How to Live in the Present

Choice

This weeks podcast included our good friend David who came on the LITP course as a student and then joined the team and led all of the practical exercises. We were talking about how doing the course had changed his life. The issue that it raised for me is that of choice.

Many of us see our lives as simply the way that it is. In mindfulness everything is a choice.

The way you feel, what you think, the way you act is all a choice.

The issues of the mirror exercise was raised. This is the idea that when you get out of bed the first thing that you do is go to the bathroom mirror, look yourself in the eyes and say “I love you”. Many people will say that they find it difficult if not impossible. When this happens we can find many reasons why we can’t do it.

The bottom line is that we choose all that we experience in life. Thoughts become things. We have decided what we will see in the mirror before we get there. This, in my mindfulness courses, I describe as composure.

Composure
Before someone sits down to meditate they have to prepare. This includes preparing their environment. Where will you practice, how it is lit, how it will smell, what to sit on, what to wear, will there be sounds. We are preparing by getting our attitude right letting go of any negative thought, feeling or resistance to the practice. When we do not get the composure right the practice is not so good.

Below our awareness we compose ourselves before we do anything. Before we eat, before we go to the theatre, before we watch a TV programme and so on. You did it before you read this blog.

The point is that we are making choices all the time whether or not we realise it.

In awareness, we realise that we have choice. Every moment of every day, in all events, all the time, we have a choice. Either we make decisions that serve us well or those that serve us badly. And, we can decide to change at anytime to make life better.

You may want to go back to the episodes on the podcast where you can do the LITP course and use it to audit where you are in life.

Be happy and remember that life is always a choice.

Take care

Sean X

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