Struggling Staying Present?

A common question I get is “how do I stay present throughout the day?”

Usually this is followed up with some version of the following:
- Things feel hard
- I'm stressed
- It’s always noisy
- I have major monkey mind
- I just get so caught up in all the things that I don’t know how to come back to a place of calm and peace
- HELP!!

Tune in to this talk to learn how to be more present each day.

Transcript

A common question that I get is, How do I stay present throughout the day? How do I not get distracted and let life completely take over? Usually this is followed up with some version of the following. Things feel hard, It's stressful, It's always noisy. I have major monkey mind, Which is being restless and confused and indecisive. And I just get so caught up in all the things that I don't know how to come back to a place of peace and calm. Another thing that many of us do is when I then. When this happens, Then I'll be when? Is that you? If it is, You're not alone. So many of us are missing the present moment because we are in our heads repeating these things. I'm so stressed out, I'm so exhausted. When I find time for self care, Then I'll be happy when I get to finally sit down, Then I can relax. All of these things, We're always wishing and hoping for the next thing that will hopefully bring us joy and make us happy or fix whatever needs fixing in our lives. And what happens is we miss everything good that's happening before us, Right in front of our eyes, We're missing it. We let learning and growth opportunities pass us by. Even the hard things we go through can teach us things and we just let it go right by us without without any question. We lose excitement for life because we're wishing it away. We can't be excited about right now when we're constantly thinking about when, Then, I will XYZ. So our most precious resource is time. And if you're like I was, You wonder how it manages to fly by so fast, Right? You might be nodding your head and thinking, I need help. I need help. How do I stay present? How do I not get sucked into this wishing things were different sort of mentality? Enter meditation. You knew that was coming, Right? My first suggestion is if you just have a couple of minutes when these feelings come up when this happens to you, Take three to five deep breaths. A few deep breaths can tell the brain that you're okay and that you're safe and there's nothing to worry about, Which then helps you move out of panic and stress. Then you're able to evaluate what's happening and how you can manage it in a thoughtful way instead of out of fear and overwhelm. So if you have these feelings, I'm so stressed out, I'm so anxious, I'm so frustrated, I'm so angry, I'm so sad, I'm so whatever that is, Feel it, Acknowledge it, But then take some time to take a couple of deep breaths so that you can move through it. The second suggestion is if you happen to have longer to meditate, Then this can be done entirely on your own or with the help of an app or a guided meditation of sorts. And if you need ideas or you need support with that, Send me a message. I will gladly talk with you about what might work for you. You can even use YouTube pretty easily to find different meditation. So generally speaking, You can meditate anywhere as long as you are safe and you are comfortable. Meditation can help calm the mind and clear space to evaluate again what's happening and why you're feeling stressed out. You may find that just taking that time is enough to completely forget about what was wearing you down or what had you stressed out to begin with. When we put that pause between the thing and our reaction or response to it, Sometimes we don't even remember why we were upset. Third is to, As we learn to be present, As we practice mindfulness, It can be helpful to record our experiences and reflect upon them. So I invite you to get a journal and write down the things that are happening in your life. And this is a good way to celebrate your wins, To see where you've grown, Look at the gratitude for each day. It can be especially helpful when we're trying to slow down and enjoy each moment. When we pause to write about how we feel and what we notice, We're training the brain to be aware and intentional, Which means over time, We'll be able to do this with more ease each day. It won't feel so hard. You'll start to notice the things that were always there, But you just flew by it in the rush of life. And yes, I am 1000% speaking from experience here. We go by things every day. We driving, Maybe the same route to work, The same route to school, Sitting down to lunch, Like everything is the same in our mind. So we miss things along the way. And if we slow down, We might notice things that really were always there. We just weren't paying attention. So we can train the brain to do that. And that is through meditation, Through mindfulness, Being intentional with what we're doing. If you are not a fan of writing or journaling, It is best to put pen to paper and connect the mind with writing things out. But if that's a struggle for you, Something's better than nothing. So doing a voice note, Record yourself on your phone. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? Putting a just in the notes feature on your phone or a Google doc or something to record what's going on, Then we can look back and see how we were feeling at a particular time or what's changed in our lives along the way and see how far we've come, How much we've grown and we can learn from that. So that is definitely a recommended practice from me, But make it your own. Do what will work for you. So lastly, I'll say this. Everything present throughout the day, Take practice. That's what mindfulness is. What meditation is. It's a practice of slowing down to notice your surroundings, Your feelings and emotions, Calming the body so that you can take your time in, Move forward in a way that's intentional instead of rushed and stressed and hurried and pushed through life. We have so much just kind of shoving us along day to day and things that we just do without thinking, Without putting any intention behind it. And those things are good. Do we need to think about brushing our teeth? Not really, Although that would be a good moment to try to experience mindfulness and staying present instead of thinking about what you're going to do next, Instead of thinking about rushing off to work, Whatever it might look like, Pay attention. Like how does it feel to brush your teeth? What do you notice? How does it taste? Like these are things that help us be mindful. And so if we slow down and we take that time, We continue to practice it. It will show up in big results later on. You might not notice it right away, But it will build. And again, As I mentioned, Something's better than nothing. So just a little bit every single day is going to have more impact than 30 minutes once a week. Okay. If you struggle staying present, If what I shared here is you're nodding your head and you're like 100%, I can relate to everything she just said, Let's chat. Let's have a talk about what you can do, How I can help. Start out taking small kind of bite-sized steps because that's my forte. Going all in on something usually does not work as well as doing small consistent actions day over day over day. So I'm here for you. I'm here to support you. If you can't tell, I absolutely love teaching this. It has changed my life. It has changed the lives of the people I work with each and every day. It's amazing what can happen when we slow down. It's really, Really that simple, But we have to take the first step. So if you're ready for the first step, I am here for you. Take care.