Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

I get an idea. Half-baked. Disparate elements. Nothing comes together. I pace. I ruminate. Then look up the word rumination and discover it has to do with thinking about the past. So if I’m not ruminating, what am I doing? I try to envision the story, the essay, the idea. I realize that in order to create, I need to see the future, the words falling into place with the finished product.

I give up and get in the car to go shopping.

And find that I have driven to my office. Today is my day off, but my mind took me here. Was it my mind? What was I thinking? Was I thinking? I try to play back the thoughts of the last 15 minutes. (Is that ruminating?) I realize I was thinking about the menu for dinner. Really? If only I had been re-writing the essay, solving the world’s energy crisis, contemplating the meaning of life, this detour to my office would have been worth it. But instead I was debating using tempeh vs ground meat in a shepherd’s pie to get rid of all those damn potatoes my husband bought when I sent him shopping, doesn’t he ever simply buy one potato? Men, I don’t understand…and then I realize I did it again. I sit in my parking lot, embarrassed for myself. I can’t stay with myself for more than 30 seconds. 

In his new book, Chatter, psychologist Ethan Kross talks about the importance of the constant inner dialogue that murmurs incessantly in our heads. He says that “We use our minds to write the stories of our lives,” and that this “phonological loop” is the product of our different memory functions. It’s how we work out our challenges, be they a new crochet pattern or what to say to the boss. 

Unfortunately, often the inner chatter is connected with what I sometimes refer to as an invisible gremlin whispering self-criticism, worry and regret in what I would call a psychosocial loop, influencing our choices, keeping us from doing and being who we deserve to be. It sits at the top of my brain stem, interrupting my attempts to think clearly, sending my attention down a meandering path while my body drives to the wrong destination. “How did I get here?” can be a question in the parking lot, or a question about where I’ve ended up in my life. 

Spiritual traditions emphasize the place of “no thought”, a position of inner silence that offers clarity of sensation, of being in “the present moment.” But our biological imperative is to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Is it possible to do/be both? The late Dennis Leri, in an essay called Learning How to Learn quoted Moshe Feldenkrais: “Thinking is a holding back from action, a rehearsal of action. If you act completely with no holding back, then there is no thought and no dialogue. It can be the most violent or the most delicate of actions, but if it is total then it ends thought.” 

Leri went on to say, “Many people mistakenly hold that Feldenkrais’ work is opposed to thinking. In actuality mature behavior, for Feldenkrais, requires that thought and action mutually and reciprocally inform each other. Awareness is the consequence of using thought to improve action and action to improve thought. It is awareness that improves our connection to others and enhances the quality of our lives.” 

I left the parking lot, paying attention to my hands on the wheel, the blue of the sky, the gremlin whispering what an idiot I am to be so unconscious (great, an unconscious thought about consciousness!) I listened to my breath, decided I really didn’t want shepherd’s pie, and realized I now knew how to write this essay. ☺