1. Three amazing minutes 2. Letting go and going down

1. Three minutes

Do you ever waste time? I do. I spend hours on the computer surfing, perving, playing games, and of course facebook. Do you ever wish time would go faster? If only it would be tomorrow or next week or the baby was born or in school, or all grown up. If only it was Friday or the next party. I have sat down to meditate and instead of meditating, wishing the time was over and I could get on to the next thing. It is so very rare that I am truly totally alive and present.

I am spending a few days at a resort in Wisconsin Dells with a friend. There is an indoor water park and an indoor theme park. Today we went to the theme park. We went on the bumper cars and I had a wonderful time. I loved driving the little cars and avoiding or ramming someone. I wish I could have had the whole floor to myself and gone around and around. As it was I could not believe how long we got to stay on the cars. There weren't that many people and we got to go again. Just for curiosity I asked the attendant how long the ride was. Three minutes!

Then we tried the go-carts. I rode around and around on the right side and no one was ahead of me. My cart had super tight steering and it took all my concentration to keep it going fast around the curves. This was a super long ride. No wonder there was a line. As I exited, exhilarated, I again asked the attendant how long the ride was. Three minutes!

How could that be? How could each second last so long? How could I be so totally in the moment that three minutes felt like fifteen? And how can I attain that degree of awareness in every day life? Suddenly I understood X-treme sports; for when go-carting just won't do.

2. Letting go and going down

Although I loved roller coasters and scary rides when I was young, I had an anxiety attack at the top of a drop about twenty years ago and have not gone on anything with a vertical drop since then. Today I went on a mouse ride, a one car roller coaster. I was very scared of the drop. I did not realize I was looking at the chain drive part that steeply brings the car to the top. We zig and zagged our way down the rails with two short vertical drops. When it was over and I had not died of a heart or anxiety attack I asked why we hadn't gone down the really steep part. It was the uphill. After a while I volunteered that I wanted to go again to desensitize myself about dropping and dropping dead.

Last night I went on a very high water slide on a two person float. I was apprehensive to say the least. I don't like letting go and not having control. I knew that once in the tube, that was it. Did I love it? No. Do I want to do it again? Not really. Will I do it again? Probably, maybe, for sure and surely not.

What have I learned? That the fear of the fear is worse than the experience. I have harbored the fear that if I would ever go on a roller coaster again that I would die. I did not die. I have learned that when circumstances say let go, to let go and let the water or the ride take me down. My crazy brain is not going to kill me.

Many years ago when I learned to meditate, I experienced this moment as eternity. I want to reconnect to that consciousness in my everyday life and not have to wait for a bumper car. I feel ready to try again.