by Amy Kosh
We often move through our lives from point A to point B, without considering the journey in between. We move from bed to coffeepot, from house to office to store, from start of work to end of task, often without considering or paying attention to the travel itself. We tend to see travel as an ordeal, consider airline travel these days, or a long car trip where you spend the entire journey anticipating your arrival at the end.
Building awareness requires that we slow down a little. Just going slowly enough that we can start to enjoy and notice the journey, the traveling, instead of the starting and finishing points. To notice how are we getting from A to B, not how quickly or how slowly, but simply how?
Let yourself imagine a river.
The water is always flowing in the river. We see it, we know it is there, yet we also know that the water we see in this moment is not the water we see in this one, or this one, or this one. The water flows by us as we stand on the bank looking at it. Within us, the same thing happens. Our blood, our breath, our thoughts, our self all change and flow from one instant to the next. We are not the same as we were a moment ago. The idea that we can play with and play within is one of how we are, in each moment, not what or whom we may think we are.
Consider the journey you take every moment, every day. Each time you get out of bed in the morning, you can practice paying attention to that little mini journey.
All too often we try to “do” our lives.
We do this out of habit, because we aren’t really paying attention.
As an example, people often “do” yoga by putting their bodies into postures and holding them, but we all have to breathe sometime and, the moment you breathe, the posture changes. Even if you hold your breath, the blood moves, fluids flow, your mind shifts, thoughts come and go, nothing stays the same, even when we think we are being still. So the idea that we can stop moving is not real. The idea that someone could hold perfectly still in asana is not reality.
Often we have the same practice of “doing” our lives throughout the day, instead of actually attending to the moments and to what is arising within us. We are unaware of what we are doing, how we are moving from one task or action to the next, and that means it’s easy to overlook or mistake things.
Spend just an hour during your day in which you intentionally pay attention to how you are doing whatever you need to do in that hour. How are you feeling in your body—easy or tense? How is your breathing—does it flow openly or feel constricted? And what are you able to hear, when you pay attention to all the myriad sounds that we automatically block out—how might they be affecting you?
What are you able to notice, when you pay attention? Can you simply enjoy moving from one moment to the next, without much thought of where it started or how it might end?
Amy Kosh, a Certified Life Coach registered with the International Coaching Federation, coaches people to reconnect with their strengths and passion and live the unstoppable life they really want to live. A CiPP graduate, she’s also a certified Kripalu Yoga Teacher (E-RYT 500) who has been teaching yoga and meditation for more than 25 years. Additionally, Amy holds an MFA from Bard College and an MA from American University. She has presented workshops in Integrative Meditation®, yoga, mindfulness meditation, and positive psychology, as well as wellness coaching for the US Navy. Amy facilitates two free, monthly Positivity Slams in Asheville, North Carolina, offering people tools for living happier. When not coaching, she can be found hiking in the woods and trails with her camera and her dog, Velo. Find out more at anunstoppablelife.com.
Dear Amy. I resonate with the journey along the way, so much is there. After being struck by a speeding taxi while on my bicycle, I had about nine years to stop and rest from my busyness, and learned to smell the roses, and watch the skies. Now I feel ready to move into more action, helping in my field of international specialized education. Yet, my physical residuals are in the connective tissue family and I must pace myself carefully: I cry when I have little to no energy. I so want to give to the world, in small pieces, whenever and where ever I can. I’ve practiced yoga for 30 years and it provides my strength of mind, body and soul. Another part of me is that I tend to isolate-feeling best if others do not see my fatigue. I want to be freer to move into more action for the world.