Right now

Sometimes life seems hard.  Damn hard. You know the beauty is out there/in here but you just can’t see/hear/smell/touch/taste it. You can still feel but it hurts.  Everything turns to ash. 

And, no matter how much you sleep, you are simply tired, bone tired – physically, emotionally, spiritually.  And you know it’s only you that can change how you feel, even if you cannot change the physical essence of it.

In the past I would probably have drunk or eaten myself to oblivion, or lost myself in TV or trashy books or cried me a river. Now I just meditate.  Nothing fancy.  Just following the breath.  You know – inhale, exhale. Or rather, inhale – pause – exhale – pause. Sometimes longer; sometimes shorter – just quietly observing where it wants to go; not forcing it; just letting it be. Sometimes for hours and hours. And it’s…beautiful.

Am I suggesting you try it if you’re feeling crap; if life is playing dodgeball with you?  Only if you want.  ‘Oh, I would but I can’t meditate…’  I can hear you, y’know.  *smile*  

Then all I can say is maybe try taking it moment by moment.  Once, years back, when I was in Italy, visiting my dear old friend the Contessa, I was consumed, eaten, gnawed at, by anxiety. It was so overwhelming I thought I would die – every minute.  And she said: ‘Take each moment and ask yourself: “Am I alright now? Am I alright this very second?”’ This very second. And, weirdly, I found I was.  And, if you're really honest, you usually are – sort of.

And if you string each okay moment onto the next okay moment, like links on a chain, you…kinda meditate actually. 

Anyhow, there you go. And there you are. Alright?