Thursday, February 6, 2014

Live NOW to its Greatest Potential

Slow your life down, embrace the NOW
We've talked a lot on this blog about envisioning our future. This is wonderful. Affirmations and working in harmony with them will allow us to reach our goals, but we have to be cognizant of the NOW.

Even the movie, THE SECRET, pointed out the importance of being alert in the NOW. If we're not, we run the risk of missing out on opportunities that have come to us to fulfill our wish.

I've been reading the book THE POWER OF NOW by Eckhart Tolle. It raises some interesting perceptions about the mind and time.

When we envision the future we are creating a fictional reality--"the imagined NOW." When we look at the past that was a former NOW.  Think of it this way, Have you ever done something in the past, or in the future? No, you've only done it in the now. 

It's a complex thought but empowering nonetheless. While we work toward our goals, keeping our vision of the future clear, we must be careful not to do so at the expense of the NOW.  We are not defined by our future accomplishments nor our past ones.  On a higher plane of Being we are what we are because of the NOW. It is true we can learn from past mistakes but these are applied in the NOW to be of any benefit.

"Your life's journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to "make it."" 

When we allow our mind or concern to be over the past or the future we imagine, we can lose appreciation for the NOW. Remember, it is the NOW that will soon be the past. Cherish it.

Of course we utilize time to reach our goals, but if we become excessively fixated on the future--maybe for illusion of self-fulfillment--then we are sacrificing the Now, the Being in the moment.

As Sherry discussed earlier this week, the need for play is important. We also need to appreciate every moment, surrender ourselves to the NOW, bask it in, feel it, embrace it, without thought dragging us into the past or pulling us into the future. This is even the case when the circumstances, or our emotional response is negative to a situation. We have to BE with these feelings, not that we allow them to define us, but to observe them.

-- Carolyn Arnold
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Direct quotes taken from THE POWER OF NOW by Eckhart Tolle

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