Arrive right here
The better moment you keep chasing? This is it. You're already in it.
Stop waiting for life to start later. Thank this moment, just as it is, and feel what it's like to be alive in it.
The chase
"I'll relax when this project is done." "I'll be happy after the promotion." "Once things calm down..." The mind keeps pointing at a better moment somewhere ahead. Then that moment arrives, and the mind points ahead again.
In a large Harvard study, people's minds were wandering away from what they were doing about half the time. And people were less happy while their minds wandered, even when they wandered somewhere pleasant. (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010)
Living in "later" isn't just a habit. It's the same alarm system from Step 1, always scanning ahead for the next problem. Coming back to now is how you tell it: right here, right now, I'm okay.
Gratitude for this one
Not gratitude for a perfect moment. Gratitude for this one, including the tired, boring, ordinary ones.
It's backed by research
People who regularly note what they're grateful for report better mood, better sleep and more optimism, in studies going back over 20 years.
Keep it small
Warm coffee. Sun on your arm. A breath that felt easy. Small and real beats big and forced.
Feel it, don't list it
Pause for a few seconds with each one. Let the body register it. That's what makes it stick.
Come back through your senses
Your senses only work in the present. They're the fastest door back to now.
- 5things you see
- 4things you feel
- 3things you hear
- 2things you smell
- 1thing you taste
The world beyond words
Alfred Korzybski, a philosopher of language, famously said: the map is not the territory. Words are maps. Life itself, what he called the "unspeakable" level, is the territory.
"I'm stressed." "This is bad." "What if it gets worse?" Labels, stories and predictions about life.
Breath moving. Weight in the chair. Light in the room. What's actually here before you name it.
Anxiety lives mostly in the map. The territory, the raw moment, is almost always calmer than the story about it. Steps 1 and 2 quiet the body and the mind. Step 3 is stepping off the map and into the territory.
The buzz of being alive
With practice, many people start to feel something underneath the calm: a warm, tingling, wide-open feeling of simply being alive. It can be blissful.
Making the bliss the goal. "I should feel amazing right now and I don't." That's just a new better moment to chase.
Accept this moment as it is, flat or bright. The aliveness tends to show up on its own when you stop demanding it.