To Just Be Me

Meditation is my time without expectations, tasks, and demands. It is one of the only times I have to just be. While it sounds so simple and relaxing, the ability to let go of time and experience “beingness” has become even harder to do with the flood of distractions, expectations and responsibilities we assign ourselves on a daily basis.

Mindfulness as a meditative medium.

I honestly miss the time before technology was so omnipresent. Lately, I have been reminscing about my time in La Venta del Sur, Honduras in the Peace Corps. I would wake up and go two houses down to get freshly “squeezed,” milk from my neighbor's cow. I would have to boil the milk and then let it cool before eating my morning cereal or making my own yogurt. During the wait, I would meditatively sweep my dirt floors and put my solar shower bag (what a gift!) out in the sun to begin the all day process of heating up. Cooking, cleaning, and personal upkeep fulfilled a large part of my daily existence.

When I would go into the capital, Tegucigalpa, I remembered feeling so overwhelmed by urban life. CNN broadcasts on outside conflicts (doesn't there seem to be an endless amount of natural disasters or negative events causing human suffering and pain?) and commercials promoting the newest technologic devices to help navigate this faster and more complex world in ten second sound bites inundated my nervous system. It made me fear my return home to the United States. In fact, upon return from the Peace Corps service, it felt so immense to have to choose a box of cereal out of 12 options available. And I could never just find the basic, plain box of generic corn flakes amongst my options!

So now, 20 plus years later, I go to work and use instant message programs to communicate with my team in real time. I can log into my “work station,” from any locale with my unlimited data plan for internet access. And I have a business phone to be available more readily and at all hours. Now, I am the consumer of those products pitched in those commercials in Tegucigalpa.

I know they say the grass is always greener on the other side......Sigh.....oh how I miss having “excuses” to not be so available (or at least not having to spend MORE time to let the world know I am NOT available with yet another two clicks and a message telling the recipient who to contact instead)! Why do I have to justify walking over to speak to my colleague instead of typing my requests seated at my desk? We talk about maintaining technological balance and yet, I feel we are already so skewed from the middle line that any “balance” we achieve is a facade. Balance would imply some time without “plugging in” daily but the reality is that we just unplug from our work devices and plug in at home.

When I was a young adult, I didn't worry about how reachable I was when I would step out of my house to go for an afternoon walk or meet a friend for coffee. It was socially acceptable to have periods of time when I wasn't accessible. Even as we transitioned to all having cellular phones, it was still acceptable to not be reachable constantly (remember when cell phone plans included a limited number of minutes of talk time?) In fact, I remember still leaving my wallet and phone in the car for many of my longer hikes (my pre-frontal cortex was still not functioning at it's max :-)! I was checked out, unavailable, and truly free for a time. And people respected it.

Now, I will go to the bathroom and come back to view a barrage of text messages from my 13 year old daughter because I didn't instantaneously answer the first three (first message, “Hi,” then, “Mom,” then 30 seconds later another, “Mom.” By then she would give up on me and text her Dad! With so many beautiful benefits technology brings into our lives, the expectation of immediate accessibility is not one of them, in my opinion. I just don't thrive in this world! If truth be told, I am failing! If I have to apologize for another delayed text response or missed call one more time, my head and heart will explode!

While my layers of responsibility don't allow me to check out for an afternoon hike as easily anymore, I have recently discovered how to recapture that free feeling, that true “zen” moment of peace in our hectic world – through meditation. Derived from the Latin root, meditari, meaning to ponder, meditating daily gives me an outlet to pause, reflect, and ponder my human experience, even for just five minutes at a time. It allows me an acceptible pause from the expectations of our hectic, modern urban life to just be. When I can disconnect and truly be, regardless of amount of time, it is equivalent to a 60 minute massage or sitting on the beach watching the sun set into the ocean.

I use mindfulness as my meditative base. Especially on those days when I only have enough time to just slip away and pick some veggies from the garden before making dinner or when I have five minutes before my afternoon clinic begins, I take a breath and open my eyes to what is in front of me. I acknowledge the butterfly floating next to the multi-colored flowers. Or I feel the vapor tickling my nose as it streams from my herbal tea. And I am just here, present.

While I mourn not having long periods of time to truly enjoy my present moment the same way I did in my youth, I have found a way to appreciate the present through awareness, one butterfly, one cup of tea, one sweet rose, one minute at a time.