The NOW

“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.” – Eckhart Tolle

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You know it’s hard to be a grownup.

So many responsibilities—so many choices—so much “stuff” going through your head all the time.  As Eckhart says above, “…your mind carries a heavy burden of past,…” and sometimes it’s hard to let that ‘past’ go even when we know we should.

TIME itself is a strange phenomenon: illusory, yet tangible; measurable in a sense, but yet fathomless in its entirety. If every moment in the NOW is soon passed, then every second ticked off our inner clocks is long gone before we even realized it once existed. It’s pretty hard to stay in the NOW when the NOW is gone as soon as you consider it. But the NOW is what we actually have to deal with, not the past.

I’ve read Eckhart’s book The Power of NOW long ago and feel it is a good source of inspiration and personal reflection toward living life moment to moment within the confines of safety and security.

If your life is far from safe and secure, then your every NOW moment is more likely focused on surviving to the next moment and that makes it more future focused based on your past experience.

But I understand what he is saying about staying in the NOW as “…The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.” True enough for those of us with the privilege of having reflection time.

However back to the ‘being a grownup’ part and how hard it can be. In many ways our past defines us in our present, but only as long as we allow it to do so. Over the course of many decades we can actually reinvent ourselves many times over—I certainly have.

But during that ‘growing older and hopefully wiser’ natural life process, we face choices of whether we allow our previous experiences to adversely affect us or to simply better educate us. Meaning that if you cannot separate your past experiences/memories from the ‘NOW awareness’ of your current possibilities, you are limiting your opportunities for a better understanding of why you are here and what you are to do with the few precious moments that you are given.

If you want your life to make some type of sense (and most of us do), that’s why you have the PAST to compare the PRESENT to for recognizing behavior patterns and cause/effect repercussions of any current actions taken based on what has happened previously in your life.

In an ideal world we learn from past mistakes. In our current world, we often keep making the same ones over and over until we finally recognize the futility of it. So the past informs the present and can guide the future, but only if we stay conscious of the NOW opportunities to choose a different path than the previous ill-informed one.

When you have a past that is fraught with turmoil and trauma, it is that much harder to ‘let the past be the past’ and keep it straight like that in your mind, but it’s not impossible to reach that mind state of staying in the NOW for your intentional consideration of options.

And if you want to better your life with a more enjoyable future then you really must step beyond the limitations you may have unintentionally set for yourself by your previous endeavors or experiences. Be ready NOW to seize the current opportunities for a life you have always wanted but felt too burdened by your past to allow.  Don’t limit yourself by what you might have done prior; consider all the possible things you could do or paths ahead that you could travel—all waiting for your first step in that direction.

But most importantly tell yourself this throughout your day—BE HERE NOW! Don’t live in your past because if you do you may miss your current options and therefore limit your ‘better-future’ possibilities.

And if you haven’t already, please read Eckhart’s book on understanding that inner process of better choosing from your current options, The Power of NOW.

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“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.” – Eckhart Tolle

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