I Can See Clearly Now
After spending some time with mindfulness and meditation, I'm starting to feel the payoff of paying attention to what's actually in front of me rather than worrying over what already happened or what might happen next. My perceptions have gotten sharper, closer to the truth of things. I had no idea how much I'd been missing until the fog lifted a little.
The decisions I make now are better ones. Part of me regrets how many years I moved through wearing blinders. These days I don't leap to conclusions nearly as fast, and when I catch myself doing it anyway, I can usually pause before I act on a half-formed idea that I'd regret.
There's a lot to love about emotions. When something good happens, joy can sweep over you so completely that you wonder whether you'll ever feel quite that alive again. In those moments you feel unstoppable, capable of things you never imagined trying. Feeling is what carries us forward and ties us to the people we care about.
They can also get in the way. Strong feelings have a habit of clouding your view. A few of them exist to protect us, which matters most when there's no time to think and you have to trust your gut. But they can also wreck your judgment, leaving you unable to weigh a situation and respond thoughtfully. When an emergency stretches on, the most valuable person in the room is often the one who stays calm.
Assumptions we carry into a moment can even help when the clock is against us and there's no room to deliberate. Other times, reacting too soon, acting on bad judgment or on no judgment at all, only makes things worse. Keep your head, hold off on whatever doesn't truly demand an instant response, and you give yourself room to look, listen, or read what's really going on instead of lashing out from fear or anger or wanting.
I've noticed I read people better now. I can get a sense of what someone else is dealing with, and that lets me be more supportive and less demanding. Not long ago I asked a man to do me a small favor two or three times, even handing him the things he needed. He set them down and kept explaining what he wanted me to help him with instead. He walked out without the stuff, and only then did it click: he was pulled in two directions, both making sure I understood his request and thinking about everything waiting for him once he left. The old me would have stewed over the favor he failed to return while I was helping him. This time I let it go, because I'm fairly sure he never even registered that he'd left the things behind.
Something similar came up on a phone call with a friend. She seemed off, and the conversation didn't flow the way ours usually do. It wasn't until I'd hung up that I recalled a relative had recently moved back in with her. Maybe she was anxious about whether that arrangement would hold, and maybe that was why she couldn't speak as openly as she normally would. I made up my mind to check in with her again and quietly find out if that was the real issue. I also decided to go ahead with a favor I'd been putting off, since she might have more use for it now.
I won't pretend I'm always this patient or this generous. But I do think I'm getting better, and the meditation and the mindfulness are earning their keep. It didn't come fast, though, so don't quit on it.