My toddler, Ruby finally fell asleep for her nap. Her older brother, Kenton is playing on his switch for “quiet time.” He’s home this week for Spring Break. I have a moment of silence. This rarely happens and I want to make sure I fully embrace it. But for whatever reason, I struggle to sit quietly and just allow myself to be. To simply sit in the moment. I start to fidget. I start to think about all the cleaning I could… should be doing. My mind wanders to say the least and I lose the moment of rest. I always remind myself, “It’s okay Joy to take a break. You don’t have to be doing something non-stop.” But it’s hard. It’s hard to be okay when literally everything is okay. Can you relate to this? How do you stop your mind from running through the day and planning for the next?
For me, I try to write. I try to put my energy into a focused activity that forces me to be intentional. Have you ever caught yourself not being intentional? If you are honest with yourself you would say ‘Yes.’ You know what I mean, just going through the motions. Just getting done what needs to get done. As a mom it’s very easy to go into auto-drive. In fact, read the definition of automatic drive and tell me this doesn’t sound like a mom! “A transmission that automatically changes the gears according to the speed of the car.” Vocabulary.com. We run from one mess to the next. We hold, bounce, and rock our kid’s through their emotional episodes. We are the machine that keeps running despite any obstacles the family runs into. To survive we must almost detach ourselves emotionally to keep things going.
But I don’t want to live on auto-pilot! Did you see what I just did there? I switched engines on you! Automatic pilot is defined as: “A device for keeping an aircraft or other vehicle on a set course without the intervention of the pilot.” Webster’s Dictionary. In other words, I want to fly my aircraft. I want to fully live! And to fully live you have to fully hear, feel, see, and experience. You have to be fully present.
I caught myself zoning out while talking with my son yesterday. I love his stories and perspective, but sometimes I hear the same stories from him. When my mind detects repetition I tune out because I think to myself, “Oh, I’ve heard that already.” As my mind began to say this I caught myself. I turned to him and stopped. “Wait Kenton. I know what you are saying is really important and I want to hear you. Can you please say it again?” He straightened up as if he was preparing a big speech and began to speak. Our eyes were locked on each other. And you know what happened? I listened. I listened to his words. And they turned out to be different than what I had assumed. I learned something new from him. He too seemed more focused and thoughtful with his communication.
What was I doing in that moment? I was creating space and time for us to communicate intentionally with one another. I gave him permission to share his thoughts in an uninterrupted way. As my son has grown older I’ve noticed myself gradually interrupting him more and more. I’ve created a bad habit of impatience on my part. As I wrote earlier, I am working on reminding myself to be okay with what is right now. This includes the stage and responses of my children. I don’t have to instruct or pacify non-stop. What is, is what is. And that is okay.
Intentionally live! Limit the distractions! Focus on the present moment! This is what I am striving for!
To better help with this, I would highly encourage you read the writings from Sam Harris on the topic of mindfulness. In his writings he defines mindfulness as: “A state of clear, non-judgmental and undistracted attention to the contents of consciousness, whether pleasant or unpleasant. There is nothing passive about mindfulness. One might even say that is expresses a
specific kind of passion—a passion for discerning what is real in every moment. It is a mode of cognition that is, above all, undistracted, accepting
and non-conceptual. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly
about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the
arising of thoughts themselves.”
“The deliberate choice to focus your awareness on the present moment and experience it without judgment.” Sam Harris
Leave a Reply