I’ve Stalked Ellen Langer for Years

And So Should You

I admit freely that I have been stalking Ellen Langer for years..

Before you decide to get all legal on me, I don’t mean like the weird, crazed fan type of stalking.  The other part of that definition of “following closely” fits a lot better.  I think her book, Mindfulness, is one of the first books I read around the time I awakened from my drug-addled youth.

Stealing her material has been almost a hobby and giving it away generously has been an avocation. Here I just want to jot down a few of those ideas that, as a brain friendly coach,  have always kicked ass.

1. People suffer from a dis-ease of automatic thinking. Dr. Langer more aptly referred to this learning disability as premature cognitive commitment.

What does that mean?  We make decisions and even see things in life based on ideas that have long ago drowned in the sea of consciousness or the way we feel at a given moment.  Some of us do it often. We all do it sometimes.  Dan Ariely reminded me of this in his book, Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. He described studies that demonstrated that much of what we do is based on arbitrary decisions anchored in our brains at some long forgotten time.

In my words, we genericize life.  Many of our decisions become grouped together, and we make them automatically. Life loses its mystery and robs us of creativity.

What can you do about it?

Stop.  Slow things down.  When you feel yourself being rushed, take a step back. Mindfully and deliberately make decisions.  When you do this you catch yourself in your old stories and see life from a fresh perspective.

2. Some of my favorite Langer writing warns us all about blindly following rules.

When I look at that today, nearly 20 years later, it seems like such a no-brainer, if you will forgive me the pun.  Rules are made by people.  When we see them in writing, it’s easy to forget that. People are flawed, often make rules based on knee-jerk reactions, sometimes have agendas of their own, and without the benefit of prescience can only make a rule for a moment in time.  The unfortunate unwritten rule of rules is that once made, rules take on a life of their own. Times change.  Rules remain.

What can you do about it?

First, begin to notice when you are doing things by rote.  If you can discern rules that are involved, whether they are made by someone else or yourself, question them.  Does the rule still fit?  Does it make sense?

3. Speaking of blindly, and striking for me as I sit writing a draft for this article in a doctor’s office, it is easy to forget that doctors, and  other authority figures, are also human. They are as prone to be in error as anyone else.

Titles and positions tend to elevate people as does expert status. Another gem I’ve gleaned from the work of Dr. Langer is that we are all just bozos on the bus. While we want, at times, to depend on the words and advice of others, it is important to take what we hear with some cayenne pepper and a little tabasco sauce, and see it it really tastes right to us..

What’s the leaning here?

Again, be mindful. Try to remember that diagnoses or declarations are best taken as starting gates, not finish lines. The thing to remember about doctors, lawyers, and every other expert is that what they do is a practice.

This is not to say to ignore advice.  It is to say that advice is best when listened to, considered, and decided upon.  You are the expert on your own life.

4. Finally, the first place I ever noticed the word mindfulness was in her book of the same name.

There are several ways we can operate in life.  The first is mindiness – pronounced mind-e-ness.  Mindiness is the rigid adherence to the rules handed to us by our minds.  This is life by conditioning and staunchly defending it as the right way to do things.  I often work with men who almost cheerfully say they have the “my way or the highway” philosophy.  It’s not that men are the only ones who do this, just that most of my clients are men. There’s a drill sergeant living in their heads and they and everyone around them has to jump when Sarge barks an order. The trouble with this rigidity is that rigid things break.

On the other hand, there is mindlessness. When we are mindless, we do things by rote.  On this day before Halloween, it fits to say that mindlessness makes zombies of us all. We sleepwalk through the dramas of life simply playin our roles; we live out the stereotypes handed to us by other people. It comes out of a sense of powerlessness, uncertainty, and fear.  The motto is “Why bother?”

Mindfulness is awareness. Ongoing awareness. To be mindful is to be aware of the decisions we make, to notice and choose carefully the rules we obey, and to continuously learn from our experiences. I should add this – Learning from our experiences doesn’t have to include creating new rules.  Consider them all separately.  Some things may flow through, but always be prepared to go back to the drawing board.

Choosing one of these ways of being is in itself a mindful act.

I am partway through Dr. Langer’s latest work, Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, in which she takes on the stereotypes that could befall baby boomers as time goes forward.

I guess as long as she keeps publishing, I will keep stalking. I recommend you get on her trail as well.