Mindlessness

Several years ago I took a seminar on "mindfulness," and they told the students that most of us go through life like robots, operating mainly unconsciously. We often give almost no thought to how we feel, what we're thinking, what we're doing, why we're doing what we're doing, what's going on around us - mindlessness.

My mind was usually worrying about what I "needed" to do next and what terrible things were going to happen if I didn't, my personal shortcomings, what somebody else was doing or not doing.  I was either living in the future or the past.  It would have been extremely unusual for me to actually notice my body, my feelings, or my environment. 

When I heard that mindfulness was preferable to "mindlessness," I wasn't sure why it was.  I really thought it was just how human beings were and there was really no choice in it so why does it matter anyway.  The answer to "Why does it matter, anyway?" was that when I lived in my head, thinking about the past or the future, I was totally missing the present - which is where my life is actually lived.  It would be possible for me to go to my grave without ever having really participated in the life I have been mysteriously given!  It's also possible, however, to make a choice to live in the here and now and actually experience my life.

I realized I didn't want my life to have been about housework and whether I was pretty enough and whether I had enough money, and whether the people in my life were doing what I wanted.  Those were the things that revolved in my mind every day and were, therefore, my life as I was living it.  Yuck!

They mentioned that the choice to live mindfully was one that had to be made - not just daily but moment by moment.  It's a very difficult discipline.  However, I can testify that as I continue to make that choice in my life, I continue to be more and more in touch with my heart and the love in the universe.  What else could be more important?