I found myself bothered by something the other day. When I had some alone time I immediately went into “figure it out” mode. You may be familiar with this mode – the one where you dissect and try with all your brain power to figure out what in the heck is going on, where the reaction came from, and the infamous “WHY” question – “why do I get so bothered by this?” The mode where you SEARCH for information and answers, thinking that will solve the problem.

Then I caught myself. What I tell clients at least a bagillion times came to me: “Information informs, it doesn’t heal.”

In Buddhist meditation and psychotherapy, and in many healing traditions, we don’t believe that ultimate healing comes for analyzing it, figuring it out, finding THE answer. It may lead to some great information, enabling us to “wrap our heads around it” but it only goes so far.  Gathering information can be part of the process, but information informs. It doesn’t heal – the heart, emotions, nervous system, or relationships.

I’ll bet you have had many experiences where you know fully well what caused you to get angry, frustrated, or annoyed, and yet you still get hijacked by your emotions and go right into your familiar habitual way of reacting.

Why? Because information informs but it doesn’t heal. “Figuring it out” doesn’t heal our nervous systems and habits.

Just like a gerbil on its wheel going around and around again getting nowhere, we often don’t give ourselves the time to heal from some event that is now lodge in the very cells of us. Our bodies, thoughts, emotions and nervous system are frozen, still holding the experience.

Instead of “figuring it out”, what can we do? What brings a resolution to the emotional charge when presented with a stimulus that triggers the heck out of you?

With two little kiddos on me, in the middle of making breakfast and getting everyone ready for the day, I can’t go running up to my actual meditation cushion.  But we can go to the “meditation cushion of our hearts.”

Here’s how to “go to the meditation cushion of your heart”:

We can pause and breathe. 

We can put our hand on our hearts, breathe and hold whatever is rising up within us with compassion and spaciousness.

We can actuallyINVITE the anger or frustration to come closer (and the emotions, thoughts, and memories that lie beneath that surface emotion) rather than pushing it away, analyzing it or judging it.

We can be gentle, give it breath, and bring it out into the light.

We can say, “Ahhh, there are you, dear one, I see you” while we notice the sensations in our body that arise within us.

We can watch the emotions, thoughts, memories, and old beliefs, rise and intensify, and then fall…all. On. Their. Own. Watching and inviting instead of getting swept up in or hijacked by the emotion.

We can be curious with gentleness and not send out a search party into our hearts with the glaring lights of “Why do I DO this?! What IS this?!” Then watch it all shift and be released. Maybe we cry, sweat, or tingle. But we can know now that is the nervous system releasing, thawing out.

I used to say, “Oh but this is soooo haaaard!” But really, it’s so simple. We have the “tools” with us wherever we go — our breathe and our heart. Just pause and breathe. Feel it.

I’m done saying it’s so hard.

I am seeing how in my own personal journey and in my work with clients that more and more often, healing comes from doing less and less. No complex treatment plans or coping strategies. No talking about it over and over again and reading a bagillion self-help books. No dissecting, digging into the past, or analyzing it.

I am finding that the times we do very little, great shifts occur.  On their own.  We find ourselves lighter, calmer, and more at peace.

Blessings,