Outwardly, I appear to be an organized person. I’m a conscientious and successful student. I keep my planner up-to-date. I show up for my appointments on time, if not early.
As a naturally “with-it” type, I suppose I assumed when I began meditating regularly that my thoughts would be as orderly as my desktop, that emptying my mind would be as simple as sorting through an outdated folder. In reality, it was ferociously difficult to quiet the constant stream of thoughts, plans, images, judgments, and story lines most of us don’t even realize are playing in our heads. Allowing oneself to simply exist, to fully experience a moment, is a difficult but worthwhile undertaking; here are “Six Steps to Living in the Moment” from an article by Jay Dixit in the November/December issue of Psychology Today (read the full article, “The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment” here):
“1. To improve your performance, stop thinking about it (unselfconsciousness).”
If you can’t stop thinking about what a terrible dancer you are or how boring your speech is, you’re wasting valuable energy by making yourself anxious. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather watch an enthusiastic dancer make a few mistakes than a technically perfect dancer who seems on the verge of tears.
“2. To avoid worrying about the future, focus on the present (savoring).”
As Dixit puts it, “We sip coffee and think, This is not as good as what I had last week. We eat a cookie and think, I hope I don’t run out of cookies.” Where is the enjoyment there?
“3. If you want a future with your significant other, inhabit the present (breathe).”
Mindfulness makes people less aggressive and more aware of their feelings, as well as their interactions with other people. Focusing on the present frees one up to respond “thoughtfully rather than automatically”.
“4. To make the most of time, lose track of it (flow).”
Have you ever sat down, started in on a task, and become so fully absorbed in what you were doing that hours passed without your notice? Most people have attained this state, which psychologists call “flow,” at one point or another while doing something they find engaging and enjoyable. Dixit describes it as such:
As your attentional focus narrows, self-consciousness evaporates. You feel as if your awareness merges with the action you’re performing. You feel a sense of personal mastery over the situation, and the activity is so intrinsically rewarding that although the task is difficult, action feels effortless.
“5. If something is bothering you, move toward it rather than away from it (acceptance).”
It’s human nature to avoid unpleasant situations. However, I like Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön’s thoughts on the subject in her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times:
“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”
“6. Know that you don’t know (engagement).”
If we know everything already, if our days are routine and predictable, where is the excitement in that? Why bother being curious about anything? As Pema Chödrön so elegantly puts it in “When Things Fall Apart”: “We long to have some reliable, comfortable ground under our feet, but we’ve tried a thousand ways to hide and a thousand ways to tie up all the loose ends, and the ground just keeps moving under us.” Embrace the unexpected in the here and now of your day. It’s what sets it apart from all the other days before it.
If you’re still wondering why you should bother with any of this, consider the following benefits of living in the present (from the Psychology Today article):
Cultivating a nonjudgmental awareness of the present bestows a host of benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress, boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and helps patients cope with cancer. By alleviating stress, spending a few minutes a day actively focusing on living in the moment reduces the risk of heart disease. Mindfulness may even slow the progression of HIV.
Mindful people are happier, more exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more satisfying relationships.
So, what are you waiting for? Focus on what you’re doing right now. Even if you’re eating a cookie, and you’re about to run out of them. You can worry about buying more later, after you’ve taken the time to savor this one.
(14 votes, average: 4.64 out of 5)
Loading ...You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Links to This Article
Some recent psychology articles and the new issue of the Human Givens Journal (12/15/2008)
Each Moment Is New « IN Life & LOVE (11/19/2009)
11 Comments to
““Six Steps to Living in the Moment””
Learning to ‘inhabit the present’ is a job worth doing. It does not mean that everything will be suddenly ‘ok’, and the present is not always a comfortable place to be, but the greater our ability to hold the present in awareness, the greater our ability to be comfortable and patient becomes.
Worth while I think in this frenetic world!
I enjoyed reading this very much while I drank my hot chocolate. The last bit about the cookie helped me stop and literally savor the moment. Thanks.
Great article! Mindfulness is a gift, all around.
-LaSara
http://www.lasarafirefox.com
These are tips that I can actually use, right now. Thanks.
Perhaps the lesson to be learned- let us focus on one task at a time as it seems we have little time for even the most simplist task of looking after ourselves due to lack of time, pressures to complete and lack of privacy to be ourselves.
Sincere wish to offer the best, in the job in hand, will not only offer better results but also the satisfaction of leaving ‘a mark of your personality’.
Every celebrity has this quality.
Amitabh Bachchan, an Indian actor, is the example.
Mindfulness training taught me to enjoy holding hands and not being somewhere else; it taught me to focus on kissing and not being somewhere else; and when I was…well, you know, doing other things, every moment became a complete joy. The present moment is as good as it gets……
Mindfulness training taught me to enjoy holding hands and not being somewhere else; it taught me to focus on kissing and not being somewhere else; and when I was…well, you know, doing other things, every moment became a complete joy. The present moment is as good as it gets……
So the real secret to true happiness is “mindfulness”? I find all this rather hard to believe. As much as I find this article interesting and informed I can’t help but think, Aren’t all the horrible things that happen in the world also an outcome of “living in the moment”? For every armed robbery, rape, drunk-driving accident and one night stand how can you possibly say that living in the moment is the only way to stay happy? Plus, Think about it this way. If you don’t think ahead then what is the point of striving for anything? What is the point of setting goals or creating inventions? As much as we like to sit in contentment and chew on the things that are happening right now we would all like to know, what happens next? As much as we enjoy the story in a movie we all want to know how it ends. And when we raise kids? We don’t only like to enjoy the things that they do in the moment but we also like to dream about what they will be like when they’re older. Don’t we all say to ourselves…yes the terrible twos are bad, but one day they’ll move out of the house!? I think the secret of true happiness in life must be a perfect mix of reality and fantasy. Living in the moment can help us enjoy the small things in life but we can’t do it all the time. We would only end up hurting ourselves. At the same instance, we have a very special gift to see ideas and goals far into the future and those things can make us very happy too.:)
In response to Arlette in part, I have an opinion. Humans have a special ability to focus outside the here and now. This is both a great advantage in the struggle for survival (and happiness) and a great disadvantage. It is the balance of the advantages and disadvantages of this ability that is in part our greatest challenge if we wish to achieve whatever our personal goals may be and whatever it may be that makes us happy. The point of the six steps (I had never seen them before tonight) seems to me to help teach those of us who are inclined to overfocus on the future and past how we might find our way into the present after a period of overwork and worry. I don’t think that for my own part it will ever be possible to enjoy the present without a very specific attempt to focus on it — the pressure to achieve is too strong me. One can be overstretched in the attempt to address the future, and indeed it leads to anxiety and a failure to enjoy life. It is as if humans can live so much in the future and past that it is metaphorically as if they are not living — at least some humans — and I do speak for myself here. I suspect this style of overfocus on the future and past is more common now than centuries ago. But it’s hard to know.
If mindfulness is a gift, why do i have to practice or meditate anything?
I don’t get it about having to do, and practice 6, or 10, or 12 steps, and meditate, and think positively, and all this stuff.
What makes anyone think I have any goals to begin with, or that i am filled with choices, or that I have to focus on nothingness, or gratitude, or that i have to worry, or not worry about dealing happily with cancer, or with a cookie, or ‘tragedy’, or feeling/thinking well or badly, or too much, or not at all?
What makes any of you even think I have any of these problems you are talking about, and what makes any of you think I need steps and advice on how to deal with cancer, and/or that I need to prepare myself for past, future or present, or none of the above.
I don’t do steps, and I don’t do meditation, and I don’t do ‘positive thinking’. If anything, they ‘do me’.
I can be totally happy when all goes wrong, and unhappy when all goes right.
The way i see it, if you got stories to tell, life is good. And like with good stories, the bitter-sweet ones are always the best. The worst is when nothing ever happens. I value all my experiences equally, if maybe not at the very moment.
So, why do i need to meditate and live by steps, again?
Join the Conversation! Post a Comment:
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 7 Dec 2008
