Wednesday Wisdom: Be Present

Why, hello, there!  Happy Hump Day!

This week, there’s a lot going through my mind.  I’ve got a lot going on in life right now – nothing bad, just a lot of things – and that typically triggers a period of major overthinking for me.  I end up obsessively analyzing every single detail of everything that happens around me, to the point that I am incapable of real, productive, rational thought.  I call it “hamsterbrain”, because my mind is literally racing in pointless circles, just like a hamster on a wheel.

The sad irony is that, although I end up in this state as a result of trying to do too much and be too many people, the end result is that I become incapable of accomplishing anything.  Work languishes, the house accumulates clutter…I fall behind on everything, which increases the stress of an overfull plate, which increases the hamsterbrain, and the cycle accelerates.  I think this is true of many of us.

I’ve got a plan for handling it, though.  I’m going to focus on simply Being Present.

We’ve all – or most of us have – heard this said, generally in the context of yoga or meditation.  Be present.  Be still.  Feel your body, your mind, your spirit.  Allow yourself to be yourself, to be where and who and what you are in this very moment, and nothing else.  Focus your entire awareness on every cell of your body, your breathing, internal and external sensations.  You can, by doing this, be completely aware of what is going on around you, without overreacting to any of it.

Okay, so that’s great if you’re sitting on the floor with your shoes off in a dark, quiet room, or even on the porch swing in the sunshine.  But how does that fit into the course of a normal day?  It’s hard to be aware of your body when you’re driving in rush hour traffic, for instance – you really sort of need to be aware of the traffic around you, actually.

Being present isn’t just about meditating or holding a yoga pose.  It’s about being one hundred percent involved in whatever it is that has (or should have) your attention, at any given moment.  That may be scrubbing a bathtub, or climbing on the monkey bars with a little one.  That may very well be rush hour traffic.  It doesn’t matter what it is; give it your full attention, without attaching an emotional reaction to what is happening.  (Unless it’s the monkey bars.  Feel free to giggle like a 4-year-old there.)

To my mind, one of the nastiest, most annoying words spawned by society in the past couple of decades is “multitasking”.  We say it like a mantra….like a prayer.  We offer it up like a paean of worship to the Gods of Distraction and expect to be patted on the back for our skill at it.  “I’m great at multitasking.  I can text my kids, drive to work, balance my checkbook, put on my makeup and listen to a podcast reading of Women Who Think Too Much, all at once!”

Okay.  But why would you want to?  You’re risking an accident, an inaccurately balanced checkbook, messy makeup and a teenager who’s thrilled that you just distractedly agreed to let her take your car to South Padre for the weekend with nine of her closest friends.  Oh, and you didn’t learn a great deal about Thinking Too Much, either.  Trust me on that one.

But that’s how we roll.  That’s how we get through our days.  Emailing, IM-ing, texting, all while eating our meals and working and reading and having phone conversations and doing internet research.  And probably watching TV.  Is it any wonder that A.D.D. is so prevalent, and becoming more so?  Is it any wonder that we’re obsessive-compulsive when we feel we have to be just to remember if we turned off the fire on the stove, because we were talking on the phone and helping a child with homework while we were cooking?

So my suggestion, which I am endeavoring (and often struggling!) to take, is to slow down.  Put your full attention on what you are doing.  If you are cooking a meal, take the time to be there.  Smell the aromas, feel the textures of the food you’re preparing (skim over this one if it’s raw meat, probably), focus on each step of the process.  (Chopping celery, I have found, can be surprisingly soothing; possibly it’s the rhythm.)  If you’re helping your child with homework, point your mind directly at the problem.  Don’t detach and wonder if you ironed that blouse for tomorrow yet, or if the car was on empty and you’re going to have to fill up on the way to work.  If you’re having a conversation with your spouse, don’t do something else at the same time.  Really focus on every word, on every nuance, on every expression.  He, or she, deserves it.  So does everything else you do.

Yes, this is hard.  I know that.  I struggle with it.  But when I manage it, it is so worth it.  I have never enjoyed a meal as thoroughly as one that I focus entirely on eating.  No conversations, no thinking about work, no TV, no book.  Complete focus on each bite, on the taste and texture, on visualizing how it is going to benefit my body.  [You know, sort of like after a couple of glasses of wine, how everything suddenly seems much clearer and more intense?  Or is that just me?]

A couple of tips that might help, if you’re finding it hard to let go of multitasking without panicking about what you’re missing:  Set aside a certain time of day as “thinking time”.  I have found it helpful to do it right before bed, because then I can go to sleep more easily knowing that I’ve set down my concerns.  Make a list of all of the things that are going through your head, that you’re afraid you’re going to forget.  Be it a project at work, something the kids need for school, some advance preparations for dinner, picking up dry cleaning, whatever.  Write it down.  Keep a special notebook or pad just for this purpose.  Give yourself a set time period – fifteen minutes should be about right, but YMMV.  Write down everything you can think of – and think hard.  Put those worrying muscles to good use.  And at the end of the fifteen minutes, stop.  You’ve probably thought of everything at this point anyway, and anything more is really just encouraging perseverative thought.  So take another fifteen minutes to be present (in the meditative sense), to get yourself out of Worrying Mode and into a calmer, more relaxed state.

And then trust yourself.  You’ve written it down, and you can take care of it when the time comes.  For me, that’s the following morning.  I’ll wake up, and as soon as I get moving and am really awake, I will go over my list.  If there are things that need to be done immediately, I will do them.  If there are things that I need reminders of for later in the day, I’ll program reminders into my BlackBerry or leave a voice mail for myself at work.  And then I can let go of them.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and realize you forgot to do something – turn on the light, write that down on your list as well, and then turn the light off and let it go.  Spend another fifteen minutes being present – usually, that will segue neatly into sleep without any conscious effort on your part.

Along the way, you’re going to come up with things you can’t control or can’t do anything about.  Most of us worry more about the things we can’t do anything about than we do our to-do lists.  In that case, I’ll repeat the mantra I’ve found so helpful:  Worry is praying for something you don’t want.  (Someone very wise said that.)  So when I find myself doing that (as in, when I’m lying awake at 4 a.m. idly worrying that a bear will somehow find its way into our house and we’ll be trapped with it between us and the door – I kid you not.  That is how hard I will work to find something to worry about) then I say a real prayer.  And I ask for what I do want, as in, for my family to be protected.  This won’t work if you don’t pray, but you can very easily substitute by simply taking your worry and turning it around.  When you’re focusing on a lost job, manhandle your brain into a 180 degree turn and spend fifteen minutes thinking about how good it is going to feel when you find a new one.  Imagine the scenarios in which that will happen.  Daydream your way through the successful job interview.

It is possible to control your wayward mind; it just takes practice.  But with that practice, and with that self-regulation, comes an enormous sense of peace and serenity and freedom.  With that sense of calm and freedom comes greater focus and productivity…and that cycle escalates, as well.  But in the right direction.

Today, take time to be present in whatever you are doing.  Take time to regulate your breathing, to gently set aside the things that are not a part of your current task, and give yourself to the task at hand.  If you can do that even part of the day, I think you’ll find that you end the day with a greater sense of peace and security and accomplishment.  And the more you do it, the more you’ll be able to do it.  At least, that’s the theory.

And have a wonderful Wednesday!