I am not particularly good at ‘living in the moment.’
I spend huge amounts of time thinking about the future.
And not ‘thinking about the future’ like fantasizing about a big farmhouse with a garden full of perfectly weeded heirloom tomatoes.
I mean ‘thinking about the future’ like
I should really get my brakes checked
Do I have enough spinach to make that salad?
I need to do laundry today otherwise I won’t have anything to wear to that dinner party.
Ugh, right?
In those moments when I find myself sitting on a beach in Poland or eating gooseberries in Stockholm or drinking limoncello on a roof in New York – and unaccountably thinking about boring, logistical BS – I say to myself:Be happy in this moment. This moment is your life. Share on X
Hippie as all get out? Yes.
Effective and calming and re-centering for a deeply Type A personality? Also yes.
Do you ever struggle to stay in the moment? How do you deal with that? Do you do or say anything when you’re trying to get out of your head and into your life?
P.S. How to figure out what makes you happy (so you can add more of it to your life)
Oh yes, I'm always a month ahead of myself making lists and so on. Always trying to be in the future. I use the STOP manifesto to help.
Stop whatever you're doing.
Take a few deep breaths
Observe how you feel
Proceed with mindfulness
I have to be so consciously aware of this. I can spend weeks with my head in the sand trying to focus on the little things that, to me, are SO important. I love making lists and feeling productive, but it has taken over my life a few times.
I feel very lucky to have great friends and a boyfriend who are much more "in the moment" than I am, they force me to take a step back and savour things. I don't feel like I want to change the way I am, so I know that I never will – which makes having others around me be spontaneous and in the moment extra essential.
Rachel,
I'd never heard of that – so good!
I have to do this to myself CONSTANTLY. I'm not sure what it is about my brain that refuses to stay put, but as I've gotten older, I put up with that BS less and less. It's honestly why I stopped taking a camera when I travel; I want to be present instead of worrying about the shot. Sometimes I suspect my brain is secretly plotting to kill me with tedium – gotta fight back.
Another blogger I read posted about this today. I think this time of year gets so busy–and we know Christmas is coming and that freaks us out even more. I think we could all stand to take a minute and step back. Doing yoga for the first time yesterday helped me with that.
I highly recommend the short, practical(!) version of Eckhart Tolle's teachings about presence. It's called:
"Practicing the Power of Now"
It's small, portable, and always bring me back down to earth–right here, right now. And it usually helps me realize how happy I am to be wherever it is that I am!
I seem to always struggle to stay in the moment, I just tend to worry and overthink too much!
Thanks for this lovely reminder! Happy weekend xxx
In my quest to stay in the moment, or even notice we were having one, ever, I discovered yoga. The reason I stuck with it all these years is that it is physically impossible to do poses and think about other things and at the end of the class my mind always felt a massive sense of relaxation.
Fast forward a decade and now I teach yoga. And still struggle with living in the moment, every.single.day.
PS – I wish my living in the future was some grandiose place like you mentioned above, but alas, mine is also of the tooth-brushing pedestrian variety.
I need to work on living in the moment, as well. Not my best.
<3 Melissa
wildflwrchild.blogspot.com
Totally awesome! This is me through and through – a constant worrier – even when I am lying in a hammock in the Caribbean. Thanks for the reminder 🙂