Staying in the Present Moment

Something that I have really trying to work on since I graduated college is staying in the present moment. Throughout my life, it has been very difficult for me to stay present for longer than 5 seconds. Worries and anxiety seep into my mind quickly and distract me from whatever activity I am engaged in or whatever is happening. I am either wrapped up thinking about the past or the future. Past events replay in my head a lot as if thinking about them constantly is going to change them I am also a very future orientated person and I like to plan ahead. Planning and thinking ahead sometimes help to ease some of my anxieties about the future while other times create more worry. Sometimes thinking about the future was and still is a form of escape for me. If I don’t like what is currently happening and I can’t change it, I think about how I want to the future to go.

There are a few major events in my life that I don’t fully remember and parts of my life that are blurs because when those events were happening my mind was not fully appreciating the present moment. My mind was too busy focusing on something else. For example, my college graduation is a huge blur for me. I only remember bits and pieces. Sometimes I even forget that I have a whole degree. It was hard to stay focus during graduation because I was thinking about the packing I would have to do afterwards and the traffic I would be in on the way home. Major life events and accomplishments should be filled with happiness and a sense of pride but for me some of them feel kind of empty because I was not fully there, appreciating the moment.

Before I never saw the point in staying in the present moment until I started noticing the trend of blurs and emptiness in my memories. When I started working on staying in the present, I noticed that I tend to feel fuller and more content and in tune with myself. Sometimes, it is still hard for me to stay in the present moment with deadlines and responsibilities that I have to keep in mind. I consistently do a few activities focused on a staying in the moment because I want to make it a habit. In my next post, I will talk about how some of those activities.

Time to Focus on You:

Take a few minutes to notice everything that is going on right now. Try to focus on this exact moment and don’t think about the past or future during this time. Write down everything you notice at this time.

Photo by Karina Vorozheeva on Unsplash