Nothing is Wrong in This Moment

How mindfulness brings us back when everything feels off

During a mindfulness course I was teaching this week we talked about how mindfulness is a practice. It is something we return to again and again—in daily life and in formal seated meditation. It is something we work with constantly, not necessarily something we suddenly arrive at and live in permanently. We get better at it, it becomes easier, but we still have to remember to practice it.

And true to how life often unfolds, the next morning I was given the opportunity to do just that. Remember to practice in a moment of life that was challenging.

I was sitting in the car, staring at a large building in front of me. I just left an appointment with my surgeon and felt disheartened. It was a follow up where we were hoping to schedule the procedure to finish up surgical treatments from breast cancer. Eight months after my surgery, I expected to be healed fully and able to schedule it. This is the same appointment I had two months ago. Then, like now, I still hadn’t finished healing. I am incredibly close, but not yet ready.

I am a planner by nature and the ever-moving target my body was dictating goes against my desire to organize my life and control how this would unfold. Staring at the building, frustration bubbled up in me as I thought about my body not getting on the same timeline with the rest of my life. I wanted to move forward by now and it wasn’t cooperating. I didn’t want to be asking about how much healing time I would need to see if I could start scheduling summer plans. I didn’t want to be thinking about more bandages and logistics of care for my daughter while I healed yet again. And I definitely didn’t want to schedule another follow up hoping I would be healed enough then to get answers. I wanted a plan, then and there.

These are the moments that mindfulness brings such beautiful gifts. Many years ago I would have continued to spin and the rest of my day would be consumed with disappointment, but my mindfulness training allowed me to pause. Within a couple of minutes I was able to see these thoughts and how they were affecting me.

Taking a deep breath, I watched the spinning for a moment then asked myself two questions.

First, is this true? Is it true that my body was somehow failing me? That it was keeping me from moving on with my life? It felt very real, and of course, it felt justified. But looking at the situation in front of me without layering on my thoughts, was it true?

No. My body was doing the miraculous work of healing from a major surgery that was intended to remove cancer and give me a life afterwards that would feel safe to me and my daughter. It has been working through surgery, medication side effects and, if I am honest, a life that didn’t allow it the rest it truly needed. It was fighting every day to get back to health and I wasn’t always its best partner.

Second, is there truly anything wrong in this moment? Not the past where I had to walk through my cancer journey. Not the future when I wanted to move past it and get moving on all the plans I had. But right now.

And the answer was, as it often is, no. It was an incredibly beautiful day with the sun shining and perfect temperature of a desert spring day. I was in my car, which is in great condition, and could listen to my favorite music on my drive. I was headed home, a place I love. I was leaving the office of a surgeon who took such wonderful care of me and is incredibly skilled and talented. And most of all—I am cancer free.

As I moved through the process of noticing my thoughts and returning to the moment my frustration settled. I let go of what was, and what I wanted to be, and instead honored what is.

When we practice mindfulness, this is the gift we get. We don’t stop our thoughts. We don’t eliminate all problems. But we have the opportunity to pause before we spiral. We observe what we are thinking and feeling. And we have the choice in how we meet what is there.

Living our lives this way, we get to experience what is true. So often our brains—trying incredibly hard to protect us—see only the negative. It is looking for danger to protect us. When we were running from lions that was incredibly helpful, but when it is about whether I can go on a vacation as planned it isn’t as helpful. These are not equal problems but our brains focus on the negative like they are.

But with mindfulness, we can catch this, and we can choose to look clearer at what is true. It is a practice, but one that brings such gifts each time we do it.

And as the momentum builds, we get to begin choosing how we live.