mental health | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The Life-Changing Practice of Meditation

So, a couple of years ago, almost on a whim, my husband Roy and I took an intensive eight week course in Mindfulness at the Oxford Department of Psychiatry! (and at the famous local psychiatric hospital, the Warneford!!)

I didn’t really know what Mindfulness was, but I “knew,” we should do it. You can imagine how annoyed Roy felt!!

As it turned out, it was an amazing course, filled with many new ways of thinking and being. We learned and practiced different meditations such as the body scan, walking meditation, meditations when experiencing difficult things, and mindful movement (i.e. yoga, “yoga is meditation.”) While, unsurprisingly, not many stuck, those that did were life-changing!

I am learning the art of stopping and taking a breath, though the three step breathing space, a four minute meditation. It sometimes feels as if I am too busy, too stressed, too behind, running too late, to stop and take a few minutes to just breathe for heaven’s sake… but doing that settles my mind and then I am so much more effective. In fact, it is a cure for the racing mind, the busy heart, and the slumbering spirit…stop, breathe, calm the mind.

“Sitting meditation” is what I practice most often. Forty minutes, the optimal meditation session, takes you, your mind, body, and spirit to another, generally peaceful and joyful state, and I aim to spend forty minutes a day on meditation, though I do it according to need—sometimes two sets of twenty minutes which some teachers say yields maximum benefits, sometimes four sets of ten minutes which calms me and gives focus before I work, or deal with difficult tasks, thoughts, and emotions.

I found learning meditation so helpful that Roy and I are currently doing a 12 week advanced course in Mindfulness at the Warneford, led by Willem Kuyken, Oxford Professor of Mindfulness; it’s a mind-changing and joyful experience.

So here are some personal benefits I have experienced over the last two years of regular meditation, some of them accidental and unexpected!

1 Better Sleep

I often listen to a guided meditation by Mark Williams or Jon Kabat-Zinn to calm my mind, which usually has a hundred thoughts, questions, and things to resolve. I am calm and sleepy by the end of it and drift off to sleep easily. Meditation for me is a gateway into sleep.

2 Focus and Creativity

I frequently meditate, just for ten minutes, before beginning to write, and it helps focus my mind. It is a brilliant investment of time. I was interested to read that Juval Noah Harari who condensed the history of humanity into Sapiens, 464 bestselling pages meditates for two hours a day, and says he would not have been able to focus on the important themes and events in the morass of world history without the practice of meditation.

If my mind is scattered and distracted, meditating before I settle down to write helps me focus, an essential skill for creative work in this culture in which the internet, with its invitations to distraction, its gratification of idle curiosity, and its addictive dopamine surges make focus more difficult.

3 Weight Loss

This is possibly an accidental benefit, a synergistic, serendipitous connection… though perhaps not. But since I started meditation in May 2017, I have lost 30 pounds, over two stone.

One day, I realised that my Fitbit showed that my weight had dropped for each week I had been meditating, and hypothesized a connection. Then I worked with a health coach, who suggested meditating twice a day for 20 minutes (to lower cortisol, the stress hormone which prevents weight loss) and texting her after each session.

I have now pretty much broken the habit of emotional eating and snacking, and though I have more weight to lose, I am hopeful because your trajectory is more important than where you currently are. And I am trying to eat more mindfully, actually savouring food.

4 Relief of chronic pain

I had crippling, life-affecting pain from sciatica for over a year (and, amazingly, was healed from chronic pain after an Oxford Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery PRAYED for me in church!!!).

I worked with a health coach and got Sports Massages, but then she tried removing the pain without placing her hands on me, but simply by meditating with me… and, lo and behold, it worked.

So I used meditation when pain gripped me. It calmed the mind, it relaxed the body, and, astonishingly, pain left while I focused on my breath. The benefits of meditation for chronic pain have been well-documented by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and in this Atlantic article, for instance.

5 A Pathway into Prayer

For me, meditation is a pathway into prayer. Sometimes, my mind is racing, and my emotions feel turbulent, and I know it would take a long time to settle down to prayer. So I do a ten or twenty minute guided meditation until I am calm enough to enter the presence of Jesus.

I used to calm myself and resolve things through prayer, but prayer for me can be work; it’s conversation; it takes energy, and, at night, it uses the mind which I want to simmer down. Meditation, especially the two practices I use most often, Sitting Meditation, and Lying Down Meditation, calms the mind and body, and creates the necessary conditions for fruitful prayer, which for me happens when I actually “see” the face of Jesus, and am in his presence.

6 Problem-Solving.

I love the “Sitting with Difficulties Meditation.” You get super-calm through breathing, and then face the difficulty…an emotion, task, person or situation. It is a half an hour meditation, and during the course of it, I usually know exactly what I should do about the difficulty, and what the next steps should be. If it is an inter-personal hassle, sometimes I have a better understanding of the person’s behaviour, and more compassion, and forgiveness comes more easily. Sometimes, I just take the difficulty and leave it in God’s hands to do what he wants with it. It functions as a Serenity Prayer, accepting the things I cannot change, and changing the things I can. And it cuts problems down to size. Some annoying situations and random people one can just blow off.

7 Emotional and Mental Health

Meditation helps me calm my emotions, and achieve a (sometimes temporary) serenity from which productivity flows. It gives me space to confront my thoughts and the emotional niggles and dissatisfactions which otherwise would be shoved underground to emerge in a perhaps harmful form. When under stress, a 20 minute guided meditation is a way of checking out, like taking a small boat out to sea, and when I return, I am so much calmer.

Emotional health is not something I have focused on… In my teens and twenties, I focused on my intellectual life, reading, reading, reading; in my thirties and forties, I began to focus on my interior and spiritual life. A health breakdown, almost five years ago, made me begin to take my physical health seriously. And now, I am also trying to be more cognisant of my emotional life, not just interrogating what I think about people, situations, projects, commitments, holiday destinations, but also what I feel about them, for emotions, the iceberg beneath the surface, control more of our actions and behaviour than we realise. Our intuition and emotions carry a lot of wisdom, for perhaps the heart, the gut, the unconscious is smarter than our thinking mind.

8 Connecting with the Body

Meditation is teaching me to reconnect with the body, and its wisdom and signals. Hey, Anita, your stomach is tightening, your breath is constricting, be careful of this person, this situation, this commitment, this demand. Hey Anita, your heart is beating faster, your mind is racing. Stop. Meditate. Slow down. Slow down.

Thoughts create actual molecules in our bodies, raising levels of stress hormones like cortisol or adrenaline, bonding hormones like oxytocin, or “happy chemicals” like the neurotransmitters serotonin or dopamine. Just as bodily tension or pain stresses the mind, the mind causes psychosomatic physical pain and tension. Meditation calms both mind and body, increasing both physical and mental health and productivity through the power of the mind.

9 Learning to be Present

This is something I am beginning to learn, but the practice of paying attention, though practices like the body scan teaches me to come into my body and just be present… for instance, when I am physically uncomfortable or bored in Yoga class, or in social or group situations. It is so rare in our distracted age to either listen or be listened to with full attention that increasingly people pay therapists big bucks to do just that. The practice of meditation is helping me learn to be really present, and really listen to people with my full attention, and, of course, when you do that you learn far more than what they saying, for, unless you are dealing with a practised con-person, the eyes, face, and body speak their own language.

How can you learn to meditate?

I went to classes. However, if you need to learn promptly or haven’t the time or finance right now, I’d suggest

Mark Williams’ wonderful book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World which has a meditation CD included, on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

Or Jon Kabat-Zinn’s great and encyclopaedic book Full Catastrophe Living on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Or Jon Kabat-Zinn’s magisterial meditation CDs on Amazon.com or on Amazon.co.uk

Homo Sapiens and Homo Stupidus: On Giftedness and its Price

By Anita Mathias

I live-blogged in Cambodia recently, fund-raising for a charity. We were to be accompanied by a “Christian celebrity” who had promised to do national talks on her return. The posters had been printed.

Well, she was not at Heathrow. Among several possible forms of ID, she sent off her passport to get her driver’s licence renewed. Had not paid for expedited processing. So no passport. So despite the charity having paid for her (and ours) ticket, hotel etc., despite extensive logistical planning on the part of charities in Cambodia, she couldn’t fly out!

* * *

Hmm! Clever, successful, achieving, experienced people can do stupid things. It’s part of being human, these flashes of stupidity.

The scientific name for man is “homo sapiens,” literally “wise man.” Our wisdom supposedly distinguishes us from the animals.

However, Linnaeus who first used binomial nomenclature (and whose garden in Uppsala we’ve visited) could just as well have called us homo stupidus, “man the stupid,” for animals are never stupid. They act out of an unwavering instinct for self-preservation, common sense if you like. And their instincts are more reliable than our reason.

* * *

I was surprised at Heathrow. So other adults, sensible, intelligent, achieving adults make such mistakes?

I would have had a disproportionate reaction if it were me—would have felt crushed by shame and guilt and sorrow. I hate to mess up, especially when it messes others up.

Ah, I would show myself and my family grace for occasional flashes of stupidity, I resolved.

Practising… Practising…

* * *

My teenagers, Zoe and Irene, were to fly out to India on the 30^th July to stay with my mother.

At midnight on the 29^th, the witching hour when one is tempted to throw things, Roy asked, “Don’t they need visas to visit India?”

They didn’t have them.

To my credit, I didn’t throw a thing. Didn’t even say a cross word. Getting visas didn’t cross his mind, Roy said, though he bought their tickets for them, and went personally to get their visas for their last two visits. How can you blame someone for something that did not cross their minds? Especially when it didn’t cross yours.

They did not fly out. We changed the tickets, and paid a penalty. Ouch!!

* * *

We are homo sapiens and homo stupidus at the same time. They are both equally part of our nature.

As The Book of Job commences, Job has everything: ten children, and thousands of oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels and servants. Then in his Great Depression, he lost everything, even his health.

His wife crumbles. “Curse God and die,” she says.

But Job says, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?’The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Shall we accept gifts from the Lord, and not the liabilities that are the shadow side of those very gifts?

* * *

The fact that we had overlooked getting visas was, ironically, linked to our strengths, our intensity. We got the tickets to India, got tickets to Helsinki, got tickets to David’s Tent, a Christian worship festival, and then, summer logistics done, (we thought!) turned our thoughts to other things: writing, for me; creating new garden beds and worrying about our family business for Roy.

The intensity caused the forgetfulness.

* * *

Our marital counselling included a DISC assessment (which showed that Roy and I had diametrically opposed personalities, each on the far ends of the graph) and a psychologist administered IQ test. Both of us had IQ in the “superior” range, in the top 5% of the population. (My verbal IQ was significantly higher than my non-verbal IQ. Which explains why I might get lost on my way to your house, or my cooking can be erratic.)

Anyway, the pastor looked at the scores, and said, “Anita, you are the most gifted person I have every counselled.” (And I looked gloatingly at Roy–God forgive me, so I did!)

The pastor’s wife was doing a Ph.D in gifted and talented education, and he lent me a book on giftedness. Part of giftedness, I read, is intensity: your mind works a little faster; you get impatient with slow-moving, frivolous conversations; small talk bores you; you cut to the chase. Waste of time or money, stupidity or folly can feel like a crisis.

When gifted people marry other gifted people, life can be “crisis squared.” Factor in the gifted children who’ll likely result and family life can be “crisis cubed,” they said. In our case, “crisis quadrupled!”

High IQ makes academic work easier. It’s easier to assess, absorb, collate and retrieve information rapidly, abilities which are the foundations of academic success. And these traits are assets in starting a business from scratch, I discovered.

However I also have a higher degree of forgetfulness when it comes to things my reticular activating system has pegged as irrelevant—my mobile number, say, or driving directions, or transferring the laundry to the dryer…

* * *

My husband once stayed with a fellow mathematician in Tuscon while at a conference. A fellow guest was the legendary Hungarian mathematician Erdos (who has written so many papers that every mathematician has an Erdos number. If you’ve written a paper with Erdoz, you have an Erdos number of 1. If you written it with an Erdos collaborator you are Erdos 2. Roy is Erdos 3).

The phone rang at breakfast. It was the neighbour. “Do you have a mathematician staying with you? I have him here.”

Erdos had gone on a morning walk, wandered into the nearest big house, located the coffee maker, made coffee, then settled down at the table, scribbling formulae, not noticing his different surroundings at all.

The abstraction, homo stupidus behaviour, was the shadow side of his genius.

* * *

The shadow side and difficulties of giftedness is particularly pronounced in school. When I was nine, in my first year at boarding school, I was reading the books in the cupboards for 16 year olds. Sister Josephine, the senior school English teacher, read my essays out to the seniors, I was often told.

However–though I had skipped grades and had been put with the 10 year olds– physically, emotionally and spiritually, I was nine, probably younger, because I had concentrated my energies on reading everything I could get my hands on.

All this made my life turbulent.

* * *

In Baudelaire’s famous poem about the albatross, the very wings which help it soar effortlessly make it ridiculous when captured by mariners who make it waddle on deck, where its giant wings hinder its walk

The same IQ which was an asset at Oxford University or graduate school often made me feel restless in Bible study and sometimes in church. I moved from small group to small group, and church to church in my first years as a Christian, seeking something focused, meaty, fast-paced and intense.

“You will have to remember that in an average group of 20 people, you may well the smartest person,” the pastor explained, looking at my scores. I stared. I had grumbled to him about a fluffy, vapid Bible study. Yes, that explained my occasional restlessness and irritation during group Bible study, and boredom during sermons.

I realised then that the purpose of church and small groups was not to stretch my brain, but a far more important organ: my heart. To become a student of the people in the group as much as the Word, to learn to love. The purpose of church was not intellectual stimulation, but to worship God in the anonymous great democracy of the faithful–on earth as it will be in heaven.

* * *

Giftedness is a double-edged sword. Our whole personality leans that way. If our gift is composing or writing or painting, and we do not do it, we feel as psychically crippled as if we were trying to function without an arm or a leg.

However, if we develop our gifts single-mindedly, there will be a price. In the phrase of Greg McKeown of Essentialism, we might not “protect the asset” that enables us to exercise the gift—i.e. our selves. We might pursue our gift at the expense of sleep or exercise or rest, thus affecting our physical health. We might pursue it at the expense of time with family, friends, or paying attention to the inner river of our emotional life . We might pursue it at the expense of our spiritual life.

The personal lives of many gifted people betray the scars of having pursued their gifts, or their career, at the expense of their physical, mental, emotional or spiritual health and their relationships.

* * *

I don’t want to do this. I want to protect the asset—become physically strong (which I am not, though I am “healthy” as defined by the absence of disease or meds). I want to have good relationships with my family and friends. I want to be healthy, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

If we led a balanced life, got our sleep and exercise, spent time with family and friends, spent time with God, kept our homes and lives orderly, would we have enough time to make our gifts shine?

Would I have less time to write? In the short run, yes! Balance means we will have less time to nurture our gifts and passions.

In the long run, not necessarily! We might instead burn brightly, though not dazzlingly, throughout our lives, instead of burning out.

* * *

Fortunately, there are ways to be healthy and balanced and still exercise your gift.

A Do-Not-Do list is one. Mine is extensive, and helps provides fallow time to “sit and stare.”

Part of it: No recreational shopping. I don’t clean (we hire someone); we outsource all handy-man type jobs and heavy-duty garden jobs (though I do garden every day). I outsource all techie blog maintenance. I don’t watch TV. I get together with people twice a week, but am picky about social life, preferring encounters which offer meaningful conversation. Essentially, I try to eliminate trivia, to leave room for what interests me.

* * *

Giftedness is fire which can scorch or destroy its possessor, if not well-managed. And it’s fire which can warm, illuminate and comfort many if wisely managed.

How manage it? Surrender it to God, place the gift in the hands of the Giver, seek his wisdom on how to use it, so that your gifts become gifts to you and the world, fire that will light, warm and comfort, not burn and destroy.

Have you ever been Homo Stupidus? Tell me your stories.

Jesus, Positive Thinking, and Mental Health

By Anita Mathias

Mental health, like physical health, is on a continuum. When someone totally loses it, and is obviously “mad” enough to be sectioned, we say they’ve lost touch with reality.

But how few of us see reality as it really is. With a God’s eye view. As Jesus taught us to see it.

If we could train ourselves to see and think the way Jesus taught us to, what splendid mental health we’d have!!

* * *

Jesus’s teaching was strikingly positive. And here are a few ways I am trying to train myself to think the way Jesus taught us to. And better mental health will be a fringe benefit of this.

1 He taught us not to be afraid.

“Do not be afraid,” echoes through the Gospels. Most of our fears never come to pass. And even when our anxious minds help produce the very thing we most dread, God’s help is available to help us deal with it.

There is a difference between prudence (adjusting one’s actions because an adverse outcome is very probable), and fear: irrational dread!

2 Jesus told us not to worry about anything at all.

What a splendid recipe for mental health, freeing us from circular and literally sickening worry. Worry is particularly unproductive, because most of our worries (like most of our fears) don’t come to pass, and, again, God’s help is available in our worst case scenarios.

3 Jesus advises us not to judge.

Judging is like deciding on 360 degrees of someone’s personality based on 10 degrees of information. It leads to a shrivelling of the heart, of emotional intelligence, and of our life-experience because of the habit of rapidly writing people off.

And when in obedience to Jesus, we refuse to judge, but instead remain open, we learn, we learn, we learn!

4 Another startling bit of advice Jesus gives is forgiving if you have aught against any. How sweeping.

When specific grievances surface in my conscious mind, I attempt to dissolve them by thanking God for the good things about the person, by praying for the person as whole-heartedly as I can, and by praying for grace to turn the acid and claws of my feelings towards that person into sweetness.

Any hatred–towards nations, for instance–is as harmful to our mental and emotional health as hated of individuals. I recently talked to a Christian man who was consumed, to the point of mild insanity, with his hatred of the US and the harm its foreign policy has done. Releasing aught against any would require him to release his hatred of the US—not for the sake of the US, but for his own sake.

I similarly know two American Christian men who are consumed by their hatred and dislike of Barack Obama. Gosh, I have never witnessed such hatred towards a politician as many American Christian nurture towards Obama. If I hated Obama as much as these two friends of mine appear to, I would need to “forgive” him before I stood praying to keep the waterfall of grace between me and God flowing and unclogged.

Far-fetched? I remember Catherine Marshall saying she had to forgive Henry VIII for his desecration of monasteries as part of her releasing aught against any.

5 Another instruction of Jesus which is greatly conducive to mental health is “Do not let your hearts be troubled; neither let them be afraid. Trust in the Father, trust also in me.”

* * *

So many of Paul’s precepts are about following Christ in the secret place of the thoughts.

Rejoice always; in everything give thanks. Believe everything works out for good.

Paul’s life was full of extreme pressures—both glorious preaching, miracles and influence, and imprisonment, solitary confinement, floggings, slander, and disgrace.

The mental health and strength he cultivated in the secret places of his heart kept him sane, productive and creative in the very direst places of his life, such as the dreadful Mamertine Dungeon from which he wrote his most joyful and inspiring letters.

Ah, obeying what Jesus taught us as literally as we can! Mental health flows from it, and creativity too!

anita.mathias