[mudra]

Living in the Now

By now you have probably heard and read much about living in the now moment. Perhaps you have had glimpses of its benefits. You want to live in the now, but often this state of living in the now seems elusive and difficult to maintain. So how do you live in the now? Here I want to give you the first simple, yet powerful technique.
Living in the now moment is an essential ingredient for living in the Flow. Living in the Flow has many benefits. When in the Flow State, you worry less and therefore have less stress. Living stress free has numerous physical benefits such as increased immune function and lower blood pressure, which can lead to reduced heart disease. When living in the Flow, people also enjoy numerous psychological benefits such as feeling more secure, and happy. People in the Flow have an exuberance about life that is contagious. When you are in the Flow you have a greater capacity to cope and to deal with whatever life brings you. Living in the Flow is often accompanied by a wonderful state of well being.
There is a simple technique for living in the now moment that is conducive to the Flow State. This technique helps eliminate two of the biggest causes of being out of The Flow – ruminating about the past, and worrying about the future.

Negative or painful emotions such as being sad, angry, or depressed knock you out of the Flow State. These emotions such as chronic anger, for example, are often brought on by continually regurgitating something that happened to you in the past. This isn’t to say you should never get angry. There is a place for anger. However, authentic anger, like most authentic feelings pass through you. You get angry in the moment, and then it passes. However, when you begin to recall other times you were angry, or people who made you anger, then the anger builds and you become consumed by it. When in the now moment, you are no longer focused on the past and emotional charges no longer have a hold over you.

Worrying about the future, or having fear about what will happen or won’t happen also puts you out of the Flow. Chronic anxiety is caused by the constant worrying about what will happen to you. For many, such future tripping is the norm. They are constantly playing out what if scenarios in their head, ‘what if he rejects me,’ what if she says no,’ ‘what if I don’t have enough money,’ and so on. Here too, when you return to the now moment by focusing on the now moment instead of projecting into the future, you eliminate the worry, fear and anxiety that comes from being over preoccupied with the future.

When doing the same routine people tend to become mind-less instead of mind-full. How many of us have arrived at work after commuting the same streets a hundred times realizing that we don’t even remember that morning’s drive to the office? The mind is so familiar with the route it has taken many times over that it simply checks out. This checking out is another way you put yourself out of the now moment. You are simply not present. You must be present in the now moment to experience it.

A wonderful technique that puts you in the now moment is to find what is new in each moment. This is similar to what Buddhists call the beginner mind. In any given moment you can always find something that is new and fresh. Even if it is the same commute you have taken every day, you can find a way the light plays on the side of a building you hadn’t noticed before.

Looking at things anew, puts you in the now moment. As you focus your awareness you become alert. You become present in the moment. The more you are present in the now, the more you enter the State of Flow.

Christopher Raphael

Love Always
mudra