Living Fully in the Present

So often we have been trained to ignore our “insides” and stay exclusively with “reality.”  The ability to be open to your internal experience, to acknowledge its existence, and to value what it has to tell you  might seem far too painful.  Yet, this experience of staying with the moment is the core of mindfulness and of real healing.  Instead of managing or controlling the moment so that nothing surprises you, you will live with the understanding that each moment is the gift of all there is.

 For many of us, it may be hard to be in the present moment fully.  There is so, so much to do.  To have “down time” means doing something that you couldn’t do at any other time.  Does that sound familiar?  Or you may be so exhausted when you have down time that you can’t consider “experiencing the present moment fully.”  In fact, you may be of the idea that the possibility of fulfillment and pleasure lies somewhere in the future and it will be highly managed and conditional when you put everything in place so that you can have it.

 So what does “living fully in the present” really mean?   In essence, the gift of the moment is always with you.  It is you who might be absent from it. 

 This idea might be best exemplified by a story about a dear relative of mine.  Norma worked hard all her life with the idea that she would retire at 65 and “start living.”  She sometimes denied herself vacations and luxuries so that she could save her money for the wonderful life she would have some day.

 Norma retired in June of 1998 and found out that she had liver cancer in July 1998.  She died that fall on Thanksgiving Day.  I think of and pray for her often.  She taught me a valuable lesson about living fully in the present.