Here: July 21 -27

I fear in writing about mindfulness week after week, I may have made it seem more mystical, more spiritual, more magical, more mysterious, more complicated than it really is. Mindfulness is nothing more and nothing less than living in the present moment. It is actually our most natural state. We fool ourselves all the time. We plan and prepare and pretend like we can live in the future. We ruminate and relive old scripts as if we could live in the past. The only place we ever live is in the present moment. We all knew this once. Just observe a 9 month old infant if you have any doubts. The most important place to be is here. Mindfulness is simply remembering and returning to our most essential way of being.

Practice

Let's meditate together. Begin by focusing the attention. Come into the present moment. No matter what the map of your life looks like, you are here. Let go of the stories and the headlines for the next few minutes. Let go of where you think you should be. Feel your feet on the ground beneath you. Connect with the earth. Relax into your body as you would into a favorite chair.

Now focus on the present moment. Just be here. What does here sound like? What does here feel like? Use all of your senses and experience here. Being here is different than thinking about here. No need to judge. No need to analyze. No need to narrate. Simply open more and more to everything around you and everything within you.

If I'm truthful, many times I'm not happy with here. I want to be anyplace but here. Lurking beneath the surface are old fears, unnamed sadness, loneliness, boredom. My habit is to escape by daydreaming into a more exciting future where this emptiness is magically filled. This is a subtle trap. Healing and wholeness can only be found in the present moment but only if I'm brave enough to stay in the hereness of it. This practice of staying connected to here even when the tendency is to flee, can be quite challenging; however, the reward of staying is the secret gift of mindfulness. Remain here for a little longer. Be a little quieter. Take the time to discover what life is whispering to you right now in this very moment.

In other words, being here is the same thing as showing up for yourself. And once you learn how to show up for yourself, you can begin to show up for others in new ways. The meditation will end but can you carry here into the rest of the day? The busyness of the day is waiting for you just around the corner. Don't lose yourself in its constant demands. Especially in the chaos, remember you never stopped being here.