Mastering the Present Moment

"Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be” – Eckart Tolle

What do you think of when you think about your future? And when you do think about it, which I’m sure you do from time to time, how you feel? Do you feel happy, excited, and joyous? Or do you feel uninspired, a bit nervous, or even scared?

The reason I ask is because, to an overwhelming degree, it has been my experience that when people don’t feel good about their future the reason for that is two fold:

1) They reflect on their negative memories and feelings from the past and anticipate that it is those memories and feelings that will determine the quality of their experience in the future, and

2) They then create uninspiring or scary pictures in their mind’s eye of just how bad they think the future is going to be for them.

On the other hand when people do feel good about their life ahead that also comes down to two factors. They create compelling movies in their mind of them experiencing their lives in ways that fill them with joy and, more importantly, they are genuinely bought into the realisation that the past does not equal the future.

I’ve yet to meet a living soul who hasn’t had to encounter painful events in their life, or had to overcome difficulties, or deal with the frustration of things not turning out the way they had hoped. I’m convinced that if you were to walk up to any stranger in the street and say to them “I’m really sorry to hear about your problems”, they’d look at you with an amazed expression and say “How did you know?”

So if everybody’s history is littered with memories of the challenges they’ve faced, how is it that some get to anticipate their future more positively than others? It is because the way you feel about your future at any given moment has less to do with what you’ve actually been through in the past and more to do with the quality of the thoughts you’re having in the present about what the past and future means to you.

I have met with and coached many people who have been frightened about what they think their future had in store for them, and in every case the starting point for turning it all around has been one remarkably simple realisation.

People are never scared of what they think they are scared of, they are only scared of what they think.

Here’s why. The relationship between reality (the one that actually happens) and the reality that we make-up in our minds has been one that has confused us since the moment our brains became evolved enough to ponder such meaty topic as the past and future. Somewhere along the line we got it into our heads that the act of thinking a thought makes it true. That’s why when you imagine yourself suffering in the future, say, failing at important tasks, being unhappy in your career, or not achieving what you want out of life, you start to get an uneasy feeling right away. The nervous system takes what ever you think about – past, present or future - and acts on it as if it’s a factual event taking place right now. Of course the problem with this is that most people tend not to challenge the things they feel to be fact, so left unchecked those thoughts get free reign of the imagination and monopolise they way you feel about life.

In those moments when you think about the future it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it has already been determined in accordance with the kind of thoughts you are having about it. But the future doesn’t exist, it never has. All you have is this very moment, now. The future can never arrive because it is not coming from anywhere. What you think of as the future is just a clear empty space into which the Now can evolve, and that empty space is pure potentiality. So the question is not, “What do I want to have happen in the future?” it’s, “What do I want this very moment to evolve into?” and “How do I want it to keep evolving so that this very moment is the best kind of moment I could hope to experience?”.

I’m guessing you’ve already noticed that in own life it is so much easier to make decisions and take action at the times when you can actually be there to make a decision or take some action. It’s always in the present moment. So often we spend time evaluating decisions from the past or anticipating decisions we might need to make in the future, but when it all comes down to it, it only ever happened, or will happen, in the Now. As Erkart Tolle said, “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.”

So, if you ever get a bad feeling about the future and you then realise that the future doesn’t actually exist, that just leaves you as a person quietly thinking a thought in the present moment - Nothing more, nothing less. Every thought you’ve ever had took place in the present moment, and a thought, in and of itself, is absolutely harmless. It’s only when you breathe life into it by responding as if it represents actual reality that it can have the potential to cause you suffering.

After a while most people are able to see, or at least understand the idea that the future is not what we usually think of it as being in our heads. After all, intellectually we know that the future hasn’t happened yet, so how could we possibly know how things are really going to turn out? What can be more of a mind bender though is the idea that the past doesn’t exist either. That one really catches people out! “But surely the past must exist, we’ve been through it haven’t we? We’ve had the physical experience of it and can remember it clearly.” That may be true, but when all of those things in ‘the past’ happened, when did they actually take place? In the present moment. There has been no disconnect between that present moment and the one you are experiencing right now. You didn’t leave it behind, you brought it with you!

Right now you may be thinking that I’ve lost the plot, or you might even be wondering, “So what? Why is this significant?” Well the reason that it is significant is because when we believe that our past still somehow exists, it also encourages us to believe that all the hurt and pain we’ve experienced also still exists, but is out of our reach; crystallized in time gone by. If we think that pain still exists in the past but we can’t reach it, then we become more inclined to feel held ransom to it effects.

But even when you think about the past and get that realistic sense that its echo lingers on and that it is following you around, that isn’t the past. That is just a process of thought that is taking place in the present moment. It is nothing more than electricity jumping between neurons in your brain, in the Now. It’s not the past that hurts; it is what you do in the present moment to make a mental reconstruction of old painful experiences that allows the same old feelings to stay with you.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t think that we have a past or a future, just that we need be clear that the past and future are just concepts that can only exist when we think about them in the present moment. When you live in the knowledge that everything you’ll get to experience in your entire lifetime happens in the continuation of the now, that’s when you can make some real quality decisions about what you want you life to be about. Not later, right here in this very moment.

One of my all time heroes Byron Katie said “Isn’t the past kind? It’s always over.” What she meant by that is the very instant an event takes place it’s already gone, and can only live on as a memory trace in the mind. So if someone was to come and slap me around the face, while that’s not one of my favourite experiences, almost immediately it’s over. Sure, I’ll make an instant creation of it in my mind and replay it like its happening again and again; I may even take some further action, but the point is that what ever I do or feel next is only related to my thoughts in the present moment about what I remember taking place. It’s not what happened to me that determines the quality of how I feel, but what I do with it inside. Which brings me onto one of the most important lessons I believe anyone can learn if they are seeking true happiness and peace in their life.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional – but you have to provide that yourself.

We all have to go through painful events - that’s just part of life. We fall on hard times, we lose people close to us, we get betrayed, and we find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the pain that is associated with those events needs to be dealt in what ever way is appropriate, because it creates change for us. The way we clear a space for ourselves to adapt to the change is to feel things like sadness, anger, disappointment, frustration… but those emotions are only designed to be temporary states that serve their purpose. Once we’ve processed those raw emotions, then we can re-stabilise and get on with the rest of our lives. The reason suffering is optional is because it requires you to have to build a bigger story about why everything is so terrible and to imagine wider unpleasant consequences. The lingering emotions are no longer to do with the actual events themselves, but a response to the quality of thoughts you’ve added into the mix yourself to spice things up a bit.

I remember about six months after my mum died I was feeling pretty sorry for myself about all the things that I’d lose out on because she isn’t around anymore. My kids would never get to know their Grandmother, she won’t see me getting married, Christmas will never be the same again, etc… But I realised that the major cause of my bad feeling at that time wasn’t that my mum had died, but that I was allowing myself to create unpleasant life like scenarios in my imagination that gave me compelling reasons for why it was necessary to be even more upset. When I was willing let go of my suffering and the story about what it all meant, that just left me with the sadness that she is gone. The sadness I could do something with; it allowed me just to grieve, which is all I really needed to do.

The wonderful thing about knowing that your life only ever happens in the present moment is that it opens you up to this perpetual opportunity of choosing how you want to feel. Regardless of what you’ve thought about your past or future up until now, the only questions you need to answer are “So how do I want to be feeling about my life right now?” and “What would I love to do next?”

So that’s your homework for today. If the past is gone and the future is just a clear open space of pure potentiality, what do you need to be doing or planning for in this very moment to make Now evolve into something amazing?

I’ll leave you with this quote from The French writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry: “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it”

Just How Do You DO Happiness?

In one of my personal development workshops I get my students to close their eyes and imagine, in vivid detail, one of their happiest memories, and to fully re-living it in that moment. It is amazing to witness the instant transformation in their facial expressions and body language as their nervous systems kick back into happy mode. I then ask them what actually changed in the outside world while they were doing that. Of course the answer is nothing, but isn't it interesting how easily they were able to access deep feelings of joy without there having to be an outside cause?

When was the last time you felt really happy for no reason whatsoever?

The term 'The Human Race' is very apt because metaphorically speaking we seem to think of our happiness as being out there in front of us and that we must race to catch up with it. We use language like 'chasing our dreams', and 'the pursuit of happiness', which on the surface seems like very exciting things to be involved in, but it also presupposes that happiness is somewhere off in the distance and that we are lagging behind. We immerse ourselves in an "I'll be happy when..." mentality, in which we are convinced that happiness will arrive in the form of that next promotion, or the bigger house, the perfect relationship, or that lottery win.

We also tend to think of happiness as being an 'it' - a something that has a form - like one day there will be a knock at the door and the FedEx guy will say "Hi, who's gonna to sign for this box of happiness?"

But look at a child. Children are much smarter than adults when it comes to being happy. For them it is just a state of being. They don't place conditions on when they will and when they won't feel it. As long as they're not hungry, in pain, or being told off, they are happy. It's their default program. And it is meant to be your default program too. The thing is, at some stage in a child's development they start copying what the adults do. They buy into our cultural idea that, actually, you can't just have your happiness, you have to earn it. You have to prove that you are worthy of it. If you work hard enough at working hard then one day just might get lots of nice things that will 'make' you happy, but you have to deserve it.

Of course we all know what happiness feels like, and we do encounter many happy times throughout our lives - marriages, births, birthdays, holidays, parties... It can even take us by surprise sometimes, like when you are out in nature and suddenly you are filled with a strong and comforting sense of connectedness with the world around you. This kind of happiness is great, but it is a fair weather friend; it comes when the going is good and shoots off again when the party is over. But a lot of people settle for it because they're promised to a more permanent kind of happiness - they just have to wait for the future to arrive!

The real truth about happiness is that do not have to wait for it happen to you. You do not have to be in the right place at the right time. You do not have to keep gambling with life until it comes knocking at your door. You have all the resources you need already within you to turn it on at will. It's like a switch. If you are stood in a darkened room you have the choice to flick the switch and turn the light on, but in order to do that you must first know that the switch is there and that you have the ability to control it.

Your happiness switch is exactly the same. You must recognise that it there for you to use at any moment and that you can control it with the belief that it is only ever your thoughts and attitudes that light up your world.

Happiness brings with it the kind of creativity, openness and clarity that makes any task seem almost effortless. Work stops feeling like work as soon as you go about your business with a genuine inner smile. But why do most people find this so hard to do?

It's because somewhere along the line we learned that we cannot be truly happy unless there is a reason to be happy. We introduce criteria that must be met before we will allow ourselves to let happiness in and feel ok about having it. Some people have even learned to attach guilt to their happiness. "Why should I feel happy while others still suffer?"

There's a very quirky thing about us humans, and that is that we can become very suspicious of other people who do not appear to have a good enough reason for their blatant displays of happiness. Whenever someone asks how I am I will usually say something like "I'm great" or "fantastic", to which the next question is often "Why, what's up?" I'll say "Nothing, I just feel good", and then enjoy the confused look on their face as they let out a slow "Riiiiiiiiight!"
The thing that really throws a spanner in the works of the common belief about happiness is that actually you can have it whenever you want it, and you don't have to do a thing to earn it. Because 'it' isn't an 'it' at all, it's a function of the human condition that serves a very practical purpose. As Michael Neil would put it, to ask if you deserve happiness is like asking if you deserve a nose. "Well....eeerrrrr.... I have a nose, but I don't know what I've done to deserve it". It sounds silly, doesn't it?

The key to having your happiness now rather than later is to know that happiness is not something that happens to you, it is something that you do. You must let go of the idea that happiness is a reward for good behaviour or that you must be worthy of it. You must also accept that your happiness is not on that ship that you're waiting on to come in. It is the ocean in which the ship sails, so if you want it, dive in and learn how to swim. In other words, your life is your happiness and you just need to start responding more happily towards it.

Numerous scientific studies into whether success leads to happiness shows that there is no quantifiable evidence to suggest that it does. What has been highlighted though, is that people who already experience high levels of happiness are significantly more likely to become successful later. Interesting! Happiness leads to success, not the other way around. Who'd have thought?

What this tells us is that genuine authentic happiness is unconditional. It is not out there. It is in here, and always has been. Happiness is only ever the result of your attitude and your behaviour, and learning to nurture it unconditionally gives you much more than just a good feeling; it makes your whole life run a lot smoother. That's nature's plan.

The only reason you ever need to be happy is that it allows you to get things done in a really efficient way. The most successful people learn to master the simple notion of being happy in the moment, not just because it feels good, but because being happy puts them into their most resourceful and productive state. I consider happiness to be a vital tool in the work I do because I am committed to producing the best quality output I am capable of. I know I can only achieve that if I am in a happy mood. Whether I'm running a workshop, writing an article, recording some audio, or coaching someone one on one, I will always spend a few moments up front getting myself into a happy frame of mind, because that's how I need to be for my best work to come out. Things just seem to flow better, I'm more creative, I see the bigger picture, and here's the really interesting bit, I encounter fewer obstacles.

I have spent countless hours studying the different philosophies about what happiness is and, while the various teachings use different kinds of language and terminology, they all agree that happiness does not wait on time, it waits on welcome. You may as well just open the door and let it in because it's already here, just waiting for your invitation.

"But hang on a minute, Paul. Surely it's unrealistic to be happy all the time. What about when you really do have problems. Sometimes, things just piss you off. That's life!"

Absolutely, life happens, and it doesn't always happen the way we want it to. It is the most natural thing in the world to feel unhappy, angry or sad in certain circumstances, and it is right and proper that we do feel that sometimes. But the problem comes when we habituate into these negative feelings; when being pissed off or grumpy becomes your standard response to most things.

There is nothing that you can achieve in an agitated frame of mind that you cannot do better with happiness.

There are two things you can choose to do to enjoy feeling more happiness more often.

1. WORK ON YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Just like happiness, all feelings have a practical purpose, even the bad ones. They are signals from you unconscious mind as to whether or not life is happening the way you want it to. Bad moods are not designed to just give you the experience of feeling miserable. If you listen closely to what they are telling you then you will always be able to find a much quicker route back to happiness. Negative emotions are like the warning lights on the dashboard of you car. They are a call to action. When the petrol light comes on, that is not a signal for your car to become depressed, it is a sign that action needs to be taken to get fuel. When you add more petrol the light goes out. The moment you bring your conscious attention to the cause of the feeling, and realise what actions needs to be taken to redress the balance, then its job is done. It no longer serves any useful purpose.

It is critical to acknowledge all of your feelings and not to mask them with a fake happiness. If you just cover them up with a painted-on smile then their simmer will turn into a boil and eventually the pot will overflow. Remember, they have a message they want you to know about, so stop and take the time to listen. Ask yourself, "Why might I be feeling like this in this situation? What is it trying to suggest?" And it's important to focus on the areas in which you have an element of control. It is no good to say "Well, it's suggesting that Bob is a pillock!" Get clear about the steps that will lead you away from frustration and toward a solution that feels better. As soon as you get an answer then exercise whatever control you have and decide to let go of the negativity around it. Ask yourself the question, "Now that I know what to do to sort this out, is it possible and acceptable for me to do it happily?" You'll be surprised how easy it is when you are willing.

2. GET TO KNOW THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HAPPINESS

Happiness has two parts: the internal experience of joy and the physical aliveness in your body. You've probably noticed that when you are down your body language becomes an outward symbol of how you feel inside. It becomes slouched, tensed and heavy and lacks signs of energy. When you are happy you stand taller and have a more open airy posture. Often the quickest way out of a negative mood is simply to move and adopt a more empowering body language. This sends a very clear signal to your brain that it is time to start feeling happier. Try this out for yourself the next time you are being a bit of a grump. Stand up straight, stick your chest out, and put a deliberate smile on your face. Your nervous system can only respond in a positive way to this kind of instruction from your physiology, that's just the way we work!

Be happy everyone!
www.life-happens.co.uk

The world cannot bend for you… it is you

Stress and suffering only takes place in our lives when we believe something in the world should be different than it actually is. People shouldn’t be the way they are; Events shouldn’t turn out the way they do; I shouldn’t be made to feel like this…

It is our nature to have very firm convictions of what is good, what is bad, right or wrong, and we project this Emotional Guidance System (EGS) out onto the world. It is this system that lets us know how to respond emotionally to our environment, and like all good systems it’s remarkably simple. All the time the world and everyone in it conforms to our idea of what’s right and good, we feel happy. When the world and everyone in it behaves in any other way we don’t feel happy.

But here’s the thing. There are six and a half billion of us on the planet and not one of us can completely agree on what is good, what is bad, right or wrong. So how can we all live in the same world and immunise ourselves against the stress and suffering caused by our EGS being violated?

The answer lies not in changing the events of the world or the behaviours of others, but in realising there is a better, more truthful way of looking at your experience of life.

When you project your EGS out onto the world, it just gets reflected right back at you. To experience the behaviour of another person and know what it means you have to take it back inside and use your internal communication to apply a meaning to it. Of course the meaning you give will be completely dependent on your EGS… and you created that too!!!

So the world that you see is not actually the real world, it is just a projection of yourself. Trying to manipulate the physical world to be different than it actually is like a dog trying to chase its own tail. It is impossible for the world to bend to suit you, because it IS you. Freedom from stress and suffering only comes with the unconditional acceptance of reality as it is. The consistent practice of being non-judgemental towards others can only generate space for love and understanding.


Today’s Experiment:

Mentally step back today. Be curious about the way you experience what is going on around you, particularly to do with your interactions with other people. Can you notice that the way you feel about what happens starts with you own internal communication rather that what actually took place outside of you? How are you going to use that realisation to improve your experience of life?