There Is No Time Like The Present

There Is No Time Like The Present

    A core principle of centering practices, including mindfulness, meditation, and centering prayer, is focusing on the present moment. Concentrating on one’s breath, or a centering word is often helpful to keep one’s mind from wandering. 

    I have had a mindfulness/centering prayer practice for many years, but in all honesty, it’s a challenge. Sometimes I am very disciplined in practicing daily, and sometimes not. And I always struggle with my attention getting hijacked by a myriad of thoughts and concerns.  

    This summer, I have had the good fortune of spending some extended time with two of the most exceptional mindfulness teachers I have ever known. To be in their presence is to experience what it is like to be singularly focused on the present moment, free from all worries about the past or future. These two teachers are my five and three-year-old grandsons, and when I am with them, I am aware of the Zen saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I am grateful to have two such fun-loving, adorable teachers.  

    Here is an example of what I am learning from them. The other day I played a board game with the five-year-old for over an hour. All he did for that entire time was play the game. I played the game the same amount of time, but here is a partial list of what I was doing during that same time: playing the game, worrying about a friend who is ill, thinking about five emails I needed to send and several more I needed to answer, rehashing a conversation I had with someone a few days earlier, and making a to-do list of various tasks I needed to complete later that day.

   When young children play a game, they are completely invested in that present moment. That’s how they approach every activity actually. Young children are so fully present in what they are doing that it is often hard for them to transition when an activity needs to end. Adults, on the other hand, seem to have the opposite problem—we are so good at multi-tasking and bouncing from one thing to another, that we have difficulty being fully focused on doing just one thing. 

   I am now intentionally working on being less distracted and more fully present with my grandsons. With the help of my young teachers, I am making progress. I have also committed myself to extending my practice of being more fully present in my interactions with adults, too.

   You might want to give this a try yourself. irst, notice how able you are to be fully present and free of distractions when you are with others. Without telling anyone, simply make the intention to be singularly focussed with others and see what difference you (and maybe even they) notice.

   And if you think you might benefit from spending time with a wise meditation teacher, I hope there is a young child in your life that you will commit  to spending some time with soon. 

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

Banding Together

Banding Together

      Our office mail always comes with a rubber band wrapped around it. About a year ago, I started saving the rubber bands and making them into a ball. Each day I add a new band to the ball, which doesn't seem like much, but my ball has gradually grown to the size of a baseball. Given its composition, it is naturally bouncy, and I'm finding it makes for a fun diversion when I take a break. 

    I once used a rubber band ball as an illustration for a children's sermon on the importance of having a group of supportive people in our lives.  I held up a few individual rubber bands and asked the kids what would happen if I tried to bounce them on the floor. They looked at me rather strangely when I threw a few individual bands down to the floor, and nothing happened. Then I took out my ball of bands and demonstrated how easy it was to bounce it on the floor, and how fun it was to play catch with the ball as well. We talked about how a large, tight-knit group of rubber bands could do something impossible for a few separate ones to do. We then concluded that the same was true of people. Together we could do much more than each person could do on their own.

    I am an avid fan of the Tour de France, the famous multiple stage bike race which concludes this Sunday.  As I watch the race, I often think of my rubber band ball. If you know anything about biking, you know about the importance of the peloton, the large group of tight-knit riders who stay together over the length of a day's ride. It just so happens that peloton is a French word, which literally means "little ball." Makes sense when I see the participants riding so close together that they resemble a fast-moving ball of riders.

   So why is the peloton so important in competitive cycling? Why do the riders choose to ball together so tightly, sometimes riding thirty to forty miles per hour just inches from each other? Wouldn't it be better and safer to space themselves out? The reason is the same as the message of the children's sermon I mentioned earlier: good things happen when we have a supportive group of people surrounding us. 

   In a bike peloton, riders alternate taking turns breaking the wind (pulling) and drafting behind other riders. This makes an incredible difference, allowing all cyclists to achieve results that would be impossible to accomplish on their own. The effort it takes to ride in the middle or back of a peloton is so much less than is required at the front, that it actually provides a rest for the cyclists who are benefiting the hard work being done by the riders who are pulling up in front.  

   In biking, as in life, individual skills are highly valuable. But the best results are always achieved when we have a community, a peloton, of people with whom we can ride and bounce through life together.  

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

A Higher Perspective

A Higher Perspective

  I was thirteen years old in 1969 when the first Moon landing, that we are all remembering this week, occurred. A boy that age is quite impressionable, and I will never forget the photos that were beamed into my family’s living room. Then, as is true now, the photos that most captivated me were not the close-ups of the Moon itself, but rather the first images anyone, in the history of humankind, had ever seen of planet Earth from some 240,000 miles away. I was awestruck then, and fifty years later continue to be so whenever I see a photo of the blue and white marble that is our island home.  

  When, as a therapist, I have the privilege to work with an individual, family, or organization that is “stuck” in some way or another, after hearing all sides what is going on, I often comment, “I wonder if we can take a moment to zoom out and get a larger perspective on what’s happening.” I then explain that we all have benefited from looking up a location on our smart phones, and then using our fingers to zoom out so we could gain a larger perspective of what we are viewing. That is what I am asking to do with them and their story.

  I don’t know about you, but when I am stuck in some kind of conflict with someone, I tend to get tunnel vision. Within my narrow perspective, my limited view has a way of confirming that I am right and that the other person is clearly wrong and is the source of the conflict. If only they would change or go away, then the problem would also go away. On a good day, and often with the help of others, I am able to “zoom out” and see that the problem is more complex than my narrow view is allowing me to see. If I am willing to look at the complexities of the situation, I’ll often then see that there is far more that unites us than we realize. A higher perspective or a “zoomed out” view opens up possibilities of healing and bridge-building that are not evident from the tunnel of my fear-based, limited view.  

  The early flights into space, including Apollo Eleven’s trip to the Moon, provided the ultimate “zooming out,” giving the world a newer, higher perspective of our planet than had ever been possible before. This week I have read dozens of quotes from astronauts who have remarked on how their view of Earth from outer space was for them a spiritual, transcendent experience.  

  Read the quote from Michael Collins found above in the meme. He was the person who remained in the spacecraft orbiting the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked below on the Moon’s surface. 

  And here’s a quote from Edgar Mitchell, who flew on Apollo 14, in 1971, the third mission to land on the Moon. “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty.”

  The ego focuses on what is petty, and its agenda is to divide, exclude, and protect. I am sure my 13-year-old middle school self back in 1969 was all about that, as children that age frequently are. The ego is our immature self, one that needs to boost itself by mocking and demonizing those who, in our tunnel vision, we deem to be “other.” The soul, on the other hand, offers a higher, spiritual perspective, and its agenda is to transcend and include, and to connect around the universal needs and longings we, across the globe, have in common.  

  There may not be plans for anyone to return to the Moon again any time soon, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t all celebrate what was achieved fifty years ago by aspiring to “zoom out” to a higher, spiritual perspective. Let’s breakdown our tendencies to be tribal and to turn against the “other” as the problem. 

   I can think of no better way to celebrate the new perspective we all gained of our Earth, our shared home, fifty years ago this week, than seeing that there is so much more that unites us than divides us.  

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

Learning to Rest

Learning to Rest

   American author and philosopher, Sam Keen, captured the essence of summer, when he wrote, "Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." Add to this a quote from English author and scientist John Lubbock, and you have what for me is a perfect description for summer: "Rest is not idleness, and to sometimes lie on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.

   Rest & Play is one of the eight areas of wellness in our Living Compass Model for Well-Being. It is perhaps not surprising that when people complete the Living Compass Wellness Self-Assessment, a high percentage of them report that they scored  lowest in the area of Rest and Play (If you are interested in taking the wellness assessment, you can do so here.

   Our culture values busyness and doing over being. Rest and play are not highly valued and respected. Often the only time people make time for rest is when they are forced to do so because they have become sick and rundown, from too much busyness.  

   Summer, though, provides us a bit more permission to privilege time for rest and true re-creation. Walking in the park, hiking in the woods, taking a leisurely swim, sitting on the beach, biking,  kayaking, gardening, visiting a local farmers market, or quietly sitting outside in the early morning with a fresh cup of coffee or tea are all opportunities to rest our weary souls and bodies.  

   The quote in the box above reminds us, "If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit." 'I'd like to make a slight amendment to the quote and change the first part to "when you get tired…." Recognizing when we are tired and making intentional time to rest is not a sign weakness, but of emotional and spiritual strength. Taking regular time for Sabbath and rest is essential for our well-being. 

   So here's to summer allowing us to permit ourselves to find respectability in being lazy. And let's remember that it is a sign of wisdom, not weakness, to rest when we are tired.

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.

On Freedom

On Freedom

As our nation celebrated Independence Day this week, I found myself thinking about what it means to be free. The most common meaning of freedom I find for most people has to do with being free from an external control. This, of course, is the understanding the founders of our nation had in mind when they signed the Declaration of Independence, declaring our new country's freedom in 1776. 

There is another meaning of freedom though that I am quite familiar with as a pastor and a therapist. This meaning of freedom is more of an internal experience, as when a person announces to me, "When I first came in here and talked about my guilt for what I had done, it was very painful.  I feel like talking has helped, and I feel that it has freed something up in me." Another example of this kind of freedom is when I hear, "I used to feel so 'stuck' in my grief and sadness, but now that I've been facing it, I feel small signs renewed energy that has been freed up in me."

Whenever we feel trapped or stuck in life, it is essential that we take some time to reflect on whether the cause of this trapped or stuck feeling is external or internal. Most of us have had the experience of thinking we were trapped by a job, a relationship, or the place where we were living, only to realize later after we left the job, relationship or place, that we still felt the same trapped way. There is a book entitled, Wherever You Go, There You Are, that explains quite well that whatever external changes we may make, we inevitably take our internal selves with us.

We are all undoubtedly familiar with the ways a person can be held captive externally, but what are some of the ways a person can be held captive internally? I referred to two examples earlier--a person can be held captive by unresolved guilt or by grief. A person can also be held captive by a bad habit or an addiction. Shame holds many people captive, especially people who have experienced abuse or neglect. Worry, anxiety, and fear have probably kept most of us captive at one time or another in our lives.

In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples have a discussion about the external and internal meanings of freedom. Jesus says to his disciples, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." His followers do not understand that he is talking about an internal sense of freedom, and they respond to Jesus by letting him know that he is not making sense to them. They have never been held captive by anyone they declare. In their minds, they are already free because they are talking about freedom from an external captor. Jesus is inviting them into another meaning of freedom, an internal freedom that is both spiritual and emotional and is one that they have not yet experienced.

So in honor of the 4th of July, let's all take this same invitation, an invitation to greater freedom by declaring our independence from whatever may be controlling us internally. The first step is to acknowledge where we feel stuck or trapped--to identify in what way we long to feel freer. After we have done this, we will need to discern what is that truth that will set us free--what must we learn, say or do to get unstuck? Do we need to face a secret in our lives that we have been hiding from ourselves and others? Do we need to have a difficult conversation with someone we love? Do we need to deepen our spiritual life? Do we need to change a bad habit? As we do this, we will soon learn that we may need the support of others in our efforts. We will most likely need the help of friends, family, a spiritual leader/and or community, a coach, or a counselor. Let's remember that creating the Declaration of Independence was a group effort too!

As we remember and celebrate the founding of our nation, may we be inspired to persevere in discovering and living the truth in our lives that will set us free as well. 

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

(I am taking a few days off or the holiday weekend and so this column is an updated version of a previous column I wrote several years ago.)

---

Subscribe Now to Weekly Words of Wellness:

Click the button below to signup for the e-mail version of Weekly Words of Wellness. This weekly article can be shared with your community electronically and/or used for group discussion.

You can unsubscribe at any time.