Then I brought to mind similar days from the past and tried to remember whether I enjoyed them as much as this one. As a matter of fact I found a few with a small remark attached to them: you live in the paradise and you don’t pay enough attention to it. I also remember a couple of other situations when I imagined how great it’s going to be when I arrive to the beach have a game of volleyball and go for a swim. I also recall the exact situation happening and how I did not paying attention to it.
What has changed? The place was the same, beach, sand, sound of the morning surf. It was not “the outside” that changed, it was me and my personal perception.
“The world around you does not change as quickly as your perception of it!”
The whole situation brought to mind one of the talks by Bruce Lipton where he describes the honeymoon effect. When you in love everything looks vibrant and beautiful. Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, even your noisy neighbours don’t bother you that much. You want to share your love and affection with the whole world and nothing can spoil your mood. Once the honeymoon is over, you wake up and no longer hear any birds, flowers need water and the neighbours…well, you seriously consider calling police on them. As much exaggerated as it sounds, that’s how we operate. The same situation may produce very different response depends on our state of mind. One may ask, what can I do to always hear “the birds and the bees”. Well, everything starts with awareness. Our brain is programmed (or we programmed our brain, to be precise) to automatically react to certain kind of situations. Someone taps you on the shoulder, you turn around. Someone pinches you, you shrink. You see the red light, you stop etc. Gazillions of preprogrammed responses, some very basic another very elaborate. Ones you recognise an emotional state, you may start responding to it rather than reacting. Reacting is automatic and you don’t control it (i.e. brain-autopilot), responding is when you are aware of your action and its consequences. Imagine taking a bite of your favourite fruit, you take it, you chew it then you swallow. Now, do the same but imagine the texture of it, how juicy it is, its flavour. Focus on chewing and pay attention to the changes over time, now swallow it. If you took time to imagine it, you may notice that your mouth watered a bit. Action performed million times eventually become hardwired into the structure of the brain. It does not require much thought or consideration and most importantly is fast. You may call it an instinctual response. There are situation when this is very useful, even life saving e.g. you see a football approaching at high-speed, you rise your hands, protecting your head and face, reflect the blow, great! Now, consider a football player doing the same thing during the game; how embarrassing.
You may ask yourself, why I am telling you all this? Well, firstly our behaviour depends on the state of our mind. A mindful person controls the outcomes (i.e. enjoy life), mindless (i.e. absent minded) person drives on autopilot and missing all the good stuff (e.g. morning coffee by the beach). Secondly, we can control the sate of our mind. As obvious as it sounds, we frequently choose not to! Hiding behind our phones, tablets, TV sets we are missing a good part of our lives as it passes by us. People complain that the life is short. John Kabat-Zinn says: “If you want to live longer life, try to be present for more of your moments”. State of mind in which awareness is in every present moment seems to be the key to success.
What is your state of mind right now? Feel free to share it with others in the comments section. You may find that we are not so different!
5-10 MIN PRACTICE:
- Set an alarm for an hour from now (assuming that you are not going to bed).
- When the alarm rings stop for a moment and take a deep breath. Hold it and check your state of mind. How are you feeling? What state are you in? What emotions are you experiencing? Exhale.
- Spend a minute of two assessing your state of being. Be curious about it. Imagine your are a scientist in the lab taking yourself under microscope. What do you see? No need to judge, just observe. Perhaps you find something interesting?
- Now, bring your awareness to the room or your present location. Try to notice something you didn’t pay attention to before. Let yourself scan for something. Try to use each of your senses, search for people, objects, smells, sounds, check taste in your mouth.
- Enjoy the moment.
- You may set up your alarm again and repeat the experiment anytime.
- Thank yourself for being present, thank the Universe for the opportunity to fully experience.
As always, simple explanation of important things and straight to the point. I am forcing myself to keep my mind open and easy. When you live your all your life on autopilot it takes some time to fight with it. I must say Travelling is the best cure!
Good point Julia:) When you travel, you are on your toes for most of the time, it’s easier to be aware as ne things happen all the time. When you home with your daily routine it’s much easier to switch to autopilot. That’s the challenge!
It’s difficult sometimes as you have pointed out Tomek to not be on auto pilot. I love reading, listening to your wisdom. I’m learning that, “The journey is the reward”!!
You lucky Christiane if you say it’s difficult sometimes. For me is always difficult to accept the autopilot. In spite of years of practice the mind takes me where it wants. At the same time I always have an opportunity to practice:)
Dear Tomek, Time for honesty. I am sorry that I implied that autopilot for me is only sometimes. For me i’m on Auto with breaks of present moment. Why is this so hard? I can only say it’s the human condition. So we need people like you that know how to guide our minds and emotions. At least for me. It seems no matter how much I enjoy my practice I still am mostly in the real world a lot. I like nature. Listen to beautiful words with music playing to get above those other things. So I am happy and hope healthy.
I hope these words explain That I am have the same obticales to deal with as you, plus some medical ones. Let’s keep on, autopilot and all
I forgot to let you know how important those 7 points to bring yourself back are. You mentioned this before. Energy though some of it has become second nature sometimes I forget. So now I will go back to setting the alarm, and also writing down these 7 points to keep with me during the day.