Reading Anne Lamott’s book, Almost Everything, I am dazzled by her naked honest truthful way of writing about her experiences, thoughts, feelings, and hopes. She wrote, “I have just always found it extremely hard to be here, on this side of eternity, because of, well, other people; and death.” Heavy.
How many of us have felt that way about our journey? To be aware of that challenge and to not succumb to despair? To be so aware that we have avoided life in some ways…doubting ourselves and feeling isolated, alienated, and just plain different? Is this sense of separation from others and life borne from a distortion of our perception of who we are? Who are we anyway? How did we grow into the person that we refer to as “Me”? And must we be satisfied with what we feel, sense, perceive and believe about that core self? Or can we move through the world with a solid sense of grounding, steady as we walk step by step to live more fully from our true self? What would it take for us to slow down enough to hear our emerging Self?
This emerging Self is the part of us who questions and seeks clarity of consciousness so that we can live our highest potential. We learn to live mindfully, aware of our own tendency to apply stories to what’s happening in hopes of understanding the situation. Yet the stories we tell ourselves often trap us in our inertia and don’t allow for a more current perspective on what is occurring. We apply stories that resemble past pain or future fears. We bring forward into our present situation the sensitivities we’ve formed, the fears we carry—we are primed to “react” rather than to respond. We interact in the world from habit rather than from a fresh clear awareness of the situation before us.
To train our minds to be present…to BE HERE NOW…is to live more fully. We stop reacting because of our “buttons” and learn to witness when we have been triggered. We step back and become the observer. This brings us a broader perspective of the situation because we have not applied any narrowing due to stories we tell ourselves about the causes of the current situation. We just rest in the present moment and witness…”Wow! That sure pushed my buttons! Let me take a step back and not judge it, apply expectations, or lash out, but to witness with awareness, like a baby, to see/hear/feel what is happening now without self judgment either. To just Be. 🙏🏼 Namaste.
