Being present is critical to having your life turn out the way you want it to. Now is the only time you have any influence over.
You may have heard masters like Eckhardt Tolle, Byron Katie and Thich Nhat Hanh talking about the importance of being in the present moment.
The present moment is all that there is, really. There is no past. You may have memories of your past, and you may have photos that show events from the past, but there is no way to reach out and take hold of what’s already come and gone. No way to step back into it.
No way to change events or outcomes, either. Often we fail to realize this, and we sure aren’t taught it in school. So we get stuck in rehashing events, wishing things hadn’t turned out the way they did, or becoming angry all over again with someone we blame. The tendency to look backwards in a regretful way correlates to depression.
There is no future, either. Not really. I mean, it’s coming…but you can’t touch it. You can’t step into it. And even though you can try to plan for it, you can’t actually make things happen in the future. You can’t control it.
People get hung up on this one, too. We try to arrange things to happen in a certain way that is to our liking. We often try to arrange other people this way, too, which causes strain in relationships. The tendency to look ahead and to predict and control outcomes correlates to anxiety.
Two of the toughest mental health issues of our times arise because of our human habit of thinking about what’s not happening right now.
But in reality, the only things you have any control over are what you think about and what you do. You can’t make any choices in the past. And you can’t make any choices in the future. You can only make choices now.
That’s why wise masters advise us to practice staying in the present moment. We have lots of tools for this—meditation, or the act of mind discipline, chief among them.
Being present means being aware of what you are hearing in the conversation you’re having, aware of the sensations in your body, aware of the myriad choices available to you in that moment.
We are calmer when we’re present. You’ll also notice that life unfolds a little more slowly. And because things slow down a little when we’re present, we are more able to make choices that match our true beliefs.
Here are ten ways to return your attention to the present moment, so you can stay in a state of choosing rather than reacting.
1. Return to your breath. This is the simplest strategy when we’re learning to meditate. It’s easy to find your breath. With practice, you’ll remember to do it more.
2. Drop your breath down into your belly. Loosen that invisible band around your middle and draw breath into the place behind your belly button. This is the kind of breathing that signals your body to calm down. Just three of these breaths begins to change the mix of neurochemicals in your brain.
3. Let go of the cloud. I like how Tara Brach talks about our minds being the sky, and our thoughts being clouds that pass through. The clouds never stay, do they? They might stick around for a while, but eventually they move on. The sooner you teach yourself to let go when you become aware you’ve grabbed one, the sooner you free yourself. (Remember, the thoughts aren’t happening. Now is happening.)
4. Sing. It’s impossible to think about anything while you’re singing. Try it out. Your brain just can’t fire that many neurons at the same time. It needs its full bandwidth for the complex act of singing—getting the words right, nailing the melody, hitting the right notes (or maybe not!), projecting your voice the appropriate amount.
5. Focus your attention on one body part. Same effect as focusing on your breath. Draw your attention into one spot. Start with your toes. Can you feel your socks around them? Or maybe there’s warm wood underneath them. See if you can feel individual toes. When your attention drifts, just put it back on your toes.
Numbers 6–10 come from the life’s work of Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks. Note: In the Hendricks practices, we use the term presencing, preferring to make presence an action you can take rather than a noun / a static state that you must achieve.
6. What’s the strongest sensation in your body right now? Are your hands cold? Is there a persistent ache between your shoulder blades? Is your lower back sore? Maybe you have butterflies in your stomach. Locate that strong sensation.
7. Let your attention rest on that sensation without doing anything else. Tune into the sensation you found in #6, and just observe it. This is good practice for being the witness: attentive, nonjudgmental, open.
8. Notice where that sensation moves. When you pay attention to a sensation inside your body, it’ll shift. With sustained, gentle focus on that precise sensation in that precise part of your body, you’ll find it will dissipate entirely. This is an important technique for managing pain.
9. What part of you isn’t breathing? We tend to think that only our lungs breathe, and while that may be strictly true, you can actually “send” breath into different parts of your body by shifting your attention. A yoga instructor once invited me to “breathe into the muscle” that I was stretching. I was surprised to find I could comfortably deepen the stretch, therefore getting much more out of it.
10. Change your body position. Significantly changing where your body is located in space also changes your brain function, because your brain now needs to recalibrate and notice new information. This stops whatever thought loop was running. Changing position automatically prompts a deeper breath, too, freeing us temporarily from our usual pattern of shallow chest breathing.
Any of these ten actions will help you return your attention to the present moment—the only place from which you have any power at all.
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