Do What You Do While You're Doing It and Don't Do What You're Not Doing While You're Not Doing It

I've heard this said a number of times on Sedona Method support calls. It's a bit of a mind-bender, but I have only to look at my horses or the wildlife around me to get it.

Animals are fully present and engaged in the Now, even while in the throes of their doingness. While eating grass, they're not thinking about their next trip to the creek or where they will stand if a storm comes. It's one thing for us humans to sit in meditation and quiet our minds, but how easy it is, while driving the car, cleaning house, or simply engaging in our early morning rituals, to leave the present moment and follow our minds into the imagined future. 

The advantage that animals have is that they are never not grounded. So following their example I try to remind my clients and myself to, Feel your feet. While driving the car, washing the dishes, or mowing the grass, I try to simply notice my feet - really notice the different parts of my feet on both feet. And I notice my breathing. I don't try to change it or fix it or take deep breaths, I simply try to notice the muscles I'm using when I inhale and exhale. It gives my mind something constructive to do and creates a bridge between my mind and body, which grounds me in the present moment.

You might also try feeling your hands - when you wash the dishes, drive your car, or pull weeds. Standing in line at the post office, grocery store, or sitting at a red light is a perfect opportunity to breathe and locate your Self in your body.

The mind tries to trick us into thinking that we must spend a lot of time listening to its theories, what-ifs, and strategies about the imagined future. And it hooks us into believing that we are actually very close to some sort of resolution that will ultimately help us feel peaceful, safe, and happy. But the time we spend listening to the mind's plans for future happiness, does not feel good. The planning mind typically creates a mild dis-ease or tension in our bodies, that we usually don't notice since it feels so normal. 

Take it from the animals, unless the predator in the bushes is actually running toward you, there's nothing you need to do, nothing you need to make happen right this second. When it's time to drink, you'll know. When it's time to move to higher ground, you'll know. Until then, your best protection, your greatest happiness and sense of wellbeing, lies in being fully available and present to your own inner guidance. And that can only happen when you're fully in the Now.

I like the following suggestion from an excerpt of one of David Whyte's poems called: What To Remember When Waking

​
In the first
hardly noticed
moment
in which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the new day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.

What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.

What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.

To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.

To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live your
true inheritance.

​