Spaciousness in Time

As most people I know, I tend to get busy. I’ve said this many times. There’s so many people to see, and so many places to go. Especially in this town, there are so many wonderful events — culturally, socially, professionally, and even spiritually — to attend, which is one of the reasons why I live here even though I often threaten myself that I’m moving out of Los Angeles to where there’s no traffic!

Lately, I’ve been making a concerted effort to allow spaciousness in my daily schedule. Instead of packing my days with appointments and plans back to back, which tends to happen more often than I like, I’m leaving a lot of blank spaces in my calendar. Even then, it’s hard for me not to stay in “doing mode.” If I have 10 minutes left before my next appointment, my habitual default mode is to get one more thing done. So taking a pause and not get something done for the sake of checking off my to-do list is what I’m trying to develop into a habit. I think that should be considered a valuable skill today.

One thing I can confess is that I do like to take a nap in the middle of the day if I’m working at home. Sometimes after lunch, I get hit by drowsiness depending on the task I’m engaged in. When that happens, instead of fighting it with caffeine, I just go lie down and set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes and close my eyes. I often snooze it once or twice when the timer goes off.

Learning to allow such spaciousness has taught me that being a task master isn’t necessarily more productive. I get to be more mindful of each task I’m engaged in if I can slow down, relax and take it easy even though inevitably we have those moments we do have to put out fires. Regardless, be present in each moment. That sounds good, doesn’t it?

Let’s get spacious together on Fridays by getting still in the middle of the day.
#YouCanSitWithUs

Peace is This Moment Without Judgment

Do you think peace requires an end to war?

Or tigers eating only vegetables?

Does peace require an absence from

your boss, your spouse, yourself? …

Do you think peace will come some other place than here?

Some other time than Now?

In some other heart than yours?

Peace is this moment without judgment.

That is all. This moment in the Heart-space

where everything that is is welcome.

Peace is this moment without thinking

that it should be some other way,

that you should feel some other thing,

that your life should unfold according to your plans.

Peace is this moment without judgment,

this moment in the heart-space where

everything that is is welcome.

Dorothy Hunt