Living in the Present Moment

Lately I’ve been trying to associate less so with my thoughts and more so with the present moment. This has caused a bit of a standstill with regards to my writing, as I feel my writing is largely influenced by the thoughts that run through my mind.

I notice that when I’m identifying so much with my thoughts, I am unable to live life fully and completely. Instead of experiencing each moment, I’m constantly analyzing what I think the moment “means” and how it relates to my past or future experiences.

The process of clearing my mind and basking in the space that this creates has been extremely cathartic for me because I’ve realized just how much I tie my sense of self to the constant chaos that’s going on inside. It’s hard to pay attention to the external world when the majority of my energy is directed towards what’s going on internally.

But, through time, I’ve realized that the barrier between internal and external is more fluid than concrete. In a way, my internal world determines my external reality. The way I view people and situations are really a reflection of my own mind and everything that’s going on inside. I used to think that external events were “happening to me” when really I’ve always had control of how I chose to interpret them.

Maybe the external world is not something that I can control, but I can choose how I see it. I can choose to see it in a negative light when so-called “negative” things happen and the same with these so-called “positive” things, or I can step back from these labels and just take everything as a learning experience. Nothing is negative or positive. They just are.

Stepping back from these value judgements allows me to live in a state of acceptance. I realize that there is more underneath the surface that I cannot understand fully and trust that everything that’s meant to happen will happen. Everything that I used to hold onto in the past, regarding difficult family situations or trauma, has made me who I am now. It is not positive or negative, but rather it is the path that I was meant to go on in some way.

I realize that, in the future, I will likely experience more times that are not easy, but I feel at peace with that. And honestly, there’s no use in thinking or worrying about the future at all because I can only control my response to the present moment.

These past few weeks, I’ve been working with teenagers who struggle with mental illness, trauma, and substance abuse. Spending a lot of time with them, I’ve realized that the root of a lot of their problems is their over identification with their thought patterns, constant rumination, and inability to deal with emotions without over-intellectualizing them. I see a lot of my self in these kids, especially how I was as a teenager, and it’s interesting to be able to have a more mature outlook on their situations.

Underneath it all, they all think far too much. But I don’t think this is only a problem for struggling teens. I think this is a problem for many of us in our daily lives. We all think too much at times. Or maybe we’re afraid of the dark thoughts that may pop up so we live in a constant state of distraction. We drown out these thoughts with overstimulation and push them down further and further. But the issue is that pushing them down won’t make them go away. They’re just pushed deeper into our subconscious mind and become a dense cluster of confusion and chaos overtime.

Eventually they will need to reach the surface if we want to be free. Otherwise, we will continue to carry mental baggage for the rest of our lives and be influenced by thoughts from the past that are no longer serving us without even realizing it.

Something that helps clear out this baggage is meditation. I know a lot of people may say that they’re not good at it, they can’t clear their minds, or that it’s really difficult to sit still for extended periods of time, but unfortunately, there are no shortcuts when it comes to our own mental evolution. We can choose to make excuses and prolong the process, or we can choose to sit through whatever has been underneath the surface for years and, little by little, let go of what has been holding us back.

Eventually, we’ll all reach a point of mental clarity. It won’t be so hard to exist fully in the present moment instead of always dwelling on the past, worrying about the future, or avoiding the present with constant need for distraction and overstimulation. Getting to this point will free our minds from that which no longer serves and allow us to manifest the lives we truly deserve.