Day off, and I'm livin' in the moment

I just did my favourite Tracie Long Training workout, 'Better Burn Better Buns', or as I like to call it, 'Badda Bing Badda Boom.' (Click the link to see a preview on Tracie Long's website.) I don't know why I avoid these workouts like the plague. When I finally force myself to put one in the DVD and do it, I really enjoy it. Tracie is a nazi cow, but if I didn't feel that way about her she wouldn't be doing her job, now would she?

It's raining again today. June was the rainiest June 'in living memory' in the UK, and it's been raining so far every day of July as well. What the heck! I made it through the gloomy dark winter only to face a gloomy dark summer. It's been in the low 60s for weeks and weeks. I used to wonder why on TV I would see people in the UK going around in jackets in summer time. Well, now I know. Still, better to be cool than too hot.

Today's my day off, as I have to work Saturday and Sunday--then Monday it's my 9.00-7.00 day! Where's the justice, eh! On the other hand, I still work fewer hours than I did when I was teaching. I do 37 hours a week at the library, and when I was teaching it was just never ending, always hanging over my head, and even creeping into my dreams. Ugh! School year spent pining for summer, summer spent dreading school year. Never again.

Ouch, my butt muscles (or should I say 'glutes') are already starting to get sore! Badda bing badda boom, nazi cow strikes again!
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Have you ever asked yourself why you keep 'sabatoging' your weightloss or fitness efforts? Listen to this, from The Beautiful Life by Simon Parke:

"Your history has done its work, influencing every decision you make. You hate the hold that history has over you, but strangely, you make no plans to leave. History has made you a prisoner, but you aren't trying to escape. There is a nasty fear inside you, that if you leave the past behind you might actually cease to exist. So you loiter there, whether in subservience or defiance. "

Do you sabatoge yourself at every turn? Do you wake up with good intentions but have a chicken chalupa hanging out of your mouth by half past eleven? Do you 'resign yourself to the fact' that you are just fat and weak? (subservience) Or maybe you get mad at the 'food fascists' and 'fattists' telling you what to eat and how to look? (defiance) Maybe all that is just your ego, that compulsive liar, who supports and applauds the surging energies of feeling that run through you, making you believe that you are your emotions. Your ego is insecure and frightened, and will systematically affirm all your emotions and make you believe that there is nothing else to you. That you should submit to your emotions, because doing so will affirm your individual value. Liar. It's the ego that fears it will cease to exist. You will go on, for the real you is indestructible.

So does this mean that stopping self-sabatoge is a matter of  letting go of the past and focusing on the future? No. Simon says:

"The other non-existent refuge is the future. For some of us, the future is more compelling than the past. We are those who  like to move on. The future is the land of opportunity. We wish we could break out and make waves in the big blue beyond. And we become those who make plans. 'You have to live the dream!'  as they say.

"But this is not so. That is our ego talking again. To live the dream is a romantic notion, and a foolish one. It makes good movies but terrible life.

"Let any dream you harbour take care of itself, without undue encouragement from you. Instead, go about the simple if demanding business of being in the present. The dreams you have may well be given to you. They often are, and perhaps in a manner better than you ever dared imagine. But if it is to happen, and if it is to be good, it will emerge in its own time, while you seek the only good available--the kingdom presently within, for it is there that reality is changed."

Right. So should you just forget all this weight loss business, this target setting, this point counting? Not exactly.

You should live in the moment. When you sit down to that bowl of beautiful brown rice and stir-fried vegetables, you breathe in the smells. You feel grateful to the earth that feeds you, to the people you love who are sitting at the table with you. You focus on the flavours of the food, and consider the way that it is nourishing your body. When you exercise, you feel the joy of motion, you feel grateful for the gift of movement, you consider the miracle of all your body's systems working together in ways you can't imagine.

You don't have to get all Zen about it if that freaks you out. But you get joy from being in the present.

The only reality is me lifting this chicken chalupa to my face. Am I aware of this moment, or am I sleepwalking through it? I bet if I was aware of this moment, I'd have chosen something better for myself and my world than a stupid fast food meal.

The only reality is me sitting completely zoned out in front of my TV. If I knew that this moment was the only reality, that it was all I had, that it was all I would ever get, would I choose to spend it shlubbed out, ignoring the pain in my body caused by lack of motion,  and the loved ones around me? If I were awake to the reality of present moment living, I bet I could find something better to do with that moment.

That's not to say you can't be awake to the moment and enjoy a less healthy option, or even a night shlubbed out in the front of the telly. But are you aware of what you're doing? Are you awake?? Are you enjoying it, deep down, beyond ego, in the deepest essence of you? Are you experiencing it in all your senses? Are you reflecting on how deeply content it is making you?

Present moment living seems harder than counting points, resisting a cookie, or making a meal at home when you're tired and it would be easier to buy  fast food  because you 'deserve it'. Being in the present moment is both difficult and simple at the same time. The more you do it, the easier it gets, and you find that all sorts of things start to fall into place that you wouldn't have thought could have anything to do with paying attention to yourself living your life. What you eat is only a small part of it.

Hey, I'm not perfect and not a guru--I had a half a dark chocolate bar yesterday!--but I tell you what. That sure was one good chocolate bar. I shared half of it with my friend, I enjoyed every moment of eating it and I don't feel one bit guilty about it.

I wish I could live in the moment every moment.