Puppy Mind
Not long ago I received back-to-back bad news. Someone I deeply loved had suddenly passed away and another dear person in my life fell ill to cancer. A double whammy.
As the days passed I found it hard to still my thoughts and center my focus. I was jumpy and frantic, like I had had four cups of black coffee on an empty stomach. But I hadn’t. The only thing that was sparking my nerves was the bad news and worry about more bad things happening. My mind whizzed as I wondered when the next shoe would drop? It felt like it was raining shoes.
To bring some relief to my thoughts, I called up the practice of Mindfulness—a modern mental panacea based on ancient traditions of stilling the mind. According to the practice, our minds can be healed and restored by bringing them consistently back into the present moment. The discipline requires that we attend to just the moment we are in and nothing else. Regrets from the past and worries about the future can fall away when we draw ourselves into the now.
When undisciplined, our minds are like young dogs, bouncy, fast and prone to chew on things they shouldn’t. When we are in Puppy-Mind, we tend to ruminate on past hurts, worry about things that haven’t happened yet and generally find ourselves quite mindlessly at the mercy of our thoughts which are often based on fear rather than on fact.
The best thing to do with a puppy-mind is to be intentional and observe the limits you are willing to allow your mind to go. For instance, with a new puppy, most owners will establish limits about where the puppy sleeps, eats, plays and poops. In fact, new puppies will also go to puppy classes to learn to obey their owners, stay safe and be a good friend to other dogs and the family they live in. By doing this, the puppy knows what to do and how to do it to stay safe and have fun.
These are important things to do with our thoughts as well. While we buy leashes, crates, fences and chew toys for our pets, we won’t often do this for ourselves. Current research on the prevalence of anxiety and depression in our culture is evidence of this.
Mindfulness is one way to help tame Puppy Mind.
The frightened mind, though wild, can still only hold one thought at a time. That’s it. All other thoughts (read: worry-thoughts, sad-thoughts, etc.) must wait their turn. So, by telling our minds what to think about moment by moment, we can control the flow of thoughts and cut down on the negative ones and even alter our mood. But like dog obedience school, it takes practice.
Dog Beach: Mindfulness
After I received the back-to-back bad news, I took myself to a place that helps me feel calm, the dog beach. With Bella, the pup by my side, I walked down to the surf where dogs were running and playing with their owners. It was lovely.
Initially, just being at the beach helped calm my nerves. But after several minutes, my thoughts started to stir again and I could feel the rain of bad-news-shoes starting to build in my head.
I noticed that my heart began to thump loudly when the worry-thoughts kicked back in. My body and mind fell into sync with each other—fear-based thoughts created tension in me and in response, my heart jumped into high gear. The faster my heart raced, the more fearful my thoughts became. Nothing in my surroundings had changed, just the dance inside my head. And none of it was based on fact, it was just a feedback loop between my thoughts and my body.
So, I decided to put my mind on the leash of the present moment. Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself to exactly what was happening and how it felt in my body, second by second, as I walked along.
I said, Ground yourself, Cindy. That’s the first step. Just notice where you are, feel your feet on the wet firm sand as you walk. Feel the chilled winter air on your face, hear the roll of the waves and watch the have fun. Be here now. The rest will come later.
Once the mindfulness of the moment clicked in, I found myself following all sorts of things in the present moment. The seagulls swooping and swaying across the sky held my attention for a few minutes. Then, three small dogs giving chase in a wide and barking circle around their owner caught my eye. I marveled at how two of them leaped into the waves to catch each other but one would dodge the water altogether. Off in the distance I could see the dark outline of a group of surfers poised on the flat water waiting for waves to roll in. I studied their position and watched them bounce on the sway of the Pacific water for five full minutes.
I took it all in, second by second: the sight, sound, smell and feel of the dog beach. And while five minutes wasn’t that long, it was long enough.
When I pulled my attention back to my body, the wild nature of my earlier thought patterns had disappeared. My breathing had naturally slowed down; I could feel my heartbeat soften and a sense of well-being took over. Taking in my beach experience moment by moment had become like a metronome for my soul. My whole system had taken on a peaceful rhythm and I felt safe.
Mind Math: More Than One Way To Interpret Bad News
While I was working to tame my Puppy-Mind that day, it often wanted to run off and make up stories about things outside of my beach experience. It wanted me to constantly revisit my worry about more bad things happening and chew on possible future catastrophes. (Let’s just say I have a well-worn path in my mind about the fear of what might go wrong). Some of this is based in actual facts from my past, but the rest of it is based on nothing more than habit and biology.
The amygdala in our brains (the part of our brains that detect threat and try to keep us safe) is pretty active. When we have traumatic experiences, it gets even more active at threat detecting. It’s a warning system. The more real or imagined threats, the harder this little part must work to warn us about all possible dangers (biology). The problem is the brain can’t tell the difference between actual danger and just thoughts about danger. In both cases, the amygdala sends a cascade of signals and chemicals to the body to prepare it to fight, flight or freeze in response to the threat. So, a traumatized, fearful mind is almost always in a state of panic and ready for an emergency—it’s called hyper-vigilance.
In my case, receiving bad news was a signal to my brain to brace for impact; more bad news was likely on the way. Like I said, I’ve have some real life bad experiences (traumas) so my brain is pulling from past experiences, quickly adding up the details, and producing needed defenses to keep me safe—adrenaline and cortisol to fight or flee from these threats. It’s doing its job. My brain (out of habit) almost always braces for an emergency, even when none is present. This is what we call a Post Traumatic Stress Response.
If receiving bad news was a math equation my mind completes the equation like this:
Bad News = More Bad News (brace for impact)
But there’s more than one way to interpret bad news:
Bad News = Gratitude for Things That are Still Good
Bad News = Urge to Help Those Affected by Bad News
Bad News = Grief, Sadness and Loss
Given my mind’s tendency to brace for impact (catastrophize), unless I put my fear-prone brain on a leash and tell it what to do (mindfulness), my brain will auto-complete the Bad News = More Bad News equation every time and I will be a bundle of nerves.
Essentially, my brain makes automatic thinking mistakes and defaults to the worst possible scenario. And what that looks like is how we started this discussion earlier: I feel jumpy, frantic and over-caffeinated. If you’ve ever had a panic attack or been in a situation (real or imagined) where you felt overwhelmed and scared, you know what I’m talking about.
With mindfulness I’ve been able to slow down my brain’s threat detector and stop the mindless cascade of danger signals. I sleep better, fell more balanced and can choose which narrative to follow when bad news comes my way.
Puppy Mind can be tricky, but when we put a leash on our thoughts, train them where to go and what to chew on, and crate them up in the present moment, we have a shot at feeling better. With time and practice I was able to build a muscle for more mindfulness with my daily thoughts.
My puppy mind is learning to obey. How’s your puppy mind doing? Give me a call and maybe we can work together on some new tricks together.
Cindy Finch, LCSW
507-319-9348
www.cindyfinch.com
