Human Be-ings

DevaTree Blog

Posted By Caila Crawford on May 17, 2013

I remember the first time I saw the truth embedded in being.

Whoa, that’s a crazy sentence. To lighten that up, what I am emphasizing is the fact that the essence of just being is written in the label of our species. I came across this connection and it has truly resonated with me.

I can really relax into this idea. When I see human being written with the ‘Be’ or ‘Being’ emphasized, I have an Ah Ha moment. I notice my diaphragm relaxing, my lungs starting to fill, air entering through my nose, and a blissful state begins to engulf me. I feel productive, solely from the reminder that I am doing something by just being.

This ‘something’ isn’t just anything. To be alive and to take a breath mindfully will forever deserve my gratitude. However, so often I forget to just be, to breathe, and to know that I am doing ‘something’ no matter how small it may be.

This realization created a space for me to draw my attention to. The fact that this felt so major to me, meant that I was deeply craving it in my life. I can be the type of person who is always doing, searching, trying, thinking, talking, contemplating, venturing–trust me, the list is endless. But when my guilt of doing ‘nothing’ dissipates I can sit with myself for a solid amount of time and truly know that it is okay. It is okay to spend time by myself, to lounge around, take a bath, meditate, or read. This list, unlike the former, could use more descriptions without sounding exhaustive.

The other side of being by myself is that I am alone, and it is usually then that I’ll start to feel lonely. When I get uncomfortable with a feeling, I’ll start to do. Just by debating how I will fill this loneliness, I am doing. Maybe I’m thinking of a show to watch, a friend to message, a snack to eat, a memory to keep me occupied. All of a sudden I am not just being.

This is also the beauty of being human–we can have a whole world occur just by sitting alone. The world inside our head is ever present, especially in stillness.

From this I have been able to realize how gentle I must be with my thoughts. I can easily change how I feel about a moment without moving. That’s what is so miraculous about human beings: our action originates first in our minds without any physical change.

So I have realized that I must learn to be by first checking my thoughts. As soon as I think I am lacking something, and that I need something external from myself, I start doing. Usually what I truly need is to sit in the moment, to really feel what I am feeling and to allow myself to be present to what has come up. It isn’t always easy but the more comfortable I get with being with myself, the more comfortable I get at being myself.

When I think of it like that — that we can never be truly alone when we have ourselves, something amazing happens. I become perfectly fine with BEing human.