Now and Then
Happy New Year! We hear and say this often every time another year goes by. Changing a calendar year is just one way we mark a transition and locate ourselves. For many it is a time to establish lofty goals and dust off some dreams and see this as the chance to board a ship to paradise … or miss the boat.
You may reach your destination (like 8% of people who make resolutions*) fall overboard (like 50% of people do by the end of January*) or feel as if you’ll just wait until next year to catch the moment.
Think about it though; our lives are made up of constant transitions starting from the moment we are conceived and the most frequent transition you experience may be every breath you take. Each inhale/rise, peak, exhale/fall and pause contains the natural cycle of creation, continuation and cancellation.
We are born, we live, we die. A tree sprouts leaves, fills out, then drops them, pauses and repeats. Every moment, every breath holds an opportunity to list, leap for and land on your goals – and to live in your current desires along the way.
Have you ever tried to lift a dead body? OK I haven’t either but how about a sleeping person? Dead weight is much harder to shift than active weight. Being in physical or psychological limbo feels heavier than being in action and catching your next wave can be as near as your next breath. Make it a deep, full, life-affirming belly breath. Take 3 if you dare to change your mood for the better.
In this breath, where are you? Are you present in the now, or off in the then? Is it a past then, or a future then? I go to a future then to book plane flights or make dinner reservations and then come right back to the now. I enjoy a warm memory now about a past then, briefly, and accentuate the positive glow of the right now.
If I find I am not right here right now and am not feeling good in my body (and not breathing fully) I check to see if I have gone into regretting past then moments or worrying about future then moments. Learning to feel as responsible for conjuring up the uncomfortable regret and worry, as I do for the warm memory glow has made a big difference in my life. This can be a great week for conjuring (swearing together, at the word’s origin) with so many of us making promises to ourselves but every moment or breath holds the now, the new, the possible, the start. Start now, and then…
It’s all improv,
Jody Kaylor
*According to Marci Shimoff