One Thing at a Time

Edge of Time by Interesni Kazki

Inspired by Four Ways of Letting Go, a talk by Ajahn Brahm, part of my current practice is learning how to do one thing at a time. I get overwhelmed easily. When I have things to organize, stuff to get done, when I have a pile of issues to address, or an amalgamation of things that are upsetting me, it’s easy to forget to take a breath. I’m really good at multitasking but when I try to do everything at once, or I have every problems rushing through my head, I can’t focus. I can’t get anything done (or done happily) and all my problems never feel fully resolved. Usually trying to sort out every issue at once makes it worse.

Now, I’m trying to do one thing at a time. Now, I’m trying to think about one thing at a time. If I’m cooking, I’m cooking…and not trying to make a mental grocery list. If I’m showering, I’m showering… and not trying to sort out conflicts in interpersonal relationships. What this really comes down to is mindfulness and I needed to teach myself how to do this in a simple and practical way. I do really well with instruction based actions...so the action of only doing one thing at a time feels simple and memorable enough to work on. This also means carving out time for my own thoughts and emotions. It means giving space to all the problems that I need to sort out. It means giving space to feel anger or sadness fully until I’m ready to move onto something else. Its teaching me to slow down. It’s teaching me to let go. It’s teaching me how to focus. It’s also preventing a lot of potential melt downs. I don’t expect to do this every hour of the day but when I feel overwhelmed or unresolved, that is the time I need to slow down the most. That is when I have to do one thing at a time.