The Experience of Experiencing

Ah, the meat suit. This amazing, resilient, fragile, messy, compostable clothing the soul dons in order to acquire the senses that allow us to experience the world. Sight. Smell. Taste. Touch. Hear. This is what we’ve come here for.

We assign “good” and “bad” to our sensations, but they’re not inherently good or bad. This is just our soul playing. We smell something and think, “Ew, that makes my eyes water and the corners of my mouth turn down, I don’t like that,” or we touch something and say, “Oh that’s so soft, I love that.” We are here to experience experiencing, the entire range of it from what we love and want more of to what we hope to never experience again.

We’re always having experiences, but it doesn’t always feel that way, does it? Sometimes we plod through our days, numb to feeling, just getting through, maybe evening preferring not to feel. That’s not how we came here to live. 

Mindfulness allows us to recognize what we’re experiencing in each moment. When did you last slow down enough to notice the sensations your body is receiving? 

What if you paused now? What would you notice? 

There is the coolness of the air as it comes into my body through my nose. There is the little itch on my scalp. There, the beautiful melody in my ears from the song playing on my phone, and there yet is the slight discomfort in my ears from the earbuds. My eyes register the harshness of the overhead florescent lights, my bladder the slight pressure as it fills,

We think, and analyze, and try to get it “right,” but there is nothing to get right. There is only to be, to feel, to take it in. 

You take a sip of your too-hot coffee and burn your tongue. Does it ruin your morning? Your soul is rejoicing at the aliveness of it! A cry turns into a laugh, then back into a cry, and your soul is here for all of it. 

We can have these experiences anywhere, everywhere. They are literally around us and ours for the taking in every moment. Yet sometimes when we’re asleep to it, a place can wake us up, shake us out of that analysis, or numbness, or doingness. 

This happened to me recently in the presence of a towering, magnificent tree. I was drawn to it. I sat in silence at the base of it, kicking my sandals off to place my bare feet on its bark and twisted roots. I examined it for a while, tilting my head back, feeling the stretch as I looked all the way up the trunk, then back down. Closer to me, I could see grasshoppers playing amongst the roots, and other bugs camouflaged, almost invisible, against the bark. 

I closed my eyes and felt my feet on the roughness, heard the soft clatter of bamboo shoots swaying behind me, felt the breeze on my skin, moving my hair and tickling through the leaves of the tree. 

In no time, I felt connected again, in tune with a higher power, with myself, plugged in. That moment — so simple, so still — reminded me:

This is it. This is the experience of experiencing.

Not the big highs or dramatic breakthroughs — but this. The rustling leaves. The flow of my own breath. The gentle breeze.

Funny how getting more in tune with the physical body can cultivate connection with the soul. 

Maybe your moment isn’t under a tree. Maybe it’s in the shower, feeling warm water cascading over your body. Maybe it’s in your car, hearing a song that makes you cry unexpectedly, a bubbling over of an entanglement of emotions.

Wherever you are, there’s something waiting to be felt. Your soul came for this.

Stay awhile. Wander. Notice.

Welcome to the playground.