Being Present: what Samurai teach us about Multitasking!Written by Marije Miller
Yesterday, my husband and I saw movie ‘The Last Samurai’. Usually I don’t watch movies with a lot of violence, because it makes me uncomfortable. But my interest was piqued when I saw an interview with Tom Cruise, who was curiously unable to express personal effect this movie had on his own life. It had clearly been an experience that had deeply effected him. To see him, usually so articulate, stumble for words made me want to go see movie. I won’t be describing story; that’s not what this article is about. But there was something really impressive about it that I want to share with you. The movie portrayed way of Samurai, Japanese warriors of old times. Tom Cruise’s character, an army captain captured by Samurai, describes concept of mindfulness of Japanese people: ‘when something is being done, it is done to perfection.’ He is amazed by their discipline and focus they have on whatever task they are doing. Each action they take is based on this spiritual foundation of mindfulness. In one scene captain is practicing his fighting skills with a warrior. Tom is loosing time and again. Suddenly one of watching warriors tells him: ‘Too many minds!’ With this warrior addresses fact that Tom’s attention is diverted to many different thoughts: he’s focusing on watchers, on warrior and on himself, which makes him lose. The sentence ‘No mind!’ brings captain fully into present moment, which ultimately allows him to finish fight in a ‘draw’ instead of defeat. In our western culture we often act from a different perspective. We feel that more we ‘multitask’ more we are able to achieve and this makes us a better person. It’s almost like we have to defend our right to exist by how much we accomplish! But one of my clients illustrates how we often dilute our own ability to fully live life. Josie had contacted me about a change in her career that she had wanted for a long time. She wanted to become more successful in her business. However, during our sessions she constantly came up against blocks that prevented her from taking actions that we planned out. She told me how she often felt overwhelmed by all things in her life. She had many unfinished projects around her house, which kept occupying space in her mind as well. And because she was constantly aware of them, she kept beating herself up about not finishing them. “I feel like I never get anything accomplished. It totally drags me down and when I see everything that needs to be done, it’s just too much and I shut down!” I noticed vicious cycle that her mind was in by how she described her problem. Her thoughts went from “I should be doing this- I know I need to do this- but I have so many things to finish- I never finish anything- I’m a failure.” There was clearly ‘old tape’ running in her mind. Most of us have this old tape running in background of our thinking: it’s an old message we decided on a long time ago and now it’s an automatic cycle that keeps playing over and over. Luckily, there are several ways to diminish this old tape. One of them is to become Fully Present. In Eckhart Tolle’s book ‘The Power of NOW’ he describes Presence as being Here, Now. When you are fully here, now, your mind stops running its tape. In its place there is a deep and peaceful silence. Our mind is a useful tool for gathering information and designing strategies, but in our lives we usually are too identified with what we think. Most anxious feelings are started because we think too much. We worry, which is a thought based on either our past or our future. This takes us out of present moment. Anxiousness doesn’t have a space in present.
| | Is there a Monster in your Closet?Written by Marije Miller
The world is a mirror. There are many books written on belief that we are what we see and experience around us. Every person we meet is here for a specific reason, whether we understand that reason or not. They give us opportunity to get a little further on our personal path of self-discovery and enlightenment. Sometimes message comes through loud and clear; for instance we may be hearing same thing from three different and unrelated sources. But other times these messages, or lessons if you will, are offered to us in disguise. What of those people we immediately have an adverse reaction to? The aversion you feel for them is a sign that there is something to be learned here for you.We all have judgments that we put on other people. The easy ones are physical ones we make of others, especially when we don’t know them. Too fat, too skinny, too ugly. Think of how we both criticize and idolize celebrities in our society. Then there are judgments that go a level deeper. ‘She’s selfish.’ ‘He’s arrogant’. Now it’s about personal qualities that other people portray which we feel are not good enough. Somewhere, usually in our childhood, we decided that each behavior has an acceptable and unacceptable level. And to live comfortably in society there need to be certain rules of acceptable behavior. What we often don’t realize is that we each have our own levels of what we find acceptable or not. And trying to live up to other people’s levels can become pretty confusing, not to mention amount of energy it costs us. As a result we start hiding certain character traits, ‘negative’ ones. We worry that if ‘they’ could see what we try to hide we would become an outcast… But what are we trying to hide? What qualities or characteristics are there in us that we wouldn’t want other people to find out about? In other words: Is there a monster in your closet? My two young daughters, 3 and 6, are in a phase where they are afraid to go to sleep at night without usual precautions. These precautions are for each of them to receive a ‘magic ring’, a ‘magic cage’ around their bed and a ‘magic sign’, all to keep monsters away at night. It really doesn’t matter to them when I explain that there are no monsters. Often I get called into their room to turn on light where they, with great relief, realize that dress hanging over chair is not a hairy monster lurking behind their furniture. The same is true for what we perceive are our negative character traits. Interestingly, what we often judge other people on are things that we posses ourselves, but that we are not aware of. However, these ‘negative’ aspects represent certain qualities that actually have a specific message or gift to share with us. Something we can use to learn from, to integrate into our psyche to become a more whole person. In her book ‘The Dark Side of Light Chasers’ author Debbie Ford offers us wisdom that often these aspects contain an amazing wisdom and bring insights into our past that affects us in many different ways. Like ‘monsters’ that my children tell me about, these unacceptable aspects disappear when we turn on our Inner Light for a good observation. In order to accept ourselves fully we need to look at these monsters to find gift, or lesson, in them.
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