A couple of things happened in quick succession, which really highlighted for me how these minds of ours work, and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage.
The first was out on one of Dad’s Summer Holiday Cycling Adventures™ where I show my 11yo daughter just what she’s capable of—beyond what her mind might say—by taking her on ever-lengthening bike rides, while trying to keep it interesting and doing my best to avoid out and out mutiny.
(It’s a fine line! 😆)
The most recent of these (60km long – she’s doing well!) took us up over a local mountain, entirely on cycle paths, before dropping down into the next valley for ice cream and a mixture of canal towpaths and quiet back-roads home.
Trouble was, the weather. As we neared the top, it closed in and we started getting rained on. We had jackets and it wasn’t going to kill us or anything, but it was a bit unexpected and wasn’t pleasant riding at all. Especially as we started descending. (She runs hot, but my fingers had gone white with cold.)
👧🏻: “I don’t think I want to ride 60k today, Dad.”
👤: “Yeah, I hear you kiddo. Me neither, if it’s going to be like this all the way, but the forecast says this is just a blip. It’s bright sunshine in a bit, when we get down in the bottom.”
👧🏻: “Well I’m thinking we should maybe not do the full route. We can do it another day.”
This gets me thinking—Dad goes into Solution Mode—and also preys on my own insecurities about how the rest of the ride is likely to go with a deeply unhappy companion.
I’ve been here before.
I have one of those ‘unhappy companions’ in my head, most of the time.
👤: “Well, look, sweets. There’s a place in a few miles where we can make a decision. We can cut half the loop off by taking a short cut, back up to the top and then dropping right back home, instead of the canal. Let’s see how we feel when we get there.”
👧🏻: “Ok.”
Literally two minutes later…
👧🏻: “Is it time to make the decision yet, Dad? I want to go straight back home.”
👤 “No, huni. It’s not for a while yet. We get to a junction where we can go one way or the other. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when it is. Let’s see how we feel then - when we get there. We’ll stop and have a proper chat. Assess the situation together.”
👧🏻: “But I want to make the decision now!”
(We made the decision about 15 minutes later, and did the full route, once the options had been laid out clearly. Ice cream was eaten.)
The other scenario came after time out of the house that had been a bit challenging for her. Before she’d gone out we’d kind of agreed that we’d all sit and have lunch together, in front of our current favourite family viewing (This Is Us, since you ask; tackles a whole load of adult themes in a really sensitive way).
But when she came back, she’d had enough and really wanted time to herself, having lunch on her own, with her (unintelligible to us) TV that she likes to relax with. (How madcap hi-energy YouTube videos manage to calm her thinking is beyond me… but it does!)
She was a bit conflicted though. She knew she wanted to hang out with us and watch brilliant drama while eating her favourite of Dad’s curries… but she just didn’t feel she that she could.
Right there and then, it just wasn’t gonna happen. Sorry folks.
To ‘Jobert’ (the name she's given to her mind), it looked like THERE IS A DECISION TO BE MADE - NOW!
But there really wasn’t. So I took it out of her hands for her:
👤: “It’s ok sweets. Go do your thing. Go on. You can eat curry on your own if you want to, it’s fine. We’ll figure something out. Forget about it. You go and chill with your TV.”
And off she went, apologetic, but relieved.
See, although it was mostly leftovers, I knew that I still had a bit of prep to do and it would be a while.
The decision about how food would be consumed didn’t actually need to be made there and then. And in the time it took me to chop and cook, perspectives would have a chance to change and she’d likely see things differently.
(Or even if she didn’t, at least it would be the actual time to decide!)
I didn’t have to try and reason with her mind about what we’d planned (in that mood, it would only have pushed back) or even explain what I saw happening, I just needed to keep my mouth shut and let nature take its course.
45 minutes later, when food was ready, I popped my head round the door:
👤: “Hiya love. I’m just dishing up. How d’you feel about family This Is Us and curry, now?”
👧🏻: “Sure!”
And we ate together, pausing every now and then to get into all sorts of fascinating discussions about love, and parenting, and kids, and grief, and friendship.
Faced with situations, minds—ignorant of the fact that they’re what’s creating the sense and feel of the situation in that moment—think that they can get stuff sorted there and then.
They fill in the blanks of the unknown, hazard at a prediction of the future, and make out like they know how to try and bend reality to their will ‘in order to’ keep themselves happy.
And it just doesn’t work like that!
Rather, moment to moment, our level of consciousness (or mood) dictates the experience we’ll have, by painting a picture made out of Thought, and presenting that to us, as ‘reality’.
This picture changes all the time, which is why one moment something might really bother us, and the next, we couldn’t care less.
If you want to use this knowledge to your advantage, then stop making mental decisions that don’t need to be made!
Trying to take action from within a low mood, when none actually needs taking, is classic mind activity and it’s dead easy to get sucked into. (In fact, I’d say some manifestation of this, in one form or another, makes up the bulk of my 1:1 practice.)
➤ SEE the mind at play, as it tries to predict and control your experience.
➤ ACKNOWLEDGE its contribution.
Then ignore it, crack on with your day, and see how you feel, when the time is right.
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
How the “picture changes all the time.”