A Conversation With The Present Moment
Dear Present Moment,
Why are you so hard to stay engaged with? Hey, I just thought of something….why do they call it A.D.D.? It’s not an attention deficit, it’s an internally elaborate attentiveness to external stimuli. And why am I starting out this blog presenting myself with subtle self-deprecating humor? Well, that’s often been my alter ego I suppose, it’s been comfortable for me. You either laugh or cry about your inhibitions, right? Oh well, I’m not sure how many people actually read my blogs these days, I haven’t written much lately. Life happens. And I have no denial about being hard to track with in my writing for some people. My writing can be extremely intricate and may come across to some as enlightening and refreshing, or a bit convoluted, but it is anything but drab and dull.
Present Moment- are you still there? Sorry I keep wandering off and leaving you. Wait. Why am I apologizing? You are not offended, you are not expecting something from me, and so you are not disappointed in me when I do not deliver. You are not a hard to please or impress authority figure or peer in my life, and I owe you nothing. Yet, you just exist on a moment by moment basis, whether I am with you or not. I want to engage with you more, I want to learn from you more. I want to give and receive from you. The invitation to do so is always there for me. Sometimes it feels good to be with you, and sometimes it doesn’t because there’s fear and uncertainty that if I am not attending to interpreting the past or preparing for the future, I will fall. It is how I’d learned to survive, albeit much of it not in a very conscious and awakened state until the past few years or so.
I find that intentionally staying engaged with the Present Moment feels like an incredibly vulnerable and spiritual experience. It also feels very much like a discipline. It does not come naturally for me, it doesn’t come when I’m running on auto-pilot, at least that’s not what I am finding in this present moment. So many other thoughts are vying for my attention, and they know how to distract me from you. All they need to do is persistently push my alarm button with very rational and logical analysis of the past and future. Pause. I gotta be careful here, to not get rigid and fall into the all-or-nothing trap. The world is colorful, not black and white. There are definitely times when my rational analysis has rescued my ass from ongoing bullshit and prevented me from taking that route. Like a hammer used to build a house, it is one of many tools, but it is not the ONLY tool needed in building a house. I have relied heavily on that tool of logical analysis though, and in some cases it has served me well, but not in all cases.
This Sunday, I am planning to attend a Quaker meeting for the first time. I am searching for other resources to help me engage with the Present Moment in a way where it serves me well.
Words to describe what I am getting from this Present Moment – Stability. Expanded limits. Acceptance. Peace. Simplicity. And I that I have to pee.
Engaging in life and fully living in this Present Moment has a richness to it, it’s not expensive. Allowing the Present Moment to unfold and to trust that it is as it is meant to be in the present moment empowers and frees me. Resisting and rejecting the Present Moment by psychologizing and pathologizing it and me imprisons me. I can open my hands and give in this Present Moment, knowing that bigger hands are holding me and won’t let go of, even when I struggle to trust that I am being held in this Present Moment. I’m learning to hear here.
mindingmybiz 