Noticing our Habits - Shaping our Experience

On Sunday, my friend Cindy and I decided to walk the labyrinth at the Delaware Art Museum. It was a nice evening – warm enough but with a breeze that was very comfortable. I don’t remember walking a labyrinth before – so I didn’t really know what to expect. But I sensed that others found the experience a very spiritual one and I was ready to have the same. I was happy to see that we were the only ones walking it that evening – leaving us to experience it without distraction. Or so I thought.

It’s amazing how we create our own distractions simply through our habits which shape our experience of life. This happens to me all the time in my Step class. I’m bouncing along to the music, happy to be moving, proud of myself for picking up the steps, mostly effortlessly, and amazed that pretty much everyone in the room is doing the same thing. The instructor is shouting out “don’t think!” as if thinking is a barrier to success in the class. And then my mind wanders. “What’s on my list of things to do this afternoon? I wonder if I’ll have time to get the paint I need for our project. “ Usually, church thoughts find their way into my mind. “What do we need to accomplish this church year as a board? What’s the agenda for June? Who’s doing what? What’s the best use of our precious retreat time together? Everyone is so busy!” Pretty soon my thoughts have taken over and I find I am tripping over the step, doing the wrong part of the routine – you get the picture. I have to laugh. It’s not that thinking is bad or that those thoughts aren’t important. But when the thinking gets in the way, I just need to notice it and set it aside for another time, so I can be focused in the moment and enjoy the music and the energy I am getting from the experience.

So, alone in the labyrinth with just Cindy silently walking before me, I found it strangely “unspiritual”. I’m used to walking where I want, taking different forks in the road to explore new territory, seeing interesting new sights. Here I was, walking a path that was preplanned for me, with nothing new to uncover. And yet, I didn’t depart from the planned path, despite there was nothing stopping me. Like in my step class, my mind wandered and I found myself critiquing the experience – “what’s this all about? I don’t get it.” Critiquing – another habit. I made my way to the center, meeting Cindy there. There, in the middle of the labyrinth, our voices vibrated off the stone walls that enclosed the labyrinth. Stomping on the ground echoed back to us. It was like being the clanger in a bell. What an amazing feeling. What had I missed on the way while I was critiquing?

My experience of the walk out of the labyrinth was very different. Critique put away for another time, I focused on the journey of the labyrinth. I began to notice how the path weaved towards the middle, and then back to the outside, doubling back near, but not quite over, territory I’d covered before – a bit like life. I began to notice certain stones – very different from the others – which pulled my interest, and made me wonder if someone had placed them there with specific intent, with special meaning. I wondered what their journey was about, and why they walked the labyrinth. I noticed the honeysuckle on the walls around us and the sounds of the birds in the trees. Same walk – different experience – just by noticing a habit and putting it aside to create something new and more spiritual.

Currently, I am taking a course from Alan and Dianne Collins; Dianne is the author of “Do You QuantumThink®? New Thinking That Will Rock Your World” (coming this summer). This week, we are watching for our habits – just noticing them as they’re happening and setting them aside to create a different experience. We all have them – complaining, whining, criticizing, justifying, resisting. If we are able to catch ourselves in them and, without judgment, shift our thinking in the moment, we can shape our experience in totally different ways. Something to try at church as we create the welcoming and caring community we hope to be.

In Faith,

Nancy