live in the present

S

swatiraohnlu

Swati Rao
With a little bit of self-love, gentle awareness, and patience, you can learn to let go of your regrets and thrive in the present!



* Be patient with yourself. Allow yourself to grieve, to feel how you truly feel about it. Without grieving first, you won't be able to make space in your heart for healing. Feel all the emotions you need to feel for as long as you need to, and you'll be able to let go of those emotions because they've run their course. Don't get stuck in a cycle of feeling sorry for yourself, though. Pitying yourself won't help you get over it and will do nothing for you except continue your misery.

* Choose to stop focusing on the past. You are in command of what you regret and what you hold on to, and by first making the conscious choice to start letting go you can be confident in yourself that you will be able to move on. Feel yourself in the present, your surroundings. Look at the date and time-- it is far and away from whatever it was in the past that caused you grief, simply because it is no longer a part of right now.
 
# Think about how you can change the outcome of whatever happened in the present. Could you apologize to someone or do something else right now to change the situation or move on from this? Or if it's a situation that can't be affected at this point, remember that you can't change the outcome. What you can do, however, is choose what you will do next time if a similar situation happens again, or what you do now.

# Be thankful for everything in the past. Yes, I'm telling you to feel gratitude for anything you regret or think was terrible in your past. Whatever happened is not to be regretted, but instead to be a lesson. If you keep on dwelling on the negative aspects of it, you might miss out on a wonderful opportunity to grow. Think about how you can learn from this or how it's made you into a more resilient and capable person. When you realize that it might have actually just been a challenge to help you become a more resilient and awesome person, you can set yourself free.

# Remind yourself that you're in the present and that the past literally doesn't exist anymore. The past can't affect you in any way... unless you let it. Don't let it. You have control over what you let affects you; forbid it from affecting you anymore. Imagine it's a person; tell it how you feel, honestly. Tell your past that you are going to stop letting it make you feel a certain way. You are strong.
 
# Stop thinking about it. First be aware of your thoughts and let them come and go freely, and be conscious of when you're thinking of the past. Don't try to suppress them when they first arise seemingly naturally, but by being aware of them you can be aware of your choice to create those thoughts. You are in control of your own mind. Make the choice to think of the past less and less often.

# Take a deep breath, and as you exhale, feel yourself exhaling the negative feelings. Breathe in life and the present, breathe out what no longer exists (the past). Do this several times. Try to imagine your regret as something you're holding in your hand (or heart), and slowly, gently, let it go. This may take a few tries, or you might have to do it every time your mind thinks of it again, but you'll feel better a little more each time you do.
 
As humans, we love to create stories. We love to listen to other people stories and compare them with our own. This is beautiful. In a way we could say that the entire universe is based on one collection of stories, a cosmic story. The problem is when we feel the need to create a story about everything, we are living entirely in the world of symbols. We confuse the world as it is, with the way we think about it, talk about it and describe it. Reality though, is not a concept. When we realize this we are able to return to a state of peace and stillness.
 
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