Getting In Tune With The Present Moment

“Toys In The Attic.”

Aerosmith.

1975.

Going through some things in my home office, I stumbled across my old record collection. Good old fashioned vinyl LP’s. 100’s of them on a solid 2×4 and plywood cabinet I built many years ago to keep them dry and in good condition. Over the years the cabinet has been slowly covered with other stuff, the albums becoming very much out of sight and out of mind.

Music has always been an important part of my life, and back in the day vinyl was media of choice. Vinyl really wasn’t very portable, so for me to listen to the music it required me to also be less portable.

Back in the day we used to actual sit around and listen to music. Friends would gather and we’d bring our favorite albums and spend hours listening. Music was the focal point, not just something we had playing in the background as we did something else.

There was an intentionality and with that intentionality we sat fully present, just listening, discovering, and enjoying, listening fully in the moment.

Fast forward to the age of streaming. Of music seemingly everywhere on demand. Streaming has made music extremely portable, something you can take with you everywhere. As I thumbed through some of my favorite albums, I realized that streaming has changed my relationship with music. Even though I now have instant access to any song which pops into my head, listening has lost much of its intentionality. The intimacy is gone. The music has become something in the background as I do other things. I’m no longer fully in the moment.

I often feel relationships have also lost much of their intimacy. Like, they feel less intentional. In an ever-connected world, relationships are ever-accessible and yet they can often feel like background noise as we are busy doing other things, often at the expense of what really matters. Ever have to compete for a child’s attention when you’re talking with them with their phone in their hand? And it’s not just the kids. The battle to be fully present can be a struggle for me at times, and with the pace of life and the digital distractions I’m thinking I’m not the only one struggling.

It’s been said that the present moment is all we really have, yet how much of our present moment time is spent focused on trying to understand the moments we’ve had and trying to control the moments we’re going to have, at the expense of the present moment?

The present moment doesn’t care what we do with it.

Perhaps we should?

Photo by Skylar Sahakian on Unsplash

Story Time and The Voices In My Head

It was the “long run” day. I’ve been training to run my first ever half-marathon and the training hasn’t been that good. Issues with knees, heels, and backs have slowed the process. But the race doesn’t really care about my ailments so I’m on the streets as often as I can. I’ve been running shorter runs a few times a week, saving the long runs for the weekend.

To keep me company on these runs is my running playlist, especially curated by me for me, songs that would serve as the perfect soundtrack for my trips around the neighborhood streets.

Unfortunately someone forgot to re-charge his EarPods overnight, so today’s nine miles would be done in silence.

Well, not total silence.

My mind would fill the musical void, and sometimes my mind just doesn’t stop.

Thanks to some mindfulness training I’ve gotten quite good at just listen to my mind. Just stepping back and observing what it says and trying to understand why it says it. Sometimes that’s far more interesting than listening to my playlist.

The physical nature of running invites some compelling inner narratives, especially the longer the run. It’s always fascinating to listen to how my mind processes the pain and soreness which accompany me on every run. Sometimes the mind recognizes the pain as no big deal, while at other times it shifts to a very protective mode imploring me to stop before it gets worse. As I approach a hill or an extended incline, the mind is sometimes quite supportive and at other times it’s already looking for places to stop as I begin my climb up the hill.

I’m not sure which voice to listen to half the time.

I just know I’m supposed to keep running.

Sometimes the voices in our heads are quite convincing. Like, why would they not be telling us the truth? Often, though, what they are telling us is a story, a story we’ve told ourselves so many times before. Sometimes they are stories of abundance and expansion or possibilities, or quite often stories of lack, regression, fear, and unworthiness.

The thing about stories? Stories aren’t always true.

What makes them true is our willingness to see them as true.

I always respectfully listen to those stories I tell myself, even if the stories are at times confusing or conflicting. And on my best days, after getting an earful from myself, I remember I decide if the stories are actually true. It all starts with simply observing what’s going on in your head without judging any of it.

Notice the stories you tell yourself when things are going well. Notice the stories you tell yourself during times of disappointment and frustration. You know they are present but are they true?

Most of the responses we have are automatic in nature. Because we’ve told ourselves the same stories for so long we are biased to believe that they must be true. But just because they are old doesn’t mean they are true.

If you’re going to tell yourself stories about you, why not tell yourself the stories which support the vision of the life you want for you? Why not create a narrative which reminds you of your inherent abundant nature, of your inherent resilience, of your inherent worthiness to become all you want to create for yourself?

The stories about ourselves we are willing to accept as true directly how we will experience life.

Choose wisely.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

If You Don’t Know Why Then At Some Point You Won’t

So what do you write about when your week didn’t go as planned and you didn’t have your usual time to write?

This past week felt like a week full of Mondays. Lots of unexpected events which took unexpectedly long to work through and resolve. Usually I’ll write three days a week, but this week sort of got away from me.

One of my goals this year has been to become more consistent in many areas of my life. Writing and posting included.

I’ve done rather well with that so far this year. I’ve posted every week of the new year. But with my week running away from me, was I going to stop my consecutive post streak and not post this week? Was that going to be my excuse?

As I write this in my writing space I am looking at the number “9”. The number “9” is written on the whiteboard on the wall in front of me. It’s the number of consecutive weeks I’ve posted. That number will be erased in a few moments, replaced with either a “10” or a “0”, depending if, despite my challenging week, I actually get something written and posted.

I’ve had a mixed bag of success when it comes to goal achievement. Setting goals is the easy part, but it’s the commitment to them that makes it happen. And consistency is critical in turning plans into reality.

The most important determinant if a goal is achieved or not is the reason Why the goal matters. The Why fuels the commitment which in turn fuels the consistency. Without a strong sense of “Why” you’re doing something, inevitably you’ll simply stop doing it.

Whatever the goal, whatever the desired outcome.

When I tell myself I want to accomplish something, I will always challenge myself as to why I want to accomplish it. If I don’t have a powerful enough reason I simply won’t make the commitment and move on to something else I can passionately get behind.

I know Why I write, and that’s the reason a number “10” is now written on the whiteboard in front of me.

Why do you do what you do?

Why do you want what you want?

If you don’t know Why then at some point you Won’t.

Photo by Steady Hand Co. on Unsplash

This Day Doesn’t Owe Me Shit

Maybe you’ve had days like this?

Waiting. Waiting for the day to motivate you, to inspire you, to give you a reason to feel good and excited about the day.

I’ve had my share of those days. Too many, actually. Days when I’m sort of just going through the motions of being alive. Waiting to receive, willing to accept, but not quite willing to create.

Does this feel familiar?

It’s easy when the external world ignites you, fills you with energy, lifts you higher. Everything flows, everything feels possible, and time moves substantially faster. But what if the day doesn’t give us that spark?

Most days, it’s up to us to create our own spark, ignite our own fires, and lift our own self higher.

Funny thing about new days. They’re indifferent. They don’t care what we do with them. Their job is to simply show up. But since we only get a finite number of them in our lifetime, is it wise for us to be equally indifferent as to how we spend them? To wait and hope that something outside of us is enough to inspire something inside of us?

The great day we’re hoping to have today? The great life?

It’s just not going to show up.

It requires us to create it.

What can you create for you today?

Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash

Thanking The Hammer For The Beating

It’s rather paradoxical. And perhaps can only be done from a detached sense of self awareness.

But it’s an important part of the process.

Life often uses rather unconventional teaching methods to get us to learn what we need to learn. Many of those lessons unfortunately involve a degree of pain, quite often repeated until the lesson is eventually learned.

Like heated steel is reshaped between the anvil and the force of the blacksmith’s hammer, life, too, can heat us and beat us and reshape us through its own hammering process. The people and situations which at times can confusingly hurt us will often reshape us, change us, but if we look deeper we will often see there was a purpose to the pain.

It’s not a pleasant process. Even with a detached sense of self awareness. And usually it’s not something we express gratitude for.

Perhaps we should.

It’s not easy to thank those who’ve hammered us. But that hammering is what has changed us, often against our will, but often for the better.

And for that I’ve learned to be grateful.

Maybe Groundhog Thinking Is Holding You Back?

Like that 1993 movie where Bill Murray relives the same day over and over?

How much of our own life is just a repetition of our yesterdays? Where Wednesday is nothing more than another Tuesday and Thursday will be nothing more than another Wednesday?

It can feel like an infinite loop. Never ending. We just get another day older reliving days that don’t feel much like we’re living them.

And even if we tell ourselves we want a different outcome, we habitually recreate more of what we tell ourselves we don’t want.

Our own personal version of Punxsutawney, PA.

Habitual and unconscious actions, thought patterns, emotions, beliefs, expectations, energy, and intentions simply create more of what already is. Each new day becomes the exact same day just with a different date attached to it.

At many points in my life, the outcomes I told myself I wanted for my life were quite inconsistent with how I was actually living my life. Mindset is a critically important component of growth and the creation of new outcomes. Without a change in my mindset, my desired new outcomes were really just wishes marinating in hope. Nothing was ever going to change because, actually, nothing ever changed with me.

Have you ever stepped back and witnessed what your thoughts and emotions and beliefs and actions have been creating? Will those same thoughts and emotions and beliefs and actions allow you to create any new desired outcomes you tell yourself you want for you?

There are many aspects of life which may be out of our immediate control. But our thoughts and emotions and our beliefs and actions are always under our control. They can work for us or against us, but they are always working. Either moving us forward, or keeping us in place.

Life is too short to relive the yesterdays which will ultimately hold us back from our desired tomorrows.

Embracing The Power Of Clarity

With a blizzard on the way, I was able to get my electrician neighbor to finally hook up my generator. Finally, because I was the one who had been putting it off, often forgetting I even had a generator which needed to be hooked up.

In the community where we live, good size storms have usually meant a loss of power. Trees vs. overhead power lines, and the trees usually win. No power means no heat, no water, and no light. Of all the things I take for granted in my life, electricity has to be in the Top 3. Does anyone ever marvel at flicking a switch on the wall and the lights magically turning on?

Now, should we lose power, with a few flicks of a few switches, heat, water, and light will be restored. The generator serving as a back up reserve fuel source to get me through the storms which arrive outside of my control.

Sometimes life gives us different types of storms to endure, where there aren’t a few simple switches to flick on and get our lives back to where we want them to be. These are the emotional storms, equally as unwanted as the ones nature brings upon us, but often far more damaging and painful.

It would be really cool if you could buy some sort of emergency emotional generator to get you through such storms.

I guess the only option is to create one.

When life knocks your power out, what reserves do you have available to keep you moving forward? Faith? Hope? Trust? For me, having the clarity of a vision as to what I want to create in my life has proven to be quite a powerful emotional resource, and understanding “why” that vision matters.

That hasn’t always been the case.

For much of my life I meandered about without a particularly clear and defined destination. Ever searching and seeking, I was no match for the storms of life which would show up, much like overhead power lines are no match for the weight of the snow and ice covered branches of the trees above them. My searching and seeking did eventually get me to a place where what I want and why I want it have become quite clear. That destination shapes every step of my journey. In that clarity is a strength, a resolve, and when the unexpected storms arise and knock me over, and they still do, it’s the conviction of clarity which serves as the fuel source to help me rise yet again and to keep myself moving forward.

“Pain pushes until vision pulls” as Michael Bernard Beckwith has often said. Four words which perfectly define the process of my own evolution.

Perhaps of yours as well?

Where is your vision taking you?

What To Say When You’re Having Coffee with God

It was quite surreal.

I was sitting at a round wooden table in a busy coffee shop having a nice conversation. With God. He looked a lot like I thought He would look like, sort of an older version of the images of Jesus I’ve seen all my life. Same eyes.

Surprisingly, no one else in the coffee shop knew who He was. Oblivious, they were simply going about their collective days, too busy to notice perhaps?

Or, maybe He was there just for me.

At some point during our brief time together, I worked up the courage to ask Him an important question. An important question I’d been seeking answers to for most of my life.

“God?”

“Yes, Pete?”

“Am I worthy to receive the abundance of blessings of the Universe, to become all I have been created to become?”

God paused, put down His coffee, and looked me square in the eyes.

“Have I ever told you that you’re not?”

And with that, God stood up, and with a wink and a smile left me alone to reflect upon His answer.

It was quite the dream, but the message was anything but.

God has never told me I’m not worthy. He’s has never told anyone that they aren’t worthy. Yet somehow life has a way to often create a disconnect between who we are and who we think we are. And who we think we are is often much less than God’s intention behind our creation.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded of our worth, of our value, of our significance, of our birthright to allow and receive the blessings inherent with our own creation.

To allow ourselves to become what we’ve each individually been created to become.

Unless God tells you otherwise.

And He won’t.

Self Care Is Not Optional

Rte 6A meanders effortlessly on the north side of Cape Cod, the bay side. It is a road seemingly untouched by time, now gracefully stark and barren in the depths of winter. It’s a road I’ve inconveniently yet intentionally travelled for many decades.

Intentionally, mostly when I need some time to just be me. Not a husband, a son, a brother, a dad, a friend.

Just me.

Silently observing, reflecting, recharging.

I can always count on the serenity and simplicity of the flowing miles between Sandwich and Orleans to help me rediscover the serenity and simplicity I often forget are available within me.

May we all take the time to prioritize those places which allow us to reconnect with our most authentic, deepest self.

Self care is not optional.

Silencing Our Own Voice

I remember when I brought her home for the first time.

Betsy, I called her. I’m still not sure why. But, Betsy would be her name going forward.

She was beautiful, perfect in my eyes. She being my first electric guitar.

Me? I was gonna be a rock star. I already had the hair.

There was only one problem.

I had always wanted an electric guitar, and I had heard that Mr. Britto on Smith Street had one he was willing to sell. My enthusiasm convinced my Mom that she should let me spend the money I had saved and buy it. It was $40 back when $40 was a lot more than what $40 is today.

I didn’t know how to play guitar when I bought it, but I assured Mom that I’d learn. Taking music lessons didn’t quite excite me, no matter how good I was at playing scales or “Mary Had A Little Lamb”. I had a few friends who played guitar, and I was able to learn a bit from them. Ultimately, I sort of just dabbled with it, occasionally made some noise, and eventually Betsy ended up under my bed in the case I first brought her home in.

That one problem?

I never really thought of myself as a guitarist.

A few years back I found the guitar while cleaning out a closet. Immediately my mind went back to that 14 year old wide-eyed, long haired version of me. Eventually, though, I started thinking about what I hadn’t done with that guitar, about the music I didn’t make with that guitar. Like, why didn’t I?

Because I never allowed myself to do so.

What holds us back from being all we were created to be is our belief system. How we see ourselves pretty much determines what we are willing to allow ourselves to be. In music. And in life. Our identity of who we accept ourselves to be regulates everything. If our beliefs are limited, so, too, will be what we are willing to allow ourselves to become. In music. And in life. I never really saw myself as someone who could confidently play the guitar, and I met those expectations with precision.

I used to regret lots of things, things far more significant than not learning to play the guitar. But the root cause of all of those regrets was the same. A belief system limiting what I accepted as possible for me. Even if I told myself I wanted to be more, I was never going to let me do or accomplish anything more than my belief system would let me.

Regrets can crush you or they can be the fuel that moves you forward. I’ve opted for the fuel route.

The good thing about any limiting belief is it can be changed. First you need to be open to the reality that you actually have them and self-aware to compassionately notice them. Not everything we think is true. We just think it is. But when you identify or suspect thoughts which are limiting in nature, you have the right, ability, and obligation to change them.

But that’s on you. Nothing on the outside can change what we are unwilling to change on the inside.

Is there something on the inside that needs to change in order for you to fully express who you were created to become?

Challenging what I think has been such a critical tool in my overall growth, especially what I think about me and what’s possible for me. The mind which can create limitations can also destroy them.

It works both ways.

The guitar? It now hangs on my office wall. I have no desire to learn to play it. Rather, it’s there to remind me of what self-imposed limitations can look like. In music. And in life.

What’s holding you back?

What music are you not allowing yourself to make?

Your music, your voice, is far too important not to be fully expressed.

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding