Zen Moment

I had a pretty zen moment the other day, while cutting up a cucumber of all things, and I want to write about it before I forget it!

I have been to many meditation groups, studied mindfulness, understand the value of slowing down, blahblahblah, but these days, I almost never LIVE any of those things. It seems like I am in a chronic state of overwhelm and use any activity that requires a minimum of brain cells to keep thinking about everything else that needs done. I think my memory has gotten so bad that I am worried I will forget things I need to do if I don't keep reviewing them in my head. So my mind is usually awash in internal chatter.

Then the cucumber spoke to me! Well, not really, but I have no idea why I shifted my mindset, so why not credit a vegetable? :) I was doing my usual thing of rushing through the food prep as fast as possible and thinking about what I need to do next, when all of a sudden, it just hit me. All the other stuff will still be there when I am done making my salad. In fact, my rushing will probably not really save me more than a few seconds at best, and maybe not even that if I do something careless in my haste. So I just focused all my attention into cutting up that cuke. I put almost everything else out of my mind. (As "almost" as it gets, anyway, when you have two small children in the house. :p ) And you know what? It felt *good*. Really good.

Now, if I can just hold on to this "aha" and go there more often....