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presence

Be Here First. You’ll Get There.

“Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.” – Mary Hemingway

Resisting your here and now because you want to be there and then will only create in you more emotional pain. You can eliminate additional, self-caused pain by accepting where you are in time as well as disidentifying from negative thought patterns.

There are times when our present circumstances are annoying. Of course you’d rather be in some future, more pleasant moment, because THEN you won’t be dealing with whatever drama is currently present. Totally understandable. Nevertheless, wanting to escape the present moment only adds to the already uncomfortable situation. For example, you have a job interview to get to but you miss the train so you’re probably going to be late. “FML” status, right? It doesn’t have to be.

Thinking to yourself over and over “I should have left earlier” or “I wish I was on the train” or “I will never get the job now” or “Why can’t I ever get anything right” or “Ugh, if only I never stopped for coffee” or “Ugh, where is the next train!!!??” or whatever other thought of this nature, will only add to the negative feelings you are already experiencing.

So what to do?
Be here now.
Be present with your situation without mentally projecting future outcomes and without blaming yourself or criticizing what is. This doesn’t mean become passive about your life and allow the world to just stomp over you. No. Quite contrary! When you allow yourself to accept whatever the moment is presenting you with, you approach your circumstances in a more peaceful, level headed manner. Instead of adding negative commentary to your already unwanted circumstance, you simply accept that this is where you are right now but it doesn’t define you. Missing the train is your present circumstance, and that’s it. There is no further need to add fuel to this fire with unpleasant thoughts. You accept that you are waiting for the next train and if there is anything else you can do about it, like take a cab for instance, you go ahead and do that. You do what you can do, and if there is nothing else you can do, you allow yourself to experience the truth of your moment without resisting what you can’t control. Breathe. Look around you and admire something beautiful. Take this moment to read or write. Take this moment to appreciate life and find something to be grateful for. If nothing comes up, allow yourself to just be present, breathing, being alive. Becoming frazzled will not solve your problems, instead, it will create additional pain in your life.

The mind will want to project all your worries and fears, but it’s only trying to protect you. It goes into “OMG, I am freaking out” mode because your mind wants your success and so it’s only natural for it to come up with reasons as to why missing the train was a horrible, horrible thing. Thank your mind. It is a tool that is only here to help you! Tell your mind that you appreciate it worrying about your well being and success and that you are going to relax now and breathe.

If anxious thoughts keep coming up, focus on your breath. Don’t attach to them and become identified with them as your ultimate reality. Remember, your mind is only trying to help. Let the thoughts pass like a cloud. Realize that you are not your thoughts. Breathe.
You’re ok.
Be here in this moment.
And from here, surely you will get there.
It starts with here. It starts with this moment.

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Whether Here or There, I Am Still Me

“Wherever you go, there you are”  – Jon Kabat-Zinn

I realize more clearly that no matter where I go, I will follow. And what I mean by this is that I can’t run away from myself. I can change my environment, move away, change jobs, change friends, change partners – but I will still be the same consciousness dealing with the same issues no matter what new circumstance I am in. I can’t run away from myself simply by changing the external world. I must change my internal world first; I must face myself, not run away. If I change myself from the inside, then it will not matter where I am because I will be just fine.

For instance, sometimes I am shy to express myself and I think that if I move where no one knows me, then maybe I can feel less shy to express myself. But then I find myself visiting new places only to find the shyness still present.

Or sometimes I feel awkward about how I look in a bathing suit so I think that maybe if there were less people at the beach I will feel more comfortable. Yet even with very little people at the beach, I still feel awkward.

See? I am externalizing an internal issue. I keep saying things like “When I move, I will feel better” or “When people grow nicer, I will think the world is a better place.” But the more I meditate and experience life, I see that I need to work on my internal issue, not the external world. Sure, having the external conform to my ideals help, but so long as I still have an internal conflict, no matter how perfect everything in the outside world is, my experience will still be distorted by my warped perspective. But better yet, if I build a strong, loving, and accepting internal world for myself, then no matter what is going on in the outside world I will still be peachy! Change, my friends, happens from the inside out.

I need to look in myself and see what is it in ME that I am projecting out into the world – and start by fixing that. One step at a time.
It’s a journey! And even though it may hurt sometimes, the process is so rewarding.

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A Few Words on Conditioning

And so you’re born. Welcome.

You are given a name.
You are placed in the care of people.
These people also have names. They have beliefs, ideas, language, culture, tradition, a level of education, possessions, habits, behaviors and their interpretation of the world.
They teach you the world as it is known to them.
They will teach you how to use your mouth to refer to objects.

Say, “Mama.” 
-Mama
Say, “Dada.”
-Dada.
Say, “Cup”
-Cup.

Next thing you know you can use your biologically developed vocal chords to produce sounds to represent externally perceived objects.
As you age your concepts become more complex.
“My mama is in the market.”
“My dada is reading the newspaper.”
“The cup is on the table.”

You are taught the ideas of the people raising you.
“No! It’s not nice to use your hands to eat. Use the spoon.”
“You have to pray before eating your food, God is watching you.”

You begin to be shaped by the information given to you by those who raised you.

Then you go out into the world. You perceive new people. New places.
These new people have different ideas from those who have raised you.
“What do you mean you have to pray before you eat? There is no such thing as God!”
“Yes there is. My moma and dada told me there is so. I believe them. They wouldn’t lie to me.”

Now you have conflicting ideas.
You are exposed to more modes of thinking. You are exposed to new experiences which you never thought possible.

Everything you engage with at any time is molding you. Changing you. Making you.

Then you realize that you are more than your experiences.
“My mama told me that I am Tom. But is that really who I am?”

You might have a name that was given to you. But that’s just a sound. A sound in which we use to communicate among ourselves in order to reference points in space.
You are not your name.
You are not your beliefs.
You are not the voices in your head.
You are not a label.

You are life.
You are breath.
You are consciousness.

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Life is Now

I used to think that once I got my own place, found the right person, finished school and got the right job, life would start.

I set goals for myself and once I achieve them I quickly turn to myself and say “Ok! Now what?”
I finished school… Ok. Now what?
I found a partner whom I love… Ok. Now what?
I have a nice apartment… Ok. Now what?

There is always this sense of having to do more. Get more. Accomplish more.

Accomplishing my tasks gives me a sense of fulfillment, which is great, but this sense only lasts temporarily and soon enough I am asking myself “now what?” again.

Then I finally realized something profound. I realized that life is here. Life is now.

Life does not start when I accomplish something; It starts when I take my first breath and it will end when I take my last.

I have arrived. I am here and this moment is my life.

I don’t need anything else. I am complete.
In this moment I am whole. There is nothing that I can accomplish to make me more complete because everything that I am, I am when I just breath.

I realized that I am not my name. I am not my car. I am not my house. I am not my possessions. I am not my education. I am not my achievements.
All these things play their function in our world — but when I derive my sense of self from them, I will always feel at lack. I will always feel the need to accomplish more because anything external to me is subject to time and change.
When I rest in the knowledge that “I AM” and my being is sufficient, I no longer need to seek fulfillment in things or in titles because I already am fulfilled.

My life can express itself through different experiences, but it’s not the experiences that define my life. My life defines itself through its presence.

Sometimes I still get lost and captured by identifying myself with the external world and achieving in order to feel at ease and accomplished – but the more I practice just being present the more I realize I am whole now.

I am free now.
I am at peace now.
I am enough now.
Life will not start when I achieve a goal – life IS and will continue to BE here and now.

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