Mailbag: Some thoughts on "being present"
It's good... and so is "mindless eating freakout time"
Hi world! I got some very thoughtful responses to my last newsletter and I have CLEAR PERMISSION TO SHARE which makes me so happy and dread-free. Thanks for responding, mailbag friends! I’m so interested and happy when other people are thinking about the same themes as me in different ways.
Without further ado, let’s empty this mailbag on this… desk!
From Amanda:
My version of "watching my cat" (the meaning of life) is hanging out with my baby. There is a timeless quality to our hangs if/when my phone is not around, which to me seems precious, almost like a luxury. Also I don't want my son to get the message that my phone is more important than him, or for him to roll into danger because I am distracted. I will be honest, I was never someone who thought to herself, "My truth is that I want to be a Mother one day," but now that I am one, I think it's the coolest thing, probably the best part of my life, and I don't want to miss it.
I'm more conflicted as far as being present while I'm eating. One of my favorite pastimes is stuffing my face in front of my laptop. Either while I scroll something mindless or crank through some kind of project/task that I've convinced myself is urgent. I know it would be better for my digestion and diet to slow down and chew. Part of me wants that for myself, especially after I've crammed in six chocolate bars in one sitting. But another part of me treasures my mindless eating freakout time. I can date this practice back at least to the early 2000s when I used to read Perez Hilton, a terrible website. For some people. there's reality TV and wine. For me, there's only the internet and snax.
Check out Amanda’s Substack! I really liked this week’s edition about following your passion (or not).
From Jordan (2x mailbag champion!):
Places where I have valued being present recently:
- On the dance floor - I love to dance and be in my body, it's one of the places where I feel most free and I think this is a very "being present" thing. The more I just focus on the music and moving how I want to, and the less I focus on worrying about looking a certain way, the better I feel. Sometimes I wear sunglasses on the dance floor so I don't have to worry about stressful accidental eye contact, which I think allows me to be even more present.
- Like you - in conversation, listening, asking questions. I wonder whether there is a correlation between how much of a Fact person you are and how much you think you are "being present"???
- Much longer and vulnerable one: As of 4 weeks ago I have been dealing with moderately severe tinnitus from accidental noise exposure. It's a loud, constant ringing in my ears that is audible in even moderately noisy spaces like an office with quiet conversation and HVAC noise. There are 2 sounds - one is like the high pitched whine of a TV that's left on with nothing playing on it, and the other one is lower and sounds like the D 2 octaves above middle C. I can no longer hear quiet! I have really been struggling with my mental health as a result of this.
One of the unfortunate things about tinnitus is that there isn't really a "cure", the main thing that the medical establishment agrees on is CBT and mindfulness therapies. So I've been forced to confront this kind of more deliberate mindfulness against my will. The goal of the therapies is to teach the brain to "habituate" to the tinnitus - aka "tune it out" the way that you learn to tune out planes or highway noise audible from your home. And this is done in part by convincing the brain that the noise isn't "negative in valence" in the language of the Sasha Chapin people - as in just considering it to be a noise that's neither positive or negative. The noise isn't going to hurt you even though it's (highly) unpleasant.
After the tinnitus started, each time I remembered that I was hearing the sound it would release a jolt of panic and upset into my body. And I could see that this was conditioning my body to be more anxious and "listen for" the sound more, which would cause more anxiety and upset when I inevitably noticed the sound again, and on and on.
So I have been working on trying to just be present with the sounds - rather than feeling hurt by them, or upset that this is happening to me or worrying about whether I am going to have to hear this forever or whatever the goal is to just exist, try to feel other parts of my body, acknowledge the sound is there without attaching emotional content to it, and redirect my attention. And so far I would say it is actually helping reduce the anxiety and problems although it is still pretty unpleasant and tough.
Overall the tinnitus experience has made me start to understand more of the deeper value of mindfulness. But I don't think I would have understood it without experiencing a real mental health problem. I wonder how many people who are really into mindfulness started because of a serious or unpleasant mental health problem and turned toward mindfulness as a healing strategy.
From Taylor:
Been thinking a lot about this topic. I forgot my AirPods on my two-week trip and while I had my noise-cancelling headphones for planes and trains, I didn't have anything to entertain me while walking around, which comprised most of my day. I found that I didn't miss my AirPods too much and was able to be much more present and appreciate hearing conversations in Chinese even when I didn't understand. I also brought my camera on the trip and that also helped me stay in the moment.
Your Taylor [Swift] top 20 is very different from mine! I'm not the most active fan, so I have barely listened to anything since Lover and many of my favorites are from when I was in middle/high school. I really like some of the Taylor's Version remakes though, like Dear John, which benefit from her more mature singing voice and my own perspective as an adult who has been in an age gap relationship!!
Bonus from my dad (paraphrased from a phone call):
I click all the links in your newsletter but I don’t like them. They’re always about things I don’t understand. You’ll link out to a big article about how Sweetpea and Lipto [people he made up] are fighting, and I don’t know who they are, and I don’t want to find out. I’m too old to find out. But it might be interesting if I knew.
Linxxx
Trump-era survival strategies, from me to you :)
That’s it! Let’s give my dad a break!
Our friendship is arguably built upon caring what Sweetpea and Lipto are up to.