There Is Nowhere Else to Be

I recently read a NY Times op-ed titled, "Actually, Let’s Not Be in the Moment" by Ruth Whippman. In it, Whippman describes her frustrations with mindfulness, which, she says, "is supposed to be a defense against the pressures of modern life" before going on to say that mindfulness is "a special circle of self-improvement hell, striving not just for a Pinterest-worthy home, but a Pinterest-worthy mind."

When I got to the word "striving," I noticed that I expected I would see several more paragraphs of what mindfulness is supposed to do for us, rather than what it actually is. There is no striving in mindfulness practice. It is, frankly, mechanically too simple for that. It is only being present; paying attention; noticing. This includes noticing that my focus has drifted from what is, to something subjunctive, and then returning to what is. Or, noticing that I've drifted from a guided meditation, and coming back to it. I acknowledged the expectation that the rest of Whippman's op-ed would be reaction to something wildly different from what I understand mindfulness to be. Then, I released that expectation, acknowledging that it was based not on the piece, but my expectations of it, and kept reading.

Whippman seems to believe that mindfulness practice has a goal beyond being present. This is not an unreasonable conclusion for her to draw, given that she seems to have been sold mindfulness as a solution to her stress. "Practice this to achieve that." I tried to approach mindfulness that way Before, and got very little out of it. I understand now that all of the discomfort I felt, and the lack of progress I experienced early on, was normal. After all, I was finally examining my own emotions after dousing them for decades. My mistake was going in wanting to see immediate and profound results, rather than simply taking up a practice for its inherent benefits. Being aware of what is happening in each moment is a generically useful skill, like walking.

Mindfulness practice is asking myself, "what's happening, right now?" Mindfulness practice is answering that question continuously; being aware of what is. The outcome of the practice is not important. The practice is its own reward. The benefits people seek, when they arrive, do so without being dragged into being. They are not goals. They are the natural result of being present to what is.

Whippman argues that "[mindfulness] is a philosophy likely to be more rewarding for those whose lives contain more privileged moments than grinding, humiliating or exhausting ones." And yet I could not fully embrace the practice until my class privilege was decimated, until my life became mostly a string of grinding and humiliating and exhausting moments, until I was so utterly cut off from distractions that I had no choice but to notice how deeply I felt that I wished I was a girl, and to sit with that feeling and try to make sense of it.

This predated my formal instruction in mindfulness practice, through classes at the VA. And yet, even without that guidance, I was able to examine that feeling, and explore why I was feeling it. Why it had always been there. What that meant. My depression and apathy, secondary to unrealized gender dysphoria, had finally won out. I'd cornered myself, after nearly 40 years. I literally could no longer afford to distract myself from myself, my actual self, where I actually was.

It is no wonder that sitting with the sentiment of wishing that I was a girl was deeply uncomfortable; I'd spent my entire life being told I was a boy. For a boy to wish he is a girl does not make sense, and wishing that hurt too much for me to ever examine it closely, when I could just ignore it, and dull that pain instead. But it was only in sitting with it, and asking myself why I wished that, exploring it, that I came to understand I had had the grammar all wrong. At some point, "I wish I was a girl" gave rise to the right response, at last:

Am I not?

Whippman wants to "offset the tedium of washing dishes" without examining why she considers washing dishes to be tedious. She says, "happiness does not come so much from our experiences themselves, but from the stories we tell ourselves that make them matter." Here, she acknowledges that happiness can come from experiences themselves, but goes on to give greater weight to our stories about our experiences. Telling ourselves stories about our experiences, stories about the other people in them, is a very big part of how we ended up with President Trump. We can synthesize joy with our stories, but I have found objective reality to be more joyful, overall, in no small part because it is inherently less harmful; things that are simply are.

I find it more difficult to believe that a rock I have stumbled on is somehow out to get me when I consciously acknowledge that it is a rock. I find it more difficult to believe that Kim went to Trans Pride expressly to meet a new trans woman to replace me with when I consciously acknowledge that she, like me, like every living thing, wants for the same things: safety, health, happiness, ease. When I sift out what I feel and conclude based on my feelings of being discarded and replaced, and instead guide myself into responding only to what is, the reality is plain. She was unhappy with me as her girlfriend. Of course she left. It was inevitable.

Number of days free of full-on sobbing meltdowns over #FKAgirlfriend: [0]

A photo posted by Seranine Elliot (@aggressivefrontpocket) on Oct 7, 2016 at 4:40pm PDT

Recognizing this does not make me feel instantly wonderful. In fact, even consciously stating it now, in writing, I necessarily go through most of that hell again. My chest implodes, I struggle to breathe. I cry. But I cannot process those feelings without processing them. I cannot wish them away and ignore them without suffering. So, I acknowledge it. Reality. Each time, the pain seems a little bit smaller. It dissipates a little bit sooner. Being present with my emotions, loving myself enough to care to do that work, like anything else, is practice.

To avoid telling myself stories about my experiences, to avoid necessarily defining others and their motivations or intentions, is to avoid disappointment in the future when my stories inevitably fail to line up perfectly with reality. Mindfulness practice is recognizing what is real, and what is a story. Lovingkindness practice leads me to conclude that responding to what is real is more likely to be kind than responding to what is a story. Mindfulness is fundamental to lovingkindness, and leads naturally to it, but, alone, mindfulness is only the skill of noticing.

I found it distressing that Whippman describes her experience with mindfulness advice as containing "moralizing smugness" and "'moment-shaming' for the distractible [sic]," as these ideas and attitudes are directly opposed to what I was taught. I was taught a thing I found true when I considered it: that it is the natural tendency of the human mind to wander. There is no shame in being what we are. The practice as taught to me explicitly excludes judgment. 

I have been recommending to people that they seek out mindfulness classes in their area, because of how impactful my own practice has been for me. But Whippman describes a westernized, commodified version of mindfulness that is outcome-oriented in that it sets expectations. Ironically, she's very close to understanding the practice more as I do. She argues that in mindfulness, "happiness is seen not as a response to our circumstances but as a result of our own individual mental effort, a reward for the deserving." Mindfulness practice has made it possible for me to be much more deeply aware of my circumstances. Aware to the extent that my happiness is largely in response to my circumstances. Mindfulness practice is not difficult. The things I can see with it frequently are.

Whippman laments that "we give inner-city schoolchildren mindfulness classes rather than engage with education inequality, and instruct exhausted office workers in mindful breathing rather than giving them paid vacation or better health care benefits." But mindfulness practice, the practice of noticing what is, is the only way to address problems of education inequality, inadequate healthcare, and so forth. After all, to the degree that a problem is not understood, it cannot be solved.

Far-right conservative Christians, for example, tend to believe that I am a man who wishes he were a woman, and is now engaged in a years-long process of mutilating his body so that it looks like some sort of facsimile of a "real woman." But while they ask themselves "what kind of man would do that?" and then answer that question with whatever seems reasonable to them, they remain blind to the fact that their question can never lead to an answer that makes sense, because it is the wrong question. It begins with the presumption that I must be a man. With that presumption, as when I was designated male at birth, comes a whole host of cultural footnotes. For example, the idea that men are inherently sexually predatory, and can have no relationship with any girl or woman that is not either sexual, or paternal. Cast as such, of course they fear my presence in the women's room. Why would a man be there? But that isn't the problem. The problem is that they do not understand the problem well enough to realize that there is no problem.

Were they to ask themselves the right question, as I finally did, the answer becomes so obvious that the question is rendered rhetorical. When the question is, "what kind of woman would do that?" it collapses on itself:

What kind of woman would want to use the women's room?
What kind of woman would want to have a vagina instead of a penis?
What kind of woman would be upset that she grows facial hair?
What kind of woman would want to join a women's group?
What kind of woman would wear women's clothes?
What kind of woman would feel erased and unseen when called a man?

Whippman closes by arguing that the results of a "an enormous meta-analysis of over 18,000 separate studies on meditation and mindfulness techniques" were underwhelming. This makes sense, given that what she has been taught about mindfulness is so very far from what I was taught that they are more different than alike. She seems to be talking about westernized, mass-marketed mindfulness instruction, and if that is what was analyzed (by the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) it does not surprise me in the least that the results were underwhelming. Internal results within the VA have led to persistent expansion of mindfulness-based programs; where the kind of mindfulness I was taught is employed, it produces enough benefit that the VA invests in more.

Mindfulness is not a hammer one can use to beat stress into submission. It is only noticing what is, and what is not. Like everything else, it is a practice. Whippman closes by saying, "perhaps, rather than expending our energy struggling to stay in the Moment [sic], we should simply be grateful that our brains allow us to be elsewhere." Mindfulness permits me to consciously recognize that desire to check out, to be elsewhere, so that the reason why I want to disconnect from reality reveals itself. It is only then, when I understand the problem, that I can solve it.

Mindfulness is not "a defense against the pressures of modern life." It's no defense at all. It is being, where we are, when we are, unadorned, ourselves. It lays the foundation for lovingkindness practice, for cultivating a soft and gentle response to the reality that is, rather than a harsh and commanding attempt to craft or sustain a reality that is not.

Whippman says, "Actually, Let’s Not Be in the Moment."

But there is nowhere else to be.