Awareness and Focus for my Everyday or Beware the Big, Bright, Green Pleasure Machine

I better amp this process up because at this rate - 100 days might take 100 years!

Back to basics... I have been doing daily meditations since I started this blog. Some days my meditations are 1 minute long - but most days they are about 15 minutes. Really, everyday. It has been wonderful for me. To me, conscious breathing meditation has made daily meditation simple.

It is easy to get caught up in the everyday distractions of our world: the noise of television, the allure of a digital world where we can share instantly with anyone we ever met, for example, not to mention email, text, BBMs, etc. How do we keep our awareness and self-focus in such a distracting environment? For me the question of keeping my focus has been a nagging one. I find it so easy to get distracted by the next best thing.

Have you ever had this experience? You are watching a TV program and you realize you are not interested in it - in fact, you don't want to watch it any more... but, you are unable or unwilling to turn it off? What is it that happens in us that allows us to let lousy TV into our life. We become what we perceive if we are not conscious and watching a TV program we are not interested in means we are not conscious in that moment. You can chose to be anything you want at any moment so why choose this?

Awareness means that we can look at something an become a part of it. If you are looking at anger - you can become anger and if you are looking at love you can become love. CHOOSE LOVE.

I learned a simple meditation I would love to share with you. I have been using it for a while now and it has helped me choose better things to be aware of and helped to ease my distractions. It involves four words of focus: calming, smiling, present, precious.  Breathing in I feel the calmness reach my fingertips (CALMING), breathing out I smile (SMILING), I am in the present moment (PRESENT) I look for the preciousness of this moment (PRECIOUS).

You can do this while you are driving, walking, in a meeting, fighting with your spouse. Remember, it takes fewer muscles to smile so it is very relaxing (think Mona Lisa).

Namaste

I once heard Namaste defined this way, "I honor that place in you where the whole Universe resides. And when I am in that place in me and you are in that place in you, there is only one of us."