In the Moment

How hard is it to be in the moment in our world? It can be truly challenging. Face it – have the time we don’t even remember half our day. It’s like a big blur as you just do things by rote – get up, shower, drive to work, take a lunch break, drive home, make dinner, watch TV, read a book, go to sleep.

Sounds kind of awful when I list it that way, but it’s only to make a point. Sometimes you have to put on the brakes, take it off autopilot, and practice being really present.

I know a lot of people are happy to just move along with the current, not thinking too much about whether they like what they’re doing and who they’re doing it. I don’t believe recovering alcoholics and addicts have that luxury. When you link mindlessly, things creep up on you.

One of the best ways to become present in the moment is to keep  journal – or a blog even – where you talk about your day and how experiences impacted you or made you feel.

Today I felt tired in the morning because I had insomnia – had a diet soda too late in the day and it kept me up.  Note to self: no more diet sodas after lunchtime.

I had an important work call, and I was practicing patience. I tend to be impatient when someone doesn’t just see it the way I do.  It’s not very productive.  I thought the call went very well, but it took a conscious effort. Being in the moment, aware of my feelings and any temptation to overreact.

Around lunch I met a friend for coffee – hadn’t seen him in a while – we chatted about local news for a half hour. I felt happy to see him.  He’s someone I really like chatting with and I’m glad I consciously chose to make time for it.

Later I discovered some issues at work that frustrated me out a bit – but I took the bull by the horns and asked for input and tried to nail down why these patterns are occurring again. A little backsliding – but we can get back on track.

In the afternoon I went over 2010 goals with one of my staff. It was a great conversation – I realized once again how great a hire this was (don’t ask me about the bad hire earlier in the year LOL) – this hire made up for it though. She’s bright, talented, open, charming, creative, and always expanding her knowledge. Dream employee.

Later I picked up the dog at dog camp (basically a place where he can go to play for a few hours during the day when I’m ‘boring’ because I’m stuck at my computer).

He was famished from 3 hours of playing and it was cute to see how excited he was for dinner (usually he’s picky).  Later I took him for an extra long walk and worked on his training – sitting at each curb, when someone walks by, not barking at every dog, cat, or bird he sees.  It went really well. It was a very “conscious” walk. (He also got to more than double how many trees he marked on this longer walk – so he was quite pleased with himself).

Now I’ve had a nice dinner – reheated leftovers but yummy – and I’ve stuck to a healthy diet for a week (Holidays were not my best days). Here I am not blogging about it, recognizing it was all-in-all a pretty great day.  Not because I did anything so out of the ordinary – but because I made sure I lived each thing fully and didn’t do it on auto-pilot.

What did you do today that kept you in the moment?  If you can’t think of anything, what will you do tomorrow to be in the moment?