Into the Now

The Voices In My Head, and Missed Moments…

“I know for me when that war wages in my mind I tell myself, how will I feel when I pass on? Did I do something good with my life? The question of did it affect someone’s life, I give to God. I can only give my best and constantly strive to do it better and the timing of when someone appreciates it, is not something that I can control completely.”

This reader’s response transformed my/our “what’s the point” questioning into a gift to be given back to God, our source, our original goodness. Her words and deep insight are something we can all contemplate and add to our toolbox in times of need.

Another reader bravely shared and brought me to tears:

“It has been a rough week. I do not have anxiety attacks very often, but this week I did. It is amazing how my thoughts can snowball until multiple catastrophes are bearing down. It is crazy how carried away I got. And while I was in the midst of it, I thought, what are some of Bess’s ideas for quieting the fear?”

Have any of you been where this reader was? I fight these anxiety attacks far too often and get caught up in the voices warring for my attention. These voices have me either stuck in the past or catapult me into an unknown future. They take me away from what is real, what is present in this moment, and the goodness of all that is around me… if I could only open my heart and see.

We become boiled in our suffering by holding onto old thoughts or beliefs about ourselves. This boiling conjures up the belief that we are not good enough, in danger, unworthy, or even incapable of goodness.

And so, the reader asked herself what tools she could pull from her toolbox to get unlocked by the tornado of self-doubt and the emotional prison these thoughts sentence us to. How do we free ourselves from these thoughts? How do we, once again, realize that we are not our thoughts. We are not the wounds of our past.

Of all our tools we have diligently tested and added to our vibrant green healing toolbox these past eight months, the one we can always start with is our breath. Take that pause and breathe. Take another pause and breathe the gift of life given freely to each one of us. Stop. Step away. Pause. Breathe.

In those moments of utter despair, when we breathe, we are showing compassion for ourselves. When we breathe, we are accepting the gift of life. When we breathe, we are being reminded of the love that is always there deep within our beings. Love is always loving us.

And love can bring us out of the torture of old thoughts and beliefs and into the now. This now and this now, and… this now.

I decided to experiment with how often I am in the present as I drove down to swim practice one morning. As you know, the drive inevitably is a thirty-minute anxiety-fest for me. Before leaving the house, I paused. I breathed, and then I drove. The truth is, how I got there is a mystery. I was more lost in my thoughts of what happened the day before, where my children were, how my grandchildren were, what I could fix or change, and what I was going to be faced with at practice, what I would write about, what would I make for dinner… than on the road in front of me. I continually reminded myself along the way to focus and be in the moment, but the truth was that my brain had other places to roam. This roaming did not allow me to arrive at practice calm and excited for the moment. That moment got lost in the space of past and future.

That same morning at practice, I fought the demons in my mind assuring me I was incapable of completing the task and that all those swimmers around me were better than me. Self-doubt roared like a lion and anxiety kept me from seeing and appreciating my teammates who were holding me up and encouraging me in the tiny ways one’s lane mates do. They made space for me. They handed me my equipment. They said “good job.” They patted my back. They said “you can do it.” And there was more. The exhausted smiles and fist pumps and pats on the hand. Tiny, almost invisible, symbols of community. I was missing the beauty of the moments I was in, because I was lost in the voices hurling falsehoods through my mind. I could not see that I was enough. I could not see that I was being held. I could not feel and accept the love that was pouring into me by those around me. I was missing all that was real. All the magic in these small acts of kindness from my teammates. All that God was sending to me.

When practice was over, my coach kindly told me what a great job I did. Lost, still, in the bondage of insecurity and self-doubt, I did not pause. I did not breathe. I did not let those words sink in for thirty seconds (all tools in my toolbox), and so I missed that beautiful moment of someone seeing me, loving me, caring about me.

How I wish I had not missed it, but rather let those words dive deep into my soul, sit there and simmer, diffuse through my cells, and release back into the world in some way through my actions. If I accepted the love being poured into me at that moment, I would have had more love to give away.

In hindsight, my experiment failed, as many do. But in considering it afterwards, I was more aware of how utterly lost I get inside my head, and how easily I missed all the love bombs lobbed at me by my friends. I can really do better! I will!

Finally, my two readers’ words this past week reminded me of the importance of NOW. The importance of the gift of my breath, while I have it on this earth. The importance of pausing and being grateful for each moment of NOW. Of the healing magic in the smallest of acts. Let us not miss them.

Let us not miss them.

Open your toolbox, my friends, and be reminded of all that is in there to help us travel our journeys always in the NOW.

I ran across this poem that I would like to leave you with…

Until next time, friends.