Our health, happiness and well-being as individuals depends on how we choose to live our lives while we have them to live.
Those same choices also affect the well-being of others, the earth and the creatures that inhabit it.
To live means to experience in fullness – through doing, feeling, and thinking; The quality of our lives depends on the content of our experiences.
But time is precious and finite.
Therefore, we must choose carefully how to spend our time.
Precious moments are easily missed or wasted and filled up with stuff that get in our way and distract us from the things that matter most.
We all have the potential for learning, growing, healing and transformation.
Even in the midst of depression, anxiety, and other challenges, we all have a capacity for happiness, and a peace of mind that is restorative, nourishing, and healing.
But we must choose to cultivate these capacities that lie deep within us, in the depths of our hearts and in our souls.
Cultivating Awareness through Mindfulness Meditation
The first step on the adventure of conscious living is the cultivation of a particular kind of awareness know as mindfulness. Mindfulness is cultivated by paying attention, and paying attention is developed and refined through a practice know as mindfulness meditation.
(NOTE: if reading the word “meditation” freaks you out, seems “weird” or too “out there” for you, please hold your judgement for a moment and hear me out. All it means is paying attention).
It takes practice.
We refer to meditation as a “practice” because that is exactly what it takes to cultivate awareness. Paying attention and being present doesn’t just happen on its own.
It is actually hard work.
We are colossally out of shape when it comes to perception and awareness, whether oriented outwardly or inwardly or both. We get back in shape by exercising our faculties for paying attention over and over again. And what grows stronger and more robust and flexible through such workouts, often in the face of considerable resistance from within our own mind, is a lot more interesting than a bicep. – Jon Kabat-Zinn
Conscious living is the journey of a life’s time.
I invite you to join me on this journey. But first, you must know that conscious living is the work of being present here and now.
It is not always going to be easy. In fact, it’s going to be f**cking hard at times.
It takes practice and you must be willing to show up.
Let me reassure you though…
You are not alone.
We are travelling this path together and we can each take great comfort in knowing that.
There’s no time like the present
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. – Chinese Proverb
As our lives become increasingly fast-paced, it seems more important and urgent than ever for us to learn how to slow down, and sit down, in present moment awareness.
Capturing the time every day for this intimate connection with yourself and your soul is probably the most important and loving thing you can do, right now.
Once you have captured that time, you must be fiercely protective of it.
Don’t squander it or let someone take it from you.
Choose to use it wisely.
Becky teaches knitting as a mindful creative practice to help people manage stress, grief, and chronic illness. She is a mother of three, living in Vancouver. She loves coffee, reading, and knitting (of course!).
