Present-Minded Somewhere Else

I love this quip by the famous psychologist (and mystic) William James, defending a distractible friend: “He’s not absent-minded. He’s just present-minded somewhere else.”

Design by our friends at The Muse Collaborative

The mind travels, imagines, future-proofs. Thank you, mind, for figuring out advanced calculus, penicillin and haikus. The thing is, the mind travels so well, and so frequently, that we often don’t even realize it. We think we’re paying attention to what’s in front of us, when, in fact, a big chunk of our attention is elsewhere.

Do you know where your mind goes? 

As we get better at noticing where it goes, we also get better at deciding if that’s where we want it to stay.

So: let’s explore. In a relaxed way.

Jeff

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THIS WEEK ON THE MIND BOD ADVENTURE POD

This week’s guest is Casper ter Kuile, author of the excellent The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Rituals into Soulful Practices. Casper is passionate about spreading the goodness of ritual. In his guided practice, we read a line from the first Harry Potter book, and then respond from ever-deeper layers. This is text as a mirror, a way to explore who and how we are.