For the past two hours, I've been watching my mind trying to figure out what to write about for today's article. As you may or may not know, I post regularly to this blog every Wednesday and Sunday, something I've been doing for two years.
As soon as I started writing, I was interrupted. At this point, I watched my mind become irritated.
What I've been trying to do all along is string together as many moments of wakefulness together as possible, so that I never forget that I'm here. But I've also been reminding myself that when the time comes to sit down and start writing, I will know what to say.
For so much of my life, especially in the past, I struggled with dread. The fear and anxiety of what's to come has created an enormous suffering within. Of course, more often than not, when the actual event happens, it's rarely as bad as I had anticipated.
In fact, the time leading up to the event is almost always worse than the actual experience. Sometimes, the experience turns out to be fun!
How could it be that the moments we fear the most actually turn out to be the ones we remember most fondly?
One of the benefits of getting older is that you experience the same things over and over, at which point you recognize them as patterns. As soon as you've identified a pattern, you have the power to respond to the present moment differently, because you acquire a certain trust in the future.
In a way, you're able to assuage your suffering in the present moment because you remind yourself that you've dealt with it before, and you'll deal with it again. There's no need to worry.
Just 30 minutes ago, I had no idea what I'd write about. Combine that with the fact that it's almost midnight (and therefore almost past my Wednesday deadline), you might think I've been suffering.
To a certain extent, as I stated earlier, my mind has been active, trying to think of topics. However, I, the one observing my mind, have been at peace, watching this neurotic activity.
I can almost laugh at my mind as it frantically thinks of what to say. I'm here, my mind is there. What's the problem?
I attribute this newfound trust in the future to my ability to pick up on this pattern from my past. I can look back at numerous experiences over my nearly three decades on the planet, and point to countless times where I suffered more than I needed to, simply because I couldn't trust that I could handle the future.
The more we all learn to put trust in ourselves - not in our minds, but in the deeper intelligence we carry - the less we have to worry and suffer in the present moment about something that may or may not happen in the future.
One thing I've opened to on my journey is this trusting of intelligence within. I've opened my eyes to the fact that it's here, within me, all around me, and I don't have to use my mind to find it. In fact, I cannot use my mind to find it. It can express itself through my mind, but my mind can't find it or create it.
In your life, perhaps you could experiment putting trust in your innate ability to carry out a duty in the future, without the fear of it having to ruin your experience of the present.
This doesn't mean you don't use your intellect to plan or ideate on a future state. It just means that you don't let the fear of suffering in that future state create more suffering for you now.
It's almost as if we human beings double our suffering. We fear suffering in the future, which creates suffering in the present. All we have to do is learn how to not fear the suffering in the future, and instead be open to all of life's possibilities.
We can learn to trust our innate ability to respond in the present moment in such a way that our action is an organic integration of what we know. The more we trust this, the more we can fully experience life.
At the end of the day, that's all we really long for. We all just want a pleasant, rich, full experience of life right here, right now.
!Live with substance
Gabe Orlowitz
P.S. As I finished this article (which took about 10 minutes to write), I found myself asking, "What did I just write?", as if my mind hadn't processed or analyzed any of the words. The truth is, it hadn't. It wasn't until I revisited what I wrote to make sure the sentences flowed properly when I actually intellectualized the message.
But that is my point - we can trust ourselves to show up when life calls on us, to respond with exactly what's needed, simply because we're here, present for it. Can you trust that in yourself?
