Recently I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”. Never in my life have I wanted words to sink into my brain as much as from that man. While I’m not at all religious, I would say I lean heavily toward being a serendipitous fatalist. While I think that obviously we all have a huge part to play with free will and all, I do think that sometimes the universe brings us things that we need… good or bad. Some things, in my opinion, are just meant to be. We are given challenges when we need to learn lessons, and given rewards when we wish on enough stars, throw a million pennies into fountains, and remember to toss spilled salt over our shoulders. Sometimes I thumb my nose at fate, and wander under ladders and wholeheartedly call to black cats to cross my path, just for the hell of it.
But this year admittedly, I’m not quite sure the lessons I’m supposed to be learning. Patience maybe. (DAMN YOU PATIENCE!). I feel as though I was given the world, and then it was taken away. Not in such alarmist terms, mind you – but still given a taste of what I love, and then just as soon as it came, it was gone again. It has been a seesaw teetertotter roller coaster of a year, and I feel like I’m ready to get off. I’m ready to have *something* in my life that is predictable. I feel like I have lived over a year, inside my mind, wishing the daysweeksmonths to go by faster so I could just be over this hump and start living again dammit. This is one of my worst habits. Wishing the future to come sooner, and dwelling on the past too long. Hence my choosing “The Power of Now”. I had bought this book a couple of years ago after reading an extremely favorable review from a blogger whom I admire very much. The words “life changing” were even thrown around in reference to it. And yet, I could not get through it, no matter how hard I tried. I always got stuck in the same spot (I swear I must have read the first 3 chapters 20 times).
This time however, it was different. I *still* could not get through it as the written world, but I decided it was something I needed to make work – so I found an audiobook version. Normally I’m not a huge fan of the audiobook, but in this case it was necessary. I felt like much of the content was so heavy that I was incapable of digesting it in my own voice (you know when you read, usually hear your own voice inside your head?). So I set aside an hour each night in the safety of my darkened bathroom, clawfoot tub filled with Lush cinnamon lime scented bubbles, eyes shut tightly despite the blackness – just listening. Trying with every fiber of myself to “get it”. But it was so fleeting…
The premise of the book is to stop living your life with the ever-constant chatter in your mind. To silence the often negative, repetitive, non stop voice-over that narrates every second of your life. I wish that I could fire my narrator, because quite frankly she’s a real mean spirited bitch who *never* shuts up. Much of the sadness in my life comes from this voice. From reliving painful stuff that happened in the past (who doesn’t occasionally wake up feeling stupid about something they did years ago? I feel like it’s an all too often occurrence for me, unfortunately). Or I anticipate conversations that I might have with people in my life (more times than not in negative ways) and just overall cause myself a whole hell of a lot of anguish. And I want it to stop. I want this ride to stop so I can get off. And start enjoying my life second-by-second, rather than 2 months in the past, or 5 years in the future.
And when the words fill my headphones I feel like I get it. And I feel calm and like I understand… but then sometime during the night habit creeps in and presses the “reset” button. And the vicious cycle starts again. I know that such deeply ingrained behavior will take time to undo, but because I’m aware of the problem, I just want the solution to happen NOW. That way, the interviews for new voice narrators may begin immediately. 