Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash
unpolished thoughts 2/26/2019
Every day brings something new.
Today, I have been asked to help someone in a situation unlike any other I have previously worked in.
I can only imagine how it will be before I experience it. That moment is guaranteed to feel completely different than what I imagine now.
All I really know is that I don’t know. That is the best guide I can follow.
It’s a rare opportunity, actually, to know with certainty what I can’t predict. We so often lead ourselves to believe we know what we are doing right up to the moment that life shows us without a shadow of a doubt that we don’t.
Today I have been given the rare opportunity to prepare myself to be unprepared.
It is a dance between the anxiety of not knowing – which I can feel right now in my body – and another possibility which my body has felt many times before, the joyful experience of curiosity.
My preparation is the practice of presence.
How can I make each moment of this day into a meditation?
How can I listen to my body long before this moment arrives to differentiate what I’m feeling from what I’m thinking?
I have been called to help another human being in need. A beautiful human being.
So in addition to presence, I am asked to practice humility.
How else could I meet this moment with presence except with the understanding of what I don’t understand?
How could I be humble if I thought I knew what I don’t know?
I have no special powers, only what is given to me as a human being. But I believe this is enough.
What help can I bring?
I can be present, humble, and human. I can bring my full attention. I can deeply care.
This feels like enough.
If my presence can be of service today, it will be a presence that is much larger than my own.
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