You have invited friends over for a lovely summer gathering, and the neighbors dog barks throughout your entire outdoor dinner party.
You have waited all year for your weeks' vacation at your favorite beach, and the weather forecast calls for rain the entire time.
After you have dedicated 10 loyal years, your company informs you that they are eliminating your position!
Yes, this is life, filled with lots of unpredictability. The question is not how does one avoid these adversities, but how to be with them with as much equanimity as possible.
To help with this, let's explore the first and most important tool to help you walk through fire as opposed to around it-- mindfulness.
Mindfulness simply means PRESENT MOMENT Awareness.
If you were to ask the Buddha what it means to practice mindfulness, he would probably say, "it's easy when you sit; you just sit! When you are washing the dishes, you are just simply washing the dishes."
It doesn't mean driving the car, listening to the radio, talking on the phone, eating breakfast, and putting your make-up on all simultaneously. That is not mindfulness.
I love the words of Lao Tzu – a Chinese philosopher who lived over 2000 years ago, who said, "If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present."
My favorite story, shared by many teachers around the power of mindfulness, goes like this:
There is a man, we'll call Brian, who has served a couple of tours of duty in the Middle East. Brian is home on leave, and today he is at the grocery store, one of the many tasks on a list of things to do. With a cart full of groceries, he heads for the checkout so he can get on to his next to-do on his list. As he waits in line, he notices a woman standing in front of him with a baby sitting in her cart and only one item in her basket. As he glances to the left, he notices the checkout for 12 items or less isle.
Immediately he wonders why she is not in that lane. He has so much to do today, and if she was out of his way, he could start placing the items on the belt. Triggered, he thinks, "Yes, that is what is wrong with the world today; people don't follow the rules. If more people operated like us marines, the world would have much more order. Yes, what's needed is more compliance and rule followers!"
In the meantime, the woman steps up to the cashier, and they begin to talk. The cashier starts to engage with the baby. And then, the woman takes the baby out of the carriage and hands it to the cashier. Yes, you can now imagine Brian. He is beside himself, enraged that this cashier is wasting his time. He rolls his eyes at the other customers in line, all the while planning to let the cashier have a piece of his mind.
Meanwhile, the cashier hands the baby back to the woman and the one item she purchased, and off they go. Brian then sneeringly says to the cashier, "That must be some baby"? She responds by saying, "Oh, that wasn't just some baby; that was my son. You see, my husband died in Afghanistan 8 months ago, and my mother has offered to take care of our son so that I can work full time. Every afternoon she brings him by so that we can see each other for just a few minutes!"
Victor Frankel, author and Holocaust survivor, teaches us that between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
You see, Brian shows us a perfect example of what it looks and feels like to live from a place of reaction, which is a perfect path to living in prison, a prison of our mind.
Imagine that freedom begins with learning to find that gap so we can respond more versus react.
What part of your life would be impacted if you practiced reacting less?
Perhaps it could improve your relationships. Your work environment. Maybe your health and your happiness would improve?
Mindfulness and meditation are the paths. They are the most powerful tools to help create that space or gap in order to help slow the mind and live more consciously.
Luckily today, there are many resources available to practice meditation. Websites, apps, mediation groups, and programs. The most important message I could offer today is to know that meditation does not have to be complicated. In fact, studies have shown that just 10 minutes a day can positively change our capacity to respond vs. react.
Why not give it a try?
And if you aren't sure where to start, I can help you create more space and find more Inner Freedom in your life, feel free to reach out or explore my packages to find one that speaks to you.