Fully Present
The best writing prompts open worlds of possibilities, generate questions to consider, and prod the writer’s mind into areas previously unexplored. This month’s question, what do we do to stay centered, sure hits all those marks for me. I’ve heard this word “centered” often. Pretty much anyone who pursues spiritual endeavors seems to know what it means to be centered or grounded. Even I, at the very first, thought I had the answer to the question at ready disposal – I go for a walk in Nature.
It didn’t take long for me to think of a myriad other ways that I use to “center” myself. I hug trees, I sing, I pet my pets, I nurture my plants, I finish my to-do list, I do a crossword puzzle or I hit publish on a post. Pretty much anything I accomplish, large or small, gives me a moment of calm open brightness, a fullness of being, a moment of peace. The question then became, do I have to do something to center myself? Is centering something I can achieve just by breathing?
Basic dictionary definitions of “centered” say that to be centered any entity only has to have a center! Do I have a center?
I know about my center of gravity of course. I need to have some idea of where it is when do Tai Chi. This center, however, shifts with each heartbeat, breath, movement or waft of air. It is not possible to keep my center in one place. If I try to stabilize my center of gravity, I feel my stress level shoot up, my body get tense, and my balance lost.
What other centers exist in a human form? How about the center of our power? Where is that, what is that, can it be found and used? Is this what is meant by the spiritualists when they refer to their center? Is being centered the same as being in total control of oneself and ones surroundings?
I thought to ask the internet what it even means to be centered. I was prepared to see very few results, but was instead surprised to find a great many entries. The explanation below encompasses pretty much everything the other entries mentioned:
Isn’t this saying to numb oneself, and to express oneself as a chat bot would? To remain in one place in mind, spirit and body? Are these good things? Sounds like being in a self-imposed prison to me. Like being in a yoga class, which I loathe.
I’ve been cogitating and researching what it means to be centered for hours now. I feel at odds with myself, and have lost sleep over this. I feel like I could be a failure at centering.
But I have many moments in every day of extreme joy, clarity, and positivity. Perhaps I am a natural at centering, and just never knew it.
So, in order to feel good about myself, I’m positing an alternative definition of what it means to be centered.
To be centered one must only be fully oneself, not subject to the whims and pronouncements of others. Free.
Alright, I’ve got this now. I’ll tell you one of the many things I do to feel fully myself. The one thing that takes me to a place that nothing can shake me from, where I feel present in the moment and nowhere else.
I started this little essay with “I take a walk in Nature” which certainly does make me feel calm, happy, and fully myself. But when I really wanna feel powerful, bright, and all me, I add a little something to that.
I get myself to a river bank or shore or hilltop somewhere and I start belting out happy tunes.
Here is one I sang on a river bank just yesterday, and I think it touches on the essence of the question being asked here.
We were only waiting for this moment to be free
This is my entry to the Thoughtful Daily Post community's new initiative, a monthly contest. This month's prompt is:
We all find our center in different ways. Tell us about a practice you have that helps you stay grounded. Bonus points for oddity!
I didn't have photos of my own to use for this post, so I've used those of a fellow Hivean's. Keeping him present, you know?
You have until the end of August to answer this weighty question.
You've packed a lot into it and, as always, you manage to keep me involved from beginning to end, as if you were just on the way with your own story on the subject of "centring", although it's now so far finished with the publish button.
HaHa!, I had to smile when I read that the definition sounded like a chat bot and of course you don't like that at all. Way too slick. Also for me.
To be centred, yes, indeed, that is simply a word that can be used to mean anything and everything.
I thought it was a buzzword and don't use it at all myself because of that. Too much inflation.
This new age movement - it's funny, it's been going on since the 70s, has long since arrived in our country and since I'm always against the trend anyway (out of principle, as a friend recently said), I don't use the term. I even find it silly, but never mind. Anyway, your occupation is not and I enjoyed reading your journey with it. Very entertaining, thank you!
From the realm of Buddhist there is something better, I think, and that is the word "Skilful Spontaneity", look up "Wu-Wei" - very very interesting.
To move through the world with skilful spontaneity, that has my admiration and is perhaps also a permanent goal that I have. I fail regularly, but the ideal is orientation, isn't it.
:))) for sure that centers! LOL
That is perfect. Being fully myself means being spontaneous in actions arising from instantaneous thought, trusting that those thoughts are true. One bit I took out of this essay (thank you for your comment on it, I try to post stuff that doesn't waste anyone's time, and to follow coherent arcs of thought) concerned doubt, that if I have any doubt, I don't act. Centeredness or whatever you call it is certainty, and from certainty comes efficiency and skill. One can dodge each moment skillfully with spontaneity if they are fully present as themselves.
lol something like that. It would take me a few more hours to expound on that, a whole other post.
I often feel like my thoughts have come from other entities; when I think "this plant needs to be pruned," was that my thought, or the plant's? Being fully present includes heightened awareness, connecting to your source of all things.
woo woo! You've gotten me riffing here, and I like it!
HeHe :) Me, too.
I tried to cover up this topic once in this posting.
It is the art of not getting too involved with something and not too little, of doing the task at hand loosely from the hip. When I took the tray full of wobbly coffee cups, full of glasses with drinks across the uneven lawn to the guests at the table, managing to flirt with some, simultaneously noticing raised hands and not spilling a single drop. Such moments are gold. Other days I would look at the tray and try not to spill anything and of course the liquid would flow over.
When I was throwing the bar at a disco, it was similarly instantaneous. I spontaneously handed out free drinks to my guests, handled all kinds of bottles like a virtuoso, danced to the beats, laughed, had fun and was the queen of the bar. I managed to do things that I would otherwise have had to practise. It was the absence of too much concentration on one thing, while at the same time being alert to many things at the same time. Hard to describe.
Oh, one more example. Throwing the ball into the basketball hoop from behind. You mustn't want it too much, then it won't work. You don't care, but not completely. LOL
Yes.
And no. The asian philosophy is really funny, I think. "Fully present" can also mean to be too aware of oneself. Then the opposite happens. As there is also no such thing as "oneself" ("being themselves"). More, like you mentioned it here:
The source is always there, only, it will not let you enter it once you want it too much. HaHa! :D
That's actually a very good advice.
Yes, I have had this experience too, and also as a bartender. Or on a stage. I think we can gather the energies of others, and so heighten our own powers, as long as we don't think about it. When we think, we draw back into ourselves, and lose an important connection that fuels us somehow.
That hits it.
Thought is a good servant but a bad master.
It's true. How a few words can prompt such a myriad of possibilities previously unexplored. My immediate thought when I saw "centred" was the one "grounding". The concept is not a new one and yet it has been almost forgotten. Which is actually the same with centering, is it not? I loved your first choice of photo
Great topic for meditating on. The calm, still center is where the eternal moment exists for the observer, and where the self in the core of the heart can be found as he observes us.
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It has been my pleasure. Hey, did you see I sent you a delegation? I just need to know if I sent it to the right account. Did I?
@owasco...
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@thoughtfulposts ?
@owasco...
Oh! I did see it! Thank you so much!
OK good. Whew! You had me scared there for a minute.
@owasco...
Apologies! That's what happens when you have too many tabs open! Once again... thank you very much for your Delegation. We all know how precious HP is. And knowing you have decided to Delegate some of yours to the community... Well, that means a lot. I hope you have a great rest of your day or night...
I love this in ways I can't describe (you know when you read someone else write something you've been needing? Kinda that)
I think a lot of this kumbaya, at peace with all, be-water shit is used to sell an idea, and to shame people into submission. I still get very guilty when I can't focus on my guided meditation practice. Why can't I be still for a moment? But then, it's not who I am, and those thoughts that steal me away sometimes are toxic, but other times, they're just me. It's this imposed idea of what grounded should be that's got us warring with what our subconscious is telling us. You need to observe this. Think about this. This is beautiful.
PS: I didn't know you did Tai Chi ~ that sounds wicked.
PPS: I sing outdoors, too. Few things as authentic and true to yourself (For some people, ofc) as singing in the open, and baring your soul.
<3 Thank you for this.
Why, thank you for receiving it so well! I can't do new age stuff. I feel downright silly and inept. Not feelings I care to feel often. Especially in yoga classes - I feel like I am doing it all wrong, very stressful. Tai chi is different, it's a lot like dance, and few people are doing it "right" as far as I can tell. It's fantastic exercise. I am stronger, which is something for a little old lady to say.
After the way the supposedly spiritual community embraced the covid incarceration and lined up for their experimental and untested medical "treatment," I lost a great deal of my belief in spirituality as it is being presented to us today. Psychology too. We've been hoodwinked!
Singing anywhere is divine, but singing outside transforms me in a special way. I feel like a bird decorating the soundscape. I become more a part of nature, not less. Afterwards, I can see farther, and hear more, fragrances are more pronounced, the tiniest of flowers draw my attention. It makes me very happy.
Totally! I thought I'd found a decent class recently, but then one class, the teacher kept badgering us to "look more graceful", "be more poised". Needless to say I walked straight outta that one.
It's on my list of things to try out (along with Qi-Gong, though they seem a little similar? From where I'm standing).
100%. I try not to, yet now I can't help, with the new people I meet, wondering who they were during the pandemic. Which side of the barricades they stood on, as it seems of crucial importance. I know what you mean about losing faith in a community, though I hope not in individuals. :)
This is beautiful. <3
Those of us who were not complying with the capricious and harmful dictates of our governments were not allowed to speak. Do you remember that? The collaborators could talk and talk and talk about covid, but if you didn't agree and dared to say something, you were deemed insensitive, conspiracy theorist, domestic terrorist, selfish, and crazy. It's a bit better now, when I discuss it there is often someone surprising in the room who supports me. It is extremely important that we speak up now. People seem a bit more open to hearing it, and must be reminded of how easy it was to get them to turn, hatefully and dangerously, against those of us who were making a different lifestyle choice. This is how we find out who they were during the phony pandemic, and put a tiny glimmer of understanding that they could have chosen to think and act differently into their befuddled brains.
Honestly, I'm worried the only reason people seem more open to listening is that we're out of the obvious red zone, you know? I worry if the tables turned again, they'd be as deaf as they were the first time. Not that that should stop us speaking out of course.
It stuns me, all the aggression and trauma that the past three years have caused. Because many of the collaborators (very apt word, that) won't even think of it as such, but the trauma of being made an outsider and a danger for wanting to protect yourself and your children...that runs deep, and there's no telling how it'll influence the coming years.
I've found that, too, though often in a bit of a phony way. Like my "normie" friends will hear that maybe the vax had side effects and wasn't such a godsend after all, but still end up playing the victim. Now they'll nod and say "yeah they tricked us", but their failure to see it then makes me doubtful about their chances in a future pandemic/catastrophe of this nature...
That tiny thought "they tricked us" is very important for the believers to have. It is a tiny dent in their force field against using simple logic for themselves, instead of following orders from their governments.
It will happen again. Not in the same way of course, that would be too easy for us to identify. Nuclear fallout incarceration, WWIII fervor, I think we are heading to war. Look at how many countries are opposing the US at present. It's all good.
I hope so. I really do. (That they wake up, not that we get to war, obviously)
HaHa! It is still true, this "peace with all" and "be like water", but the selling and the sellers disturb the message and make it seem untrue. By the clumsy way of "me too!". He who does not sell will sell and he who does not buy will buy. ;)
Oh I agree. In theory, they're quite true, just not the way they're packaged. ;)
Hmm
I feel your center has to do with only you and not having anyone maybe to disturb you or do other things. It is basically about you doing something that makes you happy
I really enjoyed your thoughts on the prompt! I think your considerations on what being centered means have a strong center themselves— the kindness of self-love, being true to who we are, and offering ourselves the freedom to let it out. I think singing is extremely stress relieving.
Yes, accomplishing things makes us feel much better as you said... I think that is universal... However, sometimes the most calming things are not structed. You've given me a fair deal of things to consider on the meaning of being centered here.
Thank you for a great read, and for your generous delegation to the community! 💚
I'm happy to be a part!
I think you meant structured, right? Structure, whether it has been imposed by me or by something outside of me, brings in @consciouscat's second type of unbalancing effect - looking ahead, not being in the moment. Timewise structure, for instance. I like to schedule as little as possible because it stresses me out to have to be on time. It's not that I don't like being on time, it's that I don't like hurrying. Hurrying is unbalancing. For me, not for everyone, my grounding has to be something I can do at a moment's notice, preferably on loop.
I find hurrying ungrounding and stressful too! Thanks for the mention =)
Goodness, how did auto-correct do me so dirty! 🤣 Yes structured- or perhaps we can make a new word out of whatever heinous typo that was? hahaha
I deeply relate to this. Personally, I'm a "Have to get ready at 10am for the event at 1pm" kinda person. For this reason, I tend to wait until the last moment to agree to anything that I am not 100% into. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to accept that it is totally okay to say no.
I have a ton of work to do when it comes to honoring myself in this department... Reading the thoughts of people like yourself helps solidify and strengthen my resolve in not creating mental traps for myself. 💚
Yay! 🤗
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Thank you so much! @grindan, that is much appreciated!
'Centred' is one of those words that can mean many things, but I'd say sensible and realistic, not given to flights of fancy, which in a world spinning out of control seems a difficult achievement.
Great writing!