Life is for the Birds. Listen.

Being present. This simple, approachable, effortless concept is being touted as the key to everything and anything. Although one thinks this should be accomplished with little effort, being present is also increasingly unattainable for many as we live in a world mediated by a din of diversions that pull us from the present moment and throw us into dredging a past that isn’t relevant or a future that never comes.

As people dwell in these spaces outside of the present moment, they often forge debilitating and damaging neural pathways, manifesting as chronic depression and anxiety. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, in the U.S. alone, over 40 million adults 18 years or older suffer from anxiety disorders, while worldwide 322 million people live with depression. Anxiety is formed through ruminating about a future that doesn’t exist and never arrives, while depression manifests from obsessive thought patterns about the past — it’s done…it’s in the past and there’s no second take, yet the ego clings to certain experiences [often traumatic] and convinces the self that these experiences define the self in perpetuity. Those suffering from depressive trauma become those traumatic experiences and sentence themselves to living those traumas over and over again.

As our capitalistic healthcare system delves into the best way to make money from this human suffering caused by mental illness, alternative approaches are picking up steam. Meditation, once relegated to the realm of mystics and new-age, self-help proprietors, has entered the mainstream in an effort to ease the suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders. Through meditation, humans can be in the present moment, quiet their ego, and get in touch with the power of oneness and divinity that is all of us.

There are several meditation techniques that enable a present consciousness, from mantras, to music, to words softly spoken by modern-day guides — everyone’s ego is different and there are an infinite number of ways to quiet the mind as there are minds to quiet. As a daily practitioner of meditation, I’ve found a concoction of the haunting sounds of Tibetan Singing Bowls, a small dose of cannabis, and a mindful application of kundalini meditation practices enable me to not only get set in the present moment, but also flow into blissful ego dissolution, a state that delivers lasting after effects of mindfulness and tranquility, that both sharpens cognition and softens responses to any difficult situation.

As one builds a mediation practice and relishes in its gifts, it’s common to explore other areas in the day where one can connect with the universal field through being present. One technique I’ve found incredibly effective is with a morning walking mediation.

On most days I take my three dogs for a walk — it is in this daily routine that I’ve found a method of connecting to the present moment, all while juggling three rambunctious hounds on various scent trails. It’s really quite simple. Morning is when the birds are at their most vocal, whether the raucous caw of a Crow or a gentle trill of a delicate, Black-capped Chickadee, each sound is in that moment and when I tune in, my mind turns off and centers on the moment. Staying focused on the sounds around me keeps me in the present and within seconds the connection to the present lights up my chakras and I feel the energy of the universe pull me into Oneness.

Like an ancient chorus of Tibetan Singing Bowls, the sounds of nature pulls one into the Oneness of Creation and being part of the universal love that is everything. We are human BEINGS…so just be.

Try it next time you’re out for a walk and please do send me a message if this resonates with you too.

Listen to the birds. With love.