One simple question

And a not so simple practice

Photo by Chris Man on Unsplash

I haven’t been feeling like myself lately. Or, rather, I haven’t been feeling like my best self. I’m struggling with sleep again (sigh), which never helps, and despite a pretty healthy diet and daily meditation, my mind feels a little bit out of control. I wake up in the morning and try to focus on three things I’m grateful for, not just making a list, but taking long enough to actually feel that warm glow of gratitude inside my chest as I reflect on my various blessings, but this practice honestly takes me ten minutes most days, because in between my intentional thoughts about what I’m grateful for, there are a million other thoughts pushing their way in.

Why can’t I get more sleep? There must be something going on with my hormones. Ugh. I have way too much to get done today and no time to do anything and now I’m so tired. What are we going to do for lunch today? God I’m so tired of eating the same five meals over and over again. When am I ever going to make more time for my writing?

I still haven’t booked the carpet cleaners. I need to do that this week! How are we ever going to get the painting done in August if I still haven’t reached out to any contractors? And what about choosing paint colors? That reminds me, I still haven’t hung up my ‘hers’ hook or a hook for my robe. We’ve been here two months already, I’ve barely done anything. Oh god, I still have to look into those two new preschools and set up visits. I have four hours of childcare on Thursday, what am I going to do that’s going to be the most useful and productive?

And on and on and on.

The chatter is endless, and, if I boil it down to a simple idea, it’s all about lack. I didn’t get enough sleep. I don’t have enough time. I haven’t done enough yet to get our place organized. I’m not doing enough as a mom. I don’t create enough enough variety in our meals and we’re not eating enough vegetables.

I feel like there’s so much talk out there about this scarcity mindset and it’s much more desirable opposite, the abundance mindset. And I have a lot of work to do there, choosing to see the abundance in my life as it already is, choosing to believe that there is more abundance to follow, choosing to believe there is enough to go around and that I can reach for more without it costing anyone else something. Choosing to believe our world is not, in fact, completely falling apart.

I’m doing a lot of that work, but reprogramming one’s brain after a lifetime of being inundated with scarcity beliefs is no small feat. So, in the meantime, to help with this seemingly endless stream of chatter, I’ve decided to focus on one simple question.

Am I present right now?

Am I present in the task I am doing, or are my thoughts running ahead into worries and fears and projections? Am I present to this moment I am having with my daughter, or am I focused on the clock and mentally jumping ahead to worry we’ll be late for swim and then late for lunch and then late for nap? Am I present as I eat this beautiful food right in front of me, or am I sending my thoughts and my energy into the future, blinding me to the enjoyment and abundance of the present?

Perhaps surprising no one, I’ve discovered that I am not present the vast majority of the time. It’s honestly kind of shocking once you start to pay attention to this. It’s like when I first started paying attention to how often I was having fear-based thoughts and realized it was basically 100% of the time. Truly.

It’s like my brain and my body can tolerate about 3-5 minutes of feeling good before some internal alarm goes off and says Surely you should be worrying about something! All of this relaxation is simply not safe.

I guess that’s why personal growth work is so hard. Not only are we literally trying to rewire our brains, but it’s also scary. It feels deeply unsafe to look toward the positive when we’ve been burned before, as we all have. It feels unwise to stay grounded in the pleasures of the moment, when anything could happen at any moment, and our minds are telling us it’s safer to be vigilant, to be on guard. And it feels downright delusional to believe that maybe our wildest dreams can come true, with the whole crazy world continuing to spin around us, getting more unpredictable every day.

So I’m giving myself a lot of grace here. I’m a human being saddled with a human brain, this threat detecting machine that cares not if I am challenged or fulfilled or thriving, but only whether I am getting enough to survive.

We’ve got a lot of work cut out for us, me and my mind. In the meantime, I’ll be doing what I can to pause, take a breath, and bring myself back to the moment. It is both the simplest and most difficult practice there is.