Changing the Past, Present, and Future before Breakfast

One of my favorite iPhone meditations is the "Six Phase Meditation" that is part of the Omvana app.  I think what makes this meditation stand out for me is that it guides me to take the time to look, in a healthy way, at my past, my present, and my future.  Here is a link to the Omvana website:  omvana.com

Omvana collects many, many meditations, but I think that some of the best are created and read by Vishen Lakhiani, the CEO of Mindvalley, the company that creates the app and the website.  In the "Six Phase Meditation", he first guides you to appreciate the PRESENT by relaxing the body and becoming aware of your consciousness and connection to everything around you.  Next, you enhance your memories of the PAST by thinking of things you are grateful for and by bringing to mind anyone you are angry at and practicing forgiveness.  All you have from your past are your memories.  Focusing on gratitude and forgiveness strengthens your best memories while your worst memories are allowed to wither and fade into the background they deserve.

Lastly, Lakhiani has you imagine your perfect FUTURE.  First, he has you look out 3 years and imagine your life at work, socially, spiritually.  Next, he has you look at TODAY.  How would your perfect day unfold?

Any iPhone meditation gets stale if you use it daily.  But I've found it useful to frequently do an abbreviated "Three Phase Meditation".  I might only spend 5 minutes, but it makes a big difference for my past, present and future.  I try to do this before breakfast.

In that 5 minutes, with now iPhone app, I'll first spend a couple of minutes tuning into the present.  I might just relax in a comfortable chair, scan my bodily sensations from head to toe.  Or I might do a "progressive relaxation", tightening and loosening muscles from head to toe.  Or I might imagine golden light entering my body with every inhale and cloudy, grey negative energy leaving my body with every exhale (another Omvana meditation).  Or all three.

Lastly, I like to imagine how my day will turn out.  Especially before breakfast.  Early enough to make an impact.  Visualize being relaxed at all times. Visualize getting 2-3 big things done.  Visualize some fun, some good experiences with family and friends.  I don't need to,  every day, visualize the future 3 years out as in the Omvana meditation.  But who doesn't have the time to picture how we'd like THIS day to turn out?

If you don't like your past, CHANGE it!

I see a connection between Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol" and a book I just read about the psychology of time.  In the "Christmas Carol", three ghosts help Ebeneezer Scrooge develop a new perspective on the past, the present, and the future.  The book I just read and wrote about in this blog last week, Philip Zimbardo's The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time, is also about people's perspective on past, present, and future.

As I described last week, you can take Zimbardo's test for your own time perspectives at this website:  Time Perspective Inventory.  What do you do if your perspective on the past, present, or future is not positive enough?  This week I'll focus on the past.

If you don't like your past, CHANGE it!  Zimbardo points out that your memory of the past isn't some kind of perfect record of everything that happened.  It's filtered by what you focus on as you recall the past.  Do you focus on the good things or the bad?  Ebeneezer Scrooge focused on certain aspects of the past.  He needed the Ghost of Christmas Past to point out things that happened but that he'd failed to notice.  Just as the Ghost changed Scrooge's perspective, we can change our own perspective by changing what we spend time remembering about the past.

Gratitude is key.  Recalling, frequently, good things that happened, things we are grateful for allows us to rewrite the past.  By focusing on our recent good fortunes, we create positive feelings about our past.  It's probably a good idea to do this for both the recent past and the more distant past so that our overall feelings about our lives are as positive as possible.  I've often heard that these memories of good events have more of an impact if you also conjure up the feelings you had at that time, the feelings when your wife did something nice for you or when you got good news at work.  This changes your experience of the past not through distortion but through selective focus on real events and real feelings.

The Psychology of Time

I just finished "The Time Paradox: the New Psychology of Time", by Philip Zimbardo.  He's the Stanford professor who did the famous experiment in 1971 with students pretending to be either prisoners or guards. As described in this link (Stanford Prison Experiment), the experiment was aborted in 6 days because the guards became sadistic and the prisoners depressed even though they know it was make believe.

For the last 30+ years, Zimbardo focused his research on the psychology of time.  What are people's attitudes toward the past, present, and future?  Is there a way to measure these attitudes?  What attitudes or perspectives are healthy and which are unhealthy?

Zimbardo developed a test that you can take in about 10 minutes for free at this website:  "Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory".  Everyone in our family took the test as I was reading the book.  It gives you a score in each of 5 areas:  2 related to the past, 2 to the present, and 1 for the future.  And it gives a ballpark "ideal" score for all of these.

My results?  Good, low score for "Past Negative".  I don't dwell on regrets.  But not high enough for "Past Positive".  Based on my score, I don't have enough warm memories that I enjoy reliving.  I never felt that this matters too much because I focus on present and future, but the authors describe lots of positive benefits to occasionally reliving memories of family, friends, and fun to build roots, traditions, connections, and community.  If you don't do this habitually, they say that you can strengthen this part of your time perspective through gratitude journals and simple practice recalling good things from the past.

Good, low score for "Present Fatalistic".  I don't feel at the mercy of fate.  High score for "Present Hedonistic" but not high enough.  Zimbardo would say I need to party more.  More focus on fun, joy, pleasure.

High score for the fifth and final category "Future".  So this helps with goal setting and planning.  But my score's a bit TOO high according to them.  They say that if your score is too high, you might have a tendency to accept too many responsibilities, too many projects.  I'm sure my wife and kids would agree.  Zimbardo's recommendation if your "Future" score is too high?  Just say no.

The REAL "Mother of Invention"

"Necessity is the mother of invention".  Sounds reasonable, but is it true?

Necessity leads us to respond.  But will we respond with invention?  Will we be creative?  Will our imaginations run free?  Will we be open to new ideas and approaches?  The answer depends on whether the situation stresses us out or whether we feel completely at ease.

If we respond with stress, we will NOT be creative.  We will NOT invent. But if we respond in a relaxed, positive way we will maximize our creativity.

Barbara Fredrickson, author of "Positivity", has done research for decades on the creativity associated with positive emotions versus the limited options found with negative emotions.  If we react to our problems with stress, we react to necessity by fighting, fleeing, or freezing.

• We fight:  "It's not fair!  It's not MY fault!  It's HIS fault!"  
• We flee:  "I'm out of here."
• We freeze:  "I don't know what to do."

There is no creativity in these limited, stressed out responses.  This is the teenager explaining why there is nothing he can do about a problem at school, nothing he can do about his poor diet, etc.  If, instead, we are deeply relaxed, confident, at ease, then our options are wide open.  

When we are relaxed, we drop our guard and are open to ideas.  We explore.  We learn.  We build on ideas.  The intuitive part of our brain is more active.  Stress shuts down the thinking part of our brain as the faster acting primitive brain seizes control to react more quickly to danger.  Relaxation returns control to the thinking and intuitive brain.  We are then ready to explore, discover, think, brainstorm and invent.

The real mother of invention is not necessity.  The real mother of invention is a relaxed, positive response to necessity.  So whenever you have a difficult problem to solve or a creative task to accomplish, start with a deep breath.

Meditation Podcasts

Here are some of the best meditation/relaxation related podcasts I've been listening to:

• Meditation Oasis
• 30 Day Relaxation Hypnosis with Jason Newland
• Hypnosis and Guided Meditation
• Wellness Workbook Guided Relaxation
• The Meditation Podcast
• Free Hypnosis Podcast with Michael White

The last of these is hysterically funny.  Michael White calls himself the "Hypnotist Extraordinaire" and uses the silliest imagery such as turning the difficult people in your life into panda bears.  He has Twilight Zone sound effects and, where appropriate, whistles the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".  But I think he's just trying to get the audience to relax and not take the experience too seriously.  He still wants to help people feel better at the end of the podcast.

Following Her Lead

We usually do the bulk of our chores as a family on Saturdays so that we can relax more later in the week.  I'm learning that there are lots of advantages to just letting my wife lead the process.  It can be hard to let go of the need for control, to let someone else decide what we're going to do to get through a bunch of tasks.  But there are SO many advantages:

• She's home more than I am and simply knows more about what has to get done
• She has a better memory for a long list of short tasks.  She can get us moving from job to job without hesitation and, after a couple of hours, I'm stunned at all the things we get done on the list.  I don't know how she remembers it all.  If I had to lead the process, I'd be rechecking the list every 5 minutes.
• I don't have to guess whether I'm giving her the help she most wants from me.  If "A" matters to her more than "B", she'll simply ask me to do "A" first.  I can feel her gratitude for my help grow more and more as I keep working with her and the boys on her top priorities.
• She has us take frequent, long breaks so that I switch to whatever my priorities are.  Ironically, the more I spend time following her lead, the more time I end up spending on my hobbies and interests.  It creates clearer boundaries between family chores and "me time" so that I can spend time on my own interest without feeling like I'm letting the family down.

I wish I'd realized this ages ago.  At work, I'm used to controlling my agenda.  I don't take detailed instructions from anyone.  This can feel very empowering.  But it can feel terrific to switch from being a leader to being a follower.  It can be relaxing, for a few hours each week, to not have to decide what to do and when and to instead to defer to the person with the best grasp of all the things needed in the home.

Big Fish in a Small Pond

My oldest kid is a senior in high school, applying for college.  He's applying to several extremely good schools, but is also following the standard advice to include some colleges like Harvard that are a bit of a "stretch".  He probably could get in, but wouldn't be in the top 20% of applicants.  If they accept him, is it still a good idea to go for it (assuming good financial aid)?

Conventional wisdom would say, "Yes.  Get into the best college you possibly can."  But I just finished reading "David and Goliath" by Malcolm Gladwell who also wrote the well researched, persuasive, and provocative books "Outliers", "Blink", and "The Tipping Point".  The theme of "David and Goliath" is that many things that are normally thought of as advantages often prove to be disadvantages.  Also, disadvantages are often advantages.  Goliath didn't have a chance.

In one of the chapters, Gladwell argues that it isn't always an advantage to get into the best school, the best sports team, the best corporation.  It's best to be a big fish in a small pond, to be in a situation in which you can be in the top 10% of your peer group.  He describes studies showing how the big fish in the smaller ponds--the students at the top of their class in less elite colleges--were more successful in their careers than the small fish at Harvard and other top schools.  The small fish at Harvard had higher SAT scores than the big fish at the schools that were merely "good", but they often were overwhelmed by competition with Harvard peers.  After being the best students in their high schools, they were humbled and lost confidence when they fell into the middle of the pack at Harvard, often dropping out of the harder majors to find majors in which they could compete.

This concept goes beyond just avoiding academic challenges that make it hard to "shine".  It applies to career choices, to how nice a yard I want to have, to other things I want to accomplish.  It's good to shoot for the moon, but perhaps not the stars.