Idle Sunday Morning

I had a great morning walk with my dog, Rufus. The leaves were rustling in the breeze and I could hear Fall approaching. We came back inside and played some. Rufus was really into it this morning; dropping his favorite toy in front of me then trying to play keep away when I went to grab it. He ate breakfast and laid back down for a kingly snooze. I putzed in the kitchen with a recipe I've been wanting to make, Thai sticky coconut chicken rice. The apartment smells of delicious red curry, coconut, and chicken. As I puttered in the kitchen with the recipe I had some great jazz playing and John Coltrane’s My Little Brown Book came on. Perfect Idle Sunday Morning music! The point to all this? This has all given me an incredibly centered and present sense this morning. It's a delicious mindfulness to be immersed in today. 

Lessons in Happiness

I went to what was hands-down the strangest wedding and reception last night. For starters it was a combination wedding/reception/baby shower. The groom was the brother of one of my closest friends. They’d already had a baby and been married in a courthouse ceremony but wanted the “official” thing, so it was kind of a redo, more for the mother of the bride's sake, I suspect.

Friends at my table kind of heckled the whole thing as a little “lower”. The carafes of wine at the tables were suspect, looking more like a strange rosé Kool-Aid. The open bar was bizarrely stocked. No bourbon just scotch, several bottles grenadine, rums I'd never heard of, and no lemons, only limes. The bar was supposed to be open from 7 - 11pm, but the bartender kept telling us, "Not yet!" The silverware was mismatched. The dinnerware was standard cafeteria issue. It was Mystery Meat Night with what I think was boneless chicken breasts and some sort of paper-thin Salisbury Steak’ish kind of thing. The mashed potatoes clearly came from a box, and the salad was a weird concoction with Lima beans and pigeon peas. After dinner the DJ got going with 80s music and a smoke machine that turned the reception into a weird retro-80s gay bar vibe. The entire thing, start to finish, from the front door to the back was what some people would politely call "tacky".

The entire evening though, I watched the room. Observing, I realized everyone there was truly happy. The bride and groom were all smiles, their parents were completely in their element, and everyone was dancing, laughing, drinking, taking pictures, shuffling around tables to visit, etc. Everyone was present and very much in the moment. No one there gave two shits about what the beef dish was supposed to be, if the silverware matched, or that the plates weren't fine china. It simply didn't matter. That's not what the evening was about. It was about all the individual joys of the evening and the collective joy of the room.

The evening was a tremendous life lesson about what genuine and unconditioned happiness is. I came home last night feeling uplifted, having had the time of my life, and I went to bed feeling like I get "it” just a bit more than I did before.

The Eternal Morning

Rising before dawn is one of my most intimate joys. Sometimes those mornings seem eternal. The sunrise is a little slower. The coffee goes down just a tad more deliciously. The dog’s snoring a little more comforting. Every sound my 104-year old apartment makes is some sort of joyful, secret whisper. The world seems a little quieter outside. It’s mornings like that I feel hyper present, in tune with and touching every slight nuance of everything.

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The Comfort of Mindfulness

In bed this morning around 5am I rolled over and pulled the covers up high. I was warm and snuggled in and I felt rested, not only in body but mind. I felt completely unencumbered by anything and a nice phrase came to mind: Comfortable in my mindfulness. It’s the cozy, snuggled-up feeling you get when you know you’re wrapped up in safe and sound in your sense of self, mindfulness, and presence.

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A Tide in the Affairs of Men

 

Being

I always start my day not by asking, "What am I going to do today?" I always start my day by asking, "How am I going to be today?" 

It's surprising what an enormous difference a simple reframing of the question makes.

Serenity from Frustration

So yesterday was a really crappy day work-wise. Everything was a fire drill. One job in particular was totally fucked up. I was working on a file from my desktop (standard working procedure) and was told at the eleventh hour that the file I should be working from is online where everyone was working on it in real time. So most of my day's work was for naught. Had I been told that from the beginning a lot of stress and frustration could have been avoided. It was a classic case of miscommunication and no communication at all boogering everything up. I was frustrated, my boss was frustrated, and the mood was basically gloomy because of all this. 

I tell this story for background to something else. Lying in bed this morning I said to myself, "Yesterday is a memory now. Nothing about it is tangible. It can't reach out from the calendar and grab me and pull me back." Then I wondered, "Back from what? Back into what?" It was then I understood my aloud thinking. I had moved beyond letting something in past affect my here and now. It's a new day and what is past is past. It can't influence my mood, if I don't allow it to. I learned a great deal from yesterday about how to more effectively handle similar situations in the future. And that's the only thing from that mess of a day and project I need to carry with me.

It was a great feeling and one of those you feel the serenity and confidence of in your bones. It helps me stay present and in the moment. Right where I should be. Not looking over my shoulder at the past, and not anxious about a future that hasn't happened yet. 

The Bullhorn of Happiness

It occurred to me this morning that for the past year and a half we've been getting blatant, in-your-face messages. Messages that are telling us to slow down, enjoy your life as it is in this very moment, stop chasing false success in the form of stuff, look inward, and appreciate the present. 

That message has come in the form of everything from COVID lockdowns to Facebook crashes. Yesterday without Facebook did seem weird, yes. But it was much like turning off a squawky television and enjoying the peace and quiet. 

And yet despite all the bullhorns showing us the way to deeper happinesses, we go right back to "the way things were" or exhaust ourselves chasing it. Sometimes I think we'll never, ever learn.

The Joy of Hyperpresence

This morning I'm flooded with an overwhelming sense of calm and place. It's a feeling of "I am RIGHT HERE. I'm in THIS MOMENT." There's nothing ahead to be anxious about, and the past isn't something regrettable. It's just lessons to be assimilated. It's a kind of hyper reality and sense of deep satisfaction. I don't have the biggest place, the fanciest car, the most expensive stuff, and I'm not famous or rich. But I'm right here, right now, and I'm fantastically content feeling me feet firmly and serenely planted in the moment. It's a term I call "hyperpresence."

The Peace of Presence

There comes an age where priorities and things one thought were so important honestly aren't anymore. All you'd like is peace and quiet. Living a simple, uncomplicated life, quietly sipping your coffee or tea in your favorite chair as the sun's coming up. Moving through the day knowing where you are with yourself and feeling like your'e fully in the present moment.

Shinrin Yoku, Part 2

I just started reading this book my good friend Dan sent me. He knows me so well. It’s a fascinating look at how we not only need nature, but how nature and humans are equals. The Japanese concept of forest bathing is now being regarded as an integral part of our physical and spiritual balance. A fascinating and enlightening read!

Centered On Self

There is a huge difference between being centered on self 
and being self-centered.

The Machine of the Universe

I had a very nice "moment of presence" at the gym this morning. The sun was just beginning to peek over the building (my gym's windows face west), and it was shimmering on a huge tree at the end of the parking lot. Every leaf seemed bright and vivid and intensely alive. The music I was listening to on my iPhone was the album, "Om: The Primordial Sound".* It's very meditative and puts me in a nice relaxed and focused zone. At the very moment the music hit a dramatic spot a flock of birds careened in front of the patch of leaves I described above. They shimmered for a brief moment in the sunlight as well. In that nanosecond it almost felt as if I wasn't in the gym, but away and part of some larger whole. My place in it fit like some tooth in a gear meshing with the notches in another gear. A tiny but integral cog in the machine of the universe. It was one of those moments where everything falls away and it's just you and the experience. In that brief flash you know beyond a doubt you are an integral part of something much bigger. *I highly recommend this album. It can be found on iTunes for those interested.

Perspectives and Pigeon Holes

I love the way a trip can give a person perspective. It's like a reverse microscope. The further one gets away from “life back home,” the details of that life come finer, more intricate, not fuzzier. One can see the individual parts of that life and how they all interact with one another.

That said, I’ve been feeling some anxiety lately. I'm starting nursing school in the fall of this year, and it's been causing a nebulous churning inside me. It’s an uneasiness I’ve been having difficulty identifying and getting my brain around. My recent weekend getaway to San Francisco helped me get perspective though, and I realized some things about myself that helped.

One, I’m a pigeon-holer. I like everything in its own neat, little, organized cubby hole. And if it’s not, that’s where anxiety takes root for me. Facets of a task or some aspect of my life just “hanging out there” unorganized or unassigned to some schedule or framework I’ve devised in my head makes me nervous. Two, I realized I’m not afraid of or nervous about tackling and comprehending the academic aspects of nursing school. I have no doubt or concern about that what so ever.

And there’s where the perspective comes in. Being away from my "home self" for a while, I was able to see my nebulous worry from afar which helped me to observe it objectively and identify its parts. The uneasiness wasn’t the academic challenges ahead. It was the almost impossible schedule I’d created in my head. I was so focused on the how of it all. I kept fretting over how will all the parts of my life (work, school, social, relationships, etc.) interact and fit together. I was so focused on that that I lost sight of appreciating the moment and staying present. My anxiety was stealing my joy and sense of accomplishments thus far in getting to where I'm at.

I realized I can only address what’s in front of me. The parts out of my control are just that, out of my control. The future can’t be organized or pigeon-holed. I can prepare for the future in the here and now, definitely. There is nothing wrong with that. I cannot, however, control my future. Coming to this revelation, understanding that and giving up the senseless frustration of trying to control the future was a revelation and another major step in my growth.

If You Want To Eat Apples Stop Buying Oranges

I had a huge (at least to me) revelation at about 4-something this morning, that magic time when the mind isn't cluttered with the garbage of input from the day just yet. I’ve been getting frustrated with my goals lately. Then it hit me this morning. They’ve been misdirected. If you want to eat apples, stop buying oranges. That sounds pretty simple but it was a big reveal to me. I’ve been doing that with certain things.
Example: I’ve been wanting to lose some weight, but I haven’t been working out with weight loss in mind. Nor have I been eating with that in mind. So you can imagine the frustration with a goal in mind and the actions not being in line with that goal. It was a pretty liberating notion to come to.

It was a fascinating mindset that's carried me through the day so far and its "application" has been resonating with shocking clarity in several areas. It's making for a clarity and sense of purpose that doesn't center around that unconscious, sneaky people-pleasing mentality I struggle with. As selfish as it might sound this is all about me, my happiness, my presence, my mindfulness, and my serenity. Not the superficial kind, but the kind that you feel bubbling up from very deep places inside.

More to come...

Presence of Peace, or Peace of Presence?

I'm having one of those absolutely wonderful moments. Work is done for the day, I didn't have any tv or radio on. I worked in powerful and calming silence. It was a hectic workday but I stayed present and at peace with myself all day. Now it's quiet and serene and I'm enjoying sitting here in my peace of presence.
To be present is one thing. To be at peace is another. To have them merging as one is bliss.