We’ve all heard that we should live in the NOW. But have you been taught How? What does it really mean? Why should we? What is the benefit to living in the present moment? Do you do it? Let’s dig in for more. #WinWinWomen
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Living In The Present: Where You ARE Is ALL You Have, Might As Well Love It!
I want to thank you for joining me, and I’m so honored, as always, that you would join me and spend your time taking a moment to have this conversation. Our conversation is about being where you are. If you’ve heard me at all, we want to be present and want to be where we are. I have a little centering exercise I do every week, and it’s a 7-4-11 count. It’s 22 seconds in total. Let’s breathe in seven seconds of calm, hold that for 4 seconds, and then breathe out 11 seconds of gratitude. Are you ready to join me and get present at this moment? Let’s do it.
It’s centering, grounding, and a mini meditation you can do all day long anytime you need a moment to get centered and present to be where you be at any given time. It’s a great little exercise more to it in one of my sessions, but that is the basics. I hope that it blesses you as much as it blesses me. Now we’re talking about where we are is all we have. You might as well love it. What does that mean? How does that work? We’ve always heard, “Be present. Be in the now. Quit living in the past,” all those things, but do we do it? Do we know how to do it? Do we know if it even works? What’s the point?
I have a thing when people ask me, “How are you?” I’ll be going, “I’m fabulous!” and it’s a choice, right? I laugh a little, and then they go, “I guess.” Sometimes I continue with, “Where we are is all we have. We only have this second. We might as well love it.” Sometimes I even continue from the beginning of time, “Since the beginning of time, let there be light.” Everything has conspired to have you and me having this conversation at this moment in time, right now. There’s an infinite amount of things that could have changed our path of why or direction to get us somewhere else than where we are now. Any infinite number from, your grandparents not meeting, to us not clicking the button today… any little tiny thing. We’ve got this universe of billions and trillions of things that could have gone differently. Where we are is all we’ve got!”
Why do we continually stress over things? We’re a speck of dust in this whole traverse of the infinite time from billions of people and billions of years of Earth being created. We’re in this little speck of time on this little spinning ball. If you look at the big universe, we’re a tiny speck of dust. We only have right now! Why do you think that yelling at someone that cuts you off is that important? Why do we get so upset about things most we don’t have control over the vast majority at all?
Upset draws upset. You get mad at that driver, and it’s this one tiny speck of time in the entire history of humanity. And then you hit the curb because you’re mad, and you have to get your tire aligned. It is perpetual. Upset draws upset. It takes a lot to come to an understanding and shift that energy from upset. How do we do that? Why do we allow such trivial things to get our goat mess with us? We only have this minute or second in time. We can judge all we want whatever happened and let it eat us up inside, even things that happened to us decades ago. Did your parents or my parents got divorced when I was six years old? Many people have that and, decades later, they’re going, “I’m never getting married because I don’t ever want to get a divorce. I don’t want to go through that.”
What are you focused on when you’re focused on not getting divorced? That word divorce stays in your psyche the whole time because something happened decades ago and hurt you. Now you’re carrying it around and you’re not going to get married. All of a sudden, they didn’t say I love you the right way. Now you’re mad and upset and you think, “Here it comes. We’re going to get to it.” Do you see how we play this silly game? It’s ridiculous when we stop to think about it, but we’ve got these little voices in our head that are never shutting up and they’re telling us, “You better not like him because if you get married, you might get divorced. That’s going to be like your parents.”
If you don’t know the little voice I’m talking about in your head, it’s the one that said I don’t have a little voice because every single solitary second, this little voice is not shutting up. He’s talking and arguing with himself, telling you both sides, but it’s never going to give you something in your future. It’s only going to give you what’s already gone on in your past. Why do we want to do that? Why do we continue doing that? Why do we let little upsets continue and then you can’t believe the stories we tell? We make up the story about it and it happened six hours ago when he got cut off. Here we are telling our wife, husband, or friend when we get home over drinks, “I can’t believe this guy cut me off. It made me hit my tire.”
The Little Voice That Never Shuts Up
When we’re telling these stories, it’s ridiculous, but we’ve made up a story and stuffed it down in us and we’re going to continue replaying it. These are a couple of fairly trivial examples but think about all the things we do all day long. 24/7, that little voice never shuts up. Most of it is flat-out repetitive and lies. It wants to keep you safe from doing anything not used to. I have a run across Michael Singer in 2023, and it’s beyond my comprehension that in my years of personal development junkiness, I love all of that. I’d heard of his name and book, but I’d never read it and got involved with that.
Michael Singer wrote The Untethered Soul and he wrote The Surrender Experiment. He was an old hippie trying to live his life and figure out how to quiet that voice in his head. Pretty much I think that was it. He’s trying to figure out who’s talking, why they are talking, and why they are saying such negative things. He bought land, went out, got into trying to be reclusive, live alone, and not have all the distractions so he could meditate. He spent a couple of years, at least, pretty much solo trying to figure out how to get that voice to be quiet. Can you imagine?
I love the books he’s written. I would recommend The Surrender Experiment first because it’s his life story and how he made a game out of surrendering. When things came up in his world such as somebody came to me and said, “Would you go and talk to the prisoners next Saturday?” his mind goes, “No. I don’t want to do that. That’s out of the way. It’s too much time. What do I have to say to prisoners anyway?” His mind would not shut up about it. What his experiment ended up being is if his mind did that, he would be whatever his mind told him not to do. He’s like, “If life presents it, I’m going to receive it.” He decided to go to the prison ministry, and this is one of his very many examples.
He ended up having 30-something years of dealing with these prisoners and helping them understand they might be in prison, but their mind doesn’t have to be. They have the freedom to think differently and quit being victims. We know our life seems like there are more people not wanting to take responsibility for their actions, thoughts, things, or what they are doing. Now they’re victims, and there’s no power there. I enjoyed reading his book and learning that he has done that with so many different things. That’s The Surrender Experiment and then The Untethered Soul, which I’m almost finished reading. I love learning and new ideas. What if we gave it all up? What if we gave up having to know and be right? I did this a while back. I don’t have to know.
This is probably why this is so important to me because I came to the recognition that I don’t have to strive. I just get to be. Did I know exactly how to do that? No. Am I still learning? Absolutely. That’s why finding Michael Singer and his work has been a huge blessing to me personally, but I don’t have to know. I don’t have to have the details and the reasons. I get to just be and I will say the way he talks about how to do that and how to do what I’m talking about because stuff comes up. We stuff down a lot of stuff. We continue to stuff it down. When something comes up like, “That car looks like my ex-husband’s,” all of a sudden, we’ve been driving along. Everything is good and triggered. He trains you over and over how to do this.
You see this something that causes an anxious moment and you relax and release it. Let it all float on through and just relax, release, and do what’s next. It doesn’t mean you’re sitting on the couch not taking action or doing anything. It means you see something comes up, you relax, recognize there’s something there, let it go, let it float through a cloud, release it, and then do what’s next. Do what’s the next right thing. Heaven forbid, you have an accident and you’re upset. You relax and you release it and you deal with what’s so because what’s so is all you have. We don’t have, like we said before, last minute. We only have this minute to make a new choice, take a different step, and go forward. That is all we’ve got. It’s a fact.
You don't have to strive. You just get to be. Click To TweetWe don’t have a last second. We only have this second to make a different choice if we don’t like what’s going on now. If we don’t like what’s going on, take a deep breath, and deal with what needs to be dealt with without building this story around it. I heard a new song. My darling granddaughter loves dancing. I love Jason Mraz. We’ve been listening to some of his songs and she’s dancing. A song came on called “Be Where Your Feet Are.” That’s hysterical. I love it. It puts me on my common ground. Be where your feet are. Be where you are and love it because it’s the only place you have. Literally, where you are is all you got. I don’t mean you have to love your situation, but you don’t have to make it a bigger deal than it already is.
“Be Where Your Feet Are”
Anyway, I saw that and I have this thought. What we are doing in most of these cases is we’ve got our past driving our future. That’s a way of saying what I’m talking about. I went to landmark education and many of their curriculum courses. That was something I heard there, and I was like, “Get your past out of your future.” How do you do that? Let’s get an example. What happens if in seventh grade, you’re going along and you’re in school? Seventh grade is the worst place to be on the face of the earth because you’re in middle school trying to figure out teen life, body, and all that stuff. Seventh grade is tough. You’re going through, you got to test, and you make an F on that test.
You’re mad at yourself, “Why didn’t I study?” You make this F and then your parents are going, “Why are you so stupid?” What often will happen? I believe this is an example of what I’m talking about here. You take that F, which is one moment in your life that you forgot to study, didn’t study, didn’t care, or whatever it was. You make up a story around it. The story you make up is, “I made an F. I must be stupid.” Do you know what you do with that story? You stick it in the back of your brain or the nog in your head and you plant it there and then you forget you planted it there. Because it happened in a moment in time, it is past. The past is driving your future because now, every single time you do something stupid, you’re like, “I told you I was stupid. Why am I so stupid?”
It’s because you made up a story about making an F. You planted it in the back of your head and it’s driving your life. That happens an infinite number of times. We get all these stories we make up about an event that happens. My parents got divorced. It’s terrible and I’m never going to get divorced. I plant that in the back of my head and “I told you I can’t have a good relationship.” It drives your life in every aspect, and you don’t even know it. You don’t remember you planted a made-up story back there. It goes on for decades. Sometimes forever.
You get hurt when you’re five years old. Somebody says something and you’re like, “I’ll never let that hurt happen to me again. I’ll never be hurt like that again.” What do you do? You plant, “I’m never going to be hurt again.” You start building walls and you forget that you plant a made-up story that something happened. Somebody looked at you wrong, told you weren’t good enough, or, “You should be more like your brother,” whatever you get because we all get it and we plant it back there, make up this story, and continue to live our lives as if it’s running our lives because it is. What if when those little triggers, and sometimes they’re big triggers, something comes up and we are able to relax, release, let it go, and do what’s next?
Do you think your life could be more settled if you bloom where you plant it be where you are now and be present in this moment in time? Don’t you think it would make a difference for you? It makes a difference for me when I’m able to do that. One weekend, I spent several days in the Texas Hill Country looking at the incredible lush bluebonnets. It’s a great year for them. We had certain rains and conditions that made the bluebonnets stunningly gorgeous. I have a friend that loves to drive. She’s in a cold state. She comes down and loves to drive in our beautiful spring wildflowers. It was unbelievable. We get to this place where we will go to a cabin on the lake and have to bring your own sheets and all that.
She found a place that probably has Wi-Fi. It should have an indoor toilet and all those kinds of things and a view of the water. It seemed like a good option. Do you know what unmet expectations are that cause all disappointment? Disappointments are caused by unmet expectations. She had this vision and I could be doing some work. She would be able to go out and be in nature. It didn’t work out that way. The place we ended up staying, even though it had incredible potential dated, that was okay, but the blinds fell down. It was not clean. There were a lot of things. The Internet certainly wasn’t stellar. It was intermittent. I never took my computer out for 4 or 5 days. That’s probably a blessing in disguise but I do this kind of work so I need to work.
We weren’t there that many hours anyway, so we chose to make an adventure and release upset over it. I released upset over it completely. I was like, “It is what so and what so is all we got. Let’s deal with it. Relax, release, let go, and do what’s needs to be done.” This time together, I’m going to remind you. Where you are is all you have. Why don’t we face it? When we get triggered by any little thing, relax, release, let it go, and do the next thing.
Remember, we’re a speck of dust on a spinning ball in the middle of an infinite universe or multiple universes. Why do we get so upset over the littlest, silliest things that have so little long-term impact? Even if they do, there are certainly some very serious things, like if there’s an illness and you lose someone. Those are huge emotional things, but once they are there and they’ve happened, they’re not in the present anymore. They’re in the past. We can continue that agony. It’s not that we don’t have emotions. I’m never going to say that, but if it’s already happened, let’s learn to live where we are right now so we can take the next positive step. Deal with what we need to deal with and love the people in front of us.
The bottom line message is infinite love. Let’s love the people around us. Let’s love the people in front of us. The harder they are to love, the more they need it. That’s the message here. Love ourselves enough. Let go of this angst. Let go of the anger, bitterness, or trauma, whatever it is. Deal with it, release it, and live our lives so we can bless others. That’s the best thing we can do. We can live a more peaceful life. I’m good at helping people find a piece inside their lives. If you ever need assistance with that, CharlaAnderson.com is my website. It’s certainly evolving website where you can find me. I would love to hear from you if you have a story to tell or you want to share. Charla@CharlaAnderson.com is my email.
I have a calendar link on my website. Let’s talk. I also encourage you. If you want some simple solutions and try to understand this concept because we’ve never been taught this, look at Michael Singer. He’s got some incredible books. He’s got a lot of podcasts. Listen to him. Some of them are only five minutes, but they’re profound. I don’t have any connection to him, but I would love to share his wealth of information and his lifetime. He was an old hippie trying to learn how to meditate and became incredibly, wildly beyond his wildest dream to be successful because he didn’t let his mind talk him out of things. He received what was presented and did what was next.
Whenever you get triggered by any little thing, relax, release, let it go, and do the next thing. Click To TweetThat’s him. That’s me. I do it as much as I can. Am I there yet? No way. I don’t know that anybody ever gets there but the masters. Honestly, another way to say it is if you are upset that somebody cuts you off and that moment shows up, bless them. May you be blessed. Breathe. Let it go. Live your life in a peaceful manner and don’t let all that baggage and upset drive your life. Take that past out of your future. That must be a stupid story. Remove that my parents got divorced and I can never have a happy relationship. That’s just stories you made up. You can do that. Let’s give it up so we can live a life of intentional significance, joy, peace, and infinite love. I am so grateful that I have had this time to express this to you and express my heart.
This is a huge running theme in my life. I’m honored that you would take the time to tune in. I’m very humbled. We don’t do advertising here on WinWinWomen.tv and WinWinWomen.com. I wouldn’t sell any, even talk about anything that I don’t believe in and don’t use. If you know anybody who wants a podcast, website, TV show, or all of those things, it’s CharlaAnderson.com. I have a banner on my homepage that links to several of my favorite things. I call them Charla’s Faves. These are a few of my favorite things. I’m here each week on Wednesdays on WinWinWomen.tv at 1:00 PM Central Time. We’ll be on all kinds of other platforms as we move forward. As we end this, if someone is out there that would like to continue the conversation, let’s have a great chat. Always remember, choose joy.
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I’m Charla Anderson, host of The Charla Anderson Show, Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (and EVERYONE is Fascinating!) on live TV, streaming and podcasts. As a Ziglar Legacy Certified Trainer, a retired award-winning flight attendant, Olympic Torch bearer, personal development junkie, Inspired Speaker, Published Author and Your Courageous Coach, I want to share my passion of living life full-out, saying YES to intriguing opportunities, and encouraging YOU to do the same. Let’s jump on a discovery call and get to know each other. Find all things Charla at CharlaAnderson.com/links.
On The Charla Anderson Show, We discuss Mindset, How much Your WORDS matter, Princess to Queen energy, mantras, HOPE, Faith, Miracles, Overcoming, and much, much more, including learning from amazing guests.
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Important Links
- The Untethered Soul
- The Surrender Experiment
- Jason Mraz, ‘Be Where Your Feet Are’ song
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- https://CharlaAnderson.com/tv-shows/
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