I had a friend take me to lunch this week at work.  We continued a dialogue we started about how to stay relaxed and calm no matter what happens.  We talked about not being disturbed at work, but the principles were easily applied to daily living and the biz of you.

Everyone is different.  There are worriers.  There are those that simply do not care.  But, how does a person care without worrying too much?  In our conversation we talked about many techniques including meditation, practicing tai chi for years, focusing on the “now” and some esoteric concepts like stillness which can’t be nailed down with words in any specific manner.  One thing stood out.  Simply focusing on observing or listening with all the senses to what’s happening allows us to connect with our environment and provides an opportunity to focus.  This in turn reduces the mental capacity or bandwidth to worry and fret about what could be or what might happen.

Much of what we stress about is our interaction with others. Observing what’s being communicated instead of being what’s said allows us to move past the surface energy of confrontation and conflict.  Listening to what’s speaking behind the words when confronting someone instead of what’s being said allows us to unravel the knots of tension built up in others as well as ourselves.

Looking past what’s happening to what is driving the interaction can help us better connect to the present situation while simultaneously revealing the essence of what’s going on.  This in turn  enables us to focus on the vital few elements of the situation influencing us.  Coupling this awareness with an understanding of what we can change versus what is out of our control enables us to act. Acting on what we can have influence on and letting go of the rest frees us from regret.  We do what we can in each and every moment.  This short circuits the worry mechanism we use to stew on what happened and what should happen. Doing what we can with what we have available to us is all we can do in each and every moment. Recognizing this, we only do ourselves a disservice by thinking about what could’ve been or what should be.  As indicated in the previous post, we simply need to finish each moment and be done with it, learn and move on.

Take interest in what’s unfolding and not what you think needs to happen and simply observe.  The hard part is to observe without judgment like a child watches something new they haven’t seen before.