Why Are We Absent for So Much of Our Lives? No.4
“When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you’re not there?” Thich Nhat Hanh
On the edge of the wood, the air smelled fresh. The dog strained on her lead to stop for a pee. The fields on the other side of the track looked parched with little grazing for the horses. But the horses still kept their heads down, nuzzling the ground for what little grass remained.
Further on, ash, chestnut, beech, birch, damson, elder, hawthorne, oak, and sycamore trees lined the sides of the track leading to the forest, providing cool shelter from the early heat of the sun.
The dog was panting loudly by the time he let her off the lead to roam and play-hunt amongst the trees.
I searched my mind to find what was conscious in my thoughts. Memories of visiting my sick friend lingered still, but yesterday’s more recent visit to the huge vineyard demanded attention. No, not those memories.
I made the effort to be present with my environment. No memories. No past or future. Just enjoy the trees, the leaves, the ivy clinging and crawling greenly to the trees, the fungi, the fallen trees swarming with bugs. The earth on the footpath and the fallen leaves softening my footfalls. I paused to ponder the line of an old defensive trench dug by Roman soldiers two thousand years ago.
“Don’t think - just be.” That’s so hard. My mind is forever curious, searching for objects of interest, potential dangers, and sources of inspiration. “Stay calm. Allow the peace to permeate your being.”
I walk on past a large hollow on my right. Did Roman soldiers make that, or is it a sink hole, or was it perhaps a wounded World War II German bomber that shed its load of bombs as it fled for home after a raid on London to the West?
There’s no safety in the world as long as my mind is forever searching for threats and my imagination is inventing dangers.
At home, I read the daily paper as I eat my breakfast cereal. Bad news on every page. No wonder there is so much negativity in the world. Good news bores us and does not sell newspapers.
At work now, fingers poised over my laptop keyboard. But first, I’d better check my emails. React, react and get distracted from my purpose of being here, now, present with what is real in my life.
Is what is real what everyone else wants or expects of me?
A plane flies overhead. Why do I even notice? What difference has it made to my life?
Now I’m looking around, as if in search of distraction. What is wrong with just being? Why is it so hard to focus on the present moment, on what I want to say about simply being present with what is happening? But what is happening is that I am searching for distractions.
Close my eyes and just be. Let my mind go blank (well, nearly).
The reality of the present moment is that it is always filled with potential distractions. The challenge is to make it my moment, not a moment dictated by a distraction.
Now I have come spontaneously to love. To love myself. Why do I find this so hard? Is it that I am unworthy of affection? Or, perhaps I do not trust myself to love?
Do other people have similar challenges?
Oh, come on, you’ve been a coach for thirty years, you know they do.
Let’s try. Let go, focus on your heart and love yourself for a single minute.
How does that feel? I felt compelled to go in search of good things I’ve done. It was as if I had to justify feeling loved.
Let’s try again. Be quiet and peaceful. Sit still, and focus on loving yourself.
I kept wondering, “Am I doing it right?”
But if you are busy and a young child screams in pain, you immediately drop everything and rush to their aid. You don’t ask, “Am I doing this right?” You help them as best you can.
So now, sit still and love yourself as best you can.
“Have I got enough time for this?” I feel a compulsion to look at my watch.
Let go of the distractions. Just give five minutes to yourself. Just love yourself for five minutes, right now. No one else will miss you for five minutes, but you might find yourself. Please do it now.
It turns out that “I love me” is much harder to do than I ever imagined. As I sat still, I heard every movement, every sneeze in the house, every distant voice and my mind went on several journeys - all in just five short minutes.
BUT, I feel calmer now. Not serene, but calm enough that I want to do it again. And, if I do it again and again, maybe, just maybe, I will learn to do it so that I can get in touch with the feeling of loving myself.
Perhaps this is what it’s like to live in the present moment all the time. Perhaps being in the moment is being with yourself and appreciating yourself and all that you do.
If you were to make a list of all the good things you do for other people every day, you might be surprised by what a good person you are. And that might help you to understand that you are a person worthy of love. And that might make it easier to love yourself. It’s got to be worth a try.
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Later: As I’ve pondered and occasionally found the time to spend five minutes being myself, without distractions, I have realised how much time I spend being absent from my life. It’s as if other things, uncontrolled events, and other people have more control of how I am than I do.
Why do I abandon myself to other influences?
It’s time to be at one with myself, to love myself, to be the person I would love to be. I must make the effort to be present with myself, to be aware of this moment.