Going Inward

While in college I was active in a student group that addressed hunger issues, both in the U.S. and abroad. Several of my fellow members belonged to the Lutheran student congregation on campus. During spring semester of my Freshman year I learned that my Lutheran friends observed something called Lent every year during the 40 days before Easter Sunday.

 Having grown up in a denomination whose bare-bones calendar didn't include entire seasons - in fact, anything that seemed even remotely liturgical or "Catholic" was frowned on - the little I knew about Lent, I'd learned in junior high world history class, Medieval Europe unit. No meat, no sweets, no dancing or merrymaking, no fun. The point of all this deprivation was probably lost on the majority of common people in the Middle Ages whose lives were hard enough already without having their few pleasures taken away.

My friend Laurie explained to me that for most people who observe Lent these days, it's not about deprivation; rather, the focus is on going inward and seeing what needs to be given up in order to move forward or grow. For her it was a time of personal reflection, an inner retreat, when she took stock of where her life was going and asked herself if she needed to make any changes in order to get there. It sounded like a sort of spiritual spring cleaning.

Over the years I've used the idea behind Lent to set aside certain times for going inward, starting a new habit or practice, or just taking time away from the crush of involvement in workplace issues, family, community and so forth. One focus I return to over and over is the cultivation of mindfulness, the Zen practice of staying in the moment, being aware of what is happening now, noticing the opportunities that are standing right in front of me, and maintaining a certain detachment from gratuitous drama. Out of all my many experiments with ways to survive (and possibly thrive) at work, the practices of mindfulness and appropriate levels of detachment have been the most helpful by far.

I had a chance to work on this a few days ago, when a customer's rudeness pushed the envelope. For me and a lot of my coworkers, it had been a tough week, and this guy's insults topped it off perfectly. I wasn't in a position to leave the office and blow off steam by walking (or stomping) around the block. After taking a few deep breaths, I reminded myself that while I couldn't choose not to interact with him, I could choose whether to hang on or let go. If I hung on, I'd be making his problem my problem as well. It took a few hours plus some story-swapping with similarly beleaguered coworkers, but eventually I could step back from the incident and see it as just part of a crazy day that everyone shared.

If, like me, you work in a high-volume public service / customer service occupation, you probably have plenty of similar opportunities to practice detachment! Whether you participate in any type of spiritual or religious practice or not, I recommend setting aside a specific time period to shut out distractions and go inward. You may find that when you emerge from this inwardness and move out into the world again, you'll see that world with new eyes.