Accessing the Present Moment
Marty Mcfly. Bill and Ted. Doctor Who. All of these need to stand aside for the master time traveler of all: the human mind. “Get out of town!” you say? Think about it. If our memory networks are not constantly trying to transport us to the past then our imaginations are busily constructing various versions of the future. To illustrate, let’s have you consider what you are doing right now. Right this instant. How much of the present are you experiencing? Chances are you are not really aware of many things in the present moment. Instead, you are up in your head. In your thoughts. Your mind is transforming the little black symbols here on your screen into abstract thoughts and meaning. And there is nothing wrong with that but while your mind is doing that it is losing track of what you are experiencing in the present moment. You are not feeling the weight of your cell phone in your hand. You are not feeling the clothes on your body. You aren’t noticing the temperature of the air around you. You aren’t aware of the breath going in and out of your body or your heart beating gently. You are not fully aware of what is happening right now. As much as I revere Doc Brown for getting Marty back to the future, the real journey towards improved mental health requires us to get back to the present.
This distinction between thinking and experiencing reminds us of Fritz Perls’ exhortation to “Lose your mind and come to your senses”. Perls is not promoting insanity as the phrase “lose your mind” may suggest to us at first glance. Instead, he is suggesting that we allow ourselves to shift our attention away from the confusing tangle of our thoughts and be aware of the information that is constantly coming in through our five senses.
In Mindfulness in Plain English Bhante Henepola Gunaratana writes:
"Mindfulness adds nothing to perception and it subtracts nothing. It distorts nothing. It is bare attention and just looks at whatever comes up. Conscious thought pastes things over our experience, loads us down with concepts and ideas, immerses us in a churning vortex of plans and worries, fears and fantasies. When mindful, you don’t play that game. You just notice exactly what arises in the mind, then you notice the next thing. “Ah, this…and this…and now this.” It is really very simple."
Now that we understand a little more about focusing on the present moment let us turn our attention to the idea of non-judgment.
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