Full disclosure: I am not awake. I don’t even know what the word means, quite honestly--and that thought tickles me, as I sit here and write on the topic. This personality is as numb and dumb as any personality is. It’s insecure and judgmental, critiquing every word as I write them. It thinks it knows everything and knows it knows nothing. And yet there is a beneficial message that comes to me, when I’m still enough to receive it.
Oh! And another note: the word “awake” has been usurped, politically and otherwise. I have a dear friend who loves to play in the conspiracy realm. I’m not criticizing him, we all have our distractions. He was complaining one night about the “woke,” far-left liberals. He said that he is “awake,” which (he claimed) is a totally different thing. “Awake is good, woke is bad,” he patiently explained. He said he is awake because he reads information for hours every day. Therefore, he is completely aware of what is “really happening.” Eventually, I shut down the conversation. I told him that in my view, there is no difference between “woke” and “awake,” if the person is looking outside themselves. Same coin, different sides. It’s all distraction from the one soul that matters. I may not be awake, but I know a con job when I hear it.
For this article, “awake” means aware. It means plugged in to your mind, your emotions, and your body. It means you are fully occupied in the experience of your life and the moment. It means you are free and fearless, if only for this moment—which is the only moment that matters because it’s the only moment that is.
Just like everything else worth doing, awake takes practice. When I practice yoga poses, sometimes people comment that I am very flexible. I say that the only difference between me and them is that I practice the poses. The same is true of awareness. And everything else.
Each moment is an opportunity, an invitation. The magic lies in the moment, for there is no other time. Any idea of a past or future is just a story. It’s an interesting, entertaining story, even compelling at times. But it’s not real.
I remember in my misery, wisdom kept guiding me back to the moment. Suffering, I would ask for answers to questions I didn’t even know. “Return to this moment,” wisdom would say. She would remind me that this moment is okay. It’s tolerable. I would try to drop the story of misery, for just a moment. And then I would try to drop the story of misery for another moment. It would feel tentative and uncertain at first. What is this strange moment, in which I don’t need an opinion, an idea, a belief, or any burden about who I am or what I need? Who is this person, when all these illusions are stripped bare?
Sometimes it worked. I could drop the story, breathe, observe my surroundings. I could feel my feet meeting the ground as I walked, and I would practice mindfulness of that delightful privilege. I would focus on the sensations of chewing my food, fully focused on the experience of each morsel. I would ride the tide of my breath, even if my mind could only focus for half an inhalation. I would return it to the next breath as soon as I realized I had drifted off. I would practice stillness. I would practice being, if only for one fleeting moment.
Sometimes I was powerless to move past the story. In the beginning, I would feel frustrated and disgusted that I couldn’t let it go. Sometimes I didn’t even want to let it go—I HAD to hold that story, and I sincerely wondered if I was mentally defective. Eventually, after observing the patterns and presentations of fear in all its hideous and beautiful forms, I had to examine the obstacles and accept them. Eventually I learned that the obstacles are the best lessons, for they showed me where the fear lies. “What stands in the way becomes the way,” said Marcus Aurelius.
I began to practice returning to the moment when things were happier, easier, with more pleasant stories to dispel. In those "easy" moments, I could open wider and be more fully present. That was helpful. I learned I must practice practicing, so am well-prepared when the obstacles arise, as obstacles will.
I wonder if all the stories (opinions, beliefs, judgements, etc.), pleasant or miserable, develop to avoid facing the moment and the self. This can be a harsh, unhealthy, and invalidating culture in which to develop. It stands to reason that there are deep-seated fears that confuse us and complicate our sweet, short lives. Distractions feel like a safe haven from self-negativity.
The quality of a life is distilled down to the quality of this moment. Life can be improved, changed, expanded, but only by improving, changing, expanding in this moment.
As I practiced returning to the moment, my experience of it improved. It was better than tolerable. It was full, complete, and satisfying. I discovered that I was open, authentic, and courageous. When I quit looking elsewhere and “else-when” for my life, I found it.
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