Learning to be where your feet are...
From the Happiness PhD Project with Jackson Kerchis
Thich Nhat Hanh said – “if you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere.”
This means in each moment – even the seemingly trivial or unimportant ones – there’s an entire ocean of possibility right in front of you. And if you manage to stay in awareness, you can react from a place of choice, seeing all possibility instead of just being swept up in reactivity, worry, or day dreams.
I’ve experienced this many times – including last week.
I was giving a keynote for a group of high school sophomores: I knew they’d be a “tough crowd” but the 7:30am start to hear about some guy talk about happiness on SAT test day meant the crowd left something to be desired.
I thought would be fun to start out by throwing a beach ball around the auditorium and each time they caught the ball they’d shout something that brought them happiness (I thought this was pretty clever).
But when I threw the ball into the seats no one even blinked. It fell to the ground as if nothing happened. I tried this about three more times and the same thing happened: total indifference.
So you can imagine as a speaker (with teachers and principal watching too) I started to freak out — “oh well this is my first time bombing I suppose”.
And at that I tried to get out of my “head” and into my body. I tried to practice being where my feet are. I took a breath and called on inner wisdom to meet the moment.
When in doubt no one can resist a good story.
So I broke into my favorite Zen story from my time living with monks. This got them “on the hook” so to speak. Then I told them how happiness can make them more money and get them better grades (there’s actually data on both these claims). Then I pulled out the speaker equivalent of a sledgehammer (not very sophisticated or elegant but it gets the job done) by gradually building them up to the point were about 75% of the crowd had their arms in the air jumping up and down.
We could feel the energy in the room shift and a big round of applause to end the session.
This lesson, I think, applies to dealing with frustrating airport travel situations, arguments with spouses, unhelpful thought patterns, and more. If you remain open to possibility and stay with the moment you can turn the tide and change course on whatever direction you’re heading.
You could — like I did on my last American Airlines debacle, ask them where to send my fingerprints and blood sample in order to process my delayed flight reimbursement — and turn animosity into humor. You could — in the midst of an argument say “what if we just decided I am wrong and took the next step to move forward?”. You could in a bout of self-doubt or imposter syndrome think of the alternatives to that story or belief.
The gift of mindfulness is increasing our capacity to live in awareness. And you’ll find infinite possibilities in every interaction: miracles are everywhere.
Your happiness nerd,
Jackson
PS — This is the type of lesson I try to convey in my new book, which you should read or listen to. Here’s the link to purchase and here’s a free chapter:
