Just this

Again and again I need to be reminded to see what’s right in front of me, to embrace this one life. The body, we’re told, is always in now-time. The breath you’re taking right now is unique, it has never been breathed before, will cease to exist in a second or two. The thinking mind, meanwhile, habitually roams over time and space, remembers the past, anticipates the future, makes connections via daydreams and fantasies. That’s just what it does, day and night, due to the built-in default mode network. The point of Just this is to pay attention to what is happening right now and to flag the stories concocted by the roaming mind.

Something happened during a recent experience with horses. The instructions were simple: approach the horse, first outside the round pen, then inside of it. Connect non-verbally, sensing the horse’s boundaries — and your own. Keep in touch with your body awareness (“sense your feet in boots, boots on the ground”). See what happens when two sentient beings interact.

A straightforward assignment. No agenda, nothing to accomplish, no right or wrong.

I approached the pen, paused to feel my breath and feet-in-boots. Carefully, so as not to spook the horse, I opened the gate to enter. The horse stood quietly with ears twitching and turning (assessing the relative danger of my presence). Scanning once more, I noticed my breathing had become shorter and something was crawling up my back. Ignore. Carry on! The moment I took a step in her direction, she turned and shuffled to the opposite side of the enclosure.

In that instant, I felt as if I’d caused her to walk away. Here I am, meaning no harm, and you make me look incompetent (the little voice lamented).  Scanning my body (as instructed), I noticed my neck had further stiffened, my  vision begun to blur, and my sense of being-grounded vanished. Reflecting on this later, I realized that the horse’s behavior had triggered a reaction to some embedded childhood trauma about abandonment and incompetence.

Yet all that had happened was a horse moving from A to B. Just this — with stuff added on!

How many times, in the course of a day or a lifetime, does this happen? How many ways does our body get stressed, the heart scared, and the mind confused? Through mindfulness we learn to live in real-time and notice when reactivity arises. In that instance, we may glimpse a path that leads away from suffering towards happiness.

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