It Can Be Calming and Centering to Be Here Now
The positivity in being here now is huge.
I used to give way, way too much attention to the past and the future. Frequently, I’d look back at all the things I did, the choices I did and didn’t make, and the mistakes along the way. While this often colored new choices and decisions, it more often created paralysis, leaving me standing at this crossroads or that, unmoving, not choosing.
Similarly, I used to fret about the future. What if I choose “X” when I should choose “Y?” Should I be here or there? What if I should be in that relationship instead of this one? Constantly, my worries about the future contributed to what I did or didn’t choose. But, again, more often than not, it put me at a crossroads.
When I began to explore mindfulness and conscious reality creation, I began to learn how being here, now, changed everything. It empowered me and changed everything about my life for the better.
How and why? Because I developed a better relationship with the truth of how time works.
Be here now – in the only genuine reality there is
The past has come and gone. It is done and over. You can’t go back to it, undo it, redo it, or change it in any way, shape, or form. Often how you remember the past is imperfect, colored by nostalgia and outdated notions your subconscious mind holds onto.
Likewise, the future is unwritten. You can do things and set goals to move in a given direction toward the future, but you can’t entirely control it. That’s because shit happens, random things occur, and change is often utterly outside of your control.
When you choose to be here now, in this moment, in the present, you are in the only element of time that’s real. That’s because when you’re consciously aware and present here and now, you can look both within and without to see who, what, where, how, and why you are.
This can, of course, be disturbing. If you’ve spent too much time in the past or future, deciding to be here now can be disconcerting. Why? Because you were living mostly subconsciously, ceding your power to the Universe to drive your life. Rather than look at the things you control – namely your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions – you looked backward or forward to things you don’t and can’t control. So, you might find yourself nowhere you expected to be.
But when you be here now, you are open to knowing yourself. When you know yourself, you see the world with greater clarity and gain more balance, centering, and calm.
What does it take to make this happen?
Active conscious awareness and practical mindfulness
There are two avenues, in the here and now, that tell you who, what, where, how, and why you are.
The first is your 6 senses. When you’re present, here and now, you can see, taste, touch, smell, hear, and intuit your immediate surroundings. That’s your current environment, and it’s you and your physical body interacting with the world around you.
The second is your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self. In other words, your active conscious awareness. To access this, you need to be here now, in the present moment, and ask,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What are my intentions here?
- Is my approach positive or negative?
- What am I doing?
Since all of these can only genuinely be asked and answered in this moment, here and now, they make you mindful. Once you’re mindful, you can begin to change anything you are not satisfied with. That’s because mindfulness empowers you.
Yes, this is being “woke.” And this is where I utterly fail to understand why anyone considers being awake and aware, i.e., “woke,” to be in any way bad. If you’re not awake and aware, you’re asleep and ignorant.
When you be here now, it’s much, much easier to find calm, achieve balance, and center yourself.
The positivity of being more calm, centered, and balanced
The world is a crazy place. Spend even a little time online, reading or watching the news, or among people who care about the state of the world, and you can’t help but be overwhelmed.
It’s so easy to feel angry, distressed, frustrated, outraged, scared, uncertain, and/or hopeless in the middle of all this lunacy. I can’t even watch TV shows I enjoy without being bombarded by infuriating political ads (with nothing but negativity) at the moment.
This is why it’s important to be here now. Because when you are, you open yourself up to being present and aware, and making choices and decisions to balance, calm, and center yourself.
I read just enough news to be in the know so I can make informed choices and decisions about who to vote for, where to shop, what to boycott, and so on. But apart from that, I choose to limit how often I scroll through social media, avoid watching news networks, and mute fraught political discussions on Discord and other places I stay in touch with people.
When I do that, I find it far easier to stay calm, centered, and balanced. Choosing to be here now lets me make decisions to pause, reflect, and not let myself be disempowered by the doom and gloom.
It’s not easy. Some days are harder than others. While meditation is great for this, all you need is to take a moment, breathe deeply, and focus on being here, now. Ask the above questions and take the time (that you are worthy and deserving of) to calm, balance, and center yourself. This is deeply empowering. The positivity of that goes a long way and does you a lot of good.
Taking action to be here now isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness (mindfulness) of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.
Recognizing and acknowledging that you can’t change the past or control the future, but can be here now and work with who, what, where, how, and why you are, shows you what you genuinely control and can change. Knowing that active, conscious awareness – mindfulness – helps you make choices and decisions that are calming, balancing, and centering, opens you to drive your life in whatever ways you prefer.
This empowers you. When you’re empowered, that can, in turn, empower others around you. That’s why I share these weekly posts with you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity — from the vast cylinder that exists between them — shifts life in ways that open you to more potential, possibility, and the like. From there, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you in the here and now.
The more aware you are of yourself in the present, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you and empower them, too. That is an amazing conduit to help reason overcome fear in the collective consciousness.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
This is the six-hundred-sixtieth (660) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energy for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.
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