jdbhouston

I so often find that I’ve done things without even thinking about them. I often get all the way to the car and wonder if I locked my apartment when I left. I can go back and find that, yes, I locked it. But because I wasn’t “in that moment”, I locked the door unconsciously, as if in a trance, or on autopilot. I have found that Living in the Moment…is a lot harder that it sounds! It takes a lot of practice, and it requires that I do something I am not used to—slowing down. In order for me to live in the moment, I must slow down, and pay attention. I am so focused on whatever my task or goal is, that I oftentimes walk right past the beauty of the moment…the beautiful sunny sky, the trees in bloom around me, the feel of the breeze against my face.

So today, I spent some time, alone, just practicing being in the moment. I sat still, I listened, I watched. I let my five senses actually “sense”. And it was amazing. But even so, I still struggled with the noise of other thoughts, outside of the now, tempting me to set aside this moment and plan ahead or solve some issue. I must practice every day, and as often as possible. So now I’m concentrating on this moment, these words, my fingers against the keyboard, the hum of the computer. Practicing!

Through serendipity, there was a new entry at one of my favorite blogs (zenhabits.net) addressing this subject…here’s the link:
http://zenhabits.net/2009/04/the-mindfulness-guide-for-the-super-busy-how-to-live-life-to-the-fullest/
Enjoy this moment…

I was given a reminder today to meditate again. Today, I struggled to try to clear my mind…random thoughts, truly SILLY thoughts, kept running through my mind. This is not easy! But I did get my body to a quiet and calm place, and for a few brief seconds my mind was quiet as well. Today I tried to concentrate on the word ‘calm’.

I haven’t set up a regular time each day for meditation, but I know that would help me be more orderly with it. What would be great is to have a daily, unscheduled fire drill sound in my head, as a reminder to stop whatever I’m doing and just meditate for a few minutes. It’s not the doing that is the challenge, so much as is the starting!

Today I was reviewing my list here, and realized that of all the items on my list, regular meditation should be the easiest. I mean, after all, it’s something that is fairly easy to do, you just have to do it. You can be as complicated as you want to be, but in the end it is just being still and quiet. So, I just finished a quick 5 minute meditation time. I focused on the word “peace”, but sometimes I focus on my breath, or I count. I just let the distracting thoughts and words that came into my mind pass through without giving them a place to land. Okay, one day down, a lifetime to go!