May you be present to each moment today! This newsletter is about the spiritual practice of Living In The Present.
I lived in the same room for my entire college career. In my residence hall(which is another term for dorm), every student’s room was connected to one other student’s room by an adjoining bathroom. The person who you shared a bathroom with was called your suite mate.
Over the course of my college career, I had many suite mates. Some of my suite mates became my closest friends. Others were just really cool people who I chatted with during fire drills at 3:00am. I became friends with every suite mate I had, except one: Nora.
During the year that she was my suite mate, Nora came to my door almost weekly to “discuss” a problem with the bathroom. She had “concerns” about how I hung my towel on my towel rack, how much noise I made when I got toilet paper out of the dispenser, the kind of washcloth I used on and on and suggestions for how I could “do better”. Throughout that school year, I did my best to remember that she was a first year student and was learning how to live on campus.
A few years after Nora was my suite mate, I was in my last year of college. On the first day of the fall semester, I arrived at my afternoon class and parked myself at the front of the classroom. I was chatting with the student next to me when I heard, “Excuse me,” from the back of the room. I looked up and saw Nora making her way to a seat in the middle of the classroom. I hadn’t seen Nora since her first year of college.
Once all of the students had arrived, the professor introduced herself and said, “We have a student in class, Allison, who needs a notetaker. Is anyone interested in taking notes for her?”
Before the professor finished her statement, I heard, “I’ll do it! I can take notes for Allison,” come from the middle of the room.
As I turned my head to see who volunteered, I prayed with everything in me, “Please not Nora. Please let it be anyone but Nora!” When I turned my head all the way around, I saw Nora with her hand up, smiling at me.
I plastered a smile on my face as the professor said, “Nora, talk to Allison after class to get the details. Is that all right with you, Allison?”
I said yes, having absolutely no idea what the appropriate protocol was in this situation.
After class, Nora and I agreed that Nora would photocopy her notes each day and pin them to the cork board on the door to my room.
That evening, I returned to my residence hall to see Nora’s notes pinned to the cork board on my door. I took the notes into my room and read them. One thing was abundantly clear: Nora took excellent notes!! In an instant, I went from being hesitant about having her take notes for me to being grateful.
Midway through the semester, I got to class early one day so I could relax outside. It was a beautiful autumn day in Southern California and I was ready to soak up the warm sunshine. However, about two minutes into my sun soaking activity, I heard, “Hi Allison!”
I looked to my right to see Nora walking towards me. “Hi Nora,” I said.
We chatted for a few minutes and then Nora said, “I bet you were surprised when I volunteered to take notes for you.”
I tried to be as diplomatic as possible. Although Nora had been taking notes for me for the previous six weeks, this was our first in-depth conversation in nearly three years.
“Yeah, I was pretty surprised.”
Nora shook her head, “I know I was an awful suite mate to you when I was a freshman. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make it up to you. So, when the professor announced that you needed a note taker, I jumped at the chance. I know it doesn’t make up for how I treated you, but I hoped it would help you now.”
As surprised as I was when she volunteered to take notes for me six weeks earlier, I was absolutely floored by what she just shared. I had no idea she felt this way.
“Thank you, Nora. I appreciate that.”
Nora went on to explain some of the challenges she faces. After listening to her story, I not only understood Nora better, I had compassion for the 18 year old I met three years earlier and a newfound respect and admiration for the 21 year old who stood before me.
As I went to sleep that evening, I realized that when I was less than thrilled to have Nora take notes for me, I was dwelling in the past rather than being in the present. Dwelling in the past moves us out of alignment with the Divine which can cause us to miss opportunities for love, joy and miracles to occur in our lives.
If I had continued to only see Nora as she was when she was 18, I would have missed the opportunity to experience the support that 21-year-old Nora wanted to give to me. The Divine exists in the present moment, not in our perceptions of the past.
Experiencing the most joy, love, freedom, abundance and grace possible requires us to be fully present to the present moment. When we remain in the present, we remain aligned with love which allows miracles, blessings, synchronicities and yes, notetakers, to flow to us with the ease of love itself.
Love, blessings and purple,
Allison
This practice is adopted from an exercise found in the book, A Course in Miracles. If you need modifications to the practice, scroll down to the section titled Access Notes.
Affirmation For Living In The Present
Everyday this week (or as often as you can), say the following affirmation three times in the morning(or three times at night):
“The past is over. It can touch me not.”
The following modifications are intended to create equal access to the spiritual practice above. These modifications are somewhat general to be as useful as possible to as many people as possible. Please feel free to further tweak the exercise as needed so that you can participate as fully as possible while honoring your body’s needs.
1. If you are nonverbal, nonspeaking or minimally verbal, there are three ways to modify this practice. If you’re unsure of which method to try, try all three and determine which one feels the best to you.
a. If you use an AAC device that has a voice synthesizer, type the affirmation into your device. Close your eyes and have your device speak the affirmation.
b. Close your eyes and say the affirmation in your head.
c. Ask someone to speak the affirmation out loud for you. If you have another person speak the affirmations, ask the person to say your name instead of saying the word ‘me’.
2. If you communicate via sign language, sign the affirmation.
3. If you need a shorter affirmation, you can split the above affirmation into two. One day, say(either out loud or in your mind), “The past is over.” The next day, say(either out loud or in your mind), “The past can touch me not.”
4. If you saying the affirmation three times is not possible, say the affirmation as many times as is healthy for you.
