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what do you mean metta?
February 14, 2022
On this 14th of February, the day with the heart as a universal symbol, I want to share with you how my connection with metta came about.
In 2009 I lived in an apartment in Amsterdam's Jordaan, my relationship had recently broken up. I glued the pieces of my heart together and continued as a soloist. Winter came and I decided to take up my interest in Buddhism again and actively pursue it. There was a Buddhist center a few blocks away and I joined a meditation course. One of the two central meditations was the metta meditation. I thought it was all fine and went into it blankly, not knowing what realization awaited me.
In metta meditation you are guided through 5 different phases with the development of metta as an intention. Metta is usually briefly translated as loving-kindness, but in its fullness it means more: the unconditional wish for the well-being of yourself and others. You can also describe it as a passionate desire for others to do well. One of the phases is cultivating metta for yourself. At this stage I felt like I was treading water with nothing around to hold on to. While in other phases, for example metta for a good friend, I felt very clearly the intention and emotion of metta, I could not make this connection for myself. I was mainly distracted by critical thoughts, accusations and feelings about how 'lovable' I was/wasn't. Instead of metta for myself, I mainly felt pain. I don't know about you, but I prefer to duck away from emotions such as pain or sadness. LaLaLaLaLa. I don't hear you, I don't see you. I'm outta here! I completed this phase of the meditation in the following weeks by making to-do and shopping lists. Until at some point I gathered the courage to go to that pain, connect with it and feel it with self-compassion. Courage, connection, compassion. Ah. A door opened and behind it was a staircase leading up.
By practicing this further, metta now works like an inflatable life jacket that I always wear. A daily intention for how I want to approach situations and others.
What's the Metta comes from this.
the paper route incident
December 23, 2021
When I was ten years old I thought I was dying. More specifically, I thought I was dying of a heart attack.
It was the middle of winter and like every morning I was doing my paper route. I lived in a suburb of Chicago and my neighborhood consisted of just one street: Humphrey Street. The street where I lived since I was born, in a white and green house, together with my father and three older brothers. The Humphrey Street paper district had been passed down from Adriani brother to brother to brother to sister and now the district was mine and I distributed the daily morning paper to its subscribers.
The winters were sometimes extreme. Snow storms with less than a meter of visibility, a biting wind, temperatures of minus 10-20 degrees with an even lower feeling temperature, were no exception. Now it wasn't snowing that morning, but trees, gardens and cars were still hidden under a thick layer of snow and an icy night frost was still fresh in the air. Wrapped warmly from head to toe, I pushed the fully loaded newspaper cart forward step by step through the snow. The worn track on the road made the effort a little lighter. I had not been on the road long when I was suddenly overcome by a razor-sharp pain in my heart region. The pain was so intense that I held on to the bar of the cart and gasped for breath. That stabbing pain again! Thoughts raced through my head: What's happening to me? Is this a heart attack? Am I dying? What should I do? I was desperate and looked desperately from left to right. No, no one to ask for help. The pain kept coming back. I want it to stop! I thought. My body tensed, my breath caught, and then I started to cry. From the fear and not knowing what to do, a feeling of surrender came out of nowhere. I stopped resisting and accepted what would follow.
.
What followed was slightly calmer breathing and slowly but surely the pain subsided slightly. The fear not yet. I decided to turn around and with uncertain steps (after all, a second attack could be lurking) I pushed the cart with the undelivered newspapers in front of me towards home. Yes, yes, I had a great sense of responsibility from an early age. When I got home I found my father and in the warmth of our home and the safety of his arms the tears flowed. I talked about the terrible pain I had been in and my fear, “Was that a heart attack Daddy? Am I dying?". He brushed my hair out of my face and said, “No.”
Well, one day of course, but not that day. I was also told that children who have heart attacks out of nowhere are very unusual. According to him, my heart attack was a 'lung attack'. Because it turns out, the deep inhalation of ice cold and dry morning air in combination with the warm exhalation had caused the unknown pain in my lungs. The fact that I kept gasping for breath through my mouth due to the pain, fright and unpleasant thoughts that came to my mind obviously didn't help. “If you are so scared or in pain, try to remain calm next time. If you focus on your breathing and breathe in and out slowly through your nose, you will immediately feel a little better.”
This simple advice has lasted a lifetime. My breath as an anchor. Of course, at that age I didn't realize the deeper lesson of the paper route incident. That penny only dropped much later. In my life I have often been dragged down by physical and emotional pain, fueled by negative thoughts or patterns. But, looking back on this incident, I now also see that my subconscious naturally knew what would help: Stop. Acceptance. Breathe. And, in case of freezing cold outside air, put a scarf over your mouth and nose, that helps too.
roadside moment(nu)ment
November 25, 2021, E-magazine Mindvolleven
You sometimes come across it along the way. A bouquet, plastic flowers, a teddy bear or other memento, attached to a fence or post or set up as an altar. It can pop up anywhere, at a busy intersection in town, or on the side of a quiet country road. A monument, placed to commemorate an event in someone's life. I don't know what effect this has on you, but if I notice this while walking, cycling or from the car, it hits home. My own thoughts or feelings, if any, come to a halt and I pause mentally and emotionally: something has happened here.
Every year in the Netherlands, fellow human beings die while participating in traffic. In 2020, according to CBS figures, this was 610 people. Fewer people than in 2019 and the years before. Most road casualties were among cyclists, 229 men, women, girls and boys in total. An increase compared to the previous year and the highest number in 25 years.
I believe it was 2010 when I participated in the 8-week mindfulness training. One of the first exercises is to choose a routine action and do it with more attention throughout the week. I chose driving. Driving is a real thing for me, it gives me a feeling of independence, adventures and possibilities. At the age of 22, I was a recent college graduate living in California and got a job in the Silicon Valley. Traveling via public transport was not an option. Carpooling is possible, but I couldn't really count on that. I have never had so many nerves as when driving off, which is why I was allowed to do it a second time. With my driver's license and second-hand Honda Civic, a new world opened up for me. No longer dependent on family, colleagues, housemates or friends; finally I could go wherever I wanted. To the supermarket at ten o'clock at night? Hey, just do it. A road trip to the coast at the weekend? Yes of course. Radio or cassette tape (yes!) with lots of bass on the speakers and off you go.
Miles and miles, kilometer after kilometer and many years later a pattern had emerged with driving. Music? Check. Volume? Hard. Accelerate? Of course. Move through everything to the music. Different song? Adjust volume. Sing along. And so forth! A pleasant habit that didn't harm anyone, right? Or yes? Was my driving style perhaps unnoticed by the 'wall of sound' that I created in my car cocoon? Did I accelerate a bit with that up-tempo song? Did I overtake a little more aggressively with a heavier song? I noticed that it did have an influence while practicing mindful driving in the 8-week training. The music turned off and guess what? The volume knob of my own thoughts and feelings immediately turned on. What a noise. Was I drowning that out all those years with my music and mix tapes? Confrontational, but getting carried away was not the time or place in traffic. There is no shortage of practice material. And it remains practice, even though I have developed a new, more attentive pattern in traffic, the smartphone presents new challenges. It is of course crystal clear that mobile phones can now be a distraction in everything we do.
Accidents happen and sometimes nothing can be done about them, for example due to unforeseen situations. But more often than not it is a result of (a moment's) carelessness. Music, apps, driving with too much alcohol. You can also think of it yourself: anything that prevents you from being completely present can have major consequences in traffic. This is not meant as a pointer, because let's be honest, it is very difficult to fully focus your attention on something in our world. But what I am also certain of: a more mindful lifestyle results in fewer accidents. Smaller but also larger. Would it be an idea to include a 'Mindfulness in traffic' module in exams such as the Cycling and Driving Exam? According to a good Dutch proverb: what is learned when you are young is done when you are old.
falling leaves
October 12, 2021, E-magazine Mindvolleven and Stresswise.nl
Autumn is here. She has presented herself in all her splendor and strength. Trees take on a red, orange or yellow glow, mushrooms shoot up, a fresh and strong wind blows through my hair and a stream of raindrops washes the streets clean and soaks the earth.
In Amsterdam I look at the elm trees along the canals and wonder: how will things go this year? What colors will we see before the leaves loosen and fall? Or perhaps they fall suddenly, due to circumstances that accelerate this process?
As a child, fall was my favorite season. The town where I lived is called Oak Park and with its many oak trees I moved through a beautiful spectacle of color every day. Now I don't know if it was the transformative aspect of autumn that fascinated me most. My birthday falls in October, as does Halloween, two highlights of the year for a child. However, I can also remember a dreamy, more inwardly focused feeling that I still recognize in myself at this time of year.
The process of discolouring and falling leaves makes me involuntarily think whether there is something I want, what I am allowed, what I can, let go? Attention to what is there also means attention to things that no longer serve us. Letting go of worries, doubts and negativity, whether due to situations, memories, people or habits, is a process, just like the leaves. For us, this process can be gradual; what you want to let go of changes color first, as it were, before you let go of it. A slightly longer process in which you gain insights into what connects you with what you are saying goodbye to.
Letting go all at once is also possible for us, just like with trees that release their leaves more quickly due to (weather) conditions, we can suddenly have an insight that makes it possible to say goodbye. An example is radical acceptance: your ability to accept situations that are beyond your control, without judgment. You accept reality for what it is, no more or less. You don't have to like it and there are certainly emotions involved, but the feeling of struggle and/or suffering immediately diminishes because you accept reality.
Hmm. When I describe it like this, I see how easy the trees actually have it! Discolored or suddenly, leaves that they do not need, they simply let go and more of the tree becomes visible, radiant and strong. My resolution this fall: Be like a tree.