O24_Being in Conversation With Life Itself

Every moment is a conversation with life. 

In today's episode, we're discussing the way we stay in conversation with life and apprenticing ourselves to the whole of life happening for us, all around us, and within us.

Life happening is our conscious contact with everyone and everything. Are we present or are we giving into the impulse to distract from this conscious contact, the raw vulnerability with life and know ourselves more intimately?

What is our relationship and experience with the grand mystery of life? Are we in touch with the magnificent magnetic life force all around with awe and wonder and appreciation?

What is our relationship and experience with the actuality of this moment before me? Am I in touch with the thoughts running through my mind and the feelings being generated? Am I noticing? Do I take the pause I’m invited into, and choosing for myself what dance I want to take with the moment I’m being given? 

This is the art of mindfulness. 
What is my experience, my relationship with myself, with the love I am? Can I feel the heartbeat of my pulse with the pulse of life — The dance is where we intersect with the mystery.

How do I see myself in my relationship with others? It’s never about the other person. It is how I choose to see...
What is my point of viewing? Is it love or fear/worry?  
The choice is always ours. Love feels yummy. It is present. It is presence. 

Fear or worry are always associated with past learning projected into the moment and future. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good because we’re not present with what is... we’re overlaying judgment, and anticipating something that’s not actually happening. Icky.

Mindfulness is simply the art of noticing life as is. 
It feels good to notice. It is an act of love. We can appreciate noticing and let appreciation expand... and it changes the way we’re seeing the situation we’re in. 

From appreciation we operate differently with others. We see ourselves in them and more readily choose kindness over judgment or distraction. 

A wonderful way to establish ourselves in a continual conversation with life is to begin our day with love and appreciation — giving our first few moments to appreciating our lives... every detail ... Let that energy flow forth like a light on the path before us...

I love this quote from Mark Nepo:
“... walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry...”