Elli Weisbaum

Mindfulness for Life

When I decided to pursue a PhD I was told over and over again that it would be overwhelming, isolating and painful. My response? No thanks! First of all, there isn't anything I choose to do in my life that I would describe in those ways. Secondly, the topic of my thesis is mindfulness - so pursuing a PhD on this topic with this framing just didn't make sense to me. But the more I was told this, the more it made me wonder what a mindful PhD might look like. Mindfulness is not only the focus of my research, but an integral part of my life. The practice is woven into the fabric of everything I do. For me, integrating mindfulness into the meta approach of pursuing my PhD seemed not only natural, but also ethical and imperative for my mental health. The aspiration behind this blog is to bring awareness for myself to this journey and to share the experience of attempting to navigate a PhD on mindfulness with mindfulness. This isn't to claim that I will never suffer or experience being overwhelmed, isolated and in pain during this process - but it is to set an intention to meet these feelings with kindness and care and to transform them so that I can also experience joy and happiness as part of this 5 year adventure.

COVID-19: Concrete actions for complex & challenging times

 A reflection on the balance between caring for the world & caring for ourselves 

Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

Waking up today I see the sun shining outside. Inside I see that my mind has been cluttered for many days with thoughts, worries and fears about COVID-19. On a weekly basis I interact with many communities and individuals, locally and globally. The past week has been a never ending bombardment of communications, emails and rescheduling. I am grateful for all the work I do and see a drive to hold space and continue to offer as much as possible at this challenging time. However, as someone who researches burnout and wellbeing this raises an interesting question - what is the balance between the drive and capacity to offer externally and the need to replenish and rest internally?

 
“What is the balance between the drive and capacity to offer externally and the need to replenish and rest internally?”
 

I am trying to explore how I can skillfully move between the multiple truths that exist in this moment - aiming to find some kind of healthy balance between seeing the macro picture of the impact COVID-19 is having on our human family (e.g. health, economically, socially) and the micro picture of continuing daily life (e.g. allowing myself to notice the sunshine, to work on a thesis chapter, to laugh with a friend). 

My research question to myself at this moment is how do I hold both? How can I not run away from the suffering of the world and also caring for myself? Not that these are necessarily mutually exclusive, but it feels like there is some tension between being present for what is happening and giving myself permission to also feel happiness and joy and to continue to work on my own projects (that have deadlines which have not changed).

I don’t necessarily have all the answers, but I do have a deep intention to find this balance. I know that if I am able to care for myself, I will have greater capacity for those directly around me and by extension the communities and world of which I am part.

 
“I don’t necessarily have all the answers, but I do have a deep intention to find this balance. I know that if I am able to care for myself, I will have greater capacity for those directly around me and by extension the communities and world of which I am part.”
 

In this moment, I am deeply grateful for my mindfulness practice and training with the Plum Village community. I have already trained and practiced the art of stopping for many years. Taking refuge in oneself and community - to pause and respond rather than react - is not easy. For me this is where I will start. The practice of mindfulness is not to run away from suffering, but to turn towards it with an attitude of kindness, curiosity and compassion. This means recognizing that I have worries/fears/anxiety in this moment and not trying to suppress them, push them away or say they do not matter. It means holding them, allowing them to be. Then choosing gently what to do next.

For me, compassionate action this week is to slow down internally and externally as much as possible. I spent the last week going almost non-stop to keep up with the news and to postpone, reschedule online or cancel many events and meetings. This included postponing mindfulness trainings and workshops at the University of Toronto and MIT, coordinating the logistics of moving mindfulness drop-in sessions at UofT and the Hospital for Sick Children online, working on communications for multiple conferences who needed to do the same and canceling a series of family trips/plans. I feel confident that I have cared for each of these communities and commitments. I also see that to offer this care in a timely way required a lot of energy, which was at times overwhelming. 

As I look towards the week ahead, my intention is to shift gears to do some inward care after much external communication last week. This is not at the exclusion of continuing to support my various communities, I will not be shutting down or entirely disconnecting from the world. But I will aim to be very intentional with my time and choices around my schedule and technology to support a foundation of wellbeing in myself. When we go to a retreat centre in the Plum Village tradition we are invited to intentionally slow down. This is supported by the daily schedule, and by bringing our awareness to ourselves by paying mindful attention to our thoughts, speech and actions. One way we do this is to bring awareness to our breath, and from this anchor to interact mindfully with ourselves and others. For example, we might become more aware of each step we take as we walk, or the words we use to communicate to ourselves or others. 

Today (Sunday, March 15h) my partner and I are making a schedule for our upcoming week. We will both be working from home (we have a lot to do! He has a final exam this Thursday and I have several thesis deadlines - chapters, publications, data analysis - I am working towards). While the circumstances leading us to working from home come from a source of suffering in the world, we are exploring how we might transform part of this mud into a lotus. What does it mean to have five days of dedicated working time in our home together? This has the potential to become a challenging situation where we either work way too much or drift and procrastinate and don’t work enough. What we are hoping to do instead is to turn this time into a “working retreat”. Our idea is to experiment with putting together a schedule that is a hybrid of self-care actives which bring together: mindfulness practices, exercise, healthy eating, play and getting our work done. We are considering how the time we gain by not commuting can be put into things like exercise, walks and playing games - rather than filling it with looking at our phones or watching TV. This is not to say that looking at our phones or watching TV aren’t sometimes good things to do, or that we won’t be engaging with them, but we see that without purposefully considering when and how we partake in these activities they can easily take up all our time and water feelings of anxiety and stress. 

As we journey through this uncertain, complex and challenging time we hope that we are able to care for ourselves and our communities by making skillful choices for our individual and collective physical and mental health. 

There is no one right way to do this, but asking yourself a well crafted research question is always a good place to start! Below is the current iteration of a my research question for my upcoming week, which I will allow to iterate as needed with the impermanence and rapid changes happening around me.

Personal research question: March 15th, 2020

How can I skillfully interact with, and move between, both the broad, uncertain and complex challenge of COVID-19 and my daily experiences of work, happiness and community?

Guiding subquestions

  • What is a healthy balance at this time between external communication and community interaction and focussing on my thesis work and internal wellbeing? (note: these are not necessarily mutually exclusive)

  • How much news should I read in order to be aware of what is happening in the world, while also not consuming superfluous information that may lead to feelings of anxiety or overwhelm?

  • What do moments of happiness, rest and ease look like within the broader context of this complex and challenging time?

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Elli Weisbaum