
Emotional connection and present moment awareness can lead to greater peace, ease and success in your life.
How often in your life are you truly present? From the moment you open
your eyes in the morning to the moment you close them at night are you aware of each moment? Do you value each moment? Are you at ease with the sensations in your body; the thoughts in your mind? Are you accepting of the
experiences you are having? Or does your attention wander: to
what is happening an hour from now; two hours from now; this evening; tomorrow; later this week? Or maybe your thoughts drift to what happened yesterday. If you have a journey to make do you simply observe what is before you or do you assign values and judgements? Do you observe the people around you, noticing the detail or do you consider them fat, thin, unhappy, angry, thinking that their hairstyle doesn’t suit them?
Do you set constant targets for yourself? Whether at work or at home, are you
concerned that you’re not doing “enough” or not doing things “right”? Maybe you could be a better employee, a better wife, daughter, husband, son etc. Is there a long list of things that you need to achieve during each day until you can finally go to bed? Maybe you’re ill and feeling pain, discomfort or not able to do what
you’d like. Perhaps you’re out of work and frustrated and depressed at your lack
of progress.
Sometimes it feels as though we are constantly striving, constantly doing, wanting things to be different, because then we will feel better, our lives will improve. When uncomfortable feelings arise we push them away; we read, watch television, have a drink, eat, talk to friends, look for what action we can take to change them. We feel blocked, stuck, unhappy, frustrated, unfulfilled and
exhausted.
How can we change this? Indeed, is this possible? Or is this just the way that it is? That life is a struggle and getting by is the best we can hope for.
I believe that a life of freedom and fullness is indeed possible. And the first step
is to be more present in each moment, to connect with our emotions and all
around us. To accept and allow what is. This doesn’t mean that you have to accept and allow things as permanent nor that you can’t change things that are undesirable. Nor that if you’re suffering abuse of some sort that you simply sit back and take it. By accepting and allowing I mean to simply acknowledge that right here, right now, this is indeed what is happening in your life. To ask yourself if you can be with everything that is occurring in your life and
all your thoughts and feelings. At first the answer to this may very well be no! That’s fine. This isn’t a race or that would again be something that you need to
achieve, do in a certain way, fix. It’s a different way of experiencing life, of learning to flow rather than to battle, of feeling ease rather than tension, of expanding rather than contracting.
Emotional connection and present moment awareness allows us to connect deeply with our centre, gives us a stable base, a knowing that we can handle all of life, that everything is ok. It enables us to be more fully present to ourselves and to others, gives our life more vibrancy and richness and a feeling of peace and security. We become open to all of life, able to participate fully and live from joy rather than fear.