turn towards the agitation and experience them in the body as you breathe, instead of towards the thoughts being generated. And then, gently examining what conditions support the arising of restlessness and worry, and support them falling away. Does looking at your calendar, or anticipating being with certain friends or family, or just being in this historical moment, cause them to arise? Do they begin to subside when you walk in nature, or lay down on your yoga mat, or listen to music, or paint or draw or write? What calms your nervous system and supports the passing away of restlessness and worry? Maybe it’s the recollection that they, like all of the Hindrances, share the same fundamental qualities: they’re all impermanent, arising and passing away unless we identify with them or wrap our identities around them (like by saying, “I’m such a worrier”). And even then, the moment we shine the light of mindfulness on them, they begin to fall apart. 

Seeing this, maybe there are some inquiries that can support: for me it’s asking if I can let that happen, let restlessness subside, let it go, and appreciate the process. Can I allow the restless body and mind, the worrying mind, be my teacher? Let the body be my teacher, let nature be a teacher, let mindfulness be a true doorway into insight? Befriend restlessness and worry and let nature bring peace?