By Annette Bray
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20 Jan, 2024
I'm sure you realize that there are hundreds of things that can bring us potential harm in the hours of the day. Other cars on the road, falling on the ice, unpaid bills, heavy workloads and on and on. And then there's phone solicitations, Facebook, Instagram and so on. It's not surprising that most humans, in the developed world, struggle to be present. We're regularly practicing something totally different. When times are happy, you know how good it feels to be present with your current circumstances. When times are not, you know how difficult it is to feel all the feels of the present. The problem is, the less present you are in either case, the less skilled you become at being really aware in the moment. This means that in challenging circumstances you have not trained yourself to be responsive, but rather thoughtlessly reactive. And on the flip, you haven't practiced completely taking in the joys and beauty that are available. Being reactive is absolutely necessary when another car is veering into your lane, etc. But, what if most of the time, you drove down the road and were very present, head up and seeing your environment more fully so that you rarely, or never got to this point? You would replace vigilance with awareness and perhaps not miss the beautiful clouds that are putting on a show on for you? And then, you would notice and possibly relax the guarded muscle response that I referred to last week. When we're vigilant, we have tunnel vision and miss the beauty that's surrounding us. We favor being aware of limited options and our body responds in becoming the contracted physical form that brings us pain. Being present is simple, but hard in a world that continually focuses our attention on the problems we need to be vigilant about. What does it take to shift to being more aware, in the moment and engaged in our world without fear? Ask me here...