Many of us spend our lives lamenting where we have been, focusing on how far we have yet to go. In that relentless quest of remembering and focus on everywhere we “should” be, we have lost the magic of the moment. It is in the exact moment of now that we are creating, living, and breathing life into our future. It is in this exact moment that we are stepping away from our past. It is the opportunity to exist in the space of possibility. People wonder what it means to be in the NOW. It’s about being present to the experience of exactly what is happening NOW in the moment. What is happening in your relationship today with your spouse, your child, your parents, your work? What is happening now inside of you? Are you honoring your soul? Are you honoring your body? Are you experiencing the ordinary moments today? Those moments create the fabric of your life! It’s the sweeping up of the crumbs after your husband, preparing a meal for your children or reading them a bedtime story. It’s the time in the car when you pick up your kids from daycare or school that we approach with disinterest and a mindless lack of attention towards the moment. It’s reading in bed at the end of your day or the act of laying out your clothes for the next day. Your patterns, your everyday life define who you are. Through your routines, through these moments of time we experience in life, we write the story of our lives. Living in the now means paying attention and focusing on exactly what you are doing. If you are driving, drive the car. If you are cooking, cook the meal. We are a society of multi taskers and multi directional thinkers. We have been led to believe that accomplishing 8 things at one time is not only efficient it’s practical.
Having raised 2 sons and worked part and full time during various points of their lives, I was not living in the NOW, I was trying to survive my day. I was rushed, stressed, pissed off sometimes, and just not my Barbie best. I was not showing up to the best of my ability but my approach was reactionary. I was basically trying to survive the day without killing my dogs or causing bodily harm to someone who was not going with the program! What I have since realized is there were so many missed moments for connection, for more kindness, for presence. I was running and responding rather than being mindful and allowing. I was more focused on controlling the outcome than allowing things to happen. I was approaching life from a place of fear instead of faith.
Living in the now is a surrender and knowing that things will unfold exactly as they need to. It’s a faith and belief in positive outcomes. Most people are unable to live in this space because we have been so programmed to approach life from the perspective of fear and separation, the fear that the outcomes of our lives will be negative. We fail to realize the exact element and level of fear energy we put towards an expectation of negativity manifests, mirrors, and gives back negativity. We put the energy out and the Universe sends the echo back. There is no discernment between good or bad outcomes. There is no discernment between victor or victim. If things are not going according to your life plan, pay attention to the thoughts and vibration you are sending out into the universe. Be mindful of your core beliefs about yourself and your life. What you think is insignificant compared to what you truly believe.
For every negative thought about the outcome of a life event, there is an equal opportunity for something positive to occur. We have been conditioned to have a death grip on fear and the what if scenario. Fear causes a level of uncertainty that pushes us to react. If you are worried or stressed, if your brain is stuck on the spin cycle, you are not living in the moment. The question to ask yourself is, what do I have control over right now? Usually the answer is, you have control over yourself and that is it. The more you fear, the more compelled you are to manipulate an outcome. People who are being manipulated to ensure your favorable outcome typically become very resentful, or, you become very emotional when things don’t work out according to your agenda. Unfortunately, we have forgotten that our agendas don’t always align with the agenda of the other person, or organization, or whoever we are trying to manipulate to make ourselves feel better about things. Stress, anxiety and fear take us far away from living in the moment, in the now, because we are too freaked out about all the negative variables to just chill out and allow whatever needs to happen to unfold.
What if everything happening in our lives is just an experience? What if we removed the judgment around all the outcomes? What if we removed the labels of success, failure, good, bad, high or low from the experience of what is happening in our lives right now? What if they are just experiences to help us learn something about ourselves? What if we choose a different path for a day and just live in the now and accept whatever happens and dealt with it? It’s quite possible everyone will survive. It’s quite possible the world will keep spinning and rotating around the sun. It’s quite possible your blood pressure will go down. Maybe for today you can focus on you. Do something that makes you happy. Focus on the latte you are drinking or the rain. Focus on time spent with your kids. Maybe for today or for a few minutes, focus on presence and see if you notice a difference.
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