There are many ways of describing mindfulness and meditation. In this piece, I’ll be sharing one perspective, one voice and encouraging you to cultivate and deepen your own. This is not a “how to” article or exhaustive definition of mindfulness or meditation. It is simply a personal share with one of the things I love most: personal stories.
I like to imagine mindfulness as an ongoing awakening of the senses and through this awakening, a deepening in presence.
And I like to remember meditation as a natural state of being. Being aware of where and how I am moment to moment, day by day. As many moments as I can. And with as much curiosity, openness and non-judgemental awareness as possible.
It feels as natural to connect with my five basic senses and a myriad of ways of being in this body as it feels normal to become distracted and forget where I am and momentarily what is real.
All of the above is constantly changing. My inner world evolves as much as the outer world that surrounds me.
Two of my favorite teachers, two humans I’ve learned a profound amount about being human are my two children. They are grown and growing. I continue to learn and grow as I watch them learn and grow.
When my firstborn came into the world, I was twenty-two and ten years away from stepping foot into a yoga class and even longer before sitting down for formal meditation. I was young and beginning to learn how to care for another human being’s heart, body, mind and soul. It was a time of intense focus to build a home, a life, a family. I was the company’s bookkeeper and found comfort in long hours at the office spent plugging in numbers and coming up with reports. I spent a lot of time in my head.
As I watched my son discover the world around him through his senses, I slowly become more connected with my own. I saw him studying toys and anything in front of him with a curious gaze. This brought awareness to see with more curiosity. I saw him smell everything he picked up – the pediatrician asked if he was putting things in his mouth and I said, no, he brings things close and inhales. I paid more attention to my sense of smell deepening my love for plumerias. When we attended children’s parties, he would slowly make is way into the crowd. Taking in the sounds, sights, surroundings. This made me more aware of my own sensitivities to external stimulus. Especially sound. When he was two, he discovered how to turn on the hose and feel the water flowing out. Cool water running over his hands, his small feet connected with the wet earth. This deepened my awareness of sensation, touch, something as simple and wonderful as cool water and how it feels on the skin. And, when he was tired and ready to leave a gathering and pulled on my skirt, I remembered where my body was in space: proprioception. Sight, smell, hearing, touch. Tasting new foods always came after smell, making the experience doubly rich to witness and I imagine to experience.
Towards the end of my twenties, I found myself at home on bed rest awaiting the birth of our second child. This experience brought me deeper into connection with my own body. To be still out of medical instruction and necessity. After two weeks of climbing the walls – I was not accustomed to long periods of stillness – I surrendered. A voice deep within me said, who knows when you will experience this much quiet again? Sink in. I learned to be still and feel my body from the inside out: interoception.
A few years later, I found yoga, bringing me deeper into my sense awareness, proprioception, interoception. Later, meditation and mindfulness of the body, breath, thoughts and emotions.
As I continue to grow as a mother, formally and informally in yoga, meditation and mindfulness, my connection to this physical form becomes more alive. Embodied awareness.
While much is uncertain in this life, I can count on this body to be right here, right now for as long as I am alive and breathing. Moment to moment reminders of where, how and what I am. When I look in the mirror, I see gray hairs and reminders of life passing quickly. I don’t want to miss a moment! I want to live and be as fully present, alive and open to this life I am experiencing. And in the moments when I feel overwhelm, my thoughts racing, worried, sad, angry or anxiety rears its familiar head, when I feel overwhelmed, I can pause. I feel my feet touch the ground, I can see what is front of me, breathe in the air and listen to the rise and fall of sounds, I can take a drink of water and notice how this moment feels, cultivating a sense of being at home in this body. Just for this moment. And the next. I can slow down the racing thoughts, cultivate compassion for the worries and anxieties I notice, I can steady my heart and mind. One moment and breath at a time.
“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.” ― John O'Donohue
