40 Days of Peace Day Twenty Eight
The Present is a Present
This moment is a gift…
This moment is everything, there is nothing more, nothing less.
We’ve all seen the quotes and heard this message before. Living in the present helps us live our best lives. Or coarse, this is a practice, and easier said than done.
Watching my nieces at play everyday, I witness the experience of living in the present moment. The girls are rarely concerned with tomorrows schedule or what comes next. They are content to be in this moment, enjoying this time, however it is spent. They get lost in play and time only matters when one of us tells them about time, whether its 5 minutes to bedtime or 10 minutes to supper…
My four year old niece, Naomi, understands time on a different level than my one year old niece, Mabel. Naomi knows what family date night is and she looks forward to it every week! She expects it. She gets excited about it. If anything throws off family date night, she’s going to experience some emotions around it.
At 19 months, Mabel doesn’t understand time yet. She is happy to be in the moment and just goes with the flow. She’s also happy to play with her moms shoes and to pull the clothes out of the dryer with us. She gets excited about any new activity and reminds me of how it must feel to stay present in the moment all the time. I watch her so free and think, this is why Jesus told us to stay childlike. To stay present in the moment and experience it as a gift.
Image by Doug Neal
I’m quite the dreamer, which can be a gift and a curse, as all gifts are. I have big dreams about what I want to create with my life but I’ll be honest, I feel the most flow and abundance, and experience miracles, when I stop thinking about what I want to create and I am in the moment creating. When I release my thoughts about my past (how I could have done things differently… what happened to me… what I “lost”) I can easily feel heavy. Of coarse I would feel heavy.. all those illusions of what could have been are not truths, they are lies and they weigh a ton.
If my mind begins to wonder down the path of my past, I come to my awareness by saying what I’m grateful for RIGHT NOW. I start listing things in my head or in my journal, and before long I am right back in my body, in the moment, and I always come to see that I am exactly where I am meant to be, and I am happy for it! All the moments before this moment allowed this moment to happen. It is a gift! That is why they call it the present!
Hope is a beautiful thing with wings made of dreams. I stay hopeful, full of dreams, but getting lost in hopes and dreams holds me back from the joy of THIS MOMENT. We must also stay grounded in order to fulfill our dreams.
“It is precisely the fact that human beings have awareness, which makes it so hard for us to live in the present moment. Why? Because we have a choice. Animals have a different kind of consciousness, they are entirely in their bodies. Our awareness changes as we grow older. In that journey we stop being in our bodies, as we were as children, and begin occupying our heads.
Human psychology has evolved to live in the past and the future, rather than the present moment. While other species have physical bodily instincts and reflexes to help with their survival, our survival now relies more on learning, strategy and planning. We have forgotten to trust the earth’s abundance for our survival”-Maia Mires
We can learn from our past without staying in the past. I don’t like the world failure, as it usually brings along its pals shame and guilt. All of these words keep us stuck in a negative space. Regretting a choice we made, instead of feeling ashamed of a “mistake” allows us to learn from our past, to heal and find grounding in the present moment without self loathing. Sometimes shame keeps us stuck and we may make the same choice again, out of self hate, instead of self love. But if we regret a choice, perhaps we can see where we could make a different choice in the future, out of self love.
If we are afraid of the future we can easily get stuck in worry and anxiety can cripple us, stealing our present moment. It’s reported that one in five adults take a form of anti anxiety or depression medication. I’m not judging, I’ve been there, done that. And I found my way out of it, which is why I am on my current path. I know that life without medications is not only possible, its a beautiful gift that I give thanks for EVERY single day of my life.
“When we have fear about what the future holds, we can bury our heads in the sand or we can act upon them and do what needs to be done, in a balanced way. To some degree we require this uncomfortable feeling that urges us forward into the future. But a lot of the time it becomes chronic fear, and deep down its all our very old programming around our fear for survival that is stored from the deepest regions limbic and reptilian brains, and within our DNA, our ancestral wounds.
To the human mind, time is viewed as continuous and linear process. As it is one continuous flow, every present moment is already past and we are in the future. We tend to organize moments so they are states, rather than continuous flows.
If we were more aware of the continuous nature of time, we might be more able to let go of our more difficult states of consciousness, and resist labelling them. We like to organize our experiences into labels so we can understand them, but this actually takes us away from being in the present and actually experiencing the state, as not just one thing, but rich and full of many different facets of experience.
We know from research that when we can let go of our pervasive, negative thoughts and just observe our thoughts and emotions, we are much happier. Meditation and mindfulness research clearly shows that our happiness levels come down to not worrying.”-Maia Mires
Part of my healing from abuse was telling my story over and over, one detail at a time; writing it, speaking it, crying it out… I spoke it over and over until my words started to take the power away from my abuser and give it back to me. If I could remain in the present moment and separate the words from the past, I could take my power back. It didn’t mean it didn’t happen and it didn’t hurt me… but I started to see that it was in my past and it didn’t have to define me and steal my present.
There are still triggers and I’m actually working with new healing tools that rewire the brain and the neurological system to heal the wiring of my brain that was broken from abuse and the addiction that followed. But I’ve come a long way by using the tools of gratitude and staying present in the moment, through breath, long baths, yoga, walks in nature and meditation.
I remind myself that my highest joy comes when I am sweet Sarah, the child that I knew before abuse, before the world tried to stifle my creativity and gifts. When I am free and time doesn’t exist.. when I am fully present.. I am not only the most joy-filled… I am the most creative and purposeful in this life.
When I stay in my flow, my needs are always met..and I experience miracles in abundance. I allow Creator to flow through me.. to create and shine Light and Love to all who I meet.
Nature dances and supports me! I am free. I am love! This moment is a gift!
Exhale all worry, inhale divine love and peace.
This moment is ours and it is enough.
Remember who you are and why you are here…
You are DIVINE, created with a divine purpose.
When we are fully present in the moment, without regrets of our past or fears of our future, we are open to allowing God our Creator to flow fully and completely in and through us! We become instruments and full expressions of the Divine.
Here are 3 affirmations for us to practice today:
(from The Artist’s Way)
1. I am a channel for God’s creativity, and my work comes to good.
2. My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.
3. As I create and listen, I will be led
Be still and Listen
BE BRAVE AND BELIEVE
Don’t worry, be happy.. this moment is a gift and Creator wants us to have faith and live in joy, just as a child. We are here to play, to love, to enjoy and to share our gifts in a good way.
Fear not, I am with you… always.
Shams of Tabriz’s 40 Rules of Love
