You know how weight loss promoters show people “before” and “after” clients use their methods or products?  Or when there is a house that has been re-vamped and made spectacular?  Well I had a thought this morning about where I am on the “Before and After” continuum and it is here:  I am so in the before of my life that I’m not able to see the after like I used to be able to.  More often than not I run around saying “I know things are going to be really wonderful later, no doubt!!!” and “It’s already wonderful and there are some things that aren’t here yet but I know in the long run they will be.”  But today, just in this moment, I’m showing up in that place of the “before.”

It’s odd because a part of me is feeling a scarcity urge, that “I better make sure I really lean into how it feels here because once I’m in the after, well, I’m going to be hard-pressed to remember what THIS was like” place.   Isn’t that funny?  Like the before that does become your past is something you want to hold on to!  That is hilarious.  We do all this introspection, psychological and spiritual work around our “before’s” and then something comes alongside it when it is getting “right –sized” and says, “Not so fast!!! You better not forget about ME!!!!”  As if we could.

All I can say is that I think I’ve come up with more evidence (like we need any more!!!) for the rapturous wonder of the present moment.  There’s no before or after in this place.  No tugging for attention from “before”, who’s saying. Don’t forget me!!!  You need me!!!  I made you who you are, after all!”  or from “after” saying “It’s so good to be here, so good to be away from before.  Before was soooooo yesterday and soooooo hard.   In rapturous presence all that is true resides in this amazing quiet knowing.  Right here I’m in the ok of all that is.  No polarities of right or wrong, good or bad.  Present moment of loved and loving, worthy and honoring, blessed and alive, spectacular even.  I wonder, how many present moments can I stand?  How about you?