Living in the Present Opens us to Experience Life
SALT FLATS 01 BY STEVE BACK
I often receive messages into my heart that everything will be as it should, that opportunities with people and experiences will arise and all I really need to do is keep the portal open to receiving them. Being present enough to recognise and receive them is the challenge.
On a personal level, the universe sends me frequent messages to keep my options open! It bombards me often with advice. When I’m walking out and about I hear, ‘Smile.’ When I’m meeting new people I hear, ‘Be accepting of who you find.’ A new opportunity or experience may arise and I hear, ‘Be open to new things.’ I’m feeling the need to be open to life, to keep the portal open and let life stream in! And I need to be present for that to happen.
It’s not easy to fall into judgment when you view life in this way because people, places and experiences become things you encounter; there seems little point in judging. Every day I move closer into the belief that life happens, that all will be revealed in the fullness of time and whatever is part of my life plan will happen and grow or wither, accordingly. The challenge is again to be mindful that this is how I want to view life.
It reminds me of a story my son tells. It’s about a spiritual guru who was constantly being asked questions about what the secret to his contentment and happiness was. In the end his simple, yet profound answer was, ‘I’m okay with whatever happens!’ When you think about it, it’s a brilliant life philosophy and one I’m trying to incorporate into mine.
Life is also full of the unexpected and sometimes we can be upset when challenges and opportunities that come our way are not exactly as we had anticipated. Like many of my generation, I had a pretty solid plan of how my life was supposed to look and for a long time I kept to the plan. Now, not so much! I believe the universe had other plans for me and my own plans became overturned. Interesting because as I became more open to letting go of the plan, the more interesting life became with new opportunities presenting themselves. The more present I am, the more I see them and the braver I become in accepting them and living through them with some working out and others not so much.
Not that I think my earlier life experiences were wasted – far from it! The learnings that took place in that earlier life are so useful to me now, but in a way that I hadn’t predicted. Life skills are life skills and will always be useful no matter what path our life takes.
It’s easy in our attempt to set ourselves goals that we actually lose sight of all that life offers in the present moment. By keeping ourselves open to whatever comes our way we are really allowing the universe to help move us through instead of spending time thinking about what could have been and imagining what might be – better to open to what is, in my opinion! I’m coming to trust the universe to inspire me and move me forward. I encourage myself to give up the blinkers and I aspire to be brave enough to be open to what life offers.
Being mindful will help me move to that place. To keep the portal open means to be in the present moment. We can’t see what’s there if we are constantly thinking about the future or the past. Those opportunities can easily pass us by if we aren’t looking for them in the here and now.
