It was my shopping day yesterday…
Through bad design, I have my webinars on the same day as my shopping day.
And yesterday I felt creamed by the experience.
I dragged myself through, slept like a baby, but I am still exhausted today.
The difference for me between tired and exhausted, is my breathing. If my chest is not willing to expand, I call that exhaustion…
Anyway, I went to lie down about an hour ago, and opened a new book, 10-minute mindfulness, or something like that… on my kindle.
Five minutes into it I suddenly I realized what happened, what I didn’t do…
OK, first I am going to tell you what others teach you to do to be more present in life and less swept up in the drama of the day.
Then I will tell you what works… what I normally do, and what I didn’t do yesterday. OK?
Every day, every hour for many of us, we are bombarded with information that keeps us stirred up, worried, and chasing paper tigers.
There’s no time to enjoy the moment because we’re too busy preparing for the unforeseen future or replaying the pains of the past.
Our cellphones, laptops, and tablets have become weapons of mass distraction, pulling us further and further from the only place of real peace and happiness—the present moment.
Says Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist Thích Nhat Hanh (Personal vibration: 170) in his book Peace is Every Step, “Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
Easy for a Buddhist monk to say, right?
But many people discredit the idea of living in the present. They view it as unrealistic or a waste of time—something unattainable for everyday people who live in the modern world.
How can it be done? How can you remain in the present when you have to plan, schedule, achieve goals, and simply live life in a hectic world that’s so focused on the future? Unless you’re a monk or a hermit, is it possible to truly live in the now?
The answer is found through the daily practice of mindfulness.
The practice of mindfulness anchors you in the present moment, even if it’s for just a few minutes at a time, and actually the best way to build this habit is to start with a few minutes at a time.
We’re not suggesting you must be mindful all day, every day. We are inviting you to the practice of mindfulness, a habit you develop slowly and embrace as part of the way you want to live.
Is it even possible to be present for every single moment of your life?
No.
But you can use mindfulness practices to be more present.
For every minute you practice mindfulness in your day, you generate a reservoir of inner peace that can support you through the times of “unconscious living.”
What they are saying may work, may not, I have never found it useful. For me it doesn’t work.
But this is one way….
What I find is missing in every solution I have heard, is this: they consider you a homogenous monolithic thing that either does this or that.
But truth be told, we are, each of us, is a team with team members that can do one thing while another member does another thing.
For example the conscious mind may be doing bookkeeping, while the consciousness is keeping in step with the present, while the mind is busy talking away… you know the voices that never shut up.
I won’t even talk about other members of team YOU, because these are the players in this little drama at hand.
The important thing is to get in touch with consciousness, the part that is always present, always in the present moment, because that is its job. The mind is out of your control… it is either in the future or in the past… and does that talking incessantly, mostly negative stuff, sometimes desire-filled stuff… but is never present. I don’t even think it knows about the present.
And then there is the intellect, the conscious mind, that does the work needed in life. It is also in the present moment, but it is task oriented.
Most people live their life without either the conscious mind or consciousness showing themselves much… they are just the mouthpieces for the mind… Blah blah and more blah.
If that is you… this will not help you.
But if you do work, keep your conscious mind on it… don’t allow the voices to distract you.
And allow, no, ask consciousness to keep informing you about the beauty of the world, while you are busy working with your conscious mind.
You see, as soon as you get good at tuning out the voices, the Amish Horse Training Method is excellent! you have reduced the drama to next to nothing, and you are in the present moment… doing your work… and scanning reality… two team members letting you have it all.
Nothing that the mind jabbers about is relevant… EVER.
All the emotions you ever feel are from the words the mind spews on you… if you pay attention, instead of working.
I have no emotions, or more precisely, I have less than 1% of the time have emotions that are mine.
I, unfortunately have to feel other people’s emotions, and my job is to feel them and let them be… Why? Because I can’t change them, and resisting just makes me sick.
That’s what happened yesterday: I resisted them… it was too much.
But I haven’t heard my voices in years. So I haven’t had emotions in years.
And you know what? You don’t have to either.
And then you can be in the present doing good work, and not even miss the beauty of the world… because you don’t have to.
And if you are missing anything, and if you have emotions, that is a sign that you need to continue doing the Amish Horse Training method until you get good at it.
And need to clean up your integrity…
Not impossible…
A small job for a lifetime of peace and quiet… I hope you decide to do it.
