I sit in my balcony on a Saturday evening, sipping hot masala chai and looking at the butterflies fluttering around the garden. It’s my favourite activity now a days and it makes me wonder about the life I have had for 40 years and how many times have I sat this way. How many times have I just been in the moment without thinking or planning for something.
Life has been a mad rush, not coz it needed to be, but coz that’s all I knew how to do. I assumed that I needed to “use” every minute of every day and fill it with activities to make myself feel useful.
While life has been kind and I am happy where I have reached, I wonder if I would have reached this state of oneness a lot sooner, if I had only managed to not get into a mad rush to ‘Get Freaking Stuff Done’ all the time.
I recently read something about the urgency of slowing down. An article that would make me run the other direction, just a year back. Slowing down was a weakness, only for lazy people, slowing down meant being left behind. And now, at 40, at the peak of my career, I am constantly learning about things that would make me slow down. Mediation, Yoga, Vipasan and loads and loads of books and podcasts about mindfulness and the joy of slowing down. I wonder about this shift within me, what made me get here? What was the true awakening?
I realise, during another session with the chai and the butterflies, that everything that I held dear were all the moments when I lived in the moment. The email free vacation I took; the relationship where I truly belonged with no judgement or ego; the friends I spend time with, without once picking up my phone; The workout I do where I am truly connected to my body and mind and a thousand other such memories. And there you have it, what matters at the end is brief moment of stillness when you are totally in the moment. Not in the past, not in the future but right here, right now.
So now, I spend at least 30 mins everyday mediating or doing something that connects me to the universe. I workout 5 days a week. I work at a place I love, with people who bring me peace. I take one vacation every few months and dont feel the pressure to constantly check my emails, I journal about my thoughts and feelings almost everyday And most importantly I give myself ample time everyday TO JUST BE..
Try it, it is liberating...
Life has been a mad rush, not coz it needed to be, but coz that’s all I knew how to do. I assumed that I needed to “use” every minute of every day and fill it with activities to make myself feel useful.
While life has been kind and I am happy where I have reached, I wonder if I would have reached this state of oneness a lot sooner, if I had only managed to not get into a mad rush to ‘Get Freaking Stuff Done’ all the time.
I recently read something about the urgency of slowing down. An article that would make me run the other direction, just a year back. Slowing down was a weakness, only for lazy people, slowing down meant being left behind. And now, at 40, at the peak of my career, I am constantly learning about things that would make me slow down. Mediation, Yoga, Vipasan and loads and loads of books and podcasts about mindfulness and the joy of slowing down. I wonder about this shift within me, what made me get here? What was the true awakening?
I realise, during another session with the chai and the butterflies, that everything that I held dear were all the moments when I lived in the moment. The email free vacation I took; the relationship where I truly belonged with no judgement or ego; the friends I spend time with, without once picking up my phone; The workout I do where I am truly connected to my body and mind and a thousand other such memories. And there you have it, what matters at the end is brief moment of stillness when you are totally in the moment. Not in the past, not in the future but right here, right now.
So now, I spend at least 30 mins everyday mediating or doing something that connects me to the universe. I workout 5 days a week. I work at a place I love, with people who bring me peace. I take one vacation every few months and dont feel the pressure to constantly check my emails, I journal about my thoughts and feelings almost everyday And most importantly I give myself ample time everyday TO JUST BE..
Try it, it is liberating...
Good to see you back. It is liberating to take it easy and slow down. The truth is this part does not come so easy. We need to train our minds to do this.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are able to find time for yourself.