We are always trying to find the limits of everything. We haven’t even spared the Universe, making all kinds of speculations about when and how it began as well as when and how it will end. Scientists have propounded theories such as the Big Bang phenomenon which is an attempt to explain how all that is came into existence in one grand instant, then began expanding in all directions, and continues to expand even as you read this. Then, we also wonder whether this Universe will continue to expand forever or will it stop at some point in the future.

These questions suggest that we are unable to accept the idea of timelessness. We cannot imagine something that has no beginning and no end. Our own physical existence is finite and time-bound. Death is an eventuality that reminds us repeatedly about our limited time here. Consequently, we run and chase and go after things and people and experiences. We try hard to accumulate and own as much as we can before our time runs out, never realising that when death comes, nothing will matter.

Empty preoccupations?

No one can be certain about what’s beyond our physical existence, which we call death. Likewise with our birth—we don’t know where we were before we were born. Did we even exist? No one knows for sure where do we come from and where do we go. Do we simply appear one day and disappear another day? Is there a soul that outlasts the body, that existed before birth and will continue after death? These questions are futile because there can’t be “answers” to them. Instead, what we do have are a whole lot of speculations and conjectures that pose as answers.

Of course, there are theories in many ancient scriptures that attempt to explain the cycle of birth and death—some of them seem plausible too. But, without actual direct subjective experience, these theories are nothing more than beliefs. Since experience can’t be objective, it can’t be observed in a lab or transferred as knowledge. Thus, the mystery of life, of sentience and consciousness, seems fool-proof. We can’t solve it until we get there—that is, if there is some place to go, and if there’s something to know.

And yet, our preoccupation with beginnings and endings, with the mysteries of birth and death, takes us away from the only reality there is—the present moment. Life is only available now. We think, we remember, we imagine, we plan—but all of that happens when we are absent to the now. We are lost in contemplations and concerns of the world, losing the most important treasure of life: our awareness, which is eternal.

Not endless time

But timelessness does not mean “forever”; it does not mean endless time. It means no time. And we can only access eternity when we are absolutely present, free from thinking, just being. Only when we are free from time and free from all mental abstractions, can we perceive reality as it is.

We have all had glimpses into such eternity or timelessness on occasions when we accidentally slip into the no-thought zone of pure awareness—a phenomenon that cannot be described by words or understood by thought. Indeed, even trying to explain it relies on thought and memory, which is why it is impossible.

The most that I can say about my visits to the timeless fields is that you feel fully awake, your senses are heightened and everything around you comes fully alive, as if for the first time. Life takes on a completely different texture—rich, vibrant, glorious.

This richness, which is not a feeling or a thought but simply an awareness, lasts for as long as one remains free from time, and from incessant thinking. Then, when time and thoughts return, so do the chaos and speculations.

But the glimpse does one really important thing—it dissolves the need for pointless preoccupations such as the origins and the fate of the Universe.

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But acceptance is often misinterpreted as being synonymous with inaction. Far from it, acceptance really means making peace with my circumstances, instead of using them as an excuse for stagnancy or failure.

Once I make peace, I stop blaming my luck, my parents, the government, the economy, or anything else for my challenges and difficulties. I take my struggles in stride and train my spotlight on what I can do about them now. I become for what I want instead of against what I don’t want.

What’s the difference, you ask.

The difference is that when I’m against something, I try to fight that instead of working towards what I desire. I practise the absence of what I want instead of being present to what I can do about it. The simple act of refocussing my attention releases enormous energy—the energy to drive my emotional engine to change myself and my circumstances. Then any action that emanates from it is positive.

Keep your attention on the present moment

You may think that by refocussing I’m only indulging in some form of mental acrobatics and may doubt the efficacy of this. You may even feel tempted to equate this with mere positive thinking. But ‘being for’ is more than that. It’s a decision to live in the present moment, instead of denying it. Whatever my goal—conquering a self-defeating habit, bringing more happiness into my relationships, or achieving greater professional success—this attitude of acceptance lets me enjoy my Now, which in turn creates a more joyful future, moment to moment.

Ekhart Tolle explains beautifully:

If you set yourself a goal and work towards it, you are using clock time. You are aware of where you want to go, but you honour and give your fullest attention to the step that you are taking at this moment. If you then become excessively focussed on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfilment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honoured. It becomes reduced to a mere stepping-stone to the future, with no intrinsic value. Clock time then turns into psychological time. Your life’s journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to ‘make it’.

So, my attention is my real currency; when it is in the Now, my life is rich and I live like a king. If I spend it anywhere other than in the present moment, I end up buying suffering. That’s a poor bargain, you will agree.

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But I have observed that sometimes life gives you rotten lemons so that all you can do is discard them. What do you do then?

All my life, I have been told by well meaning others that when things go wrong, the one thing that I should not let go of is hope; cling to it for dear life, because letting go of hope means giving up.

No one ever told me that sometimes there’s no scope of doing that. Yet there are times when life corners you in such a way that you have no room for escape.

I have come to realise that these times, when absolutely nothing is going right in your life and the world seems like a hostile place, when there’s simply no way out and you’re filled with feelings of hopelessness, that’s when the greatest opportunity for growth arises.

The Paradox of Hope

The exquisite paradox of life is that when I have nothing left, when I surrender and become open to total annihilation, that’s when, for the first time, I begin to live freely. Only when I lose everything, do I gain life. The irony is that once I accept total destruction, I stare at infinite possibilities. Then, suddenly, a different kind of peace descends and it dawns on me that only in total insecurity lies the opportunity to discover such peace.

This happens because, when there’s nothing more to lose, when nothing more is left in me to be destroyed, or taken away, I can relax—now there’s nothing to protect. No hopes to keep my attention fixed on some possibility in the future. When there’s nothing to look forward to, my attention comes back to where it belongs—on the present moment—and I begin to live and experience life as it is rather than trying to mould it according to my personal hopes and desires.

The Wisdom of No Escape

Pema Chödrön, Buddhist teacher and best-selling author of The Wisdom of No Escape explains, “When we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experiences become very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.”

When there’s no escape possible, when not even a ray of hope can be seen, then—and only then—can I accept darkness, and even befriend it. When I accept darkness, I begin to develop the ability to see in the dark. What’s more, all my other dormant senses come alive too.

But hope and acceptance don’t go together. Hope is a crutch. Only when I’m totally free of hope, when the ground beneath me disappears, can I learn to fly. That’s why I say, there is value in your feelings of hopelessness.

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But Why is Mindfulness So Hard to Practice?

I understand mindfulness as living in the present moment, with all my attention to what is. Being mindful implies being fully aware of your thoughts, feelings and actions.

There are a couple of good reasons why being mindful is so difficult to practise. Let me share them as I have understood.

1. We are all creatures of habit

First, we are all creatures of habit, which has its pros and cons. Being mindful means we  need to become aware of those psychological habits that are detrimental to our wellbeing. Being aware at all times requires a tremendous amount of alertness, which is difficult. What’s more, I have learned that this alertness is not possible to achieve with effort or practice—in other words, we can’t make a habit out of it. It comes only by allowing, by letting it be, whatever it is.

Related » How to Transform Oneself With Mindfulness

2. Busting the myth of our goodness

The second reason why mindfulness is so hard has to do with our belief in our own inherent goodness. I have learned that mindfulness requires shifting my attention from the outer world to my inner world. It means looking within, noticing my thoughts, actions and reactions. When I am mindful, the light of awareness puts the spotlight on those aspects of mine that I don’t want to accept and don’t want anyone else to see—not even myself. Little surprise then, that I find mindfulness difficult. It busts the myth of my ‘goodness’. Being mindful means confronting my own demons, coming face-to-face with my pet monsters. And that is unnerving. It exposes to me my subtle neuroses—my prejudices, my arrogance, my righteousness, my narrow-mindedness, my angst, my aggression—there’s so much about me that my ego camouflages under the guise of being busy, good and right. When I am living unmindfully, I push these aspects under the carpet of my mind, as if they don’t exist.

In being mindful, the facade of being better than others falls away and you realize that, at the core, we’re all the same. You notice that we are all ridden, to a greater or lesser extent, by human frailties of guilt, fear, envy, complexes, prejudices, insecurity and intolerance. And underneath the shell of our egos, we all have same needs and wants—to love and be loved, to feel joy, to express kindness, to know the self and to be at peace.

Why mindfulness is worth your while

Because of its revelational nature, being mindful can be quite shocking and unpleasant, especially in the beginning. The ego, of course, doesn’t want you to be mindful. It feels threatened because all its work, the carefully built palace of illusions, gets shattered. But then mindfulness gives rise to something more valuable and rare—courage.

This courage isn’t the kind that is glamorized in the movies. It doesn’t help you win any battles in the outer world. Instead, it helps you conquer something much more difficult—your inner world. With it, you see yourself as you are, and thus also see others as they are, beyond their respective facades. Suddenly, others are not enemies that you must be wary of, but fellow travelers.

Again, what I have gathered from my journey of living mindfully is that it has made me kinder and more tolerant towards others; I am no longer offended by thoughts, words or actions of others. Most of all, I am patient with myself at those times when I am not exactly living from my highest awareness. That is why, even though mindfulness is so hard, I am sticking to it.

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Studies show that people who multi-task are less effective at their work, as compared to those who focus on one task at a time. Attention requires mental and physical energy that your body can create only in limited amounts. Focussing on anything consumes a considerable amount of glucose from your body and brain. This means distractions take a mental and physical toll on us.

Research also indicates that distractions take up almost two hours a day for most employees, most of whom only spend 11 minutes working on a project before they become distracted by something else, after which it takes them 25 minutes to refocus. So, in addition to affecting you at a personal level, distractions also have an adverse impact on your daily business targets.

Why do we get distracted?

Why do we get distracted so easily? Well, aside from distractions created by others, most of us become distracted by thinking about the past, the future… any time but the present. You have a limited amount of energy, especially for tasks that are not uplifting or relevant. Therefore, whenever you engage in less important tasks, you deplete your energy.

When you are in the present moment, you’re able to powerfully engage with those around you. Being alert and aware of the present moment, besides enhancing your productivity, also functions as an excellent tool for gleaning critical insights from your environment, and this helps you to make well thought out decisions at work.

For example, when you meet with your team, you can have two different types of meetings. One is where you are alert and open to both the verbal and non-verbal cues of your team, which helps you gather critical information to decide the next course of action. The second is where you have already made up your mind, and the meeting is held merely to manipulate others to accept your point of view; hence, you receive no valuable feedback from team members, which leads to sub-par performance.

How to come back to the present

During the course of your work it’s easy to miss the present moment and get overwhelmed with the demands of the day. Here are a few simple exercises that can help you regain your present-moment awareness. Use them at every opportunity.

1. Every hour, stop and ask: Am I really present in this moment? If not, what are my thoughts focussed on? Doing this often will help you return to the present moment.

You may wonder how to practise this if you are already doing an activity that is very engaging. Taking a moment to reflect on these questions will help you assess if you are really present and focussed on the priority task—which is good—or if you are focussed on a less important task.

2. Spend a few minutes each day with Nature; it will calm you. Watch a tree’s leaves move when the wind blows, reflecting non-resistance. While looking at the ocean, see the abundance, neutrality and oneness of the Universe. Nature has many messages for us and this practice will help separate your good thoughts from the cluttered ones. Spending some quiet time alone each day is essential to your inner wellbeing.

3. When in the moment, look at difficulties you have and ask: “What can I learn from this problem?” How is this problem affecting you in the larger scheme of things? Think about one thing you can do to minimise the problem and act upon it right away.

Why this approach? Because, it takes you away from worrying about the problem, which is pointless. Instead, you can view the problem from a distance and the objectivity will help you act on the problem. This will minimise the mental energy you invest in it and also offer a realistic perspective on the situation.

4. Ask yourself: “What can I do in the present moment to create a positive impact?

5. Say thank you a few times in a day for all the good things in your life. As you count your blessings, they multiply.

6. When driving, observe your surroundings, listen to music or an educational audio to stay in the present moment and avoid fretting about the serpentine traffic.

7. Forgive someone in the present moment by giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is liberating! Start with small things, such as when someone does not thank you for a favour you did, or when someone fails to apologise when they accidentally push you. As you get good at this, you will realise how much negative energy you stave off. This will help you forgive bigger transgressions, such as pardoning someone for taking away some of your business or cheating you on an investment deal.

8. Think of someone you care about and send loving thoughts in the present moment.

The post 8 simple ways to bring yourself to the present moment appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honour and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering—and free of the egoic mind.

Time and mind are inseparable

Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.

Imagine the Earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and animals. Would it still have a past and a future? Could we still speak of time in any meaningful way? The question “What time is it?” or “What’s the date today?”—if anybody were there to ask it—would be quite meaningless. The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused by such a question. “What time?” they would ask. “Well, of course, it’s now. The time is now. What else is there?”

The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it

The beginning of dysfunction

Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but there comes a point where they take over our lives, and this is where dysfunction, pain and sorrow set in.

The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind. An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past.

Freedom from pain

If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don’t create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop creating time? Realise deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life—and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

Excerpted with permission from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle, published by Yogi Impressions.

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I recognise the importance of the rear-view mirror in my car. As I drive, I often look into it—to help me navigate busy roads better. Driving without it is not only ill-advised, but downright dangerous. But, looking too much in the rear-view mirror is equally hazardous and can cause accidents, you will agree.

Now imagine the windshield and the rear view mirror with their sizes interchanged—the windshield as small as the rear view mirror and vice versa. Would driving become much, much more difficult? You bet it would! [Unless, you’re driving backwards]

Yet, when it comes to everyday living, this is how most of us live. By constantly looking back for benchmarks, we make our past much bigger than our present and future.

In the corporate world, for example, young professionals often set ambitious targets at the start of their careers. But if they miss these targets for some reason or another, the next time around they downgrade their targets to safe levels—in other words, lower than their past performance. In doing so, they enlarge their rear-view mirrors way beyond necessary.

It’s not just failure but success of the past too, which imprisons us. We tend to recreate past success by trying to do things the way we did it then. But resting on past laurels often backfires. Those who believe that just because something worked in the past, it will work in the future too, are ignoring the ever-changing world where nothing stays the same. Situations change and factors that were once responsible for success may no longer be relevant or may have disappeared altogether. We live in a dynamic universe that is changing continuously. Greek Philosopher Heraclitus expressed this beautifully, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Those who believe that just because something worked in the past, it will work in the future too, are ignoring the ever-changing world where nothing stays the same

I am not saying that the past be totally abandoned. Certainly there are lessons that we can learn from it to improve our future attempts. Past is an important indicator—it tells you where you were—but it can never tell you where you can go and how soon you’ll reach there. For that, you have to look ahead. That’s why you glance momentarily in the rear view mirror, while keeping your eyes focussed on the road in front of you.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a personal goal or a professional objective, relying on past performance as a yardstick for the future is simply not a sound strategy. The baggage from the past acts as a constraint and, in the process, you often get into the wrong lane or take the wrong turn—and end up some place you didn’t want to go.

It’s worthwhile to remember that no great invention was ever made by looking into the past for reference—it’s the future that is full of possibilities. And future is born from the womb of the present. Taking the car analogy further, we can have the perfect plan for the future, factoring precise lessons from the past, but we won’t get anywhere unless the car moves. And for that, we need action in the now. Ultimately it’s the energy we generate in the present moment that takes us forward. So thank the past for its lessons but don’t dwell there too long. Live in the present moment and be ready for an unknown, exciting future.

The post Past imperfect, future tensed appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

I replied, “Do you really want to know how to relieve stress?”

“Yeah! Tell me, what should I do?”

I replied, “I think you should enjoy your yogurt.”

He didn’t like that answer, but it is the best answer and you’ll soon understand why.

Characteristics of the mind

I’d like to start with some principles of the mind, some truths about how you and I think. These truths will help you to understand why you experience stress all the time and will also guide you to function mindfully, so that you aren’t stressed. Let’s start with principle #1.

#1 The mind can only have a dominant focus on one thing at a time

You can never think specifically about two or more things simultaneously. You can observe several things, but you can’t focus directly on more than one thing.

It may seem like that is what you do when you observe your thoughts jumping from idea to idea so quickly. It seems like you are able to think of many things at the same time, but that’s not the case. It is not possible for your mind to dwell on two different dominant thoughts at exactly the same time.

Here’s an example: You’re driving and you get a text message on your cell phone. It’s shouting at you to read it. As you divert your attention to your phone, you can’t focus on your driving. You can bounce back and forth from one to the other, but you can’t focus directly on both things simultaneously [which is why you should never text while you’re driving].

Another example: If you are reading this article, you can’t, at the same time, watch that show on television. You can read, then watch, then read, and then watch—but the two can’t happen together.

A second important aspect of the mind is:

#2 You are always free to think anything you choose

There are no restrictions as to what your mind can think about. Some have called this our God-given quality of ‘free agency’. Ultimately, no one has control over your thoughts except you. What you choose to think about is entirely your decision. At any conscious moment, you can think about anything you want to, and your choices are unlimited. There may be consequences, benefits or rewards for thinking certain ways, but ultimately, what you think is up to you.

For example, if I asked you to think of dancing elephants on the rings of Saturn, you could put pictures in your mind of how that might look. At the same time, you have the power to think of anything else, perhaps dolphins with zebra stripes jumping over the Golden Gate Bridge. What you think is always your choice.

The Principle of Attrition

Associated with your ability to choose what you focus on is the Principle of Attrition. Not only do you have the power to choose where to focus your thoughts, you also have the power to choose where not to focus your thoughts.

And as you cease focusing your thoughts on people, situations and events that you would consider negative ones, the negative nature of those unpleasant conditions or ideas lose their power to control or influence you. Essentially, if you aren’t thinking about them consistently, they lose their negative impact.

This is not the same as avoiding or ignoring things that you find unpleasant. Ignoring or avoiding still involves thinking about them. Instead, you simply keep your attention focused on those areas of your life that you would consider positive, happy, and beneficial.

These first two principles are important to keep in mind so that you understand that your stress really does begin with your thoughts.

If you are free to choose any thought, and you can only have one dominant thought at a time, it is you that always decides exactly which thought is on the center stage of your mind. [Read What’s your spotlight on?]

Understanding these principles also helps you realize the freedom you have to change your thoughts at any moment.

Now for Truth #3.

#3 You can only directly experience this moment, right here, right now

I will ask you some questions that will lead you to understand what it means to be mindful.

• Where are you right now?

This same question can be asked in a different way:

• Where is the only place you can directly experience?

The only correct answer to this question, and it is the same answer every moment of your life, is HERE.

You cannot be anywhere else but HERE.

Certainly, you can think you are in other places, or simply think of other places, but you can’t directly experience any of those other places that aren’t where you are right now.

• Where are you not?

Anywhere else!

You can’t be at the store while you are driving to the store. While you are driving to the store, your ‘here’ is in the car and amidst the scenery on the way to the store. But you can’t directly experience the store until you are at the store. You can only directly experience where you are.

I know, this sounds strange, but hang in there. This will all make perfect sense in a moment.

The next couple of questions are similar to the previous ones.

• At what point in time are you always?

This question can also be asked in a different way:

• When is the only time that you can directly experience anything?

The only correct answer to this question, and it is always the same answer, is NOW.

You can’t be in your own future, nor can you be in your own past.

Certainly, you can think of these times; you can make up all kinds of things about the past and the future, but you can never directly experience them.

Imagine—if I could experience my own future, I’d transport myself to one year from now, find out which stock has done the best between now and then, come back to now and buy a truckload of that stock. If I could relive a past event, I would go back to a decision I made that didn’t turn out so well and make a different decision so things would turn out better.

These both sound absurd because you and I cannot directly experience the future or the past. We are all stuck firmly in this moment called NOW.

There is never a time, for you, me, and everyone else, when it is not right HERE, right NOW for us. This is our reality. It is what is. Always.

Try this

You can focus your thoughts directly on two places to discover what is happening here
and now.

The first place is from the information that comes from the outside world that reaches your brain by way of your senses. You hear something through your ears that is happening externally. The sound goes in your ears and you think about the nature of the sound. What you hear is reality. You directly experience the sound of the bird.

This works similarly with your other senses. You see a bird fly overhead, hear it chirping as it goes by, and you recognize that you are experiencing the bird—it is real.

The other place you can observe what is [happening] is internally. You have many sensations that are going on inside of you that are every bit as real as the things that happen outside of you. Perhaps you have a sore throat or a knot in your stomach. You may notice that gravity works when you drink some water. Unless you’re upside down, the water goes down into your stomach instead of up into your head. There are other internal sensations you can experience directly including a headache, arthritis, muscle tension, heartbeat, respiration or any other currently functioning physiological process.

I realize this might be a new concept for you. For most of us, we’ve been taught the value of looking to the future to see where we’re going, and recalling the past so that we can learn from our mistakes. I’m not suggesting that we stop using our mind in those useful ways.

Here’s the next powerful principle:

#4 HERE and NOW is free of stress

The next principle of the mind suggests that your HERE and NOW that I just described is a safe and stress-free place. There is no stress in this present moment except for very rare occasions—less than one per cent of the time.

How could that be possible, if stress seems to be such a constant concern in your life?

The only function of the stress response is to keep us safe in the presence of physical danger. If you accurately assess your experiences, you are in physical danger less than one per cent of the time. Your moment-to-moment experience is not a dangerous one.

If you take the time to really examine your thoughts that lead to activation of the stress response, they are focused on either the past or the future.

Examples of future or past threat thoughts:

• You stress about the upcoming speech that you have to give in front of a group of people [Future]
• You relive, in your mind, the argument you had with someone earlier in the day [Past]
• You feel anxious about calling the person who owes you money [Future]
• You feel embarrassed because you said something to some acquaintances that you think they took the wrong way [Past]

These future and past thoughts send a message to your hypothalamus and nervous system to activate the stress response if there happens to be any threat thoughts among those future and past thoughts. But none of those false emergencies are happening right now. What is happening right now is almost always free from any danger or any real threat.

This brings us to the final mindfulness principle. Notice the synergy.

#5 Whenever you bring your attention to the present moment—HERE and NOW—you feel relaxed

Once you understand that you are always free to choose any thought, that you can only think about one thing at a time, that HERE and NOW is your only reality, and that HERE and NOW is a safe place, you come to the final mindfulness principle that pulls each of these together.

Since HERE and NOW is safe, and you’re free to choose to focus on HERE and NOW by turning your focus to this present moment, you get relaxation.

Since you can only focus on one thing, and if it is focused on a safe, threat-free something, your body-mind will recognize the safety and NOT turn on the stress response.

Imagine that you’re driving your car and you find yourself in a traffic jam. You’re on your way to work and this traffic jam is causing you to be very late.

The reality is that you are HERE and NOW sitting in your car amongst a whole bunch of other cars. There is nothing inherently stressful about being in this situation. In other words, there is no reason for your body to turn on the stress response.

The stress comes in when you catapult your thoughts into your own future and make up all the horrible things that are likely to happen to you because you are late for work.

When this happens, your nervous system and hypothalamus—not being able to distinguish between thoughts about future events and thoughts about present moments—think you’re in trouble NOW.

Responding to the imaginary ‘threat’, your body turns on the automatic program for survival—the stress response.

How to reverse the stress response

When you bring your focus, your dominant thoughts, back to the reality of HERE and NOW, and keep your attention there [remember, you can only think of one thing at a time], your body systems won’t be hearing any threat thoughts, and as a result, you’ll not experience any stress.

Rather than dwell on the bad outcome—since you can’t do anything about the traffic jam anyway— you can put your total focus on things that are immediately available to your senses: What do you see, hear, smell, sense, etc., while you’re sitting there in the car.

I’m not saying that when you finally arrive at work you won’t have to handle the issue of being late with your boss. But while you’re in your car, you can either experience stress, or you can feel peaceful.

Consider this

In class, I ask my students about the upcoming tests they will be taking. I ask them if the tests are stressful. They respond that they definitely are. If we analyze this accurately however, we see how the tests themselves have nothing to do with their stress.

Which part of taking a test is threatening? [Remember that stress is the body’s response to prepare for or deal with a physical threat.]

• Is it the part when you walk into the room where you will take the test?
• How about when you put the pen in your hand and begin reading the questions on the test?
• Are you somehow in danger while you read the words on the page?
• Does the real danger occur when you write stuff on the paper with your pen? That must be the threatening part.
• Is it when you pick up your paper, walk over to the desk where all of the other tests are stacked and you lay yours on top? That must be the dangerous place.

At no time during the entire two hours of test taking were you in any sort of danger.

Why, then, would you feel stress?

Stress happens when your thoughts project into your future or past, and those thoughts include pain of any kind. It is rarely, if ever, the current experience or event that causes the threat.

Think about this

Consider this common scenario of a basketball player shooting a foul shot in an ‘important’ basketball game. Let’s say you are the coach of the opposing team. Your team is ahead by one point and there are two seconds left in the game. One of the other team’s players is at the foul line shooting two shots.

If you are a wise coach, what do you do in this situation?

The obvious answer is that you call a time-out. You do this because you want to make the player think about the shots.

What you are really hoping the player thinks about are all the painful consequences of missing the shot—the team will lose, people will be disappointed in him, the team won’t make it to the playoffs, etc.

If he thinks of these painful consequences that will happen in his future, he will unintentionally, but automatically, turn on the stress response. When that happens, many of his muscles—his fight-or-flight muscles—will tighten up or contract, causing him to shoot the ball differently than he normally would. He is much more likely to miss the shots.

Present moment

If he were shooting foul shots in his driveway at home, he could probably sink a hundred shots in a row because the only thing he is thinking about, while playing at home, is how much fun he is having in the present moment.

Future thoughts

However, during the time-out, when he thinks of all of the pain associated with missing the shot and losing the game, he ’tightens up’ or ’freezes’ and is less likely to sink the shot.

Again, thoughts that focus on the future have a likelihood of turning on the stress response. Thoughts that focus on the experiences of the present do not.

• Whenever your thoughts don’t focus directly on what is happening in the present moment, you increase the possibility of turning on the stress response.
• When you turn your focus to what is happening in the present moment, the stress response turns off, automatically.

Are you starting to sense how powerful this can be for you?

Wouldn’t it be better to live each moment peacefully rather than with stress?

Once you get the hang of this, and start applying it to all of your moments, the peaceful feeling that follows becomes addicting.

There are several steps that automatically bring your mind back to your HERE and NOW. They involve thinking about things in a certain way, a different way, that doesn’t involve thoughts about the future or the past.

But first, let’s get a good handle on what it means to be mindful.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness can be described as intentional, non-judgmental, moment-to-moment awareness of the HERE and NOW. It may be thought of not so much as a technique, but as a way of being.

Mindfulness is not considered a relaxation technique. Rather, it is a mental state that reduces susceptibility to future/past threat thoughts that turn on the stress response.

The result is that stress can be prevented through conscious living.

• Mindfulness is the process of learning how to be fully present in all experiences while being less judgmental and reactive.
• Mindfulness suggests being present in the here and now, attending to and observing whatever unfolds, and remaining focused and relaxed.

To understand what these definitions mean, let’s begin with a very common example, which you have probably experienced.

Consider how you function mentally when you drive your car and you notice that a police officer is driving directly behind you. There are no lights flashing. He is just following you. What happens to your level of present moment awareness?

When you drive with this level of alertness, you usually try to be as completely aware of everything that is going on as possible. You are aware of the distance between your car and the one in front of you. You are aware of how fast you drive. You are totally aware of all aspects of your driving such as how soon you will have to turn on the signal to indicate that you are making a turn, how quickly you shift lanes, and if your lights are on. In essence, you are completely tuned in to your immediate environment. This is mindfulness.

By contrast mindlessness is demonstrated when you drive along a stretch of road, and before you realise it, you have travelled 15 miles and have no idea about the stretch of road you have just driven on. You suddenly catch yourself and marvel that you didn’t have an accident for failing to pay attention.

Mindlessness occurs when your thoughts are not in the present moment and when you tune out what is happening. Your mental focus is on times and places other than here and now. You ignore the present moment because your attention is focused elsewhere.

How to be mindful

There are four primary mental characteristics that immediately move you into a state of mindful awareness. They are these:

• Stop
• Look
• Accept
• Savor

Let’s look at each of them individually.

Stop

The first thing that you can do to bring your focus more into the present is Stop. Stopping means turning off a lot of the mind chatter racing endlessly like bumblebees around a hive inside your mind. Much of your mental monologue consists of thoughts about things that aren’t happening HERE and NOW.

Stopping means consciously bringing control to those out-of-control thoughts. Remember, you have a choice about which thoughts you think. Stopping means taking responsibility and using your power to direct the parade of your thoughts. Once you’ve done that, the next thing you can do is Look.

Look

Looking involves paying attention to what is happening with all of your senses. It is almost a passive observing. You are getting in touch with what you are currently experiencing, right here, right now.

The easiest way to do this is by simply moving through your senses and asking yourself, “What am I noticing now?” Focus your thoughts, without making judgements, on what is happening:

• What do you see—right now?
• What can you taste—right now?
• What do you smell—right now?
• What do you hear—right now?
• What do you sense physically—right now?
• What internal sensations do you observe—right now?

To help you do this, you might think something like, I am noticing. . . and then let your senses bring to you whatever happens to be unfolding in the moment.

Not too long ago, I was talking with a good friend of mine, Kevin, whose son, Mathis, is a very good golfer. He plays for one of the local high school teams and consistently performs very well. However, when he plays in tournaments, there are times when he finds himself thinking too much about the outcome of the shot or the problems he encountered on the previous hole. When that happens, when his mind races into the future or in the past, his ability to hit shots well decreases dramatically. In a recent tournament, Mathis shot a 100 [a very poor score] on one day and shot an 80 [a significantly better score] on the next. It had taken him 20 more strokes to complete the same course on the first day. Obviously, his skill level hadn’t changed, but his thinking had.

Since Mathis’s golf swing mechanics are fine, he doesn’t need to worry about that part of his game. But he does need to correct what he focuses on mentally. I suggested that when he steps up to the ball and gets ready to hit it that he focus on things that are happening in his immediate environment—to just observe. For example, he could focus on the colour or even the little dimples of the golf ball. He could also focus on his breathing or on how it feels to swing the golf club or his hands as they gently grip the club. These are all things that are part of his HERE and NOW.

Why would I suggest that he simply observe things that are unfolding moment to moment?

You see, when the mind isn’t racing with thoughts of the future or the past, there will also be no thoughts of any kind of threat. When there is no threat, the body will not turn on the fight-or-flight response, which increases muscle contraction. In golf, tightening the muscles in the wrong way will invariably lead to poor hitting. Observing passively eliminates this possibility.

Instead, the body is left to do what it has been trained to do. In this case, hit a golf ball with perfect precision.

Accept

The third mental characteristic to move yourself into a more mindful state is to be accepting or eliminate your need to judge. When you simply observe, without adding the emotional analysis of the situation, you free yourself to see things more clearly. You do this by simply maintaining your observational state of mind.

This isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Normally, we quickly attach ourselves emotionally to how we think things ought to be. And when things aren’t turning out the way we think they should, it upsets our mental and emotional equilibrium.

Inherent in accepting and not judging is mentally detaching from the way you think things “should” or “ought to” be. This is especially valuable for things, people or situations over which you have no direct control or influence.

It’s a windy rainy day outside and you had plans to have a picnic at the park with your family and friends. You can’t do anything about the fact that it is a stormy day, so when you detach from your emotional need for the day to be a certain way, it brings you to a more mindful state.

Savour

What you focus on expands. When you focus mindfully, it expands even more. Once you release your judgment of the thing you are focusing on, you immediately experience it with greater pleasure and happiness. I call this savouring, which simply means that you let the enjoyment of the thing that you’re focusing on expand.

Slow down.
Stop.
Appreciate.
Stop taking things for granted!
Seize the moment!

Consider a night when you’ve been in a place where you could see the stars far more clearly, such as in the mountains, the desert, or on the ocean. Being mindful, you stop—you cease thinking of things that aren’t going on; you look—you put your attention on the billions of stars above; you release your need to judge—you observe in a passive way; and then you savour the sky—you take it all in. The more you look, the more beauty you see. The more you see, the more magnificent it becomes. These are moments when time seems to stand still; it takes your breath away, and you are peaceful. That’s savouring.

Commonly, the feeling that accompanies savouring is gratitude. You begin to recognise that things are fine as they are, and the more you focus on them being fine, the more fine they get. You feel thankful, appreciative, blessed for the beauty of the moment.

Consider examples of holding a newborn baby, watching the unfolding of a beautiful sunset, climbing to the top of a mountain and taking in the view, or snorkelling amongst the variety of fish in the ocean. In these moments, we are awestruck by the beauty and richness of the moment. We feel thankful, satisfied, enriched.

And every moment can be like these if we pay attention. We don’t just ‘stop and smell the roses.’ Instead, we ‘stop to enjoy the wonderful smell of the roses.’ That’s savouring.

Take the extra time to deliberately focus on, and be thankful for the little things, the good things that are going well in your life, and in this moment. Those good things will expand. The more you focus on the satisfaction of things as they are right now, the more you’ll experience satisfaction.

Remember, what you focus on expands.

When you combine these four mental tools: stopping, looking, accepting things as they are, and savouring, you are in the perfect mental zone for mindfulness. Interestingly, the moment you move to a mindful state, everything that is happening gets better. It expands, it becomes more interesting, and your stress evaporates.

The post How Mindfulness Helps Reduce Stress appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Achieving things for the sake of achievement is a dead-end. You will never find fulfilment in endlessly pursuing one goal after another. The key to using goals to create happiness is to recognise them for what they are—a tool to help you get what you want, rather than being the thing you want. This requires a fundamental shift in the way we think about happiness and life. A shift from a “when-then” paradigm to a “see-now” one… Let me explain.

What do I mean by “when-then”? When-then is the way of looking at things that says, when I do “x”, I get “y”. The modern media has taken this paradigm to a whole new level and propagated it far and wide. Only when you have x, achieve y, or do z, you’ll finally have “made it”. We’ve been taught our entire lives to live in this “when-then” paradigm. It’s so much a part of our lives and our world that we don’t even realise it.

As a child you learned, “when” I listen to my parents, “then” I get rewarded with praise. In school you learned “when” I listen well and study hard, “then” I get good grades. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it creates a life where certain things have to happen before I’m allowed to be happy. School doesn’t teach us to enjoy the process of learning, it teaches us to enjoy getting the good grade. Our parents, though they are well-intentioned, don’t really teach us to be good so that we can be a good person, but so that we can earn their praise. We are taught to chase the vehicle and not the ultimate destination.

Dig deeper

Let’s dig a little deeper. Many students will go along when you tell them that if they work hard they’ll get good grades. For many, that works. But for some, those with very inquisitive minds, and those who are lazy and looking for a way out, will dig deeper and ask, “But why do I need good grades in the first place?”

The standard answer from teachers everywhere is that if you get good grades, you’ll be able to get a good job. For some students, that works. For others, they dig even deeper. “Why do I want to get a good job?”

“Well so you can earn a good living”

“Why do I need to earn a lot of money to enjoy my life?”

“Ahh…” that’s a tougher one to answer.

The problem is that success in life cannot be equated with a list of accomplishments.

No matter how many plaques you put on the wall, how many promotions you are able to earn, or how many medals are put around your neck, if you are not happy already, these things will not make you happy.

Spend a few minutes to reflect on how many times have you decided on a goal for yourself, worked hard to achieve it, and soon after achieving it, felt empty.

An example that illustrates this point is of Olympians suffering what they call “post-Olympic depression” every four years. For years, sometimes most of their young lives, Olympians train to realise a goal of competing in the Olympic Games. For years they sacrifice, dedicate their time, energy—essentially, their whole lives—to that singular cause. When you consider all that they invest to get there, it’s little wonder that the experience is unable to ever measure up.

That’s why it is so dangerous to create your life around a paradigm that says, “I’ll be happy when…” As soon as you start making your happiness conditional on anything you set yourself up for a fall. Conditional happiness creates a situation of diminishing returns.

It’s the same phenomenon that leads people into addiction. Think of how an alcoholic or drug addict becomes addicted. They take a drink and it feels good, so they have another. They enjoy the feeling of being under the influence of alcohol. So when the feeling wears off, they look forward to the next time they can feel it again, and as soon as they are able, they take another drink.

Soon, having a few drinks doesn’t have the effect that it used to, so they have to have a few more. They keep trying to chase the high of that first drink, but each time they get drunk, the high is never as good as the first time.

I would never diminish the severity or tragic nature of alcoholism. I use the example only to illustrate that idea of diminishing returns. Goals are the same way. Achieving a goal gives us a good feeling. The first time you achieve a major goal, you get a “buzz”. It feels awesome. When the high wears off, you can’t wait to start working on the next goal so that you can feel that feeling again.

The problem is that the next time you achieve a similar goal it doesn’t feel quite as satisfying. Keep doing it, and soon it seems too easy and you get little satisfaction from it, if any. So if you decide that you are going to be happy once you have this or that, you’ll soon discover the reward doesn’t live up to expectations.

More money is not the answer

So if achieving your goals won’t make you happy, what will? Money? Afraid not.

Studies of lottery winners have documented that while winning the lottery created a bump in happiness for a short time immediately after the win, the winners returned to the same level of happiness they had before the win, very soon after the win.

Studies have also shown that, contrary to the messages we see in popular media, money does not buy happiness. To be sure, money will make you happier than someone who has absolutely none. Those who are in abject poverty are known to be significantly less happy than those who are able to live a “middle-class” lifestyle, but the beyond that, more money will only make you marginally happier and after a certain point you are as happy or sad as multi-millionaires. Again, it’s a case of diminishing returns.

So if achievement and money won’t make you happy, what will? How does anyone find real lasting happiness? The key, I believe, is to discover the power of living in the present. I call it living with a “present-of-the-present” paradigm rather than a “when-then” one.

The problem with chasing money or achievements to find happiness is not that there is anything inherently wrong with either. Money and achievements have their place. Money is useful tool when used properly. Many believe that love of money is the root of all evil, and that’s true in a sense. The single-minded pursuit of wealth at all costs, has always, and will continue, to cause harm. But money itself is morally neutral. Money is not the problem, but rather how we use it and how we sometimes let it affect our behaviour.

The hype around goals

Achievements have their limitations. In today’s society goals have become a bit over-rated. Again, I hesitate to even say that as a “motivational speaker” since I’m supposed to be a great advocate of goal-setting. And in fact, I am. The question is not whether or not goals are good—they are—but rather what are they good for?

Why do you set a goal? What is the purpose of doing that? Let’s use an example to examine this more closely.

Let’s say that you have a goal to lose 10 lbs. We’ve all experienced that moment when we catch a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror and think, “I really need to lose a few”. So let’s say you’ve decided that now is the time—you are going to crack down and drop those extra pounds!

So if I ask you: what is the purpose of your goal, what would you say? The quick answer would be, “to lose 10 lbs”. But that would not be the right answer. The purpose, or reason, for the goal of losing 10 lbs is not to be 10 lbs lighter. That’s right. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Why?

Let’s come at this a different way. Let’s say that you start dieting and exercising more and after four weeks of hard work, you manage to drop those 10 lbs. You’ve achieved the goal. Now, why are you happy? Is it because you achieved the goal? Are you happy because you can put a check mark next to “lose 10 lbs on your to-do list”? Maybe, a little. But more likely, you are happy because by losing the 10 lbs, you’ve realised the purpose for achieving the goal—you look better in the mirror now. When you look in that mirror now, you don’t smile and say “I lost 10 lbs!” you say, “Wow, I look goooood!”

The goal to lose 10 lbs is nothing more than a vehicle to get you to your destination. It’s not the destination itself. This small, but important distinction, is the reason that goal-setting leaves so many feeling frustrated. Whether I’m working with a group in a consulting role or coaching an individual, I tend to get the same reaction to the suggestion of creating written goals; groan.

The wrong chase

Most people hate setting goals. And frankly, I don’t blame them. The reason they hate setting goals is that they’ve had experiences that have turned them off the process or convinced them that it just doesn’t work. The reason for that is because they’ve been chasing the wrong thing. They’ve chased the vehicle instead of the destination. They’ been chasing the diet and exercise instead of the result of looking better in the mirror. No wonder they don’t want to do it!

When we make the mistake of chasing the vehicle and not the destination we inevitably hit a dead end. At some point the logic falls apart. Chasing goals and achievements simply for their own sake is an empty pursuit. After all, when it’s all over and your life is coming to an end, the plaques and medals, the titles and promotions, won’t mean much. As they say, you can’t take it with you.

The solution is to stop framing our lives around the when-then paradigm and instead work with the present-of-the-present paradigm. Present-present is learning about the present of the present [or the “gift” of the present]. This paradigm looks at life in a completely different way than we’ve been taught. Instead of prolonging happiness until an arbitrary benchmark has been met, it helps us find it in the process of meeting that benchmark.

The gift of present

When you learn to think in terms of the present-of-the-present, you stop focusing so much on the destination and start focussing on the journey itself and that is the real key. Instinctively we all know this. We just need to be reminded.

Let me give you an example.

I’ll give you two scenarios, and you tell me which you’d rather have:

Option 1: As you near the end of your life, you have amassed a great deal. After moving up the ranks of your company all the way to Executive VP, you earned the respect of your pears and a great salary too. You were recognised with awards and promotions, and others looked to you for guidance and advice. You were admired by many and well thought of.

As you look back on your life though, you realise that you missed a lot. You can’t remember a lot of your children’s early years. Your marriage didn’t survive the long hours you had to put in as you gained increasing responsibility at work. So although you and your ex are still friendly, you live alone.

Option 2: As you near the end of your life, you realise that you haven’t accomplished many of the things you’d set out to do, but you also had a lot of experiences you never thought you’d have. You didn’t rise in the company as far as you probably could have and your salary took a hit as a result. But you decided a long time ago that it was more important to be home at supper time and put your kids to bed each night than it was to drive a BMW.

As you look back on life you have some regrets about things not accomplished and opportunities not pursued, but they pale in comparison with the 50 years of love you’ve shared with your beloved spouse and your beautiful children and grandchildren. So as you come to your final days, you know that you won’t be alone but rather surrounded by those you love most.

So which life would you rather have?

I realise, of course, that these two lives present very polarising outcomes and that it is, in fact, possible to blend elements of both. But the purpose of the illustration is to help you evaluate what your priorities are. If you could only have one or the other, which would you choose?

Everyone I know would choose option 2. It’s a no-brainer. But if you look at the second scenario, you’ll notice that it isn’t built around when-then. There is happiness, satisfaction and peace about life and yet many goals have been left unachieved. A when-then thinker would look at this life and think, “how can I be pleased with this when so much has been left unaccomplished?” But when we think in terms of the present-of-the present, we realise that the real happiness we seek doesn’t come from having things checked off a list, but rather from enjoying the process of living.

Celebrate the journey

Think for a minute about how goals work. Which period is longer—the time it takes to work on achieving a goal, or the actual accomplishment of the goal?

If you broke it down by percentage of time spent, the vast majority, in fact nearly all, of your time is spent in the process of achieving goals, not in the actual achieving of them. So why put yourself in a situation where you can only be happy during the small fraction of the time you are actually realising your goals, instead of enjoying the entire process?

Life is short, but it is also amazing. The key to getting the most out of life, and more importantly, giving the most with your life, is to live each day fully, completely and passionately, enjoying every minute. When you are able to enjoy the journey rather than the destination, then, and only then, will you discover what it means to be fulfilled. Then, your whole life becomes a celebration.

The post Open the present appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.