|
|
525,600 Minutes
Jerry Kuhlman - Highland Yoga Co-Founder - 1/1/2007
As the Broadway show tune points out, there
are 525,600 minutes per year. How will you measure them in 2007?
It's the time of year for resolutions, which
is good. It seems natural that with the early sunsets comes
reflection, a turning inward to reassess, to take note of where we're
at, and to open to new possibilities. It's a universal cycle and
it is practiced by most of our fellow creatures, finishing the tasks of
the fall and preparing for winter. This ebb and flow is a
necessary part of our seasonal patterns. Making resolutions is a
natural progression in the process. However, in our culture, we
sometimes make resolutions an unhealthy focus on our negative traits, a
purging of sorts. Often, though, we find that when we try to block
out or mask certain facets of our lives, those facets loom larger still,
and we end up accomplishing the opposite of what we had intended.
With this approach, our resolutions fall by the wayside in short order
and our so-called negative traits simply get covered up or camouflaged.
There's a better way. By heightening our awareness of the origin
of our impulses and bad habits we can affect big changes in our lives
without much effort at all. As I tell my meditation students, the
effort is in the awareness.
If, for instance, you are overcome by the
desire to eat massive amounts of little chocolate donuts, you might say
that you are practicing unawareness. By succumbing, you sweep your
best interest under the rug, and momentarily forget about it by
conveniently being unaware. At the very moment when this desire
popped up, if you had only been aware and awake and mindful of your
actions and reactions, you could be doing something entirely different
than gorging on little chocolate donuts. Yeah, right, you say.
Easier said than done. Think of it this way, though. We all
shift back and forth between awareness and unawareness, but the more we
practice one or the other, the better we get at it. Just like
shooting basketballs. In the same way, you might say that we
practice anger by being angry. When we are anxious, we are
practicing anxiety.
Well then, you ask, how do I practice
awareness? Back to the little chocolate donuts...the next time an
unwelcome
urge presents itself, instead of tagging it with a negative slant, and
temporarily banning it from your life "forever", try to turn toward it,
embrace it.
Sounds corny, I know, but be one with it. It's counter-intuitive for most of us, but without judgment, without the
notion of good versus bad, examine the issue. Try to see the
different facets of this impulse. Without seeing it as a negative
or positive aspect of your life, try to get to the root of why you want
to eat little chocolate donuts at this moment in your life. It's
not something you need to obsess upon, in fact, to simply acknowledge
the thought is enough. It may take awhile to peel away your layers
enough to find its origin, but in time the issue will be resolved, one
way or another.
By gently letting the impulse present itself, acknowledging it, and
giving it a space in which to be, you can, in turn, take the proper
action, or no action. Sounds abstract, I know, but think about it.
The simple act of being aware of an impulse when it arises, instead
of sweeping it under the rug, puts that impulse in suspension, allowing
time for it to fade away, or to find a solution for it. Voila!
Awareness.
The idea is to string one moment of
awareness after another until you are practicing a life of awareness,
but even if you can just afford a few minutes daily, that's ok, since
awareness tends to feed on itself. Eventually, a tipping point
occurs and you're practicing awareness a good part of your time.
Here's the key. Make the effort to deliberately practice awareness
before it's actually needed in the heat of those little chocolate donut
moments.
Yeah, right, you say. It's still so
intangible. Actually, the practice of awareness is quite simple.
Pick something to focus on, and when you drift off and lose
concentration, gently return to your point of focus. The
granddaddy and epitome of the practice is, of course, meditation, but it
can really be any facet of your life: taking a shower, taking out the
trash, walking, sports, practicing yoga, doing the dishes. Your
point of focus can be anything that you do in any of the waking moments
that make up your years. Here's
how it goes. When you walk the dog, really walk the dog.
When you do the dishes, really do the dishes. When you practice
yoga, really practice yoga. Experience whatever
it is that you're doing, really being with it, front and center, totally
present, right here, right now, not in the future or the past.
Yes, you will lose your focus, but when you realize that you have lost
it (your focus, silly), gently return to it. Yes, the impulse for
little chocolate donuts (or whatever) will inevitably arise time after
time after time after time, until one day, quite to your surprise, it
doesn't.
|
|
