THE MIND BOGGLES!! |
Coaching Videos & Tips - February 24 2022 No. 745 |
Should we be "looking forward"? How does "living in the moment" square with the excitement of anticipation? Well, don't read this foreward to today's video, just watch it...!
This Week's Reflection
Looking forward is, without question, not being present - at least not in the way that the normal mind looks forward: it's Thursday; I can't wait for the weekend; the days are getting brighter, I can't wait to go on a holiday. And they're the positive ways we distance ourselves from the here and now!
Then we have negative anticipation. The normal mind is expert at this: what if Putin overruns my home in Cornwall (a concise paraphrasing of a real conversation a couple of days ago!); what's going to happen if the next pandemic is far worse than Covid-19. I'm sure you have your own ideas on "what if".
But that's not what I want to talk about this morning. Because there's a very particular kind of looking forward that you could be forgiven for thinking that I encourage... looking forward to your Perfect Moment.
Yes, when I talk about setting our mind to achieve our Perfect Moments, I am talking about the very necessary way in which we can, by taking new psychological snapshots, set our "inner compass" to move us effortlessly towards the life we truly want. These are perfect moments that, inevitably, have not yet come to pass.
The danger is that we start looking forward, anticipating those perfect moments, and miss the perfect moments that make up the experience of our life today. I didn't say "make up today" - because "today" is always going to be a mixed bag. I said the "experience of our life today" - go and have a look at today's Quick Tip, it should hit the spot.
When we immerse ourselves in now, we are fully and unconditionally alive. This is the only way in which we can effortlessly move forward to the life we truly want.
This Week's Quick Tip
At any moment in our day we can (and really should) choose to simply pay attention to the reality around you in the moment. This is not the "reality" of what might or might not be going on on the world stage. Nor is it the "reality" of "what if" this, that or the other.
The simple and unvarnished reality of the moment is that you're alive, you're breathing, you have all that you need for just this moment. Appreciate it, enjoy it, immerse yourself in it, breathe it - in and out, nice and slow, deep and long. And be alive.
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Normal @%!*#y People!
There's the everyday anticipation of the normally-minded - it's Thursday, I can't wait for the weekend. And, then, there's the normal crazy.
Years ago, one of our acquaintances in Dublin always brought a good Friday night's conversation down to the lowest level by talking about "what if I get breast cancer". Neither a day nor a conversation went by without the girl in question telling someone that she believed that, at some point along the way, she would suffer from it.
You know where this is going. Because, when we anticipate in this way, what we're actually doing is investing our energy in what we don't want to happen!
Thankfully, the girl in question is now a cancer survivor.