Saturday, November 13, 2010

Living in the Moment

This morning as I was leaving my house to walk the dog (7 am or so), a taxi pulled up on my street. Turns out it was my neighbor returning from 'Girl's Night'. I, of course, was awake at 7 because I'd gone to bed super early, tired because I'd been waking up at 5.30 am all week to workout. I find it astounding that an adult could stay up all night voluntarily! And I'm not saying it's bad, it's just not a gene I got. I have zero ability to stay up late, let alone all night. This was true even when I was young and hip (was I really young AND hip?). Maybe in my next life....... Or maybe I already had that gene in a previous life and you get more conservative as you go?

And while we're on a woo woo subject like reincarnation, let's stay new age. Living in the moment. I seem to be thinking about it lately. Back when I took a lot of yoga, living in the moment was much discussed. Okay, perhaps not so much discussed, as 'lectured' to us by yoga teachers as we lay in corpse pose dreaming about what we would have for dinner, who our current crush was, or whatever else might be going on the second we were released from corpse pose to our life.

The theory is that in order to really enjoy life, you need to be fully present in everything you're doing. That you need to enjoy life - the process of life - as it's happening, both the good and the bad. And I completely agree. I spend lots of my time dredging up the past or worrying about/excited about the future. Sometimes I feel I spend so much time living in the past or anticipating my better future self, that I don't actually enjoy what's going on. And the thing is, there is only what's going on. You're always in the present. And if you don't live in the present, you're not really living your life.

And now we'll talk about my very favorite thing, crossfit. It's been a while since I've waxed poetically about crossfit. You all probably thought I fallen off the crossfit wagon.

Crossfit + Living in the Moment. One thing I love about crossfit is that it forces you to live in the present. I will ride my bike to workout all grouchy about something that happened, something someone did, having to go to work all day etc. Then I get to crossfit and all that is gone. For an hour there is NOTHING but exactly what I am doing. There is no way to think about anything else when you're trying to lift an extra heavy weight properly. Or when you're trying to push yourself to go just a little faster. Or when you're in so much pain you just want to collapse on the floor. Or, even when that beautiful moment comes, you yell 'time' and you actually do get to collapse on the floor. And it feels so good!

I always get a little surprised after crossfit. I get back on my bike and I remember what I was thinking about on the way there. Or I remember that I'm about to go sit at work all day and I realize that I have thought about none of that for the last hour. And I realize how refreshing it was (IS!) just to be!

WOO WOO

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