Presence

“Be where your feet are.” - Unknown

When I was a senior in college, I took a feature writing class and one of the assignments included spending an hour in nature writing about everything that I saw, heard and smelled. It was a lesson in mindfulness and stillness that made me uncomfortable and restless.

I spent that hour watching a ladybug ride a leaf like a raft down a trickling puddle of water, fresh from the previous evening’s rain. I tried to focus but really, I was counting down the minutes until the assignment was done. My friend wrote about watching a bird take a shit. We were clearly a class full of future Nobel Prize winners.

I wrote off that assignment as quickly as I received it. Stillness was not my forte and I preferred hard-hitting and quick news to feature writing. I spent the first couple of years of my career as a police and fire reporter, covering everything that crashed and burned for a newspaper that loved to run tragedy on the front page.

I learned to think quickly, move quickly and write quickly, often up against tight deadlines. As my career progressed, I continued this cortisol-infused lifestyle, thinking ahead, being hypervigilant with my surroundings and thriving in stressful and tragic environments. My career included covering historical events like Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina. I excelled at writing about suffering and strife, and it fueled my need to help and fix and do.

I tried to slow down, signing up for the occasional yoga class but 10 minutes in my mind started running through my “To Do” list for the following day and while my arms and legs splayed like a starfish in the last moments of an attempted Shavasana, I knew yoga was not for me. Neither was deep breathing or meditating. I loved talking, socializing, windy days, cool temps, fast cars, loud music. I was reactive, motivated by my surroundings and whatever was happening next. I didn’t want to be still.

When I had my daughter, I found myself in the quietest season of my life. Too quiet. She slept a lot, like newborns often do but the silence was deafening and my mind started to wander in ways it never had before. I couldn’t wait for her to talk and move and fly kites on a windy day and run through rain puddles. I was constantly focused on the future and spent a lot less time in the present.

When I was alone with my thoughts, it was scary. As Dan Harris writes, “The mind can be straight-up embarrassing. It’s a hatchery of intrusive thoughts, toxic judgments, and unspeakable urges. ‘As I like to say, ‘The voice in my head is an asshole.’”

The voice in my head was indeed an asshole. It told me I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t doing enough, I wasn’t going to be enough. The narrative spewing from inside my head was dripping with shame and criticism and the only way to silence it was to push it down and keep moving. What I lacked in presence, I made up for in productivity.

Nearly three years ago, I met a wonderful mentor with deep spiritual roots who taught me that the brain is an employee, not a boss. And all of a sudden, my world opened up. She told me to name the critical voice inside my head and to remind that voice that it’s OK. She told me to show it compassion and empathy and remind that voice that all will be OK. I named that inner critic “Carla” and told her it was OK for her to tag along with me but she had to ride in the backseat. Shotgun was reserved for kind brains.

I began meditating. My way. Not on the floor for hours, crisscross applesauce but in a recliner or on a yoga mat, stretching after a workout. Five minutes at first, building all the way up to 15 minutes. I allowed all of “Carla’s” messaging in and then just as compassionately, let it out, like the old time swinging saloon doors. I didn’t resist my thoughts or my feelings. I just simply let them pass.

I leaned into my senses again like my professor had taught me 20 years ago. I watched a dragonfly fly back and forth over my pool one day while my daughter and son sitting nearby eating popsicles. We just sat, feeling the warm sun, listening to the constant hum of a lawnmower from the neighbor, smelling the freshly cut grass. I leaned into these moments, feeling my heart swell for the presence of time.

I became more aware of my surroundings, choosing to spend 10 minutes outside without technology, just me and my brain, trying to figure it all out. I watched a chubby baby bluebird learn how to fly as its mom and dad supervised, perched on a nearby fence. I marveled at a lizard puffing out its neck like a little kid blowing a bubble gum bubble, and I stopped to let a gaggle of geese cross the road. I hung up a bird feeder and watched as a squirrel hung from the window to steal some bird food. I love a good sunrise and sunset. I have learned to enjoy the quiet and not run from them it.

I still have moments where I can’t turn my brain off and where “Carla” drives the car with her criticism and self doubt but I’m not scared to stop and be where my feet are.

Sometimes we need to slow down to speed up.

January 7, 2025