I have a compulsion. It always seems to catch up with me in September when things get busy. It’s not drinking or online shopping or binge watching or overeating (unless you count the occasional overconsumption of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!). A compulsion is an unhelpful habit on overdrive. It’s a pervasive pattern that’s very hard to break even when you put some effort into creating change.
My compulsion is being late. It’s one that’s hard to admit because it’s embarrassing and I’ve been working on this issue on and off for a long time. I had no idea that mindfulness could lead me to discover what is at the root of this compulsion and that I would continue to have new insights to this day.
It all started years ago when I apologized for the umpteenth time to my daughter’s softball coach as we rushed into practice. He looked at me and with a chuckle and said “Wow, it’s pathological for you”. He was right. It had become a pathology. All the rushing and stress was not only damaging to me, but also my family. I made a pact with myself to turn over a new leaf. I was going to be more organized. I got out my crockpot and my spreadsheet and micro-planned every minute in order to get places on time. It seemed to work well for a few weeks and then I would slip back to old habits.
I talked to my punctual friends and got lots of tips. “Just plan to arrive 15 min early. Leave a book in your car to read when you get places early. Set your watch 5 minutes fast. Set reminder alarms on your phone… I tried everything. And to make things worse all this failure was sending my inner critic into overdrive. Every time I was late I would silently berate myself.
If you’ve ever tried to kick a compulsion, you might recognize this cycle of striving and self-judgement. I had to find another way.
Enter Mindfulness. I began my mindfulness training to help me reduce the stress and anxiety of being a working mom with 3 kids. I had no idea it would help me get to the root of my lateness.
Mindfulness is not just meditation and focusing on the breath, although those are great ways to begin training your attention. Mindfulness is also a way of relating to yourself and the world around you. In my mindfulness training we began talking about self-observation without judgement. At first this just sounded like a jumble of words, but slowly over time, with practice I started to understand the concept.
Non-judgement is not about blocking out the negative and only seeing the positive. It’s simply about noticing our automatic judgements and deciding if they are true or useful. I started to observe my thoughts in conversation. My brother called me one day because he was 12 min early for a dentist appointment. My first thought was “12 minutes… what a waste of time”. That was an interesting automatic thought. With curiosity I was beginning to understand the beliefs that were driving my actions. If being early is a waste of time, why would I ever be early? Simply noticing that automatic judgement and being curious about it helped me realize that my lateness is linked to my lifelong habit of “over-doing”.
At a young age I started equating my productivity with my self-worth. The more I would get done, the better I would feel about myself. This may have served me well in my youth, when I was building a career and a busy family. But with age, I began to see that this hamster wheel was only leaving me feeling exhausted and disappointed.
I know in my heart that each one of us does not have to earn our worth. We are born worthy. This remembering has become an unexpected gift of my compulsion. Whenever I notice my pattern of lateness emerging again, I take a breath and remember it is not a failure. My lateness is simply a sign that I’m trying to fit too much into my day. It’s a sign that I need to be reminded that I am worthy of downtime and rest. It’s amazing how this one shift in awareness has helped defuse the issue. It’s doesn’t mean I’m always on time, but it does resolve faster when I can smile and respond with kindness rather than react with criticism.
This compassionate approach can be applied to any compulsion. It simply requires some patience and some willingness to practice self-observation without judgement. In other words, rather than trying to fix your compulsions, you can try being curious about what they have to teach you. Mary O’Malley is the author of the book “The Gift of Our Compulsions”. She describes it beautifully:
‘To some degree, we are all compulsive. Our struggles range from over worrying, to overworking to overeating to over drinking. Our primary reaction has been to try and control our behaviour but when we try to control our compulsions they control us. If we do manage to stop one, another always takes its place. There is another way of healing that is more about responding rather than reacting. Our compulsions thrive in reaction and heal in response. They won’t let go until they teach us how to engage with them. We can give them the attention and compassion they need to heal. In the light of our compassionate attention, not only do they lose their power over us, but they become the doorway to healing that we have longed for’.
If you would like to learn more about mindfulness, compassion and the skill of responding rather than reacting, please join us for any of our upcoming mindfulness programs. Who knows what gifts are waiting for you to discover.