In the Moment

Hi, my name is Nancy, and I’m trying really hard to learn to Be in the Moment.

You see, I’m a rusher.  I’m always looking toward the next thing.  As I’m getting ready to go somewhere, I’m thinking about the event.  While I’m at the event, I’m thinking about the stories I will tell my friends about the event, and how am I getting home.  

Reading, I often skim the first line of paragraphs to get the “gist” of what’s going on, delving deeper if it seems to be important, or scintillatingly juicy (in the trashy novel genre).

Working on a project, I’m thinking about lunch.  Eating lunch, I’m thinking about what I have to do on the project after.

Funny story, I was writing this in my head this morning while I was putting on my makeup, and stabbed myself right in the eye with my mascara wand.  Karma, right?  You get the gist.

Though this tendency has enabled me to be crowned the “Queen of good enough”, as with other things, I’m no longer sure this is “good enough”.

So I’ve been trying the last couple of weeks to check in now and then.  To say to myself “stop, be in this moment” and to actually do it.  I didn’t mention this earlier because I didn’t want you guys to hold me accountable if it was too hard to do.  :-)

You read about “being in the moment”.  It’s the holy grail of Happiness, Weight Loss, Inner Peace and Stress Reduction.  So when I engaged in this, I pictured moments like in the scene from the Twilight series where Edward sparkles in the filtered sunlight, with the Gospel Choir from the Chrysler commercial providing background music.  And guess what?  The first couple of times I consciously did it, the moment was wonderful.  I was in awe, and wondered why didn’t I do this before?  Look at all I was missing!  That color is so rich, that laugh so bubbly, this tastes incredible, has the sky always been that blue? Just look at the amazing people I’m with!

Then along came a moment, and without thinking I decided to actually look at it, and lets just say….it sucked.   I could see it clearly, in great detail, like in triple HD.  The colors were so sharp, the vise around my heart so tight and unrelenting, I tasted bile in my throat, and the sun was behind a dark foreboding cloud.  Starkly apparent were the people that were missing and would never be physically present again.  All the hype for “being in the moment” didn’t mention: what do you do when the moments suck?

One benefit of rushing means you don’t take a good look at anything, so though you don’t get the full effect of the beauty, you also don’t get the full effect of the bad stuff.   Picture Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory in the episode where he believes he is the flash.  Lots of “Bazinga” but nothing really touched him.  This technique has gotten me through some tough times “good enough”.

But as in painting, only doing “good enough” often means you have to go back and fix something, and perhaps back again, and again, until you finally have it right. 

We helped my daughter and PSIL (Perfect Son In Law) with their new house (I’m so freakin proud of them!) this weekend.  I was promoted from “totally banned from painting even primer unless the primer matches the ceiling paint” to “is allowed to paint with adult supervision”.   Know how?  I was in the moment.  I paid attention, I looked at what I was doing, I focused on how the color covered the old paint, I tried very hard (sometimes failed) to go slow so that things would feather in nicely, and the ceiling would remain mostly white.   There was very little that needed to be touched up when I was done.  ( I can provide references if you don’t believe me).

Someone posted the following on facebook a few weeks ago:

                “Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know – Pema Chodron”

I don’t know about you, but I have a list of things I wished would just go away, now, please.  It occurred to me that maybe this was like painting, that because in the original moment, and any of the trigger moments (you know those that hit you upside the head unawares and make you sob like a crazy person in the middle of the Christmas Tree Shop?), I didn’t pay attention.  I wasn’t in the moment, I rushed away onto the next very important thing I had to do, so there were “holidays” or more probably whole “walls” that needed to be touched up.  OK, there are a few emotional rooms that only have a foot square sample painted on the wall.

What do you do when you are in the moment, and the moment sucks?  Another of my favorite quotes is “If you feel like you’re going through hell, keep moving!”.  You breathe.  Inhale, Exhale.  You fill all your senses with as much of it as you can take, and then let it go.  It’s kind of like going through labor, and like labor, does not last forever.  And if you can only take some of it today, then good job for doing what you could!  But know, there will be more to do on another day.  But that’s OK.

So, my friends, I declare for me that 2013, I’m tossing “rushing” so much.  I’m going to treasure Being In The Moment more, even when it sucks.  I believe that filling myself with the Beautiful moments, will give me the reserves I need to deal with the Ugly ones, and truly looking at the Ugly ones, will help me appreciate the Beautiful ones even more.

And may I ditch the title “Queen of good enough”.  Wish me luck!