I’ve been experiencing this intense dynamic pull between past and future today. Let me try to describe it:
I have projects from the past that I would like to complete. These things feel like psychological clutter. It feels like if I don’t complete them, they will just sit there in my way, waiting for me to trip over them again and again.
I have projects that I have recently begun or plan to begin that I am very excited about. These things feel like babies or children. It feels like if I don’t nurture them, they will languish and even die.
So in both cases, past and future, there is pain and pleasure motivation — in other words, consequences of not doing them that I want to avoid, and benefits of doing them that I want to experience.
The answer is, of course, to be present. From the clarity of the present, I know I make the best choices.
The challenge is that I’ve been thinking of (and therefore, experiencing) the present moment as a fulcrum. A precarious point on which I’m trying to balance. And the power of those two forces knocks me off quite easily.
When I feel myself present though (as opposed to thinking myself there), I experience it as a grounding feeling. Very stable.
So the lesson to me today is to take the next step from thinking myself present to feeling myself present. To take the initial thought-based awareness of “Hey, I’m not present” and follow it with a body-based awareness of the feeling of presence (through breath, or the feeling of life energy in my hands, or the experience of stillness, etc.).
100 Days of Peace 