Tag: living in the moment

Rocking the Boat

“What others are doing around you seems very important when you have not found your own steadiness. You want to say to them, “Don’t rock my boat! If you rock my boat, I can’t be steady.” But the truth is you’re the only boat-rocker in your world. Only you can rock your boat.” – Esther Hicks

I read something recently that said when we are focusing our own energy outside of ourselves, it’s like our energy becomes a desperate scavenger, wildly looking for somewhere to land and to feel steady and full. Scavengers are always on the hunt, wildly searching for the next carcass to fill them up. It’s an exhausting way to live, trying to make everyone and everything else stay on their even keel, so that you can feel steady. It never works, but it doesn’t stop us from trying, does it?

I wish I had a dollar for every time I said to myself, “Once everything is perfect at home i.e. once all house projects are completed to my utmost satisfaction, once everyone I love has no health problems or job concerns or relationship worries, once we have just the right amount of money in savings, once all of our vacations/celebrations are planned and then said vacations/celebrations are executed happily and successfully with pictures to prove it, once my dogs are as well-behaved as that guy’s dogs in the neighborhood whose beautiful dogs act like an extension of him without even wearing leashes, once everyone accepts that the pandemic is under control and we no longer have to wear the stifling masks, etc. etc. etc. . . . In short once everything outside of myself is just plain “easy peasy” (but not too easy that I feel bored), then I can sit back and feel good.”

If I had a dollar for every time that I put conditions on my own happiness, at least my money security issues would never be a concern for the rest of my life. Why do we make it so hard to allow ourselves to feel good all of the time? Isn’t feeling good and peaceful and tranquil our birthright? Isn’t this pure steadiness what we really are, at our deepest cores? If our souls are the energy of Love and our souls are with us all of the time, why do we put blinders on to that fact? Why do we scavenge outside of ourselves for the very Love and Peace and Tranquility and Knowingness that is with us all of the time, if we just take the time to sit still enough, to fully realize and marinate in this fact? We give ourselves glimpse of our souls when we pray or when we meditate or when we savor the very moment we are in, without having to change anything about it. Why do we rob ourselves of living in this bliss, on a regular basis? Why do we spend so much of our time, sending out our energy to scour around in the past, or to scavenge desperately in the future? Why do we constantly rock the boat, when it is our natural state to keep it steady??

“Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.” – Sharon Salzberg

“When you are here and now, sitting totally, not jumping ahead, the miracle has happened. To be in the moment, is the miracle.” – Osho

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward other land. There is no other land. There is no other life but this. ” – Henry David Thoreau

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Unplugging

Friends, you’ll have to forgive me, but I have unplugged the thinking, analyzing, story-telling, making sense of things through my perceptions and moods, part of my brain.

I am on a wonderful trip, enjoying family members and exploring new places. I am in “just experience this” mode and it is fabulous. It is such a relaxing, peaceful, full of wonder and delight, state of being. Why can’t I be in this “fully present and happily aware of the moment” state all of the time?? Uh oh. There it is. The critical analyzer in me just got plugged back in. Who did that? Unplugging now. Awww, so much better . . . . . .

Have a Great Day Images

Everybody Laughs

I recently heard a man say that he lives for his vacations. I thought to myself, “That is scary and sad.” First of all, most Americans only get, on average, 2-3 weeks of vacation per year. So that is a lot of pressure and expectation resting on less than one twelfth of your entire year. What if your vacation ends up not being everything you built it up to be in your mind? What if you get sick? What if the venue looks a lot better in pictures than it really does in person? And even if your vacation does end up being a fabulous time, why would the rest of your life (the overwhelming majority of it) be a drab and dreary purgatory, until your vacation time is called?

I started to think that it would be a worthy goal to try to make every day feel like it has a little bit of vacation in it. Now, I recognize that this is easier to accomplish on weekends or other days that are off from work, so I figured yesterday, a Saturday, would be a good day to give it a good college try. I talked my husband (the teenagers at home had their own ideas of what a vacation day looks like, and that idea didn’t include hanging around all day, with mom and dad) into going to a neighboring town and hitting a small museum, a quaint art gallery and lush botanical garden – all three places that have been on my bucket list for quite some time. They were all three inexpensive, yet interesting venues that you didn’t need to invest hours and hours, at each one. The mix of all three made for a circus of the mind. It was like going to different tents for entirely different experiences and expeditions, and all three were easily explored in a short distance of a few walk-able miles, and the venues were explored and devoured in a time span no longer than four hours. We also managed to fit in a delicious meal at an authentic German cafe and had fun conversations with other diners, which ended with the whole cafe singing “Happy Birthday” to Kathy, a sweet elderly woman who was on her way to a baseball game, but she first sat and relished in our off-key, but full of heart and noisy song. My husband and I topped all of this off by splitting a homemade ice cream sandwich, which was made of delicious, creamy homemade ice cream sandwiched in between an award-worthy brownie and a cookie, pressed (yes, and the ice cream stayed cold, don’t ask me how) and then sprinkled with Butterfingers. While, we devoured our treat, we happily watched a little girl and her mother dance in the bubbles that were streaming playfully from a bubble machine that the ice cream parlor’s owners had installed outside of the store. The little girl wore a shirt that said this:

“Everybody Laughs in the Same Language”

When we got home, our kids were at home and still up, so we all cuddled on the couch and watched a movie together. Yesterday was easily a vacation-worthy, memory-filled experience. Now, I realize not every day is going to have the free hours for ambling, and not every day is going to be crisis free. Honestly, right now it feels good to envision the rest of my day, today, as a day at home, resting and getting organized for the week. Still, I refuse to live a life that is only zestfully experienced, two or three weeks out of a year. Yesterday, reminded me that with a little bit of effort, imagination and a “go with the flow” adventurous spirit, and without the tethers of grand expectations, even an ordinary day can feel like a vacation.

Time Stoppers

Over the weekend, my husband and I took our dogs to the beach for a long walk. The beach is the ultimate idea of Heaven for our labrador retriever, Ralphie. Everything that typically distracts Ralphie, which is usually mostly everything – kids, dogs, strollers, bikes, smells, animal waste, every pole and lamppost, any random piece of litter, etc., no longer distracts him when we are there. He is single-minded. Ralphie’s goal is for my husband to throw the ball as far out into the water as he can and for Ralphie to retrieve that said ball, endlessly. People stop their cars to watch Ralphie go out into the Gulf with only the tip of his pinkish-brown nose poking up through the water in the far distance, swimming out, purposefully and decidedly, to get the ball – an object he typically, otherwise, cares very little about.

I get such vicarious joy watching Ralphie work his passion. I suspect others do, too, when they pause to watch him swim out into the horizon. When we watch any living being, so in-step with the moment, so single-minded in his or her purpose, so full of determination and joy, time stops. When we watch someone or something, caught up in a fervency that is so innate to them that it is almost instinctual, we are all reminded of the things that make us feverish for life and for all of us, that is something different. Whether it be cooking, reading, flying, running, writing, singing, fishing, gardening, driving, sewing, painting, debating, hiking, working on puzzles, working on cars, meditating, golfing, skiing, etc. etc., we all have “that thing” – “that thing” that makes us agitated to still have to any other distractions . . . even hunger, even breathing. In a world so full of interruptions, cheap and easy diversions, responsibilities, and duties and routine, it is good to be reminded of those world-stopping moments, intimate only to our own connection with our deepest longings; our connection to the realest part of our souls. What are your passions? What activities make the world stop for you? What do you do to connect to that part of yourself on a daily basis? What moments are you “in your element”? These are all good questions to ponder at the beginning of the year to make sure that we are not cheating ourselves out of what is vital to us. These are the things that give our lives, Life.