“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste, they hurry past it.”—Soren Kierkegaard
Our eagerness to be anywhere other than where we are now, robs us of much immediate beauty. Particularly in our using days, we sprinted and hurdled toward a hoped-for high rather than relax and appreciate the pure pleasure of being alive to the moment before us. Impatience would rob today’s open till —and we’d often then face our next opportunity with empty pockets.
There’s an apocryphal anecdote beloved in Tai Chi circles: an elderly Chinese man climbs into a rickshaw. The young buck of a rickshaw driver lurches off into the traffic, as if his life depended on arriving yesterday. After a few close shaves, careens and shouted curses, the old man cries out, “Slow down, young man, I’m in a hurry!” Indeed, there’s nothing like impatience to gum up the works with over-eager pushiness. As users and abusers, we most likely had a history of impulsive, compulsive haste that often left us high and dry in the results department.
Now that we are in recovery, we may or may not have learned to modulate our eagerness for the next burst of pleasure. Often, we just redirected our energies into a series of speed-dates. We rushed from one escapade to another without really pausing to savor any one of them. We might be practicing “safe recovery”, but we had a reckless disregard for the subtleties of each experience. And where is the real joy in that? In fact, our joys were often tossed aside like rag dolls, when a fresh new prize was glimpsed across the way…
Today, then, let’s hit the pause button and contemplate what shows up on the frozen frame that—oh by the way—happens to be who and what we are, in our entirety, at this very moment.
Speaking of a pause, let’s pause our breath in the following fashion:
Sit comfortably. Inhale deeply through the nose and exhale strongly through the mouth 20 to 30 times. On the final exhale, pause and hold your breath for as long as you can manage without straining. While your breath is paused, put yourself into a state of “choice-less awareness”. That is, simply contemplate what you are feeling—physically, emotionally and spiritually—without commentary. When you are ready, take one deep inhale and hold that inhale for just a few seconds. Exhale and relax.
This is a powerful method, with many health benefits, physical and otherwise. One cycle is very fine. However, feel free to repeat for a number of cycles if you wish. Take care not to overdo it, to strain in any way. No rush, right? Time to put the joy back into enjoy!
I pause. I contemplate. I am what I contemplate.