#SittingWithMyself  #SittingByMyself  #2

All too often, in our daily rush to ‘get things done’ to a frenetic routine, we hardly pause as we act to think about whatever it is we are doing! For example, we rush mechanically through our morning ablutions because, after all, we’ve done those same actions every day for years and years, so how does it matter if we don’t live ‘in’ each tedious moment of each tedious day?

It does! Ask me – I recently spent 86 days in bed staring at my bedroom ceiling. 24 hours each day. The boredom almost killed me by driving me to despair. I had not used the toilet or had a regular shower for the entire time of my sequestration. I shiver even now when I think of the first tumbler of water I poured over my shoulders when the surgeon did finally allow me my simple pleasures of life! It was lukewarm and silky and felt deliciously welcome against my skin! Each drop caressed my epidermis, every cell of my body reacted to the touch! I trembled, closed my eyes, looked skywards and silently thanked Whoever Is In Charge of Such Things!

Let us be honest – how many times have you raced through a shower, mechanically lathering up, rinsing, closing your eyes, turning this way and that to get the water aimed at all the awkward spots on your back and behind? And while you may have by now become ‘programmed’ to go through the motions, did you even pause and reflect on the sheer physical, tactile, sensuous pleasure of the entire operation? Far too many times, I bet! For the shower is the place and time when we tick off lists mentally, plan presentations and meetings, decide how best to grab a table in the restaurant at lunch, or choose excuses from the hundreds we have stored in the hard disc drive between our ears!

We go through the motions, yes, but we are far away from the shower – both mentally and spiritually!

Just as we are far away from ourselves for the better part of the day!

We pride ourselves on our purported ‘efficiency’! Multitasking, we call it: coffee and the phone together, or gazing at Facebook and wolfing down breakfast simultaneously, or even staring at a TV screen while reading snitches of a newspaper in our avid hunger for news! Miraculously we multiply our actions and then pat our own backs for ‘getting a lot done!’

How many sensations do we let slip through the cracks of our harried, hurried lives? How many rushes of satisfaction do we deny ourselves? How many other achievements do we fail to register in our hurry to accomplish more, more, more?

The ten or so minutes I spend #SittingWithMyself  #SittingByMyself  allow me to remember that tumbler of water cascading down my parched back, the shaft of sunlight as it lit up a wreath of smoke from the incense sticks I lit yesterday. I remember the first mouthful of my favorite filter coffee as it swirled over my tongue early this morning.

For these, and so many other memories, I am learning to be grateful!