Being Present, Mindfullness & intent. Yikes!!

A very dear friend of mine was given the opportunity to speak at our high school reunion many years ago. Her topic was about being fully present in each and every moment as we live our lives. As she described what that would look and feel like and how it has made a positive impact in her own life, everyone sat up a little bit taller and the room became quieter. You could see and feel the energy in the room change as the audience became fully present and engaged in her presentation. Everyone that choose to attend the reunion that year got much more than they expected and we all walked away with a life lesson that had unlimited potential.

15 years have passed since that night and I am still working on being present in any given moment, but I am farther along in my practise of being present then I would be if I had not attended that night. Mindfulness and being present requires conscious thought, practise and time. Although, lately I find myself looking too much at the week ahead rather than what is right in front of me. Not just because I'm busy but also because I prefer some days of the week over others. Awareness is wonderful!  I have a lot more practising to do.

As usual there is way too much swirling around in this brain of mine. I have intent, mindfulness and being present all converging towards each other making it difficult to separate one from the other. I know they are closely related, but they still need to be their own entities.

First we need to be present, then we need to operate with intent while being mindful. Being present and mindful allows us to make adjustments to our intent along the way. These are all tools to be added to our tool chests. My brain is telling me that intent could be broken done into a millisecond so I need to reign those thoughts in and start with some basic practise first.

Mediocrity, maintenance and mastery: If I am to be honest with myself and everyone else, I would put myself in between mediocrity and maintenance with a dash of mastery sprinkled in here and there. I believe that mastery can be as simple or as complicated as we make it. Unfortunately our North American style of life creates a much more difficult path towards mastery.

Saturday's meeting may have been short, but it was filled with quality content. That content was perfect for me because it reinforced much of what is needed in my life right now. For those that were missing I highly recommend listening to the recorded version.

Namaste,

Michele Ward