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You are anxious about your future because you are not centred in the present moment. But, when you are fixated on the past or the future, you cheat yourself out of seeing opportunities in the present. You need to firmly pull yourself back when you find yourself 'travelling' away somewhere else. All you have is the HERE AND NOW and, if you don't live the present moment to its fullest, you will never achieve what you want. Because it is only now in which you can do anything, for the past is dead and the future hasn't arrived. Do you know that your body still goes through all the trauma over and over when you relive painful moments from the past or fears for the future? So you are punishing yourself, suffering needlessly and weakening your physical system over and over, even though those events have long passed or not begun (maybe will never begin)? When you live in the present, you are living where life is happening. The past and future are illusions, they don’t exist.
If you’re not living in the present, you’re living in illusion. Not only will living in the present have a dramatic effect on your emotional well-being, but it can also impact your physical health, as I said. It’s long been known that the amount of mental stress you carry can have a detrimental impact on your health. If you’re living in the present, you’re living in acceptance. You’re accepting life as it is now, not as how you wish it would have been. When you’re living in acceptance, you realize everything is complete as it is. You can forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made, and you can have peace in your heart knowing that everything that should happen will. If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.
The worst part about living in the past or the future is that you’re giving up your personal power. If you’re not living now, you’re giving up your life. You’re surrendering your power to create. If there are changes you’d like to make in life, it’s best to do it now. If you’re living in the past, you can’t do anything about it, it’s gone. If you’re worrying about the future, you’re living somewhere that doesn’t exist. It hasn’t happened yet. If you want to change your life, the only place you can do it is in the present. But first you need to accept life as it is. When it comes down to it, your mind is the only thing keeping you from living in the present. The biggest reason we don’t live in the present is because we don’t 'shut up' or off. That is, we constantly talk to ourselves. If we are talking all of the time to ourselves in our heads, we never hear what anyone else has to say. In the same way, if we are talking to ourselves all the time, we are never listening, we have nothing to think about other than thoughts, and are never in relationship with reality. Does this mean we have to give up our innate desire to write our personal story and share it with others? No, we shouldn’t trade one extreme for another. What we really want, is to find balance. But don't stop talking to yourself - just change the way you listen. The hardest thing to do when living in the moment is, or trying to simply witness life, is to not have the urge to try to quiet your mind. When we try to quiet the mind, we just disturb it all the more. Instead, simply witness your thoughts as if they are pure sound. Don’t try to judge your thoughts, there are no good thoughts or bad thoughts. Simply witness them as if they were noise. Too often we identify ourselves with our thoughts, we actually believe we are the dialogue inside our mind. But old critical voices from the past, from other people, can continually replay in our minds. When you develop the objectivity to just observe these other voices, you will distinguish between them and your own voice. You are much more than just your thoughts, you are the force that moves through your mind, spirit and body. Knowing this will help overcome your fear of quietness and silence, You can have peace knowing that when your mind is quiet, you are not losing touch with yourself, but finding the balance and harmony within.