Being Where You Are

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are has gathered dust on my bookshelf for a long while. A few years ago, I read half of it, and then just set it aside: he kept suggesting meditation, and I kept wondering why not just tell me the answers that meditation is supposed to bring?

Now while the title of his book is catchy, it is not the truism one might think. Whenever I think of this title, I think of my daughter, bless her heart. She’s is almost 40 now, so I think she is finally learning, but for the longest she never was where she was. If she was home, she was on the phone with somebody three states away. If she was visiting with me, she was on the phone finding out what was going on at home. You could talk with her and see that her mind was really somewhere else. Now, five husbands later, maybe she is starting to see she needs to be where she is. Such a tragedy that she finds out so late, because she is very intelligent, and down deep inside, has a beautiful soul.

Although my daughter’s malady is probably more pronounced than most, the condition itself is probably not all that uncommon.

This sort of thing can happen in periods of great stress, and we do live in a stressful world. So, perhaps you have found yourself going through a period like this. If not, you almost certainly know someone who has. I have known several people who, when at work, were spending their time thinking about what they were not getting done at home, and when they were home, they were thinking about what they were not getting done at work.

So, I thought it might be good to talk about dealing with this problem. I’ll tell you about a couple of times I have been afflicted with it, and how I got straightened out. While I did not have to resort to any mindfulness techniques to do so, we will end the article with a discussion of such techniques and how they can possibly be helpful.

My Own Experiences

About a year after Vickie and I married, we were besieged with all sorts of mini-crises: our teenage daughter was giving us fits, we were increasingly having to take care of Vickie’s aging parents, and so on. All this came when we were trying to better understand each other and make sure we spent enough quality time together. And, at the same time, I had taken on added responsibilities at work.

So, I often caught myself at work thinking about how to solve a problem at home. And, when I got home, I felt guilty that I had not spent enough time at work, and thought about solving a problem at work.

Clearly, not a good situation to be in. But, fortunately I did not languish in it for long. Then, as now, I was always buying and reading books, and came across Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. God, I needed that book. It was the perfect thing for me at just the right time.

I developed my mission statements, got clear on my roles and responsibilities, and made sure I was devoting sufficient time and energy to each, and that I was being proactive in each.

I lived with those practices for years. Not only did I become good at being where I was, I became a better listener and an all-around better person.

Then, six and a half years ago, Vickie passed away. My mission statement was shattered. My roles no longer meant anything: half of them were tied to Vickie and the other half just seemed to be something I had to do, but could no longer enjoy.

Fortunately I had read David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity a few months earlier. So I began using his techniques to see me through a time when nothing made sense, or mattered, to me. His context-based task system was perfect for me: it kept me focused on the things I could do based on where I was.

So, for me at least, the life management techniques of Stephen Covey and David Allen have been immensely helpful in focusing me on “being where I am.” I suspect they would work just as well for you.

Using Mindfulness Techniques

Recently, via 43folders, I came across a presentation that Dr. Kabat-Zinn gave to several Google employees in 2007 (see below). I think the techniques he describes can be very helpful to anyone suffering from not being where they are. I say I think they can be, because I am not certain: I personally have difficulty implementing the techniques. Chalk it up to my ADD-like personality, perhaps, or to a lack of practice, or to some other cause. I only know that my latest attempt to be “mindful of my breathing” resulted in the following thread of thoughts:

• Me thinking “I am breathing in”
• Simultaneously hearing a tune playing in my head
• Simultaneously thinking “why can’t I shut the tune up?”

And, that’s typical for me. I have tried meditation a few times. The best I can get out of it is a nap. But, it works for millions, as do mindfulness techniques. I wish I could implement these techniques, to help me be more aware of and more appreciative of the now, but I have not yet succeeded with it.

Anyway, if you are interested in such techniques, you may wish to watch the following video. It is about an hour long. I actually watched the whole thing, and thought he brings out some good points. For instance, at one point he says, we only have moments to live. How true. We can only live one moment at a time, and all too often (and I am preaching to me), we do not appreciate that moment for what it truly is, what it truly contains.