I have two friends who are in the midst of *rebooting* their lives. The first, Kim, joined me for lunch the other day, wearing a Bose headphone and dark sunglasses. I hadn’t seen her for two years and so the answer to why she was wearing the headphone and sunglasses surprised me.
"I was in an auto accident two years ago," she began. "My car was rear-ended by a truck and I suffered serious head trauma." For the first year, Kim worked to reintegrate herself back into society. "I couldn’t count to five, I had trouble expressing my needs," she said.
In Year Two, her Will began to step forward. "I realized that I had all these dreams and desires that I wanted to pursue, and several negative habits that I wanted to let go." So Kim worked with a therapist to develop a whole new set of habits that kept her focused on her positive goals. She reduced attention she gave to the negative behavior, and let her mind rebuild itself on "higher" ground.
While I don’t recommend "the whack on the side of the head" as a way to unplug and reboot, it seems that sometimes we do attract events, people, and "accidents" into our lives that force us to pay attention to what we really want in life.
Which brings me to my second friend. I have been told by my well meaning family that I am too fast. I think too fast, move too fast, and sometimes make decisions that would have benefited if I had slept on them overnight. I’d like to think that we all do this, however, I recently attracted a new friend into my life who is absolutely my opposite. Where I am spontaneous, he is a perfectionist. Where I refresh myself in a crowd of people, he withdraws.
My "ready, FIRE, aim…" lifestyle has a powerful counterpoint in his slow, deliberate, decision-making. It is as if every decision in his life will rest upon the single decision he is making at that very moment. And in reality, it does.
Though frustrating, I am finding that I am able to break out of my "impatient, straining at the leash" style of living, by using these moments when my mind wants to judge his pace or position on an issue, to stay VERY focused on the present moment.
On our morning hikes, for example, I sometimes focus my attention on the ground in front of me. I study each small pebble on the mountain path … noting its light and shadow sides. I pay attention to my breath. In my mind, I compose pictures of the trees we pass and native grasses that are now bleached of summer’s wild green. In this shift to the very present moment, I am able to move away from judgement – my way vs his way – and surrender to the beauty that surrounds me.
He reaches out to hold my hand and suddenly, we’re in synch. Life works, it seems, when you take the time to let it work on you.
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