My Head is in the same place as my Feet

Sober is Better; Part 3

Hello friends and readers. In honor of September being National Recovery Month I offer the following essay. Don’t be scared off by the Sober is Better thing—even though it is. This essay applies to living life in the present. All of us can draw on these experiences and challenges.

I hope you enjoy this goulash of past and present writing.

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At this very moment in time and space I’m sitting at my desk in front of my computer and typing this essay. My head is firmly attached to my body (grateful for that) and my feet are directly beneath me. Physically that’s usually not a problem—aligning my head over my feet. Everyone knows that pure posture is better for your spine. Orthopedics and spine surgeons and chiropractors survive on misaligned spines, closed chakras, and unbalanced meridians. Assuming we’re not suffering from a degenerative disease or damage from a related injury, we can generally do the work on our bodies to bring our heads in line with our feet.

Lining the two up spiritually and mentally is a whole ‘nuther deal entirely.

An overused and misunderstood word in business circles over the last couple of decades is multitasking. There is no such thing. Carey Lohrenz was one of the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilots in Navy history. She is a CEO, board member, business owner, and mother of four kids. She helps business leaders develop focus, execute during times of uncertainty, and compete more effectively. Certainly, she would be considered an expert in the area of executing mission-critical tasks in dynamic, fast-moving environments. She wrote in Forbes in June of 2021 that, What we’re really doing when we multitask is switching back and forth between two or more objects of our attention—we’re task switching. Often, there’s little rhyme or reason for the switching. When we’re task switching, we aren’t fully engaged in anything.

We’re all guilty of it. It doesn’t work. There is little doubt that we currently live in a world that demands attention to multiple things at the same time. We’re overwhelmed by devices and tasks—large and small. Many of us whine constantly about how busy we are.

One of my foundational pet peeves is when I get a response from someone who’s been asked or tasked with a simple follow up or follow through. Sorry—I’ve been sooooo busy. From the student barista to the executive, we’re all heads down—git ‘er dun. So busy. I just don’t know how we find the time to surf and post and like and comment and watch. Sooooo busy.

As I’ve analyzed my own distracted behavior—it’s almost always the ones that are the simplest ones that are the most annoying. The ones I think I can get away with. Half-listening is a big one that I’m working on and getting better at, but…

We’ve all had the conversations with someone where you just know they’re not listening. They’re looking past you—looking down at their damn phone—or thinking hard about what they want to say when you stop. I have an annoying trick that brings them back. I learned it from a guy who did it to me a couple of times. When you’re in the middle of expressing something just stop. Keep looking at them. Just wait. Nine times out of ten the person will look up and say, oh sorry—they’ll pay attention for a minute—and then go right back to looking at their phone.

I just stop. Or walk away.

One of my own frustrating and annoying behaviors is when I’m simply moving too fast for my own good. I’ll be doing some simple tasks like grabbing the salad dressing out of the door of the refrigerator while knowing I need to jump back to the skillet of fish, olive oil, and lemon I have on the burner—and I double back for oh just one more thing to set on the table—and AHHH FUCK OH NO WILLIE!! the dog is underneath my feet and I’m sprawling across the kitchen floor with an arc of blue cheese dressing decorating the far wall and tiny fragments of glass penetrating every tile crack.

As fun as all that is, let’s put aside the mundane discussion of multitasking for now. I’d like to ruminate on the source of the problem. The mind. This morning during my meditation a singular thought kept intruding:

My feet. There it is again.

My feet. Fuck. What?

My feet. What about my feet?

My feet. (you know how some words look really weird when you write them or type them?) My feet.

My takeaway—the message as I interpreted it was—keep your head where your feet are.

Not the first time I’ve heard this. Staying present is the root of spiritual fitness. The now is all we have. From Buddha to Eckhart Tolle to Thich Nhat Hanh to Lao Tzu to Thoreau.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. As Alice Morse Earle said, that’s why it’s called the present.

The message I received this morning is one of what I call BGOs. Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious. Sometimes they’re painful in nature, sometimes more gentle. Always revelatory. As we often say in recovery, more will be revealed. Please God don’t let it always come so suddenly.

I practice this shit.

And yet, here I am typing an essay about staying present, and while doing so, I silently log the simultaneous thoughts that have occurred to me in mere seconds.

I gotta pee. It’s warm in here. Did I kiss Ann goodbye when she left this morning? Luke needs a checkup at the vet. Does anybody give a shit about what I write? I need to call Tom back. That new Jack Carr novel should arrive today. Incoming text. I love this song. Where did I save that picture? Squirrel!!! Stay, Dee, stay. Board meeting tomorrow. A cup of coffee sounds great. Stay. My feet.

Distraction is the standard operating procedure of humans today. It’s a miracle any of us can drive a car from point A to point B. Create new technology. Implement public policy. Manage the budget. Be in a healthy relationship. Teach our kids. Hell, we can’t even keep a cellphone out of their hands past the age of 5. What is it we’re trying to teach them again? Don’t worry—AI will fix everything.

I’ve been reading Leo Babauta for many years. He’s got a cool website named Zen Habits. Check it out if you get a minute. Chock full of activities to help us be more mindful, focused, and simple. The first thing I ever read by him was a whitepaper that he turned into a book called, Focus; a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction. It was early 2016. I had just wound down my tenure and earn-out as a VP with PR Newswire. Uncertain of what my future had in store for me, but 100% sure that I wanted to put back some intention in my work and personal life.

Volunteer? Consult? Freelance? Fuck off for a while? Write?

Combined with my ongoing recovery program, and an ever-increasing acceptance of how God and the Universe were working in my life—I was ripe for a good reading on the subject of focus. Leo’s book provided that. It was the first of many. The ideas of ‘simplicity and getting to the essentials’ planted the seed of a move from the city to the country in May 2016. So much has changed since then.

Besides meditation, my practice these days is to breathe. Pause. Catch myself. Sobriety (and the work of it) has given me the ability to stand still…to be quiet with myself. I can witness the insanity all around me, and within my own mind at times. I can see it for what it is. I can now recognize that all the motion around me doesn’t necessarily have to move me. I can be separate from it. You are not the voice in your mind, but the one who is aware of it. Eckhart Tolle

Mindfulness is big business these days. Some of us are willing to hear the message. Others aren’t so ready yet. Instead, maybe we self-medicate. And it works for a while—until it doesn’t. So, we go to meetings. Or maybe church. We share. We read. We pay our coaches and our healers and our therapists and our psychologists and our physicians. To teach us how to better manage our stress. To help us diagnose what’s eating at us. To help us quiet the crazy. We search for insight. Answers. Fulfillment. Authenticity. Meaning.

One thing to try. Sit quietly and listen. See if anything comes to you. Stay there until something does. Check your feet.

Yup…right down there.

To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Eckhart Tolle