Research on the relationship between religious or
spiritual practice and health has grown dramatically in the last few years...I think in particular of the growing field of psychoneuroimmunology. There
is much evidence that people engaged in some kind of spiritual practice have
lower stress levels and tend to be healthier both in mind and in body. The
million dollar question is whether spiritual/religious practice is the factor
affecting health, or whether such practices are simply a marker for some other
factor that is the affective agent. Certainly we can say that what people
believe, think and feel seems to have a direct effect on their health, the
question that needs to be explored further is: How?
It is my own
observation that one of the most important indicators of physical-emotional-spiritual
health is cultivating the practice of mindfulness. By mindfulness, I simply mean our capacity
for awareness or self-consciousness. That simple, yet difficult practice of
paying attention, of “being present in the present,” of coming to a deeper
appreciation of our existence through our senses. Whether a person is
disciplined about a particular religious or spiritual practice is obviously not
necessarily an automatic indicator of health. However, when such disciplines
assist a person in being more mindful of their everyday life, these practices seem to yield the outcome of a more balanced, healthy mind-body-spirit
relationship.
In his book Coming
to Our Senses, Jon Kabat-Zinn emphasizes that our ability to pay attention
and be present to our own existence is so important that when we fail to do so,
the consequence of our dis-attention, or dis-connection manifests, of course,
as dis-ease. Our habit of not paying attention or “putting out of our mind”
various tensions or stressors can, over time, allow symptoms to worsen, and
make us prone to disease in other areas of our life. This habit of
intentionally ignoring our body’s signs permeates our everyday existence. At
this very moment, I am the perfect example of this because it has suddenly come
to my attention that it is now 1:45pm and in my desire to finish this blog
today, it slipped my mind that perhaps, I should eat lunch! Intentionally, or
perhaps it would be better to say unconsciously,
I have been ignoring all my body’s signals pointing to the fact that I am
hungry. But what has it gained me other than an increased ability to ignore or
“put out of my mind” my own self-awareness and walk through life un-conscious?
These small, mindless
habits we adopt are important to notice because of the reality that “practice
makes perfect.” Every single behavior or task we
perform in a day is one that we get better at with each repetitive act. Every time
we become tense, anxious, angry, or any other emotion, we get better at being:
tense, anxious, angry etc. Our conditioned behaviors and mindless habits are a
direct result of our “way of being” in the world. Without an awareness of that
“way of being” every moment of our lives will be one in which we walk through
our lives un-conscious. If I’m at the beach on my cell phone am I really there? If I’m on
Facebook and watching Cars for the 24th
time with my daughter am I really watching Cars?
Indeed, have I ever really seen
the movie, even once? The common job interview question: “how are you at
multi-tasking?” is rather paradoxical to me, instead they should ask: “how good are
you at working mindlessly?” Multi-tasking is not a skill! It is yet another
collective way in which we have come to value the “ability” to lessen our
experience of the present moment.
The
reality of my own unawareness struck me, much to my chagrin, when my dishwasher
broke. Second to laundry, there is no household task I dislike quite as much as
washing dishes. The coping mechanism I developed to help myself deal with this
tragic fate was to reward myself with a glass of wine every night after I had
finished the dishes. One evening, while enjoying my well earned glass of
Riesling (it was a pot-roast night and I forgot to turn the crock pot off), I
picked up Thich Naht Hanh’s book The
Miracle of Mindfulness. As I cracked
open the book the very first example of practicing mindfulness presented was, alas,
washing dishes! You see, there are two ways to wash the dishes. One can wash
the dishes to have clean dishes, or one can wash the dishes, to wash the
dishes. If we choose the former, then truly it could be said, we are not even
washing the dishes because our mind is not there with us in that moment, it is
already on to the next thing: drying the dishes, putting them away etc. But
when we choose to wash the dishes, simply to wash the dishes, we encounter the
present moment, our very self, and the miracle of life all over our finger tips
in our very own warm, soapy sink!
Indeed, when I really thought about it, even
after I had moved on to my glass of wine, I wasn’t actually drinking my glass of wine; I was giving my daughter a bath.
And while I was giving her a bath, I was folding laundry, and while I was folding
laundry I was….
So
with small, gradual baby steps, I have begun the simple yet complex journey of
washing the dishes…to wash the dishes.
I
really liked washing the dishes to have a glass of wine though
…Maybe I’ll start with just washing my wine glass.
…Maybe I’ll start with just washing my wine glass.
After
all, a healthy dose of self-compassion goes a long way in this journey we call life! (-:
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