Experiencing vs. Thinking About
by Wendy Grant

When' experiencing' there is a naturalness, a timelessness, a flow and ease to the whole situation whether that is a movement, a conversation, transplanting tomatoes or making soup. Experiencing happens when I let go of the judgment, the planning, the expectation of results; when I 'forget' myself.
'Thinking about' creates a distance, a barrier between the realness of the experience and what one thinks the experience was, is, or will be. Thinking about can never be exactly true-it will always be better, worse, less, more. It will be more about what is in the mind than what is really happening.
As I sat here writing this--thinking about 'thinking about', for a few moments I was just experiencing. Looking out at the rain, hearing the fire in the cookstove, smelling the soup and feeling a sense of comfort and rightness. For those moments the experiencing was complete absorption-and then I started to 'think about' it!
Can we continually experience or is it always an in and out sort of thing? Can 'thinking about' be the experience too?
For me, teaching Yoga is an example of experiencing vs thinking about. Right before a class I am in thinking about mode-how will this go, what will I say, am I good enough, etc, etc. Then the class starts and I am just in it with whoever is
there, with whatever the situation is and without knowing how or when the switch happens I am no longer thinking about what I am going to say or how I am doing. I am just talking, moving, experiencing. This absorbed, dropped into place involves thinking but in an immediate spontaneous way.
Lately I have been saying to myself,' so be there', when I am nervous, afraid, worried or uncomfortable. This seems to be allowing me to move away from 'thinking about' these states towards just experiencing them.