It occurs to me that I might sometimes forget to teach my students certain things that might be useful to them. Sure they need, they want, they feel they must learn how to pass the next test. So I teach the form of the techniques. My feeling is that whatever they are learning in class will take them away from whatever they are obsessing over, but sometimes, as I’ve sometimes noticed, this isn’t enough.
So what is it that I’m trying to provide, what is it to work on yourself? And why for goodness’ sake would you want or need to do that?
Obsession, the unhealthy fixation on someone or something, to the point that it causes you anguish.
Trauma, a wound of any kind that causes you to obsess over it for years afterwards.
Circular thoughts, the inevitable, “Oh I should have said this when he/she said that and then s/he would have said…” Or perhaps the going over of some sort of abuse from your boss, your co-workers, your family. Rehearsing the negative events and thoughts in your brain until they are well and truly etched into your nerve pathways and they will come back over and over again.
I was going to treat all these separately, but the same things work on all of them. Firstly, let your brain forget. Easy to say but hard to do.
A couple of years ago after a trip back from Chile, Pam and I were heading for the cabin to rest and recover. I was driving and she was asleep. I was heading for coffee, just a few miles more and I’d stop. Unfortunately CBC radio switched to “modern” music and I turned it off. Silence, empty road, snow all around, of course I fell asleep and woke up as we hit the ditch on the other side of the road. Slammed through a signpost, totalled the car.
Could have been traumatic, but I decided I was not going to let this incident remain in my head to do that sort of damage. I refused to talk much about the details, I did not try to figure out “where it was” (the accident) for months after it happened. I did not go to court to get my careless driving fine reduced or dropped, I just paid and stopped thinking about it.
What you may think is a good story could be doing you more harm than good. Don’t think about it, move on, you’re here to be able to move on, that’s good enough.
“But I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Well. I stopped drinking coffee at one point, from 9 cups a day to zero. Had a headache for a couple days. I stopped drinking at one point. No big deal. Am I a non-addictive person? I don’t know, I just quit and I don’t think about it any more. Did the same with jobs, one day I’m working, next I’m gone, no visits, no goodbye party, just gone. I’ve worked at that over the years, but you know, I’ve also noticed that from an early age I don’t hold grudges. I think I don’t think too much.
For those who do? First you have to admit you do, you can’t change something you don’t know you do. Pam had a twitch before putting her sword away. She insists she didn’t know that, not surprising, why would you have a twitch you know about? Fondness? Eventually she got rid of it, not because she ever noticed she did it, but because I suggested that I had no reason to lie about it’s existence. So maybe I’ve just argued that you can change something you don’t know you need to change. It’s true, do these things and some nasty things in your brain that you may not know you have, go away.
Now, can these things work against chemical imbalances, against hormonal disruptions? No, likely not, but they might work on the brain patterns that result from the hormonal disruptions. If you can see it, you can understand it, “Oh, that’s my body screwing up my thought processes again, maybe I’ll just go over here and sit quietly for a while.” Better than biting someone’s head off when they suggest it might be chemical. Oh yes, I’ve lived with that thing, PMS, that doesn’t exist, been slapped and kicked for mentioning it might be the problem. I get it, and eventually some of those women did too, and a few men who have similar chemical mood swings.
If you suddenly start blaming others for things that later you come to understand aren’t their fault, consider hormonal imbalance. Look, I’m on hormone inhibitors, I’m taking beta blockers, I get chemistry, it affects my mood.
Regardless, here’s some things that all worked for me.
1. Write a journal. I filled several during my 20s. Try to do it every day, but settle for whenever you can, write something. What you did that day, a story, a poem, draw an illustration. It doesn’t matter what, if you’re writing the same thoughts every day, day in and day out, maybe you will flip back and realize you’re caught in a loop. Once you notice, well, maybe it will stop.
2. Establish a routine. Our old cat likes to do the same thing at the same time of day, he yells otherwise. Like this morning, we got out of bed a bit late, it’s a holiday, he yelled.
You might think a routine would cause obsession in the brain, and it might, if you put aside a part of your routine to obsess. To me, it evens out your physical day, calms it down, gives the brain a chance to calm down too. Brain-storms aren’t usually good for you, panic over being “Too Busy!” can be a problem. Calm down, get into your routine and let it go. My routine during my University years was set by my martial arts classes, I arranged my week around the anchors of practice.
3. Sit. Seriously, sit. Don’t do anything, don’t try to think your way out of a mess of thinking. Just sit. I’ve done that since I was a very young kid, we called it “having a good stare.” Now, if you want to do it formally, then sit comfortably, proper posture, put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, suck the air out (reduces saliva and the need to swallow). Face forward, drop your eyes to look down your nose to a place on the floor or the wall in front of you. Turn off your hearing or choose a quiet room. Now count your breaths, one for in, one for out, later maybe in/out. Count one to ten, if you get distracted, start over at one. NOT A CONTEST, just start over at one. You can look at the thoughts drifting by, but they are unimportant, the counting is to distract from that. Just sit, let your stupid brain do whatever it wants, thoughts? Sure, but don’t chase them. That’s the important thing, start over at one. You’re not trying to get anywhere, just sit. Don’t use a timer, just sit. If you can’t sit, stand, walk, go for a walk, breathe, look around, just walk. Let your brain, your thoughts, your obsession do what it does, your job is to sit, breathe, stand, breathe, walk, breathe. So do it.
4. Budo. This was always my formal meditation practice, where I would spend an hour or two focused on something other than my “problems”, my trauma, my whatever. Honestly, now that I’m teaching, I can see the value of not telling kids what they’re actually doing while they try to be kick-ass samurai. “Sensei, how do I nirvana?” First of all, that’s not a verb…
Negative reinforcement in the brain? Absolutely, I can see it’s happening every time I make a correction and the student says, “Oh am I still doing that? Oh, oh, but I was doing this. Oh oh, so I shouldn’t do this any more…” OMG shut up and do what I told you to do, a bazillion times, often enough that you squash that thought pattern of the other way, that you drill the new way into your muscles. Seriously, what’s wrong with you!
Be Here Now. Budo is kind of good for that, start thinking about what your boyfriend said the other day and you’re likely to get hit in the head. Whatever you’re doing, do that. Focus, concentrate, lose yourself in what you’re doing. Hell if you start thinking about a grocery list while you’re writing in your journal, write the grocery list in your journal. Ten years from now you might come back to it and think “That’s why I got so fat,” and do something about your diet.
Now I’ve just given several things that work, I know they work, but I should really just say “do this” and your power of belief in me will carry you through. Look, it is one thing. Don’t obsess.
Move on = Don’t obsess
Sit quiet = Don’t obsess
You get the idea, I’m not going to obsess over telling you not to obsess. Just don’t. If you can do that, in any of these ways, great, try it and see if you aren’t so unhappy. By the way, you don’t have to be happy. You just have to stop being unhappy, and making those around you unhappy too. Unless you like that, then carry on and ignore all advice to the contrary.
I know folks like that.
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Seito Bugei Juku 