About a year ago I started noticing the state I wake up into every morning. Not the state of the world or current events – war, corruption, environmental collapse facilitated by an orgy of political and economic opportunism… erm… wait where was I? Oh right. Not the state of the world, but the state of mind that seems to already be up and running before I am. The simplest way to describe it: dread.
The more I notice it, the more I notice how pernicious and insidious it is. In the 15 minutes between waking up and sitting down to meditate, I’ve gotten out of bed, gone to the washroom and started making coffee before realizing that I’m already embroiled in some agitated negotiation with the day, the world, life; my attention fragmented between imagined tasks, projected outcomes, and challenging interactions (read: catastrophising). I’m already feeling panicked and powerless. Somewhere along the way, this has become the norm.
One of the reasons I’ve been so committed to formal meditation first thing in the morning is the aim of setting a positive tone for the day; to “habituate to openness” (as Andrew Holecek aptly defines meditation), before I wander onto the habit trail of reactivity and self-concern. And yet, after all this time, this dread still seems to always get a jump on me.
How did this happen? How did waking up into dread every morning become the default? It happened just like every other habit: with practice.
The dread – the signature of hyper-vigilance trying to assert control to keep ‘me’ safe – is a habit I have unconsciously been practicing for who knows how long. Like a song stuck in my head, it goes about its business, hidden in the noise floor, until all of a sudden it isn’t. But by that point, it’s a habit so well rehearsed that it has become the default activity. It is what I am practising when I don’t even know I am practicing anything.
So I’ve started to bring more curiosity and openness to how I wake up. What thoughts am I first aware of? Do they come with or cause any emotional affect in the body? Or am I driven to thoughts to distract myself from some emotional discomfort already present in the body? And whatever I notice, can I meet it with equanimity, just allow it without any resistance, agenda, or need for it to go away or be other than it is?
As it turns out, sometimes I can. And in those moments, the empty nature of thoughts and sensations shines through like sunlight burning through fog. Other times, when everything is more solid and sticky, the relief might be very subtle and fleeting, but palpable nonetheless. And sometimes, I still get swept up into the old traps before remembering to fold it into my practice – in which case, patience and compassion do the heavy lifting.
Why is it that some mornings are more equanimous than others? What factors might be influencing how I greet the day?
The most obvious one is, of course, the phone. If I get involved with it – checking email, news, or worse: social media – either right before sleep or when I first wake up, I start the day more prone to distraction, confusion, and overwhelm. A more subtle factor: waking up from a disturbing dream. I’ve noticed I can easily get unconsciously drawn into analyzing or trying to figure it out, getting caught in the content while the emotional impact flies under the radar, affecting my mood, thoughts, behaviour, etc. In those cases, it isn’t the disturbance of the dream being imported into waking life that causes the friction, It’s what the newly-assembled self that just woke up does with it: seizes it, tries to explain or contain it.
In both of those cases – phone-use and dream-stickiness – the on-the-spot intervention is simple: bring mindfulness to the behaviour as soon as I recognize that I’m caught in it (or even as soon as I feel the tug towards it), including whatever reactions and ‘second-arrows’ I’m experiencing.
Something I’ve discovered that seems to make a meaningful positive difference in how I wake up into the world: starting my practice before I go to sleep. This might mean actual meditation practice – even just for a few minutes, seated, or lying in bed. But it also seems that just being more mindful as I prepare for bed can have a noticeable impact. Doing the dishes in the sink and cleaning my kitchen counter creates a tidiness in the mind — when I go to bed, but also when I wake up in the morning to a clean kitchen, and one less chore to do.
Maybe most effective: reading something related to practice, even for just 5 or 10 minutes. Lately, the first-person accounts of practitioners working through the fierce demands of intensive retreat – and glimpsing what lies on the other side – as compiled in The Three Pillars of Zen strongly gather my attention and rekindle my affection for practice. I go to bed inspired by the reminder that waking up is possible, now. Call it intention setting, bodhicitta (the aspiration to awaken for the benefit of all beings), or just pressing a thumb on the scales of expectancy bias (which might otherwise lean towards doubt), my sense is that there is a certain momentum that carries through sleep into the morning; I wake up into my practice!
When I get out of bed and walk to the washroom, I just walk to the washroom. When I grind the coffee, I just grind the coffee. My morning meditations tend to have a subtle positive charge – they feel like coming home rather than going to the gym. I’m less distractible, and more equanimous with distraction. There is less of a sense of drivenness, or trying to achieve something, and more of a sense of relaxing into what’s already always present. Most of all, there is a subtle sense of openness and connection – with everyone on the Zoom screen*, everyone in my life, everyone in their lives, and that we are practicing for the benefit of all.
Recognizing this habit of hyper vigilance and dread has been a teacher; a reminder that I’m always practising: either intentionally cultivating mindfulness or unintentionally reinforcing habits. In shifting into that reframing, the distinction between practice and life disappears and the present moment becomes an inexhaustible invitation to wake up.
As practice continues to permeate my life— making its way into daily activities, situations, and interactions — conditioned behaviours that once ran unchecked start to be recognized for what they are. And in that recognition is freedom! Over time, as the more obvious and coarse habits are purified, deeper and more subtle ones are revealed. My best guess is that this is a lifelong project for all of us.
*Kevin hosts a free silent morning drop-in meditation called Morning Bell from
7am – 8am EST daily on zoom (https://zoom.us/j/405959303, passcode: 123456)
Come sit anytime for as much/little as you like!
*****