Startings

So... Where do I start?

A few months back I had an incident. The details are not import, but my reactions are. I had what most people would call a "panic attack." I found myself in a complete daze, "drowning" in external circumstances that seemed at the time to be overwhelming and "life consuming." My life, my enjoyment of the gifts that G-d gave me, my ability to see whatever I had as a gift, was in a moment gone. I was breathing only by involuntary means. My voluntary role in my life and circumstances had disappeared in a fog of angry and resentment that life was the ways it was and not “that way”, the way that I wanted it to be. These feels, at the time I was having them, was not by choice (though later I would see this differently). They were a directed and appropriate reaction to what life (G-d) was throwing at me. Why should I feel any other way? I was done, gone, on autopilot. I had relinquished control of myself to the currents that consumed me. “Let me drown!”

Well, I didn’t. I am here now. After months and countless nights wondering what would be… I am here. I didn’t drown. The monsters I created in my mind and heart did not eat me. I am here, now, in this moment, present. I understand now many things I did not a few months back. Yeah, I could have written a book on how to overcome the exact condition I then in. I could have spoken many words of deep wisdom… and yet I was in a horrible place. You see, the words were there, but the actions, or even better, the in-actions were not.

The purpose of this blog is for ME, yes ME and only me, to chronicle a journey that I am about in embark on. To leave myself, yes just me, a map to return to a place yet to be reached any time I am lost. Will others read this? I am sure. And yet, I am only doing it for myself. As you will see, I lost myself because of forgot about the “self.” It has died a long time before and I was dragging this dead weight around for a long time. When you forget about yourself and stop feeding it and nurturing it, it dies. Just like any other being. And your body must carry this dead being around. You get tired, sleepy, cranky, stressed, because there is this weight, this being, as invisible as it may seem, that you need to take around with you wherever you may go. The “self”.

So, I am writing this for myself, as a way of not forgetting the “self.”

This week, Monday, as one of the many tools I am using to feed my “self”, I began the famous Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, or from this point forward MBSR. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn is the founder of his course. Look him up, google, youtube… lots of amazing research and information out there. I am not going to go into details about the research and background information about the course. Suffice it to say, it’s a 8 week, one night a week course that has you investigate the present moment. You see, most of the time we are thinking and looking at the past or planning and scheming the future. We miss, though, the present. The place where all is unfolding and where life is actually happening. So, we miss everything. Life does not happening yesterday or tomorrow. It’s happening NOW. Right NOW. You can’t live yesterday. The sentence “I will see you yesterday” doesn’t make any since. You cant. And yet, we throughout the day think about the past and live our life from events that have already happened. 

And the future, even the sentence “I want to do (blank) in the future” doesn’t make sense. You can’t do anything in the future, to the future…

Now yes, the past and present are important. We study history so we can learn from it and it can inform our actions now. And we plan and strategize for the future so the outcomes of our actions will be as we want, hope, them to be. However, when we get lost in the past and future, in the mazes of thoughts, we lose this moment, which is all we really have.

MBSR is about exploring this moment. Not judging it or trying to change it. Just about paying attention in an open, nonjudgmental way, to whatever arises. So I have started this journey this past Monday night. I will record my exploration daily here, on this blog. The above are my finding and thought that I have discovered over this past 2 days.

The commitment. Meditate once a day, 6 days a week, 20 minutes a day, for the next week. We started with the body scan technique. I am proud to say that yesterday I meditate twice. 40 minutes? Today I will do my meditation tonight at home after work, or in my friend’s car while he drives us home. Finding the time to meditate is more of a challenge to me than the meditation itself. Being able to “stop” is harder for me than staying “stopped.” I will “stop”, though tonight, even if it just for 20 minutes.
   

Blessing to myself and any others reading. Remember, life is NOW, HERE, NOW in every moment and every experience. In every breath.