How To Practice Living In The Moment

This post was inspired by my best friend who recently, slowly & nonchalantly unraveled my lil’ bubble of “Superwomaness” with just one question… or rather statement. I’d just returned from my lil WhatsApp hiatus & we were catching up on what we’d missed in each other’s lives, when after I’d told her everything that I’d gone through, she said “I dunno how you do it to be honest”…

As I read her text, I felt a sudden shift in me, as if something had slowly went undone & was exponentially spiraling down. All of a sudden, it felt like I’d been zapped back into each situation, reliving each moment… trying for the life of me to figure out…. actually, how the fuck did I do that? How did I get through that? How am I doing this? HOW do I freakin do it !?

I was frustrated because, man, let me tell you, no one likes to revisit closed chapters, especially, out of nowhere. I was being asked to be honest with myself & being honest requires that you not only revisit the memory BUT you relive the experience & emotions as well. That’s how you healing really works too. You go back & sit through the pain till it doesn’t hurt to go back there anymore. You get back to the moment & you feel it! Now imagine having to go back there again, just when you thought it was over…. man! I hated it there!

So quickly, here’s the thing about God & how the Spirits works especially with learning lessons; the Spirit brings things to your attention in the weeeeeirdest & wildest ways. As much as my friend thought she was merely saying/asking something, the way her statement resonated & the amount of inner work I had to do after, proved to me that at that point in time…. the Universe/Spirit was reaching out to me, asking me to look deeper into what I went through to see ALL the lessons each moment presented. I was closing a cycle… revising on what I’d learnt, taking the L’s in again, feeling the disappointment, hurt & anxiety. Winning again, feeling the excitement & happiness…

Boy! it was quite an emotional, painful & clumsy mess. See, that’s the thing about healing, it’s never clean. A bruised Ego fights fights off by all means looking at a sitaution that you lost in,because it NEVER wants to view itself as imperfect. It’s like dealing with a child, trying to force it to eat veggies cause it’s good for them & the child turning the other cheek everytime you try feed it a spoonful of veggies…. a MESS!

I didn’t reply to her, instead I asked her for sometime because I was triggeeeeered! Man, her text took the Oxygen out of my lungs! I needed a DRAANK! But I don’t drink anymore… So I settled for eating myself silly…

I was literally was down the whole day, I laid in bed & just went through EACH situation, reflecting, asking myself over & over again the 3 questions that I’ve come to appreciate when doing my inner work & problem solving: What, Why & How?

* What was the situation?
* Why I had to go through it?
* How I bounced from it? How it changed me?

LETTING GO OF WHAT IF’S & BEING PRESENT & IN THE MOMENT

2019 was by far insanely thee most paradoxical year of my life. It was both my best & worst year: I won as much as I lost, cried as much as I laughed, lost hope as much as I believed, broke down as much as I got back up… listen I went THROUGH it!

The weird thing though is that, I wasn’t as as vexed by this… if anything, I was just rolling with the punches & just like taking each L (loss) as an experience meant to occur at that point in time & rejoicing at every win thereafter.

I often say that, 2019 might not have rendered me materialistic wins & although business wise, everything was JUST a sh*t show too…. Man, didn’t I grow! Didn’t I learn! & didn’t I become better! I secured the one bag that mattered the most…. ME! I became the best version of myself each day. I mastered the art of being Kind, gentle & intentional with myself & the things I want. However, the thing here I want you to note is not what I secured, but HOW I secured myself & kept myself grounded. How I DO it… I guess.

I really don’t have a magic formula just that:
I LIVE IN THE MOMENT!

Sounds pretty easy right….. well, WRONG! Listen, let me keep it real with you; NO inner work is easy! As Humans, we do NOT like the unknown. Uncertainty unravels us from the core. We’re creatures of Logic & “being in the moment” requires lack of comparison & belief in the supernatural which makes it difficult for our minds to grasp. Like “Sir/Ma’am, how are you asking me to be happy when none of the things I desire are Happening or mine !?” It requires mindfulness…. being aware… but we need to agree that, it is to some extent “conscious ignorance” but I digress.

HOW TO PRACTICE LIVING IN THE MOMENT

Before we go any further, I need you to understand being in the moment, more than anything, is all about having Faith. It is going through something & just believing that THIS moment is just what THIS moment is meant to be. There’s nothing less or more than THIS moment. It is being content with what’s happening at that point in time & understanding that the past or the future do not matter, but what is in front of you NOW! You with me?

It is, just like: faith, intuition & self belief… a Muscle. You need to train it! Stretch it. Break it & mend it so it becomes stronger. So, it will all start in your Mind. If your mind is not programmed or tuned into the frequency of VIEWING the things happening in the present moment in your life as blessings WITHOUT the ability to tangibly compare them to what you’d ideally want, you will have a HARD time with being PRESENT. You need to energetically connect to God & the belief that things ALWAYS work out for you & they WANT to work out for you all the time… it begins with YOU! The inner work!

• BREATHE!
  – Take a deep breath! & another & a couple more, till your heart stops racing. When we’re faced with a challenge, our heart races & the increase in our blood pumping clouds our minds & we can’t think straight.
• TRY as hard as you can to really really see things from an OPTIMISTIC point of view.
  – Drop the “WHAT IF IT DOESN’T GET BETTER!” nonsense & instead say… “why wouldn’t this get better?” Your negative thoughts will creep back in! TELL YOURSELF THIS WILL WORK OUT! IT WILL END! I will succeed!
• Next; look at your situation for WHAT it is. Look at it from all angles, the bad & the good
  – Look at all possibilities of the thing WORKING! Check what would be your best play to getting it work! What’s the best move to play to HELP YOU cause NO ONE else is going to give or do that for you. Always think positively “I am getting myself out of this mess!” believe it too!
• Be grateful
  – Shift your vibrations. Think about things that you have that make you feel good. Things that you’ve accomplished that make you feel you’ve done something. This will help you practice resistance to when your thoughts try to grab you towards the negative thoughts. Think about things that make you FEEL good! This will help you come into the moment.
• Can’t see a turning point? MOVE! Don’t dwell on it, drop the thought & MOVE!
  – GET UP & DO something! No jokes, get up & do something that will zap you back into the NOW! & stay there. FOCUS! Struggling with focusing? TELL your mind I NEED to do this now or concentrate on this now. ask yourself questions about the present moment that will force you to focus on it? “Crap, what must I do again?, “Oh yea, why?”, “Did I do the what not what not?” Suck yourself into the now & CONCENTRATE! Remember; this is all about your Mind, Mind power! OUTLOOK!
• When you’ve distracted your mind enough, go back to the issue to relook at it
  – This time, THINK, clearly. THINK of every single solution present. Most importantly, think about HOW you can GET each one done…
• LASTLY; TAKE A DEEP BREATH & GET THE F*CK UP & DO WHAT YOU MUST!
  – Don’t think about what if it doesn’t work, every time you feel the anxiety & fear creeping in (because it will) interject those nasty ass thoughts with “I can’t wait for when this thing pulls off”, “I can’t wait to look back at this & laugh about it”.

In conclusion: I deal with every single moment in my life by being fully immersed in the moment by letting go of the what if’s that are negative & feed myself the possibility of things working out for me. I genuinely believe that I have the power to get every single thing that I want. After I believe them I get up & just go after them. Everything else not aligned with me getting what I want I rule out as white noise & thus, I block it.