Touching The Present Moment

Recently a reader of this blog said:


"it really saddens me to watch my friends stress over "what" we're going to do when we hang out together. i find comfort in just sitting there, being with my friends, but they have to have some kind of plan or event in order to feel secure about what's going on. i really wish they'd just find the JOY in mere existence but i can't make them."


This is my answer and I wondered whether you might be interested in it:

Greetings, as you know the reason you are able to do this - have this feeling you understand - is because you are in the present moment and in the present moment there is often joy or at least calm and peace.

Your friends have been conditioned perhaps, through their lives and through other influences to experience their joy as anticipation - something they might be aware of in the future and that they want to look forward to. In that sense they're banking their joy for some future possibility.

This does not make them wrong, it just means that they are shy or nervous - perhaps unsettled about the present and don't know how to feel the present.

I have those times and what I often do in such an occasion is to do something very simple. It's important to do something physical at a time like that, as you may know.

For me I just touch with the first two fingers of my left hand, palm towards me, a space about maybe a foot away from the center of my chest and just lightly touching that and going a little bit up and down - very slightly over a space of about - maybe a half an inch seems to immediately bring me into the present moment and then I always feel better.

It's a question mark whether your friends can feel this but it might be something just as easy to do to rub your hand, the palm of your hand you understand, down the sleeve of one arm. You don't have to touch your skin but you can.

I recommend it as something to do to bring yourself into the present moment. So I feel happy to know that you are able to do this. You are in that sense, ahead of the game but the game is about life and life is often heaped with complications isn't it.

Still, the fact that you are able to derive pleasure from being in the present moment allows you to be prepared for the future while being in the present. The future is entirely about being in the present moment. That's how we notice things, that's how we're able to see when somethings out of balance or feel it and that's how we're able to ease our way from one moment to the next.

Goodlife.