I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village … what business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?
Henry David Thoreau
Yesterday I was sitting in the passenger seat of our car, waiting for my husband. We were in a busy business district and a large truck pulled up in front of our car and parked. I noticed the truck pull up because it was large, noisy and very close to our front bumper. When I next looked up, about five minutes later, the truck had gone. I hadn’t noticed it go! I was so engrossed in my emails that I hadn’t seen or heard the large, noisy, precariously-parked truck leave. My attention was completely separate from my surroundings.
A buzz word that I’ve noticed going around recently is ‘mindfulness’, which essentially refers to being aware of the present moment. This has become a popular idea in our fast-paced way of living and I wonder if the slow-food movement and other similar ideas have fed into the desire to simplify, at a deeper level, our very mental state. Perhaps we’re all becoming tired of multi-tasking. How often are you on the phone, cooking dinner, switching back-and-forth to check your emails, all within about five minutes? How often are you so engrossed in checking your phone that you have no idea what’s going on around you?
Mindfulness is often associated with meditation and this may be a valuable way to make time to practice being aware of your thoughts and surroundings. I’ve been thinking about what being present might look like throughout regular and ordinary moments in my day; when I’m talking to my husband, when I’m listening to the news, when I’m cooking, when I’m having a shower, when I’m at the checkout at Coles, when I’m standing on the train in peak hour.
When I’m not ‘being present’ it means that I’m not paying attention to the people or the situation around me. I have my own agenda which I’m bent on achieving. I’m usually rushing to do the next ’task’ on my list.
So if I’m not being present, it may look like this:
- I become annoyed at the slow shopper in front of me at Coles
- I push in front of people to get a seat on the train
- I worry about a meeting at work when I’ve just woken up
- I listen to news of war or famine in the world without feeling any emotion and perhaps without even remembering any of the details
If I instead practise focusing my attention on one thing, the thing in front of me, the situation and the people at hand, those situations might look like this:
- I realise that someone is having a problem with the self-check machine at Coles and help them out
- I notice the man standing next to me on the train looks very tired and wonder if he has small kids who didn’t let him get any sleep the night before
- I enjoy the flowers in my neighbour’s garden on my morning walk and the warmth of my shower before breakfast
- I learn about the great need in a certain part of the world and take a minute to donate to medical supplies for the situation
All of these things are tiny in themselves but they represent a major mind shift: I am not consumed by myself. I value others and I start to value the many moments that make up my day. I can enjoy beautiful things, empathise with other people and offer help. On top of all these good things, I am more relaxed.
I love the quote that Thoreau wrote, which I included at the top of the page. He wrote it in 1862 (!) in his essay Walking. Thoreau used walking to practice being present and to ‘shake off the village’, to revel in nature and let go of the anxiety of other things. Perhaps what we face isn’t an exclusively modern problem.
What is one situation in your life where you notice your body and mind are not ‘in the same place’? How might it look different if you were present and attentive?
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