The Art of Being Present: How to Stop Worrying about Then or When

Do you find yourself worrying about things that you did in the past?

Do you worry about how your life is going to be in the future?

Does it distract you from what you are doing now, today?

In the busy lives we’ve created for ourselves it has become an art to remain present and live in the moment. To truly greet each day and only think about what is happening on that day, as well as being open to everyone and everything around us.

We spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the future and wallowing in the past – or even chastising ourselves about the past and fantasising about the future! And when we do this, it can put us in an overwhelmed or anxious state, making it harder to bring ourselves back to the present moment.  

By being distracted by either the past or the future, we rob ourselves of time in the here and now. We wish our lives away quite literally by thinking over the past and wishing we could change it, or what we want from our imagined future. And when we do this, we miss what is right in front of us: the people, the place, and the shared experience.

“The present moment is the only moment available to us and it is the door to all other moment.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

For me personally, I realised that whenever I found myself in a situation I was not enjoying, or wasn’t what I hoped for or expected, I would drift off, disassociating myself from the present life and living in a fantasy one inside my head. I would disconnect from the present moment entirely.

This is a form of escapism. When I was young it enabled me to survive a painful childhood, but once grown up I continued this pattern of behaviour resulting in me feeling like I was standing on the outside of my life, desperately wanting to be a part of it, but believing that I didn’t belong, which only perpetuated the cycle of disconnection.

I didn’t know how to be present, how to step into the life around me and find it satisfying and rewarding. But over the course of several years in therapy I started to work it out; I started to understand how I could change my way of thinking and start engaging in my own life.

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” – Abraham Maslow

These are the things I started doing:

1) Reducing Expectations

I talked in a previous post about how reducing expectations can enable us to enjoy events, and social interactions better. It also applies to the present moment. By not expecting or wanting a different outcome, and not fearing a repetition of the past, we can experience the here and now as it is, without any preconceived ideas, embracing the moments as they unfold.

2) Feeling Appreciation

I started a habit of appreciation. Some call this ‘living in gratitude’ and connect it to following religious faith, but it has no religious connotations for me, it is simply seeing the things I have around me, right there in that moment, on that day, and enjoying them and recognising how much I have in my life to be happy about.

3) Active Listening

This is the act of being present with people. It requires making eye contact, and taking the time to actually hear what someone else is saying. Registering it both physically and verbally, and engaging in a conversation, without being distracted either by other things, or other thoughts. Giving yourself over fully in that moment to the interaction you are having with another. Besides my own post about it this article on Changing Minds also explains how to go about it in more detail. 

4) Recognising the Power of Choice

I recognised I had a choice, both about how I chose to look at things, and in what I chose to do about them – even if that meant only changing my reaction rather than a physical action. I decided I was not a victim of my past, I was here now, and I could take steps to achieve the things I wanted, no matter how small, today. I could focus everyday on what I could do in that moment to bring about my future desires.

All of these things help me remain present. I still struggle with it some days, when I become overwhelmed by all the things I have to do to take care of my family, and all the things I want to achieve for myself. But I remind myself I don’t have to do it all today. I bring myself back to the day by noticing something as small as a flower in the garden, or a bird in a tree, or a cloud in the sky, and taking the time to see it, smell it, hear it, and feel that day, be in that moment, and not anywhere else in my mind.

“In the present, when we allow ourselves to fully live there, we are restored, made wiser, made deeper and happier.”- Marianne Williamson

The Four Agreements We All Need to Be in Agreement With

I came across these four agreement, which were written by Don Miguel Ruiz, in his book The Four Agreements. They help clarify the ideals we should all strive for, in our own thinking as much as in our actions. It is one of six books in The Toltect Wisdom Series, and there is a website dedicated to them.

The Four Agreements

Be Impeccable With Your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

 

Don’t Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

 

Don’t Make Assumptions: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

 

Always Do Your Best: Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

 

Overcoming Overwhelm: Learning how to do it all, one thing at a time

Do you have days where you struggle to keep your mind on the task at hand?

Are you always thinking about the next thing you have to do and feeling anxious about it?

Do you feel exhausted at the end of the day but feel you haven’t done anything?

Feeling overwhelmed is common in today’s world. We live busy lives, trying to achieve a lot in a small amount of time. We juggle several things at once, like a job, raising a family, managing a home, and all that that entails.

Being overwhelmed often shows up in a physical form under the header of Stress. It manifests to varying degrees in a number of symptoms, such as anxiety, anger, frustration, insomnia, even depression.

It is particularly prevalent in those of us with busy or ‘noisy’ minds, who struggle to stop thinking about all the things we feel must get done today! Or who have overactive imaginations that insist on playing out all the ‘what if’ scenarios.

“There is nothing in this world that can trouble you as much as your own mind.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

When I moved to a foreign country to be with my husband, I suffered insomnia every night for six months prior to the move date. I would wake up at 3am and not be able to get back to sleep. Once my mind was awake and thinking about what was ahead of me, I couldn’t get it to rest again. The only thing I could do was get up, have a drink of water and sit and watch telly until I felt tired enough to fall asleep again. I was so overwhelmed by the thoughts of living in a foreign language and culture, and wondering how I would survive there, as well as being a city girl moving to a village. And after moving, the struggles and frustrations I went through trying to settle here continued to overwhelm me, despite trying to appear happy and satisfying everyone’s expectations of me – including my own.

Overwhelm can be a reaction to feelings that we aren’t able to express properly, either because we don’t have the time, or because we don’t want to feel them. If we don’t give ourselves proper time to process something, or we take on more than we are capable of we can become overwhelmed. We continue pushing ourselves to do more, to be more, and tell ourselves we are fine, when often we aren’t.

For me it resulted in a breakdown. My inability to express myself and share my feelings without fear of upsetting or disappointing those around me, coupled with feeling completely unsupported, meant I became lost in a negative spiral of thoughts and emotions which eventually shut me down. I felt powerless to change my feelings or my situation, and disappeared into a black hole in my head.

Fortunately though, I had enough clarity to seek help in the form of a therapist.

Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place. – Robin Lee

I learnt to deal with one thing at a time, rather than tackle everything together. I learnt how to break my feelings down and look at them separately, identifying those that I needed to work with more than others.

I learnt to not look too far ahead and focus on the short term instead, to look at what I could do today, or this year, and deal with situations as they arose, rather than try and anticipate them all in advance.

I learnt how I could look at the things I struggled with differently, from a new perspective, and find a way that would help me accept and see that I still had power in the form of choices. And step by step I managed to start moving forward again, reassessing my priorities and focusing on one thing at a time, one feeling at a time, and one task at a time.

I slowed everything down.

I learnt to stop focusing so much on the big picture, and potential future outcome, and focus on the here and now.

“The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.” – Thich Naht Hanh

I still have times that I find myself overwhelmed, and in those moments I ask myself what things I want to achieve today. I prioritise them, often by writing a list with the most important thing first. Then I strike everything below the top one and focus on that. I set aside specific time for it rather than try and squash it in between everything else. And when I focus on that one step I reduce the anxiety, and in turn the feeling of being overwhelmed. And often I then feel like I have achieved something and taken a step forward.  

“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” – Timber Hawkeye

Do you experience overwhelm? How do you deal with it, what works for you? I’d love to hear.

Believing in Yourself: What It Can Do For You

Do you hear people say ‘believe in yourself’ and find it cliché?

Have you ever asked yourself if you do believe in yourself?

What was your response?

The saying ‘believe in yourself’ is a typical positive motivation saying, meant to encourage and give an individual new resolve and confidence to step forward and reach for their dreams. 

It trips off the tongue easily, and sounds simple and succinct, but is it? 

For those of us who are often filled with self-doubt, it is not.

“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.” - Honore de Balzac

It can be a struggle to believe we are capable, or that we will succeed. We doubt whether we can trust ourselves, or depend on ourselves to bring what is needed. We ask ourselves, if no one else has faith in us, why should we? And we fill our minds with evidence to support this by reminding ourselves of the myriad of times we have failed – overwhelming ourselves with those thoughts until we decide we are not worth taking the risk on, telling ourselves we are not dependable, we can’t be relied upon and are not worthy of support.

It sounds strange when you read like that, doesn’t it? It sounds like we are against ourselves - but by not believing in ourselves, in effect we are! 

We are the ones telling ourselves all of these negative things. We are the ones stopping ourselves, before we have even started. If someone else told us we were not reliable, dependable, or worth it, we would be upset, wouldn’t we? So why are we telling ourselves that? Why are we hurting ourselves?
So how do we do start and stay believing in ourselves, what’s the trick? 

“Believing in others is easy. It’s believing in yourself that’s the real challenge.”- Giuseppe Bianco

Putting this blog post together has taken me longer than I expected, because when I asked myself what actions or advice I would give to maintain self-belief, I realised that I am still working on it myself - daily.

I suffer from self-doubt regularly, which arises from my own internal dialogue. Often I am working against myself in the chatter inside my head, so that is where we need to begin.
 
“What you tell yourself everyday will either lift you up or tear you down” – Heather K Jones

We need to focus on changing our internal dialogue, and become conscious of what we are saying to ourselves. And sometimes, even more than just the dialogue, we need to change the perception we have of ourselves. We need to look at exactly what the facts are about what we bring to the world, and what unique gifts we have, and change how we view ourselves.

“Confidence is something you create within yourself by believing who you are.” - Simone Biles. 

I looked at my life and saw what I did bring; what I achieved on a day to day basis: caring for my family (children, husband, and house), interaction with friends. I would see I was caring, loving, respectful, loyal and trustworthy. I allowed myself to be positive about who I was and who I wanted to be. I liked myself. I decided I was worth it. I looked at the truth of the things I was saying to myself, and found them to be false. 

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha

Often the things I was thinking about myself came from someone else’s perception of me. I would then ask myself whether they were true or not, and what I actually thought about myself.

When we start changing our dialogue and our view of ourselves, we can start to see how much we have to give - not just to others, but to ourselves. We can relax in who we are and feel comfortable. We can be self-assured. We no longer have to look externally to be validated; we can validate ourselves, and build our own inner security. 

“You are what you believe yourself to be.” Paul Coelho

Pushing through Fear: How to Deal with Uncertainty

Do you find yourself procrastinating about doing things?

Are you scared to put yourself out there?

Are you scared about the future?

Fear is a concept that everyone understands, and covers a wide variety of situations across many topics. But what is fear and how do we deal with fear?

On its own it is less an emotion and more of a reaction to a perceived threat, which results in emotions like anxiety, panic and even anger.

It often has a physical reaction associated with it, such as shaking, sweating, even throwing up, which is better known as the ‘Fight or Flight’ response.

Fear can paralyse you physically, mentally and emotionally, and on occasion shut you down entirely.

“Don’t let your fear of what could happen make nothing happen.” - Doe Zantamata
 
Many fears that affect our day to day lives are based on ‘what if’ scenarios we run in our heads. We’re scared of what we did before, we’re scared of what we might do in the future, and we’re scared of what we are doing today. It can put up many barriers in how we function, and stop us reaching for the things we want in our life.

When trying to change our lives and ourselves some of the fears we may encounter are: 

• Fear of facing past hurt
• Fear of repeating past behaviours/events
• Fear of change
• Fear of the unknown
• Uncertainty

In some respects they all feed into each other - fear of change is also a fear of the unknown, or something that is not familiar to us, and we become uncertain.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are ways to combat these fears.

When dealing with the fear of facing things from the past that have hurt, I try and rationalise them. I ask myself, what will happen if I think about this or talk about this? The answer is that I’ll feel that pain again, or experience those feelings again. 

But I remind myself that the event is past, I am not experiencing it again; it is only the memory of the event. And how much meaning I have given that memory will result in how it affects me in the present moment.

Often letting something out will release its power. If I say it out loud it can be like hearing it for the first time, or from a different viewpoint. Or if I write it down, it’s like reading it for the first time and seeing it in black and white. It reveals another truth.

Many times there are other factors in the event that you haven’t seen before, but are revealed through this process. You can then look at the entire event differently and change the meaning of it. You can update the thoughts and emotions you have about it (as described in my previous post Backtracking Thoughts and Emotions). 

By doing this you reduce and change the emotional response you have to it when you think about it.

When those past hurts are trapped in your head, they keep going round and round, and you end up persecuting yourself. Once you let them out, whether spoken or written  - or both -  you stop that and form a new way of dealing with them, allowing you to move forward, and not be immobilised by them anymore.

“What you fear will not go away by constantly thinking about it. It will go away when you see it for what it is.” - Anon

When dealing with fear about change or the unknown, I inform myself. I find out as much as I can by either talking to others who have experienced what I’m going through, or reading about those who have, in books or on the internet. 

In many cases I feel reassured by finding others that others have gone through similar experiences and changes and come out the other side successfully. It enables me to see that it’s possible and it gives me the confidence to step forward out of my own comfort zone and take the risk too.

A comfort zone is an area you create and live in that is comfortable, where you don’t have to take any risks that might make you have to confront your fears or experience your emotions. A comfort zone is full of everything that is familiar and patterns of behaviour you can be sure of  -  whether good or bad. If you stay in that comfort zone you don’t have to challenge yourself, open up, or make any changes. But it also means you won’t more forward from the place you are at, either physically or mentally.

“If you don’t get uncomfortable leaving your comfort zone, then you haven’t really left it.” - Tim Brownson

In some ways staying in the comfort zone is more risky than trying to push through your fears, because within that zone you’re more likely to repeat past negative behaviours and recreate situations you don’t want, rather than bring about what you do want.

It is only by opening yourself up and facing your fears, and pushing through them that you can move forward and make progress.

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” - Jim Morrison

When dealing with uncertainty about whether to take a step toward or not I tend to use the ‘worst case scenario’ tactic. I ask myself, realistically what is the worst thing that can happen if I do this? I would start with the very extreme negative outcome and work my way back to a more rational realistic outcome.

For example, if I express myself to that person, what is the worst thing they will do? Hit me? Scream at me? And how likely is that?

Often it is not likely, so then I can work back to what would be, and realise that what I thought was so terrifying wasn’t anymore.

This can be a handy tactic with anxiety or angst about many things, physical or emotional.

But your ability to overcome your fears is not just about how you deal with them, it is also about how much you want to overcome them, and that desire comes down to whether you believe in yourself or not.

“Self-esteem and self-love are the opposites of fear; the more you like yourself, the less you fear anything.” — Brian Tracy