Shifting Views

Cat Pause

by Dale A Evans

I’m quickly doing my morning routine before taking my son to work. We’re picking up his co-worker on the way and were running late. Meanwhile, one of my cats — the one that wakes me up to remember my dreams — rubs against my legs and I start to say something like, “Excuse me! I’m late! Can you please get out from under my feet!” But I pause. And I pet the cat. One, two, three swipes of my hand across his length and it feels blissful! And it took what? About 7 seconds? Seven blissful seconds that I was almost willing to go without because hurrying seemed more important.

The opportunities for blissful moments are abundant and available throughout our day. But we have to be paying attention to be noticing them. Then we have to take the next step of choosing to experience them. These plentiful feelings of bliss are what comprise living a life of bliss, and yet most people put them off in their daily lives, expecting to catch up on them when they’re not so busy or on that vacation each year. But it is not that downtime or the vacation that we remember. It’s the blissful feelings that we allowed ourselves to experience that become the pleasant memories we carry with us. The vacation is just the title of the memory. How often do you sacrifice experiencing bliss?

During my online class “Living Your Bliss Now,” I asked that the participants describe what the first 15 minutes of their day would be like if they were truly living their bliss. Many of them described wonderful surroundings and entirely different lifestyles than what they were living. Oddly, none of them told me what their first fifteen waking minutes would be like.

After doing the exercise again, with the aim of keeping it within fifteen minutes, one woman shared her idea of bliss. She would wake up feeling rested and rejuvenated. Then she would eat a breakfast of fresh fruit salad, a croissant, and coffee at her beautiful table looking out her window to the beautiful scenery. While there, she would plan her day in her mind. Doing some chores for the work she loved, maybe lunching with a friend, or taking in a movie, or working out at the gym. And then she stopped, for she was again moving beyond the fifteen minutes.

I then suggested she could do these things now. She explained that in her visualization a chef had prepared her breakfast. And she had much more money, so she lived in a much more beautiful place. So we decided to explore what parts of this she could incorporate into present. What we came up with was that she could purchase fresh fruit and croissants from the local grocery’s fruit and salad bar and bakery. She could set a timer on her coffee maker to have it brewed when she awoke. The night before she would set out a beautiful plate and mug to use. And from her beautiful dining room table that was once her grandmother’s, she could look out on the oriental maple tree that she loved.

Living your bliss doesn’t have to wait. In fact, waiting for bliss keeps it at a distance. Waiting for it is choosing in the ever-present now to keep your bliss forever elusively in the future. What aspects of your bliss can you choose to have right now?

Dale A Evans is a Personal Reality Coach
and Energy Worker at It All Begins Now.