Week Fourteen: Being in Today’s Present Moment

Walking through Central Park the other day, I noticed that the color of the leaves on the trees is turning to the darker green of late summer. For a moment, I felt a pang of loss – summer is moving on and all too soon the trees will turn and lose their leaves. Then, I became aware of what I was doing and chuckled to myself. Here it was, a beautiful late July morning, and I was lamenting a future that was way off there somewhere, losing the delight of the moment I did have! As I returned to the present moment, I also returned to the delicious feeling of summer air on my skin, smelled the green smells of summer leaves and grass and the delicious fragrance of the earth, and heard the many birds singing all around me. I had nearly lost the most beautiful gift each morning offers me, all because I began to worry about something that didn’t yet exist.

How often do we find ourselves lost in the past or future as we lose sight of the present moment that’s here, right in front of us? Some of us have developed a mental habit of focusing on past losses or missed opportunities and then lamenting those losses. For others of us, the focus is on imagined futures that will be better than the present, or imagined futures that will be worse. A lot of us spend our internal time this way, often out of habit and without awareness that this is what we’re doing. When we focus on past and future, we miss the opportunity to fully engage life in the present moment.

A beautiful practice is what author Eckhart Tolle calls leaving “psychological time” – a focus on past and future – and returning to the present moment. For this week’s experiment, I’d like to invite you to notice when you are lost in the past or worried and/or fantasizing about the future – which is likely to be a good bit of the time! When you catch yourself off in the past or future, gently bring yourself back to the present moment and notice what’s going on in and around you right now. Each and every time you find yourself in the past or future (except for those moments when you need to plan upcoming events or be aware of things you need to do) invite yourself back into the present moment and see what happens. Notice how it feels in your body to return to this moment, to awaken to your senses and to what is unfolding right now. Notice your state of mind when you leave the past behind and let go of worrying about the future and focus on what’s around you right now.

As always, there’s no right way to be in this experiment. It’s offered as a way for you to explore your relationship to the present moment, and to discover what it’s like to be able to choose to be here right now rather than lost in the past or future.

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