Too much to do? Feeling ragged, exhausted, confused, a bit grumpy?

Yesterday was one of those days. After a morning of errands and lots of driving, I couldn’t think, nor did I have the energy to do anything. I gave my brain a break and went for a long walk—uphill. Happening across  a dance class practicing in an outdoor pavilion, I stopped to watch before continuing up a narrow alleyway full of stairs. Much later, walking back home in the coppery glow of the sunset my legs felt tired yet stronger, and my brain felt relaxed.

The human brain can only  focus well on one thing at a time. Any project, circumstance, or challenge that requires complicated thinking—problem-solving, creating something new, formulating a cohesive view from many smaller parts, or trying to fit 25 urgent and necessary errands into the day before you catch that flight to visit family—can’t be accomplished well when there’s too much vying for your attention and “thinking power.”

The prefrontal cortex (the brain’s problem-solving area) uses an immense amount of physical energy in the form of glucose. Answering emails or juggling too many important phone calls first thing in the morning will use a lot of this precious ‘thinking fuel.” Remember that old phrase, “Put on your thinking cap?” It’s a good image to remember…use your thinking time wisely by focusing solely on one project, and let your body refuel between thinking times.

Doing tasks that you already know how to do automatically—such as filing papers, doing the laundry, making appointments, or paying the bills online —gives your body time to produce more glucose so you can move onto the next “thinking cap” period. Healthy snacks every two to three hours helps your body produce glucose without the roller-coaster highs and lows of high-sugar drinks and snacks. Some quick stretches and three deep breaths every so often keeps the body limber and refreshed. If you use a computer all day remember to look out a window now and then; let your eyes re-focus on a new perspective…let them stretch too.

And sometimes, even when the thinking cap is waiting, with those hours cleared and your brain fueled and ready, it’s still the best decision to go for a walk. Even if it’s up the stairs to the roof and back. Or around the block. Our brains need rest—and activity. So do our bodies. As Helen Hayes put it—”If you rest, you rust.”

In Ambrose Bierce’s 1911 Devil’s Dictionary, patience is defined as “a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” One day last week I was feeling a bit despairing after leaving two voice messages and one email at the office of a stranger whose advice and information would help me finish a mailing. When the receptionist had actually asked my name on the second call, I’d anticipated speaking to the person I wanted to contact, yet when the call clicked once again into voice mail, unproductive thoughts began to creep into my internal dialogue.

I wanted her to call me back now. Not having patience, the ability to “bear or endure without complaint,” was allowing the tricky energy of that ‘minor despair’ to impact my thoughts, which were spiraling downward as the minutes ticked by. After writing the email, I listened to the increasing negativity and believed it—for about two hours—watching my previously joyful mood fade, and the enthusiasm for my juicy, creative project disappear. Impatience took over, and I began to complete the mailing without this person’s information.

Then the phone rang.

It was the stranger. She was kind. She was full of advice. She was supportive of my endeavor. In the end, she offered a chance to contact another person, an opportunity that would never have occurred if I hadn’t spoken with her.

There’s a saying: The door to opportunity is always labeled “Push.” Yet pushing against the natural pace and flow of things, not allowing others the gracious fact of their busy schedules and full lives, and letting unproductive thoughts sabotage my own life-force and that of my endeavors can block surprising opportunities.

Patience also means “constancy in effort.” Constancy is a type of “pushing” that feeds and nourishes, a persistence and perseverance that propels me toward a goal, or dream, or solution. Allowing and nurturing patience in my daily life is, as with most things, a choice. I wrote the following poem to remember—to physically, viscerally feel—the difference between a pushing that hinders, and a patience that nourishes me:

Push push push against the face of a mountain—

spread hands burn from the heat.

Push push push against time allotted for each task—

feet swell with blisters.

Push push push against the vagaries of stillness and wind—

loud noise.

Push push push against the shoulds and oughts of others—

shoulders ache and sweat.

Push push push against nothing—

quails hop branch to branch

the dove remains still.

* The word definitions were found on www.etymonline.com

Walking up the hilly streets into town this morning to do some errands, I noticed how much stronger my legs were after three months of a consistent workout program. My self-congratulations were cut short by the sight of an old man, his head and shoulders so hunched that his face was parallel to the ground. He moved up the same hill as I did at the steady pace of three inches per step.

Three inches.

It is his persistence that speaks to me today. What I see before me is a human being set on getting somewhere no matter how long it takes, and for all I know it may not even be his destination that fuels the man on his walk this morning. It may be that it’s a beautiful, clear, fresh-smelling day, the air cleaned by last night’s rain after weeks of drought, the sun on his shoulders, the greetings of his friends.

The gift of persistence.

The projects that had come to a complete halt this last week are no longer so daunting. Even though the inspiration to take action on those tasks isn’t present today, I can feel it waking up inside of me, like a tendril of energized willpower that will reach my fingers in a day or two, and get them typing the pages waiting to be typed, and dialing the numbers of the people I need to contact.

Three inches—one step, or brick, or page, or call at a time—that’s how a journey is taken, a home built, a book written, or a business created.

What always surprises me is the source of inspiration, the profound simplicity behind the dormant tendril and its uncurling. I’m glad I walked up a different street this morning. I’m glad my steps met those of the old man’s.

The ability to transform an overwhelming, unexpected, or touchy situation into possibilities can alter the course of a person’s life. In the coaching relationship, new ways of accessing solutions and informed actions are created. These new connections are life-long and sustainable—for the powerful reason that they emerge from the authority of your own inner wisdom, experiences, and innate knowing. Studies have shown that one-on-one coaching significantly increases the integration of new ideas and behaviors into a person’s every-day life by up to four times over non-coached individuals.    Experience the benefits of coaching by scheduling a complimentary 30-minute session: click on Contact above.

Too much negative or unproductive thinking can cause stress and anxiety. It’s meditation of the unproductive kind—focusing on what went wrong in the past, what’s not working in the present, or trying to project  into the future. Stressful situations trigger the “fight or flight” response, raising cortisol and adrenaline levels, blood pressure, and other bodily functions meant to give us an edge over whatever is threatening, yet what protects us can also harm us. Constant stress, now so much a part of modern living, can turn into a chronic state.

Stress-related conditions are the major cause of visits to the doctor’s office. Chronic stress accompanied by increased cortisol levels and higher  blood pressure can make humans more susceptible to  hyperglycemia, type 2 diabetes, arteriosclerosis, depression, and  bone loss. Chronic stress can also lead to insufficient levels of  cortisol and a decreased ability for other systems to function at needed levels can contribute to arthritis and other inflammatory conditions, autoimmune diseases, chronic pain and chronic fatigue. Decreased mental acuity, decreased memory, and accelerated aging are present in both types.

These effects from chronic stress are called allostatic load. The word ‘load’ is like a blinking red light here—my imagination brings up the image of a large box balanced on the shoulders of a hunched-over person, the word ’stress’ stenciled on it in big black letters. The heavy load could be made up of almost any combination of circumstance from any of our individual lives. What is certain is that part of the load in the ’stress box’ will be linked to how we manage our thoughts.

Mindfulness is now a recognized beneficial factor in decreasing the ill effects of chronic stress. Mindfulness is a quiet state of being. The human brain automatically and indiscriminately produces thousands of thoughts on a daily basis. Being mindful is the act of allowing most of those thoughts to float through consciousness, yet not focus on them, like so much dandelion fluff drifting through the air.

Being mindful is walking out the door with my keys, wallet, glasses, and other necessities needed for the journey into the day. In meditative practice it’s the bridge that leads from being tense and unsettled, to being serene and centered. Mindfulness is assessing the moment, using common sense, intelligence, intuition, and creativity during times of stress and change. It’s knowing when to stop being so serious, and do something that makes me laugh. Being mindful is having an awareness of the long view while being focused on the moment.

Buddha said that although the seeds of wisdom can be initially sown by others—a teacher, a sacred text, or some other outside source—ultimately it comes from a deep integration grounded in one’s own experience. It is through such experiences that I’ve found how truly connected my thoughts are to my body, and how the power to change detrimental thoughts and behaviors is in my hands. I can regulate my well-being by taking myself to a restful place—physically, mentally and emotionally—more than I ever thought possible, creating a susceptibility not to illness, but instead, to health.

Long walks and exercise, slowly waking up to the amazing variety of birdsong outside my window, and the creative act of writing are important pieces of my alive and breath-filled mindfulness practice. What are yours? What practice is already in your life that allows you to slow down a bit, breath, and pay attention to what is going on? What takes you to the restful place?

This tightly wound leaf will one day burst into being, a luscious green companion to its neighboring leaf. Yet it can’t be hurried along. There is a certain slow rhythm to its growth, a mysterious reaching toward its unfurling that is specific to this one leaf, and no other. 

Human endeavors are similar. Try to rush them and some integral, vital step will be missed. Too fast into the outside world, and a new idea, project, or solution can wither in the glare of attention and scrutiny. Or it can dry up from the lack of creative nutrients from its very source—its creator, you—the creative juice prematurely dried up from being anxious, doubtful, unprepared, or scattered.

Look around at the natural world. Imagine pushing anything beyond its own rhythm, its own timing. We’ve all seen baby birds pushed prematurely out of the nest. Or seedlings set out too late in the season, scorched by the sun. Friends miserable in their adult lives, living their days as parents, the prevailing culture, and/or other powerful influences thought best for them.  

Walk slowly. Continue to look at the miracles unfurling everywhere. Listen to the timing of each one. Listen to your own rhythm. Follow it.

 ”I can’t wait to hear from myself.” —Hope Swann

 This juicy bit of wisdom spilled out of my friend’s unconscious during lunch the  other day. We laughed, and after that the conversation wove back and forth  between those moments when we absolutely know the next step to take, when  that aha! moment occurs, that brilliant insight—and those times when nothing  appears, not even a clue. 

 Hope knew that it would come from within herself. I think she was 80% there  with that knowledge. Whenever I’ve experienced a moment of deep knowing it’s  felt as if insight is embedded in experiences, thoughts, ideas, creative projects,  jobs, relationships, powerful forward leaps and just as powerful backward  tumbles, all the golden moments that I carry around from a life lived fully.  Insight is born from these connected moments, common threads that have been  gestating in the rich, nurturing environment of the brain, just waiting to be re-arranged into that oh-so-yearned-for insight.

Johah Lehrer describes just how the brain works during the search for insight in his amazing article “The Eureka Hunt”. There are several stages. First attention is gathered and focused on a solution. Secondly, there is a stalemate, some sort of block where the answer seems to drift further and further away. Thoughts just hit the wall and bounce back, insight-less.

It is here that Hope could take her wise sentence, put it in her pocket and go for a walk, a swim, or some other diversionary activity—attention has to relax and take a break from the search for an answer. Toss all ’shoulds’ and ‘musts’ into the bushes, and move on. Now I know why my own insights occur in the shower, while swimming, on long walks or while quietly resting, and why, in the photo above, the laughing Buddha, the card with the Chinese character for ’silence’, and the stone and sand dollar sit on my desk, an altar to relaxation.

While relaxing, our attention is diverted, yet the brain is working hard and fast, searching through trillions of connections until suddenly, a brand-new connection is made. Aha! We light up with the insight as if we’ve known it all along, and just couldn’t find it. What’s fascinating is that if one of these steps is taken out of the equation, an insight doesn’t manifest. There is always that feeling of the answer slipping away. There is always the need to relax.

Five weeks ago I came down with a respiratory infection and laryngitis. After the  initial illness made  me retreat to my bed for two days, I’d feel better, than wham, I’d be  back in bed, my throat sore, the  rest of me achy and drained. For three days I couldn’t  speak. The enforced silence exaggerated my  slow and cautious approach to each day.  I started laying down in the afternoon, something I don’t normally do. Sometimes I’d  even sleep a bit. The piles and the to-do list grew a little every day, yet I recognized a  small voice from those silent days.  ”It will all get done.  Take care of yourself. It’s all  you can do now, and that is okay.”

It’s been a week now since the symptoms left, and my energy is coming back. The piles and to-do lists are dwindling. 

And I’ve become accustomed to the slower pace. The afternoon rests. Just sitting, and stopping the ‘doing’ and letting my busy mind empty itself. Listening to the wind, or whatever music is drifting over the neighborhood, or to nothing at all. 

Today, bills were paid, errands finished, many details taken care of. Late this afternoon inspiration came visiting while I sat, empty. Suddenly I was full of creative thoughts and words for a writing project that had stalled. I wrote it all down, slowly, ecstatic with the breakthroughs that had come, unbidden. It was a perfect addition to a productive day, a good day, a slow and amazingly full day.

 There’s a thread you follow. It goes among /  things that change. But it doesn’t change. /  People wonder about what you are pursuing. /  You have to explain about the thread. / But it is  hard for others to see. / While you hold it you  can’t get lost. / Tragedies happen; people get  hurt / or die; and you suffer and get old. /  Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. / You  don’t ever let go of the thread.    

 —William Stafford, The Way It Is 

  ”Don’t dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be…”

 —Leonard Cohen, from his song Anthem

 My neighbor  just turned 94. She gave herself an intimate party, complete with a catered  dinner. The  guests toasted her and shared stories of how she had influenced their lives;  one  friend wrote a  song for her and we all joined in. We sang Happy Birthday in  English and the  Spanish birthday  song Las Mañanitas. We all went home inspired,  and a bit more connected to what is possible in one lifetime.

 Though a bit unsteady on her feet, she still rides her horse as often as possible, and mentors her talented  young gardener in painting. Her small ranch is one of the most beautiful and  simply  elegant environments I’ve ever been in. Her eyes sparkle still at the mention of  anything to do  with horses or art. That is her secret; she’s been doing what she loves  the most in the world her  entire life. I once transcribed her life’s story; not once was  there a looking back, a regret, or a  pining for something different.

 Like the lush foliage of her garden, the great canopied pepper trees that shade her  property,and the magnificent horses that live there, she hasn’t held back from what is her natural calling-to be all that she can be with what she  was  given. In her case it’s been an illustrious career as a painter, an equestrian  extraordinaire, and a steadfast friend to many, many people. And don’t forget that steady twinkle in her eye.  Salúd. To a life well lived.