I woke up this morning with a lot of anxiety, and I wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from. I had some nebulous unclear fears swarming around in my head and I was just stressed and worried. The way that I combated that stress was to try and focus on where I was at the moment. I reminded myself that I just woke up and today was just beginning. In that moment I was in my cozy bed and there was nothing to stress over yet. I reminded myself to stay focused on what was happening currently.
I often find that I live either in the past or the future. I’ll ruminate on things I’ve said or done in the past or endlessly obsess over things that haven’t happened yet. I plan for fun vacations and time with my family and then find that I over plan and do too much. I work hard and I play hard. But I often struggle to show up in the present moment.
I worry that I miss so much when I do that. There is so much joy in each moment, whether it’s a beautiful sunny day…or a beautiful cloudy one. Today I signed my first ever lease for my own office and I’m trying to really take that in. Sometimes I’ll have a moment of insight or reflection but if I’m not careful I’ll rush right past it and not make time to take it in fully. Sometimes it’s a conversation with my kids and if I’m not paying attention I’ll miss that moment of connection with them. I work so hard to make sure that things are taken care of because I want to live a happy and fulfilled life. But am I missing out on the things that can make me happy if I’m not living fully in each moment?
Happiness is not dependent on circumstances being exactly as we want them to be, or on ourselves being exactly as we’d like to be. Rather, happiness stems from loving ourselves and our lives exactly as they are, knowing that joy and pain, strength and weakness, glory and failure are all essential to the full human experience.
Kristin Neff
I want to show up for the full human experience. In the moment. I want to be here for the joy and the pain and the lessons and the celebrations. I’m going to be taking two weeks off to spend time with family and get ready to start working in my new office. Having the ability to take this much time off is both a huge accomplishment for me and a opportunity for rest, relaxation and reflection. My hope for myself is that I can slow down and live in the present rather than thinking about the past or looking forward to the future. My hope for you is that you can learn to do the same. That we can slow down and make it a priority to be right here, right…
