The Cart before the Horse

I've been integrating healthy habits into my morning routine, one of which is a walk along the levy nearby. It's a beautiful walk that runs along a creek beside fields of horses and cows. I'm always rewarded...when I'm not caught up in my head.

Sometimes I have trouble living outside of my mind. I have to work at maintaining a proper balance of seeing the world "as it is" versus distorting it with my imagination. I catch myself ruminating over perceived lacks and building negative scenarios. I get angry at those I love, or myself, or the media, or anything else that contributes to my belief that I don't have enough...whatever.

Today on my walk I didn't see anything. Yes, my feet trod the path and I noticed little backyard gardens in a glance, but I was focused on building a future in my head of living without this or that...forever. I was angry at someone I love because of my expectations not being met. I could feel myself scowling, my lips set tight and shoulders tense.

In retrospect, there are a few things I could address about what was happening, but at that moment out on the levy only one thought occurred to me.

"Geez, Majeeda, you're creating your own reality right now. X isn't making you angry, YOU are, right here, right now."

Whether the scenarios I was building were true or not, I was making myself angry. This was something I could control. I was placing myself in this state of mind by my behavior. The moment I realized this, I let it go. Three minutes later I was grinching and getting angry again...and again, I stopped myself from being angry. I cycled through this a few times as I walked home. Hmmm...a habit. Not good.

I can't imagine life without emotion, but am I confusing emotion with a state of being? Are they perhaps different? Something new to explore. I think I'll begin to change this habit of my emotions controlling me.

How do you control your emotions? I'd love to hear in the comments below.

Just Be

Majeeda Rosa

Why Not Now?

A few words to ponder from my dear friend Wren:

More than 20 years ago, a very influential person told me that I spent too much time living in the future.  It has taken me all of these years to understand what he meant.  
 
I have generally lived each day an average of five to ten years in a future state of mind – catastrophizing my life away.  It’s time to catch up, to act my age so to speak.
 
I care very much about what quality of life I will live in my old age, which gets closer by the minute – more future living, but I caught myself!  I understand, though, the wisdom of living the age I am this very day.  The wisdom, too, of walking though each minute of today, aware that each successive minute (or fraction thereof) that I live is all that there is of a life lived presently.

I can plan for the future, as Eckhart Tolle says in the Power of Now, but such planning is done in the present.  
 
What time do you have?

My dear Papa, help me to be mindful of each precious moment and fully experience each as the gift it is. Let the future unfold in your design, as it will. Amen.

Wren