Focus on right now

If you are living in the past, you can get depressed. If you are living in the future, you can have anxiety. Live in the present. Focus on now.

Hard to do, but worth trying. I look back on my life and realize I got stuck in the past a LOT. I don’t seem to know how to let go of things. I hold grudges and I reminisce a lot. Part of this is having a really good memory so I call up experiences from the past easily. But it’s no place to live. It’s not healthy.

I have practiced letting go of the past more lately. And I have focused on each day more, and tried to be in the moment. Yet I slip sometimes the other way, into the future, and worry a lot about that. It is as if I worry about all the things that could happen, they won’t happen. Magical and weird thinking.

How do we focus on now? I think one of the best ways is to become aware of your thoughts and when they start to drift to the past or future, gently guide them back to the present. Breathe in and breathe out. You are here, now.

Still learning it, but getting a little better at it. Worth practicing.

Coda: I realized after I wrote this that I should mention meditation. Meditation helps to keep us connected to the now. I need to do it more for sure.