Straying

AA wrote: Yes! Thank you for the lovely reminder this morning. it helps me to worry less ans stay more focused on now, on my work, on staying healthy, on being patient with my children, to fulfill my tasks with joy and purpose and not to be elsewhere in my mind and do the things I do superficially. 

BB wrote: Vielen Dank für den wunderbaren Text, Sabina

        CC wrote: You're words and thoughts somehow reminded me of Übermensch    of Nietzsche. I as a human stray a lot. That's I've been doing all my life. Yet when I think I see half of the life is in our hands and the other half depends on when, where and how we're born and live. 
         
          Straying

The moment we stray from where we are, we create a tension between two places - where we are and where we are thinking of being. It is this tension that blocks us from being fully alive. For each of us, straying from where we are and coming back is a never-ending task, very much like blinking or breathing. 

That we stray from the moment is not surprising. The more crucial thing is that we return.

Mark Nepo: The Book of Awakening

I come back to this theme again and again, because as natural as straying is, it sometimes becomes painful. No, it is not surprising that we’re constantly slipping off somewhere else in our minds, while our bodies remain in the here and now. The important thing is to catch ourself doing it - and bring our minds back.

Learning to return is is a task of a lifetime, because I don’t think that straying will ever end. But I can learn to notice it, and I can learn to act upon it. When I catch myself drifting off, instead of indulging in my curiosities about the future, my regrets about the past, or my guesses about what others might say or do, I just stop. Why spend precious time and energy on unfounded theories or useless regrets that serve nobody? 

In the Kingdom of Me, I am the master, not the mind. So I stop the thought flow, and return to the present moment. It’s okay to stray, but once I’ve noticed it, I need to return. Return to the real life, as I live it, body and mind united, right here and now.