Flexibility and presence of mind !

This is the part three of a five part blog post on Being present .

In my first blog post , I talked about what is the meaning of being present and outlined an important definition.

In my second blog post, I shared some ways to be completely in the moment at in our daily lives . 

Today, we will uncover the second  part of the definition of being present : flexibility .

To recap,

Being present involves:

1) being completely in the moment 

2) being flexible enough to handle the unexpected. 

Reading about flexibility as being an important part of being presence intrigued me. In some way, they seemed opposites of each other. However I soon realised that both complement each other . 

To understand what we mean by flexibility we can visualise a simple game being played. 

Imagine you and two others are playing catch. You stand in a circle and you are player A. There are also players B and C.

The objective of the game is to catch the ball once a person throws it to you. 

B is supposed to throw to C, C to you (A) and you to B. This is the sequence which you all agree to follow.

This goes on for a while , and you settle into the game comfortably. 

Suddenly , B decided to shake things up. Instead of throwing to C, he passes it to you . 

What happens next , depends on where your attention was. Were you present to the game ? Or were you lost in your thoughts as you Knew it wasn't your turn to catch the ball. 

How flexible were you to handle this unexpected twist? Did you catch the ball or did you get a hard knock on your head ? 

The unexpected brings you back to the present. The presence helps you handle the unexpected. That's why they complement each other so beautifully. 

Maybe that's why it's called presence of mind. 

The game of catch is played by all of us many times during the day. We attend numerous meetings , are part of discussions , email exchanges and so on. 

Observe yourself as you go through the day's activities. Does being in the moment help you be more flexible to handle the unexpected ? 

The only way to find out is to try it! For the next few days observe how you are in all your interactions.

In the next blog post, I will share some fun activities to help you build your flexibility.

Stay present, stay flexible