Do you often find yourself lost in thought, disconnected from what is happening in your immediate awareness? Do you live on autopilot?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being constantly consumed in thought makes us unhappy and unfulfilled. The obvious solution is being present. According to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, the key to living in the present moment is acceptance. When you accept the Now the way it is, your incessant thinking will subside as you’ll stop constantly wishing what could be, or ruminating about how things were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article, we\u2019re going to talk about how to stay in the present moment<\/a>, and how it will impact your life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Living in the present moment will not change your external circumstances.<\/strong> In fact, life consists of cycles of success and failure<\/a>; each one is a necessary precedent of the other. These cycles can last from a few hours to years, and are part of the inevitable impermanence of everything in life. (There are also cycles of highs and lows when it comes to your physical energy, productivity, and creativity.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you are present, you must accept the lows as much as the highs as part of the reality of the Now.<\/strong> Why fight a cycle that is inevitable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the pain you experience is self-inflicted because you\u2019re not accepting the reality of the present moment. The circumstances of your life \u2014 your \u201clife situation\u201d \u2014 can be unpleasant, but begrudging them does nothing to change the situation. When you resist the Now you are only creating negativity and unhappiness for yourself<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you feel resistance and negativity build in you, observe it. Put your attention on it, acknowledge it, and then drop it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is true that external circumstances in your life can create challenges for you, but they are merely \u201csituations\u201d unless\/until you start labeling<\/a> them as \u201cproblems.\u201d Rather than resisting the present because it can be unpleasant or painful, try to stop labeling things as good or bad<\/strong> and instead accept it as reality, as part of the cycle of highs and lows. Judging a present moment and circumstances as bad will make you want to resist it, which in itself will cause more pain. If you accept it as it is, then you can work with it (more on this later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: It can be hard to make this argument to people who are dealing with real hardship. It might be more palatable to frame it by saying that presence and acceptance allow you to better deal with hardships<\/a>, rather than succumb to them mentally and create added negativity around a situation you either can\u2019t or haven\u2019t yet changed. Presence, then, gives you more mental and psychological capacity to improve external challenges.<\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are resisting some aspect of what exists in the Now, your focus is on how you wish the situation could be, or how it might improve later. You are not present. Presence requires accepting what is \u2014 or surrendering to the Now \u2014 without judgment. <\/strong>(We\u2019ll talk more about surrender in the next section.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Examples of judgment are thinking, \u201cI wish I were doing something besides working on this report right now,\u201d or \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m stuck in this long line at the post office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even judging something as good (e.g. \u201cI\u2019m having a great day\u201d or \u201cThis is going to be my best work yet\u201d) creates a mindset of classifying things as either good or bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Acceptance and presence are the only way to get through a difficult (or any) situation in life.<\/strong> You can\u2019t go around it (avoidance) or go backward (time travel<\/a>), so you must go through it, moment by moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Engaging only with each moment \u2014 and not with the past and future \u2014 allows you to break down problems to a more manageable size. When you isolate problems to just the present moment, you start to see that most problems only exist in the context of time<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You may find clarity<\/a> and context by asking yourself, \u201cIf everything stayed the way it is at this exact moment, would I be OK?\u201d<\/strong> (Shortform note: You can relate this to the adage, “This too shall pass.” If you’re only taking life moment by moment, nothing is beyond what you can handle.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine you are walking along a path while it is pitch dark and very foggy, but you have a flashlight that illuminates enough space in front of you that you can make your way forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many people have a negative connotation of surrender, associating it with passively tolerating a situation without taking further action. However, surrendering to the Now means to stop fighting the flow of life and to accept the reality of the Now<\/strong>; only then can you take productive, positive action forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In any undesirable situation you have three choices:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n These first two options involve action. Any action is typically better than none \u2014 either it improves the situation, or it is a mistake that you learn from, which is still ultimately benefiting you.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re resisting taking action, ask yourself whether it\u2019s out of fear. If so, observe the fear and be present with it<\/strong>; don\u2019t judge or analyze it. Once you\u2019ve acknowledged and accepted that fear, then you can decide your best next step. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There may be something you could <\/em>do but aren\u2019t doing, perhaps out of laziness. If this is the case, decide whether you are going to take action, or accept and embrace your laziness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you can\u2019t change or leave a situation, you may be forced to accept it forever, or at least until things change and you can take another action later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are in an unpleasant or undesirable life situation, your first step is to acknowledge and accept the reality of this moment, because you can\u2019t change what already exists in the Now.<\/strong> If you resist or deny the reality of the present, you\u2019re stuck wishing it were something else. That not only creates pain and negative energy (as we discussed earlier), but also prevents you from being able to move forward or make change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes planning your next steps will be the only action you can take in the Now. If so, be careful not to get caught in mental projections of the future (psychological time<\/a>). Instead of focusing on the myriad things you may have to do in the future, focus on the one thing you can do now, in each moment<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If there\u2019s nothing you can do, surrender; accept it without resistance. Often you may find that circumstances change on their own, or as the book says, \u201cLife becomes helpful and cooperative.\u201d (Shortform note: This is comparable to the notion in The Alchemist<\/em> that as you follow the call of the Universe, the Universe will help you on your path<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have explained why you must surrender to both the good and the bad in life in order to be present and access inner peace, but dealing with money problems or a job you don\u2019t like is one thing. How do you accept extreme situations like chronic illness or suffering? Although the circumstances are more difficult, the process is essentially the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like life problems, illness needs the context of past and future to exist. In each isolated moment of the Now, you only experience symptoms \u2014 physical pain, weakness, discomfort, or disability<\/strong> \u2014 not the entire illness. Accepting an illness can be overwhelming, but if you surrender to the existence of symptoms, you can be present and transform your experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform example, if you deal with chronic migraines, you can choose to experience your migraine one of two ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Surrendering to the present won\u2019t make the migraine go away, but it will alter your experience of it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do not surrender to the idea of illness. Since illness needs the context of past and future (otherwise it is reduced to symptoms), it engages your ego<\/a> and takes you out of the present.<\/strong> Making an identity out of being sick does nothing to help you, it just keeps your focus on the unpleasantness and suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do not feel you\u2019ve done anything wrong to cause your illness. Do not feel guilty for it, do not blame yourself. Also do not blame life for cursing you with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you find yourself feeling defensive or upset by this, reflect on whether you may have taken on this illness as part of your identity. If so, your ego may be reacting to this questioning of your supposed identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes reality is so painful \u2014 like when you lose a loved one \u2014 that it\u2019s too difficult to accept initially. But you always have two chances at surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you recognize and accept these negative emotions, you are less likely to blindly act on them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you have accepted suffering, you have indirectly accepted death. In death, only your ego and physical body cease to exist; the energy of your true Being can never be destroyed. When you can be present through suffering and understand that your true Being is really separate from your mind and body, you can then accept that this part of you is unaffected by what happens to the physical and mental parts of you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can use pain, illness, and suffering to push you deep into presence and enlightenment. <\/strong>Through extreme circumstances and pain, you may find yourself in a position where you have nowhere else to turn but inward to finally find peace and enlightenment. We\u2019ll discuss this more later. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you often find yourself lost in thought, disconnected from what is happening in your immediate awareness? Do you live on autopilot? Being constantly consumed in thought makes us unhappy and unfulfilled. The obvious solution is being present. According to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, the key to living in the present moment is acceptance. When you accept the Now the way it is, your incessant thinking will subside as you’ll stop constantly wishing what could be, or ruminating about how things were. In this article, we\u2019re going to talk about how to stay in the present moment, and how it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-50972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-spiritual","tag-power-of-now","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nResisting the Present Creates Pain<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Presence Requires Acceptance<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Surrender Is the First Step to Taking Productive Action<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Change or Leave the Situation<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Accepting the Situation<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Surrendering to Illness and Suffering<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n