Personal Growth Planet Blog

I’m not talking about rushing into love…

In the past, when my husband, one of my sons or someone else I care about makes me mad or appears to be angry with me, I have had a tendency to rush in and attempt to get the whole thing “fixed” as quickly as possible.

My habitual mode has been to get it out right then and there.

To speak my truth, expect the other person to share his or her perspective on the situation and to hash it all out– hopefully coming to some resolution we both can be happy with.

This time of year there’s generally a lot of advice being offered about how to stick with your New Year’s resolutions and how to make changes. I’ve joined in and blogged about this topic in the past few weeks too.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with noticing something about your habits or your life that you’d like to improve upon. In fact, as humans, we tend to constantly be pulled to expand and grow. If we resist this urge, stagnation can result.

Every year when I was growing up, my mom, aunt, grandmother and I would go over to my Great Aunt Petey’s house the day before Christmas. We’d arrive at 7 or 8 in the morning and help her make homemade donuts.

Mind you, these sugary confections were not as good a day or two after they were fried up but when they were fresh, they were divine. Aunt Petey and her crew of helpers made several dozens of donuts and delivered them to neighbors and friends– saving plenty for the family too, of course.

The benefits of mindfulness– for both mental and physical wellness– have been demonstrated in scientific studies and people’s everyday experiences.

But, what is mindfulness?

If a person wants to lead a more mindful life, how does that person go about it?

When I think of mindfulness, I also think of its presumed opposite…mindlessness.

Then, unfortunately, a whole barrage of judgmental and critical declarations come to my mind.

“Watching television shows is mindless.”
“Playing Farmville or Facebook games is mindless.”
“Scarfing down potato chips and reading Star magazine is mindless.”
“Chatting for hours with a group of friends about inconsequential topics is mindless.”

I’m 1 week ahead as my visiting father departs my home and my mother-in-law arrives for a visit. I bid farewell and welcome this flurry of guests.

Now, I’m 24 years in the past, with friends at a high school show choir performance. We are singing, dancing and having a great time together.

Next, I am a year from now at the beach with my husband and sons. The ocean swells and we play together in the surf and the sand.

All of that time travel happened for me in the span of about 15 minutes (more or less).

Guilt can crop up in our lives at just about every turn.

You might feel guilty because you’ve strayed from your diet.
You may feel guilty because you forgot the birthday of a dear friend.
You could feel guilty because you spoke harshly to your spouse.
You may feel guilty because you aren’t as kind, generous, reliable, eco-friendly, productive, religious or spiritual…. as you think you should be.

It seems that we humans are hard-wired with a propensity to feel guilty.

It often catches me off-guard when I come upon some evidence of my aging body.

I look down to see my already-wrinkled hands, speckled with a few brown spots. I glance in the mirror to find stubborn gray hairs that seem to be ignoring the fact that I just dyed my hair brown.

I am rarely pleased with these new discoveries.

I hear friends, who are around my age (I’m 41), talk about how their bodies are becoming stiffer, less agile and their minds more scattered and forgetful.

I’ve heard before messages counseling us all to live in the present moment from wise ones such as Eckhart Tolle and others. These teachings make a lot of sense to me– but rarely do I truly do this for any length of time.

But, after a recent breathwork session led by our dear friends Paula and Christopher Easton, I decided to really put this idea into practice.

At the session, Christopher Easton reminded us to “respond in the present moment.” The very next day– still glowing from my breathwork experience– I began my radical experiment.

It can feel like a never-ending, dulling cycle.

Get up in the morning, eat, go to work, do your job, eat lunch, come home, care for pets/kids/house, eat dinner, go to bed. Of course, there is usually talking with other people, some degree of exercising and most likely an array of entertainment activities thrown in to that mix.

Life can become a drudgery at times– or even most of the time.

You might as if you are stuck in a holding pattern with the same people, doing the same things in the same way, basically forever.

“Freedom ain’t a state like Maine or Virginia
Freedom ain’t across some county line
Freedom is a flame that burns within ya
Freedom’s in the state of mind”– Peter Udell, “Shenandoah”

There are days when I long for freedom.

I might feel chained to my computer on a warm Spring day. Or, maybe I’m craving travel to faraway places with no worries about the finances to pay for it, who will care for the pets, our home and if the rest of my family would enjoy the places I’d like to visit.