The Only Place I Am Is There

“One time, one meeting.”

It was mesmerizing. The color. The lines. The contrast. It was one of those photos I wish I had taken myself. But I didn’t need to own it to be able to fully enjoy it.

I just needed to see it.

Quite often I find myself alone in nature. A short hike though the woods, a long walk on a winter’s beach. The isolation is restorative and at some point I will inevitably attempt to capture the beauty of the natural world surrounding me in a photograph.

Looking through the view finder takes me to a place I’ve spent much of my life trying to find. The present moment. In the view finder a moment is frozen. I scan everything before pressing the button. The lines, the light, the color, the texture, the noise. Every detail in front of me is seen and assessed. I can adjust or decide to capture it exactly as it is. But in that moment, the only place I am is there.

When you discover the present moment you also discover how fleeting it is.

“Ichigo ichie” is a Japanese expression often translated to mean “one time, one meeting”. This and every moment is a singular moment in time. It cannot be relived exactly as it was. Therein lies its Continue reading “The Only Place I Am Is There” →

Redirecting The Momentum Of Thought

The crew aimed their cannon at the top of the mountain. After a few minor adjustments, the trigger was pulled and the artillery shell landed in the deep snow.

Avalanche.

It started slowly, the initial subtle movement gaining velocity and momentum as the snow intensified its descent as it violently crashed down the mountain.

Reminds me of how my thoughts can work at times. Especially when the thoughts turn negative.

Sometimes one initial impact of negativity creates a downward spiral of more negativity cascading through my mind. A mental avalanche of sorts, gaining velocity and momentum as those unwanted thoughts crash down relentlessly through my head.

I’m no expert in physics, but I do understand the power of momentum. How life tends to create more of what you’re experiencing and expecting, even if you don’t want it.

I’ve gotten good at noticing where my emotional momentum is taking me. I can feel when I’m caught up in my own avalanche of negativity, anxiety, and doubt. Left unabated, the momentum of my thoughts intensifies. But noticing when I’m stuck in an avalanche is my first step of getting out of it.

Awareness is a super power. Knowing where I am allows me to create a plan to get me where I want to be. My thoughts will go where they will go, but I get to decide if a will allow them to keep me there. At times I need to give myself some time to process the negativity, anxiety, and doubt. Just give it a safe non-judgmental space to be seen and heard. To slow the momentum.

Then decide where I want to go from there.

We have the freedom to think what we want to think. We have the freedom to be empowered by our thoughts. We have the power to reframe any situation we find ourselves in.

We have the power to redirect our emotional momentum.

Just because I’m stuck doesn’t mean I have to stay stuck.

During an avalanche of negativity, anxiety, and doubt, we are the only one who can pull us to safety.

Photo by Nicolas Cool on Unsplash

The Peace Is Well Worth The Pain

“Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.” – Joyce Carol Oates

It’s one of my favorite photos.

And it annoys the hell out of me.

I took the photo a couple of years ago at a local park, an overhead view of a snow covered swing seat I noticed in the playground. It’s a black and white image creating a beautiful contrast between the whiteness of the snow and the darkness of the outline of the seat and the chains holding it up. It’s stark, it’s simple, yet each time I look at the photo I wish it was different than it was. The seat is slightly askew, and the two chains rising up from the seat stretching to the edge of the photo are annoyingly asymmetrical.

Even though the photo is beautiful, I instead look beyond its beauty and focus on the flaws only I can see, leaving me provoked and disturbed in the process.

I’ve never had much success arguing with reality, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

Life gives us plenty of opportunities to argue with it, if we choose to, to be provoked and disturbed wishing people, situations, and circumstances were different and more aligned with Continue reading “The Peace Is Well Worth The Pain” →

If Water Was Time

As a kid, you never thought about how much water was in the glass. You just drank from it. Never worried if you spilled or wasted any of it. There was always more. The supply was abundant and seemingly infinite.

I’ve never been concerned whether my glass was half full or half empty. I just wanted to know how much was in the glass. If water was time, at my age I know most of the water in the glass of my life has already been consumed. And with that awareness, I’ve become much more intentional when taking sips of time from the glass of my life.

The circle has gotten smaller, the superficial has been discarded, the drama gets left behind, creating space for depth, substance, purpose, and expression.

I’ve become extremely protective of that space.

We really never know how much is left in the glass, do we?

I don’t intend on wasting a single drop.

Photo by Paul Lichtblau on Unsplash

Good Enough Seldom Is

With clarity and conviction in her voice I could tell she was a woman who knew what she wanted.

“Margherita pizza, cooked well done, extra basil.”

Yet when the pizza arrived, it wasn’t done exactly the way she wanted it done. After some initial griping to the other guests at the table about what was served to her, she quietly consumed her undercooked, slightly basil’d pizza, accepting less than what she wanted with every bite.

Why is it that we are so willing to accept less than what we know we want for ourselves?

Sometimes we settle because habitually we’ve always settled. We’ve been conditioned to settle because it’s always been easier and safer to accept less instead of fighting for what we know we want and deserve. Sometimes we don’t ask for what we want for fear of losing what we Continue reading “Good Enough Seldom Is” →

Embracing The Darkness

It’s here and it doesn’t care if I don’t like it.

The end of Daylight Savings Time gives me one extra hour of light in exchange for a season of increased darkness. That’s not a deal I would have made, but that’s the deal we get here in the Northern Hemisphere each November.

The older I get the more I think I’m solar powered. Daylight is a fuel source, and for the next few months that source will be in shorter supply.

The world always gives us the choice to embrace or resist what we see in front of us. Resisting What Is inevitably proves to be futile, embracing What Is doesn’t mean you actually like it.

The darkness is here and I get to decide what I am willing to do with it.

Most of my significant growth has come when I’ve embraced the darkness, of accepting the unlikable situations I’ve found myself in. In that darkness I’ve learned how I respond to the darkness around me. Frustration, patience, resilience, trust, anger…a full buffet of possible emotional reactions as I process and deal with the things I really don’t want to deal with.

My reactions don’t change the reality. My reactions show me how I’m dealing with it.

I don’t purposefully seek out darkness. It does have a way of finding me, though. And when it does find me I know as a human there is no one perfect response.

But my best response starts with accepting What Is, embracing even the darkness, and allowing myself to move forward toward the light.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Smackin’ The Piñata Of Life

There’s a pony hanging from a hook above my desk. It’s small, colorful, and made out of whatever a piñata is made out of. It’s there to remind me of one of life’s most important lessons.

I remember the many birthday parties, rope thrown over a low-hanging branch holding the piñata in position for the kids lined up to take a few swings at in hopes of cracking the thing wide open and spewing candy all over the ground at the base of the tree.

The life lesson?

The candy doesn’t just fall out by itself.

As grown ups, our candy comes in a different form. It takes the shape of our hopes and dreams and aspirations. The things we want to experience and become. The life we want to live. Those hopes and dreams and aspirations are dangling in front of us. But unless we are willing to line up and take consistent swings at the piñata of life all that we want for ourselves will remain within our sights yet out of our reach.

The piñata above my desk reminds me that the life I want to live needs me to show up, to step up, Continue reading “Smackin’ The Piñata Of Life” →

Making Space For The Noise

At times it sounds like a talk radio show. Hostile. Loud. Contentious. Not what you want to hear while quietly sitting still on your meditation bench.

Welcome to the thoughts in my head.

Years ago I was told that meditation was a peaceful process. Just sit, close my eyes, and the light of positivity and peace would embrace me. How disappointed was I when that never happened. The mind will speak when it wants to speak and sometimes it has a lot of unpleasant things to say, even if you’re on your meditation bench.

My job is to notice, not to judge or criticize what my thoughts may want to contribute.

My job is to make space for the Noise.

The Noise. In the form of thoughts of frustration, uncertainty, regret, and doubt, all aspects of life we tend to experience but would rather not hear about. Especially when we’re trying to calm the mind through meditation.

Maybe the Noise just wants to be heard?

The Buddhist nun Pema Chodron speaks of the mind being like a blue sky, equating thoughts as clouds passing though. The clouds can be puffy white or dark and stormy, but the clouds demonstrate their impermanence, simply passing through and fading away for us to notice as Continue reading “Making Space For The Noise” →

A Faceful Of Wisdom

“We have a winner!”

Spending a few days in Maine we decided to include a stop at the 9th Annual Wild Blueberry Festival in Gray. And what’s a Wild Blueberry Festival without a blueberry pie eating contest.

In a scene reminiscent of a Hallmark movie I found myself in a small idyllic New England town standing at a table with nine others, hands behind our backs and blueberry pies inches from our faces awaiting the word to begin. When all was said and done, I turned my pie-stained face upwards to see the judge pointing at me declaring me the winner of the competition.

I won a blueberry pie eating contest. In Maine.

The grand prize included a four-pack of locally bottled blueberry soda and, more importantly, bragging rights.

As I wiped my face clean from the blueberries and crust embedded in my scruffy facial hair, I was asked if the pie actually tasted good.

I hadn’t really noticed.

Granted, the goal of a pie eating contest is to consume what’s in front of you faster than the others at the table. Devouring an 8 inch pie in 61 seconds didn’t leave room the evaluate the quality of the pie. It was all about speed.

On the hours-long drive home, still basking in the glory of my unexpected victory, I started thinking about speed. As in the pace of life. As in how much of life I may have missed being too Continue reading “A Faceful Of Wisdom” →

Is Your One & Only Life Worth It?

I was a bit confused as I watched him walk carefully over the jagged granite rocks exposed by the low tide. When he finally stopped, he took out his camera and he began to capture images of the weathered lighthouse precariously situated above him on the shore.

When he made his way back to where I was standing we stuck up a light conversation about how beautiful the scenery was. At some point I asked about his journey out over the rocks to take some photos and he just smiled. When he showed me a few of the images he shot from that vantage point I started to smile, too. They were stunning, taken from an unconventional angle which added an element of unexpected magnificence.

“Sometimes all you really need to do is to put yourself in position to succeed.”

There are easier ways to take a photo of a lighthouse. But he wasn’t looking for easy, he was looking to create something far more spectacular.

That’s exactly what he did.

I’ve been thinking about the significance of his words. Not in terms of photography but in life. Of Continue reading “Is Your One & Only Life Worth It?” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: awareness