Free Yourself From Your Mind: A Few Words on Being Present
So much of our thoughts and feeling have become deeply negative and self-destructive.
If you’re like most people, you probably experience bouts of anxiety fairly often. Perhaps you have a short temper and occasionally find yourself getting angry or irritated. Maybe much of your day is filled with dread and misery.
Over time, our thought processes have evolved to become very harmful as the human mind has become addicted to constantly making judgments, speculations, and comparisons. Each of these thoughts only pulls us further away from the present moment, leaving us in pain.
As Eckhart Tolle describes it in his book, The Power of Now, “The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.”
This pain that we all too often experience, and all the negative emotions that come as a result, are derived from our inability to live in the present moment.
Unconsciously, most people live in the past or in the future. Very rarely in the present.
It’s very difficult to live at peace in the present without being interrupted by our own thoughts. The mind is very chaotic and puts strong attention towards everything but the current state of being. The less identification you’re able to maintain with the present moment, the more intense your pain becomes.
Oftentimes, our present moment is fueled by resentment from previous time that was wasted. Sadness comes from feeling that you haven’t led a fulfilling life, or that your best days are simply behind you.
On the contrary, living in the future fills us with fear and drives us to be frantic. Worries about what the future holds and what life has in store for us results in an even greater level of uncontentment and dissatisfaction.
Lao Tzu described this very accurately: “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
The present moment is the key to freeing yourself from the pain that you experience. The ability to live consciously here and now is how we will free ourselves from the self-created negativity that weighs heavy on our shoulders.
To quote Tolle again, “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”
Free yourself from living in the past and learn to stop fixating on the future. The present moment is where you belong.
Take a deep breath. Clear your mind.
This is the present.
