Stretching

Into the Wilderness: Story 40

This morning, I taught a Stretch class at Jazzercise. The format is about recovery and restoration. Stretching heals muscles, prevents injury, improves flexibility and increases wellbeing. It’s a necessary part of any fitness program.

As I led the class through the stretches, I thought about mental and emotional recovery, especially after trauma. We’ve had plenty of trauma lately. How can I engage my mind in active recovery as stretching does the body? Unlike stretching, or even resting, I cannot completely stop the brain from working. Sure, there’s the stasis of meditation but as brain scans show, meditation does not stop brain activity. It sets certain areas of the brain afire.

What I seek is possibly not an ending of brain activity- isn’t that death?- but engaging the areas of my brain that produce healing, serenity and gratitude. And the only way to do this is to practice positivity in spite of. Meaning- do it even when I least feel capable of doing it.

One of these moments is right now, at this very moment of writing. We just found out that Kabir amassed $2000 (yep, those zeroes are correct) in NYC motor violations. Add this to our support of his American citizenship, and many material items. The number keeps growing.

Now, my brain wanted to say to me: “You idiot. How could you let this happen?” (This is the clean version of what it wanted to say. My brain uses four-letter words.) But I’ve swooped in with a trick I perform at the edge of this crevasse between negativity and hope. When a negative thought starts to form, I say, sometimes out loud, “stop it, brain.” Guess what? It stops. I then can choose my next feeling by generating the kind of thoughts that make me restful and secure.

My replacement thought today was: “I never have regretted loving anyone. Love is grace. I move forward in life knowing I chose love.” And, of course, I learn. Next time, I do better.

Since happiness has become a science, we know that happiness is a practice and not a state of being. Happiness occurs through managing the thought-feeling-action trigger chain. Feelings don’t simply pop into our minds. There’s always a precipitating thought. The thought can come from any number of internal and external stimuli- the source doesn’t really matter. The power is in capturing the thought at the very moment of conception and then reframing it or knocking it away before it produces a feeling. This is actively choosing an impetus for peace rather than automatically following our mind’s habits.

Going back to meditation, it helps too, offering benefits with which most of us are likely familiar. Meditation is something I engage in several times a day- micro moments of swiping my mind’s chalkboard clean. I also love to relax my body from head to toe, focusing on each muscle group at a time. I melt into a puddle of me.

I cannot change what Kabir has done to us. I cannot undo the debt he incurred or the failed promises he made or the love he did not appreciate. He is gone. I can choose how I respond, however. I am stretching my mind so that new possibilities form. I am nourished by the thought of creating something wholly new. Something wholly new creates a new me. A new me creates more new, an endless cycle of fulfillment and hope. This is what I choose. Hi, new me.

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