To be in the now, you must let go of the overwhelming feelings that hold you in the past and keep you from moving into your desired future. ~~ R L Bray, No Open Wounds

Living in the moment is a topic that is near and dear to my heart — literally. After all, surviving two heart attacks made me realize that every moment really could be my last, so I’d best enjoy each and every one of them. It’s a real wakeup call to start living in the now instead of wasting time dwelling on a past that can’t be changed. The only thing that I can change now is how I remember and react to those memories. And, for the most part I do fairly well at leaving them where they belong.

But, there are days when the past looms large, and I’d rather crawl into a corner and nurse my hurts instead of getting on with the business of living and enjoying life. And as you can no doubt see from the huge gaps in posting recently — there’ve been more than of few of those days in the past few weeks.

One thing I’ve learned about living moment to moment though is to always be paying attention to things that show up. And when they show up in multiples, you better believe I sit up and take notice. Once or twice might be cause for a “hmm, I best have a think about that” but when four — count ‘em, four — posts on living in the moment cross my path on the same day, I really think the Universe is tryin’ to tell me something. (“Get the lead out and get back to doing what you’re meant to be doing” comes to mind.) Add to those the book I’m reading which has as one of its main premises the theory that you can’t be fully present in the now if you still have hurts and wounds from the past that need dealing with, and you have a pretty convincing club for the Universe to whack little ol’ Lena on the head with!

It was John Lusher’s post Have We Forgotten How To Be In The Moment? that got me thinking along this track early this morning. He offers up some great suggestions on how to be more present in the moment. And the comments of Mr. Business Golf on living for the nanosecond and people who bring their cell phones onto the golf course are priceless. (Don’t even get me started on people who can’t unplug long enough to play a round of golf.)

Amber at Epic Self has some really great awakening exercises for living in the now that she gleaned from reading Eckhart Tolle’s books as well as a cool list of 11 reasons to live in the now. This was my first visit to her blog, and I have to tell ya, she’s got some great stuff there.

There’s a great post at Positively Present, in which Dani shares a poem she wrote when she was thirteen and an analysis of what it means to her now. I’m almost tempted to dig out my own high school poetry and see just how warped I was at thirteen. :)

One of the best reasons I’ve found for living in the moment comes from a quote by James Joyce: “I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.” If we want our tomorrows to be something other than a repeat of today, we have to make the changes that we hope tomorrow will bring in this moment, here and now. If that’s not a good reason to not dwell on the past or worry about the future, I don’t know what is.

Living in the moment, for me, has a lot to do with feeding my inner child. I love to stop and watch the ducks in the park, and I love to sit on the swings and contemplate the flow of life. I notice things like how blue the sky is and how green the leaves and the grass are. In “The Path to Personal Growth” I wrote: “Side paths are meant to be explored, roses are meant to be smelled, and butterflies exist to be marvelled at. Live your life to the fullest, do the things you love, and enjoy every minute of it.”

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing this moment with me. :)

Related posts:

1. Searching for a Quiet Moment
2. A Solitary Moment

I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching over the past few days, and it seems that my plans are changing once again. It looks like I’m staying put here for a little longer, but for the first time in years I’m okay with that.

While I was dealing with the idea of not moving this spring, one of the questions that kept coming up over and over was “Why am I holding on to a goal that no longer fits who I am in this moment?”

I realized that while I have changed a lot in the past year, I hadn’t made any new goals to go along with the new me. I was still holding on to the goals of the scared, abused person years ago. When I really questioned why it was that all of a sudden moving east didn’t feel quite right, when it had been my driving force for so long, was that when I set that goal I my only desire was to hide myself away in the smallest, most remote place I could find where I could sit on the beach and lick my wounds, as it were. And at the time, I needed that solitude, that time to heal and to find myself. If I’d been able to make the move at that time, it would have been the right one. Now, with all the changes I’ve made in my life it doesn’t feel right. And until it does, I’m staying put!

Don’t get me wrong. I still want to move. And getting out of here is still one of the main motivations I have for getting up and working each and every day. I feel like I’ve outgrown this area and my reasons for being here, but have stayed because I was afraid to make the change I wanted. Now, I’m more than ready to embrace the change but I want to make sure that it’s the right change. When I came here years ago, I knew absolutely in my heart, in my soul, and in my head that it was the right thing to do at the time. It was such a good feeling to know that I was in the right place doing what the Universe intended for me to do, and I want that feeling again! I know that this upcoming move (and I have no doubt it will happen before the end of the year) is going to be another life changer for me, and I intend to do it right.

Getting back to my original question of why we hold on to goals that no longer serve us… (sorry I got on a bit of a rant there)

I think that for me, (and I can only speak for myself) it was a security blanket of sorts. The decision to move east was the first goal I set for myself after coming out of years of abuse and not being allowed to have dreams and goals of my own. I wanted to go as far away from here as I could get, and start completely over in a place of my own choosing.

Even after I started to build up my self-confidence and live again, I hung on to that goal because it was still the one thing I had that was truly mine. Although I was questioning the rightness of it, I brushed the uneasy feeling aside and wrote them off as self-sabotage. It really wasn’t until I was talking with a friend about it the other day, and I accepted her assertion that I’ve been putting way too much pressure on myself to do this now, that I really started to rethink my plans. I needed to hear that message that the right thing to do will make itself known at the right time again. After all, listening to that little voice is what got me to where I am now.

What I’ve learned through all this is that it really is okay to change your plans. Letting go of old goals that no longer fit you is really freeing. There are so many options out there that open up for you, and each time you make a change more doors open. Sure, some close too, that’s part of life. But when you accept that you yourself have changed enough that your old goals no longer fit, and you allow yourself to consider new possibilities, you will be amazed at they way things start to flow again. Don’t let fear keep you in the place you’ve worked so hard to get yourself out of. You really do owe it to yourself to embrace new experiences and opportunities that are a better fit with the new you!

Related posts:

1. Weekend Plans