Books |
The Art of Flourishing: A Guide to Mindfulness, Self-Care and Love in a Chaotic World
Jeffrey Rubin
By
Published: Jun 08, 2011
Category:
Self Help
Talk about conflicted!
Jeffrey Rubin has been a friend for a decade. Long before he started writing this book, I heard him talk through some of the ideas. I read his book in manuscript and, because I was born that way, I marked passages I loved and passages I loved a little less. Yes, I’d call that conflicted.
I can’t, in good conscience, review the book — though I think I’m allowed to say it provoked some brain flares for me and nudged me toward what feels like a better path — but I can, legitimately, tell you about its author. As a kid, Jeffrey was one of those annoying brainiacs who has, even more annoyingly, a killer jump shot. He burned through Princeton and graduate school, and then, fully credentialed, set out to heal the world.
A funny thing happened along the way. He discovered that Western psychoanalytic theory could get him — and his patients — only so far. But he was also a meditator and a seeker, and in Buddhist practice, he found tools that seemed extremely useful. He started to combine West and East and discovered he was on to something. Others agreed. Eventually one of his patients included a Zen master. [That relationship is chronicled in a fascinating article in The New York Times Magazine .]
Jeffrey is still a brainiac — I doubt Dr. Phil will be saying anything as simple and profound as this:
In meditative psychotherapy, meditation and yogic breathing are used to quiet and focus the mind. Meanwhile, psychotherapeutic insights about unconscious motivations illuminate the meaning of what arises during one’s spiritual practice. And the therapeutic relationship — conceived of in a freer and more empathic way — is the arena in which new ways of living are explored and actualized.
You need not be a patient of Dr. Rubin’s to get the benefit of his work. There’s his book, written by a smart grown-up for smart grown-ups, which can, he says, help you “flourish.” [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
What’s that? I asked that question, and some follow-ups, on your behalf.
Jesse Kornbluth: So, Doctor Rubin, what is “flourishing?”
Jeffrey Rubin: Here’s the short answer: Flourishing is cultivating better relationships by enriching your self-care and self-awareness.
The longer version. For me, flourishing begins with resisting the frenetic pace and the bombardment of information and expanding inner space. Meditation and yoga, reading and music help me access inner space. You might get there by walking in nature, writing in a journal or cooking a meal.
I thrive when I appreciate beauty, so I try to remain alert to three areas — physical beauty, the virtuosity of artists, athletes, and performers and admirable deeds and virtuous character.
We are what we care about. Another important aspect of flourishing for me is living my highest values. And when there is a gap between my ideals and my behavior — which there sometimes is — I try to lessen it. These gaps signal what I need to work on.
Balancing my physical needs with my intellectual ones, staying healthy even though I sit a lot in my work, is another aspect of flourishing. My goal is to work towards peak physical health.
Flourishing also involves responding to the challenges I confront. Flourishing is not the same as happiness — it doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes flourishing is knowing I did the best I could.
Living authentically is also a crucial aspect of flourishing. I try to make my life my own, not a stale copy of someone else’s style, or a replica of what society encourages me do, but what I, Jeffrey, believe is sane and wise.
The last stage of self-care and the final aspect of flourishing is maintaining and deepening my relationships; being a better partner, a better friend, working through conflict where possible, giving time to the needs of the people I love and care deeply about.
JK: As I read your book, it seems like you’re saying we may flourish more in hard times than in boom years. True? Why?
JR: Crisis, which is often scary and does not feel good, can lead to opportunity as well as challenge. Crisis galvanizes our attention, forces us to wake up, and challenges familiar and unhealthy patterns. It can help us leave the comfort of coasting, really look at what scares us and deal with it, often in a creative way that can enliven and enrich us.
JK: Philip Slater has written that “the first cure for illusion is despair.” What would you say to someone who looks around and thinks that she sees an increasingly gloomy world — and is mired in despair?
JR: There is something crazy — and unhealthy — about obstinately denying your hopelessness. In a world like our own — in which increasing numbers of people feel besieged and distracted, depleted and despondent — it is natural to feel despair. But, as my friend Joel Kramer said, “If change is your goal, optimism is a better strategy than pessimism.” Ideally, we would give ourselves the opportunity to face and feel the full spectrum of negative feelings while also asking ourselves: what can I do. That double perspective allows us to not deny what we need to confront, while also encouraging us to see what we need to do to change ourselves and improve the world.
JK: I’ve got 10 minutes. What can I do to enrich my life? What won’t work?
JR: One of the deepest lessons I’ve learned from the yoga tradition is that we become whatever we are connected to. Assuming you’re at home, engage in a conversation or activity that you find stimulating or meaningful. Listen to your favorite music, read an engrossing book, or look at a beautiful work of art that moves you. If you’re in the doctor’s office, take 12 relaxed and gentle breaths, paying attention to any places of restfulness in your body, and savor it. Try to avoid running ahead of yourself AND assuming you have a bad diagnosis.
JK: Okay, but in a crisis, a mantra might be handy. If you had to jump-start your way out of fear and paralysis, is there one sentence you might say — and repeat?
JR: I fear that a mantra in a crisis might be like a towel in a storm. Fear and paralysis tend to trigger a chain reaction of avoidance and self-contempt. In order to find a way out, we need to try to relate to our terror with compassion rather than self-loathing. In addition, it may be helpful to ask: “What are these feeling try to say to me?” Then we need to remember that things change as well as persist, and this fear and paralysis is not all of me — or my life. And that I have faced down fear before. And that I am not going to solve this alone, now, in my head. Then we might benefit from changing channels — taking a walk or exercising, connecting with like-spirited people, and coming back to our fear with a refreshed perspective and renewed energy.
JK: Viktor Frankl flourished in a concentration camp. In America, we’ve been pampered for so long that the least loss of privilege can feel catastrophic. In that hothouse environment, how do we find balance, sanity — and reality?
JR: “The Art of Flourishing” attempts to answer that question. I honestly believe that anyone who fully engages it can transform him or herself and live a saner and more balanced life.
JK: How about … dark chocolate? Chris Rock videos on YouTube? Buying shoes? Can’t buying, doing and eating count as flourishing? If so, what works for you?
JR: Whatever gets you through the night. Comfort food has a place. And buying and eating may make you feel better, but do not really change your life. I personally like Systema, a unique Russian system of self-exploration and self-healing that is a kind of embodied Zen. Connecting with friends, playing with children, reading, listening to music, attending plays, watching movies and sports, meditation, and yoga also nourish me.
JK: There are people in our lives — no names — who seem to “flourish” mostly by making others miserable. How do we deal with them?
JR: They are not flourishing. If they were, they wouldn’t be so miserable and nasty. If we engage in good self-care, we deal with them by setting healthy boundaries and not getting mired in their reality.
