Living in the now involves releasing thoughts and judgements based on 'the past that we cannot change' and 'the future that we cannot know'. Right now is all we have. Today is all we can know. The only power we have to change and create our experience of life is this moment we are living in.
I think almost everyone who stumbles across this concept struggles with it at first. Even people who have been practicing it for years still find themselves retreating into thoughts of the past and the future and living their experience today based on one of these invisible realms.
Often we find ourselves procrastinating and delving into things that have already happened to put our problems today into context. We compare them with our experience of life so far...the past. Or, we find ourselves over thinking a future that we cannot know, being fearful of a story we are imagining that will probably never happen (unless we create it).
By living in the now, we practice the art of releasing our own judgements and ideas of what was and what will be. Instead, we learn to be aware of the moment we are existing in. Fear of something we think we cannot control is an epidemic that leaves us powerless to life's pathway. By creating the pathway step by step, day by day, we can relax into a rhythm which needs no deep analysis or control. We can make decisions based on the knowledge we have today and know that they must be flexible and may change as new knowledge, ideas and opportunities arise in our consciousness and our days.
Personally, I am in the process of releasing thoughts of how this year will develop and attempting to live in the now rather than trying to plan the year ahead in a way that is inadequate. I simply cannot have all the information or knowledge I need yet to make any plans, so I have been searching the Taoist approach to life which involves focusing on what I do have and working with today. I am finding it very useful in making life a more graceful and enjoyable process by releasing societies pressures and finding stillness in the 'now'; the only moment we exist in.
So if you are finding yourself in a similar position, here are my Five Top Tips for living in the now...
1. Meditate: Set some times aside and focus on your breath and sit in stillness, allow your mind to empty of thoughts and relax in the knowledge that in that moment there is nowhere else to be and nothing else to do.
2. Repeat the mantra: 'There is nothing to know' or 'I let go of needing to know'
3. Look up at the limitless sky occasionally: Remind yourself that there is something much more massive than the problem you are focusing on.
4. When you find yourself in a point of confusion? Simply release the weight of the decisions and try to return to a point of stillness. Problems often solve themselves when they are left space to evolve.
5. Casey Kochmer, Taoist teacher, suggests you: Change the angles of how you look at something when feeling stuck. Till you find an angle that unsticks your path ahead. The future is always uncertain, so the feeling of uncertainty is normal, embrace that half, and then practice awareness, step by step awareness to move ahead. In chaotic times, this is the most efficient way to live. In orderly times, it is possible to plan and stash away for future points. But in times like ours a Taoist approach is very graceful indeed (http://www.personaltao.com/).
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