by Lisa Kentgen
After the five breaths are finished, shift your awareness to all that is happening inside you. Notice the physical sensations. Watch them come and watch them go. Notice thoughts that arise. Don’t chase them or push them away. Watch them come and watch them go. Notice if feelings come up, or the experience of comfort and discomfort. Watch the feelings and experiences come and go. Stay in this stillness for a full two minutes. As this practice becomes familiar, your internal clock will know when two minutes have passed. After two minutes, take a couple more breaths, allowing your attention to extend to the room. Return to your day with the freshness of having paused and tapped into your interior resources.
Deep work in psychotherapy comes out of the pauses in the room. I work with clients to help them stay present to whatever arises in the pauses, which are often initially uncomfortable. They understandably want a way to conceptualize their difficulties, for example, through interpretation. And they want to do something. While these strategies are sometimes helpful, the deepest insights are borne out of the stillness of the pause. Together we give these moments the attention and care they deserve. I give them feedback on their pausing as well as on ways they try to move away from stillness. I offer ways to deepen the pause and encourage them to notice what comes out of it. This process is very empowering. What arises from their stillness holds more insight, utility, and truth than any expert opinion.
Helping Children Pause: The Younger the Better
As with most intentional practices, pausing can be done at any age. Helping children learn to pause provides them with an invaluable foundation for skillfully navigating their lives.
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Nathan was a bright nine-year old who, at this young age, believed that getting down on himself motivated him to do better. He was so articulate about his internal world that it was easy to forget that he was, developmentally, still a nine-year-old. He had challenges regulating negative feelings and they got him into trouble at home and school. Angry outbursts were often followed by remorse. Nathan did not initially understand my encouragement to try to find ways to express his feelings differently while also having compassion for himself when he felt out of control. Like many adults, he felt he was either justified or to blame for his anger. He had difficulty discerning the feeling from the expression of the feeling.
I also met with Nathan’s mother to explore ways they could practice intention together. One recent evening they were playing Uno, a card game, before he went to bed. In Uno, you try to match the color or number in the discard pile and a player must pick up a card if he cannot discard. The first person to get rid of all her cards sticks the other players with points. When the game began, Nathan accumulated a disproportionate number of blue cards and angrily announced, “Oh no, every time I begin Uno with blue cards I lose!” Nathan’s mother gently replied, “Really Nathan? The game just started. You really believe the blue cards are that bad?”
Nathan then said in a new way, “Reminds me of what Lisa tells me, that it’s easier for me to see the bad things about me than the good things.”
Nathan’s mom was also practicing pausing before talking, using less words to help Nathan become more receptive to what she says. Well-placed words guide kids while still allowing them to have their own experience. A good rule of thumb for teaching moments with kids: Less is more! Nathan’s mom resisted the urge to use Nathan’s insight during Uno as an opportunity to provide a longer lesson. Instead, she witnessed Nathan’s important insight. She said simply and effectively, “Good noticing Nathan, I’m impressed. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way?” The Uno game continued. She heightened the impact of Nathan’s insight that came out of his ability to pause, by reinforcing it and admiring it, and him.
This is the pause-in-action, the second kind of pausing practice. Building on these moments—again and again—is the foundation for transformation, the foundation of living intentionally.
Chapter 5
The Fundamentals of
Awareness: Openness and
Constriction
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced
and coordinated as bird wings.
Rumi
You are always alternating between states of openness and constriction. These physical states are most often unconscious responses, as automatic as breathing. States of openness and constriction are the foundations of thoughts, perceptions, motivations, preferences, choices, and action. This basic, mostly pre-verbal, level of responding is your body’s intelligent animal nature.
There is a deep-seated, inaccurate belief in Western culture that the mind is the brain. But the mind is embodied, both body and brain. Dualism leads to overvaluing disembodied thought, and as a result, cognitions are cut off from a critical knowledge source. Thought that is disconnected from the wisdom of the body is as likely to be a source of conflict and misunderstanding as it is a source of problem-solving and understanding.
To understand yourself at the deepest level, practice dipping below your thoughts and become a watchful student of your body’s states of openness and constriction. Establishing an intentional practice of placing awareness on the many ways you are open and closed (i.e., constricted), as it is happening, is fundamental to knowing yourself.
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Lydia was the only woman on the executive committee in her company. She had difficulty allowing herself to be genuine and shine in her role. She generally felt supported by her male colleagues, but also sensed that they shared an ease and style of communicating with each other that they didn’t share with her. This made it even more challenging for her to try to bring greater authenticity to the way she worked.
As Lydia told me about feeling contained in her role at work, she held her arms closely to her sides and she spoke quietly and evenly, without animation. She expressed a strong desire to break out, to no longer contain herself, and didn’t want to care so much about how she would be perceived by colleagues. As Lydia set her intention to work toward this goal, she began to take risks and allowed greater spontaneity in her interactions with colleagues. She showed her witty, dry humor with less self-consciousness about how it would be received.
As Lydia told me about the changes within herself and how they manifested at work, the physical constrictions in the way she held herself tightly in the therapy office also changed. She began to laugh, even occasionally guffawing. When she laughed her face looked younger and animated. Now she told me work stories with her hands moving fluidly in front of her. The movement of her arms reflected the growing expansiveness she was feeling. Lydia raised her voice in enthusiasm and allowed herself to tell me about her substantial strengths. She even transformed the way she dressed, now with her own unique signature. She became more interested in being herself than fitting in at work.
Lydia’s transformation at work from constriction to greater openness, from the “odd man out” to uniquely herself, had parallels in body language. And as I noticed changes, I pointed them out. Lydia learned to use her body’s language to gain important feedback. She sometimes consciously let her body movements lead her, enjoying the process of taking up more space in her role at work.
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The more you are open, the happier you are. By placing awareness on your states of both openness and constriction—knowing yourself on this intimate level—you are at your most authentic. You know yourself so well that you feel safe and comfortable most of the time, which enables you to stay open more of the time. You trust your capacity to protect yourself when you need to. In alignment with your true nature, joining with the wisdom of your body, you are comfortable showing yourself to others. This comfort with yourself is, in return, met with greater openness by others. In fact, by understanding yourself at this subtle, nonverbal level, you become skilled at finding environmen
ts that facilitate being open and undefended. When this happens, you can masterfully shape your life.
It is not that you are always open to experience. This is neither possible nor desirable. Constrictions serve a protective function. For example, you constrict when you are cautious and in self-defense. This is as adaptive for the human animal as it is for every animal. You constrict in quiet ways when you are hesitant, for example, when testing out a new experience like learning to drive or ski. Sometimes you constrict when you are preparing for a challenge, such as the nerves you experience before a big exam.
Constriction only becomes problematic when you habitually approach new experiences by constricting when it isn’t necessary. Thoughts and beliefs, as well as lifestyle, can present challenges to cultivating open states. For example, when you are overstressed and overcommitted, you don’t have the reserves to stay open, so you are more likely to meet experience out of an impatient (constricted) place. If you are suspicious of others’ motives (constriction), you are unlikely to find a way to way to collaborate with others (openness) to create solutions to problems. When you have been hurt in the past and have not let go of the hurt, or perhaps have not learned how to healthfully protect yourself, you are more likely to approach new experiences out of a fearful (constricted) place. When you constrict out of habit, it limits your capacity to meet new experiences from a creative, adaptive place.
Become an expert observer of your physical experience of openness and constriction. Befriend the wisdom of your body. Often by the time you respond cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally to physical opening and constriction, the opportunity to track them at their physical source is long past. If you want to understand your thoughts, your motivations, and your preferences, then come to know your body’s response on this subtle level. The body often points the way to what is happening in a more direct way than your thoughts do. You just need to learn the language of your body.
The Experience of Openness and Constriction
States of openness are often experienced as pleasurable or positive experiences. States of constriction are often experienced as discomfort or negative experiences. However, this is not always the case.
These are examples of the experience of open states: curiosity, connection, happiness, joy, peaceful, inspired, patient, expansive, moved, generous, tender, excited (can also be constricted), confident, empathic, grateful, and compassionate.
These are examples of the experience of constriction: aversion, rage, weariness, feeling stuck, anxiety, repulsion, anger (can also be open), holding back, shame, confusion, inhibition, fear, suspicion, doubt, embarrassment, annoyance, struggle, and pain.
Again, all of these experiences have physiological correlates. Imagine experiences when you felt one or more of the states listed above. How did you experience these states in your body? As you practice placing awareness on physical states of openness and constriction, you will become clearer on the connection between the physical sensations and the felt experience. You will be able to watch the thoughts and stories that arise from these states. With time, you can learn to positively influence your response to these physical states.
Openness and constriction can be experienced side by side. Have you enjoyed a haunted house in your childhood? Or a roller coaster? There is an experience of excited and anxious anticipation as you round a corner waiting for someone to jump out at you, or as your car pauses at the top of the tracks ready to plummet downward with the force of gravity.
Emotions can be experienced with both openness and constriction. For example, anger is often experienced as aversive (constriction). Yet it can also be an emotion that energizes you to act on your own behalf, like speaking up when you are being treated with disrespect. If handled with skill, anger can lead to an opening and deepening of experience. It can lead to your demanding respect and removing yourself from conditions that don’t serve your well-being. However, when anger causes you to shut down, feel helpless, or to lash out reactively, it perpetuates a constricted experience and does not lead to well-being. You may feel temporary relief at telling someone off or imagining punching them in the nose, but those expressions of anger generally come from internal states of constriction and a limited view of yourself. Those responses keep you small (constricted) internally.
Sadness, like anger, is an emotion that can be experienced both as openness and constriction. Learning to open to any state which arises makes all your experience informative and potentially helpful.
Have you ever belted out a song or danced with abandon believing no one was looking or listening? Then you found out that you were being watched and suddenly felt a little embarrassed? This is an experience of great openness moving into a small constriction. If you felt shame, you experienced a big constriction. Or maybe you were in a large group of people listening to an inspiring speaker and during the question and answer period you were moved to raise your hand (openness). You weren’t chosen right away and as time passed you began to wonder whether your question was a good one and got a little nervous (constriction).
How to Be Skillful with Your Constrictions
While open states are associated to positive feelings and a sense of well-being, constrictions can be adaptive too. For example, it is helpful to avoid a potentially unhealthy or dangerous situation. If you are walking down the street and a dog barks at you, and you don’t know this dog’s signals or sense of safety in the world, it is wise to give the dog space as you walk by. If you witness an escalating argument between two people that is becoming aggressive, it is adaptive to steer clear. If someone who has a history of talking badly about people tries to engage you in conversation about someone, the weariness you feel is helpful information.
Many times, though, we constrict when there is no clear danger. For example, this can happen when you experience negative emotions as so uncomfortable that you push them out of your awareness. The problem with this as a habitual response is that you end up cutting off the experience in order to get away from what is painful or uncomfortable. When you do this, you limit experience by missing the opportunity to explore what is happening and learn from it. You might communicate unconsciously to yourself that you are not safe or that you do not know how to take care of yourself in the situation. You might learn to avoid what feels bad but then miss an opportunity to see how resourceful and adaptive you can be.
It is important not to ignore constrictions but, rather, be curious about them. Ignoring constrictions can lead to acting against your well-being. When things don’t work out well because you didn’t listen to your body’s messages, it is often too late to go back and learn from the wisdom of the body. By ignoring constrictions, they are likely to be expressed as shutting down or reactivity, rather than skillful reflection and action.
There’s a difference between how you consciously notice your constrictions and how they occur in your body. Because they are lightning-fast, they are often not accessible to cognition or language. Still, with practice noticing the experience of constriction that is accessible to your conscious awareness, you will develop insights about yourself; insights that will improve both the quality of your reflections and your capacity to make good decisions and take effective action.
By bringing curiosity to constrictions, they become less aversive. This lets you discover when constrictions contain a source of wisdom, when they come from unwarranted fears, and when they are a combination of the two. By opening to these experiences, you learn to approach challenging situations in novel and adaptive ways.
Tracking the Moment-to-Moment Dance of the Body
Lena came to therapy because she was holding back from taking risks in areas that were important to her. She gave a good deal of thought to things she wanted to do and steps she wanted to take toward her interests, but she had difficulty translating these thoughts into action. Early into our work, in spite of her fears, she stood up for herself at work in a way that surprised her. At her yearly
review, she presented the case to her boss about why she was a good candidate for a new position that required leadership and more responsibility. When her boss spoke candidly about Lena’s tendency to not take initiative (i.e., holding herself back), Lena was able to acknowledge her boss’s concerns while also clearly explaining how she was making strides to be more open and assertive. After this frank and honest dialogue, her boss agreed that Lena was a good candidate for the position.
Following this conversation with her boss Lena came to a psychotherapy session beaming, expansive, and excited (openness). I noticed her glow and enthusiasm and it was contagious (my openness). I commented on how she was glowing and Lena looked away shyly (small constriction). Since speaking on behalf of herself was a relatively new experience for Lena, I asked her to tell me more about it. As she began to talk, she began second-guessing herself, wondering if her boss found her to be too full of herself (doubt-constriction). Here, in the open space of exploration between us, Lena quickly became uncomfortable with her internal state of expansiveness and confidence. She may also have been uncomfortable celebrating herself with me and allowing me to celebrate her. This became the focus of what was happening. Instead of exploring the familiar self-doubt in the face of possibility (which was important but already very familiar to her) I asked her if she could allow this uncertainty, and more importantly, allow the excitement and possibility that had been in the room between us just moments ago. She said, shyly (ever so slight constriction), that she would try (an important opening).
This is a great example because it shows that while openness is associated with positive experiences, it can also lead to constriction when the experience is new and frightening. Even more importantly, it is an example of how allowing the experience of constriction, and opening into it, can actually change the experience of constriction. If Lena had gone down the familiar path of exploring her experience of doubt, she likely would have missed the opportunity to experience firsthand how she could stay with the constriction in her body and open up to a different experience, the kind of new experience she so wanted to welcome into her life.