This is the time we have. Just now, just this moment. The past is gone and the future hasn’t happened yet. We only have now.
It can be very hard to stay in the present. Often we don’t notice what is happening right now. Our minds are conditioned to either focus on the past or the future and not on where we are right now.
If something upsetting happened earlier in the day, or yesterday, or last month or even years ago we often revisit that situaton in our minds. We continue to think about it and ruminate over it. We tell and retell that story to ourselves, and sometimes to others as well. In many cases, as we retell the story we enhance it, making it more upsetting and causing us more pain. And if it was a traumatic event we can exacerbate the trauma as we relive the situation over and over by focusing on the story.
We also tend to focus on the future. We may feel we have to prepare for something that might happen. Sometimes we’re very worried about that possibility, and we can spend a lot of time and mental energy trying to come up with ideas for how to stop it from happening, or if it does happen how we will handle the situation. Another common thing we do is rehearse a conversation that we need or want to have with someone, going over and over it in our minds until we feel we have gotten it right.
Doing these things is all part of the human experience. This is what the mind does. There is nothing wrong with us for falling into this habit of focusing on the past or the future. In fact, both can be very useful at times.
Working with difficult events that we are still carrying with us can be helpful, especially if they are causing us pain or affecting our current lives and relationships. Therapy, journaling, and many other modalities can help us understand and work through challenging emotions and behaviors that have arisen from painful events in our past. We can learn how to quiet the thoughts caused by that event that are affecting our current lives, at least to some extent. If we have PTSD, specialized trauma work can be extremely helpful and necessary to move through and hopefully beyond the trauma.
Focusing on the future also can have value. Most of us need to plan our time in order to do the things we need and want to do. We need to keep a calendar so that we don’t miss an important meeting, for example. We may have to spend time thinking about a speech that we’ll make or a challenging conversation that we will have the next day. Planning a vacation, making dinner reservations for Saturday night, and preparing for our retirement are other ways we may focus our minds on the future. All of these things are valuable and keep our lives orderly.
The problem arises when our minds are always either in the past or the future. We miss what is happening right now. We are not present in our lives.
I notice that this happens a lot when I meditate. I usually meditate using my breath as an anchor, focusing and being with my breathing and allowing thoughts, feelings, and sensations to arise and fall away without getting hooked by them. That’s my intention, anyway. I sometimes have extended moments of just that, breathing and watching my thoughts, feelings, and sensations float by like clouds in the sky. Honestly, though, that’s rare. Usually it’s just a moment here and there. After over 40 years of practicing, taking countless meditation trainings and programs and going on many silent retreats, I still get carried away into the past or the future when I meditate. This happens every day, in every meditation. Always. It’s usually a thought that hooks me, often combined with emotions around that thought.
I used to think I was doing it wrong, that I was a bad meditator. Now I know that it’s normal. It’s normal both on and off the cushion. It’s just what our minds do. Our minds were made to think. In meditation, when I notice that I’m lost in a thought or emotion I try to gently turn my attention back to my breath. It can take me quite a while to notice that I’m hooked, but eventually I do. If I find it hard to stay with my breath sometimes I’ll count my breaths which can help. I usually aim to keep it simple though, just following my breath, in and out, feeling it in my body and bringing myself back again and again.
After all these years, I’m still a beginner.