Are You Looking at Your Life…

Or Overlooking Your Life?

This week finds me in St Catherine’s taking care of my little Grand-puppy Athena, while her parents live it up in San Diego!

And one of the things I love best about Athena, my little warrior princess is watching her navigate life in her ability to just live in the moment.

It’s very clear she lives in her own passionate and at times intense little world where she is Queen every day. Things happen, she deals with them and then she just gets on with the next thing. So simple!

Being with Athena, reminds me of this quote by Marianne Williamson:

“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.”

When we lose track of our lives through busy-ness or overwhelm we no longer see what’s good or bad because we’re concentrating so hard on what’s next!

I’m guilty of this myself -Overlooking my life and missing out on all kinds of pleasures that are right under my nose.

• How often have you eaten a meal and not really tasted it, because you were busy chatting or watching TV?
• How often have you driven somewhere and then can’t remember getting there?
• How much of your day passes by, while your mind is on other things?

With practice you can learn to live in the moment often enough to make a real difference to how you feel and how you live your life.  It helps break the cycle of escalating thoughts and worries throughout the day, and that is a LIFE SAVER!

It means you won’t end difficult days feeling like a wet dish rag that went through too may spin cycles!

And on good days you feel so much better for longer periods!

It’s worth a try, don’t you think?

Sometimes we can let days go by and get swallowed up in our routine. Every day is the same and pretty blah.

Dogs on the other hand find everyday life exciting? They can’t wait to eat, go for their walk, see you come home, or greet a visitor. Or like today as I busily write this article, she sleeps, until the moment she thinks there’s a chance to play or go for a walk. And then she’s UP and raring to go.

So much to learn by observing how our pets have enthusiasm for the simple joys of everyday life.

Everyday can be special for you as well. When you take the time to look, we may find all kinds of treasure filled joys just waiting to be rediscovered.

5 Steps for Living In The Moment

1. Dogs and Children
Just watch them at play.

They flit from one activity to another seamlessly.

When they’re engaged it’s a 100%, total concentration or enjoyment.

Children are not thinking about what they were doing yesterday or what’s happening tomorrow when they’re being in the moment – They are Spiderman or a Fairy! They fully engage in whatever activity captures their attention.

My grand-puppy Athena when thinking someone’s going to come into her garden Uninvited, focuses her whole attention to the matter in hand. The moment she’s reassured it’s all OK, she follows whatever catches her attention next.

Dogs and children live for today—and so can we. We can appreciate every moment as it comes and be grateful for what we have. Like all animals, when we live in the present, we can have more enthusiasm, joy for life, and less worry.

2. Dessert
Think of the last decadent desert that you ate and enjoyed so much. Do you remember how time just stood still until it was all finished.

You closed your eyes, and slowly put a spoon of the desert in your mouth. Savouring the flavour.
You let it sit on your tongue
Melting, filling your mouth with yumminess.
Ahhhhh!

I bet the taste and texture lasted for days in your imagination. Right?

So the next time you eat something, try not to think about anything else, don’t read or chat aimlessly or watch the TV — just experience the food.

We can spend time regretting the past and worrying about the future, but I have learned that the solution will not be found that way. Spinning my wheels thinking about things I find is never productive.

Deep lasting pleasure is found in the moment. And you have to be paying attention to reap the benefits.

3. Loose Yourself in a task
You’ve been in the moment plenty of times.

Remember all the times when you lost yourself in a task? Not lost in thought, but lost in the doing whatever you were doing. No other thoughts you were just there and engaged. Didn’t that feel good?

Or maybe it was a hobby, playing sports, yardwork, fixing something, anything.

The world disappeared. And time stood still.

Artists call it being in the “zone” or the “flow.”

Its not super easy but it gets easier over time. The benefits are getting things done with so much less effort. If all your attention is in one spot it is so much more effective.

I watched a toddler have a tantrum the other day and thought OMG that is so much energy focused there for such a little one. I was mesmerized. The parent was just stood waiting it out, chatting with me. Moments later – all done and the child was calm and ready to be soothed.

Think about it? How much quicker and better could you accomplish anything if you just put your undivided attention on that, before moving onto the other?

4. Stop Competing and Start Celebrating
The thing about comparison is that there is never a win. And you are always SO not in the present moment.

And everytime we compare and find ourselves coming up short, we drain our energy and end up feeling “less than.” It happens to me at times when I write for my site, an article, my newsletter, a workshop.

I wish I had some training, knew what I was doing, or was good enough that the words would just flow straight onto the page.

That’s SO much rubbish. No writer or artist or creative person EVER just does stuff. Creating takes time, and love, and effort and disappointment and all kinds of things that we never see in the finished process.

So when we comparing we are looking at our beginnings of a project but, our attention is seeing “their” finished product.

Kind of daft really isn’t it?

Instead. Congratulate yourself on beginning something, completing something, taking even the smallest step. Find the love and pleasure in what you’re doing and let that take you into your “flow” into your “zone of genius.”

5. Slow Down to Enjoy Life
There’s a movement in Europe named Slow Food.

Slow Food began in Italy with the founding of its forerunner organization, Arcigola, in 1986 to resist the opening of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

In 1989, the founding manifesto of the international Slow Food movement was signed in Paris, France by delegates from 15 countries, which “establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle.”

I love this idea. Don’t you? Slowing down to enjoy life more, savoring life’s simple pleasures, and letting go on some level the materialistic culture we are all caught up in.

Having time for yourself and to embrace fellow humans instead of always chasing the next shiny thing.

I thought you might enjoy these to try…

Have a cup of tea, put your feet up and stare out of the window. Warning: don’t try this while driving.
Practice doing nothing (Yes, this is a hard one)
Write down these words and place them where you can see them, “Multitasking is a Moral Weakness.” 🙂
Stop more often and just listen to yourself breathing

Wishing you a wonderful week of rediscovering Your Own Treasures of Joy!

Namaste

Lucinda

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