Being Present

I remember attending a nurse resiliency retreat where Jean Watson lighted a candle and shared a simple but profound wisdom with us: "What if this moment, right now, is the reason I was created and the meaning of my existence in this world? How things would have changed if we only walked gently on this Earth". Slowing down and walking gently on the Earth... Whatever this means to you in your life. Only you know where you stretch too thin. Finding work-life balance literally takes some balancing. It prompts you to look inside yourself in stillness and hear yourself out. We often rush and hurry in life to run away from ourselves. We rush to escape the anxiety in our fast beating hearts. We run to avoid this obnoxious thought which comes back again and again and... well, again. We act busy. We create "busy" to fill the raw empty spaces in our chests. Those spaces are not to be filled with material world. Those spaces are meant for something bigger. This is a spiritual space.

It is to be filled with presence, patience, kindness, and gratitude. The things we cannot touch but can create. It takes practice. Once you re-connect with this space, you most definitely will feel uncomfortable. The first instinct will be to run away from it. It is lonely there, unfamiliar. Unfamiliar means scary to us, fellow humans.

We want to fill up this space with people, music, entertainment. Well, go ahead and try again. You can’t. This space can be disturbed by all of those things but it cannot be filled by them. It will stay empty, raw and dark until you find a way to fill it up with mindfulness, gratitude and kindness to yourself and others. Spiritual staff, remember?

Longer we stay in this space, in touch with ourselves, more comfortable, warmer it will become. The light from our hearts will become bigger and bigger and fill all the dark corners with warm gentle light. You will soon get better at it. You will become a sort of an expert on what feels good and what feels bad to you. You will naturally move towards parts of your life which bring you joy and away from hurt. I know it does not sound like much. I promise, this profound knowledge of how parts of your life make you feel have the power to change your life.

Our brain and body are very selfish. Those two buddies will do everything they can to put us in situations which bring us joy. They will also move us from what hurts. They just don't know yet. They are too busy being distracted with 1000 pointless tasks we created to avoid this awkward and uncomfortable space which is begging for our light.