Are you a time traveler?
If you are, you are spending a large portion of your day thinking about all the things you should’ve done yesterday, all things that went wrong in the past, and all things you’re supposed to do tomorrow. As a result, thats where you live, in the past or future. You rarely pay attention to what’s happening to yourself right now, so you miss living in the present moment.
Notice right now as you read this. Are you thinking of something else? Are you thinking about something that happened in the past or something that is coming in the future? What does your body feel like right now? Pay attention to it. Do you notice any spots of tension and pain. How are you breathing? Are you taking full, deep breaths, or are you breathing very shallow?
Often we don’t pay attention to what’s happening to us. We don’t pay attention to what people are saying to us or the things that we read. We don’t even pay attention to who’s around us while we’re walking. How many of you multitask and are doing multiple things at once? As a result you miss a lot of what life has to offer and you often make easy situations more difficult.
The next time you are in a distressing situation, I want you to ask yourself the following questions:
- Where am I right now?
- Am I time traveling in the future, worrying about something that might happen, or planning something that might happen?
- Am I time traveling in the past, reviewing mistakes, reliving bad experiences, or thinking about how my life could have been under different circumstances? Or am I in the present, really paying attention to what I’m doing, thinking, and feeling?
If you find yourself time traveling, become mindful. Practice mindfulness in that moment to ground yourself in the here-and-now. Utilize all 5 senses to reconnect you to the here-and-now. You will never get this moment back again, so enjoy it as it is!
To stop you from time traveling, leave me a comment telling me what you are doing now. If you are in the here-and-now your answer should be reading.
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