{"id":936,"date":"2005-06-16T10:48:53","date_gmt":"2005-06-16T18:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2005\/06\/16\/practicing-presence\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:24:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:24:03","slug":"practicing-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2005\/06\/16\/practicing-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Practicing Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go. <\/p>\n

–Louise Driscoll<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have a dream that is beginning to manifest, but it is possible that it will be curtailed. <\/p>\n

I am trying not to make negative predictions as a means of protecting myself against disappointment. Bracing myself for not getting what I want is a habitual response which I developed years and years ago. In truth, it is just as possible that the situation will resolve itself in the way I want it. Agitating myself and generating negative energy creates misery and, for all I know, might affect the outcome, bringing me the conclusion I fear. What is the sense in that?<\/p>\n

Instead, I am trying to sit with the unknown. I am trying to focus on what matters in this moment. Eckhart Tolle would conclude that the issue concerning me is not my life, but my “life situation.” He believes that we live in psychological time, mostly focused on the past or future, and thus miss experiencing life. He encourages using one’s senses fully, to become absorbed in The Moment. Eckhart purports that all problems are illusion of the mind. He writes:<\/p>\n

Focus your attention on the now and tell me what problem you have at this moment. I am not getting any answer because it is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now. A situation needs to be either dealt with or accepted. Why make this into a problem? The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts. This is normal, and it is insane.<\/p>\n

–Eckhart Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That last sentence makes me smile. What I take from this is that when I begin to fret over something that I will not know the answer to for awhile, or when I worry about an issue which is not directly bearing down on my life at this moment, I am creating pain for myself. And I am missing my life.<\/p>\n

Ah, this wisdom, it is difficult to apply! In fact, Tolle might even disagree with Driscoll, saying that to keep a dream in one’s heart is a distraction from living, because it pulls one’s attention to the future.<\/p>\n

Writing about this helps to a point, but only in that it provides me the relief of expression, since writing is one way I make sense of my life. I’m not the only one out there with a hope that may be dashed, who has to live with not knowing until the situation develops to reveal the answer (though having company in this doesn’t exactly comfort). This is an opportunity to activate myself, to live the spiritual practice of awareness and immersion in the moment, to wonder and be amazed and grateful. <\/p>\n

Oh, by the way, it does appear that my blog break is over. And here’s an explanation: a number of days ago I received some negative feedback on a post that stirred up a lot of painful emotion (the issue I posted about was painful to me, as were a couple of comments). The post — which, being an expression of myself, is equivalent to I — was used by this person as part of an essay critiquing Buddhist blogs; my post became an object lesson, because it did not reflect this person’s idea of what a mindful person would post. (Note: I’m not a declared Buddhist, nor do I claim expertise on the religion, or any religion.) My response to the pain was to retreat; I wanted to protect myself. To the author’s credit, he did not use identifying information nor link to my blog. But given the depth of pain, I shut down. Again, this is something Tolle would assert is part of psyhological time. It is not happening in my life now; it is not real, and the pain I feel arises from clinging to past events and beliefs about them. So, I’m back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go. –Louise Driscoll I have a dream that is beginning to manifest, but it is possible that it will be curtailed. I am trying not to make negative predictions as a means of protecting myself against disappointment. Bracing myself for not getting what I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,30,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities","category-quotes","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10863,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/10863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}