I recently had the good fortune to spend some time with a colleague of mine who is in well into her senior years. She was talking about her experience over the course of her lifetime in both her private practice and in her personal life. She is healthy, mentally and emotionally and physically, and grateful for all. And she has, too, some regrets. But she carries them with her in a nostalgic tone - and she tells me that even with so much emotional pain during different stages in her life that have come and gone over the years both with her clients and in her own life - that one thing that has always helped her has been to be open to being "in the now" of the good and quiet nature and the universal pace of life.
What she meant by that is this: that even in emotional pain, in anger, anxiety, in grief, in loneliness, there are still moments in the day that are quiet, that are calm, that are accessible. And that perhaps especially in the midst of all the feelings and all the noise in our heads when we are in all the feelings, it is so important to allow all the feelings and then too, it can be so helpful, to just turn our attention to the blue sky, to the warm sun, to the gentle breeze. To just be in the moment, even if for a moment.
It helps us to step out - even if just in our mind - of the circumstance, of our thinking and step into the other part of the story, into the part of life that is just the movement of the day, the nature of life, the gratitude of having air to breathe, clean drinking water, eyes that can read. And to tap into the knowledge that we can make our human efforts to continuously work on and know ourselves, to deepen our consciousness and work better with difficult people and difficult situations but too that being in the now is where we are supposed to be, even when things are confusing, or they hurt. Things pass; they shift. And when we have the idea that we do not always have to be in our thinking or in our feelings, we can get in touch with a quieter, instinctively healthy and calmer voice, a peaceful self and some much needed reprieve and relief.
When we are in pain emotionally time can seem to go so slow. We wait and wait for it to pass, for something new to present itself, for the feelings to lift. And they do, usually, if we let them come and go and if we have the idea that we can't hurry things or push them along, but we can be in the now, and in the "other" now, of the universal nature of living life.
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