How To Live In The Moment

This episode is all about how to live in the moment. If we believe that living in the present is a possibility, how do we actually do that? How do we be present when life gets really uncomfortable and hard? If living in the present is so hard, why do we think it’s worthwhile? What spiritual tools help us build our presence muscle and bring us back to this moment when we notice we’ve left? If you’re wondering how to be present or how to enjoy life more, we hope these tools can work for you, too!

Transcript

Thanks for joining us here on Pretty Spiritual where we're attempting the unthinkable about how to navigate this messy,

Beautiful,

Imperfect life with spiritual tools,

What principles in our own personal stories.

So we're not experts,

We're not religious,

We're definitely silly.

We're honest,

Real and willing to share.

So join us as we connect,

Bond and grow together.

Welcome back to Pretty Spiritual.

Hello.

We're here now.

We're so glad you're here with us.

Today we're going to be talking about being present,

Living in the moment.

Amazing.

So simple.

And as a side note,

I was meditating in the morning and was noticing the persistent thought of how I was behind on doing the notes for this episode and sharing them with Annie and Lindsay.

And I was like going down the rabbit holes of what will people want to hear about?

And what can I say that I'll sound smart to introduce the topic.

And after a couple of minutes,

I just started laughing because I was doing my morning meditation,

Which focuses on being present in my body and noticing what sensory experiences are happening.

And instead of actually being in the present in my body,

I was stuck in my brain with the planning.

Hooked on thoughts,

Such a typical brain.

But seriously,

What does it mean to live in the moment or be present?

Is it just some new age jargon or is it an actual spiritual practice that is possible for each of us?

I believe the latter.

I'm hoping the latter.

But when I was researching it,

What information is readily available about this online,

I found a lot of affirmations and kind of feel good catchphrase type stuff.

But I didn't see to like just be present.

And it's like,

Okay,

Great,

But how good?

Yeah,

Exactly.

So we welcome all the all the vibes.

All vibes.

I want to talk about this because I really,

I need practical tools and suggestions for how to actually practice living in the moment.

I'm thinking maybe other people do too.

And I especially want to talk about how to do this when it gets uncomfortable.

So that's what we'll talk about today.

And maybe to start,

We could each share about what being present looks like,

And what makes it hard and why it feels important,

Why it matters,

What makes living in the moment hard and what makes it worthwhile.

Annie,

Do you have anything to say about that?

Thanks for that intro,

Ella.

Yes,

I often have a story about what should be happening or why I think things are happening as they are.

And then I'll live in that space instead of the simple fact of reality,

Or as we talked about last week,

Accepting life as it is.

Being present for me means experiencing the emotions I'm having in that moment.

Seeing the world around me as it's taking place and not jumping into the future.

Like you said with the episode,

What are people gonna like?

How do I,

You know,

How am I going to write this?

Or diving in the past,

Catastrophizing or polarizing.

So what makes being present hard for me usually boils down to my thought patterns.

I'm so used to thinking in certain ways that my brain defaults to these processes.

And it'll stay that way unless I actively get into the presence,

Which with neuroplasticity,

I can actually change the way I think.

So a real time example of this is I got back some edits from one of my editors for an article.

That I was writing for her business.

And they were totally reasonable edits.

But the article didn't hit all the marks she wanted.

And I read her email and I immediately left the present.

I flew over to her desk in her office,

Which is in a different city and imagined her disappointment in me heard like frustration,

So much anger.

Who knows what she was really thinking.

I was berating myself for not doing it perfectly the first time and also not fully grasping what she needed.

I decided how I'm more trouble than I'm worth to hire.

And I'll probably get her second round of edits off the mark too.

And I surely can't figure anything out.

And wow,

Like I was not anywhere near sitting in my body sitting in front of my computer,

Just reading an email.

All that was taking place in my head and I was just as far away.

The reality is the article needs some edits.

They're reasonable requests.

I can get them to her in a timely fashion.

I'm able to learn and improve.

It's not an all or nothing good or bad situation.

And obviously I can't teleport over and over experience.

So it's clear.

It's clear I need some spiritual tools to cope with how to be present when I'm uncomfortable or scared.

Dot dot dot.

I'm so excited to hear what they are.

Thank you,

Annie.

How about you,

Pony?

What you got?

My coping mechanism at the time,

And I did not realize this until this year,

Was to disassociate.

That's what has been making being present so difficult.

So this has taken a very long time for me to even learn what this is and see this.

So bear with me.

I'm bringing up disassociation because I think it's in opposition to being present and my biggest obstacle for growth and becoming more able to be with present time awareness.

Let me get into what disassociating is.

So disassociating is a way of escaping psychologically when we cannot escape physically.

It's a fairly common and normal response to trauma.

Disassociation is a creative survival mechanism,

A way of mentally blocking out unbearable thoughts or feelings.

It's a defense against pain,

An instinctive biologically driven reaction.

It's also a splitting off of mental functions,

Which normally operate together or in tandem.

A normal process,

Which starts out as a defense mechanism to handle trauma,

But which over time becomes problematic.

A failure to integrate or join up information about the environment and ourself.

I'd like to put a little side note in for trauma.

Also traumatic experiences sometimes for me is just being uncomfortable.

And it can be anywhere on this scale of things,

But I've noticed I've just turned to disassociation as soon as I'm uncomfortable.

So what may have been a really big trauma maybe as a child or something like that,

Now when I feel uncomfortable,

I tend to disassociate,

Which has really been keeping me out of being anywhere near the present or present time.

It was a creative past survival mechanism that's been taking away the possibility of being present.

I can't begin to attempt to be present when my unconscious habitual pattern has been to get out of present time moments because of longstanding old fears that I am currently not safe.

My spiritual path is a long and winding road that requires me to go in reverse before I can move forward.

Often times I didn't realize that I was in a state of reliving my old patterns,

My childhood logic beliefs of I'm incapable,

I'm unable to deal with or handle emotions or situations.

Life is too scary or unmanageable.

So it's best I don't look,

Don't attempt,

Protect myself by checking out.

As I explained before,

These were attempts to protect myself from trauma or the feeling of being powerless.

These beliefs hindered integration of what was truly actually happening in the here and now.

I'm an adult,

I have tools,

My life now is not the same.

I was experiencing internally the life I was creating,

The reality I was living,

Which was the believing life is too big and too scary for me to handle on a moment to moment basis.

Throughout present time awareness practice,

I rely on my old coping strategies that just don't work anymore.

My practice today looks like finding myself disassociated,

Which feels like I've left my body,

I can't connect to my feelings with my real time experiences.

I've closed off my heart and my mind and I'm in essentially shut down survival mode and everyone else is the enemy.

In the beginning of my practice,

I may not have realized I had disassociated until someone like my partner brought it to my attention and that was helpful to begin the process of becoming aware.

Like I said,

A lot of my spiritual practice is working backwards to get to a set point of where I can even begin and not where my mind thinks I am.

That is why living in the moment as a practice is so important to me.

It's a real time tool that can take me out of my false reality my mind is creating due to habitual patterns that once worked to help me cope,

But now new tools are required.

Being present allows me the opportunity to participate in what is actually here rather than what my mind is telling me is here.

That was so perfect.

I feel like we should just stop now.

That's great.

I thought it made no sense.

Oh my God,

It was all the things.

Thank you.

Thank you,

Brain.

I especially want to say thank you for talking about trauma because I always like to remind myself and others that where there's extreme trauma in our bodies that sometimes being present with that is too much.

And I just want to encourage all of us to trust ourselves and to listen to the cues we're getting and that dissociation is a tool.

It's okay to use tools that help us get through.

Professional help.

Professional help is so great.

But like if things are too intense and you check out,

Good work taking care of yourself.

It's not necessary to harm yourself trying to be present.

It's a slow practice that develops over time.

And you can start with as much as you can handle right now.

That's the right amount.

Gosh yeah,

I really related to the dissociation stuff.

It's like I want less pain and more pleasure and that is my equation for happiness.

How could that not work?

And so the way I handled life was I checked out when things were uncomfortable or unpleasant.

And my plan was to check out for the icky stuff and then just really enjoy the good times.

And unfortunately what I didn't realize is that checking out of my life,

Like Lindsay was saying,

Dissociation can take on a compulsive tone.

And then what happens is I don't get to choose what I'm checked out for.

So I'm checked out period and I feel numb and depressed and I'm not present for my life.

And like Annie and Lindsay were both touching on,

For me the reasons it's so hard to be present is first that it's physically and emotionally uncomfortable,

Especially if you're coming into the present moment from like big habitual patterns of dissociation.

Maybe you're dealing with binging with food or acting out sexually or you know,

Divorce,

What children,

Whatever the stuff is.

For me personally,

There's a huge amount of self loathing coming into contact with the dissociative ways I try to protect myself from pain.

And the second reason,

Which we were talking about also is that brains are wired to think,

Figure out,

Solve,

Replay,

Fantasize.

It's just what they do.

You know,

It's their job.

And the human brain is a complete miracle.

Don't get me wrong.

I think it can be used as a really effective servant to healing,

But it can't be in charge of the process.

It can't be running the show or trying to control if we want to heal.

That's been my experience.

And so our brains are just thinking when we come into the moment,

It's uncomfortable.

Why would we ever want to be here?

And for me,

The reason I think being present is so important is that it's the only real way to access joy,

Love,

Connection,

Authenticity,

Safe,

Real safety.

And I know that when I live my life trying to check out,

The net result is that I don't like myself very much.

It starts a cycle where I'm uncomfortable with myself,

So I need to check out.

And then I do stuff to check out that makes me more uncomfortable and ultimately then I'm trapped in this cycle of dissociation.

So being present means I have greater access to my integrity and to real self-esteem.

It means I have a greater likelihood of responding to myself and others with kindness and love and a pause when I feel triggered or uncomfortable.

And when I'm living in the present moment in general,

I feel happier and more comfortable.

And I get to really experience meaningful connections and relationships,

Even when they're uncomfortable.

Let's do the tools because it's time.

It sounds so good.

It's just time.

How about you,

Lindsay?

What's your tool for coming back to the present moment when you've drifted away or a daily tool to help you build the presence muscle?

Firstly,

For tools,

I must recognize when my tool of choice is to check out.

I need to gather whatever resources I need to be able to check back in over and over and over again.

Lots of self-awareness through meditation and lots of self-observation without judgment have been the tools to help me say yes to checking in when it's been automatic to check out.

This has begun to build my presence muscle.

My present time tool right now is to become a third person observer of my own experience.

I was meditating and I caught myself judging my experience.

I should be better at meditating.

There should be less chatter.

If I meditated correctly,

Then I'd be blah,

Blah,

Blah.

This moment,

I took the power of being present labeling for myself what was going on,

Judgment,

Grasping,

Controlling,

And I actively put that down.

I then left my body and brought a higher self up into a palm tree.

I was on the beach,

So this is why this happened.

Jealous.

I know.

I do want to preemptively put that in there.

This doesn't normally.

.

.

Anyway,

Thank God for beaches.

This higher self up into a palm tree that could see me and objectively label and recognize all that was going on for me without getting myself hooked into the story and spinning on thoughts.

I then would ask my higher self,

And they were simply just higher because they were higher up than me,

What do I need in this moment?

The answers came.

Deep breathing,

Loving kindness for self,

Acceptance of all that is here,

Whether it be mindless chatter,

Beliefs that I should be more,

Better,

Different.

Observation and acceptance of these human equalities that are here,

To welcome them from my highest self and to check in with what's needed to be with and nurture all that is here.

A simple way to start observing yourself is to ask the question,

What do I most need right now?

What will be most useful to helping me facilitate being here now?

It could be as simple as validating that what is happening is hard.

It could require me getting extra resources to handle a situation that seems too much to handle on my own.

It might be saying a little prayer to my highest self to help me to recognize what I need right now and helping myself to get that for myself.

The visualization of my or a higher self perched up higher where it can objectively see what I need in this moment has been my greatest tool this week.

Bring them on,

Pony.

Let them flow.

I cried last episode.

Hold on.

It's really worked to help get me what I need to be able to be in this present moment with whatever may come along with it.

A fast and easy tool for present time awareness.

If this visualization didn't speak or if it's too hokey to you,

Then I recommend using your senses.

What's here now without the stories or narratives,

Your mind weaves with the thoughts.

What's actually here now.

Take three slow breaths deep into your belly.

Feel your body.

Circle your neck,

Rub your heart space,

Shake out your arms to be able to fill your body.

Focus on nature.

Maybe it's the trees,

The flowers,

The sun or the moon,

And then listen to the sounds around you and that can help bring you into the present moment.

And yeah,

That's my tool.

It's so great.

I love it so much.

Thanks,

Pony.

Thank you.

Just coming into the present moment right now is very tender.

Me too.

Yeah.

Annie,

Can you tell us about your spiritual tool for being present?

Yes.

Thank you.

I enjoy so much making these podcasts with both of you and whoever's listening,

It means so much that you are out there.

For me,

My tool is having meditation as a baseline and meditation doesn't have to be this far flung thing or this painful process.

It can be a one minute moment in the morning and just having a practice of just sitting there.

Having meditation as a baseline in my life gives me the opportunity to know what it's like to see that my thoughts are just these constant things that churn out of my brain and that just because they could turn out of my brain doesn't mean that they're true.

It gives me the opportunity to see how busy and how often scared my brain is and how often that takes me up and out of the moment.

So in the example that I gave earlier of my editor and the revisions that were requested,

Having that baseline gave me the opportunity instead of just spiraling down into a hole or before it might have been like,

I need to fix how I feel right now.

And it could be one of those dissociation tactics we'd use,

Like whether it's food or shopping or whatever,

I would run away noticing my panic and fight or flight level responses to something that's a pretty reasonable thing for a writer to get edit requests,

Right?

Fail.

It's a disaster.

You're bad.

So I was experiencing that and saying,

Oh,

And being able to sit with the fear that comes up and then having some tools to follow it.

So saying,

Wow,

You're really scared.

This triggers something in you.

And so what I did was I sent a text message to my wife and I kind of dumped out all my fears into the text message.

I was like,

Help.

And then Ella and I had been chatting online and I sent it to her too.

And so it was like this moment where I got to acknowledge that I was scared and kind of invite other people in and ask for help.

So without a mindfulness meditation in my toolbox,

It's hard for me to even know that I need other people to help me.

With top level,

For top level coming back to the present,

I can use sensory tools like Lindsay shared.

By writing it out and sharing it,

I was able to have a little cry and release some of the fears that were keeping me from being in the moment.

The next step is I can reorient myself to attempting to do the task at hand.

So in the case of the editing,

It was just pause,

Do a little breathing,

Finish work on another project that wasn't making me scared.

And then reopen that email,

Say a prayer.

I love prayer as a grounding tool to kind of help center me when I'm a little bit overwhelmed.

I asked for the humility to not be perfect all the time,

To know that I'm not perfect all the time,

To do the job to the best of my ability.

And then I just followed the instructions and their quest she sent and felt the keyboard under my fingers,

Did some breathing and stayed present for the article.

When I noticed the spiral thoughts would come back up,

I'm the worst,

I should have done this perfect the first time.

I could just say,

Oh,

You know what,

This is a fixed mindset,

You're centered in fear.

There's so much opportunity for growth.

And then I would just keep go back to the simple tools,

Breathe,

Ask myself what the task at hand is,

Pray,

Begin again.

So it's like really all we do in meditation,

But then in my daily life,

Right?

Continually coming back to what the task at hand is in this very moment.

Thank you so much.

And I was thinking about one thing that I learned today,

Which was a Gil Fronsdahl,

My favorite teacher.

Do you love Gil?

Oh Gil.

And he said,

Make your fears feel safe.

How can I make these fears feel safe?

And I am so appreciative to that cue.

And I'm going to try and practice that.

So thank you.

I love that.

I love Gil so much.

And we're putting up one of his how to meditate on the pretty spiritual podcast.

Com www.

Thank goodness.

Yes.

We'll have it's such a beautiful meditation that with instructions and he explained some things that has taken me years to understand.

So I'm really excited for you.

We're going to be adding,

I'm going to be building a resources section for our website.

So yes,

We will keep you posted.

Ella is doing well with that.

And it sure takes a lot.

So thank you.

Oh,

Thank you guys both so much.

And I am really grateful that you both talked about sense experience,

Because for me that represents the single biggest anchor to the present moment,

Which is our body.

It's uncomfortable to be in here.

I actually started practicing Zen because I thought it was going to be a shortcut to to not have to have a human body and a human experience.

I was really looking for like a big spiritual bypass.

And there are a bunch of different practices in Zen,

But one of the foundational ones,

I mean,

There's a lot of just sitting on a cushion facing the wall.

That's zazen is the primary practice.

And that's what it looks like,

Often in a meditation hall with other people.

But there's this other foundational practice called Shikantaza.

It's basically just sitting.

And without an object to focus on,

You just let yourself watch what it's like to just be sitting.

It is this way of coming into the present moment and coming to terms with lived reality.

It's just this right here.

And if for me,

It's become a way to open my conscious awareness to what this present experience of inhabiting my body and mind is like,

And it's just watching.

So that practice today really,

Really saved my life.

But I have to get pretty desperate with pain to get to a place where I'm willing to live that moment by moment awareness,

No matter what I'm doing in my daily life.

And lately,

I've been thinking a lot about,

Sorry,

Lately,

I've been experiencing a lot of pain and some pretty intense depression.

And I have a lot of really good fantasies for escaping the present moment.

And they're so interesting to watch.

The first time I did a long meditation retreat,

The word we use in Soto Zen is sesshin,

Which means gathering the heart-mind.

And it's a silent retreat.

You're there for five days,

Seven days more.

And I was in and out of this really intense depression.

And I was going up to the smoker's area.

And it was this one particularly hard day.

I really,

Really wanted to escape.

And I was thinking,

I wish I was at Tassajara,

Which is the other monastic community I was at before.

And then my brain was kind of like,

My heart was kind of like,

Well,

Then you'd be depressed at Tassajara.

And I was like,

I wish I was in Berkeley,

Which is where my family lives.

And my heart said,

Well,

I'd be depressed in Berkeley.

And then I was like,

I'm going to pull out all the stops.

I wish I was depressed in Bali.

And it was like,

Yeah,

You'd be depressed in Bali.

And I was like,

Damn it,

Why don't I just be depressed here?

And it was like this really interesting shifting point for me,

Because it really represented the willingness to stay and make friends with whatever the circumstances of my present reality are.

And I remember my mind was really blown when a Zen teacher said something like,

Your body's always in the present.

I was like,

Oh,

My God,

She's right.

How's that possible that I never knew that before,

You know,

But if I want to come back to the present,

That's how it's a it's me inhabiting this lived experience in all of its whatever it is,

All the thinking all the feeling all the sensations,

I'm just here watching it.

And right now the fantasies I have about escape don't involve Bali,

They're a little bit more subtle than that.

But I know that chasing these mental constructions is how I get stuck deeper in depression.

And so what I do when I first noticed these fantasies happening is I breathe.

I breathe and I watch what's happening the way I would watch in meditation.

And I get to learn some really interesting and sometimes really funny stuff about myself.

It's like a constant inside joke with myself that the things I come up with in my brain.

I get so creative.

But also it's all really the same.

When I'm doing this,

I come back into the moment I breathe,

I sometimes ask myself questions like where are my feet?

Or I look down at my feet and I'm like,

Oh,

Yeah,

They're in the present moment.

So where's the rest of me?

So they're attached to my body in most cases,

And my body is anchored to the present moment.

So what's happening inside my body?

I say come back,

Sweetheart,

Come back,

Sweetheart,

I say that and just kind of like if I was teaching the most adorable little puppy how to not pee on the carpet,

I would gently lead that puppy to outside or the newspaper.

When I noticed myself escaping into the depression thoughts lately,

Which sound like,

You know,

I wish I wasn't here or hate this.

I can't,

I get to ask myself when I'm observing those thoughts.

Is that true?

If I'm living in my body,

I have this really unique opportunity to observe my thinking without believing that what it's saying is capital T truth.

And when I'm able to observe,

I can see that my depressed brain thinks depression thoughts,

And those are what they look like.

And I get to ask myself,

Is that true?

And I get to like Lindsay was talking about,

I get to choose to come back to what's right here instead of all the stuff that my brain is thinking about.

And I am really happy to report that after practicing meditation for a few years,

My body is now this safe container for making contact with the present moment.

And I can come back to it,

Despite enormous physical suffering or emotional anguish.

It is this large,

Spacious container.

And I think about it as the bottom of the ocean floor.

There's this peace and serenity that's available there always,

No matter how choppy the waves are on the surface.

And it's just this,

Just this,

And now this.

And when I live in from that place,

There's room for whatever's here.

So beautiful.

I love to think of the deep ocean floor and the crazy looking things that live down there,

The lantern fish,

The glow in the dark fish with the angry faces,

Even Yeah,

Even the ones even deeper.

It is so amazing and intense.

And it's okay that like our internal environment,

It's like,

Wait,

What is there deep beneath the waters,

Much more curious about it than that choppy waves that are just and then we can remember that we're the entire ocean.

That's so soothing.

So how do you all out there practice being present?

We really want to know teach us your tools.

Oh,

Please.

We're so great.

We're at pretty spiritual podcast to Gmail word at pretty spiritual podcast calm and we're on Instagram and Facebook.

We just have every door open to hear from you.

Come to us.

Can't wait for that.

What are we going to talk about next week?

Miss Annie?

Well,

We have been talking so much about our thoughts and how they sway us.

So we thought we should talk about how to shift patterns of thinking and behavior.

And we like that.

Can't wait to see you next week.

I can tell you it's a great one.

We love you.

Bye bye.

Yaa Alright!

Inhale.

Reviews

Great talk! Very helpful! Thank you!

Some really useful tools as always, thank you ladies, love you 🤗💜x

Thank you for sharing your experiences, made me feel so much better. 💙

Thank you for your honesty and for sharing it. 🙏🏼🧿🇦🇺