How well do you live in the present?
There’s that cheesy rhyme: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present. And for all its cheese it’s very useful.
Living in the past - shoulda woulda coulda – can often lead to depression. Worrying about what might happen in the future is guaranteed anxiety.
So why not just stay here?
Our brain is trying to keep us safe, giving us over endless scenarios – up to 80,000 thoughts a day – so that relentless optional talk flits time zones as well as credibility. Our brain is trying to keep us safe, giving us over endless scenarios – up to 80,000 thoughts a day – so that relentless optional talk flits time zones as well as credibility.
Being just here, right now means acceptance and feeling the breeze on your face, the pain in your hip for sitting or running too long, the smell of the leftovers, watching dust settle on a window in a bright flitting piece of light. It can mean sitting with the pain of grieving, realising the happiness you’re feeling won’t last forever, the taste of really good food, or wrestling with a piece of work.
But it’s really living! The other time zones – Aboriginals have 5, so they have more to contend with - are shadows and mirrors. So being fully present is what I think of as real freedom and abundance.
The only other point I’d like to make is that I’ve noticed with clients and myself that the more we stay in the present, the more comfortable we are with ourselves. The practice of checking in with ourselves to see if we are fully present when we come up for air can be life changing.
