“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” - Andre Gide
I think we are getting a very clear message from the Universe that we need to get better at living in the moment.
When I started a daily meditation practice nearly three years ago, my aim was to get better at living in the present and meeting life on its own terms. To relinquish my need for control and simply be here now in my life instead of creating an identity out of stories, whether they were past dramas and traumas, or worries about a future that hadn’t happened yet.
I can’t say I’ve mastered it. I still get lost in drama and stories every now and then. But right now, with everything the world is facing, I am grateful for my meditation practice. For the past three years, I have been training my mind to accept every thought it has, including my deepest fears, and to listen to them with mindfulness and compassion.
And yet, until the recent pandemic crisis unfolded, I was still just as guilty as the next person of putting things off until X happens or when I’m fit enough to run a half-marathon again or when I’ve had my hair cut/brows waxed or whatever feeble excuse it might have been.
I still did this, despite having learned the lesson long ago that the present moment is all we have. A lesson which current circumstances are really hammering home.
Let me tell you a story.
A few years ago now, I was living in a tiny flat in the centre of London and I had a bottle of expensive body lotion on my dressing table. It was a Christmas gift and I'd been saving it - but for what, I'm not sure. I would occasionally put a tiny daube of it on my hands when they felt dry and I wanted them to smell nice. That's what I was doing one morning as I was about to leave the house for work, just picking up the bottle to put a tiny bit on my hands and be on my way.
I must have squeezed the bottle too tightly because the next thing I knew, the bottle had broken, with jagged pieces of sharp plastic now sticking out of the thick lotion, and it had also sprayed lotion on to the floor and the wall. Just what you want when you’re running for a train, right?
Luckily, once I had wiped up the mess and got rid of the shards, I realised that if I lay the bottle on its side, with the broken side up, I could still use what was left of the lotion. But it couldn’t be "saved" any more. I would have to use it. So I did and, for the few weeks it lasted, I smelled lovely.
Why am I telling you this? you might ask. Because, like many epiphanies, it was a very small thing that held a much larger lesson.
Once my bottle was broken, that was it. I couldn't save the body lotion for another day or once we move to the new house or whatever reason I wasn't allowing myself to just use it. I had to use it now. I had to just get on with it. The choice had been taken away from me. As it has with many far more basic everyday essentials, things we used to take for granted, now.
I don't think there is anything wrong with saving things for "best" or for a special treat. When you do indulgent things all the time, they stop becoming special and just become the norm. So I think it's important to have a balance and definitely have some things that you do save for special times to add to that sense of occasion, and truly savour them when you do.
But I'm not talking about buying a bottle of Pol Roger every weekend (though that would be amazing) and indulging in all kinds of extravagances as a distraction, although we all need those occasionally. I’m also not talking about blowing your rent money on things you don’t need or can’t afford when you need to prioritise other things at this time.
What I'm talking about are the small things that you deny yourself, or put off, or only let yourself have when you’ve “earned” them, when actually those things would add so much joy and contentment to your life right now.
It could be a mug of that gorgeous, vanilla-scented loose leaf tea you love. The expensive shower gel that makes you think of ripe pears and spring flowers. New bath towels. Using the ‘good’ wine glasses, or the pretty dinner plates that your Mum gave you once a week, not just once a year.
It might not even be a thing. It could be allowing yourself to plant a garden. Get a puppy or a kitten. Learning to knit or play the piano.
Why, before everything changed, were you denying yourself these things? Why would you not have wanted to be the happiest and most fulfilled that you could possibly be? And are those reasons still valid now? It’s worth thinking about.
You never know when the choice is going to be taken away from you or when the illusion of control will be shattered. When you realise that even the ability to put something off for another time, an undefined moment in the future, was a privilege in itself.
When we save things for "later" or "for when X happens", we’re convincing ourselves that the future is going to be somehow better than what we're experiencing right now, in the present. The truth is, the future is an illusion - it doesn't exist yet. And the past is gone. All we have is now.
So don’t put off your big dreams and your tiny joyful indulgences for another day, for a far off time where you envision you might be happier, more deserving, more accomplished, more worthy.
You are worthy of your dreams and your desires in life, right now. Just as you are.
I realise that some things you want to do or treat yourself to may not be advisable or particularly do-able right now. You’re probably prioritising the basics like food and medicine and making sure your loved ones are OK over fancy hand cream, as I am.
But things won’t always be this way.
When all of this is over, I hope you will go and do all those things you’ve put off. And in the meantime, let yourself have the small moments of happiness and pleasure in your every day, whatever they might be for you. Don't wait until the bottle breaks. Or until you’re forced to stay at home.
Tell me, how are you going to look after yourself and live in the moment today?
