I used to multi-task with the best of them…juggling phone calls, IM conversations, emails and face-to-face interruptions while barely missing a beat.
I worked a full-time plus job (a term I coined for a job that doesn’t end when you go home) and managed to find time to workout, meet up with friends, plan long weekend getaways, read books….somehow, looking back I managed to do it all. So why am I so stressed out and angry now???
The difference….I’m present. I’m slowly learning that it’s not possible to juggle everything under the sun if you are trying to be present for each activity…each interaction. It’s too overwhelming and defeats the purpose of even trying. I have to remind myself to take each “thing” as it comes.
Sure, I can — and do — plan for activities but staying present means not getting caught up in all the “what ifs”…in all the future to dos…in everything that isn’t done. Being present means tackling each activity as it comes with a mindfulness that focuses you on the task at hand and releases you from the anticipation of what’s next.
This past weekend, I existed in a place of “what’s next”…and I’m still there as I write this blog. A place that not so long ago, I lived. A place where the moment doesn’t matter because the focus is on what’s next…and when that moment arrives, it doesn’t matter either because the focus has shifted to anticipation of the next…and so on and so on.
Essentially, I took the elevator out of my body and settled into my head. Into a place where time is spent contemplating, rather than experiencing. Where I find myself thinking and not feeling….pretending and not living.
Maybe it’s because I’m in unchartered territory….a live-in boyfriend (which I couldn’t be more excited about), a new puppy (that is freaking adorable), meeting the boyfriend’s family, a new job teaching, starting a coaching practice, deciding whether to stop pursuit of a goal…that may not be a goal anymore.
It’s all amazing and I need to step back into my body and just take each opportunity and challenge as they come. Go back to feeling my way through the moments and stop over-thinking them. Simply trust that I got this…because I do. Now, just breathe….