bearing blog

Running off the rails.

Jen at Conversion Diary spent a week in retreat at a monastery.  (Check out the photos at this post -- wah, I want to have lattes on retreat too!)  Here she posts "6 things I learned from living on a monastery prayer schedule."  In part

4. It makes you surrender your life to God at the micro level

I always try to better surrender my life to God, but I often think of it at the macro level alone: e.g. I'll work on trusting him with what I'll be doing 10 years from now, my children's vocations, my writing projects, etc. But living according to a rule of prayer involves even deeper surrender. There have been quite a few times since I've been here that I was really into whatever I was doing, and the last thing I wanted to do was set it aside and go back to the church to pray. To let go of my activities requires an act of trust: trust that God will give me the grace to pick up where I left off if whatever I was doing was important in his eyes, that this "interruption" won't irreparably derail whatever I was doing, etc. I find myself taking these little leaps of trust at almost every prayer time, whereas back at home I simply push back my prayer or meal times to accommodate whatever it was I was doing -- no trust necessary.

This was something I needed to read.

I am not, really, a time-waster (most days).  I don't, for example, think that I spend "too much time on the Internet."  I enjoy blogging and reading blogs and other interesting things, and I spend some time on it most days, and I don't think the total time is  excessive.  It's perfectly ordinary to have a hobby, and to use leisure time to do something that's fun (or to multi-task, as I am doing now as I blog on my netbook while nursing a baby to sleep in a quiet bedroom).

But I don't always like the focus I have on it.  It's hard for me to tear myself away quickly to attend to my children or to begin some task I ought to do.   And it's a distraction.

It's a self-indulgence.

I keep hinting about wanting to use what I've learned to defeat gluttony, to combat my next most besetting vice, which is letting this leisure-time activity of mine (and it's really not just internet use -- reading in general is part of it too) consume my attention.  It's possible that part of the problem is overconsumption, devoting too much time to it, and I guess I haven't exhausted the possibilities of self-limitation of total hours.  But honestly, I don't think it is "total time" that is the trouble.  It's the totality with which I get absorbed, even in taking a very short break to check e-mail or to dash off a quick blog post.  It's the reluctance to be interrupted.  I think Jen may have put her finger on it a bit in her post. 

Part of my vocation as mother demands that I make myself available to be interrupted when my children need something from me.  I am terrible at this.  Yes, I also need to train my children not to interrupt me for trivial matters, but you know, I want to be a mom who says "Sure, I'll read you a story" or "Yes, I'll help you settle that argument" or "Okay, I'll feed you breakfast."  I don't want the first thing I say to my kids in the morning to be "Aaaargh!  What are you doing up already?  It's not even seven o'clock yet!"  Even if I'm not done with my blog post.

I am struggling with how to put the pieces together for a strategy to change myself.  If I can do what I've already done, what can't I do?  But I still am not sure how to go about it.  I feel like I need a plan.

The remains of impulse.

I was obese for my entire life, up till age 33.  That year, for no apparent reason, I had an epiphany:  a new desire. 

The twin desires for a better body and better health, I'd always had those.  As long as I remember I alternated between wanting thinness badly enough to work hard at trying to lose weight, and trying to resign myself to the "fact" that I likely never would do so permanently. 

Something new came along in that thirty-fourth year.  I can't say for sure why.  But what popped into my head that year -- it was in May -- was a new-born desire, not to look different but to live differently.  I have described it before:  All of a sudden, I got tired of eating so damn much.

It was as simple as that.  But it was also much more than that. 

I had a desire to behave differently.  But I still had two problems to solve.

First, I didn't know what I should be doing instead.  All I knew was that I wanted to get away from "eating so damn much."  I wanted to eat less.  I didn't know how much less I wanted to eat, or how often I wanted to eat, or even exactly what I wanted to be eating.

Second, and this is the key point I want to stress, I still felt the impulse to eat, as frequently and as strongly as ever.  I desired to eat less.  I was disgusted by how much I had been eating.  And yet none of my impulses had weakened:  I still felt an urge to nibble on my kids' leftovers. I still wanted to extend the pleasure of a tasty meal into second helpings and thirds.   I still longed on lonely evenings for the comfort of eating an entire pizza while staring at the computer screen.  I still thought about going through a drive-through all by myself for a secret cheeseburger.   None of that was any different.   

The only thing different was a sudden, gut-level knowledge that I didn't want to do those things anymore.  Or at least I didn't want to feel the urge to have those things any more.  Or ... I wanted the power to resist the urges.  That is what was new.  A counterbalance.  I had never really wanted that before.  Before, I had wanted to be thinner, but I hadn't really wanted to give up the secret cheeseburgers, the comfort of the pizza, the extra helpings.  Eating too much food had always meant experiencing more of the pleasure of tasting and swallowing.  I had never stopped, really, until it hurt to have more. 

You have to understand, if you are where I was, and if you are hoping that someday the impulses will just disappear, or that you can kill them... that they may never disappear, and yet even though they persist, it is possible to learn to ignore them.  You see, I still have them.  I still think about secret cheeseburgers.  I still remember the prolonged pleasure of six slices of pizza.  I still pause to study the contents of vending machines.  I still get an urge to pile on the seconds after my plate is empty, every time.  The impulses are not gone, they are not less frequent.  If they seem weaker now (even though occasionally I do give in -- I am not perfect, after all), I believe it is only because I am stronger now, after close to two years of resistance training.  In the beginning they were just as strong as ever.

I didn't gain willpower overnight.  But I did, it seems, gain a will.  And the will to live differently was enough to drive me to find a way around the obstacles, the impulses.  It was suddenly so obvious to me that to follow these urges would still feel good, but would be the opposite of what I desired -- those paths would not just take me the opposite direction from what I desired, they would BE the opposite of what I desired.  I wanted to feel the steeper trail beneath my feet, not just the smooth downward grade.  I wanted more than the view from the top.  Though the effort would hurt, I wanted to climb. 

That desire is something that seems to have come out of nowhere, a pure gift; the closest thing I have ever come to understanding what grace is.  I believe there is more yet I can learn from it.  I believe I know what I am to do with it next. 

Will I?

**** Update.  Erin asked in the comments for a recommendation for a kitchen scale.  The key features for one to keep on the counter are, for me, (1) looks good, (2) wipes clean, (3) battery powered so it doesn't take up an outlet, (4) tare button, (5) not very large.  I use this one in black, for $24.

Immediate results.

I'm sitting in an Eat Street diner called the Bad Waitress, musing about inflation.  Remember the Five Dollar Milkshake in Pulp Fiction?  This place has milkshakes for $5.25.  (Bananas in your milkshake will set you back an additional dollar).

Waiting for my eggs Benedict.  I just finished my morning swim, so I think I've earned it.  It comes with asparagus.  That's a vegetable.  (UPDATE:  Two stalks?  That's a garnish, not a comes-with.  Sheesh.  Oh well, it was REALLY good hollandaise.  I'm not going to have to eat lunch now, I'm sure of it.)

Thinking about habits and about outcomes.

What do you really want to change about yourself?  I mean -- among the things that you could change.  Really.

I know I have a long list.  I wish I reflexively, automatically, responded to my children by strengthening connections, not rupturing them.   I wish that desire for the Lord, rather than duty, would draw me to prayer several times a day.  I wish that my irritation at an untidy house didn't get in the way of welcoming people into my home;  I wish I was more generous to my friends.  I wish I had a better grasp on how much money I spend.  I wish I knew how to teach my children love for Jesus as well as I think I know how to teach them theology and logic.  I wish I didn't waste any time sitting in front of the computer each day.   The list goes on.

Once I would have said "I wish I wasn't so heavy and out of shape."  I don't say that anymore.  So:  hope.

And skill.  I have a theory -- still untested -- that I can apply something I learned with the heavy/out of shape thing, to all those other wishes and longings.  It's the meta-advice that I do dispense to people who really mean it when they ask me, "How did you lose the weight?  How can I not be so fat anymore?"  And that is to let go of the outcome, as much as possible----let go of what you want to BE ---and concentrate on the relevant behavior---what you DO.   Yes, I had weight loss on my mind that whole time, how could I not?  But I tried to put all my mental effort, self-blame and self-praise, onto the habits of regular exercise and control of my eating.  I tried to want those things for themselves.  And as time went on I did want those things for themselves.  That has made the difference.  I am now the sort of person who wants to wait for a nibble till lunch.  I am now the sort of person who looks forward to a vigorous swim.

This is the insight I would like most to share with people who ask me how I did it, how to do it.  A lot of the answers are "I don't know."  I simply don't know why last year and not any of the 20 years before that.  I don't know what changed.  Some grace, I think, an answered prayer, but I would never want to suggest that your problem is that you haven't prayed the right prayer or prayed hard enough.  But I do sincerely believe that cultivating the desire for new behaviors -- not slavishly adhering to behaviors because I thought they would gain me my far-off desire -- was a truly new, truly different, ultimately successful strategy.

It's sort of like "fake it till you make it."  I tried to behave like a healthy, athletic person, and to want to do the things a healthy, athletic person would do, rather than just wish I were healthy and athletic and hope that this wish would drive me to do the right things.

I've wondered in this space before if it is possible to MAKE yourself want something.  The more I think about it, the more I think the answer is yes.  Some things are probably harder to want than others.  But why not try?

Can I apply this to the other things I would like to change about myself?  Probably not all at once, but I could pick one thing and work on it.  Take my response to the children.  I cannot make myself be patient and self-giving.  I can resolve to change behaviors, and I can really want to change them.   Here is an example, a tiny one.  I have an image in my mind of myself that I do not like.  It comes from a day when my five-year-old got a hold of the camera and walked around the house taking pictures -- you know the kind, all the furniture slightly distorted from the kid's-eye view.  There are several pictures of me in that set.  They are all pictures of my back, hunched over the computer.  I do not want my kids to think of me as focused on the computer.  In the picture, it is impossible to tell whether I am reading blogs, or writing email to good friends, or planning the school day.  The kids don't see this.  All they see is my back to them.  I know I do not want to spend their lives with my back to them and my face turned to the computer screen.  If I concentrate on this image, I think I can make myself feel dissatisfied with looking at the screen instead of them.  I think I can make myself want to save the computer time for the blocks I have set aside for it, for early mornings, for the after-lunch recess, for daddy's bedtime story time, for Saturday mornings at the coffee shop.  I think I can make myself want to turn it off when the first child comes stumbling and yawning down the stairs wanting breakfast, so that the first thing he sees is a smile and a good morning, not "Aaagh!  What are you doing up already!?"

"I will be more connected" -- overwhelming, open-ended, vague.  "I will learn to keep the computer in its place --" much more do-able.  And more immediate, too.  At the end of the day I can feel good about having turned it off when I was supposed to and saved it for the right time, even if I don't feel any more patient or connected or different in any way than yesterday.  And the next day is another day.  And then there is another, a string of opportunities for success as long as life lasts.

Focusing on just one thing: it doesn't have to mean everything else falls apart.

One of my biggest reasons for taking up swimming is that it's kind of an all-in-one exercise:  you get some cardio, and because of the resistance of the water you get some strength training too.  You can get better cardio through running, and you can get better strength training by weight lifting, but it's hard to find a single exercise that combines the two quite so well.  And so, even though swimming is time-inefficient in some ways (because of changing and travel, I have to commit at least 75 minutes for a 40-minute swim), in other ways it is very efficient (strength and cardio simultaneously:  two workouts in one).

14 months or so later, my upper arms and my core are stronger than they've ever been before.  I even have muscles!  Girly muscles, sure, but they are definitely there, my biceps, triceps, and the muscles across the wings of my back. 

Bu my legs haven't seemed to strengthen quite as fast, so I was contemplating some targeted strength training, just a few minutes at the beginning or end of my workouts.  Maybe some squats, or resistance bands?  A week ago I stopped in at the fitness desk in the Y to pick up a brochure for personal training, and the fitness director asked if I had any questions.

"Well, I swim, but I've been wanting to increase my leg strength, so..."

He asked a few directed questions.  How often did I swim?  What strokes?  Did I do flip turns? (No, not really, I have a sort of made-up underwater turn) But do I push off with my legs against the wall at the end of my turns?

"Yes---"

"And how far do you glide after you push off?   Do you glide out as far as the backstroke rope?"

"Five yards?  I -- I don't know if I do or not!  I've never noticed!"

"Well!" he said, smiling.  "Next time, find out.  Try to push off so you glide out as far as you possibly can.  You should be able to glide out at least as far as the rope.  Then come back and let me know how you did.  You shouldn't have to add separate strength training."

"No charge?"

"No charge."

I wrote down his suggestions on a Post-it note and stuck it to my YMCA picture ID.  

A few days later I tried it.  I could push off to nearly five yards at the beginning of the workout, but the glide distance got shorter and shorter as the workout progressed.  (One annoying habit I'll have to break:  Every time I pushed off hard, with a little grunt of effort, I involuntarily squinched up my eyes, broke the seal under my goggles, and got an eyeful of pool water.)

I worked hard at it anyway, all my focus throughout the workout on pushing off.  And when I finished my cooldown, emerged from the water, and picked up my stopwatch I discovered something amazing:  I'd shaved nearly seven minutes off my workout.  Instead of 46 minutes, I'd finished the same distance in a little more than 39 minutes.

This is something I hadn't been able to do in months of generally "trying to go faster."

A lot of times we think that if we focus on just one thing, "all the rest of it" is going to fall apart.  This didn't happen here:  I focused on one thing, and apparently I improved generally.  

I mused about it on the way home.  

I can certainly remember a few days when I announced, e.g.,  "I am going to focus on LAUNDRY today" and by 5 pm, though the clothes were all clean and hanging in the closets,  I was knee-deep in clutter, hungry children, and unfinished schoolwork.    

What's different here? 

Even though I had been focusing on one little improvement -- pushing HARD off the wall -- I, of course, didn't stop all the rest of the "work" in my workout.  I still had to trundle from one end of the pool to the other, executing all the other tasks on my list.  I would guess that a lot of the time I wasn't working very hard on things like my breaststroke timing or slicing my hand at the right angle into the water, but I can't be sure because I wasn't thinking about any of those things at all.  I guess you could say that I "went through the motions" in all the other parts of my workout.  What's next on the list?  Swim a paced 200-yard front crawl?  OK -- check.  The only thing I have to think about is the pushoffs.  

Focusing on one thing does not have to mean "I'm just going to do this one thing and ignore the rest of my work."  It can mean "I am going to put this thing at the top of my priority list."  It can mean "I am not going to waste mental energy on anything but this one thing."  It can mean "In everything else today I will just go through the motions; on this one thing I will lavish my full attention."  

Maybe "my full intention" is a better phrase.  

I wonder if I can import this insight into other areas of my life.  Focus on one thing at a time, perhaps in short bursts, but keep swimming all along.

Self awareness.

Here is a thesis that occurred to me over the weekend as I mused about success and failure, about weakness and willpower, about competing selves:

Could it be that... once you KNOW what you should do...   moral behavior, or "good" behavior, or "healthy" behavior (take your pick) is nothing more than the setting-up of the right incentive structures for oneself? 

 Figuring out what situations, or habits, give you strong incentives to succeed and strong disincentives to fail, and staying in the success-producing ones as much as you can; creating and modifying the incentives in the pre-existing arenas where your life's story unfolds; stepping back one level and creating meta-incentives to lure your self into the places where you feel the power and  the desire to do the right thing, and away from the places where you feel weak, where you do the things you hate yourself for doing.

This is a big topic, and I need to think more about it.  But I just want to say that, as psychobabbley as that sounds, there is certainly precedent for it in Catholic moral teaching.  Remember "avoiding the near occasion of sin?"  That's the idea that you should stay away from situations that strongly tempt you to sin, or activities that have been the precursor of sin in your past.  

It's really rather remarkable that so much writing on willpower, on avoiding temptation, is framed in terms of a kind of splitting or separation of the self.... there's the "me" who wants to lose weight  keep my weight down and the "me" who wants to eat entire sleeve of saltine crackers; a college kid has a "self" who wants to get good grades and a "self" who wants to party tonight... a drinker may have a "self" who decides to go to AA and a "self" who hates every sober minute.  Last month's Atlantic had a thought-provoking article that explored this phenomenon (of one "self" deciding to tie the hands of the other, untrustworthy "self"):

We used to think that the hard part of the question “How can I be happy?” had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I. Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds —like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences—that don’t actually exist. And it provides a useful framework for thinking about the increasingly popular position that people would be better off if governments and businesses helped them inhibit certain gut feelings and emotional reactions....

 

The multiplicity of selves becomes more intuitive as the time span increases. Social psychologists have found certain differences in how we think of ourselves versus how we think of other people—for instance, we tend to attribute our own bad behavior to unfortunate circumstances, and the bad behavior of others to their nature. But these biases diminish when we think of distant past selves or distant future selves; we see such selves the way we see other people. Although it might be hard to think about the person who will occupy your body tomorrow morning as someone other than you, it is not hard at all to think that way about the person who will occupy your body 20 years from now. This may be one reason why many young people are indifferent about saving for retirement; they feel as if they would be giving up their money to an elderly stranger.

and then of course there's Romans 7:

What I do, I do not understand. 

 For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.   Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. 

For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.  Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  

Miserable one that I am!   Who will deliver me from this mortal body?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.

Boy, if that doesn't describe a sense of competing versions of the self, nothing does.

So my question is... is that all there is to it?  Is the "answer" to overcoming temptations of all kinds really for the "inner self" -- the one who "takes delight" in moral or correct or healthy or Godly behavior -- to set up the kind of structure around the "members" that cajoles them to behave?  To offer to the weak flesh, in return for good behavior, the short-term goodies it craves? 

And if so... knowing what I have done and how I did it...

...what else am I capable of overcoming?