Being able to live in the moment is one of the most important skills we can build to live a joyful life.
It’s especially important right now, when uncertainty is at an all-time high. We don’t know when the pandemic will subside or when life will get back to normal. As a result, it’s all too easy to get caught up in our heads and daydream in fear about the future and feel anxious about the unknown.
When working with my Meditation Group a common card that would come up would be "Go with the flow" and that's exactly what we need to be in right now.
Being in the flow, helps to centre you so you don't have to think about next week when all your kids are going to celebrate your ex's birthday and you're home alone, or a big function twelve months away when you're attending it on your own, or something else...
Going with the flow, means that today is your only concern.
So how does we go with the flow?
Go with the flow by getting absorbed in the ‘here and now’
Part of the trick is getting absorbed in the ‘here and now’. Focusing your entire mind on what is happening in the present moment. This means no spare time to worry about the future or feel guilty about the past.
In other words to go with the flow is similar to what they say in Buddhist circles about mindfulness. They are talking about attentive awareness to the reality of things. Mindfulness practice, is increasingly being employed in Western psychology to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and in the prevention of relapse in depression and drug addiction. You need to lose yourself in the flow of life in order to find yourself.
Part of an inner focus of mindfulness is an attitude of fully engaging in what you're doing. It means facing experience head on and accepting whatever the challenges and opportunities it offers instead of avoiding it or trying to make it into something else.
Dealing with the immediacy of the current situation, rather than possible futures or the past.
Go with the flow
You'll discover so much peace because you will be "in the moment" focusing on every small, individual action right down to down to brushing your teeth. It can feel liberating.
When anything pulls me down, I remember to go with the flow, be in the moment and be grateful for what I do have.
So are you in the moment, or are thinking of next week, next month, next year?
Many of us can relate to this feeling. We move so fast or get so caught up in our plans and goals that we can’t dwell in the day, much less the moment. Sometimes it seems like the only way we slow down is when tragedy strikes or we hit some kind of bottom.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Taking things one day at a time doesn’t have to be reserved for when we’re recovering from heartbreak, loss, trauma or anything else.
We can make “Go with the flow" our mantra for life. Because the truth is, our presence is our power. And no matter how magnificent life can be, we still have an ego. The ego is always looking to assert itself; it’s always trying to take us out of the present moment by future tripping or obsessing over the past.
Here is a small 7 minute challenge
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