Running from the Monkeys

If you ask my kids, they will tell you that I am a worrier. An over-worrier, in fact. In my defense, I think all parents worry from the moment the baby arrives (is the car seat installed properly? is this ear-piercing shriek a sign he needs a fresh diaper or catastrophic illness?) or even before (will she be healthy? how will I make it through the delivery?) It would be nice to think that we all eventually get the hang of this parenting thing and just chill out, but my experience has been that you just move on to different worry-provoking topics.

Recently, I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of experts talking about fear and its impact on our mind. Brene Brown, PhD and author of Rising Strong, refers to it as “dress rehearsing tragedy” which goes something like this: your child was supposed to have been dropped off by their soccer carpool 15 minutes ago, but they’re not home. Clearly, this is because of the rain/accident/car lying in ditch. Or, perhaps the soccer coach made them run laps after practice. It’s frightening how quickly our mind can fabricate tragedy.

Dan Harris, author of 10% Happier, writes about the monkey mind which is another description that works for me. According to this Buddhist idea, your mind is basically filled with drunken monkeys running around (no wonder it’s so dang hard to concentrate!) and the little guy with FEAR written on his cap is definitely the loudest of the bunch. His solution is meditation which I’ll get to down below.

So… why are we talking about this here? Is it just normal? Well, sure I like to think it’s normal, but I’m also determined not to be ruled by emotion every time something goes a tiny bit awry – which is, basically every day in the life of a parent, right? I haven’t mastered this, but I have consciously been working to talk my monkeys down and start dress rehearsing for life, not tragedy. Here are a few strategies that I’ve tried over the past few years:

Embrace it – Don’t discount all fear. In his book The Gift of Fear, author Gavin de Becker reminds us that fear is a survival instinct. If we dismiss all fear, we’re potentially putting ourselves in even more danger. We are supposed to pay attention and rely on our intuition, but this book also shows you how to separate real from imagined fear.

Talk about it – I worry about lots of little things, but my fear has been most amplified during a few specific times when I was experience PTSD from brief, but jarring near-death experiences involving my family. Even if there were no lasting physical effects from these incidents, I was shaken to the core. So I talked about it to a therapist. He encouraged me to talk about it to more people rather than just stuffing it down as I had been. So I did that. And then I wrote about it. First, privately, and I guess more publicly now that I’m mentioning it here on my blog. And then I talked to my doctor who helped determine if there was a chemical imbalance in play. Suffering in silence simply wasn’t working.

Meditate – This is a new practice for me. Truthfully, I am more likely to stay busy than quiet when I am trying to run from the monkeys. And that has worked at times. But meditation comes at this issue from a different angle. Specifically, mindfulness. If we are mindful of all the thoughts coming at us, we have the opportunity to respond rather than react. Subtle, but important distinction. And, while I’m not there yet, the concept is that the mindfulness you develop in meditation will eventually spread to the rest of your day. If you’re interested in giving it a try, there are all kinds of apps that will guide your practice. I’m currently using the free 7-day program from 10% Happier.

What about you? How do you tame the monkeys?