Something I’ve been noticing and working with recency is a sense of urgency I carry with me. Subconsciously wishing my life away, counting the minutes until the end of whatever task I’m working on, so I can get to the next one. Even when there isn’t a next one.
I notice that when I meditate, I often open my eyes to peek at the clock, to see if I’m nearly done. At the weekend, on a hike, I caught myself often looking at the gps, hoping to be farther along the trail, for no reason other than this sense of internal urgency.
Are we done yet?
As I play with my awareness of it, I notice how it can, if I let it, suck the enjoyment out of anything. How it pulls me away from being present with what I am doing, thinking about what’s next. How, in a very real way, I can leave the forest I have chosen to walk in and inhabit an imaginary world of panic and stress.
Even when there is nowhere else to be, like when I schedule an entire day for a hike, I notice myself wishing my time away. It’s subtle, and therefore even more insidious. It speaks as if it is a friend, whispering in my ear that I need to hurry up.
And so what to do? The practise I am in right now is to notice. Notice the experience of wanting to be somewhere else. The lack of presence. The discomfort of simply being with, acknowledging, making friends with the urgency.
There’s nowhere to be but here, nothing to do but this.
As I meditated in silence this morning, this was the mantra that came to me. I didn’t set a timer for the meditation, which always gets the urgency riled up – it says things like – ‘you must have done 30 minutes by now’ and ‘it’s uncomfortable sitting here you should get up and do something’ and ‘this isn’t achieving anything, we have problems to solve!’ And so on.
There’s nowhere to be but here, nothing to do but this.
Every time I repeat the mantra to myself, I try to extend compassion towards the part of me that is impatient, uncomfortable, urgent. And I soften.
After 15 years of meditation practice, I’m suddenly understanding presence in a new light. Understanding myself in a new light. I’m finding more compassion for myself, deeper self awareness. I’ve talked about presence, about urgency, about distraction before, but this feels like a deeper level, an embodied experience of this mantra.
Where before it was a trite saying, a neat motivational quote, now it will be a tool for me forever, every time I notice my fear pulling me away from what I’m doing, wishing my life away, this simple phrase will help me to ground back into the moment. To be HERE. Doing THIS.
Not shovelling food into my face so I can get back to whatever. Eating, and enjoying the eating. Not checking the clock/phone/gps every 5 minutes in case I’ve missed something, but being here, doing this. Whatever this is.
Notice the word practise – just like learning the guitar I’m surely going to play more wrong chords than right ones to begin with. My fingertips will hurt, and my body will feel bent out of shape as I learn this new skill. A skill I have already been working on for years. A practise that deepens, that will have days where it feels effortless, and days where it feels impossible. A practise that will continue forever.
I’m curious, what did you get for yourself reading this?