What is NOW?

NOW is when
Nothing else counts

Reality never exists in the future. It only exists NOW. It also doesn’t exist in the past because the past is gone. The past pain for example only exists NOW if we replicate the experience in our mind NOW. Therefore life only exists NOW. Unfortunately we miss a lot of it! Most of us are not present in the moment, worrying either about the future or the past. We continuously tell ourselves that we will feel better when something is different from NOW, when we will have more money, a better house, an improved physical condition, a partner, a different behaviour from our current partner or our team, a different job, a degree completed, an assignment or a chore completed…. Watch your thoughts! You will realise that you do this all the time. There is a constant self-talk that something is not right in the present moment.

When we are in the present moment, we feel complete and at peace, no matter what the circumstances or conditions are. We move out of our subconscious programming and become conscious of the beauty of life.

At a point I realised that I was holding my joy and happiness continually at arms’ length. It was always in front of me, seldom in me NOW. I did not even know how happiness feels because I was not allowing myself to experience it NOW. But I knew that that feeling existed and that it had to be different from my current feeling! I was striving for it all the time like chasing an ever moving object that remained elusive.

There are many books written on the subject of being in the present moment and developing mindfulness. I recommend reading some of these books. Things, however, only changed for me when I started practicing being in the NOW minute my minute, using approaches from other people and developing my own. Meditation and visualisation is definitely the most important foundation for becoming present. I will talk about this in more detail in one of my upcoming editions. But even if we meditate, we have to challenge ourselves to be in the NOW throughout the day. How to be in the NOW varies from person to person, from minute to minute. There isn’t a one size fits all strategy. Here are some of the ways I challenge myself to be in NOW:

• When I eat a meal, I focus on the taste of the meal, I appreciate it and remind myself that people have grown this food lovingly somewhere. This moves me into the NOW of the food.
• When I walk or sit outside, I focus on sensing the wind on my skin, the sun, rain, nature, buildings, road, whatever is present. I appreciate it, either for the beauty, the pleasant sensation or its functionality for people. This connects me to the NOW of my environment.
• When I work, I tap into a feeling of gratefulness either for being competent to do the work and for the service I have the opportunity to deliver to others. I keep this in my heart, even when I focus on the work. This connects my work to the NOW of people and their wellbeing.
• When negative emotion is present, I tap into gratefulness for the learning I am getting from this negative emotion in the present moment because it tells me there is something I need to improve in my thinking NOW. Every negative emotions comes from a thought. This connects me to the NOW of my journey of growth.

If we start being in the NOW, we increase our energy frequency which is based on our emotion. I spoke about this in my last edition. Each emotion carries an energy frequency which can be scientifically measured. The more positive our average emotions are, the higher we vibrate, e.g. love, compassion, gratitude and joy are at the high range, whereas anger, fear, guilt and shame are the lower ends of the energy vibration scale. Since emotions become habitual, based on our beliefs and the thoughts we recurrently think, our vibration gets set a certain level.

When you start being more often in the NOW you will gradually shift your energy field up. You start radiating at a different frequency which will start transforming your life in many ways. I will discuss this more in the coming editions. Right NOW you may want to be in the NOW of increasing your awareness of the importance of being in the NOW.

PRACTICE

When you get up in the morning, make a commitment to being in the NOW today as much as you can, using one of the four approaches I described above.

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