As with many people, I go through times of sleeping well and other times of tossing and turning throughout the night.  I’m into one of those tossing and turning times, for whatever reason.  As I sit this morning and prepare to meditate, I’m aware of the opportunity to be present to my experience without having to judge it as better or worse.  It’s just what it is.  I’m tired and yet I don’t have to make up a dramatic story “about” being tired.  The old me would have begun internally moaning and groaning about how hard the day would be, or how beleaguered I felt about not having slept.  In this moment, as I sit here with the morning the way it is, I find that I can notice I’m sleepy and yet not add anything more to the story.  For sure, I have a preference this morning!  I would much rather be my usual, wide-eyed-and-bushy-tailed self.  But, I find that, beyond the preference, I’m not giving much energy to not having slept.

The reason I mention all this is that the experience is quite different from how I would have been a number of years ago, and offers me an example of how practicing being with what is as it is creates a new muscle, a greater equanimity, a psychological response that I didn’t used to have.  I’m aware, this morning, of the power of not dropping off into any kind of additional thoughts *about* what’s happening and, instead, just encountering the moment as it is and moving along.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to pay attention to the kinds of stories you create in response to the experiences that come your way.  On the most mundane level, for example, when you stub your toe, do you go into a story that says something like, “Oh, I’m so stupid.  I can’t even walk across the room without hurting myself!”, or “Why do these things always happen to me?”  Or, do you stub your toe and tell yourself, “Oh, I just stubbed my toe.  Ouch!”, and that’s the end of it?

Give yourself an opportunity to play with the difference between having experience that just moves through as it is and having experience that then becomes the beginning of a whole train of internal thoughts and reactions.  The first kind of experience happens, leaves its mark or impact, and then moves on into the next experience, or into doing whatever has to be done to cope with what occurred.  The second kind of experience becomes an emotional drama that tends to validate limiting beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world – generally beliefs that we picked up along the way in childhood and that we took in without awareness, as we learn language.  It’s this second kind of experience that tends to keep us stuck in old responses and reactions.  Awareness of this process is a constant invitation to drop into the present moment and let go of the drama we create with our thoughts.