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Tag Archives: mantra

Learning to be here now: Be present in your life

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by kristinmaiorano in Bettering Myself, What Inspires Me

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Tags

challenges, inspiration, mantra, mindfulness, self-improvement

As I sat in the dental chair today, the hygienist told me the dentist would be a few minutes.

“Do you want a magazine?” she asked. “Or do you want to look at your phone while you wait?”

“No, thank you,” I smiled. “I’ll just relax and look out the window.”

She looked shocked, like simply sitting in a chair and looking out the window was the craziest thing a person could think to do. With all the distractions in our lives these days, maybe it is.

The hygienist, Mia, and I ended up having a pleasant conversation about the warmer weather and all the work she had to do with her garden. I told her about my foray into planting herbs on my back patio, and she told me how she loved to race home from work on Fridays to mow the lawn. I felt prouder than I should have that I chose to get to know Mia, rather than assume my typical position, with my nose buried in my iPhone.

I carried that feeling with me on the way home. Instead of stewing over the day’s work frustrations or plotting out what I had to do for the rest of the day, I soaked up the music I was playing, stuck my arm out the window, and enjoyed the feeling of the wind sliding through my fingertips.

Maybe it’s no coincidence that I received a package earlier in the day of the “Be Here Now” shirt that I ordered from Tiny Buddha. To be completely honest, I’ve never read the book by Ram Dass (though it’s on my list!). I’ve always kind of thought there’s plenty we can learn just by reading the cover, right? So with you as my witness, I’m vowing now that “Be Here Now” is my new spring mantra.

beherenow

A little “Be Here Now” inspiration from Tiny Buddha

Because the truth is, while the version of me that looks out dentist office windows and drives with her hand floating in the wind seems so peaceful and zen, that’s the version of me that’s usually hard to find. More typically, I’m the woman who’s watching TV while texting while skimming Facebook. I’m the woman whose cell phone is the last thing she looks at before she goes to sleep and the first thing she reaches for when she wakes up. I’m the woman who often can’t stand sitting still for more than a few minutes without biting at a cuticle or picking at a split end.

I can blame it on the nature of my job–it’s definitely not unusual to find me writing a script, making a graphic, and talking to a reporter at the same time–but I know that the “Be Here Now” concept is tough to grasp for most of the people in my life. Who knew it would take so much work to embrace silence, simplicity, or merely focusing on the task at hand?

So starting today, I will savor silence. I will pursue peace. I will Do. One. Thing. At. A. Time. (Gasp!) I will wake up and give myself a few seconds to stretch before I even THINK about checking my email. I will enjoy nature. I will give people my full attention. When I inevitably fall back into my old habits, I will lather, rinse, and repeat.

This is the spring of “being here now.” And while I’m at it… maybe I’ll even pick up some Ram Dass.

The easy life lesson in the most overplayed song of the decade

06 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by kristinmaiorano in Life Lessons, What Inspires Me

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Tags

challenges, inspiration, life, mantra, music

At this point, you don’t have to be a parent to say another Elsa sighting is one too many, or that you might lose it the next time you see a “Frozen” lip sync on YouTube.

I can definitely understand the sentiment, but now that Frozen fever is dying down just a tad, I can finally appreciate the message. So instead of swearing off that song, I made it my mantra.

letitgoSure, there are a lot of lyrics in the song that I like–something about testing limits, and that whole part about how distance makes it all seem small. But it’s really the title that gets it done, with three simple words: Let. It. Go.

I encourage everyone to try this for just a couple of days. You know that old adage about how life is 20 percent what happens to you and 80 percent how you react to it? I’ve learned it’s absolutely true.

You see, I am a “stewer.” When challenges pop up in my life, I like to go home and sit on it all day, chew it up in my head, play it and replay it, decide what I should have said, and just generally waste hours of my life making myself miserable. A combination of a mild dose of anxiety and an analytical personality don’t do me any favors. (One I get from my mom and the other from my dad–thanks, guys.)

So a few months ago, I decided to try something. Every time I found myself frustrated, discouraged, or upset, I would pause, and think to myself, “Let it go.” Sometimes I’d even picture the anxiety dissolving off the top of my head like a puff of steam. I’d unclench my jaw and my fists and release. I started to see that once you face a problem or a confrontation, or even someone unfairly taking out their own frustrations on you, there is no sense carrying it around with you all day. Stewing serves no one and solves nothing.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, by the Buddha: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” If you have a problem with someone, take it up with them. If you can’t or are unwilling to, let it go.

Another way to think of it is with what I like to call “The One-Year Test.”

A few years ago, at my first job out of grad school, I wrote a heated journal entry about one of my supervisors. I was so angry, and I wrote all about how I couldn’t believe that he did that. About a year or so later, I went back and read that journal. The emotion was tangible, but I only felt amused; for the life of me, I could not remember what it was that had made me so incensed.

It sounds so cliche, but it was an obvious reminder not to sweat the small stuff. After that, sometimes when I’d get frustrated or angry, I’d try to ask myself, “Will I remember why I’m mad in a year?” How about a month? Next week? If the answer is no, then let it go.

If you are morally opposed to modeling your mantra after a Walt Disney earworm, there is another song that I sometimes use as inspiration. But I’m not sure that you’ll like this one any better…

shakeitoff

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