I sit here, on my porch, with my coconut milk Brahmin tea latte, drinking in all the beauty of this Colorado spring day. My house sits on a park, nestled in a valley just south of Denver. I watch as a skateboarder rides by. I can see the beautiful Rocky Mountains to my left, beautiful clouds swirling above the peaks. My cute puppy, a 6 month old Doberman, does a little sunbathing on the deck while I write. I hear wind chimes, birds, and rustling leaves. Amazing.
Ok, big deal... This chick is enjoying her tea... But listen. This is a big deal, for me. The act of being present. A concept, so simple, yet I am finding more and more, that it is a actually pretty hard. For me, it requires turning off the noise in my head, not listening to that ugly ego. When I am fully present, I don't have the ability to worry, over-analyze, criticize, or judge. All I can do in a moment of being fully present, is soak in life. Yes, things don't always go the way we think they should, but why do we deny ourselves all of the other beautiful gifts life has to offer by being consumed with our thoughts? Not sure where I heard this, but I love it: "Do not believe everything you think."
I am, admittedly, an over-analyzer. You know the type... Someone that may or may not freak out about anything and everything. I am the BEST at worst-case scenarios. If you ever want a run down of possible outcomes in any given situation, I am your girl. But after 32 years of living way too much in my head, constantly analyzing anything that came my way, I started to realize it was consuming me. My thoughts would race. I was hypercritical of myself and others. I became a perfectionist, and I am not perfect, which created even more stress for me. One day, it dawned on me, that I WANT peace, I NEED peace.
On my own spiritual journey, I have learned that most of our pain comes from our thoughts. We punish ourselves. We get stuck in thinking about the past. We think about how we have messed up or how we have been wronged. Or...We worry too much about the future. If you are like me, you worry about both. It is so draining...
Am I perfect at letting go, being present, and fully enjoying life? Um, no. But I work on it. Every Second. I am letting go of the past. It is over. Yes, I can walk away with some valuable life lessons and apply them to the NOW. But I am not going to live there anymore. I am not going to blame anyone for my circumstances. Nor will I continuously beat myself up for mistakes I have made. I have forgiven myself. It is so easy to beat ourselves up. It's the old hindsight is 20/20 thing. If you would have known better, you would have done better. You are not that person anymore. You are a newer, improved version, capable of anything today, but only if you are open and available to it!
And I have to let go of worrying about the future. I have to trust myself fully. I have to know that I make every decision with my heart. Every decision made today from a place of love and faith will guide me further along my path. I have to drop the self-doubt, that comes with beating myself up for past failures, and know that everything has a purpose, including me. I have to believe that every decision made today will take me exactly where I am supposed to be tomorrow.
If I am as spiritual as I think I am (or desire to be), I have to let go of the worry, or try as best as I can, every day. I have to learn to "go with the flow". I have to know that every situation, personal encounter, every person I meet, every place I go, has some divine purpose. And it does! I think we are taught to believe that if we are "good" nothing bad will happen. This just simply isn't true. We cannot develop, grow, thrive, and expand without proper training. (What if our souls need just as much time, energy, and development as our minds and bodies?) We cannot truly know and appreciate the good, without experiencing some bad.
Thank you for reading!
xo,
K
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