The Power Of Now
As long as nothing truly ghastly is happening to you as you read this, then you really don’t have anything to worry about do you? Before you lash out, what I mean is that if you are fed, watered, warm and pain free, then you really DON’T have anything to worry about right now.
But that’s not how it works for most of us – but if our basic needs are taken care of, then what is it we are fretting about? Well if it’s not what’s happening RIGHT NOW then it must be something which happened in the past and which is still hanging around like Banquo’s ghost, OR, it is something you are anticipating happening in the future from the loss of a loved one to losing your job, your income or your health. Even worse, it could be both.
But how much of what you worry about actually comes true?
Sadly, these feelings of harking back to the past and fearing the future is true for so many of us. Just the sheer weight of quotes by famous people shows us this is a widespread and longstanding problem amongst the general population of humans who don’t have to struggle every single day of their lives just to survive until tomorrow.
Here are just a few of my favourite quotes:
“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened”. ~Michel de Montaigne
“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened”. ~Thomas Jefferson
“I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us”. ~Dorothy Day
And my personal best where the author is unknown (so maybe I can claim it) is, “For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe”.
But to just cease worrying is easier said than done because worry is a rather comforting habit and like all habits it needs to be broken. A rather good book is The Power Of Now, A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle and he comes up with a rather good technique which I will touch on here. It all rather harks back to that old stuff I remember hearing about when I first took up Yoga about focusing on what is happening in the pose, so you lose yourself, albeit it temporarily. Obviously I ignored all that and set up a little competition with myself about how far I could stretch, but focusing on how each muscle is working to keep you in the right posture really is the key.
It works because you can only think of one thing at a time. Try this out for yourself – think of a tree and think of a horse. You can’t do it! You can think of a tree and then think of a horse but you can’t think of the both things together unless you think of a horse jumping a tree.
If you are focused upon how something feels, smells or sounds then you really can’t think about anything else and your brain sort of switches off and has a bit of down time. Peace. Yes it’s only a temporary reprieve but as you carry on doing this, then the worry habit starts to subside.
Remember also that this is a technique for breaking the habit because it’s easier to move into concentrating about something neutral such as how the floor feels under the ball of your foot, than something positive which could manifest in the future. Eventually you are going to be able move your thinking from neutral to positive and powerful area for you.
Amazingly, there is a free copy of The Power Of Now published on www.holybooks.com so you can check it out before you buy.
Related articles
- Nine Tips for Living an Extraordinary Life (imaginethespirit.wordpress.com)
- Eckhart Tolle: Finding Balance (stevebeckow.com)
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