I loved imagining myself in fairy tales and exceptional circumstances when I was a child. Ok, I will be honest, way into my young adulthood. To the degree that I succeeded to transport myself out of the present and into that particular dream – be it a day dream or a night terror. I would be so immersed in my dream, idea, story, play that I felt coming back to real life as a shock, an earthquake taking me out of a familiar place. I was everything I wanted to be in these dreams and I encountered my worst nightmares in the terrors.
Ten years ago, attempting to at least take a stab at living somewhat anxiety free I entered a psychotherapist’s office and she asked me if I knew what mindfulness was. My first thought was to link it to being smart (having a full mind, duh), but soon I understood that it had something to do with staying in the present.
Maybe it is just me but discovering the present moment was a revelation. Hard though it was and continues to be to live in the now, I am more and more convinced that it is in fact the only way of living. Any other way is a daydream or a fantasy.
Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now is an amazing eye opener and the author speaks with such clarity and certainty about the power of the exact moment we live in that it makes even the most skeptical of us wonder. You never live the past or the future. You only live the now, says Tolle. The now is the moment when you find joy, when you are invited to surrender to what is, and re-join the Being you are part of nevertheless but live disconnected from by fault of your mind’s taking over.
I feel this is a book I need to read again, at a time when I will be able to do it pen and paper in hand, taking notes and meditating on my own life. Connection is the only thing I crave and am now seeing that my mind and it’s labyrinths have done much to distract me from it.
Because nothing happens by chance in this lifetime (or in any other for that matter), finishing The Power of Now I went forward on my IPad (my portable bookshelf) and just went to browsing best sellers. My attention was grabbed by “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari (the fact that I am to see him speak at Brandminds next year also pushed me to ask for a sample). The first sentence of the book reads: “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.” Chance? I think not. It is clear to me that the Universe is shaking me into realizing exactly the power of now, the power of being and remaining present to the best of my abilities. You would think it is so very easy to do … well, think again. Better, try it.
Connect 