“The secret of inner peace is to live fully in the moment.”
– J. Donald Walters
Before I start my days, I read a page of a little book entitled Secrets of Inner Peace. Today’s message is “The secret of inner peace is to live fully in the moment, releasing past and future into the cycles of eternity.” As someone who has long made schedules and to-do lists, I am prone to thinking about what I plan to do. The flip side of that is that I often regret what I didn’t accomplish during the previous day, week, month or year. These patterns zap my energy, removing my focus from the moment at hand—walking in the woods, playing a video game with my son, cutting vegetables for soup.
Focusing on sensory details helps me live in the moment—what do I see, hear, smell, taste and feel? Is my breathing shallow or deep? Gratitude helps, too. Being thankful for a beautiful moment is a way to be present and relish it. The arrival of the new year inspires me to reduce my expectations of myself—to shorten my to-do lists so that I have more time and energy to savor each moment.
Focusing on sensory details helps me live in the moment—what do I see, hear, smell, taste and feel? Is my breathing shallow or deep? Gratitude helps, too. Being thankful for a beautiful moment is a way to be present and relish it. The arrival of the new year inspires me to reduce my expectations of myself—to shorten my to-do lists so that I have more time and energy to savor each moment.
What helps you live in the moment? How can you practice presence more often?
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