Living in the NOW
What is all this "living in the moment" stuff about? Shouldn't I plan the future? Don't I need to reflect on how far I've come to see where I am going?
To live in the moment means that we stop agonizing over what we assume is coming and stop dwelling on downtrends of the past.
Facundo and I have been down a long road together. We each had our own roads before we met and those were long too, as roads should be when they have had things to teach you.
When we met online we were not who we are today. As you read this you are not who you were ten years ago either.
Our entire molecular structure has changed since then and it imitates all we have believed about life and ourselves along the way. To look back on the past means we have to look back on a story about different people, and in that, it's wise to stay unattached and just be an observer.
Too many times we look back on our past and start to feel emotionally connected, it's as if those stories are still being lived, when they are over and have been for a very long time.
My story used to be more of a drama-filled horror story. You know, something that might air one weekend on the Lifetime network. One of those "why does she stay and put up with that?" sort of stories.
Facundo can tell you his own take on what his story used to be, my point is that it isn't who we are anymore. We have been working toward cleaning up our minds, and consequently our lives for nearly a decade. It takes hard work and practice when you are as abundantly negative as we both were.
If you were to look at my life now I am certain you would see things that tell you where I have been. I am still in my cocoon, still evolving even after all this time.
For instance, I have yet to move from a place I believe is less than I deserve. I look forward to the day when my environment reflects that I feel good about myself, but as I look around and analyze, I haven't made it happen yet.
I take comfort in knowing that I will change it and I focus as best as I can on all that I appreciate about where I now am. That is what living in the moment is all about.
It's not looking back on your past and feeling as if you are a living mistake, a failure in life, or dwelling on that time you did someone wrong. It's about forgiving yourself for not knowing how to walk in optimism yet.
It's not worrying about what is coming. Not stessing over how the bills will be paid, when you will get the promotion or if you'll be fired from your job. It isn't being concerned with when and how you might die or what will happen next in life that you can't have control over.
Even in the sad story I was living before, I saw huge positive changes taking place when I started to realign my energy to good feelings.
I worked at a convenience store- just to give you an idea of how my life looked at the time. I was married to an alcoholic and we had four kids. There is no way I could have believed I would ever be anything or go anywhere or even do anything significant, until I changed my thinking.
Within the first year behind reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, I visited Argentina. I continued to visit Facundo there five more times before I hit a slump and went back to my old patterns.
Due to the backslide in my thinking I quit my job and lived the next three years feeling sorry for myself for being broke. I had opened my doors back up to the practicing alcoholic and allowed him to become my problem again. I also almost lost Facundo in my life. I hadn't been to see him in three years and we were barely hanging on though the internet.
The good news was that I had also been trying to find that magic switch inside me to turn the positivity back on in my life. I groped around in the dark for a long time and finally Facundo found it.
It was hiding in four small words.
We hadn't seen each other for so long and we both knew that if we tried to go longer we were probably setting ourselves up for an end to our relationship.
One day, in a silly, dreamy way I said, "Let's go to Costa Rica."
He answered with, "We can do that."
My soul came leaping back to life. I was back!
Truly, I considered we were both living in a fantasy world to think we could just spring up out of this muck we were floating in and run off to paradise.
None-the-less, that is exactly what we did.
It was a huge turning point for us, in our lives and in our relationship. We are once again back on track, walking in the light, and keeping our "britches between the ditches" so to speak.
This is a perfect example of living in the moment.
Had we looked back over where we had been for the past few years and used it to weigh the decision to make such an impractical plan to skip off to the tropics, we wouldn't have done it.
If we had thought of the future and started to ask how we thought we could do such a thing given our current financial circumstances and wondering and worrying how we would recover from spending money that way, we wouldn't have done it.
If we wouldn't have done it, Horse and Butterfly Inspiration wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be here reading this now.
Make plans, daydream, play, have fun with life and absolutely grab on to those flippant comments that emerge from the daydreams, and do them- make them happen. Don't hold yourself back.
Until those moments arrive you only have the one you are in now. Don't waste it looking back and "living" or "dwelling" (they mean the same thing) in the past. Don't stress yourself out by trying to guess and predict what will happen next. You aren't a psychic and even if you believe you are, you can't read your own life. If you could you wouldn't worry about anything.
Today is all we have. The decisions to take a plane to Costa Rica and lounge around in the jungle by the beach are thoughts that occur to you today.
Today you can answer "We can do that". Today you can control what you are thinking and feeling.
So by all means, reflect on where you have been and use it as a valuable tool. Daydream about where you'd like to go with your life. Then come back and live where you are, in the NOW.
