This morning, I sit at my kitchen counter and I return to my studies in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certificate program (MMTCP). I am just entering year two of the program. It hasn’t always been easy, and it hasn’t always been effort, but as we step into the practicum phase, I can feel the anxiety in my system rise.
The inner dialogue of the judge and inquisitor arise. Who am I to teach? What will I teach? How will I know the answers? How can I know the answers? This inquiring mind, well it could go on, but instead I invite myself to notice … where are my feet, what are the qualities of my breath, can I bring my awareness to the breath, one inhalation, then one exhalation at a time. And as I do, the sense of anxiety begins to lessen as I return to the space of now. It’s not that the anxiety has disappeared, but it’s that something else can be here too. In essence, the AND what else is here can become present.
I am thankful for this practice. It helps me to return from the space where I can so easily get lost in the mindscape of predictions and what if’s, to the very real moment of now. And it is here, that I come across the following quote from Hannah Foltz that I would like to share. It is an invitation, a call to full awareness, and I hope it might inspire you too.
“Do not let the day slip through your fingers but live it fully now. This breath, this moment, catapulting you into full awareness. Time is precious, minutes disappearing like water into sand, unless you choose to pay attention.
Since you do not know the number of your days, treat each as if it is your last. Be that compassionate with yourself, that open and loving to others, that determined to give what is yours to give and to let in the energy and wonder of this world. Experience everything-- writing, relating, eating, doing all the little necessary tasks of life as if for the first time, pushing nothing aside as unimportant.
You've received these same reminders many times before. This time, take them into your soul. For if you choose to live this way, you will be rich beyond measure, grateful beyond words, and the day of your death will arrive with no regrets.”
Julia Stolk