Being in Your “Now”

By Chessie Roberts

A group that I was in recently was asked why we should be in the moment, in the now. How to get there and how we stay there in our day to day life. Some of the responses were things like “why is this important?” and “it’s too hard”. The one comment that really made me realize that the group was not “getting” the concept was when someone said, “I have to get out of the now to let my mind rest and to stay sane.”

The fact is that staying in your now will do just that. By allowing your mind to rest you will keep your sanity. Think about it, if you are not into what you are doing, who you are with and aware of, where are you at any given moment, you must ask yourself what is going on in your mind? For most people the mind is bouncing back and forth between what you wish you had done, what you feel you should have done in the past, what you are going to do later, how you are going to do it, and with whom in the future.

Because of this unfocused state, what you are doing at the present moment is not done well or correctly. You end up with a job not well done which gives you something to grind on later. Then you grind on it later, while trying to do something else. Do you see the cycle here? This will create stress, fear, apprehension and distress; all leading to some sort of dis-ease in your biology. This thought state also makes time seem to drag out to an uncomfortable duration and this keeps you unhappy in your present, fretful about the consequences of your past actions and apprehensive about future plans.

Now, if you are attending to what you are doing right now, in this minute, you have no agitation or upset. You are focused on ‘right now’. In this way you become consciously aware of the joy of time well spent in purposeful activity. You will be assured that you did your best and you will actually find joy in the moment (because you aren’t worried about all the other stuff) You will notice things that passed you by before because you were distracted. You will enjoy even mundane tasks more because of your focus, and you will not feel spread too thin. These feelings will occur spontaneously because your mind is free of tormenting “wish I had”, “I should have”, “gosh I could have”, “why didn’t I” type thoughts. Nor are you plagued by the “what is next” thing encroaching on your mind and, you find peace.

OM Times Magazine » syndicated