The Power of Presence — Living in the Now
Mindfulness is a branch of meditation. It means that you are aware of your surroundings, your emotions and your physical sensations of the present moment. In other words, you are not doing things in autopilot mode. It feels like you are disconnected with an everyday reality but you get into another reality. This experience provides you with a set of feelings and thoughts that you rarely experience. The outcome is rather strange but at the same time calming and entertaining.
Do it for yourself. Next time you take a train to go somewhere, pay attention to your surroundings. Try to notice the presence of other people in the train with you, tell yourself that these people all have thoughts and emotions, they all have their own life story, their moments of happiness and sadness, just like you. Listen to the sounds around you, a baby crying , a kid laughing, or a singer singing, friends talking together, etc. Feel your sensation the moment, feel the push of your body when the train slows down or speeds up Feel the weight of your bag on your shoulder, the gentle weight of your cellphone in your hands.
Pay attention to where you walk in when you are changing lines. Notice the art in the corridor you walk in, the steps you take to go up or down. Stay with each thought and feeling for a couple of seconds and then let fly away just the way they flew in. When you hear an artist playing guitar, pay attention to her, listen to his music for a few seconds, see his face, read the concentration in his eyes, then let him go the same way you let him into your awareness. Let in one thought/sensation at a time, then smoothly switch to another.
If you are worried that you are losing the sense of self-control and you might miss your station, then deliberately bring your attention to your location, be aware each time the train stops and moves. You won’t miss your station.
Then ask yourself : How do I feel now? Does time pass with a different speed? Have I ever experienced this feeling before ? Then compare the feeling of this experience with when you are taking the metro on autopilot. What is different? Is your perception of time and space a bit different ?
For me, when I am in autopilot mode, my train journey seems like moving in a video game. People are unreal, they are like game characters. Locations are not real, they are just simulated. Voices I hear seem like filler, recorded sounds to make me feel I am in the real world. Things are not just real. Now, are people, locations, sounds, visuals , all unreal and vague? Well, no! They are real, but I did not grasp this real world. Where I was? I was in my internal world. Detaching the life from my reality and the reality of the world that I am living and giving validation to all my made up concerns, plans and thoughts that most of the time are not constructed on a realistic basis.
We all unconsciously feel all these sensations I described above, but we push them to the back of our consciousness to focus on matters that we think are more important to us: my exam in a week, doing grocery this evening, the meeting with the boss tomorrow, … the list is long . Are these matters really that important to consume our every moment of life? I leave it to you to think about it.
