The Peaceful Recommitment
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There have been few more impactful shifts for me than discovering The Peaceful Recommitment.
I remember the insight building.
First: Tim Ferriss talking about how he had realised that in meditation, the rep - the thing that grows the capacity, the equivalent of lifting the weight at the gym - is bringing your mind back to what it is focused on.
The impact of this is huge: instead of berating myself for having forgotten to keep my attention on my breathing, I could almost celebrate the crucial moment when my attention was somewhere else: here I am again, lifting the weight. Each time my attention drifts: another chance to lift the weight. Another chance to build the capacity.
Then: a challenge from my coach to raise my hand, to be willing to ask a question even when I didn’t know what I was going to ask. And seeing myself fail the challenge. Then realising that the crucial moment in change is… what happens when we slip? Do we give up, berating ourselves for not keeping our commitment to raising our hand? Or do we recommit?
Recommitting, you see, is the rep of change.
Then: my dad’s meditation metaphor. Imagining he is on the door at a meditation group and has been assigned the job of standing there and welcoming people. But the people are so interesting that sometimes he finds himself in the room, a long way from the door, locked in conversation. But not because he’s an idiot. But because of course the person is fascinating and he is doing a great job making them welcome. The thought, that is, that took him away from the focus of his mindfulness, is fascinating. Why wouldn’t it take him away? Just notice it, understand that of course it would distract you, and come back kindly to your job.
Then: the continued practice. Centring myself before every coaching call. Practising noticing. Bringing my attention back.
Then: leading those practises in group coaching calls and workshops, and simultaneously practising vulnerability: leading by example that it’s ok for the attention to slip. And with each practice led, more belief that it’s ok.
And so the recommitment isn’t just any recommitment. It’s a gentle one: Well, little one - of course you got distracted. That’s natural, and it’s the point. But, come back here. There’s more to be done.
Most of us don’t speak to ourselves like that.
In fact, for most of us, if our boss spoke to us like we speak to ourselves, we would raise a grievance RIGHT AWAY.
I remember a client once telling me he was practising loving kindness meditations: where he brought to mind someone in his life and enveloped them in loving kindness. It was transformational for him and his relationships.
‘Do you ever,’ I asked him on intuition, ‘focus them on yourself?’
His eyes told he the answer. I think you know it.
We can often give love to others.
We can often make sacrifices to help others be happy.
But how much do we make those sacrifices for ourselves?
How much do we love ourselves?
In this mixture, the mixture that creates The Peaceful Recommitment, is Robert Holden’s masterpiece, Loveability. And the idea that our capacity to love others and love in the world is only as great as our capacity to love ourselves.
That loving ourselves changes everything.
In my meditations and reflections since I read Loveability, still, I catch myself, with my hand on my chest and give myself love. Give myself love, all the bits of me, especially the belly and the other bits that really just get resented and regretted.
That loving-kindness.
What if that was your default way of relating to yourself?
What if in those moments when you’re doing yoga, and Adriene is leading a piece of practice, and you’re thinking about something else… what if in that moment there’s no berating yourself?
What if there’s no worrying about what you missed that distracts you further and creates a spiral of distraction and self-loathing?
What if there’s just a gentle, peaceful, loving, kind recommitment to the moment?
The best time to plant an apple tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.
The best thing might have been to pay attention to the whole of the practice…
To everything your daughter said…
To the whole of your colleague’s presentation…
But you can’t have that. It’s gone.
What you can have is now.
And what helps you - now, in this moment - is a peaceful recommitment.
A reminder: if you’re practising focus, then distraction is actually what you WANT, so that you can practise bringing your attention back. You can celebrate it.
And for anything: no matter what the best thing might have been...
The second-best thing is a peaceful recommitment.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.