I found that I was continuously telling my stories about what had happened yesterday, last week, last year, or when I was a child. Eventually through introspective work, I realized I told my stories over and over. I was stuck in stories of the past. I was a victim of my own stinking thinking, I call it. I believed the present had to be like the past. Wow, what a realization this was. I couldn’t be in the present moment. I couldn’t show up clearly in the NOW…………….because it just had to be like the past.

Yay, it was another ‘AHA’ moment. I showed up every moment stuck in my past………. Well that was only part of the story. The other times in life, I was in fear of the future. You see, ‘what if’ was another so-called mind game I played until it became a future ‘freaking out’ way of life and addiction. Once again in fear of the future, life was never enough. I was not enough……………………and down that bunny trail I went once again.

Then an inner voice began to constantly remind me to live in the ‘NOW.’ I thought to myself, well of course, that is what I do. Ha Ha…………the joke was on me! When I decided to really watch me, I was seldom clear and present in the moment. Old tales and stories of the past and anxieties about the future stopped me from living clearly in the moment. I was not present; I was lying to myself.

I began daily practices of focusing on what I was eating, what my shower truly felt like as the water dripped over my body, what it felt like to pet my dog, how comforting and peaceful nature was when I showed up in the present moment.

My, oh my, I find it quite joyful and fulfilling to really be present. The obsession with past and future thoughts is taking less and less control of my mind. It’s a game I no longer desire to play. I understand that when I think something, I believe it, and then I experience it. I choose to be clear in the NOW as much as possible. I surrender to living ‘presence’ as much as I can. Freedom it is!