Last month, I completed a challenge that I didn’t blog about. I started the challenge a couple of days into the month and made up for the days missed. The essence of the challenge was incredibly simple: each day, have a structured topic that I think about anytime I have downtime. The biggest source of this downtime was driving, but other opportunities included grocery shopping and laundry.

The topics repeated each week, with each day devoted to a particular area. There are 4 biological macromolecules that I remember and teach to my students using the acronym ‘PLNC’ for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates. Each of these occupied one day. Here is a list of all the topics, In order from Sunday to Saturday:

1. Core values and Opposite-to-Emotion action steps – I have identified 24 core values that I hold, a sampling of which includes purposeful passion, thorough expression, and functional health. Opposite-to-emotion action is a DBT skill useful for managing uncomfortable emotions that I have found incredibly effective.
2. Buddhism Basics – This includes the four noble truths and the eightfold path. I have a simple mnemonic that I use to remember and talk about the eightfold path: ‘Understand This: Speaking And Listening Effectively Mandates Concentration.’ This stands for Understanding, Thought, Speech, Action, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration.
3. Proteins – For each of the biological macromolecules, I used the acronym: SPA DAME MP3. This stands for Structure, Production, Acquisition, Digestion, Absorption, Metabolism, Energy Utilization, Major Functions, and 3 types of Pathology – deficiency, toxicity, and dysfunction.
4. Lipids – Ditto above.
5. Nucleic Acids – Ditto above.
6. Carbohydrates – Ditto above.
7. Top-to-Bottom Human Systems – These include the 8 overarching organ systems, 4 tissue types, 6 stem cell types, and 5 non-stem cell types. I call it top-to-bottom because I arranged the systems in the order they would appear if traveling from the top of the head downward.

Most of these areas I knew extremely well and it was just a matter of choosing to focus on them during downtime instead of my semi-regular toxic rumination. For the macromolecules, I did spend some time the first week of the challenge fleshing out a few details which I used the subsequent weeks to occupy my mind.

I smashed the challenge and mostly loved the process. The technique of just switching to pre-planned thoughts to occupy the mind I found to be incredibly effective, especially when I am tempted to ruminate unproductively about some recent event. Since the challenge has ended, I do enjoy not feeling the need to think, but if I’m not careful I can easily default to unskillful mental churning.

Going forward, I think what would constitute Middle Way in this area is to have something I plan on thinking through completely, but is simple enough that I could easily do it in a few minutes. Once I got into the process, I could expound and explore it further if I so desired.

I would love to just totally be with whatever activity I am involved with. To be fair, I feel like I am much more present now than I have been in a long time. However, in most situations, there is a steady hum of reaction, analysis, and judgment that exists in the back of my mind.

I choose to accept the hum, show myself compassion, and find skillful ways of managing it when it grows too loud.

May your thoughts be peaceful and may you be at peace with your thoughts.

Namaste.