When the Eckhart Tolle’s book, “The Power of Now” came out a handful of years ago, I so resisted reading it.  It just seemed to “book du jour” to me.  E V E R Y O N E was talking about it from Oprah to people I sponsor in 12-step programs to random people on the street.  In fact, a couple of friends who I admire from two different areas of my life even gave me the book to read and it still took me 1/2 a year or more to get around to it.

I don’t remember now, but  have probably written about it in previous posts, when I actually picked up the book and read it but HAZZA  almost upon the first few sentences I was struck by the energy that came through the words that Eckhart had written.  I totally related to the example of when an emergency happens how everything slows down and you are so in the moment during that time (ask me about being in the moment as I woke up from a drunken stupor to see my car heading off of an overpass….).

Needless to say, this book and the teachings—or re-teachings of what we already know–have stayed with me.

I’ve been thinking today about how we humans seem to enjoy freaking ourselves out about stuff.  Like the whole pandemonium that is going on around 2012 and OCCUPY Wall Street, etc. etc. etc.  When I contemplate these reactions and how sometimes we only seem to get in the moment when the sky is falling then I realize that really, really what is happening underneath it all is we’re just searching for the NOW. The What IS.  The connection to ????? (insert the G-word here?)

I found out today that someone I knew from way back in high school days had just learned on a seemingly routine annual exam that she has a rare aggressive form of cancer.  This is a gal who had her ups and downs in childhood (as many of us did) but by and large had a whole lot of really great things going on throughout her life and BOOM there it is. The Now factor.  What we’re all searching for sans the cancer.  And I got blown into NOW by my heart because I immediately felt the tears coming up with a love that I hadn’t realized that I felt for this friend. Not that deeply.  It was nice albeit painful.  We played telephone tag today but I felt the connection with her in our voice mails.  Once again I’m being reminded to pause and be alive.  To feel the love that circles in and around and throughout all of our lives that we tend to swat off like an irritating swarm of gnats who dare to bug us in our busy days.

I’m amazed today when I hear someone tell me “I’m bored”.  I totally cannot grok what they are saying and quite frankly I have no interest in pursuing why.  There is just so much to explore and learn and experience that if we spend the rest of our lives being alive in the now of that we will never realize them all.  Being bored is boring?!?! And self-centered. Hello, yes I’ve been this person (a bored person) and I bet I was pretty boring to all around me in my self-absorption.

Being in the now can be scary because you might think about something that you’ve been denying or you might realize something that you don’t want to accept or God forbid you would feel feelings that you’d rather not feel…but here’s the deal…when we allow ourselves to be in the N O W, then we can take down our neurotic staircase to avoidance.  And clean up what we don’t want in our lives so we can allow in what we do want.

How will you allow yourself to be in the N O W, now?