Hey there, how are you?

I’m having a better week, phew finally because of a single decision that I made but I could have easily missed it and chalked it up to all the things that I have going on.

Here’s what was happening, I started to feel super anxious, scattered, all kicked up an extra notch with a dose of guilt on top. I would crawl into bed each night feeling “blah” (yes, that’s the best-unsophisticated way to describe it) and wishing I was on a beach somewhere far far away.

So what was causing me to feel ‘blah’ and void of enjoying my week?

If I attribute it to the outside circumstances that were presented and give you my long list of to-do’s, then we’ll miss the opportunity to actually see how we all can learn from my blahs and anxiety, and see how it’s not the to-do’s and people that are responsible but how I choose to think.

So when I paused to observe what was happening with my thinking, here’s what I learned.

Light bulb moment: my mind was racing with thoughts about something else than the experience that was right in front of me. 

See if you can relate. I would be working and feeling guilty that I’m working too much and not giving my daughter the time that I should. Then I would be with Sienna and I would zone out as I would think about what I needed to do. So I was never fully with my sweet baby girl and I was never fully with my work when I was working. My mind with it’s thinking was constantly splitting by going in and out of being engaged with my present experience to running ahead or replaying the past. No surprise then that I felt like I was operating at 30% with everything that I was doing and thinking because even though my body was there, my mind with its thoughts was in so many places.

Truth bomb: constantly thinking about something else instead of engaging with the people and the experience we are in, makes us feel like we are not enjoying and living our lives.

Why? Because we’re not. Even though our bodies are going through the motion, when we take our minds somewhere else, the real us is not there. We are tricked into believing we are being responsible by thinking about our tasks and yet, this is actually counterproductive. It drains us and causes us to become anxious because the thing we are thinking about we are not actually doing, and the thing that’s in front of us we are not giving it our fullest attention to really show up and engage in the experience. So we miss out and the people around us miss out because they get us at 30 percent as our mind wanders away from the moment.

When we do this we cheat ourselves and we cheat the people/tasks at hand from showing up fully. So when I hear my clients say to me, I feel like I half-a** everything I do in my life. I can relate and also want to help you hopefully see how it doesn’t have to be that way for you.

Stay present for yourself, the people around you, and the thing you are choosing to do at the moment so you can truly live your life. Because if you are racing ahead or replaying your past, then who is occupying and living the here and now?

This gift to ourselves of staying present can also be applied to many of us when it comes to food. I coach a lot of clients that cheat themselves from really enjoying their food by zoning out and focusing on other tasks while they eat. So whether they are in front of the tv, in their cars, standing up at the kitchen counter while cooking, their mind is not with the food they are eating. In fact, they tell me, I didn’t even realize I ate it all till I was done and the show was over. At that moment, they rob themselves of true enjoyment of seeing, smelling, tasting, and tuning into their body to gauge hunger, satisfaction, and knowing if you are full or not.

My dear friend, you owe it to yourself to live your life to the fullest and that starts with YOU and being HERE.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week filled with delicious conversations and food that you get to truly be a part of mind and body.