Despite having read about this 'mode of being' distinction months ago, which temporarily changed my life for the better (incredibly!), I've noticed that I've been slowly sucked back into Everyday mode of being as I navigate the second biggest transition of my life, moving to Athens, especially when something goes wrong. I don't want to live in Everyday Mode. I don't want to get flustered when it takes me 30 minutes to print my Statistics homework in Dawnson Hall, or when my textbooks from Amazon Prime get lost in the mail. Those are negligible hiccups that don't matter in the grand scheme of things. I want to do what ever it is I need to, and move on, without dwelling or obsessing. As my favorite Buddhist Monk, Ajan Brahm claims, "when it comes to dealing with obstacles, thinking about it is hard, dealing with it is easy."
I want to live in in touch, as often as possible, with the miracle of my life and all I have to be grateful for, like my health, my families and friends, being where I want to be in my life, on track for a doctoral degree, with great training in EMDR, family therapy, private practice and being a fully frequent Spanish-speaker. I want to intentionally dedicate more time to being peaceful, responding mindfully (instead of anxious mindless reacting, apparently my mind's default mode if I let it run the show), trusting that Life is giving me what I need in any given moment, no matter how frustrating a situation viscerally feels. This is includes responding compassionately when I realized Everyday mode pulled me back, and firmly, resolutely yet gently bring myself into Ontological mode of being so I can brush off "the little things" and keep in mind the big picture.
27 years and 5 months of life experience have taught me that being committed to Ontological Mode is not enough. I need to create a detailed blueprint of specific changes I would like to make. My life experience has taught me as well that I can't be too ambitious here. I need a challenging, yet achievable stars toward this goal. So what's my plan?
Practicing mindful meditation twice a day, from 5 to 45 minutes each time, at my own discretion, depending on how much time I have and that fully-heartedly commit to without feeling too pushed. I give myself the liberty to alternate between purely mindfulness meditation, gratitude meditation, observing thoughts and/or feelings, using an anchor like the breath, a body scan, etc. This consistency overtime will help me remain more meta to my own mind, so I can watch my mindless reactions (the pull of everyday mode), without reacting, breaking the pattern intentionally and consciously. Here I can directly practice Brent Atkinson's "Canned Attitude" approach with couples, only apply the new desired thoughts and behaviors to my relationship to myself!
I know that writing about this will help me make these changes. After all, what kind of person would I be writing about making all these exciting changes without actually doing them?! The cognitive dissonance would be too extreme to commit such contradiction.
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