Being Present

In my personal development class we discussed how many of our actual problems are in the room with us presently. Very few. Almost none. But most of us walked into the room heavy, overwhelmed, swirling in a dark prison of problems. How and where do our problems actually exist? Most often, in between our ears. How do we break out of that prison?

Be Present. Now. What is happening right now? I look up. I wake up to see the sky, the people next to me, the tree and the bird that just flew by. I refocus myself on the right here, right now. Now is usually beautiful. Now generally has some beauty to behold. Right now, I probably have everything I need. I might not have everything I need for the bill due next week, or the relational struggle I might face when I get home, or the energy I will need for a house full of kids who need my attention the second I walk through the door. But right now, do I have what I need for this moment? Can I find the beauty happening right now? Can I switch my focus from the swirling darkness in my brain to the sun streaming in the window and the beautiful music playing in the background? Can I turn off the negative self talk in my brain and find a new perspective on the difficult situation at hand? Or do I like the dark? Do I like the pit? Do I like the swirling feeling that makes it seem like I'm accomplishing something when in actuality I am wasting my brain space and my precious moments spinning on a hamster wheel of my vain imaginations.

Life has been a giant storm the last few months/weeks. But I am learning how to be in the moment. And I continue to be in awe of how few moments there actually are that present real difficulty when I stop living in past pain or future fearful projections. When I am in the moment, most of them are neutral. I used to fill the neutral moments with negative self talk, negative problem swirling, hashing and rehashing, ruminating instead of finding the beauty. Now I am learning to stop the darkness, open up and let the light in. I can choose to look outside my swirling pit of despair happening inside my head and see the butterfly and the sparrow and the beauty of the moment I'm in. It's truly amazing how dramatically this is affecting my days for the better. Until I'm actually living in a prison camp or running for my life or have nothing to eat but the food I can scrounge out of a garbage can, I have decided to quit living like a POW, refugee, or poverty stricken in my head. Life is beautiful.