I know you can't avoid reading about being in the moment, being aware of the here & now, mindfulness.....

I think we've all gotten in the car to drive somewhere familiar and we begin to get lost in our own thoughts (our monkey mind) and arrive to suddenly realize that we actually don't remember the details of the trip! We've done it so often, we released our mind to other things and it got very busy with those 'other things'. It's so easy to spend our entire lives lost in one thought or another, to not actually BE in the present moment acknowledging, appreciating and noticing. I'm as guilty of it, if not more guilty, than anyone.

If you consider for a second, what that actually means as far as living our lives goes. We can get so busy reviewing the past moments, circumstances, interactions and so busy looking forward planning the future, the next interaction, the next thing we have to do, that we completely fail to acknowledge the moment we are living in! And if we continue to live that way, we are only living in the past...and in the future. This is where mindfulness comes in.

We have to work hard at noticing the present moment. But it is a skill like so many others. A skill and a habit. What were the color of the leaves on the trees on that long walk you took last fall? What did the trees look like on that first morning after a snowy night? What did the sand look like in the wee hours of the morning as the sun came up and no one had yet walked on that beach? And on & on. The child's sleepy face and messed up hair upon waking up from a nap. The twinkles of the stars on that last clear dark night. These are the things and the moments that create our magical life. We need to notice because they are short lived and will be gone.

So make a commitment to yourself to create the awareness to just notice. Maybe it's just a few minutes each day for a week. Let that evolve into more minutes each day and more days each week. Soon you will find yourself being lost in thought just a little bit less, and noticing and appreciating just a little bit more. Odds are that you will then begin to appreciate the small but most important things that make up the most important moments of your life.