The Practice of Practice

If you really want to get good at something, everyone knows it takes practice. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There are no quick fixes. Real change requires real change. Making a difference requires us to do something different. There isn’t a switch that will change the track or path in a different direction because going in a new direction requires paying a bit of attention to where we’re going so we can stay on the new path. Lately I’ve been saying it a lot: “It really works when you do it.” This is so true, because for most of us, habits and unuseful patterns are ingrained in us, and to really change something requires us to keep laying down a new pattern. It takes practice.

This is the practice of practice. Getting good at something requires repetition. Learning to play an instrument or a new language requires us to practice it over and over again. Our human nervous system learns by observing something and then doing it over and over again. Think of a child learning to walk. They need support and fall down many times before they get it. This is because their neurons are finding different and new pathways to achieve new and more evolved actions. This is true for anything we do. If we keep reinforcing old patterns of thoughts and behavior we stay stuck, rehashing old habits that no longer serve us. If we want to change, grow, evolve, heal, and transform, we need to reinforce new and healthier pathways.

I recently spoke to a patient who has taken my masterclass. She’s been a stellar student, learned a ton, healed and transformed her relationship with herself and the world around her. She had these successes because she did the work and practiced it over time. She kept it going over many months and experienced amazing integration of her mind, body, and spirit and was feeling better on many levels. But when I spoke to her recently, she talked about some anxiety that she was experiencing and her therapist had suggested an approach that involved watching an image on a screen to help her with her anxiety.  Now to be fair, it's possible that this type of product and therapy can help. But I would like to suggest that anything external is not going to fix what is internal because we need to be agents of our own change, and of our own Self.

When I asked her if she was applying what she had learned in the course she said, “Not like I was before”. In this case, the reason her anxiety had returned was because she had stopped using the skills that she had learned that had helped her so much. What she really needed, rather than an external device to rewire her nervous system, was to keep practicing what she had already learned. It was really helping her when she was using the method but stopped working when she fell back into her old habits. The more we practice, the better we get at something. The more we practice something that’s good for us, the more it integrates and becomes a part of us, becomes automatic. It really works when you do it. And it’s not like we’re ever really done because living fully requires daily practice. It doesn’t take a lot of time, because once you get the hang of it, it gets easier and easier. But we do need to practice regularly to keep playing the instrument of our whole selves fully.

There’s a lot of talk out there about “rewiring your nervous system” and “vagus nerve techniques.” This is something that can totally happen but no one or no thing can really do it for us. A device can’t do it for us. A therapist can’t do it for us. Tapping on or moving a part of our body won’t do it either, at least not for long. These things might help a bit here and there but ultimately, nothing outside of us can really rewire our nervous system because our nervous system is inside us. Our body is the vehicle and when we can center ourselves and get in the driver’s seat, we can have control of our own nervous system. And really getting in the driver’s seat, learning to use our attention in healthy ways, and staying centered in ourselves is the magic ingredient for true transformation. 

Being centered in ourselves is actually a normal and natural state for human beings. When we get out of our head and our thoughts and “drop in” to our body the way it was designed to be lived in, our nervous system calms, our body’s inner healing capacity can do its thing, and our inner wisdom and creativity are more accessible. Being centered connects us to our whole self, to our wholeness, and it feels good. The wiring and parts are all in there just waiting for us to become centered and embodied once again. If something isn’t feeling right, it’s your body reminding you to get back in the driver's seat and center yourself. 

Why? Because real change happens through daily practice. How we’re feeling depends on what we’re doing with our attention in the moment. This is the practice of practice. When I reminded my patient that she’s already learned everything she needs to control her anxiety, the lightbulb went back on. I reminded her that what she learned in my course only works if she does it, and especially when something doesn’t feel right. When things don’t feel as good as they should, it's a reminder to do our practice. And just like anything, the more you do it, the easier it gets. And then the real beauty is, the more automatic it becomes. 

This reminds me of another patient story. This person was an expert and teacher in yoga. He told me how wonderful he felt because he was spending hours each morning doing a yoga practice and meditation and had experienced states of bliss and immense fulfillment. But then he asked me if I had any tips to help him with his blood pressure. I was confused. Why does this guy doing this amazing daily morning practice have high blood pressure?? So I asked about stress in his life. Pretty soon he admitted, “Well, I do get mad waiting in line at the bank”. Bingo. What I realized in this moment, and this was another big lesson that I learned from a patient, was that if he wanted his blood pressure to get better, he needed to bring the success of his meditation and yoga practice into his everyday life. He needed to learn to keep the feeling of serenity he felt during his practice and feel it throughout the day. To bring the bliss and fulfillment into his daily life. Like I said, it only works if you do it. 

This is an example of what happens when we pay too much attention to the stuff on the outside and forget about the inside. It takes us off-center. When we think about or pay too much attention to something outside us, it takes us away from ourselves.  And we do it out of habit. No one loves that their attention is hijacked by the needs of all of this external stuff. It's just a habit. And so is thinking we need something outside of us or someone else to fix us. We don’t need something outside of us to feel ok. We have everything we need to help ourselves on many levels. It’s all inside us and we just need a bit of guidance and most importantly, practice.

I should be honest here, I make it sound like this whole thing was easy for me to figure out. It wasn’t. This concept of the practice of practice is something that I’ve discovered over time. Over my entire medical career, actually. And it’s really because I wanted to feel better in myself. I wanted to feel better and better more of the time. When I learned something about the mind-body connection that made me feel good, I wanted to figure out how to keep it going. I got hooked on the feeling of calm and peace in my body. I call it a healthy “addiction”. Over time, it’s become a craving, a dependency on feeling good, moment to moment. And in my opinion, it's way better than ice cream.

Sound impossible? It's not. But it only works when you do it. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. It is the practice of getting centered in ourselves and using our mind-body connection to stop thinking so much and allow ourselves to feel, to get out of our heads and into the moment, to feel settled and calm in our own body, and to connect with our whole self. Our body is an instrument, and to play it well and create a beautiful experience in our lives, we need to do a bit of practice every day. When we do this, everything starts to work better because those neurons are making healthy connections. When we do this, we’re healing, transforming, evolving. 

What I’ve discovered, and perhaps this is the most amazing thing, is that when we do this, everything starts to work better. This is because everything is working together. When things are disconnected, we feel disconnected. When we get in our driver’s seat, centered in our body, our nervous system breathes a huge sigh of relief because we’re making connections with the connections that are already there. This kind of practice connects us to our wholeness. It connects us to that thing that it feels like we’re missing. What’s missing is our wholeness and our whole self.

What continues to amaze me is the amazing things that happen when the people I work with practice this work in their daily lives. One person finally felt free of her need to go shopping because when she does this practice, it feels like she has everything she needs and doesn’t need to go looking elsewhere. Another fixed his panic attacks and anxiety. Another told me that she notices when she takes a walk and uses her awareness to center herself in her body, her gait changes and becomes more smooth, the tension in her body shifts, and her pain dissipates. Our body is an instrument. It's a vessel for our whole self. As we learn to settle into ourselves, we allow all of our parts to work together, it's like a symphony. There’s resonance, beauty, and fulfillment. 

Speaking of walking. I like to call this kind of practice “walking meditation”. There are various definitions and methods for walking meditation, but what I’m talking about is keeping our awareness, our mind-body connection, our center, no matter what we’re doing. This is the practice of practice. And it takes practice. But it's easier than you think because most of the time our brain is doing multiple things at once. And if you think you don’t have time, think again. Learning to use our mind to notice where we are in our body is really just about paying a bit of attention to shift how we’re feeling into a more centered state. It’s about what we’re doing in each moment. We can eat and have a conversation at the same time, drive and listen to a podcast, check our phone multiple times throughout the day wherever we are. If we can do these kinds of things, we can also check in on ourselves! If we can do this, we have time to drop in and be centered, if only just for a moment. This is the practice of practice. It's a daily moment to moment practice. And the more we do it, the easier and more automatic it becomes. And then magical things can happen.

If it feels like you don’t have time for this stuff, think again. One thing that is super interesting about the practice of practice is that it really doesn’t require a lot of time. This is because the practice of practice, of being embodied, is the practice of being in the moment, wherever we are, no matter what we’re doing. Once we learn the simple method, we can do it anywhere and anytime to be more in the moment, whatever we’re doing. So if you’re worried about trying to designate extra time, that isn’t what I’m suggesting. What I’m suggesting is that to make the most of our precious time, we learn to be more present in it, to live more fully in our life, in more and more moments, so that we can feel how we want to feel, to live the life we want to live.

To be clear, when I talk about practice, it’s not how much time you spend meditating in a quiet space. This can be helpful to get the hang of it, but like the yoga practitioner, it doesn’t get you very far if you are getting angry in line at the bank. Practicing at home and not doing it out in the world keeps us stuck in the old habits. Practicing at home in ideal circumstances only gives you the ability to feel good under ideal circumstances. Once you learn the concept, you can then use it in your daily life, out in the world under everyday circumstances. If you can use it then, it will be there for you when you really need it. If you want it to work in your life when things are more challenging, you need to do it when things are more challenging. This is the practice of practice. It only works if you do it.

So if we don’t feel good, it's a perfect opportunity to remember our practice, to practice our practice of centering, sensing, feeling and truly living in our body the way it was designed to be lived in. If we’re feeling stressed or anxious, our nervous system is calling us home. Our body is there, just waiting for us to connect to it, so it can work the way it was designed to. It can help us feel better moment to moment. Our human “instrument” can create beautiful music when we practice “playing” it. It's a perfect opportunity to get into the driver’s seat, to check in with what we’re feeling, to listen to our inner knowing, and experience the fullness of our being. All of these things can happen through the practice of practice.