The Bigger Question

As I was sitting with foils on my head — looking like I was trying to communicate with aliens — I saw an older woman pacing through the lobby of the salon. Her daughter was sitting contentedly, reading a book. They kept speaking to each other in Spanish, shifting to English with ease whenever they talked to the women who worked there.

Even with the language barrier, I could tell there was agitation. So I asked if everything was okay. The daughter mentioned that her mother was frustrated because the person taking care of her wasn't ready yet.

It seemed like the woman was in a hurry, so I asked her if she was.

She said, "No. I'm just impatient."

Her daughter and I both laughed a little. Within just a few minutes of arriving, the older woman had already gone up to the desk asking if maybe she should reschedule. Big feelings were building fast. Finally the stylist came out to take her back, and the daughter and I had a chance to talk.

She shared that her mother was retired. Nowhere to go. But always in a hurry to get there. Always looking to be somewhere she wasn't. Even at coffee with dear friends, she'd stand up ten minutes in, put on her purse, and start walking toward the door.

The daughter told me she used to be exactly the same way. That it seemed to be a trait she'd learned from her mother. But over time, she'd begun to slow herself down and be present to where she was.

I know this feeling. I have lived most of my life the exact same way — and never really knew it until I began to understand what presence truly feels like.

Feel the Bottoms of Your Feet

Years ago, my mentor taught me something so simple it almost seemed silly. She asked me on a call if I could feel the bottoms of my feet.

That was it. Just that question.

I was always so amazed by how present she was in our conversations. Never looking at notifications. Never distracted by anything. My own distractions were constantly mounting, pulling me away from wherever I was. And then she asked me that one question, and it brought me right back into my body.

I've come back to it over and over again. And years later, I'm now being told the very thing I used to tell her for — that I'm so present. My own ability to sit exactly where I am and just be there.

But it's a constant practice. It's not innate for me. It's something I have to keep remembering. Keep noticing. Keep choosing.

Even as I write this, I notice how many things my mind drifts to. What needs to be done today. What needs to happen this week. How often I'm finishing one thing just to start the next. Always in motion. Retired from my business with nowhere to go — and still in a hurry to get there.

Just like the woman in the salon.

Where Is There?

I was on a call with a client recently who was telling me how excited he was. He could feel he was on the edge of something big. That he was almost there.

He'd been saying this for a while. And I could feel the excitement in him. But I also knew there was only one way he'd actually arrive.

So I asked him: "Where is there?"

That question didn't come from me originally. It came from a client years ago during a healing retreat. She had always been striving, pushing, reaching for some future point that was amorphous and undefined. She finally sat with the question — where is there? — and began to understand something that changed everything for her.

SPOILER: There is no there. There is only here.

The Man on the Midnight Train

I just finished a book by my favorite author, Matt Haig. It's called The Midnight Train — a follow-up to The Midnight Library, which I loved so completely I gave it to all of my friends.

It's about a man who dies and finds himself on a train. He's transformed into a younger version of himself — at the time in his life when he was happiest. And the story takes him through every phase of his life, from his youngest years to his death.

The heartbreak of it is this: he never really lived his life. He was always working. Striving. Pushing. Forcing. Doing. And in doing all of that, he pushed everything he loved out of his life. He was always trying to get somewhere else instead of being where he was.