Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Being Present
I have a big confession to make. I KNOW what my central issue is. I may fain that this journey is a new discovery in which I'm peeling away thin layers of myself much like an onion. But I know what causes my angst, and I've known about this problem for quite some time now: I am simply not here. Oh, I exist alright. I go through the rigors of my day and appear normal to much of the world. I am good at pretending. But as far as being PRESENT in my life, I simply am not. What do I mean - being present? Well, it's listening, really listening, when someone is talking to me. It's being fully there in the moment. Or how about eating, really tasting food and experiencing it, when I am at a meal? Most of my life is spent "somewhere else". I'm thinking about what I have to do next. I'm obsessing about my kids or my husband or my house or our ridiculous schedules or our money or lack of it. I worrying that my singing voice or the music I write is horrible. I worry that the world won't like me. Yada, yada, yada,... Sometimes I disguise my not being there by the politically correct term "multi-tasking". Now there's a zinger for you! Doing two or more things at once so that I can pretend I'm an expert at saving time. But the reality is I have diluted both experiences to whispers of what they should be by sandwiching them together like a Big Mac. I park my van at my destination and I have NO IDEA how I got there. Scary! Disturbing. Ec khart Tolle has written several books on the premise that we are truly missing the experiences of our own lives by letting our minds take over to such a degree. A very young, wise child once told me, "My biggest problem is that I think too much. I just can't stop thinking." I can relate! The dental hygienist I mentioned in my June 11th post to this blog also acknowledged her habit of being "somewhere else" all the time. So, as an experiment, she decided to brush her teeth - only brush her teeth - for two minutes. She said it was amazing. The taste of her toothpaste was SO intense. Her teeth were SO clean! She was practically giddy about it. So, Dear Readers, I challenge you to do just one small task today, and really be there while you are doing it. I will do the same. And we can compare notes tomorrow. Hope to hear from you soon! Lauren
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Now see, I tend to be not present by design. I don't really want to "feel" the experience of my life. The closer I look at and feel my life the more dismayed I am. I think, what am I doing here? How did I get to this point in my life? I'm 48 years old, I have a successful husband and two wonderful, albiet typically awful, teenage girls...and then there is me.
ReplyDeleteI think deep down, I do the same thing. Only I cover with a lot more denial. I "pretend" everything's great. But then there are those times when the bottom drops out of my life, and I'm a wreck and crying for no reason at all, and then I take a deep breath and say, "Oh, yeah. THAT stuff's still out there. Sooner or later I'll have to deal with it. But not now." And off I go again into GAGA Land. But the bottom is dropping out more often lately. For me "sooner" needs to be now. I'm scared to death! But the alternative is eating myself into oblivion and feeling like crap starting from my first thoughts each morning. At this point, I don't know much except digging deep down is the only way out. And I'm finding out that where I "suspect" the problem is me, I'm dead wrong. It's just that my thinking is flawed because I'm too impressed by what others are thinking and saying. Yeow!
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