Wherever you are, it's likely you're not really there
Having the intention to "be here now" will help you arrive
I missed a week posting to Substack. My excuse? I was in Costa Rica on a vacation.
The writing gurus say you’re supposed to write every day, but I chose to sleep-in and chat over coffee every morning with Sandy and our hosts.
Besides, I truly wanted to be in Costa Rica, more specifically in the beach town of Playas Del Coco (AKA Coco Beach). I didn’t want to be physically present but mentally absent, which is a pretty common state of affairs.
On our first full day, the four of us set off for downtown about mid-morning before the full heat of the day. We walked along the side of dusty roads, trying to stay out of the way of speeding scooters and cars, stepping around potholes and dodging the occasional dog.
I was doing my usual self-absorbed thing, slipping in and out of the conversation. I think it’s a key reason that a fellow writer years ago called me “Mr. Non-Sequitor.” One minute, I’m engaged in the chat and then gone. I’ll come back with a comment when everyone has moved on.
It’s like I periodically check out of the world and retreat into my internal world, which I’d like to say is dominated by a keen sense of discernment, great insights, and learned notes to self. Most of the time, however, I’m just worrying.
During our walk on that lovely Costa Rican morning, I fretted about a book proposal that I’m behind on, wondered why I had been such a Nervous Nelly driving to the airport in the snowy dark the day before, and tried to recall if I responded to an email from a prospective coaching client.
As we approached toward the main street, I noticed that a big truck was parked on our road close to the intersection. The truck completely blocked its lane. It seemed like a thoughtless and dangerous place to park a truck.
Then a small beat-up car darted around it, forcing an oncoming car to brake quickly. Then a teenage couple on a sleek motorcycle—without helmets, of course—zoomed past us followed by an older white-haired woman in a souped-up golf cart.
Instinctively, I froze in my tracks, spellbound by the chaos. We waited for a definite break in the traffic, and I stepped warily into the intersection.
“This is like the wild west,” I said to my friend Peter.
“Welcome to Costa Rica,” he said.
I think that’s when I fully arrived in Costa Rica.
As we walked down the main street, I felt the hot sun on my head and back, the sweat on my back of my T-shirt, and the humidity encircling me like a wool blanket.
I willed myself to savour being in shorts and a T-shirt in January and to relish the noise of motorcycles, cars, and the mix of Spanish and English as we traversed the busy sidewalk. My head swivelled as I gazed at the vibrant primary colours that dominated the shop windows and tables laden with local artwork and touristy souvenirs.
I had been looking forward to returning to Costa Rica again—this was my fourth trip—and taking a break. But once there, I had to work at actually being there.
My monkey mind never stops. When I’m working, I work hard to ignore incoming emails or texts. I don’t know how many times I’ve stood on a golf course listening to someone addressing something deathly important—such as the state of the Blue Jays bullpen—while I nod in right the places but thinking, “How do I stop hitting my drives into the boonies?”
Of course, most of my thinking is just plain old worrying about things I gotta do, things I’m not doing, and that I’m probably screwing up whatever I am doing.
Unfortunately, this is our usual state. Our minds jump all over the place like monkeys afraid they’ve eaten their last banana. Our brains are wired for the negative, always searching out danger and threats. Throughout our lives, this wary and reactive state of vigilance keeps us safe—well, most of the time. It is habitual. Like the strategies that I discussed in my last newsletter, this unconscious conditioning works for and against us.
But we needn’t be victims to our conditioning. We can make a choice.
On the main drag in Costa Rica, I worked—as Ram Dass exhorted—to “be here now.”
I wanted to fully absorb what was going on around me, drink in the culture, the smells, the faces and sounds, all of it. I was determined to savour my incredible good fortune to visit Costa Rica and escape the cold for a week.
It’s like meditation in which you intend to focus on your breath. But within seconds, you’re thinking again. You’re likely worrying about something set in the future, or ruminating about something in the past.
It doesn’t mean you’re doing meditation wrong or you’re a bad meditator. (I dispel these kinds of perceptions in my book Getting Unstuck: 7 Transformational Practices for Golf Nerds.) In fact, when you notice that you’re thinking rather than focused on your breath, you’re developing your skill of awareness. In that moment, you simply bring your attention back to your breath, which was your intention.
In Costa Rica, my intention was to “be here now,” and for snippets of time I felt like I was, and much of the time my monkey mind was flying all over the place.
And that’s OK. We’re all human and monkey mind is part of our collective experience.
“Be here now” was great advice and a great book title when Ram Dass published it in 1971, and it’s still great advice.
My book provides seven practices—including meditation—that allow you to increase your awareness so that you can consciously choose how you wish to move your golf—and your life—forward. To order, visit Amazon.
In future newsletters, I will announce details of my upcoming course—Getting Unstuck: Developing Your Feeling of Greatness.
The course will draw on the teaching in my new book and my personal experiences with Moe Norman, regarded as the best ball-striker who ever lived. I wrote The Feeling of Greatness: The Moe Norman Story.
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Engaging with a coach is also an effective way to increase your awareness.
That’s why I’m inviting you the opportunity for a FREE 30-minute coaching call.
During this free session, we’ll discuss:
· What’s happening in your game?
· What are your objectives?
· What specifically makes you feel stuck?
· Identify actions and a plan that you help you get unstuck.
This FREE session will show you how to finally start moving forward.
To register for your free session, send an email to tim@oconnorgolf.ca.
Don’t miss your opportunity to get unstuck and develop your feeling of greatness!
In addition to mental game coaching, I’m coaching golfers again this winter at The Golf House in Guelph. For information on my approach, click here.
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I am lucky to spend my winters in the Caribbean and to be fair to Tim it does take a couple of weeks to be fully present. You know you are when you cannot remember what day it is or care. Cheers!
I read Tim’s thoughts and realize I am OK.