living in the now

being present is more than living in the moment

You know that thing where you think you understand something … then you discover there are layers you never knew existed. Well that … when it comes to the idea of living in the present. There’s the cliches that were born of wisdom but have been appropriated by bucket-listing popular culture as in; ‘All we’ve got is today’, ‘What if you knew you only had five years.’ etc etc. Yeah, no. Not that, although they are great things to consider.

A few friends expressed concern for me following my last post. They wondered how I was, expecting that the shifts and uncertainty might be causing some anxiety. But, to be clear, I’m doing magnificently. I’m good. Better than good.

The wrestle is the with question about how to live beautifully with uncertainty and chaos (to steal a Pema Chödrön phrase), not to find strategies to eliminate it. But I’m not pursuing a Pollyanna approach, a superficial suppressive positivity, I’m realising the antithesis, in fact. The narrative that has shaped me, says I’m entitled to comfort, convenience and pleasure, to security, safety and certainty as my typical reality. And so when I don’t experience those things I think something is wrong, or needs to be fixed.

But I want to understand how to recognise uncertainty (and suffering) as the norm. I’m beginning to appreciate the delusion of the security and comfort story. Especially as the foundations of our society start to crack, but also in the vulnerability of life in general. What’s that got to do with being present? A very lot. Stay with me …

Remember, the context here is lots of big changes. Some circumstantial, some self inflicted :-).

Being present is more than living in the moment.

Living in the moment is that fabulous experience of being fully present to the conversation, sensation or environment in which I find myself. It is about being consciously immersed in the outer world context which I’m experiencing. The extra bit I have been exploring is how being fully present involves an unusual (at least for me) engagement with the past and the future.

The past has nurtured, weathered and scarred me, but it is no longer. The future is hypothetical. The things I fear are not certain, not real, only possible. Even probable futures are not real (yet). The positive hopes I have are simply expectations of a hypothetical set of circumstances. But my hopes or fears dominate my experience of now. The emotions associated with these hopes and fears are real, but the journey I’m on is to seek mindsets that do not necessarily come naturally. Yet.

The first is to recognise that, as per above, my emotions are often associated with things outside my control that only exist in a possible future. The mindset I’m practicing is to be completely in the now.

For example. Our house is on the market. Selling it matters quite a bit. (see this post) My natural inclination is to contemplate scenarios. What if we sold for X amount? We could do A or B. What if we sold for Y? What would our options be? But if we don’t sell, what then? Yikes! Allowing these possibilities to have free reign in my thinking cultivates hope and fear in equal measure, and that disables me from being properly present in the now. I’m trying to be in the now. Not simply ‘living in the moment’, but being present to what is real today, rather than as yet unrealised, hypothetical futures.

“Ah”, my inner voice says, “that’s a bit irresponsible, a bit laissez faire!” But being fully present doesn’t mean aborting diligence or planning. It means - I’m learning slowly - an embrace of the beauty (and/or ugliness) of the moment right now, and letting go of desired or feared outcomes. It might mean responsible behaviour that insures against future regret, but coexisting with that responsibility, is a relinquishing of expectations or fears about implications or trajectories that are ultimately out of my control. So freeing. But a very hard won mindset, because it is born from a different story, one that runs in prophetic opposition to the dominant cultural narrative that has been installed in my psyche over many decades. Which is a segue to …

… the second mindset, which is to interrogate the story that gives rise to the hope or fear in the first place. This takes me deeper. So for example, I worry about the implications of not having an income. The story that shouts the loudest is that no income means life will be miserable. So I wonder what are the assumptions behind that story? I already know in my bones that outer world realities have very little to do with my inner world peace and joy, yet the story continues to shout loud. So the capacity to be fully in the now is strengthened by feeding my hopes and fears with counter narratives. Developing, or perhaps discerning, these stories is part of our current inner work, the inner journey that I’ve referred to previously as the ‘the main game’.

So being present for me is becoming more than just living in the moment. It is about developing a capacity to respond with grace to the past and hypothetical futures. Acknowledging their hold on me and staring them down. It is extraordinarily liberating in times of uncertainty.

So, I’m doing fabulously, thankyou. At the moment at least :-). Our outer world is full of big shifts and uncertainty. My inner world is at peace - most of the time - as I practice being present in the now.