Happiness Is Available In The Present Moment

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1. Do Not Let Your Dreams Get In The Way Of Your Now There’s nothing wrong with having dreams but there is something wrong with constantly devaluing what’s in front of us right now and to instead focus most of our loving attention and energy on some imagined future. The mistake many of us make is in coming to believe that somehow our present has very little to […]...
2. Is This All There Is? The mindful attitude is about living in the present, about realizing that all the conditions for happiness and fulfillment are available to us right here, right now. This perspective obviously contrasts sharply with the common Western way of thinking. We tend to focus most of our attention on the future, on pursuing and attaining distant […]...
3. Drugs and Happiness Many people have always felt like something is missing from their lives, although they can’t put their finger on exactly what, until the first time they try their drug of choice. Most drug users who become addicts end up trying and using a variety of drugs, but they also usually have this preferred drug, which […]...
4. The Time to Self-Actualize is Now “You have an appointment with life, and that appointment is in the present moment. If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life.” – Thich Nhat Hanh Future Focus The Western mentality is very much a future focused mentality. We plan. We obsess over distant milestones like graduating from the right college, marrying the […]...
5. Enjoy The Ride You can look towards the future with hope or dread, towards the past with nostalgia or regret, but in all these cases you’re missing what’s right in front of you, removing yourself from the present moment. Emily Dickinson wrote “forever is composed of nows” and of course the same can be said for the span […]...
6. Happiness “To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to ‘be happy.’ But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’ Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being […]...
7. Waiting For Things To Fall Into Place Many of us have this nasty habit of constantly looking to the future, waiting for things to fall into place, putting our ‘real’ lives on hold until our plans come to fruition. We believe that once our situations have come together we’ll be able to really start living. In effect we cheapen our existence as […]...
8. Permanent Happiness is an Illusion If someone were to tell you “I’m so sad, I’m going to be sad for the rest of my life,” or “I’m so angry, I’m going to be angry for the rest of my life,” you would probably respond “I know it seems that way right now, but believe me, these feelings will pass. You’re […]...
9. Grounding Yourself In The Present Moment To Combat Anxiety When unwanted life events make the future cloudy existential anxiety skyrockets. This anxiety is often funneled into obsessive ruminating around various possible bad outcomes. The imagination runs wild, which reinforces and strengthens the existential anxiety already there, causing a vicious anxiety loop where painful negative feelings are nourished and flourish. The anxiety causes terrifying guesses […]...
10. Returning to the Present Moment in Yoga Practicing yoga means you are supposed to be in the moment. But even when asanas are so difficult that being anywhere else seems impossible our minds sometimes wander. One of the reasons is that we make a few mistakes during a series or fall out of a pose and then ruminate upon these mistakes as […]...
11. Present Many of us in the West have a hard time understanding what is meant by existing in the present moment. You are reading this right now, so where else could you be but in the present? Eastern masters and Gestalt psychologists would reply that of course you’re here, but you’re probably not fully here. Next […]...
12. Coming To The Moment To Forget Your Problems In mindfulness trainings and yoga classes you’ll often hear instructors ask you to try to come into the moment as much as possible, leaving all the accumulated stresses and worries behind for that short period of time. They might say something clever like “Don’t worry, all that stress will be right there waiting for you […]...
13. Distracted Present Tense “Minds that are ill at ease are agitated by both hope and fear.” – Ovid Many of us commit the error in logic of assuming that if a sensation is pleasant then this means it must be good and if it’s unpleasant then it must be bad. This sort of life philosophy is hedonistic, compelling […]...
14. Narcissism And Projecting The Present Into The Future Part of our human syndrome of narcissism is to project the current set of circumstances into an indefinite future. We fool ourselves into believing that our lives will forever remain the same as they are right now. This is a real problem for mental health on both sides of the coin actually, for when life’s […]...
15. Past Is Only Useful As It Relates to Present Functioning A trap some therapists and their clients fall into that mirrors a trap many people fall into in the wider sphere of life is that they tend to focus on the past at the expense of the here and now. Thinking about the past can be useful but only as it relates to present functioning. […]...
16. Discounting The Present Versus Mindfulness Many of us put a lot of stock into the idea that bigger and better things are on the horizon. We tell ourselves that while happiness and fulfillment may elude us right now they will surely be within our grasp when we’ve finally achieved our goals. We discount the present in favor of that dreamt of […]...
17. Happiness Now The only way to insure your happiness is to realize that you have all the conditions necessary for it right now in this moment, and the only thing stopping you from attaining it is you. We tend to take the things we already have for granted until they are taken from us, things like our […]...
18. The Aha! Moment Everyone loves the ‘aha!’ moment. What was once obscure suddenly becomes crystal clear. The curtains part and it’s easy to see everything onstage. Eureka! The paradox is that while the ‘aha!’ moment seems to come out of nowhere, while it feels like a gift from the heavens, while it’s experienced as effortless, it’s actually the […]...
19. Fulfillment Can Be Found At Every Moment Of Growth The other day in yoga our teacher demoed a posture called compass pose, and like most of the postures there were various levels of complexity that could be reached based on skill level, so that all the students trying it fell somewhere along the continuum, from the bare bones basics to full extension. The thought […]...
20. Catching Negative Self-Talk In The Moment A mean spirited, vicious little troll has taken up residence in your psyche. This troll is critical of pretty much everything you do. He’s harder on you than maybe anybody else in your life right now. We all want to be happy. Happiness is the purported goal of life for most people. But how can […]...