Remember Who You Are

Halfway through my morning walk with the dog, I realized I wasn’t even on the walk. I was in my head the whole time. It wasn’t a bad place to be – quite interesting in some ways – but an overarching, intangible part of me started to notice a feeling of dissatisfaction, of dis-ease. So I would reach for more thoughts or urge the dog to, “Come on.”

The dog knew better than me and continued to pause and sniff.

I knew deep inside that that was the more aligned choice: to pause and sniff.

To be still.
To stop reaching.

I stopped walking and let her sniff. While she sniffed, I started to listen to the sounds around me.

There were birds chirping. Each bird had a different chirp, and it came from a different direction.

Layered behind that I could hear the ocean’s soothing roar. Crashing roar and then silence.

Crashing roar and then silence.

I kept listening as I started to move.

I heard my jacket swoosh when I walked,
The dog’s feet on the concrete.

Every time my mind wandered off, I would bring it back by tuning into the sounds.

The practice of mindfulness, of being present, of choosing to be present, is a continuous practice of being reminded to tune back in,

because we forget. We all forget.

When we are reminded, then we remember.

We remember who we are,
where we are,
what we are.

When we remember, then we return.

We return to ourselves,
and to the present moment.

When we return, then we can choose to reconnect.

Reconnect to our breath,
to the sounds,
to our essence.

When we reconnect, then we can recommit.

to ourselves,
to our lives.

When we practice returning to ourselves daily, we are realigning with what is.

Here in what is, be it good or bad, is ease, acceptance, fullness, beauty, and truth.

It’s not so much a matter of getting there,
because we are already there.

It is more a matter of remembering. Remembering we are already there.

You are here. I am here.

The world opens up to us in all its infinite possibility because the question now becomes:

Where will you go from here?