Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost.  It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hold in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.

~Portia Nelson

Mindfulness Demystified

"Mindfulness" has, in recent years, become a new buzz word.  And even though we may only have a vague sense of what mindfulness is, we know it has something to do with paying attention to what is happening right now. 

Easier said than done.

The habit of running around and doing fifteen things at once seems to be the norm and we are so used to it that when someone says, "Just pay attention to what is happening right now.", our responses are typically somewhere in the realm of, "But how?"

How

One way to begin is to just stop moving, stop talking, texting, emailing, whatever and just check in.  Where are you?  How does it feel to be you right now?  How does your body feel?  Are you breathing? 

Do it some more.

Set a timer on your phone or stove to go off every hour.  When it goes off, stop.  Listen, feel, breathe, check-in. 

There is no specific way you should feel, there is nothing to change.  When that timer goes off and you stop, just pay attention.  Nothing more.

Why?

Because as Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us, "In order to live life fully, you have to be present for it."

Each and every one of us did this naturally as infants, and toddlers, as small children.  There's no reason we cannot get back to living fully, presently.