I overheard some women talking in a café. They were swapping stories about their neighbors. Apparently one of the women has a neighbor, as she described it, with “a slight case of obsessive-compulsive disorder”… “She keeps her yard immaculate”. She continued to say. “I actually like her obsessiveness though, I mean her yard is perfect… while my other neighbor never tends to her yard at all, I wish she were a little more obsessive.” Her café friend responded, “ Yes I wish I had a little OCD myself, think of all I would accomplish”.
My heart sank a little at the familiar perspective that being obsessive and compulsive is actually something we WANT for ourselves (and our neighbors) because it motivates us to do a really REALLY good job at…. whatever we have on our to do lists.
Do we have to be obsessive and compulsive in order to…..-take care of our yard, -clean our house, -complete our projects at work, -find the right mate, -eat well, -be on time, -return emails, -xyz….. fill in your own blank_____.
Do we really have to watch ourselves like a guard dog who is ready to bite? Do we have to note our every move, waiting for our next screw up so that we can pounce on ourselves?
When I heard these women wishing for obsessive-compulsive disorder for themselves (and their neighbors) I began thinking, “Is it compulsion and guard dogs that we really need to keep us in line? Or is there a deeper motivation that comes from something else? Like maybe our own true desire and basic goodness?”
What I have seen is that for most of us, the growl of the guard dog or the repetition of our obsession is so loud and constant that we can’t really hear the calling of our basic goodness.
I am certainly no stranger to guard dogs, in fact I’ve know these so called “ motivational tools” in just about every shape and size. I’ve stayed up all night obsessing and trying to appease that dog. Searching for scraps of meat to toss his/her way, anything to placate him/her so I can just GO BACK TO SLEEP! I’ve spent entire days (really fun days, with really fun things happening) in negotiations with that guard dog.
Luckily this story has a happy ending. Well mostly happy (mindfulness is NOT a miracle cure for all that ails us). But mindfulness sure did come through for me where this guard dog is concerned. It was through the process of watching my mind, sensing my body and honestly feeling my emotions that I came to see that damn dog wasn’t actually helping. In fact it was stealing away all the joy I had just worked my butt off to get to.
Why do we believe the dog so often? Well, I have asked many people and they have all said something to the tune of, “That “dog” motivates me, without it, I would NEVER DO ANYTHING”. Sound familiar?
Mindfulness has shown me two things about this dog:
First, it’s a scam, I WILL DO _____ (you fill in the blank), without that dog motivating me. Underneath all that growling is actually a very heartfelt desire to _____ (you fill in the blank).
Second, when growls are the motivations, the “big prize” never really comes. Why not? The dog doesn’t know when to stop. It just keeps on playing the same tune “Gggrrrrr” and there you are at THE BIG MOMENT, the thing you’ve been pushing yourself to do and then – CHOMP! – it gets stolen away.
Try it for yourself:
1. Listen for the real story: Go back to a memory in which you were being barked at by an internal guard dog. Use mindfulness, non-judgmental awareness, to inquire into what that guard dog was saying to you at that time of this memory. What did it feel like in your body? What emotions did the memory bring with it?
2. Compare the stories: Can you look more deeply into that memory to see what was actually happening. Sometimes this is hard to discern if you are, like I was, very used to believing the dog. But see if you can… What was the dog’s story and what was the real story. Use this exercise to feel how different these two stories usually are.
3. Find your deeper motivation: What was your heart-felt motivation for this project? Maybe it was excitement, love for that task or subject, a desire to make a contribution, ___ you fill in the blank___. Once you get in touch with this heartfelt motivation, hang out there for a few minutes, breath into it, feel it, come to know it a little. Can you feel how that love, passion or excitement is an even stronger internal guide then growls?
_________________________________________________________
It is not always easy to see this mind habit right away, however with mindfulness your basic goodness can earn a front row seat and the guard dog can be sent out to the dog house with no indoor privileges.
And you know what… after all these years of mindfulness practice the damn dog got the better of me just recently. Caught me totally by surprise while I was at a dinner party… Like I said mindfulness is not a cure-all, sometimes our “old ghosts” (or dogs) still come round, but returning home to meditate and “stare down that dog” definitely did help me that evening.
I’m sure you have your own stories, and maybe on reflection some of them are even a little funny (and on reflection some of them are not). Share them with us if you’d like. Post a guard dog story in the comment section of the blog site.
Hi Shinehah!
Yes the story of the dinner party… had to edit it out to keep the post short… What happened? Well I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt an old feeling of “something is wrong”, when really it wasn’t at all. I was inexplicably self conscious. I was missing the moment of connection.
As I left the party I felt relieved to be going instead of sorry to see it end. The days are so buys and they become weeks full of doing and a moment to sit and connect with others becomes more and more rare and I was missing it because I was caught in my head and caught in “the dog house with roofus”.
I came home and wished it had all been different. I dragged myself to my meditation cushion and it was all I could do to just sit there with all the feelings of embarrassment, wrongness and wishing for it to be otherwise. It was really interesting to see all those feelings that first night and to slowly watch the evolution of the feelings over several nights of meditation. A week or so after the dinner party I sat on my cushion and realized that a hard knot of self judgement had been replaced with self compassion. I felt a genuine tenderness to the overwhelm and self consciousness and general expectations I can unknowingly keep for myself that created the whole dinner part experience in the first place.
What began with a serious wish to “meditate my way out of self-consciousness” evolved into real care for the pile of things on my plate that led to the evening in the first place… and evening that was… well let’s just say, not as fun as it could have been.
p.s. I love your way of using a dog image too. And very different kind of dog image. Not a growling and disapproving dog but instead a playful, whimsical and creative creature! That dog sounds like someone I WOULD want to hang out with. But my growling dog, no thanks!
peace to you!!!!!
R
Hi Rebecca!
I love seeing your blog. I get to spend time with you in this way at least! I like this post. I am left wondering why you don’t share a story of your own, like what happened at that dinner party anyway? That’s the juicy part– the personal story. 🙂
I’m asking for yours, I won’t hold back mine:
There must be a reason this came to me today. I just got home from working 10 hours straight. Not because I was required to by my job, but because I wanted a report to look good, I wanted it to be meaningful and helpful to the people reading it. I wanted to have a product from all of my labors to send out into the world. As the sun set outside my office window, I yearned for the walk on the beach I could have had rather than the aching shoulders from sitting a the computer all day. But there is a gratification that comes from having created something meaningful. With all that I have committed to in my life, I am running around “do”-ing the things that are meaningful to me so much so that I just skim the surface on a lot. I am not willing to give up all of the things that I am doing. Just because I am skimming the surface on multiple things doesn’t mean I’m not living richly.
Now, I get home and there is an art project waiting for me. Something that I really want to do. It’s inspired by a call to artists, and the submission deadline is two days away. I really want to do this project. And I am working fulltime in the meantime. The thought that I could stay up all night like I did in college and come out with something brilliant and beautiful, and use coffee to function at work the next day crosses my mind. I wouldn’t even need coffee to stay up doing the art, because I love it. I quit drinking coffee a year ago and I don’t want to go back.
And why am I writing to this blog when I could be spending the time doing the art? Because many things this week have been calling me to examine my motives this week. I have been used to saying that I work best under a deadline. It has proven true so far. Most of my best work has been done the night before a deadline.
I am hesitating on the artwork because I have not been able to get out of the mindframe of wanting to have a product in time for the submission. Yes, it gets me to sit at my desk and actually do what I love to do, but it is driven by my ego. There, I said it. This compulsion, this dog that you are talking about, I translate as ego.
I want to let my heart do the art, rather than my ego.
Now, the reason I worked so many hours today at work? Because it took me about 7 hours of wrestling with my ego, trying to make my report look nice to what I thought was someone else’s eyes, in order to get that what I really wanted to do was just present all of the data in a beautiful way. After 7 hours, it started flowing, and I wasn’t about to stop the flow when 8 hours had passed. Once things start to look beautiful, I don’t want to stop.
Another thing (Sorry this is like a blog inside of a blog!) A friend of mine had a dream that we each had huge pet dogs that we brought together to play. We are both artists and we decided that our “dogs” are our artists within. so now when we correspond we ask each other how our dogs are doing. Our dogs, they like to play, and they also like to have an influence on our lives, and we appreciate what they bring to our worlds. We need to feed our dogs and exercise them.