My heart is enthusiastic to be moving from my old office, which has served me well, to a new office nestled up against the mountains in the mouth of Boulder Canyon. My last task in leaving will be repainting the walls a neutral white. My first reaction was to treat this as something I have to complete before I can get on with being enthusiastic. I notice resistance, hurry and a sense of pushing to do what’s necessary, which takes me completely out of the present.
Coming to a new task, if we are driven by the need to get it done, skipping ahead to the next thing on the list, we can never really be present with it. We see the underlying assumption that freedom comes when everything is done, that then we can be happy. This is a lie. There is always something more to do, and in the meantime we struggle through tasks that we experience as laborious, because from the beginning we just want to finish them and move on.
What happens when you pause as you start a task, pull your attention into the moment, and engage with it directly? Let go of what comes next. Ask how you can enjoy your task, have fun, make it a game. Giving it your attention it becomes a vessel for Spirit. Dance your task as a dance with Spirit, right now, full of joy and appreciation for being alive, for having the capacity to do what you are doing, for the potential for expression and the fulfillment that comes whenever you give yourself to the present moment.
Thus the heaviness and resistance to doing any task releases. Shift from having to get it done so you can be happy, to being happy in the doing, excited that more good things are coming, but start the party now. If I am painting my office, I can take my time with the taping and preparation, knowing that this will make the painting easy and clean, I can appreciate the paint, the flow, the colors. I can dance with my impatience, noticing the false beliefs and fears that drive it, giving myself a healing. I can play my kirtan, breath and relax, here as well as anywhere. I can call up the excitement already present in my own being. Why wait?
In bringing the practices of relaxation and mindfulness to your task you transform it from something to be resented and hurried through, to an opportunity to learn, grow, do it well, and embody joy, without waiting for tomorrow, or any other condition you may set yourself. If you resent and hurry through a task, are you not simply saying that you are not yet worthy of feeling good about your life? an attitude that will follow you into each new day. Playing with your task, you practice feeling good in this moment and then the next, without condition, no matter what you are doing.
Before you start a task, sit with yourself and find the inner knowing that is always there: the certainty that you are worthy, you feel good, you can be present for yourself and dance with Spirit. Give yourself permission to practice this awareness while doing your task. Release the fears as they come up, calm the hurrying mind. Practice peace with yourself in each moment and you will do your task well and in joy.
(© 12/2012)
