Mindful Mondays: Mindful Hellos

Hello. It’s one of the most common greetings. Most of us even know how to say it in at least one other language. Hello. It is the action of giving a sign of welcome or recognition. It is the action of placing our attention on someone. Or something. Today we are going to look at how we can bring more mindfulness to our day through being more mindful of our hellos.

Hellos are a beginning. A fresh start, or a re-start. A chance to see whatever or whomever you are greeting with fresh eyes and a warm heart. A chance to see something for the first time again. 

There are parts of the world where the sacred is intertwined with this intention of welcome and greeting. In Hindi there is a hello, Namaste, used in many parts of Asia and South Asia, meaning “I bow to the divine in you.” “I see the divine in you and I bow to it.”  And in the Southern Germanic Speaking world of Bavaria, Franconia, Schwabia, Switzerland and Austria they use the familiar greeting “Gruss Gott” ‘May God greet you’ and even our English goodbye is the shortened version of ‘God be with ye.’  The old German meaning of ‘greet’ was the same as the meaning for ‘bless’ and so in the same vein as Namaste a greeting was an aspirational and inspirational act. Most other hellos are versions of ‘good day’ and also bring intention to the interaction—a hope, a wish, a prayer. Bill Bryson states in his book Mother Tongue that "hello" comes from Old English hál béo þu ("Hale be thou", or "whole be thou") meaning a wish for good health. You see, no matter where you go in the world, hello is intended to renew you and connect you with health, wholeness, and the divine.

I had a teacher many summers ago on a course I took named Satish Kumar. He was a man who infused his hellos with the divine. He looked at each person he said hello to with the joy that one usually exhibits when they greet a newborn baby or a golden retriever puppy. Pure joy radiated from his smile, from his eyes. It is such a different feeling to be on the other side of that hello. His hello was medicine.

Today, see if you can slow down and bring your attention—your heart, your mind, your spirit to your hellos.  See if your hello can be medicine to the people you meet. They can be loved ones, colleagues, co-workers, the barista at the coffee shop, the bus driver, the janitor, the other person walking toward you on the sidewalk. Today, instead of saying hello on autopilot, actually fly the plane. Slow down. Take a deep breath. Feel your feet on the ground. Smile. Say hello. Say hello with your whole being. With your whole heart. And then do the most radical act of all. Wait for the hello back. Make hello a conversation. Make hello a gift. And let it come back.

Yes. Wait for the other part of the interaction. Look at their eyes. Smile. Let the hello sink in. It’s a second or two difference but the impact is immense. Say hello. Wait for the hello back. Take it in. Let it nourish you. Namaste.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2022 Originally posted 2015

Gratitude in Action: Send a note of thanks this Thanksgiving

“Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness….it reminds you every day that you have enough…more than enough. Everything needed to sustain life is already here. When we do this, every day, it leads us to an outlook of contentment and respect for all of creation.”
— Robin Wall Kimmer

Thanksgiving has always been first and foremost a harvest feast—for which we give thanks—but what if we made the act of gratitude and thanks the most figural part of the holiday? What if we created a new ritual of sending notes of gratitude and thanks. Not the kind you send out of politeness when you get a gift—though that gesture is lovely—but a note of thanks to people in your life who have helped you—have helped you become the person you are. They can be notes, or cards, or postcards, or emails. They can be long or short. They can be people you have known your whole life or people you have never met.

Take a moment first to think of a person or people about whom you would say that you wouldn’t be the person you are today without them. Think about how they impacted you. Think about the things that they did that were helpful to you. Think about how they made you feel. Think about the ways you have been able to be more of yourself or bring more of your gifts to bear on the world because of them.

Then think about the people who have inspired you. Have reminded you of your purpose, values, or faith. Have reminded you of love and courage and persistence. Think of the people whose small acts, mundane acts, generous acts made a difference in your life. Think of the writing, music, or art that has been a source of joy and energy. Think of the people in neighborhood, your town or your workplace who have made a day better for their presence in your life.

Make a list if you can—a gratitude list of people where you experienced help, support, inspiration, challenge, learning, growth or love. There’s no minimum requirement. No act of support or uplift that is too small or too large. No demand that your gratitude is new. And no demand that you’ve ever met in person. They can be people who are currently living—and they can be people who have since passed away. The only requirement for their presence on your gratitude list is that they made your life richer for being in it. And maybe they helped you make other’s lives richer too.

Abundance comes in many forms. Our current economy is designed to remind us daily, hourly, of what we don’t have, of what we need. It’s designed to make us want—to make us feel like we are missing something, or to feel hungry for something we don’t have. And this exercise—this practice of a gratitude list of who has helped me—in any way-- is a powerful reminder of how rich in resources we actually are. A reminder to feel the plenty in our lives. To feel abundance. To truly feel fortunate.

Now that you have your list—the practicality of how you want to act on it is entirely up to you—and should fit the way you like to communicate. You could write a note or a postcard and put it in the mail. You could send an email. You could call them on the phone or send a text. You could tweet or make a TikTok of gratitude. You could send a pile of them all at once this week while you are waiting for something to bake. Or you could decide to send one a day or one each week this year –weaving gratitude into your everyday life in a tangible way.

Imagine a world where notes of thanks were filling up inboxes and mailboxes. Where people felt their impact and worth.

You might be surprised how important you have been in my life….Thank you for your small kindness, it made a huge difference…… You probably don’t me, but you have made my days brighter…

But remember that above all gratitude is an act of giving not of perfection. Think small. Think simple. And embrace awkward if you need to. But above all, give your thanks.

© 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD


A Natural History of Beauty and Loss

“...for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness”
— Galway Kinnell

I have been thinking a lot about moments of beauty in hardship. Maybe it’s because this week –in a week of November cold and grey—in a week of rain—there have been amazing glimpses of beauty—of blossoms. Earlier this week on my walk I saw an azalea – a shrub that blooms in May—covered in pink flowers. Yesterday a white rose in full bloom still held its June fragrance. And today, a bright yellow forsythia blossom shined its April radiance on a cold afternoon. It was a reminder to me that you don’t always know when beauty will show up. And that some beauty shows up in the places you expect it the least.

I began my psychology career as a staff member at a residential treatment center for adolescent girls. I worked first in the dorms and later became the art teacher and activities director. This was more than thirty years ago, but everything I have done since has dug its roots deeply in that first soil of experience. I doubt that the staff and girls I worked with then would ever imagine how much they have traveled with me. How much I learned from them and lean on that learning all the time.

Early on in my work in the dorms I created a routine of summer weekend activities that started with Walden Pond on Friday nights. The early afternoon would be spent baking brownies or cookies and packing a picnic dinner. And then we would leave at dinner time in a large station wagon. The girls were mostly city kids and skeptical of nature and lakes. But it was hot and there wasn’t air conditioning in those days—so a chance to be cool won out over their resistance.

What was striking about this trip was the juxtaposition of the week that had come before it –and the evening at the lake. Often the weeks were stressful—and the girls fought with each other and us. There was anger, disappointment, frustration. Sometimes even on the car ride out. But we would get to the parking lot and pile out—girls trailing towels and bags. Some with suits if they had them and some in shorts and t-shirts. Staff carrying blankets and bags of food. We would cross the street and head down to the lake—where the girls would wander into the crowd sometimes saving a space for us, and sometimes being truly teenage—and asking us to sit further away.

We would swim, eat our sandwiches and brownies. Hang out on towels and watch the sun go down over the far end of the lake. The girls would go from their tense and angry, and perhaps, fearful selves into something that was truly miraculous—they would relax—and be calm and content. They laughed. They rested. They absorbed the beauty of the place.

They always looked different as we headed back to the car. They were quieter and more thoughtful. They were more relaxed—less pulled together—their hair disheveled from swimming—clothes more haphazard-- which seemed to let their beauty shine through. They laughed more easily. They were easier with each other.

It’s hard to know whether the beauty shined through because the stress had lifted –or whether there was a beauty available only because of the sorrow they had lived. I’ll never really know—but the glimpses of it were not unlike the flowers I have seen this week. Rare gifts that nourish and sustain.

 

A Natural History of Beauty and Loss

Dusty cement walls,

Windows with bars.

Wood crate chairs too heavy to lift.

Everything here a defense

against some form of protest or escape—

a citadel of cinderblock

feigning refuge.

 

Girls crash land here

blown in on the winds

of their own personal storm

or washed ashore on

a riptide of abandonment.

 

Their wreckage delivers

black garbage bags

that float in and out

with every new arrival and departure.

Bags marked like the girls

with their name but no location,

piled precariously in the hall.

 

Black bags that weigh nothing.

T-shirts, leggings, underwear, socks,

one shoe with no laces,

a blanket with Tigger or Care Bears,

half of a spiral notebook,

and always hairspray and comb,

but never a toothbrush.

The staff will unlock one from the cabinet.

 

What is heavier are the photos.

Crumpled pictures of their child selves,

in Brownie uniforms

or bathing suits,

sitting on the floor with a brother,

holding a kitten, in front of a cake

blowing out candles,

wishing for a future.

 

Heavier still is the chart,

an oversized rust colored

folder—Sisyphus’s rock.

 

A chronology of loss

pushed endlessly uphill

by a tired social worker

standing in the doorway

shaking her head and declaring

time after time that—now--

is their very last chance.

 

Sorrow and exhaustion

streak the faces of young staff

who look older than they are.

But the girls are protected,

for now,

from the weight of despair--

their emotions frozen and numb.

Not gone, but buried the way

ice holds memory blue and deep

for millions of years.

 

It is true that ice can fracture

dangerous and loud

when you try to learn its history

by bringing its core to the surface.

 

But I’ve also heard that

without winter’s biting cold

spring flowers won’t bloom.

© 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Quote above from St. Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell

Be careful with the word "Hero"

“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small piece of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. ”
— Tim O'Brien, The Things they Carried

Be careful with the word hero. I know it’s Veteran’s Day. I know the instinct and intention to use the word is good. I know you are trying to show respect and gratitude. But the problem with the word hero is that most people who live through war, most people who live through any long and repeated trauma, and most people who witness war and repeated trauma do not always feel heroic.  Most trauma involves experiences of helplessness and terror. These experiences usually result in shame, not courage; in fear, not bravery; in despair, not resilience.

There is a tacit agreement between a population and its soldiers: you go to war, we call you a hero, and we never have to know what really goes on during a war. If we call you a hero, we never have to hear the real war stories, because we have made it so that you can’t tell them. We call you a hero to make ourselves feel better, and it keeps you quiet.

In old Native American culture, warriors returned home from battle and shared their stories with the community in a big ceremony. The community as a whole had to hold these stories –not the individual warriors. We don’t do that and we ask our warriors to hold the stories themselves.

The injuries to soldiers are vast—with TBI on the increase. And the public is now widely aware of PTSD. But there are other injuries that are difficult to measure, discuss and treat. Yes, a soldier can suffer the traumas of flashbacks and anxiety of the war. But PTSD doesn’t cover the complete loss of self: the loss of who I was before the war, the loss of my sense of dignity. How do I hold the me I thought I was with the me who knows what I did during war?

Surviving war doesn’t feel heroic. Surviving any trauma doesn’t feel heroic. When you use the word hero you need to know that the people hearing that word can feel miles away from your intentions. You say hero and they remember shooting a screaming old woman or a dog. You say hero and they remember feeling frozen and not being able to do what they wanted to do. You say hero and they remember themselves at their most helpless.

Psychiatrist Jonathon Shay calls this injury to your sense of self a moral injury. The invisible wounds of war that keep soldiers injured long after the symptoms of PTSD clear. PTSD is what Shay calls a primary injury--it's symptoms are visible like the break of a bone. But a moral injury is like internal bleeding. It is a silent killer. Soldiers often report feeling like a piece of them died during the war and others have referred to it as ‘soul murder.’ Soldiers fear telling their stories because they think people will hate them for what they have done. We ask them to go to war and then we ask them to hold their stories by themselves. This is likely too big a burden. The suicide rate among Veterans is staggering: 22 Veterans die from suicide a day.

As citizens we can and should be grateful for their service, but we shouldn’t be naïve about their sacrifice. We need to have a more complex view of the impact of war and trauma and expand the conversation of healing all the injuries of war—not just the medical symptoms we can see and treat more easily. We need to support the soldiers in their healing by not telling them who they are and what their story is, but instead creating the possibility that they could tell their story—tell their whole war story. We need to change the conversation about trauma to include the long term impact and the symptoms that we can't see. On this Veteran’s Day, let’s thank them for their service and ask to hear their story with the reassurance that we will hold their story with them.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2022 . Edited and reworked original post from 2014.