Finding Time For Nothing

I used to feel kind of guilty.

I mean, I’ve got a long list of things I am responsible for, obligations to keep, commitments to live up to. Yet, almost defiantly, I’d sneak off into a secret space and engage in one of my favorite non-activities.

Nothing.

Sometimes I just need nothing.

To do nothing.

To be nothing.

To feel nothing.

Even if for a few brief moments.

There’s a peace to be found in nothing, where I allow myself to be momentarily detached from my responsibilities, obligations, and commitments. It’s a space with no rules nor expectations. It’s a quiet, timeless space where I just breathe.

Most of my visits to nothing are often measure in seconds, seconds I intentionally create for myself when I know I need to pause and reset my emotional footing.

Nothing ever happens by itself. I need to find the time for it. I need to be aware of when I need a break and then willing to actually do so.

Even if it’s just for a few re-centering moments.

Self care comes in many forms.

Sometimes in the form of nothing.

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” →

Deciding To Smile Anyway

Though he’s never spoken a word to me, his presence is a source of daily inspiration.

He’s been sitting in my garden for a few years now. Indifferent to the rain, snow, heat, or the cold, he just sits there. Smiling and laughing, without a care in the world.

I guess it’s pretty easy to not have a care in the world when you’re six inches tall and made out of concrete. And that’s exactly what he is, my cracked yellow Buddha, a small piece of statuary I found on a dusty shelf at a local closeout store. Cracked, because he’s been exposed to years of wet winter weather. Yellow, because I painted him in a failed attempt to protect his porous surface from the wet winter weather.

There’s something wonderfully imperfect about a cracked, yellow Buddha. Maybe that’s what Continue reading “Deciding To Smile Anyway” →

Great Years Don’t Happen On Their Own

He spoke with Biblical certainty.

“This is my year.”

It’s not uncommon to hear such bold declarations at the beginning of a new year. A brand new start, a clean slate, where anything feels possible and this guy was all in on that.

I hope this is his year.

In my life I’ve had those years that were definitely mine. Big years, significant years where outcomes vastly exceeded expectations leaving me feeling bullet proof and invincible. I’ve also had those years when I was a suck magnet where any optimism and enthusiasm I may have had at the start of the year was quickly beaten out of me.

I always hope each of my years will be good ones. But I’ve also learned to accept my responsibility in making a year a good one.

Experience and introspection tell me every year has been my year. Every year has been filled with opportunities to grow and to evolve and to become. In those big, significant years, I showed up for the opportunities I was presented with. I was intentional and deliberate. I wasn’t willing to Continue reading “Great Years Don’t Happen On Their Own” →

The Life You Decide To Live

A pie eating contest, winning a stuffed pig at a carnival, and running a seven mile road race.

What do they all have in common?

Intention.

Scrolling through my photos from the past 12 months I was reminded of some of the interesting things I did this year. Some big things, some small things, some new things, some familiar things.

If I didn’t show up for them they never would have happened for me.

As a recovering “hoper and wisher”, I know the good stuff in life seldom just shows up no matter Continue reading “The Life You Decide To Live” →

How Deep Is Your Love?

I was told there’s nothing to see there.

Which is why I wanted to see it.

It’s 7:30 AM and right on schedule the ferry pulled away from the dock for the one hour ride to New Shoreham, a small island off the coast of Rhode Island. A booming summer tourist hotspot, the island is in full hibernation mode on this frigid December morning. Cold, isolated, and barren.

It’s exactly what I had hoped for.

I’m not sure when a ritual becomes a tradition, but for the past several years I select one day in late December to become somewhat invisible and inaccessible. A spiritual spa day of sorts, where I find myself in cold, isolated, and barren locations in coastal Massachusetts and Rhode Island wonderfully alone, embarking on long hikes in solitude where the only voice I hear is the one in my head.

These days are important days. These are the days of reflection, release, realignment, and reconnection. This is a safe space for me to be honest with me about me. A kind and loving space where I allow myself to process and unpack the heaviness life sometimes throws upon your shoulders and your heart. In this space there is no agenda nor the pressure of needing to Continue reading “How Deep Is Your Love?” →

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

Creating A Safe Space For The Suck

It’s a game I’ve played with myself. Or maybe it was more of a survival mechanism.

I’d always been a big fan of the present moment. Unless I didn’t like the present moment. Then I’d find another moment somewhere in the future to save me from the discomfort of the present one.

I got quite proficient at using desired future outcomes to try and outrun the emotional challenges I could often find myself dealing with. Someday took the pressure off today. Someday allowed me to defer my responsibility of dealing with what is until some time in the distant future. Reaching those desired outcomes would take care of everything, I repeatedly told myself.

And they never did.

I’ve run away enough to know that running away never gets you anywhere else other than where you already are.

Someday is full of those distant utopian promises which we allow to sustain us at the expense of Continue reading “Creating A Safe Space For The Suck” →

Dear Intuition, I’m Sorry

Something told me it was wrong, but I just kept going anyway.

It was a perfect day for a ride through the woods. Crisp but not cold, and the morning sun was filtering through the colorful leaves of the season. It was the annual 10 mile charity trail race taking me and my mountain bike through gravel fire roads and off-road grass and root-covered trails within the confines of a local conservation reserve.

Half way through the course and things were looking good. I was making good time and my legs felt strong. Ahead of me was another rider who had passed me a bit earlier. With the course poorly marked it felt good to have someone in the distance ahead of me to guide me through the remainder of the ride.

Or so I thought.

As we both headed down the only paved section of the course I noticed the open gate of a fire road which looked somewhat familiar. I participated in this event a year ago and I remember the Continue reading “Dear Intuition, I’m Sorry” →

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” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: meditation