If you haven't read the previous blog about the Present Moment, please do so. Because this blog is a continuation of that subject.
But first, I received an email from a reader last night who asked about my closing sentence of the blog: "When you can say yes to the moment at hand, and make it your friend no matter HOW it shows up, you will experience a freedom you have never imagined." She wanted to know what that 'freedom' would look/feel like.
It feels like joy, laughter and creativity. It feels like life is fun and easy, even when unpredictable. It feels like you can't stop smiling.
NOW let's look at two other ways we rob ourselves of the present moment. They are called Past and Future. And they exist only in our minds. Any moment that your mind is focused on the past or the future, you are not experiencing NOW. All right, don't get your pantaloons in a twist. Yes. Our lives do require some planning for the future. And yes the past can be useful as a tool, a reference for what worked and what didn't. AND, remembering good times, good people, good experiences can be fun. Just be aware that experiencing good times in the present is more fun and more rewarding than reliving the past.
So yes, there are those few exceptions where we use our memories of time gone by, and our imagination of times to come in positive ways. Much more often though Past and Future are our tormenters. The past is most often called to mind in the forms of regret, resentment, anger, judgment, and disappointment. Dragging those feelings into the NOW does two things. First, it releases the poison of those emotions into your mind and body again. Second it obliterates your experience of the present moment. The only good reason to drag those emotions/states into the present is to work on releasing them.
When your mind and body are focused on remembered pain and suffering, you cannot experience the beauty and joy that is waiting for you in THIS moment. Same thing with future tripping. When our minds conjure pictures of the future, it is most often in the forms of worry, fear, anxiety, unease, trepidation. We imagine all kinds of disagreeable or abhorrent possibilities that VERY likely will NEVER come to pass. Yet we experience the pain and suffering of some imagined/illusory future right here in the present! How crazy is that!! Think about all the times you have made yourself anxious, scared, nervous, stressed out over a mental fabrication of something that never had life in the NOW!
The present moment is our friend, and we are our own worst enemies! We steal our own opportunity for joy and creativity and instead make ourselves sick with incessant trips to Past and Future. You can put an end to this insanity.
Let the past be the past. If you are harboring resentments, regrets, disappointments - do the work to let them go. You deserve to be free of them.
Plan for the future only as much as is necessary. The future gets built in the present. It is your relationship to the present that creates your future. Can you embrace the present regardless of how it shows up? When your answer becomes yes, you become a mastermind of the good life.
So consider this. When you argue with what is, you lose. Every time. What is, already is. It cannot be changed. The only thing that is changeable is YOUR relationship to what is. What you resist, persists. It has to because you are giving energy to it. When you cease resisting, and move into acceptance (which is the only sane approach to what already is), you create the possibility for something different to show up next. Accept what is and imagine the next best thing you want to bring into being.
Have you asked yourself today: "What is my relationship to this moment?"
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