If you move too quickly, you might miss it
After three months of looking forward forward to nothing but the future, I am recommitting to presence.
To listen while you’re reading…(this whole album is sooooooo good)
Scrolling through my photos, bored on a red eye flight from Burbank to JFK, I realize that this is the first time in months that I haven’t had something coming up on my calendar. This past three months have consisted of weekend trips away, friends visiting the city, a family vacation, a three week solo road trip, and most recently, a trip to LA to celebrate my best friends birthday. It has been a long season of playing catch up – periods of intense exertion followed by necessary solitude. Stopping and starting, acclimating and adjusting to new routines and new environments. Just as I get settled in one place, it is time to move to the next. While the past three months have held some of the most beautiful, profound moments of this year, on the tail end of this five hour flight, all I can think about is the simple pleasure of having nothing on the calendar but the space to be.
While it is certainly possible to catch glimpses and find moments of presence while life seems to be moving at the speed of light, I find it difficult to remain grounded when I am always looking ahead on my calendar to begin preparing for the next thing. My mind constantly buzzing three steps ahead of my body in order to make sure the transition from one thing to the next is as smooth as possible – my body screaming out, “can’t you just be here for once?!” I sit to meditate, I carve out time for solitude, I take time away to do nothing and yet, I still find myself daydreaming about that next thing.
As a generally excitable person, I think it’s a part of my nature to look forward to the beautiful sunset on the horizon, but how often do I pay attention to the glimmers of the 12pm sun on my window, or the dew of the early morning? While journaling, I often find myself musing about the vision I have for my life – the places I have yet to go, the people I have meant to meet, the experiences I feel will shape the wider purpose of my life. That dreaming is important, necessary, and one of my favorite things about being human but it's beginning to impact my ability to situate myself within this moment. It keeps me constantly yearning for something that is just out of reach, the one thing that will finally allow things in my life to fall into place. With my attention almost always focused on the future, on the potential of what could be, I often forget to savor the experience of my life as it is right now.
This endless loop of yearning has led me to question –
What would my life feel like if I kept open the space between this moment and the next? What happens when I am present to this moment and allow myself to gently glide into the future without diligently planning out every step between now and the end of my life? How do I find the balance between looking forward to the way my life will inevitably unfold, and the things I have planned along the way while also being fully present to every moment as it comes? How often do I look to something in the future to “save me” from something happening right now?
This season of non stop movement, of having so many things on my calendar to look forward to, has propelled me into a period of newfound inspiration and a clearer vision for myself. It has been necessary and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but in order for the learnings from this season to fully integrate into my life, I need to take a pause.
I’ve learned that it is equally as important to have seasons in your life that shake up your internal waters and the way you live your life in order to spark your engine into forward momentum as it is for the stillness and solitude to allow the waters to settle. It is your job to recognize what you need – when I feel groggy, lethargic, unmotivated and unclear about my life, I know it is time to shake things up, flip my perspective, and get the energy of my life moving. I do this by changing up my routine, going somewhere new, anything to clear out stagnant energy and make space for something new. As I feel right now, on the edge of anxiety and buzzing by the potential of what could be, I know I need space and time for the tides to settle before I make the next move. It is a beautiful dance in every moment, every season of life, to counterbalance the external world with your internal waters, working to find equanimity in every moment.1
As humans, we crave stability just as much as we crave the thrill of a new experience – whenever we have one, we desire the other. A pendulum constantly swinging towards what is not in front of us. The cyclical nature of life will always bring us around to the next experience, a fact of nature we often forget – placing our awareness away from the moment in front of us towards the fantasy of what could bring an experience even better than the one we are actively experiencing. Something bigger, better, and brighter is always on the horizon but if we are too distracted thinking about the thousand other things we could be doing, it will come and go without the blink of an eye.
As the weather begins to chill, and the world begins to make its way towards a more internal way of being, I find myself wanting to do the same. Instead of filling my calendar up with trips and daydreams of what the future could become, I want to prioritize placing my sights on the richness of the here and now. As if this processing finally begins to drop into my way of being, today as I sleepily write my morning pages, my pen flows on the page repeating:
“I am here. I am here. I am here. I am so happy to be here. In this body. In this life. In this city. I am here and that is the greatest gift. It is all I have ever wanted. I am so happy to be here. I am so grateful to be here.”
And I truly am. There is so much on the horizon to look forward to but right now, this moment feels like the exact medicine I have been needing. From the experiences of the past three months, I have a crystal clear vision of how my life could unfold but I will not let that fantasy keep me from being present to the experiences unfolding in my life right now. I will be present to the gift of this moment and all it has to offer me. There is still much to process from the outer workings of the past few months – there have been big shifts in almost all areas of my life, a deepening of understanding of what I need, desire, and am no longer willing to settle for. But that processing, those insights, can be saved for another day. Right now, I am here and that is the only place I’ve ever wanted to be.
How often do you look towards something in the future to “save you” from something happening right now?
What are you looking forward to in the next season of your life? How can you hold that excitement for what has yet to come while simultaneously committing yourself to showing up in this moment?
What would happened if you stopped trying to plan every second of your future, and instead made space for life to unfold on its own? What if you could give up that control, trust yourself and your path, and focus your attention towards presence?
Do you often find yourself ruminating on the past or daydreaming about the future? Pay attention to where you naturally gravitate and notice
What are you grateful for, right now in this moment?
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PS –– Curious about all the places I visited while in LA? My Los Angeles AND Maine travel guide coming over the next month or so at ✈️ Subscribe to get it straight to your inbox 💌
I began understanding this metaphor and practice of shaking up and stilling my internal waters through my external practice within my study of Katonah yoga. If you want to learn more about the theory click here. Read Practical Magic by Alex Sharry. Or if you’re local to NYC, practice at The Studio or Skyting for a beautiful weaving of methaphor throughout the physical asana.
Lovely read ♥️ thank you
Great post and good reminder to stay in the present moment which is really the only moment we have. Nothing to do more, no where to go, no future except the present moment and then see what happens. Is the past and future actually in the present moment?