The Gift of the Present Moment

To be or not to be?

Hello, world! Do you ever find yourself dwelling on something you did or said in the past? Or find yourself stuck in a trance of thinking about something you regret or about what someone must think about you because of that one thing you did five years ago? Well, this is obviously normal. Most of us do it.

When we spend most of our time reliving past situations in our heads, we become distant from ourselves. We find ourselves constantly anxious or depressed about what has already happened. When we become so distant from our present selves, we neglect our present state and needs. If you direct most of your attention into things that have already occurred, you further yourself from your very being that can only exist in the present.

It may sound cliché, but living in the moment is one of the most practical forms of self-care that we can practice. When you choose to pay your attention to what currently IS instead of what WAS, you'll find that your fears and worries have little reason or substance. You'll find that there is joy to be found in what is happening right now. There are things to be grateful for right now.

The present moment holds the gift of action––there are things you can do right now that will help you create the outcome that you desire. This gift of action is powerless in the past and future; you can dwell on what you wish you could have done in the past for hours on end, but you can ultimately do nothing about it. The only choice is to learn and move forward.

One method that I use to bring myself into the present is listing some things that I'm grateful for at that very moment. This helps me focus on the abundant good that exists in the present instead of worrying about what I can't control from the past. Another thing that I do is literally touching the physical things around me to help bring myself into the physical world. This is a great way to stop the cycle of overthinking and "get out of my head."

Living in the moment allows us to come more into our being––we are able to feel more alive because we are more in touch with our current livelihood instead of a version of us that no longer exists or doesn't even exist yet. We release worries about the past or the future and come to appreciate everything that IS right now.