The Power of Now
I love listening to interesting content on the road and it usually helps the time go by more quickly. I started the day jumping into the last 10 hours of Barack Obama's A Promised Land. As much as I have enjoyed this book so far, I'm at a chapter where he talks about war and I'm having a hard time staying focused on it. I quickly decided I needed to start this long day with something a little more inspiring.
I found a couple YouTube videos with Jim Carrey and found myself in tears a few times before 8am. I was feeling like maybe it was an interview around the time Truman Show would have come out where he was branching out artistically. Seriously google Jim Carrey and you're sure to find some inspiring words. From there I landed on Eckart Tolle's The Power of Now full audio book on YouTube. Bingo.
I have a friend who is currently re-reading this book and so I thought I would give it a whirl. Unfortunately Eckart reads his book himself. Now I love that Barack is reading his memoir to me, but Eckart... well let's just say I'm lucky I didn't fall asleep and drive off the road. He speaks very deliberately as if he is recording a meditation. But the content is pretty good.
This book speaks to living in the present moment and I really have already done a lot of work in this house. For quite awhile now I have placed my focus on what I'm doing right now and I try not to let myself get swept away in thoughts about the past or worry about the future. But who couldn't use a little reminder?
A couple things I noted while listening....
- Washing hands meditation. (Or really meditation in any daily activity.) The point is to thoroughly immerse yourself in the task at hand. I picked up the washing hands meditation in the early days of the pandemic. With a focus on hand washing, I decided to make the most of it. I thoroughly scrub my hands while smelling the soap and feeling the sensation of the foam in your hands. I also say to myself every time I wash my hands. "Thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you for meeting my every need today and every day. Thank you for providing all the resources: time, money, space, people, personal energy, health...that I need to do the things I'm called to do."
- Enjoying the journey, taking one step at a time, and enjoying the process of where you are, not just focusing on a future destination. I love this. My college philosophy paper was about life being a journey, so clearly I had an early understanding of this. It is still definitely a work in progress and all together fitting for my current journey.
- Words as a block to the experience. Some people have negative connotations with a specific word and it blocks them from the full experience. He suggests looking at the word as a sign post. The word itself is not the experience. If the word is blocking you... let it go. I have found this to be true with the word God. Because of a religious upbringing and not ever really believing it, I had a hard time when people used this word. But in the last few years, I have become more open to this concept and have been able to set aside my block to this word in favor of the idea behind it.
- The light is too painful for those that want to remain in the darkness. All I can say about this is ... choose lightness. It is not worth it to remain in the dark.
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