Present moment time

I love to watch a little kid play with a toy.  Like a three year old.  They are so focused in the moment that nothing else seems to matter.  It is like rock climbing.  It is experiencing present moment time.  Some how we grow out of that experience of the world and instead we live in the past and the future, playing out the possible scenarios and reliving them.  We have a different experience of the world as adults and it is unfortunate I think.

I am planning my third trip to the spa for this June.  I know that maybe comes as a surprise because when I blogged about the last trip, it might have sounded as if it had been disappointing and I really thought I wouldn't go this year.  It wasn't that the last trip was disappointing, it was just different.  And it took me a long time to realize what it meant and what I got out of it and that it was as important as what I learned the first time.  The spa is all about mindfulness, presence.  Of course it is about other things, there are many many things to do and many opportinities, but all with an ultimate focus on how to live in the present moment.  How to live every day like you are climbing a rock wall, or like you are a little kid with a toy.

The first time I went I went with no expectations whatsoever.  I didn't have the faintest idea what to expect or what was going to happen.  And as a result, it was amazing.  One of the more amazing experiences of my life.  At least I learned more about myself in just a week than I had come to know in years.  And it also challenged me and changed me.  I posted that first time a list of all the things that I had done and learned.  It was because I pushed myself beyond the very limit of my comfort zone.  When you do that your world grows and expands, you change and you learn things.  If you fail to ever push yourself beyond that edge of what is comfortable, you live in a small world and it shrinks to fit around you.  And it will continue to shrink.  That quote at the top of the page - "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."  That is how you grow.

The second time I went with tons of expectations.  I knew exactly what had happened the first time - all of these amazing things that I learned and did.  And yeah, it's true, the trip didn't live up to those expeactations.  I didn't realize at the time - but how could it have.  I did however have the very same experience as I had the first time.  Just in a different way because I failed, to even once stick my toe in the water of uncomfortable.  And I could see how easy it is to slip into old patterns and habits and ways of thinking and how quickly your world shrinks.  How quickly you forget about the moment you are living in.  It is easier to do when you are there, to be in the moment, and a hard take away.  And it is very easy to forget that you are not limited by the circle that surrounds you and that stepping outside of it can change everything.

I am going again, not with a lack of expectations, but with a purpose this time.