2023: The Year of Not Doing Something

Every January, I pick up a new mindfulness strengthening practice to do throughout the year. Sometimes I will take on 2 or 3 new practices for the year, if they’re small and relatively easy to implement into my daily or weekly routine. Then, at the end of the year, I set down whatever practice(s) I picked up in January and replace it with a different one. This past year, my practice has been to eat all of my meals with my non-dominant hand.  

Ready to hear about the new practice I plan on starting in January of 2023?! Drum roll please…

Next year I will be engaging in the practice of: Not Doing Something. It was my husband Mike who planted the seed of this idea. He said, “maybe instead of doing something, you can try not doing something.” After some time spent figuring out how to turn his idea into an action plan for myself, here’s what I came up with.

At least once a week, I will practice not doing something that I usually do. Here’s a list of activities I’ve generated for myself to choose from:

1. Don’t listen to music in the car
2. Don’t pass someone in town just to go faster
3. Don’t take a picture
4. Don’t tiddy/arrange/or organize anything at the Open Way Mindfulness Center 
5. Don’t have your MBOC (morning beverage of choice)
6. Don’t avoid North Reserve Street (in Missoula)
7. Don’t look for & choose the shortest line at the market
8. Don’t avoid getting in a line (such as at the bank or post office)
9. Don’t walk your normal quick pace to & through the market
10. Don’t drive the route you would normally take to get somewhere
11. Don’t eat a snack before bed

On Keeping the Practice Fresh

Recently, in a Q&A session that took place here at Deer Park Monastery, a woman asked this question: How do I keep my practice fresh? It was such a good and important question that it inspired me to craft this blog post. 

To help keep my spiritual practice of mindfulness fresh and alive, I:

• Cultivate joy
• Practice gratitude 
• Find ways to be creative
• Try new things
• Remain open to learning
• Keep good company
• Stay close to art & music
• Maintain good boundaries 
• Prioritize self-care
• Engage in random acts of kindness
• Do service work
• Spend time in nature

Cultivate joy. Joy is necessary fuel for being an engaged, present, caring and skillful human in the world. Being an active participant in cultivating the quality of joy in my life is one of the most important things I do that contributes to my felt sense of well-being. 

Practice gratitude. When I don’t create an action-plan for myself when it comes to practicing gratitude, it becomes this distant idea that sounds good but never really lands for me in any real way. I’ve had different practices over the years, such as keeping a gratitude journal and creating a regular check-in with a close friend to share about what we are grateful for. What I do currently, and have been doing for a number of years, is as follows: 1) I say a gratitude verse before eating a meal, typically inwardly to myself. 2) I do three touchings of the earth after my session of sitting meditation every morning, which involves this verse I’ve created for myself, which I say internally: I bow down to the earth, in gratitude for ______. I then fill in the blank with whatever is alive for me in that moment. I do this three times, inserting a different gratitude each time. 

Find ways to be creative. I’m a big fan of bringing creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to my practice. For example: A couple of years ago, I went though a period of a few months where I found it very difficult to do my sitting meditation practice in the mornings. I had a lot of stress on board in my mind/body system and sitting on the cushion often exacerbated it. In order to continue sitting, which I was invested in doing, I made some adjustments to my practice that proved helpful. I greatly shortened my sit time; I would sometimes put on instrumental music to help hold space for & with me during my sit; and I would chose atypical locations around my house to do my sitting practice, such as on the kitchen counter!

Try new things. In order to help keep my practice from growing stale and stagnate, every January I pick up a new mindfulness practice to carry with me through the year, which I then set down at the end of the year, in order to prepare to pick up a new one for the next year. My practice this past year has been to eat all of my meals with my non-dominant hand. (Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post which will reveal my new practice for 2023!)

Remain open to learning. If I ever start thinking I have something down when it comes to my spiritual practice, I take that as a sign that I’m entering a danger zone. Once I think I have it all “figured out,” I’m in trouble. Being a perpetual student, an ongoing learner, helps me not to become dogmatic, bound to present views, or overly attached to things needing to be any certain way, other than as they are. Being open to learning also involves continuing to learn about my own self, and understanding that I am of the nature to change. So what might work for me one day to nourish the quality of freshness within me might not work the next day.

On Affecting Others

When it comes to how what we say and do impacts and affects others, it’s relatively easy to either under-think it or over-think it. We tend to either not care enough about it or care WAY too much. 

Some examples of under-thinking it, include: telling someone they look tired, rather than asking them how they’re doing (and then creating space for them to share honestly with you); rushing in to hug someone you don’t know very well, assuming hugging is a thing they feel comfortable with; taking up a lot of air time in social situations, making it difficult to near impossible for others to speak. Some examples of overthinking it, include: holding your tongue when you genuinely have something to say, for fear of not wanting to upset someone else simply by disagreeing with them; going along with a group activity that you really do not want to be doing, so as not to be the “great disrupter”; refraining from sharing with a close, trusted friend about struggles you’re having, so as not to “bring them down.” 

Imagine for a moment that under-thinking it is the west coast of the United States, and overthinking it is the east coast. A vast amount of area exists in between the two. If we only stay ratcheted to one coast or the other, we miss out on the fact that there’s an entire country to traverse in the middle!

Books I Read in 2022

Pic above: my current books in progress

I decided to keep track of the books I read throughout this past year, so this post is dedicated to my great appreciation of books, and a want to share what I’ve enjoyed reading since January. 

Poetry books I read in 2022

*The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy edited by John Brehm
This one was a re-read, which I do not do often. I really like this collection a lot. 

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

American Primitive by Mary Oliver

*Evidence by Mary Oliver

Dream Work by Mary Oliver

While We’ve Still Got Feet by David Budbill

Nine Horses by Billy Collins

Mayakovsky’s Revolver by Matthew Dickman

You and Yours by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Common Song by Eva Maxwell

**Monument by Natasha Trethewey

New & Selected Poems, v2 by Mary Oliver