Coffee Awareness - Kick Ass Style

I realized this morning how delighted I have become with my coffee. When did this happen? The process of grinding the beans, measuring, the unfiltered aroma arising, yes, I am definitely hooked. And then it happened, I am at work, anticipating the excitement and find that I do not have enough product to make two substantial cups!

Kicking Horse Coffee, Invermere BC

In our daily lives, we encounter these bumps in the road constantly. We have an early morning meeting and find that we haven’t planned enough travel time or there’s an unexpected hold-up in traffic. We arrive at a course we’ve signed up for and find that we’ve left our “mandatory” receipt and workbook on the kitchen counter. You know what I’m talking about, we’ve all experienced it.

All these incidents give us an opportunity to practise our awareness skills. How are we going to manoeuver the unexpected? If we are able to navigate and find our way without drama and major ceremony, we come to a new habit. We arrive with a new understanding, a new behaviour, a new pattern. 

How we feel after this incident is up to us. We can adopt our new learning or we can discard it. We can embrace the next unexpected or have the adult version of a 2 year old's tantrum and cross our arms, sulk, or withdraw. We can choose to continue to be a victim of the unanticipated or not.

Regardless of how well we prepare ourselves for life’s events. Stuff happens. This is the time when our practise of mindfulness, yoga, stepping back and calm benefit us most. We are our habits. And if we choose to not take things too seriously, and let things unfold as they may, we will save ourselves mountains of frustrations and grief. Not easy but doable.

Take a deep breath now and ask yourself, was your last unexpected incident something that will impact your life tomorrow, next week, next month or next year? Most of you will say NO! because most of us live well and blessed lives. Then please take another breath, and gently move on. But remember that each small learning gives us the muscle that will come in handy when a true unavoidable crisis or catastrophe occurs.

If you are still wondering about my lack of coffee product this morning, this is how this tiny episode turned out. The awareness that came to light is that the value of my coffee experience comes from the ritual and the anticipation. So what I did was make 2 smaller cups, received my usual 2 hits of  "Kick Ass" joy and smiled all morning.

Leave a comment and let us know the tricks you use and the tools you have learned in those unexpected moments.