Living in the present moment — it’s the practice at the heart of all mindfulness teachings, and the essence of well-being. But what is it, this thing we call being present? I’m not sure we all share the same answers for what it means, or if it even matters that we do. What does matter, however, is that we know what being present means for ourselves, in a visceral, practical, and non-conceptual way. And perhaps too, that we have a sense of why we even want to be in the present moment, why it’s something we want to set as an intention for our lives.

I believe there’s something inherent in all human beings, something that longs to not feel separate from everyone and everything else, not feel separate from life. At a deep level, we want to heal our fundamental aloneness. When we’re fully present, we feel connected to life and everything in it. We are part of the moment, inside it. So too, there exists a drive within us to directly experience life, freshly, to know our experience more intimately than we can through any idea, concept, memoryor fantasy. We crave the flow experience, to be fully absorbed into an activity, when the doer merges into the doing and the separation between doer and doing evaporates, when all notions of time disappear. We have a longing to lose our separate self so that we can be inside life, of life, part of life. We want, ultimately, to return home to a state we seem to remember at a psychic level, a state of oneness before the me who’s in charge of managing life was formed.

On a more immediate level, we want to be in the present moment because its alternative, the experience of not being present, of being distracted and somewhere else while life is happening, feels unsatisfying. Not being present leaves us feeling empty, unfulfilled, and unreal—like ghosts in our own lives, like we’d gone missing for the whole adventure that is our life. Profound regret appears for so many when they realize that they’ve missed out on their life, that while they were physically present they were never really here, never fully paying attention to the experience at hand. Not being present is like winning a ticket to the most amazing adventure ever created and choosing not to attend. We want to be present so that we can be in life, in the game while this amazing opportunity is here.

Being in the present moment, at its core, includes a few fundamental practices. Most it all, it involves experiencing what’s happening in our senses right now. It’s feeling what our body is feeling, inside and out, seeing what we’re seeing, smelling what we’re smelling, tasting what we’re tasting, and hearing what we’re hearing, as it’s happening now. It means living this moment as a direct sensorial experience, experiencing the feelings and sensations through our body and not our mind’s interpretation of them. Being present means not being engaged in thinking about our past, not projecting our thoughts onto the future, and not engaging in our thoughts about what’s happening right now. It means paying attention to this moment as it’s arising through our senses, without judgment or commentary.

While being present means not being engaged in thinking, it’s important to mention that being present does not require the absence of thought. Being in the present moment doesn’t mean the mind stops producing thoughts, and thoughts in and of themselves are not a problem for presence. Thoughts happen, they keep coming no matter how present we are. Sometimes the thoughts quiet down and more spaces appear between them, sometimes no space appears. It’s not something we can control. To be present with thoughts involves being aware of the fact that thoughts are appearing, but (and here’s the big but) without identifying with those thoughts. In other words, noticing the presence of thoughts without getting involved in their stories or content, without going down the rabbit hole into which they beckon. Being in the present moment means directly experiencing what’s arising in the body, in the senses, which also includes paying attention to what’s happening in the mind.

Simultaneously, living in the present moment involves experiencing whatever’s happening right now without an agenda for where this now needs to lead us. Being present, fully, is turning our attention to right now without trying to build this moment into a potential future, an outcome we think will be good.

Many of us (myself included) struggle with this subtler and less discussed aspect of presence. Deep within us, perhaps from conditioning, perhaps wired into our DNA, perhaps both, there exists a drive to make something with our moments, to move our now-s in a positive direction that will create what we want. As we’re living this moment, a part of us (not always conscious) is relating to now as a stepping stone in the larger path that is our life. We live in a linear frame, with the present moment inextricably linked to an imagined future. This linear frame emits a subtle, sometimes imperceptible energy, but nonetheless, its energy keeps us at a slight distance from life; we’re still doing something with life, making something out of it that will benefit us, moving the separate I forward. With our now perpetually linked to a future then, we cannot trust that it’s safe to truly let go and surrender entirely into this moment, as its own destination.

To be fully in the present moment is to show up for this moment without demanding or expecting that it become or lead to anything else. So too, it’s to be here without using this moment to promote any particular identity, demonstrate that we are or aren’t something we imagine. To be fully present is to relate to each now as a kind of vertical eternity, each moment complete and whole, a hologram of everything; it is to release the idea of now as a point in a linear and finite line from a past to a future, with now serving as an usher between those two points. To live with profound presence is to trust that life will be enough and we will be enough if we simply show up for it one moment at a time. It’s to believe that like a necklace of pearls, life can be well-lived as a series of present moments strung together. The shift into this sort of presence is about letting go of the idea that we are the directors of our life, that we need to use life to achieve a particular agenda, that life is here to move us along or us to move it along.

Living fully present is surrendering to this now, completely, and believing that we do not need to use this moment to achieve a destination of our own strategizing.  But rather, that we can simply show up for life one moment at a time, and trust that just showing up, on its own, will be enough to lead us where we need to go, which ultimately and paradoxically is back to now.

When we pay attention to our senses without judgment, interpretation, or agenda, and refrain from engaging in thinking, we start to experience, at a gut, heart and mind level, that simply taking care of our now-s, one now at a time, showing up for this moment again and again, is in fact the most skillful and successful means for taking care of our then-s, and ending up in a future that we want.  It’s actually a lot easier and less effortful than we’re conditioned to believe. Counter to everything we’re taught, the best way to create a joyful life, a good life, is to pay attention to this moment and then the next and then the next. . . We can only learn this truth through practice, but attending to now is all we ever really need to do.

Practices for Being Present

1. Take a few minutes each day to drop out of your mind and into your body. Feel the experience of right now as it’s happening in your senses. Experience what it feels like to be alive in this moment in your body. Like a photograph syncing up with its frame, allow your attention to sync into frame with your body. Sense the felt experience of returning your attention to your own physical being.  Feel the sense of relief, calm, joy, or whatever arises as you bring your body your full attention, presence, and intimate company.  Feel the “Aaah yes, I’m here with you, I’m home.”
2. As you go through your day, notice the subtle drive to live the present moment as a means to an end, to be doing something with the moment. See if you can drop that agenda, let go of where this moment should go or what this moment should do energy. Practice surrendering into now, without any thought or plan for a future.  Play with living in this moment as if there really is nowhere else to get to, no next, no future.  Give yourself permission throughout the day to require only one thing from yourself, that you show up for this now. Approach it as an experiment, field work for knowing whether taking care of your present moment, and only your present moment, can be enough, and can in fact generate a good life.

The post Why Paying Attention to This Moment Creates Your Best Future appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, and without judgment, according to Jon Kabat Zinn, a leader and teacher in the mindfulness movement. While we can easily define it, it seems that being it is not so easy. Despite all our talk of mindfulness, studies indicate that most people are only here, paying attention in the present moment, 50% of the time.  That said we miss out on half our life, with our attention somewhere other than where we are.

Rather than take the usual, culturally-accepted model and suggest another thing to go out and become, get, do, study, buy, or otherwise accomplish in order to attain mindfulness, perhaps it’s wiser to turn our attention into ourselves and investigate what gets in the way of our being present.  What are the obstacles to being here now?

The first and most obvious obstacle to being present is distraction. We’re in a constant state of motion, busyness, and getting to somewhere else—using our devices, substances, entertainment, chatter, and anything else we can find to avoid here, now.  Doing is our first line of defense against being present.

The most treacherous impediment to mindful attention however, even more than busyness and activity, is thought. The mind, maker of thoughts, is forever chattering, distracting us, telling us stories, beckoning us to not be where we are, but rather get involved in the tickertape of plot twists it’s creating.

When it comes to avoiding the present moment, we tend to employ a handful of habitual thinking patterns.  First, we keep ourselves safe from now by narrating our experience as it’s happening. We follow ourselves around, perpetually commenting on our own experience.  “Oh look, I’m having a good time here, this is going well, they seem to like me” and so it goes, the voice over of now—soundtrack to our life.  All day and night we tell ourselves the story of ourselves, story of our life.  Sadly, we live the voice over but not the life itself.

So too, we disappear from the now by continually packaging our experience as it’s happening, preparing the story that will later tell the tale of our current experience.  As our present moment is unfolding we’re preoccupied with transcribing the now into a summary or narrative, ever-readying the now for some future explanation or presentation for others or perhaps just ourselves.

And then come the big three: the thought patterns that are always running in the background of mind, subtly or actively pulling our attention away from here.

How Thoughts Block Us From Being Fully Present

Boots on the ground mindfulness: removing the obstacles to being here now.

Posted Aug 11, 2018

Source: Val Toch/Unsplash

If just one word were to go in a time capsule to represent our society right now, the word would have to be “mindfulness.” Mindfulness is in every book title, workshop, conversation, idea, and everything else we now encounter.  We’re a society obsessed with mindfulness.  So what is this thing we’re all talking about and presumably trying to create? And how do we do it—become mindful?

Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, and without judgment, according to Jon Kabat Zinn, a leader and teacher in the mindfulness movement. While we can easily define it, it seems that being it is not so easy. Despite all our talk of mindfulness, studies indicate that most people are only here, paying attention in the present moment, 50% of the time.  That said we miss out on half our life, with our attention somewhere other than where we are.

Rather than take the usual, culturally-accepted model and suggest another thing to go out and become, get, do, study, buy, or otherwise accomplish in order to attain mindfulness, perhaps it’s wiser to turn our attention into ourselves and investigate what gets in the way of our being present.  What are the obstacles to being here now?

The first and most obvious obstacle to being present is distraction. We’re in a constant state of motion, busyness, and getting to somewhere else—using our devices, substances, entertainment, chatter, and anything else we can find to avoid here, now.  Doing is our first line of defense against being present.

The most treacherous impediment to mindful attention however, even more than busyness and activity, is thought. The mind, maker of thoughts, is forever chattering, distracting us, telling us stories, beckoning us to not be where we are, but rather get involved in the tickertape of plot twists it’s creating.

When it comes to avoiding the present moment, we tend to employ a handful of habitual thinking patterns.  First, we keep ourselves safe from now by narrating our experience as it’s happening. We follow ourselves around, perpetually commenting on our own experience.  “Oh look, I’m having a good time here, this is going well, they seem to like me” and so it goes, the voice over of now—soundtrack to our life.  All day and night we tell ourselves the story of ourselves, story of our life.  Sadly, we live the voice over but not the life itself.

So too, we disappear from the now by continually packaging our experience as it’s happening, preparing the story that will later tell the tale of our current experience.  As our present moment is unfolding we’re preoccupied with transcribing the now into a summary or narrative, ever-readying the now for some future explanation or presentation for others or perhaps just ourselves.

And then come the big three: the thought patterns that are always running in the background of mind, subtly or actively pulling our attention away from here.

-Why is this present moment happening?

-What does this now say about me and my life?

-What do I need to do about this now?

Our tendency is to experience the present moment through at least one and usually more than one of these thoughts.  Rather than being where we are, we busily attend to the who, what, where, when and why of where we are.

And then there’s fear.  Thoughts are a way the mind tries to manage its fear of and lack of trust in the present moment.  Rather than risk diving into now, into the river of life, we stay on the shore, using our mind to manage, control and make linear sense of our present experience, in the hopes of steering now in a direction we design. The mind doesn’t believe that we can relax into the unknown of the present moment, show up fully where we are, experience now without controlling where it’s headed. It doesn’t trust life to take care of us, but instead imagines that it must make life happen, and direct our path at all times.

In reality, the present moment doesn’t need the mind to make it happen; now is unfolding without the mind’s help.  When we live the present moment without thinking it, the mind is left without a task, without something to do, figure out, or solve.  It has no bone to chew on.  For this reason, the mind vehemently rejects the now, using this moment to generate ideas and issues that will require its own attention and input.

Furthermore, the mind subsists on the past and future; it alternates between turning now into a projection into the future and a narrative on the past. The now, however, is a space poised between the two locations or concepts, past and future. The present moment is a gap between the two.  In truth, it’s always now–now offers a vertical eternity. When we dive fully into the present moment, we step out of the linear timeline altogether. We are liberated from the shackles of time.  In response and rebellion, the mind grabs hold of now, through thought, and places it back into a timeline, thereby re-orienting itself in a way it can understand.

It’s often said that we avoid the present moment to avoid ourselves.  But in fact, when we dive fully into the present moment, are fully engaged in our experience, as in the flow state, what we discover, paradoxically, is that we lose ourselves.  We disappear, and that’s precisely what makes it so delicious and makes us want to return again and again.  In full presence or flow state, we don’t experience ourselves as separate, as the one living the experience; there is only the experience of which we are a part.

We’re always running from the present moment, not to escape ourselves, but to escape the absence of ourselves.  The battle with the present moment is an existential battle for the mind; the flight from now is its fight to exist.

Living the now, without a narrative, requires a death or at least temporary letting go of mind. When the mind stops talking to us, there’s nothing there to remind us of our own existence, we’re left unaware of ourselves, in a state of void.  That said, the mind abhors the present moment just as natureabhors a vacuum.

But in fact, when we have the courage to drop out of mind and into the present moment, what we find is the opposite of a void.  We find wholeness, an experience without an experiencer.  We encounter ourselves as presence inseparable from life, rather than a person who is living, directing, managing, and controlling this thing called life.  In the process, we discover liberation and something as close as I’ve ever found to the end of suffering.

To begin practicing this paradigm shift, start small.  Every now and again, glance around your surroundings and just look, see what’s there without going to thought or language to understand or name what you’re seeing.  Experience your environment without using mind to translate what your senses are taking in.  Simply allow your awareness to be aware without interpretation.  So too, if you ever meditate or spend time focusing on your breath, try paying attention to the spaces between breaths as well. Feel the sensations occurring in the gaps between the inhalation and the exhalation. This simple practice can offer a direct taste of the present moment without the interruption of thought. And finally, every now and again, invite yourself to stop and drop. Deliberately unhook from the storyline going on in your head and shift your attention down below your neck into the silence and presence in your own body.  Experience being as its own place, without thought.

These and other simple pointers can escort us into a radically new experience of living; they can be used as portals to a serenity that the mind, no matter how much it wants to be involved, cannot figure out or create.  When we’re fully present, living now directly rather than the mind’s interpretation of it, a palpable peace unfolds—a peace that surpasses all the mind’s understanding.

The post How Thoughts Get in the Way of Being Present appeared first on Nancy Colier.

John is a highly educated man and was vigorously expressing a lengthy and well-defended case against the validity of the whole phenomenon that is the Me too movement.  His argument extended to issues of race and gender as well, specifically, how all of the now-prevalent identity politics is overblown, unnecessary, negative and destructive.

When he did pause, just for a moment, I snuck in an observation, namely, that the identity movement seemed to make him feel defensive and angry.  He denied feeling defensive but shared that as a teacher, the new politic did force him to be hyper-vigilant about the words he uses with students, to have to watch everything he does so as not to be wrongly accused.  I empathized with his experience and how hard it must be to be a teacher these days.  He then went back to his well-constructed case for what was faulty about the movement.

As this conversation was going on, I was also keeping an eye on his partner, Nel.  As John went on with his narrative, Nel’s expression glossed over; she had checked out, lost interest in even trying to stay present.  I understood her experience as there was nobody there, really, for her to be present with.  The possibility for connection was gone, lost behind the steel walls of intellectual content.

But I was hopeful as I had seen an opening; a little piece of John had emerged as he talked about the difficulty for teachers just now.  And so I inquired, hoping that I could get a little further than John’s teacherexperience.

“What does it trigger in you personally, having to be in the thick of it, required to participate in this dialogue and all the forms and training sessions you probably have to be part of?”  And for some reason, with that very simple invitation, within the safety of our relationship, John showed up.  In an instant, his entire facial expression shifted as if he had also not been present and now, suddenly, he was there.

John then expressed how toxic the whole thing felt for him, that he was not interested in any of it and yet was being forced to be in a conversation that was not his life, not valuable to him.  He felt terribly put upon and trapped by the whole environment of identity politics, in a constant fight about issues that he didn’t resonate with, having to prove he wasn’t guilty of something that didn’t in any way belong to him. The specifics of what he felt are less important than what happened in the couple as a result of this fresh truth that John was able to share.

Suddenly Nel was there in the room.  It literally felt like a wave of energy had wafted through the space; it was palpable.  Nel had returned, literally reentered the space behind her eyes.  In that moment, for the first time, I could see real empathy for her husband spread across her brow.   They were sharing the same space, perhaps for the first time in a decade.  Nel was looking at John with an entirely different expression, really looking at John.  Tears welled up in Nel’s eyes; connection was happening.  At last, what had been separating them all these years, all her husband’s ideas, were out of the way and she could feel him, be with him, be truly together, in real company.

John had been honing his ideas and intellect his entire life, using his arguments to validate what he was experiencing, but sadly, because of his own psychology, not even knowing or inquiring into what he was experiencing.  He had gotten quite skilled at proving his rightness, but all his ideas came at the cost of connection.  John didn’t get to feel connected to anyone or, for that matter, allow anyone else to feel connected with him.  He was an island in every way, surrounded by an ocean of mind.

Many people remain stuck in the land of contents—with the context underneath the contents rarely (if ever) reached.  Men particularly seem to get locked in their thoughts, information, and ideas, which shuts them out from their own hearts and shuts everyone else out in the process.  The feeling of being with such individuals is that of not being able to touch them, of being trapped in a corridor with no door, no way to be together, held at bay by the thoughts, opinions, and arguments, the armor that protects their hearts from ever being visible, or vulnerable.

As the partner, you are not able to connect deeply, not below the neck, beyond the layer of intellect. Since it’s not possible to join them in their experience, empathy has to happen from a distance, via an idea of what they’re experiencing but without getting to feel it with them.  For the partner of such individuals, being together is an experience of loneliness, separation, hearts that can’t actually touch, a life that can’t actually be profoundly shared.

When John expressed his personal experience, not his narrative around it, not his justification for it, not all that he knew about it, just his truth in its raw, real, and alive form, simply what he was living on the inside, as it was coming freshly in the moment, Nel felt connected to her husband, like she was at last with him.  They were together in the same now.  His intellectual defenses had stepped out of the way for a brief and blessed moment. Nel could then experience the sensation of being in true company—not being alone together. (She later confirmed this to me in an individual session.)

Couples spend decades trapped, like flies in spider webs, inside the arguments of content, and particularly who’s right, who’s justified in feeling the way they feel about the contents. They get caught, sometimes for good, in the ongoing battle for whose experience is deserving of empathy. This happens for many reasons, one of which is that we mistakenly believe that we are our thoughts and opinions.  Proving our rightness is thus a life and death struggle to ensure survival.  But such is a topic for another day.  In the interests of word count here, it’s my intention to simply point out that ideas and opinions, the stuff of mind, the generalized narrative and intellectual defense system, can serve as a non-navigate-able obstacle to connection.

Source: Vladimir Kudinov/ Unsplash

If you’re feeling that you can’t reach your partner, like you’re alone when you’re together, as if you can’t find the key to being truly with each other, notice, is your couple trapped in the land of contents—of mind—with no access to each other’s hearts.  Is your communication stuck in the land of opinions, ideas, and whether what’s happening is right or wrong, good or bad?  Notice if your relationship is waylaid in the purgatory of commentary, the airless box that it is to always be commenting on life to each other, but never in it with each other, forever a step away from your felt experience, and from each other.

If what I describe resonates, consider offering questions to your partner that contain an intention to reach the heart and uncover the real felt experience–not the story of it.  And, offer yourself the same invitation, to deepen your connection with yourself as well.

Questions that invite feelings:

-What is the experience like, for you, in that situation?

-What does that situation trigger in you?

-What does it feel like when you’re in that situation?

-What’s the worst thing, for you, when you’re in that situation?

What makes it so hard, for you, when you’re in that situation?

And, when describing your own experience, try modeling the communication style you want to receive from your partner.  For example, “For me, when that happens, I feel (such and such)” “What makes it so hard for me is…” Actively model talking about your feelings, your personal experience, rather than your narrative about the situation, maybe even naming that distinction so that your partner can hear the difference, regardless of whether he knows how to do it.  Furthermore, remember that when your partner is able to express his direct and personal experience or a fresh perhaps newly discovered feeling, be sure to offer him (or her) a safe space and supportive response. Don’t correct or dismiss his truth, no matter what it contains.  Each time he moves from the known storyline to the unknown felt experience, he is growing, taking a baby step forward.  When you respond lovingly and with acceptance, you are encouraging more steps in this direction and thus inviting a deeper connection.  True connection happens when we can communicate from our vulnerability, our hearts–not our stories and protective mental layers.  It happens when we dive into life together rather than standing on the shore, safely commenting on it. The most important journey we take in relationship, and life, is from our head to our heart.

The post Do You Feel Alone When You’re Together? How to Deepen Your Connection With Your Partner appeared first on Nancy Colier.

It’s an odd thing really: as we’re having an experience, the little voice in our head is simultaneously describing, explaining, and commentating on the experience, providing a summary of it before, during and after its unfolding.

Often, the narration of our experience is so integral to the experience itself, so uninterrupted and merged with it as to make us wonder if there could even be an experience without the accompanying report. If an experience happens without simultaneous inner acknowledgment, thinking about, and commentary, does it actually happen?

It’s also interesting to notice that the little voice in our head is not without its own characteristics.  It has a certain language, style, and tone; it does its storytelling and commentary with a certain thematic and textural consistency. Like a Hollywood screenwriter, our inner voice tends to write in a particular genre, for example, tragedy, comedy, drama, film noir etc. Our commentator is a character with an identity of its own.

Did you ever wonder why our mind is telling us what we’re doing while we’re doing it, as if we didn’t already know? And, why our mind is so adamant about getting the story of our life figured out, written and packaged?  And finally, why we need to rehearse the tale of our life before we actually need or want to convey it to another person?

The mind believes that we are made of mind and mind alone, and that without its felt presence, we and all else would cease to be. If the narration were to stop and the mind was not experiencing itself through the act of thinking, then there would be nothing—oblivion.  A mind off duty, experience without the thinking about it, is tantamount to non-existence. The mind creates the story of an I; it creates an I as an object in our consciousness.  In so doing, it maintains both the experience of a self and the experiencer of a self, which it believes are needed to ensure survival.

In relentlessly narrating the story of ourselves (to ourselves), the mind is also attempting to make life, and us, into something solid, knowable, and constant.  By creating a main character called me (played by mind) who’s living something called my life, the mind attempts to transform the ephemeral, groundless, ever-changing nature of being into something that can be understood, managed, and in theory, controlled.  It takes what is really one unified process, life, from which we are inseparable, and splits it into two different things, a me and a life.  We then become the liver of this thing called life, and in the process, seemingly distinct and real.  We literally think our self into existence.

And so, the questions beg: first, is there a downside to living with this inner narrator, and second, do we have to live this way, is it part and parcel of the human condition? Is there no alternative to a second-hand version of life, knowing experience only through the mind’s description and commentary? The answer is a resounding yes, and no.

Yes, there is a downside and no, we are not condemned to live this way forever.

The small downside to living with the play by play of your life ceaselessly running in your ear is that it can be intensely agitating and distracting. There exists constant noise in the background and foreground of your life, no silence to be heard, like having a mosquito (or buzz saw) resounding in your ear, one that you can’t silence and can’t ignore.

But on a more profound level, the downside to the inner narrator is that it stands in the way of your actually getting to experience life first hand, in all its richness. You’re relegated to living through your narrator’s description, which is really just a mental representation of the real thing, like getting a postcard of the Grand Canyon in place of being there, or a description of chocolate instead of a taste. The little voice goes on then to offer commentary on the narration, which is a representation of a representation, and you are now two layers away from the direct experience of living.

You might also notice that the voice in your head presents its version of your life as a truth. It reports your life story as if it were the actual reality existing in the objective world. It’s liberating, however, to realize that the narrator’s account of what’s happening is all going on inside your own mind and only in your mind. It’s not real in some objective sense, but rather another story about a story which begins and ends inside your own consciousness.

The good news is that you don’t have to live this way, with your inner narrator acting as a middle manager between you and life. If you’ve ever been deeply involved in an activity, you might have experienced what’s referred to as flow state.  In flow, we’re so engaged in what we’re doing that we cease to be aware of our self. We’re no longer the one doing the activity, but literally absorbed into the experience itself. We become the experience; we become life rather than the one who’s living it, and all notion of time and a separate Idisappears. And, while the mind has convinced us otherwise, what we discover is that when the mind is not there self-referencing, reminding us of our self, we still exist. We do not in fact disappear; the mind might temporarily, but we do not, which suggests that we are indeed more than mind. Awareness remains even when we lose the felt sense of our self as the one doing our life. And, interestingly, such experiences, the ones in which awareness of our self disappears, when there is only experience but no I doing it, are the ones that we later describe as wholly satisfying, blissful, and even divine.  The experiences in which we are gone are the ones that we most crave.

The remedy for the little voice in our head is three-fold. First, we have to exhaust of it and become so fed up with the play by play as to decide that we’re not willing to listen or live by it anymore. Once that’s happened, we must start noticing our narrator and become aware of its voice as an object appearing in our awareness. And finally, we set a clear and fierce intention and desire to experience life directly, through our senses, now, and not just receive a report on it. We commit to diving deeply and directly into the ocean of life.

Listening to the little voice in your head is a habit, granted a habit with deep roots, survival instincts, and lots of practice time, but nonetheless, a habit. With desire, willingness and intention, a habit, any habit, can be changed. Each time you catch the voice in your head describing or commentating on your life, practice a new habit, the habit of directly experiencing your actual experience. Each time you hear your little voice, first pause and celebrate a moment of awareness; the fact that you’re hearing it means that there’s another part of you, which is not merged with the narrator, who’s awakening—the you whom the narrator is narrating to. Next, intentionally shift your attention from your head (which is where our energy is usually focused) down into your body.  Invite your body to consciously relax. Take and feel a deep breath. From there, run a sense loop: see what you’re seeing, hear what you’re hearing, feel what you’re feeling, smell what you’re smelling, and taste what you’re tasting. Experience each, one at a time. And finally, sense your own physical presence, the feeling of aliveness in your body (not your mind). With this practice, the little voice in your head will grow quieter and less relentless, and the living will become more vivid, satisfying, immediate, and ultimately, real.

The post How to Quiet the Little Voice in Your Head: Reclaiming Your Life From Your Inner Narrator appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Read the full article in The Irish Examiner http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/healthandlife/digital-distraction-are-smartphones-dumbing-down-students-457223.html

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Do you compulsively check your emails? Are you always plugged in? Let’s face it: Our society has an addiction to technology.  In this interview, Rose talks to Psychotherapist and Author, Nancy Colier, about her new book The Power of Off: The Mindful Way To Stay Sane In A Virtual World, her story of being addicted to technology and what inspired her to make a change.  https://www.rewireme.com/media/rose-interviews-nancy-colier-power-off-mindful-way-stay-sane-virtual-world/

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I immediately flipped open my laptop and started researching. Researching what?  Everything, anything, something that would interest me, something to do, something to fill the space.

After distractedly surfing through movie schedules and museum exhibits, I had a thought: “sound baths.” Within seconds, Google had delivered a page of options on the new auditory class that meditation and yoga studios now offer. I inattentively skimmed through several descriptions and testimonials on the bath experience, as well as schedules for five or six studios that offered it. Rapidly scanning the pages, I wasn’t able to find a class for the day at hand. In the process, however, I bumped into a link for the 10 hardest workouts in New York City. Wouldn’t that be a great idea, I thought, and so I flitted through a whole host of kettle ball, circuit training, and boot camp options, none of which sounded remotely like something I wanted to actually do.

I am not sure what happened next, but I found myself inside a list of vacation destinations with direct flights from New York. Seems I had followed a link for “easy family holidays that won’t break the bank.” Inside one of the hotel write-ups was a description of a garden that sat on the sea, which reminded me of a neighborhood park that I had read about, but not yet visited. I found the park online and superficially perused its history and hours for visiting. But then I remembered that I needed a new pair of sneakers. And so I sped over to the Nike site and discovered that there were so many new styles, all of which were so fabulous that I couldn’t decide. The only pair I investigated further wasn’t available in my size. At this point, I went back to movies, because I had a thought about a documentary on a runner. But it turned out the film was only playing way downtown and that didn’t appeal. What then followed was a speed train through hot yoga studios, great city walks, dog parks for shy dogs, independent bookstores, places to buy cooking supplies, and kirtan performances — which is when I woke up.

I shut my computer and took a deep breath, pulling the air down into my body. “Stop,” I said to myself. “Just stop.” I looked at my watch: I had been down the rabbit hole for two hours. Two of my five free hours were gone. I felt agitated, anxious, and paralyzed, entirely overwhelmed with possibilities, but unable to move on any of them. I was “twired” — tired and wired at the same time. I put my hand on my heart and felt the simplicity of stillness.

“Come home,” I said to myself. “Be here.” I then unhooked from all the ideas of what I should or could do with my time and just felt into my body, felt my own physical presence. I took a few conscious breaths and invited myself to relax and land where I was, now.

What happened next was that I felt an immediate sense of relief and peace, to be allowed to be where I was and to not have to do anything at all, nothing other than pay attention to what I was actually experiencing.

I became aware of a longing to call a particular friend. I also felt the desire to take a walk, to be with myself and to be outside. That’s what came to me, organically, when I dropped into my body and now.

One of the problems that technology is creating for us is a feeling that we should be constantly taking advantage of every opportunity available to us —and that if we’re not, we are somehow missing out on life. We believe that there is something somewhere inside Google that will make this moment complete, someplace else that is better than where we are, something more that we ought to be doing. We no longer ask ourselves, or let ourselves discover what we want to do. Rather, we ask Google what’s possible, or what we can do. The thing is, what we can do is often very different from what we want to do. We find frequently that what we want to do is much simpler than what we can do. And also that when we listen in to what we actually want, from the body, the answer is clear and without ambivalence or confusion; it has a sense of “Oh yes, that’s right” — unlike the “can and should do’s,” which leave us feeling murky without the clear “Yes” that comes with truth.

Technology creates an infinite number of choices. We can do anything at any time.  And yet while we may delight in the idea of choice, research shows that when we have too many choices, we actually end up unhappy, deadened, overwhelmed, fatigued, and immobilized. With unlimited choices, we frequently end up making no choice at all. And if we are able to make a decision amid the mountain of choices, we generally feel less satisfied with our choice and more concerned that another option would have served us better. Unlimited choices also cause us to shut down our creative thinking. When presented with too many options, we often revert to the simplest one, or consider only one manageable variable in making our selection. The more technology beckons with possibilities, the more we humans pull the covers over our heads and find ourselves frozen in a perpetual state of both too much and not enough.

The issue, too, is that we are looking outside of ourselves for our own truth. When we have a free afternoon, we look to the internet, hoping to find something that will generate interest in us. When we cook dinner, we go surfing on Instagram to find a picture of something that will tell us what we want to eat. When something happens in our life, we post the experience to find out what it should and will mean to us.

We have forgotten that we can know things through our own experience. We have forgotten that the process of knowing can happen from the inside out and not the outside in.

Source: logoboom/Shutterstock

The next time you find yourself with a chunk of unscheduled time, even just a little (e.g., standing in line, riding public transportation), try living it in a new way  — or, at least, differently than I did — and create a new habit. Instead of immediately searching outside yourself, on your phone or computer, to find something that might interest you, something to fill the time, drop into yourself, into now. Feel your body, the sensations arising, how you are in that exact moment. Pay attention inside; notice if there is a natural longing or interest already present. If nothing comes, that’s fine; just stay still and keep attending. Practice not doing, not filling the time, not habitually forcing something into every open space as soon as it appears. In so “doing,” you are, in fact, turning yourself, now, into a destination and a place to be.

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I developed a 30-Day Tech Detox after a woman I know and respect — someone I consider wise and aware and thus immune to tech addiction — literally begged me to…

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2017/01/04/try-the-30-day-digital-detox-challenge/#33e660717dbe

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I developed a 30-Day Tech Detox after…

Read More: http://www.nextavenue.org/30-day-digital-detox/

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