Prefer to listen? Here’s the recording.
You’ll know, by the way that you feel…
When I am in this moment, I hear the steady tick of the clock. Sunlight dances on my closed eyelids. The laptop keys are smoothly concave under my fingertips. The wind plays the chimney pipe in low, gusty breaths and the traffic soothes by.
It’s beautiful. All of it. Just beautiful.
When I am about this moment, I am thinking…
I need to remember to change the battery for the clock, I noticed it was running slow this morning.
I must make sure I keep it vertical, it doesn’t like being laid flat.
Michael figured that out.
Damn.
I miss him so much.
Tears…
Could it really be that simple?
I asked my Dream Team that question as I imagined them coaching me out of a recent funk. Could one preposition truly toggle life from joy to sorrow and back — the distinction between ‘in’ and ‘about’?
The answer, a resounding ‘YES’.
I’d slipped out of the now.
Instead of being in the moment, I’d been thinking about it instead.
It doesn’t take much to toggle from ‘in’ to ‘about’
A flat car battery had sent me tumbling to the bottom of my emotional ladder.
ABOUT thoughts had flooded me then, as the key failed in the ignition.
What was wrong?
What would it take to sort it?
Why was life so full of problems?
Why was life…?
Thoughts about the problem and its unwelcome presence in my day took me down. Fast.
How conditional my love still is! I can love this day, as long as my car starts…? Really?
After recent extremes, it sometimes feels as though I have NO reserves for unexpected challenge. My crisis fund is drained… My puppy-mind leaps to I so don’t want to be here…
Of course, what’s really happening is that my thoughts about the situation have diverted me away from being in Love with life. Love is not altered when the car doesn’t start. Love is in love with it all.
My resistant thoughts about the car not starting had thrown me into negative emotion. Rather than be in the moment with those negative emotions, my mind went on ‘about-ing’.
I had to bring myself inside the house and soothe my emotions before I was ready to contact the garage. I cried for a good while before taking action.
I didn’t care that there was so much emotion — so out of proportion, one might think, with the scale of the event.
I tuned in. What emotion was this?
Sadness. The sadness of grief on a hair-trigger. Sadness that makes life feel unlovable, unliveable even.
I sat with the sadness and let the tears flow. It didn’t matter how long it took, I told myself, I was going to be in this moment.
If I’d thought about it instead, as I’d initially started to do, I’d have tried to make myself ‘deal with it’. Worry-mode fully engaged.
Thinking about this would have gone a bit like this:
Get on with it, stupid!
What a fuss you’re making!
This was NOT the plan for today…
What a horrid thing to happen!
I was SO looking forward to lunch with my friend!
Life is so unpredictable.
Who knows what’ll go wrong next…
What if it’s going to cost a fortune to fix?
Perhaps that’s the end of my car…
I wonder how I would manage without it…
Oh heck.
Etc…
Speaking with people about it would have been strangled with unspent emotion.
Saved — by my negative emotion
My sadness marched me back inside. It made me do the work. I stopped thinking about the event and felt my way into it instead.
I wrote to my Dream Team. I imagined them, guiding me Home.
I laddered my emotions before picking up the phone.
Walking my puppy-mind up into better and better feeling states; it always brings such relief! It didn’t take long...
I was in Love with life within minutes.
Embracing the moment, I was fully in it and enjoying the flow. Sadness was replaced by such appreciation - how good life is!
“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognise how good things really are!” — Marianne Williamson
A few phone-calls later, the resolution was well underway.
What a wonderful day!
A beloved friend coached me through the practicalities, kindly remaining on standby throughout, should a taxi be needed (thank you SO much!)
Garage staff were wonderful. They couldn’t have been more supportive or helpful. What great people to have on hand!
The car was revived by the kindest of souls from my home-start recovery service. He took such care, explaining so thoroughly and reassuring me that all was now well.
It unfolded so beautifully. A symphony of love in action. So much to appreciate and enjoy.
If I hadn’t seen the ‘in’ for the ‘about’, it would have been a very different story…
If you’re not enjoying your life, you’re not IN your life
Being fully ‘in’ life is the best life can get. Fully focused, fully aware, utterly absorbed in the now. That’s your peak state. Even if external conditions aren’t pleasing, the imagination can bring deep satisfaction when you live in the moment.
Being in Love (L = unconditional) with life is your natural state. It’s a felt sense. Your emotions are the indicators of alignment with Love. It’s being ‘in the zone’ or in a state of flow.
You are built to flow Love out into the world, regardless of circumstance or condition. We all are.
When you are fully immersed in the moment, you are not judging it or comparing it. You are embracing it completely and flowing Love to it wholeheartedly. That feels wonderful. You lose yourself in the experience of now. You are free.
If a thought occurs to you about your now experience, and it feels bad to you, that thought is taking you out of the flow of Love. It’s not the condition or outer effect, but the thought about it that’s causing the resistance that kicks you out of your now.
Negative emotions signify thoughts about life that are taking you out of alignment with what Love is thinking and feeling in the moment. Love is in life, loving all of it and always calling you Home…
Thoughts ABOUT life are likely to go south…
Letting the mind think about life, or any of its storylines, is a dodgy pursuit without careful supervision.
Of course we can think non-resistant, Loving thoughts about life. These thoughts are aligned and feel wonderful. All good.
But unsupervised, once the puppy-mind starts thinking about life as opposed to being immersed in it, the about thoughts tend to go bad, PDQ**.
As our minds are tuned to ‘fear, doubt and judgement’, (a mantra from Brandon Bays), letting them run amok, like untrained puppies, isn’t likely to be pretty.
We aren’t built to spend every moment swooning, of course. Contrast is the first step to creation.
But if you want to get Home faster, once you’ve been triggered right out of your flow, stop yourself thinking about what’s happening.
Be, breathe, and feel into the moment instead.
Ask yourself what’s really going on inside you.
What are you feeling and what does that emotion need?
Dream Team guided journalling…
Some Dream Team journalling as I focused after another ‘about’ episode the following day… fretting about sadness and not getting stuff ‘done’.
Imagined guidance from higher perspective is in bold.
Stop thinking ABOUT the moment. And future ones. And past.
Be IN the moment. Enjoy what your senses can bring you.
If your five senses aren’t pleasing you, use your imagination.
Be IN the moment.
Find some way to enjoy it.
That’s it.
But what about my sadness? How do I enjoy being in that?
Is sadness not beautiful?
Does it not respond to being loved?
Can you not feel your way into its soothing?
Yes.
Love your emotions.
Love especially the ones that bring pain.
That’s unconditional love.
It will bring you back Home.
Love — unconditional love — is who you are.
It’s what you’re for.
It’s all there is.
It’s enough.
It’s more than enough.
But what about desires?
Creation and whatnot?
I don’t want to just float downstream like a Pooh-stick…
Ideas will come IN the moment.
Desires and dreams for creation.
That’s when imagining comes into its own.
IN the moment.
Imagining for the pleasure of it.
Dreaming your way into creation.
What about action?
When will I want to do stuff?
Don’t I need to do stuff?
All in good time.
You’ll know, IN the moment.
Leave it to us to give you the nod.
You’ll get an inkling.
An impulse.
A whim.
Follow it, IN the moment.
Don’t think ABOUT it.
Lose yourself IN it.
Really? That’s it?
What do I do now?
Go for a walk.
Be IN the moment.
Enjoy whatever you can find.
Find pleasure in your senses.
Less thinking ABOUT life.
Be IN life.
Be IN Love, with life.
Love adores every moment.
Love relishes sensation.
Love feasts without ceasing.
You can, too.
If you’re not relishing this moment, check in with yourself.
What thoughts are you thinking about life, just now?
What emotions do those ‘about’ thoughts reveal, when you sit in this moment and allow them?
Send love to those emotions.
Don’t think about how that happens. Just be in the emotion with the intention of sending love to it.
No judgement.
No pushing against.
No trying to change it.
Just loving the emotion.
It has every right to be there.
It simply wants to be soothed.
You can do that.
Here, in this moment, you can be the presence of Love.
It is who you are, after all.
Sending you every encouragement, Dear One.
If you’re finding it hard, reach out. Contact a friend. Work with a coach. Join an uplifting group of feasters. Book in to explore more…
*Acknowledgement: My blogs, my life and my coaching are based on appreciating many wondrous teachings but most particularly those of Abraham-Hicks.
**(Pretty Damn Quick)