Hasta La Gadget!

Have you ever tried to stop your mind from thinking? It’s not so easy, huh? The truth is that thinking is what your mind is meant to do! Your mind produces thoughts, just as your ears hear sounds and your eyes see your surroundings. Also, thinking isn’t a bad thing; it’s just that we’re preoccupied and often obsessed with it. Our thoughts rule our lives. We believe that what we think is actually the way things are, that our thoughts perfectly reflect our reality. As a result, we become attached to our stories and end up engrossed in and even imprisoned by what we’re thinking.

Your busy mind is made up of a mix of thoughts, emotions, doubts and fears (along with various other thought patterns). By the way, it is the same for everyone. In our society of more and better, our minds operate with constant mental noise: planning, judging, analyzing, commenting, remembering, forecasting and so on. You don’t realize how much your busyness controls your day until you collapse on your bed at night.

In order to understand how your thoughts and emotions may be ruling your world, it is essential to get to know your busy mind. Let’s look at it more closely.

1. Sloppy Brain

I call my busy mind my “sloppy brain” when I’m distracted and feel clumsy and out of sorts. Let’s face it, sloppy brain happens to all of us. Recently I went to work with my slippers on. No joke! Luckily, as a yoga teacher, I spend most of my workday barefoot, but that still didn’t protect me from the loving abuse I took from colleagues and students. I see examples of sloppy brain on the highway, in the grocery store—everywhere. Too many of us are sloppy in how we show up in our day-to-day lives. This isn’t a judgment, just a fact.

The distracted, sloppy busy-mind is in a weakened state. It speeds through life and doesn’t slow down to take even a few seconds to tell you to, say, mindfully place your phone and keys in the same place, set your teacup away from your laptop, or notice the stop sign in front of you.

2. Crazy Busy

“Crazy busy” has become a common phrase and an accepted way to live. We’re so addicted to getting things done that we’re oblivious to what’s really happening around us. Just look around any public area, and you’ll see most people looking at their phones while waiting in line, walking or even talking with others.

When you’re in “crazy busy” mode, you’re not really focused on what you’re doing or whom you’re with. Your mind is too busy processing stuff to do, daily activities and places to be. Being “crazy busy” can make you feel as though your world is spinning out of control and there’s no end in sight. It’s not just you. It’s most of us. How often have you greeted friends and boasted about being “crazy busy”? The bottom line is that you cannot feel awake and fully alive when your mind is “crazy busy.”

3. Autopilot

Many of your daily activities are repetitive, like brushing your teeth, checking emails, taking a shower. The thoughts streaming through your mind tend to be repetitive as well. Many of today’s thoughts were yesterday’s thoughts—they keep replaying in your head. For example, you might think, “I have to go to the post office,” over and over for two days straight until you actually go to the post office. The script for autopilot is often a thought loop that keeps running in your head: “I need to lose weight,” “I need to make more money,” “I should clean my closet,” and so on. When you’re on autopilot, you think the same thoughts over and over without being aware of it. Living on autopilot is exhausting and will leave you feeling drained at the end of the day.

I observe autopilot in action all the time. Students rush through the doors, throw down their yoga mats and lie down for a moment before class to “quiet their minds.” I’ll see them glance around for their cell phones (which are not allowed in the yoga room) or look for someone to talk to (no talking before class either), unaware of these mental habits and tendencies, especially the need to be constantly entertained.

4. Information Overload

Everywhere we look, we are surrounded by information to process and choices to make. Experts tell us to do this, buy that and eat this. Bombarded by advertisements, news, emails and senseless posts on social media, our mental hard drives become overloaded, inefficient and sluggish. Every day, your busy mind tries to absorb and remember the onslaught of information coming across your mental screen. In our overstimulated society, living in the busy mind can lead to exhaustion and fatigue, chronic stress and even depression.

5. Overthinking

Last, overthinking is a major cause of chronic stress in our highly demanding culture. On any given day, you experience thousands of repetitive thoughts, many of which are tainted with judgment and anxiety. Too much planning, worrying and replaying these loops is exhausting. Incessant thinking creates tension and robs us of peace. Although thinking is useful, overthinking is draining. Although stress is necessary to flourish at times, chronic mental stress causes chronic physical stress, which is harmful to your health.

Gut Check: Your Busy Mind

Do you live with a busy mind? Are you distracted much of the time? Welcome to the club! Let’s get to know what this busy mind of yours is so busy doing.
Take a moment to answer these two questions either on the lines below or in your journal. Your answers will help you get to know your busy mind and how living from it affects your daily activities, relationships and overall sense of well-being.

List three times during your day when you’re most likely to be distracted, hurried or anxious (for example, when you’re driving, reading, answering emails, or eating):
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________

Off the top of your head, list three traits that describe your busy mind (for example, feeling overwhelmed, scattered, anxious, rushed or drained):
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________

Your answers to these questions will offer you new opportunities throughout the day to become familiar with your busy mind. For example, if you tend to space out while driving, use driving as time to practice noticing your direct experience of driving. Turn off the news or music and notice everything around you. Notice the sky, the light on the trees, the noise around you and how your body feels behind the wheel. Then notice when you forget to notice, when you drift back into your stream of thinking. This is how you train your mind to show up. You notice, notice, notice.

Becoming familiar with your busy mind and how it works is your first step toward understanding how to shift beyond it. You do this by getting to know how your mind operates with mindfulness. Mindfulness is your capacity to show up in this moment and be fully engaged from the level of mind, body and heart. It’s your ability to notice your firsthand, direct experience of what’s happening—no matter if what’s happening is good or not so good. To be mindful is to simply notice when you show up and when you don’t, when you’re on the verge and when you’re not.

You become mindful when you notice that you’re distracted. The moment you notice that you’re not paying attention, you wake up—instantly! Noticing is enough, every time.

This excerpt was taken from On the Verge: Wake Up, Show Up, and Shine. Copyright © 2016 by Cara Bradley. Printed with permission from New World Library. Cara Bradley is the yoga, meditation and fitness teacher at the Verge Yoga.

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Police have identified James Hodgkinson of Illinois as the man who allegedly fired dozens of shots at Republican members of Congress on Wednesday morning in Alexandria, Virginia, law enforcement told The Washington Post and NBC News. 

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot in the hip while the lawmakers practiced for the annual congressional charity baseball game, authorities said. Five people, including the suspect who was wounded when Capitol Police officers returned fire, were transported to a local hospital.

The suspect was in custody and “not a threat” as of 8:25 a.m. local time, Alexandria Police said. 

“It would have been a massacre” if Capitol Police hadn’t been on the scene, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told MSNBC.

This is a developing story and will be updated. 

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Warning: Spoilers ahead.

It would seem that a book like The Handmaid’s Tale ― an interior story that relies heavily on flashbacks ― would be a tricky to adapt into a movie or miniseries, let alone a multi-season TV show. Yet, Hulu, the network airing the latest adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s reproductive dystopia, has renewed it for another go-around.

In Season 1, we got to know protagonist Offred: who she was before she was captured by Gilead’s authoritarian officials, the methods she uses to remain optimistic while enslaved as a sexual surrogate. These scenes made use of Atwood’s great writing, and were in keeping with the spirit of the book.

We also explored the inner lives of ancillary characters like Serena Joy and Nick, and were given their backstories; it’s likely that there will be more of these enjoyable tangents in future episodes. 

So, how else will showrunner Bruce Miller extend Atwood’s source material? It’s possible that he and his team might make use of untapped details in The Handmaid’s Tale proper, like Offred’s fraught relationship with her mother, a Second Wave feminist. Or, we may go where no Atwood fan has gone before: to the Colonies, polluted and rumored to be unlivable. Below are just a few of our predictions:

Offred’s mother will make an appearance.

In Atwood’s novel, the heroine’s mother is a prominent character, and Offred finds herself wishing she could set the record straight with the woman who raised her. The two had their differences: Offred’s mother was a second-wave feminist, and believed her daughter took for granted all that her generation had earned for her. This relationship could be tricky to navigate on-screen, especially after Elisabeth Moss was criticized for her comments about the show’s relationship to feminism. Offred’s mother could be interpreted as expressive of the dangers of unabashed activism; in some readings of the book, second-wave feminism contributed to the backlash against it. On the other hand, Offred’s relationship with her mother could be an opportunity to explore her psyche more deeply.

We’ll meet the Econowives.

In the Hulu adaptation, there are Handmaids (like Offred), there are Marthas (like Rita), there are Jezebels (like Moira) and there’s the possibility of being sent to the Colonies. In the book, there are a few other roles that women occupy, including a group called the Econowives. These women wear striped outfits of different colors, and, as the wives of lower-ranking men, must take on the responsibilities of Handmaids and Marthas, cooking, cleaning, doing other chores, and serving as reproductive vessels, too.

We’ll take a trip to the Colonies.

When Offred meets Moira among the Jezebels at a spot where high-ranking men hobnob with sex workers, Moira tells her she was granted a choice after her short-lived escape from the Red Center ― it was this or the Colonies. In both the book and the show, the Colonies ― where a toxic environment makes fertility impossible and life barely livable ― are alluded to but never visited. But, Miller said that his adaptation will go further beyond the confines of the book than it already has. It only makes sense that the Colonies could be one of the story’s next stops.

Someone will buy a prayer from a Soul Scroll machine.

In Atwood’s original vision of Gilead, capitalism and class as they relate to the fictional theocracy are explored more fully. The above-mentioned Econowives are a part of that; their status is separate from the Handmaids and the Jezebels. But there are also small details that highlight the correlation between money, faith and power in Gilead. Prayers, for example, can be purchased from an ATM-like machine called a Soul Scroll; to see these details in the TV adaptation might make the specifics of Atwood’s dystopia even clearer.

Offred will immerse herself more in her relationship with Nick, as she struggles to hold onto her memories of Luke.

As we saw in Season 1, the Hulu adaptation plans to take advantage of the love triangle fodder provided by the book. In the novel, we don’t know whether Luke is alive, because the story doesn’t leave Offred’s perspective. In the show, we know Luke is likely going to try to reconnect with her ― and that their daughter, taken from them after the rise of Gilead, has survived. We also know that Offred has mixed feelings about her romantic relationship with Nick, a member of the secret police known as Eyes, who’s likely the father of the child she’s now pregnant with. 

The ways in which pollution impacts male fertility will be discussed more directly.

We know that the burden of infertility has fallen completely on women in Gilead, even as men like the Commander, the Fred to our Offred, are likely sterile due to age, environmental factors, or both. In Season 1, Offred offers an aside, commenting on sterility and how the word is never uttered in her new life. It’s possible that the impact of male sterility on the sharp decline in pregnancies and births will be a plot point in the show’s coming seasons.

We’ll get an even broader view of other countries’ attempts to intervene. 

In the book, Japanese tourists take pictures of the Handmaids, while themselves wearing open-toed shoes and other clothes that the Aunts would deem immodest. In the show, Offred allows herself to feel hopeful when the Mexican Prime Minister visits, but those hopes are ultimately dashed. And in the finale, we learn that Moira has successfully escaped to Canada, and has reunited with Luke. The pair will surely try to rescue Offred, and we’ll likely learn about the world beyond Gilead in the process.

Serena Joy’s mounting dissatisfaction will come to a head. 

In the season finale, Serena Joy confronts Fred about his outings with Offred, coyly offering to play Scrabble with him and suggesting that she’s aware of his dalliances with their Handmaid. But Fred declines, telling her she knows the rules (re: women reading, even something as simple as letters on wooden blocks). Tersely, Serena Joy responds that she helped write them. Now that the results of her ideals in action aren’t as family-centric as she’d hoped, Serena Joy’s bound to take action.

We’ll finally learn about Mayday.

The season finale ends with the same lines as the book; Offred enters the darkness, or else the light. We’re not told for sure whether the black van that’s collected her is affiliated with the resistance, known as Mayday, or with the Eyes, but Nick’s involvement, and his good-guy status on the show, suggest that she’s headed somewhere safe. Where she’ll go from there, we’ll have to wait to find out.

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