I kid you not – in the early 90s, I spoke to a “psychic” on the phone for roughly 69 (duh!) minutes and learned alllll about it. Of course, I had no idea at the time she was talking about components of meditation; instead, I thought she was reading my future. At that moment, I was looking for answers – answers to whether or not a man I was seeing was the right one (he was not) and whether I should leave NY ( that’s still up in the air). I needed someone to lead the way to enlightenment. Fast forward almost 20 years later, a marriage and a divorce (of some kind) and some meaningful lovers in between and I now join the ranks of many others looking, learning, and longing for peace (especially in these last couple of months).
Meditation is big – mindfulness is big, and “being in the here and now“ is even BIGGER!
I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately – I cant remember the last time I slept all the way through the night. For me, it’s hard to sleep with so much reflection dancing in my head. So, when all else fails, I take to scrolling. Looking for secrets from the experts and new tools to help me manage . Interestingly it hit me, somewhere between night and light; I had already been taught one of the most valuable lessons of meditation-PMC (present moment consciousness) over 20 years ago from one of Ms. Cleo’s employees. LOL!
What did I learn? Resistance to acceptance (resistance being the past and acceptance being the present) and awareness – you can only truly be present if you are aware of “the true self”, engaged, fresh, new, and in on what is happening NOW in this moment.
I used to think of this as ambivalence, surrender, and total horse shit. I mean how can you “Carpe Diem“ with no plan or thought on the “production“ of your day, your year, your life??? Then I realized, it’s much more than that – it’s a force, well actually a flow, a beat that allows you to take time, tiny bites of the day moment by moment.
This is and was a serious shift for me – the oxymoron of a strategist as so much of strategy is future-based thinking. It involves very little joy and, where the joy came in involved being right – predicting correctly. It’s not very joyous or explorative; actually it’s completely ego-based.
So thank you to that wondrous woman who made her living by the minute on the phone – whether she meant to or not, she gave me a wonderful gift. If I break down the phone bill, it now comes out to nothing .
“Wherever you are be all there.” – Jim Elliot
