Mr. Rogers and Mindfulness

We finally watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood today.  Wow!  I imagine this is one of those movies that everyone takes something different from.  For me, it was mindfulness.  Fred Rogers struck me as the epitome of mindfulness.  He also came across as someone who cared deeply for other people.  The combination was incredibly powerful.  I'm someone whose mind is always going a mile a minute, and so it's easy to be thinking about something else while I'm still trying to focus on the conversation or task at hand.  This movie provided the impetus to think about staying mindful and in the moment whenever I'm speaking to another human being.  No thinking ahead.  No thinking about something that I need to get done that day. No thinking about politics, God forbid!  Just stay in the moment.

When I think of staying in the moment, my mind immediately goes to Sand Hollow Reservoir, May of 2012 and the Ironman.  The moment that I briefly worried about dying, but instead switched over to staying in the moment, is indelibly etched in my memory.  It will always be the moment for which I appreciate mindfulness the most.  Putting one arm in front of the other, breathing, moving forward, not thinking about "what if I die," although I did allow my mind to think "I hope no one else dies today," was the ultimate in being in the moment.  It got me through the swim that day.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I was mindful and in the moment for the entire race.

In a lot of ways, Kona was the same for me.  As I biked out of town and onto the Queen K Highway my brain wanted me to quit.  I knew that's what my body was telling my mind.  The reality was that I took less than a second to acknowledge the thought, and in the spirit of mindfulness, I let it go, to drift into the sky and onto the lava fields that I was riding through.  I appreciated every moment of that very long and arduous bike ride, except for those few moments when I was scared to death from the crosswinds.  But even during those moments, I let them go, and didn't allow them to cloud my appreciation of the day.

My proudest mindful moment from Kona was my joy for the 75 year old man who finished just ahead of me.  Despite my long journey to get there, for a literal bucket list experience, I believe my joy and happiness to see a 75 year old man finish in front of me defines who I am.  I don't know if any of us can actually be Mr. Rogers, but the movie inspired me to keep trying!