Are you living on autopilot?
How often are you truly present?
Here’s an example. Maybe you can relate. Every morning I get it up and make a pot of coffee. I think of this as one act — but it actually includes a series of steps.
Walk over to the counter where the coffee maker is.
Open the basket on the coffee maker that holds the ground coffee beans.
Open the package of ground coffee beans and pour some into the basket.
Close the basket on the coffee maker and the package of ground coffee beans.
Pick up the coffee pot, walk across the kitchen to the sink, fill the coffee pot with water.
Walk back across the kitchen, open the top of the coffee maker and pour the water into the reservoir.
Close the reservoir, put the coffee pot into the coffee maker, and hit the start button.
I had to really concentrate to identify all those steps just now — but most days I do them without even thinking about it.
Our brains are designed to form habits - and in many cases that’s a very good thing. I wouldn’t want to have to think that hard every morning to make a pot of coffee.
Thinking burns a lot of energy - and our brains want to conserve energy. That’s why brains are so brilliant at getting more efficient at whatever actions, thoughts, behaviors and emotions we repeat.
But sometimes, all that habit forming can go a bit sideways. There are mornings when I’m ready for my first cup of coffee and I suddenly realize I forgot a step — I didn’t put the water in the coffee maker or I forgot to hit the start button.
Why? Because I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. My mind was somewhere else.
I wasn’t present.
Sometimes our habits go rogue. Our brains get really good at doing things that aren’t serving us anymore.
Grabbing a candy bar when we feel stressed.
Scrolling social media while we wait in the check-out line
Beating ourselves up when we make a mistake
Saying yes to things we don’t really want to do
Staying in relationships, careers, or situations that don’t make us happy, or worse, are making us miserable.
That’s where mindfulness comes in. When we practice mindfulness, we get out of our analytical thinking/doing mind and we settle into our being/sensing mind.
When we move out of doing mode and into being mode — we become aware, curious, non-judgmental and open.
This mindful, open awareness is where we can start to notice and choose to disrupt our less helpful auto-pilot habits. Once we “wake up” to the present moment we can start making conscious choices.
Our power to create our best lives lies in our ability to make conscious choices. Mindfulness is our road to freedom.
Join us on Saturday, May 4 at Liberty Lane Stables to practice presence with the horses.
