Finding the Center Within: The Healing Way of Mindfulness Meditation. Read Online Free PDF Page B

just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the kids come home from school and demand your attention; the phone rings and that aggressive long distance carrier tries yet again to sell you its services (how did you ever get on its list, anyway?); the doorbell rings; you suddenly remember you need to pay the mortgage. There is nothing easy or simple about running a home. Even within this one role, there are many competing demands. And of course it is more complicated than this for many of us. Most of us must deal not only with the complexity of one role, but with balancing the complexity of many roles. Is it any wonder that we sometimes find ourselves yearning for some other, simpler time; some past or future Eden; some time when we know what is expected of us; some time when things are easier; some time when we can just earn a living, or just be a homemaker, or just be a 01 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:44 AM Page 10
    10

F I N D I N G T H E C E N T E R W I T H I N
    parent or a friend or a spouse; or some time when we do not have to do any of that at all and can just sit on the beach and sip margaritas? Beverly says, let’s move to the islands and sell T-shirts. Yet she knows this is the time we have, the life we have.

PRACTICE
    Acknowledge Your Many Roles
    Get out pen and paper. Sit quietly for a few minutes, breathing gently. Start to think of the many roles and aspects of your life. List all the roles that you play.
    Of course, you may think first of your role at work—the first thing we’re asked at parties and social gatherings. But that one role has many subroles. For example, if you’re an attorney, you may be part counselor, part litigator, part actor, part researcher, part businessperson, and so on. Also include the roles that you play as husband or wife, parent, son or daughter, and so forth. Make your list as long as possible, coming up with at least twenty-five roles or so, considering even aspects that are quite small such as salon customer or mail recipient. When you have listed as many roles as you can, read your list over meditatively. Now ask yourself gently and repeatedly: Who am I? without trying to answer the question, just holding it in your awareness for a few minutes.
    THE EXPERIENCE (TOM)
    As I wake up this morning, I am grateful that I didn’t schedule appointments today. There’s a feeling of freedom in this, and I’m glad to be able to start my day without having to be at a certain place at a certain time. But this feeling is short-lived. I start running through the list of things I need to do. I try to remind myself that my plan is to write, but just as I do, I remember that I also have to go to the bank. I should get some laundry done, too. Outside, the fruit trees demand pruning and fertilizing. I tell myself: First, I will read for a little while over coffee. But as I’m reading, the ideas in the book spark associations, and I think: I’ve got to re-01 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:44 AM Page 11

K N O W W H E R E Y O U A R E
11
member to add that insight to the talk I’m giving next week. And when will I get in that application to teach at the university? And don’t forget to check the phone messages at work. I meditate for a while, and accepting these crosscurrents, returning again and again to the breath, I emerge from my meditation with a clear focus: to write. I turn on the computer and begin. Just then, my cell phone startles me. Will it be a crisis, or a wrong number? A million tasks, great and small, pull at me, each one a pretender to the throne in the moment it occupies my consciousness, each one claiming to be the most important thing.
    And I could add more, just describing the demands experienced within the space of an hour or so on one particular morning, balancing responsibilities for domestic tasks, teaching and speaking, running a psychotherapy practice, and writing. The catalog of activities does not include some major pieces of my life that did not happen to figure prominently that