I married the most amazing woman. In almost 25 years of marriage, she has been my partner, my advocate, my cheerleader, my guide and my strength.
To say that she has saved me from myself would not be an understatement. In both my personal and professional life she has been a voice of calm, of comfort and of wisdom.
So when she tells me something in ‘the tone’ (which is full of concern and caution) I tend to listen.
Yesterday, as she was walking out of our office at work to go home and look after our sweet but somewhat crazy dog, she touched her hand on my shoulder, and said in a gentle voice ‘Don’t get lost in your head’.
She has this incredibly succinct way sometimes of saying the most wonderful things in a very few words.
She knows that sometimes my head can be a difficult place to be.
As you can probably guess from reading this work, I’m terrible at small talk. Even as a child, I was never very good at ‘making conversation’.
As a 12 year old walking to school, I would have debates in my head about fair rates of taxation, time as it relates to the nature of the universe and how to organize a family, a town, a county and a country.
As you can probably guess, I didn’t get invited to a lot of parties.
Holly (my wife) even tells with some joy about the time we were out with our children getting lunch, and she realized that although I was seated at the table with them, my thoughts were not on the salad in front of me.
As she questioned me, she was bemused to find that I was trying to approximate a theoretical synaptic regression rate if we could ever overcome the neural cell reproduction inhibition.
Thankfully, she didn’t take my lack of attention personally.
But she also knows, as a result of some very deep and sometimes difficult conversations, that my head can also be a painful place to be.
Memories from childhood, moments lost in the past, fears, concerns, anger, frustration, hopelessness and sadness are all very present in my soul, and there are days when I get lost wondering down those paths too.
The result is not uplifting, and it can be a very difficult place to be.
So when she tells me to not get lost in my head, her concern is very real.
I wrote a 3 years ago about how my light creates my darkness, and when I get lost in my own head, I try to remember that some of the shadows are I see in my soul are the byproduct of the light that I carry.
A mind that is constantly scanning the future, lost in the possibility of all that could be, can often find itself worrying about something which might never be actually real.
Sometimes, my tendency to lose myself in time stops me from being anchored in what is real right now, in front of me.
So I try to practice mindfulness, and what I have come to call ‘present-ism’. When I am successful in seducing myself into what is right before me, and occurring to me now, I find I can deal with ‘what is’ a little easier than ‘what might be’.
In a world that has become so congested with uncertainty about our futures, being ‘here and now’ might just be the antidote to a lot of the things that are worrying us today.
‘Sufficient for today is the worry thereof’
So in my attempt to listen to my sweet wife’s wisdom, I am trying to let go of the future with it’s possibilities, and the past with its regrets, and just find myself focused on what is right now, and what I would like the future to be.
Because it’s far too easy to find myself wandering out of now, and into a place where I can’t act, where I find fear and frustration.
Now is the only place where I can use my skills, now is the only truth and honestly I can find.
Here and now, find what is real for you.
And act accordingly.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings