Getting unstuck

Dreaming in blue

For several years I have been trying to change something about myself.  It’s a lifestyle change.  A change of habit(s).  I do well for a day, a week, a month, but inevitably, I slide, jump, or fall back to where I started.  They say old habits die hard.

Yesterday I had my usual two cups of Yogi Tea (Classic India Spice, and Women’s Raspberry Leaf teas).  Yogi Tea comes with a little bit of wisdom on the tea bag tag.  While I’ve had repeat messages, it’s never happened on two different tea bags on the same day.  Yesterday that changed.  Yesterday, both of the tags had this to offer:

Those who live in the past limit their future.

It sunk in the second time around.  The problem with changing an old habit is that I’m stuck in the past of the old habit.  The way out is in the now.

Morning walk

Your relationship to life is the same as that of one cell to your whole body.  One cell can talk to your whole body.  One cell can influence your whole body.  You can talk to the whole of life — influence the whole of life.  The whole of life is as alive as we are.  The distinction between ‘in here’ and ‘out there’ is a false one — as if the heart disregarded the skin because it not on the inside.

~ Deepak Chopra

Walking in the sunlight this morning, I remembered reading somewhere that the entire body replaces itself about every seven years.  Skin replaces itself about every six weeks (more or less, opinions seem to differ).  Old cells die and are swept away.  New cells develop and take over until they become old cells and the process continues.  The body is constantly changing.  It’s the mind that gets stuck.

An example:  If I was a coffee drinker yesterday, and many yesterdays before that, I could say to myself, “Today I am not a coffee drinker,” and start my day with a hot lemon water, enjoying the tartness, the warmth, the color, and the feel of the liquid in my mouth and throat without even thinking about coffee because I am present, drinking hot lemon water.  My mind might jump in and say, “I beg to differ.  I have always been a coffee drinker.”  I could remind my mind, “Today I am drinking and enjoying hot lemon water.”  I could stay in the present, drinking my hot lemon water, and in the present I am not a coffee drinker.  I am experiencing the moment, the now.  Never mind yesterday or tomorrow or next week when I get together with my friend who drinks coffee by the bucketful.  When the mind or even the body become uncomfortable with the idea of not being a coffee drinker, I can sit with the discomfort, be curious (“I wonder what’s going on here?”) and explore it.  I don’t have to act on it.

Illuminating change

I want to be present in my life, in each moment, even (maybe especially) those uncomfortable moments.  I want to shed the past, or at least the part of the past that has me clinging to things that are unhealthy or are no longer necessary.  Starting right here.  Right now.

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