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Come back!

Recently I wrote about practicing full presence in this activity or in this conversation. Especially when we are in relationship with another human being, whether that is a one-on-one connection or as a member of the audience at a speaking or performance event, the gift of full presence is kind, appropriate and energetically supportive. Do we give it 100% of the time? I for one, and, I suspect, most of us, cannot answer that in the affirmative. Even if it is our intention to be fully present in a given moment, it isn’t easy! Our minds wander into yesterday or tomorrow. Our body sends us messages and we stray into our own personal space of need. Our emotions act up with boredom or reactivity, and we follow their lead. When it is your intention to give full presence and you wander, I encourage you to learn the skill of coming back. You will need it!

Imagine you are in an auditorium filled with people and you’ve come to listen to a friend speak. You begin to stray …

  1. INTENTION: Notice the part of you that committed to being present, the voice inside that says, “Come back!”
  2. DISCERN: Now put yourself up there on that stage, experiencing your audience members drifting off. What do you need? Maybe you want to see a visual clue that folks are paying attention (smiles, sitting up straight…). Maybe you want to hear their reaction to your words (Yes! Ah ha!…)
  3. GIVE: Channel that to the speaker. Give your undivided attention, your presence.

Will you stray again? Probably! Can you come back … again? Of course! Know that you you can practice coming back everywhere – with your children, friends, coworkers, clients, even with yourself!

What is the impact of full presence?
What is “coming back” over and over worth?

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Watching my garden grow

This morning, I gave myself permission to be with Life: the robins feeding their young, the clouds moving ever so slowly. And, the poppies popping! It has been three hours now since the first photo of the day:

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with the poppies which were not open last night, OPEN! If you look ever so closely at the lower right-hand corner of that photo above, you’ll see the 4th poppy just starting to open. Then, an hour later, that same poppy bud open!

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and another hour later:

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and just one more hour later:

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Okay – and one more hour later:

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I’m floored! I’m also aware of Life in a new way. I have never allowed myself to witness nature like this before. Okay, I may be slow on the uptake here! And perhaps I DID witness such things when I was a child. Having spent Tuesday afternoon in the woods with a 2 1/2 year old who described the clouds as “cracking out” with such delight, it would seem a child simply cannot NOT witness the magic!

I guess some questions for me, and you, if you choose, are:

Where do I refuse to slow down and be fully present?
What is happening moment to moment that I miss?

What would a daily dose of wonderment do for my spirit?

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Be here now …

hummingbird

Not a new idea … certainly not. Yet, most of us need reminding. Me? I need to be reminded every day – multiple times per day!

This is the only moment we have.
This moment.
This breath.
Now.

Be here. Be with the task in front of you, the person you are with. Be here.

Does this mean we don’t plan for the future?

No. Visioning the future and making plans is definitely part of co-creating our lives! Co-creating, however, requires that we release the tight grip on those plans and live fully the current moment.

Why? 

Have you noticed how quickly things change? The weather can go from sunshine to lightning in an instant – totally transforming the landscape and, if you are wise, the round of golf you thought you would play today! Think about technology – how our children don’t even know what a cassette tape or typewriter of rotary phone is! By the time the future arrives, our choices about how to be in that future moment may have changed so dramatically that any plans we set in motion last year, last month, even last week may be irrelevant or even unwise.

The only moment we have to live is this one. And this one. And this one. If we spend each moment planning for tomorrow, we just might miss our lives. As I’ve been writing this with the thought of you reading it “in the future”, I have paused frequently to look up. And in those pauses, I’ve witnessed several hummingbird visits to the feeder. Each visit lasts only seconds. Without the pauses, I would have missed so much!

Today, consider adding a bit of balance to your day. Set aside some time for planning, considering what you’d like to do, where you’d like to go, what lies ahead. Then, return to now. Breathe into the moment you are living now, the task you are doing now. Balance action and forward movement with pausing to listen, to become aware of what is happening in and around you now. Notice what shows up when your mind takes a break.

What magic is revealed in your pauses?
What is really here NOW?

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There Are No Sacred Cows

Kuhl

I want to share with you a simple tool that came to me this morning and brought me tremendous freedom. I woke after a fitful night of sleep to a day filled with appointments. My mind raced with thoughts like:

Should I cancel that one?
I can’t possibly skip that!
There’s just too much.
Blah, blah, blah.

Somehow, I managed to pause long enough for a breath deep enough to hear a whisper from my heart:

There are no sacred cows, Jeanne

In that instant, I knew that I could choose. Any of the five appointments in this day could be cancelled or rescheduled or happen without my attendance. Yes, all of them! I am not indispensable. I can let go, trust that others will understand, take care of Jeanne.

What happened? I decided to release one option in tomorrow and move one option from today into that slot. I agreed to decide later if I would do my usual noon exercise. Then I moved into the day. Most importantly, I moved into it free, light, at choice, able and willing to BE in each remaining activity 100%.

What are you holding as a sacred cow?
What can you release in order to come fully present now?

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Time to remember …

Perhaps you have considered that you are a complex being, not simply a “person”. Maybe not. Yet, think about this. Each of us has a physical body, a mind or intellectual body. Each of us is an emotional being  – has an emotional body. We have a spirit, a personality, an energetic body. Finally, many of us believe that we come into this world with a soul, the essence of Life itself as yet another aspect of our being.

Here’s the catch. Many of us focus on a subset of our wholeness and try to ignore the rest. For some, that means we develop our intellectual body and hope the emotional stays quiet. Others listen only to their emotions and react to life from this center of knowing. There are also persons who have latched on to a spiritual journey and focus solely on its pursuit leaving their human nature to chance. Often the impact of this way of “partial living” is illness, unhappiness, depression, a nagging sense that something is missing in life.

What parts of you are disconnected?
Is it time for you to re-member?

If you know that you ignore your physical body, just expect it to show up and “perform” as you put all of your energy into your work, consider gifting it with good food and modest movement. If, instead, you ignore your spirit, never thinking about what is truly important to you, never pausing to sense delight in your life, take a break – maybe a short vacation. Nurture your playful inner self. If your emotions are the part of you most ignored (until they blow up at the nearest innocent bystander), your task may be to find time to pause with a trusted friend or family member or perhaps a journal where you can notice and write about what’s in your emotional space with total confidentiality.

Re-membering ourselves takes time and dedication. It is the work of every day in small amounts. It is the journey toward wholeness, self-honoring, ease.

How will you commit to re-membering today?