How I Learned To Inhabit My Days
Self-Discovery and Shifting Culture
I remember sometimes feeling so entirely overwhelmed by my everyday life. I would feel a weight in my stomach and a sort of suffocation in my throat. Time seemed always to be moving too fast.
I was raised in a loving home, a home where I was cared for, nurtured, and supported. Despite this, I was also raised by parents born of another generation. One where meditation and spirituality were linked to “hippies,” “drug users,” and “societal outcasts.” One where talking about your feelings was a futile waste of time.
I didn’t discover the tools to help me become more present, more joyful, and better equipped to handle stress until I was two years into college at the age of twenty-one. Meditation was introduced to me on the first day of classes in the fall quarter of my junior year. Not so coincidentally, this was the same day that I discovered poetry. I could not begin to fathom, that warm September day, how much expansion, growth, and discovery were about to surround me.
Finding a Way to Live With Intention and Presence
Jean waltzed joyfully into the tiny brightly lit classroom, an easeful glide in his step, a fashionable chestnut-colored briefcase in his hand, and a sage-like smile across his face. He said nothing to introduce himself and began reading a poem. I remember thinking I had stumbled into the classroom of an exalted being. Not in the way a religious icon may be exalted, simply in the way that he knew something that I had not yet discovered.
Our first assignment in this class was to find a meditative practice, attend or participate in it once a week, and write immediately afterward. The idea was that through meditation one becomes more present, attuned to what is happening around and within them, and in turn, able to write more honestly and astutely-a simple concept, yet up until that point in my life, a semi-foreign one.
What I found, in addition to a love of poetry, was a way to slow down time, a way to escape anxiety, a way to pay attention. Meditation, like poetry, is meant for us not to find meaning in things outside of ourselves, but to allow us to explore our inner worlds. Here we find a greater understanding of ourselves and of the human condition-there will always be unanswered questions and unfettered musings. In connecting with ourselves, we become aware of all that we can connect with outside of ourselves. Presence goes from simply being somewhere to being so fully in one moment that there is nothing behind or in front of it. Here, we can note the sun hitting the tops of trees, the warmth of a conversation with a dear friend, the sound of a distant train, and the steady stream of steam exiting our coffee cups in the chill of the morning.
Professor Jean left us with a poem at the end of that quarter that still hangs on my wall today. It is called I Will Not Die An Unlived Life by Dawna Markova. It reads, “...I choose to inhabit my days,/to allow my living to open me,/ to make me less afraid,/ more accessible;/ to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise…” I love the idea of inhabiting our days, instead of simply going through them. Meditation and poetry are two things that make it possible for me to inhabit my days.
Here are some tips for finding ways that will allow you to show up for your life with more love, patience, and gratitude :
Find a meditative practice. It doesn’t have to be sitting cross-legged in silence and breathing deeply, it can be a morning walk, an afternoon stretch, or a creative outlet like painting or writing. Start by implementing it weekly and then a few times a week. Eventually, you can do it every day.
Take note of how this practice makes you feel. Are you less anxious, more energetic, and able to give more freely to those around you?
Give yourself grace. Maybe you develop a ritual, but you miss it one day. That is okay. Life happens.
Explore more. Read more, listen to more podcasts, and try new things. It is only through learning and absorbing more that we are able to find what it is that truly brings us joy in our everyday lives.
Keep a gratitude journal. Find three things every day that you are grateful for and write them down.
