Today has been a dream. I’m house sitting, and at sixty-thirty this morning, I woke up to let my friend’s dog out. The great part? I went back to sleep. Then I woke back up at ten and lay in bed until eleven. This is my life. From there I made a delightful breakfast (chicken and scrambled eggs, avocado, fruit, and coffee), and spent a couple hours reading. Then my friend had groceries delivered (delivered!) for me. Talk about a sweet gig. Sometimes life doesn’t suck. Then I went to town (who says that anymore?) to run errands and ended up having a leisurely lunch/early dinner at a Thai restaurant where I did some more reading.

Have I mentioned I love reading?

This evening I’ve been back at my friend’s house, and now the animals and I are just chilling. The dog is under the coffee table. The cat is between my feet here on the recliner. Earlier, for the first time in a couple weeks, I went back and re-read several of my old blogs. My goal is to get through all of them, and I’m up to #101 as of tonight. #93 was the day I was in a car accident. Gosh, that was a bad day. Now, having come through the entire ordeal, I wish I could go back and tell myself, “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to work out just fine. Not like you think it will, but just fine.” Obviously, I can’t do that. But I can tell myself these things now.

It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to work out just fine. Not like you think it will, but just fine.

Earlier I said that today has been a dream. What I mean is that I haven’t felt rushed, nothing has gone “wrong,” and everything has gone “right.” What’s more, I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve done. More and more, I think this is the way it should be. Er, the way it can be.

A while back I read a book by Les Fehmi called The Open-Focus Brain. I know I say this a lot, but it’s honestly one of the most profound/helpful things I’ve ever read. In short, Fehmi says that the amount of stress and anxiety we feel is directly related to the way that we pay attention. Most of us, he says, focus narrowly–we focus on one thing (our phones, our books, our conversations) to the exclusion of everything else. Our society actually teaches us to do this (Look at me when I’m talking to you! PAY ATTENTION!), but narrowly focusing actually puts us in fight-or-flight mode, and that causes all sorts of problems.

The good news is that we have the ability to focus openly. For example, although I’m currently aware of what I’m thinking and typing, I’m also aware of the ceiling fan spinning above me, the clack of the keyboard, the sound of Stevie Nicks singing, the air conditioner humming, the feel of the cat’s body pressed against my leg, the SPACE between my fingers, and the SPACE in which ALL OF THIS is taking place. Focusing like this apparently shifts one’s system out of fight-or-flight and into “relax” mode. All I can say is that it works. Whenever I focus openly, I feel better. More dreamy. My body breathes a sigh of relief. Sometimes (but not every time), it even lets go of pain.

Fehmi says when it comes to pain, most of us want to ignore it, push it away. But he says pain will often dissolve on its own when we put all our attention on it, fully feel it, and then INCLUDE it in our overall (open-focus) experience. (He has guided meditations to help with this process.) This makes sense to me, that we can hold SPACE for anything that arises in our lives–pain, uncomfortable emotions, difficult thoughts–because we are large enough to do so. Indeed, we’re so much larger than we realize.

And no, I’m not talking about your butt.

A couple times I’ve mentioned today being a dream. Well, get this shit. Last night I had a dream about going to my high school reunion, arguing with my gym teacher, and refusing to pay a total stranger for a necklace he made me (that I didn’t ask him to make in the first place). Anyway, recently I heard that you can dialogue with any character or inanimate object in your dreams, so I tried it. That is, I just imagined what my gym teacher, the total stranger, and even the necklace would say to me if they had the chance. The cool part? They actually said stuff. For example, a piece of gym equipment I “interviewed” said it represented my hips and that it (they) were here to support me.

Isn’t that nice of them?

Maybe this sounds like craziness. You might be thinking, “Marcus, you’re just making that stuff up.” Well, yeah. Am I not qualified to do this? After all, I was the one who made the dream up to begin with. Why can’t I go back “in” and make up more? Regardless, what’s neat is that just like the different “parts” of myself I’ve talked about before (my inner child, my perfectionist, etc.), each “part” in the dream had a specific voice and viewpoint. Furthermore, even the parts that seemed angry at first (like my gym teacher) were ultimately trying to help me, to get my attention in some way.

You’re more of an athlete than you give yourself credit for.

This is one of my big revelations lately, that everything inside me is on my side, that even uncomfortable thoughts and emotions and, yes, physical pain can be my teacher if I let them. I’m not saying this is fun, to go around experiencing everything I’d normally be afraid of, but it’s more fun than pushing all these things away, than pushing myself away, which is what I did for so long. (Incidentally, pushing yourself away isn’t possible.) Plus, I see results. Since doing The Hard Work, I’m more comfortable in my own skin in whatever situation or environment I find myself in. I’m less nervous, less stressed, less anxious. Not that I don’t have freak-out moments, but they dissolve faster than they used to. Stated in positive terms, I’m more at ease, more calm, and more confident. I’m more–what’s the word?–open to both myself and others.