Are you doing life, or being life? Are you life itself?

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Art Lewis, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

A quote by Pascal says it all for me, “Most of the problems of the world could be solved if we could sit quietly in a room alone.”

Pascal’s quote suggests we spend very little time and have difficulty being with ourselves. It is also saying if we could, our world would be different because we would be different.

We have been so conditioned to focus on doing, that we have forgotten how to be. Even our thoughts are mostly about doing. We are preparing for the next moment by comparing it to the past. We can also say, we are seeing the present moment through our thoughts instead of actually experiencing reality. We are not fully conscious when we are not directly experiencing the present moment.

Just doing life for me is going through the motions, being on auto-pilot and not being fully alive and loving life. We are also not ourselves…we are disconnected from who we naturally are.

We all have times when we are in the moment. They are usually our best moments. When we do have present centred awareness (mindfulness), we are connecting to our true self.

To get more out of life, many look to doing more, getting more, or having more thrills. I realized at some point that I needed to know myself before I could really enjoy my life. What was apparent was that if I wasn’t feeling good about myself it didn’t matter where I was, I was quite capable of ruining the experience. I remember sitting on a beach on Maui with my young family and feeling miserable. Fortunately I recognized how my thoughts were stopping me from being there and I ended up having a great time.

When we are closer to being ourselves we are closer to being in the moment and more able to get the most out of the only real time that we have. Being ourselves first is the key. Even though it’s hard to be sure of what that looks like at times. Becoming ourselves is an ever evolving thing which keeps life interesting. What is easier to know, is when we are not ourselves.

When we are stressed or unhappy I think most would agree we are not ourselves. When we experience happiness we have allowed ourselves to be present and fully involved in what we are doing. As soon as we are thinking about something else, we have stepped out of the moment. What happens is we forget that we are thinking and not paying attention to the present.

Our conditioning, the programming that we have been exposed to growing up, takes us away from ourselves and out of the moment. We are conditioned to use our analytic thinking as the default mode of thinking from the beginning of school, if not before and our free flow state of being is forgotten or at least in the background.

Our focus on analytic thinking trains us to be in our heads continuously so we forget to pay attention to what is going on right now. It is a habit that is hard to break especially if we aren’t aware that it’s the issue. Mindfulness is our best option to regain the ability to be present. Jon Kabat Zinn has said “it’s not hard to be mindful, but it is hard to remember to be mindful.”

It is something that can be practiced moment by moment. I started in my early twenties when after doing some yoga I realized how most of the time my breathing was shallow, coming from my chest. I became good at noticing how I was breathing. I had no idea I was doing a mindfulness practice and learning how to bring myself into the present moment. What I did realize, was that I became a more relaxed person. I was recapturing my self. I also had a consistent meditation practice going, which is an intensive process of being mindful.

The great benefit by spending time alone, whether we call it meditating or just spending time observing, is we get to know ourselves. When we are busy doing, without coming from a place of being first, we are on automatic pilot. We are doing what we have been conditioned to do, we are not making choices moment to moment so are not living life on our terms. We are not enjoying ourselves either because we have stepped out of the moment.

When you think about the times in your life you enjoyed the most, you were not over-thinking things, you allowed yourself to just be there. Another way of seeing it is you were in a flow of experience where life was coming to you moment to moment. You were being yourself, being aware.

The obvious next question for me is, what is the self? Who am I? When you spend time observing yourself you realize that you are not your thoughts. They keep changing moment to moment, even consistent thought patterns, change. Feelings and emotions change as well, so you are not your feelings or emotions. You are not your body, your body keeps changing. Every cell in your body is replaced in seven years. Modern physics will tell you that everything you think is solid, including your body is really an energy pattern that has slowed down enough to be seen as a form.

The only aspect of ourselves that is consistent, is our awareness…that part of ourselves that is just observing life. That is the part of us that we are in touch with, when we are in the present moment. That is the realization you come to, through meditating and mindfulness. You realize there is no separate being behind awareness, it is just awareness. When you take this a step further you realize that there is no real separation from anything. That is the oneness experience that people have glimpses of, sometimes out of the blue or when in a deep meditation state. It is the state that mystics have talked about for eons.

The challenge is to be in awareness so you are fully aware of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, your body sensations and the environment around you, but you are not lost in any of it. You are not holding onto or resisting any of your experience, you are observing it from a place of pure awareness.

At that point you are in your natural state of being, you are life itself.