There’s no shortage of people who will tell you to “be in the present moment.” That’s because there is value in the idea of pulling yourself out of your mind’s storytelling.
But like any action we take, rigidity to one approach can have its drawbacks.
One of the areas that comes to mind is when we are dealing with depressive thinking that can lead to a dour mood. Problems arise from what can feel like a persistent belief that this state – this sadness – will never end.
It’s a problem of the present.
Loch Kelly is an author, psychotherapist, and meditation teacher. He talks about the difference between what he terms the “here” and the “now.”
Present moment, or the “here” is a brief period of time. Kelly will say it’s like the tick-tock of a clock He also says that there can be a misery associated with the inability to see that this mood in the “here” is not everlasting.
The “now,” he adds, has more of positioning that allows us to gain perspective, that we exist in the flow of time that can include all thoughts that are linked to here, but also to the past and what’s coming in the future.
Here’s a fuller discussion that Kelly has on this topic, and much more, Physicist Piet Hut.
I believe in the utility of being in the present, largely because it pulls us out of the internal fusion to the suffering inside – the sad feeling, the despair. Accessing the “here” can extend to positioning ourselves to the space created by being more in the “now”.
A practice dedicated to grounding yourself and allowing for the thoughts and feelings to be recognized as the mind’s storytelling, can increase the accessibility.
It’s worth remembering that the mood you are experiencing comes and goes like a weather pattern. Be present, just don’t believe the present is everlasting.
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