When I wrote about being mindful of my need for breaks, I mentioned that responding to my body’s cues while gardening would be a more advanced challenge. I think I’ve found a simple way to manage it.

What’s been working pretty well, injury-avoidance-wise, is to pay attention to my body the way I would in yoga class, or Pilates. As I snip off sprigs of wild arugula, I imagine that I’m allowing my spine to lengthen between head and tailbone. As I lean over the blueberry bush, hunting for ripe berries, I let the lean become a lunge and feel the stretch. As I haul out the hose, I remind myself to contract my abdominal muscles, protecting my back by engaging my core. I remind myself to notice where I need to adjust, moment by moment, to keep my body safe.

I’m also realizing that gardening while rushed is usually an exercise in frustration and annoyance. (You could make the same point about yoga class, and maybe about doing anything while rushed.) My “quick trips” through the garden are never quick, something I’m working on accepting. Better to let the plants go thirsty a few extra days, than to try to squeeze in the watering on a crowded or imminent-deadline day. As I give myself permission to quit watching the clock, I get to reap more of that benefit that gardeners talk about, the absorption and flow.

Exhale.

Pause.

Trust.

Those were the watchwords that saw me, and my voice, through an intensive week of leading corporate workshops while fighting a cold.

“Exhale” came from my bodyworker, Roy, who observed at our last appointment that my breathing seemed tight. “Focus on exhaling,” he said. “The inhaling will take care of itself.” (He’s good with the aphorisms.)

“Pause” and “Trust” were what I added for jangled nerves—not only my concern over how my scratchy throat would manage all that talking, but also the opening-night jitters that went along with one of the classes being a first-time delivery. I wanted an easy way to remember that it’s OK to wait before answering a question…that I can rely on my preparation and my solid training skills…that it’s OK not to over-prepare.

Exhale…pause…trust…turned out to be a revolutionary combination. Not only did it keep my voice relaxed, it slowed down my usually rapid-fire speech. (An acquaintance once said he had to replay my minute-waltz-style voicemail five times before he understood it. And as my spouse will confirm, I’m wont to interrupt, with all good intentions and enthusiasm.)  As I stood in front of the training room, the watchwords helped me stay calm, present and receptive to students’ needs while also keeping the class’s energy up. Surprise! There are other ways to keep people engaged besides talking fast.

I had more fun, too.

Exhale.

Pause.

Trust.

Now, can I remember to use these watchwords when I’m not training? Like, when I’m writing? Checking email? Talking on the phone?

My back and neck give me hints when it’s time to take a break. A lot of the time, I don’t listen.

I’m quick to take a (long, long) break when I’m creatively stuck. But when my body needs a breather, I keep pushing.

It puzzles me, how I won’t pause and rest when I’m gardening or cleaning house or sitting at the computer. I like breaks. But stopping to rest just because my body is asking me to, feels like a big bother. It takes too long! I’ll lose my place! It’s inefficient! I have to get this thing done!

I’m especially aware of this tendency right now because it’s the time of year when there’s a lot to harvest in the garden. (Blueberries! Wild arugula!)  I’m doing more bending and twisting than usual. If I’m careless, I feel it for days.

What would it be like just to stand up and stretch whenever I notice the urge? Even if this makes the project take longer?

I experimented with this the other day while cleaning out the bathtub, which is a good chore to practice with because it’s time-limited and you can clearly see when you’re finished.

I paid attention to the cues—even before any soreness set in, just the little mental message that said, “You know, this would be a good time to do something different.” Noticed that I didn’t want to. Stood up anyway. Shook myself out, got back to work.

Though I was kind of annoyed by these interruptions, they didn’t make the tub-cleaning any more onerous. My back and neck felt OK the next day. And the amount of time the breaks added to the total task was practically imperceptible. Huh.

Applying the slowed-down approach to gardening, or to sitting at the computer, is a more advanced level—those activities have fluid boundaries and are more fraught.

Next step: See what it’s like to garden while being responsive to my body’s cues for, say, 45 minutes. What kinds of signals tell me I need to pause and change what I’m doing? What’s it like to make that change? Does my impatience continue, go away, take on a different cast? Does the weeding or watering or harvesting take that much longer with breaks? If so, what is that like? How do I feel physically, right then and the next day?

And if I find myself resisting a break, what’s going through my mind? What happens after that?

I want to be more aware of my reaction to my body’s signals—observing the mental sequence, the anticipated consequences, the actual consequences, for a concrete period of time. I guess you could say that I’m opening negotiations between my impatience and my body’s need for a healthier response, and this is the fact-finding phase.

When I get stuck on a creative project—any project, really—it’s often because my emotions are shouting so loudly that I mistake them for objective reality.

“It FEELS like this writing assignment is impossible, therefore it IS impossible. I FEEL uncertain about how to design this workshop, therefore I will fail. I FEEL frustrated because I don’t see an answer to this creative problem, therefore there IS no answer for it.”

That’s emotional reasoning in action. I’ve been thinking about this concept since reading When in Doubt, Make Belief, about coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD for short. Mental health is a continuum, and though I don’t have OCD, I’m seeing a lot of myself in this book—I can certainly get unproductively obsessive about things (when in doubt, make lists!), and I let anxiety run the show more often than I would like.

Author Jeff Bell, who has the disorder, writes about the way that compulsive, repetitive behavior provides temporary emotional relief for someone with OCD. An example might be checking the stove burners seven times in succession, then going back to check them yet again. The rational mind knows this behavior is unnecessary, even counterproductive, but the emotions aren’t buying it.

Emotional reasoning plays a large and stubborn role in my creative life. I don’t check the stove burners, but I do get swept up in the discouraging messages from the hollering emotions. It’s tempting to respond by avoiding the project that’s frustrating me, which buys me temporary relief but reinforces the power of emotions to derail me in the future.

Bell recommends mindfulness—steady, nonjudgmental awareness—as one way of coping better with emotional reasoning and the nonproductive impulses it can lead to. When you observe the anxiety instead of giving in to the obsessive (or in my case, escapist) urge—when you sit it out until the anxiety dissipates—you gradually habituate to the anxiety. Over time, the painful feelings that you would do anything to avoid become less dominant, less threatening.

Over time: there’s the rub. Often the anxiety does not dissipate soon enough for me. Often it gets worse before it gets better. I have been known to use this phenomenon as a further reason to delay action: “See? I was right not to want to get started! Who in their right mind would choose to do something that feels this awful?” But according to the cognitive therapists, seeing the awfulness as unbearable is a thinking habit that I’m mixing up with reality.

Naming the mission

Part of it has to do with how I frame the issue. That’s why having a name for it—emotional reasoning—is helpful. I’m in the habit of focusing on the goal: “How can I feel better right now?” A more useful goal (or frame) could be: “How can I practice a different way of dealing with frustration and anxiety right now? Am I willing to habituate to these feelings so they don’t bug me so much, don’t run the show?”

This second goal is more challenging. It means drawing on a different set of mental muscles, carving out a new mental groove. Hard work! But potentially healthier…and might even, potentially, lead to feeling better over the long term.

As with my coaching clients, I’m not aiming for a sudden about-face—that’s not a sustainable way to deal with a longstanding habit. But I have found that huge shifts can come out of a simple beginning: increasing the amount of time between the impulse to react in the default way, and the reaction itself. Micro-lengthening that bit of time between impulse and default reaction starts to change things in profound ways.

I think this is another way of looking at my take on the Pomodoro Technique (for me, micro-sessions of work alternating with longer rest periods) and why it’s been helping. The feelings aren’t derailing me so much; I’ve been focusing better. Now I’m examining the frame: changing the goal from “Make the feelings go away” to “Practice habituating to the feelings, so they’re less fearsome and not so much in charge.”

Behaviorally, this translates into: When the unpleasant creative-frustration-uncertainty-avoidance cluster pushes its way into consciousness, notice it. Sit with it. It would be nice to say, until it dissipates, but that may still be longer than I’m willing to tolerate. I’m starting by increasing the amount of time I sit with those feelings—pause, breathe—before running away.

One of the best things about vacation is that I get to structure my day the way I’d like to structure it at home—while free of the temptations and distractions and longstanding habits that, at home, get in the way of that ideal structure.

I’m recently back from a mini-vacation in Western Sonoma County. Ahhhh—a delightful mix of low-key busy-ness (I milked a goat! and bought cucumber-scented face cream!) and stillness (strolling the beach, sitting outside in the morning mist.)

Since I got back, I’ve been looking for ways to keep up with a morning routine that I know works for me: meditate for 15 or 20 minutes first thing, then step outside for a few minutes. Then have a light breakfast, then take a look at my intentions for the day.

When I follow this routine, it doesn’t guarantee a smooth day. But it generally makes for one that feels less fragmented.

More often, though, my daily routine goes: check email, check online forums, check Twitter, read paper, deal with more email, eat breakfast at lunchtime, deal with phone calls and (seemingly) urgent assignments, eventually squeeze in some meditating, go outside late afternoon (oh! there is a world out there!), work late into the evening.

I wouldn’t mind this pattern if it felt like a natural rhythm, but it feels more like an accidental or drifty one.

Here’s the key:

When I spend the first part of the day in front of the computer, my agenda gets set by the instruments of distraction.

To resist the computer’s siren song, I need something better than the grit-my-teeth-and-fight-it method. I need a substitute activity that’s simple and inherently rewarding.

I’ve tried combining steps 1 and 2 by meditating in a nearby park, but that brings up its own set of questions and distractions (is the noisy leaf-blower guy working today? should I put on sweats or street clothes? should I go to the dry cleaner, as long as I’m headed that way?)—until, overwhelmed, I turn to the default option and get lost online.

This past week, I’ve added a new element to the morning routine. First thing in the morning, I’ve been walking out to the back stairs of my apartment building, and sitting outside on the stairs while I meditate. It’s easier than getting myself to the park, and there are trees and birds out back, just like on vacation!

The rest of the day is going better.