I am thinking of buying one of these watches. Even though I am not much of jewellery person, this piece speaks volumes to me… on so many levels.
When I was in Save My Life School over a year ago, I was introduced to the idea of living in the moment, or in ‘the now’. At first it was an ideal eye-roll topic for a bearer of a mind saturated with negativity such as myself. Why would I want to live in the moment when I didn’t even want to live? Back when I knew it all (insert present moment eye-roll) I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the value of living, let alone mindfully doing so. I was at war with the ‘now’ in my mind – the last thing I wanted to do was pay attention to it!
The irony of all of that ‘living in the now’ business, was that it took TIME for me to grasp and appreciate its power. And more importantly, it took me months to realize that living in the now didn’t necessarily mean living in present pain. When I opened up to the idea, and forced the demons in my mind to be quiet long enough to be mindful of things beyond my pain, the world transformed into something I never knew even existed. Day by day (or more accurately, second by second) when I practiced living in the now and mindfully payed attention to the beauty all around me, life went from excruciating, to just painful, to tolerable, to pretty good, to wait-a-minute is that a smile on my face, to holy-crap I can be happy, and then finally to realizing that I can accept what comes my way and enjoy life.
Now don’t get me wrong, this timeline (ugh, the living in the now puns are really hard to avoid in this blog) is not always as fluid as described; I still find living in the now very difficult some days, because like ALL mindfulness practices, becoming skilled in them takes practice and…you got it…time. On difficult days, just taking a moment to focus on my breath is an accomplishment for me.
The amazing Eckhart Tolle wrote, “Once you see and accept the transience of all things and the inevitability of change, you can enjoy the pleasures of the world while they last without fear of loss or anxiety about the future.” Just like all emotions, they pass and change. So even if the emotion you feel right now is unpleasant, trust that you CAN feel a different emotion…soon. And if that unpleasant emotion is about the past or future, try to mindfully focus on the now, which is ONLY in the breath that you are taking.
As my beautiful sister-in-law Mandy once said, “Living in the now teaches us to stop giving permanence to impermanent things”. I challenge you to try it out. Open your heart and mind to the possibility of NOW.
Paramedic Nat 