One of the lessons I have learned from being a diabetic and a heart attack survivor is the importance of living for the moment. It’s so easy to become distracted by all the “stuff” of daily life that the dreams and pleasures of each moment get forgotten, or worse, set aside. We no longer live for the present moment because our thoughts get caught up in the next big problem or in rehashing something that happened years ago that we haven’t let go of. Until something comes along, like a heart attack, to remind us that this moment is really all we have, it could be our last, and if we don’t pay attention to it, it will be wasted instead of enjoyed.

As far as heart attacks go, mine was a pretty mild one. But it was enough of a wake-up call to make me want to change. Add diabetes into the mix and I got downright mad at the situation. Because even though I wanted, and still want, to be healthy and make changes and live each moment just for itself, I know I’ve not been very successful at it up to this point.

Why?

Mostly because I was afraid. For the first two years I sat in my house, afraid to do anything in case it triggered another heart attack.

Lesson One: Letting Go of the Future

The first lesson I had to learn was to let go of the future. By that I mean I had to quit worrying about what might happen before it happens. Instead of saying “I’d like to go for a walk, but what happens if I get chest pain out there and can’t make it back home,” I had to retrain myself to say “I will go for a walk today, and now is the perfect time.”

I found that if I was worried about the chest pain, I would sit back down on the couch and not move for the rest of the day. The moment to take action was wasted because I worried about what might happen before it even had a chance to happen.

But, if I accepted that I felt good in that one moment when I decided to go walking, put my shoes on and headed out the door, then I was usually fine. Sure there were, and still are, times that I have to stop and catch my breath, but now I see those moments for the gifts they are as well — a chance to really notice my surroundings.

Lesson Two: Pay Attention to Nature

Do you know what a gift it is to be able to take pleasure in the smell of wild flowers, freshly cut grass, or the river? The sight of ducks playing in the water, or a squirrel jumping from branch to branch? Or the feel of a spring breeze gently caressing your skin? There are days when I could happily spend the whole day just sitting on a rock letting the smells, sights, and feelings of being outside wash over me. My favorite moments are the ones where I am sitting on that rock, and I can take a deep breath and know that for just this one moment in time everything is absolutely perfect in my world. There is no future to worry about, no past to agonize over how I could have done things differently. There is only now, and in this moment everything is exactly as it should be.

Being in nature is a wonderful way to live for the moment. When you take the time to reconnect with nature, whether it’s to take a walk, ride a bike, or just sit on a rock, you realize that all of nature lives for the moment. We humans have got so messed up stressing over the things we can’t control. The best stress-reliever I know is to get outside and really be a part of nature, because at that point you can’t help but be in the moment.

Going back to my example of the walk, I found that no matter how crappy I was feeling at the time, the moment I opened the door and stepped on to the sidewalk, I started feeling better. Even though for the time being I have to trudge through the urban landscape of downtown to get to the green stuff, as long as I could breathe in reasonably clean air and feel the sun on my face, even those moments where I have to deal with people in my space become tolerable. Seeing them rushing about just makes me more grateful that I can choose my moments and what I do with them.

To be continued…