Spiritual Etiquette
in the World Being Present
by Suzanne Matthiessen
In today’s over-scheduled, over-stimulated,
over-worked times, many find themselves overwhelmed—but afraid
to admit it, as they feel that would be an exhibit of weakness. Multi-tasking
is the norm; whether you’re adept at juggling five balls simultaneously
or not is irrelevant. Gotta do, gotta go, gotta be productive, 24/7—otherwise
you’ll miss out. The most common adjective I hear when I ask
friends to describe how they are doing is “busy.” It’s
no wonder we’re collectively running on sleep-deprived fumes,
relationships suffer, kids and adults alike have trouble focusing
because their days are completely booked and we “skim” emails
and even conversations for the “important” (e.g. how
it pertains to us) content. In this country, little value is placed
on just “being”—you know, just hanging out and
allowing space to fill in between your ears as you gaze at clouds
or meditate by a brook in the woods or breathe deeply and evenly
during yoga practice and detach from the madness and mayhem.
In fact, “beingness” is practically frowned upon here.
Even vacations are go go go. We feel pressure to “stay connected” so
the laptop accompanies us everywhere and people freak out when they
can’t get cell phone reception at that remote cabin in the
mountains they rented for a weekend (God forbid they go for a week!)
to supposedly recharge. News junkies go through serious withdrawals
when they don’t know “what’s happening.” A
fair portion of the population stresses out when faced with solid
blocks of peace and quiet; they need constant stimulation and entertainment,
otherwise they may come face-to-face with how nuts and out of balance
their life has become.
Quality of life has to suffer with this jam-packed, quantity-based
lifestyle. When our energy is scattered in diverse directions all
the time, how can the average person be fully present in the moment
for any one person or situation? With our energy spread so thin,
how can we possibly consistently bring our best, fully attentive
self to the table?
When life is burdened by constant doing, people have a tendency to
start cutting corners and justify behaviors that, if they were living
more in balance, they never would even consider. Eating food that
contains little to no life force while on the run, not exercising,
using alcohol nightly to unwind—these are all common compromises
to our overall well-being. But even deeper, we lose our attention
span, tempers flare up at the slightest inconvenience of our time,
and too much distance forms between us and our loved ones. Getting
everything we want “on demand” makes us even more demanding
and entitlement-oriented. The pressure of having to perform at peak
levels drives us to be insecure people-pleasers, or even more detrimental,
intolerant of other people’s inability to keep up.
I recently did a radio interview
with Atlanta-based relationship coach Patty Finns Barinola on her
weekly show, “Relationship Radio.” She asked me that
although integrity is such a buzzword these days and something awakened
consciousness seekers wish to embody, many people appear to not know
what that really means—so how to know when you are out of integrity?
My bottom-line response to her was that our soul always knows when
we are not living with integrity. But I think if I had more time
to ponder that question, I would have added that many people are
at a place of at least partial disconnect from their soul, so they
may not always be receiving the signals warning them they’ve
come to compromise themselves on a spiritual level. Or they do, but
instead consciously push those inner cues away, especially if their
ego and/or the societal group mind overlay onto their consciousness
perpetuates being in denial.
Surely the more authentically connected with their soul one is, the
more they can stand in graceful integrity in all aspects of their
life. This requires regularly and calmly practicing being present
in each moment and situation. Being present requires being mindful
and paying attention, and that is hard to achieve if we are absorbed
in incessant mental chatter and outer stimulation and don’t
take time each day to “stop the world” and take pause
and reflect inwardly. If our energy levels are not being restored
and replenished by quiet meditation, reflection and non-doing, we
are simply unable to maintain a state of graceful presence when we
begin to lose touch with that still center at the core of our being.
We lose contact with our sense of Self, our ability to calmly discriminate
between what’s real and what is indulgent and sometimes spiritually
self-destructive folly, and become lazy and vulnerable to our shadow
sides.
When our lives lack presence in every moment, in every thought, action
and choice, mind-less-ness can take over. Insights as to how we are
showing up in daily life are impeded by static unless we create an
environment where we can actually inwardly listen. Running on autopilot,
ingrained self-absorbed behavioral patterns cause us to not approach
each situation fully in terms of awareness, and we’re unable
to see the complete impact we have on others, as well as our own
self. We become less effective in all areas of our life.
