Category: past

A Mindfulness Meditation

Because today it is almost too hot to think (whenever I try, I feel brain cells melting), I am doing a very short post, a poem I wrote an introduction to a seminar I led on mindfulness. Re-reading it has reminded me to be mindful and to look for those aspects of the present moment that I can enjoy.

I have an appointment with life.

It is here,

It is now.

I free myself from the stale air of the past.

I smile at the imaginary darkness of the future.

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

I open my heart to the miracle of the present moment.

Mindfulness and Independence

On this weekend that celebrates U.S. independence, I’m thinking about the foundation for true independence, a condition of much deeper freedom.

Mindfulness, I believe, is that foundation. When we allow ourselves to be mindful, to observe what goes on both within and without, we declare independence from the ego, who wants to tell us what we should notice.

The ego has a declaration of dependence in that its survival depends on noticing only what threatens or enhances its survival. It filters its observations through a thick veil of fear: that it won’t win, won’t come out at top. It fears that it will land at the bottom. It fears its extinction.

Some observe that the ego acts like a child, a child who has lost its innocence, who has learned the adults it counted on for survival are also vulnerable and fearful. This child has also learned that to relax, to be in the present, to see without survival filters, is dangerous.

As a result, early attempts at reaching a state of mindfulness may, instead, bring up resistance from the ego, who doesn’t want us to see beyond it to the childhood experiences and decisions that created it.

Thich Nhat Hanh often says to smile at negative emotions. “I smile to my anger. I embrace my anger as if it were a crying baby.”

The first step in a declaration of independence from the past is to smile to our resistance. When we do this, it softens, little by little, and when we are ready to know the answers about how we became who we are, our deepest truth will speak.

The practice of mindfulness is a journey, and each step gives us a greater level of independence. This is true cause for fireworks.

Mindfulness Means Looking and Listening.

It’s easy to get the idea that being in the present (which basically means being mindful) means you’re not focused on the past or the future. You’re paying attention to the here and the now. Doing, however, isn’t as easy as knowing.

The Key Word is “Focus.”

Being mindful doesn’t mean ignoring the past or future. Some attention to each has purpose.

For example, when you are planning to mail something, you might remember that you once mailed a package without insuring it or making sure that it had a tracking number. Therefore, you decide that you will be sure to take both of these steps when you mail this package. This demonstrates a simple and practical reference to both past and future.

Sometimes, though, we complicate it. In remembering the lost package, you might berate yourself, wondering why you were so stupid. You might recall all the trouble that resulted from that lost package.

You might go about trying to enjoy your day, but you find yourself unable to lose yourself in a good book or exercise because whenever you start to relax, you tell yourself, “I have to remember about the package. And what if it gets lost, anyway?” You begin to worry.

When Identity Gets Involved

This week I had a lost-package issue. I needed to send the original copy of a necessary legal document to someone else. I was vocal about my reluctance to do this, but the authorities in the situation insisted.

Then it appeared that the document got lost. My first reaction was, “Why didn’t they listen to me?” (a variant of “I told you so.”). My second was “Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?”

I was flooded with memories from my childhood when it seemed that no one had listened to me, accompanied by pain and anger. None of it was fun, but the opportunity occurred to step back and see how these childhood incidents had given rise to beliefs that filtered my present experience and influenced the future. I believed that no one listened to me, and I got evidence for that belief.

Mindfulness Can Help Clear Out the Past

I’m not going into specific details about the method I used. It’s called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), and if you haven’t heard about it, you can read more here.

It’s not the only method that works. People can get relief through meditation, mindful breathing, and other techniques. The vital first step is to recognize that a persistent regret or worry or any negative emotion is keeping you from fully experiencing the present. Once you have that mindful awareness, you’re on your way.

By the way, so was my document. I got it yesterday.

You Don’t Have to Know What’s Wrong to Make it Right

You Don’t Have to Know What’s Wrong To Make It Right

The other day I was trying to fix a page on one of my web sites. (I do my own html coding.) No matter what I did, the correct version of the web page wouldn’t upload. It was getting towards the end of the day, so, despite my temptation to beat this problem to the ground, I left it for later.

The following morning I fixed the problem with no difficulty. I never figured out out what technical problem had caused it to not work the day before, but I decided it didn’t matter, as long as the issue was resolved.

Now I have to learn how to apply the same casual attitude to life’s problems.

Maybe because so many of us are indirectly influenced by Freudian thought, we believe that in order to solve a problem, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional, we have to burrow down to the deepest roots and discover the what, when, and why of the original problem.

Sometimes that’s a good idea. A person who becomes traumatized every time she has to drive on a bridge will most effectively overcome this issue if she can discover and dissolve the original trauma. (This is a foundational practice of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which I employ every day.)

Sometimes, though, rooting around in the past and reliving just how awful it was can have a negative effect on our ability to create in the present and the future. I’ve known too many people who decided they were so irreparably damaged that no amount of self-help, rehabilitation, or positive thinking could pull them from the quicksand of personal history.

To get stuck in such beliefs robs us of our creative abilities. It says that forces outside ourselves have greater power than we do. It stains the bright colors of possibility with the dark hues of what was.

I don’t recomment pretending the past never happened, but letting it pull us back prevents the future from pulling it forward. Don’t let the past overshadow the promise of what is to be. Yeats said it far better than I could in the poem, The Two Trees:

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while.

(The complete text of this poem is at http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/the_two_trees.html

Gaze instead into that which inspires and encourages you. Again quoting Yeats:

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

At any time, we always have two choices: fear or love. Fear shreds our ability to joyously create. Love is the great enhancer of all creativity.

What are you choosing today?