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MY SUNDAY JOURNAL
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
6-30-02

 EXPERIENCE THE EXPERIENCE

 There several hot books out now about living in the now. Nothing is more important to our mental and spiritual health.

Way back in the early years of my journal I started gathering tidbits of thought on living in the now. It all started when I did my first "meditation walk."

I found it difficult to be there. I kept thinking of what I "should" be doing. I had a job to go to and needed to get ready for it. But the person who urged me to start doing meditation walks urged me to "be present to the world around me as I walked instead of mulling over problems."

It took several walks before I could center myself in the moment, or experience the experience. In time I learned not to think about it, but to simply experience it.

I began to notice that the more I experienced the experience, the more energy I got from it. I was better equipped to enter the scheduled activities of my day that if I had spent the entire walk thinking about the day ahead.

Crawl inside the bubble of the experience you are having now. You will be surprised at the lift you get.

HANDLING ANGER

Vernon Howard has been one of my most important life teachers. He taught me a technique for handling anger.

I inherited a pretty good temper from my father. It created problems for me. Blowing up in people's faces will always create problems.

One day, in one of Vernon's tiny booklets I read this: "Make a list of all the ways you've tried to end anger. Now tear it up. If they could have worked, they would have worked. Now that you've run out of your methods, open yourself to your Inner Power."

Strangely, when I realized I had no power over anger and realized I needed help, and opened to it, it came.

I've been to several AA meetings with a friend who has had a lifelong battle with the bottle. It always give me a spiritual transfusion.  They often talk about "your Higher Power." We do have one and when we reach the end of our human, personal power, we are open to it. And it comes.