Meditation and Being Cut-off in Traffic. How it all fits together.
Meditation and Being Cut-off in Traffic. How it all fits together.
So far we have spoken about the 4 ways in which meditation is proposed to change our brains in isolation.
Meditation strengths our ‘attention muscle’ in our brains.
It grows the parts of the brain that let help us be aware of what our body is feeling (body awareness).
It is associated with better emotion regulation…our ability to regulate our feelings.
It changes the way we see ourselves.
So far we have looked at these mechanisms separately. But Hølzel and his collegues[1] have proposed that these things work together.
Being Cut-off in Traffic…and the ABC Model
Let’s take an (unfortunate) everyday example to see how this works.
How many of you live in a busy city? And how many of your drive a car through or to this busy city to get to work everyday?
Ever been cut off?
How did it feel?
For many of us, being cut off results in immediately beeping and yelling. I am not judging. I have definitely been there!
But have you every stopped to think about why?
Often, it just happens. Cut off? Beeping. Yelling. Swearing. Regret from swearing in front of our kids.
Well, cognitive theory’s ABC model posits, that there is a link between an activating event(in this case, being cut off) and the consequences (the yelling/screaming/swearing and what have you).
https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-therapy.html
This link between is the belief. It is how we interpret the activating event.
Think about being bumped in the street. We get bumped and it annoys us but when we turn around it is a blind person when a cane. Are we still annoyed? Not usually. New facts have changed our initial belief ‘some jerk has made me spill my coffee’ to ‘oops, I was in the way and didn’t see the blind person coming’.
The same is true for how we feel on a roller coaster. If you believe, ‘this ride is awesome fun’ you’ll enjoy the rush. If you think ‘I’m going to die’, the ride may be a little less enjoyable!
Being cut-off in Traffic and Meditation.
So where does meditation come into this?
Well, often we aren’t able to see the steps in between being cut off and yelling and beeping. Meditation can help us with this gap.
Firstly, meditation helps us with our attention muscle.
When we are cut off, we may be able to notice the car and return to driving.
The second part links into body awareness. We may be able to notice the feelings associated with being cut off, more. The rising of anger, irritation, frustration, fear.
Thirdly, we as we notice the reaction, we may be able to regulate our emotions better. This involves noticing the feeling (anger, irritation, frustration, fear) and be able to return to the current task (driving).
The last is the perception of the self. In being able to notice the feelings arising due to being cut of and not falling into habitual reactions (beeping etc), we notice that these feelings are transitory and not permanent. We are not an ‘angry driver’ or an ‘angry person’, we simply notice temporary feelings of anger in response to being cut off.
It all sounds simple in theory, but try meditation and see it works for you. See if you can notice the feeling that arise in challenging circumstances like being cut off in traffic and see if you can notice and let go (not suppress) and not act out of habit.
Give it a try at Recharge THIS SUNDAY.
[1] Hölzel, B. K., Lazar, S. W., Gard, T., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Vago, D. R., & Ott, U. (2011). How does mindfulness meditation work? Proposing mechanisms of action from a conceptual and neural perspective. Perspectives on psychological science, 6(6), 537-559.