*Weekly community meditation every Wednesday 6am at Noosa Main beach* *@noosa_meditation* *- photo by Alex Klein*

The practice of freeing yourself from past and future thinking

One of the many amazing benefits of multi-day retreats are the daily wisdom sessions and check-ins. I witness people really start to open up, be vulnerable, and have what they are feeling and discovering about themselves heard. We were about halfway through our recent rounding retreat in India when a student shared a really powerful realisation they were having. It was one fairly simple sentence but it was the catalyst for a really powerful conversation and a rich discovery for us all.

During a rounding retreat, there’s nowhere to go, nothing to do, and very little individual organising. We do it all for you! We create the space, guide you, and tell you where you need to be and what you’ll be doing. All you have to do is show up on time. Maybe for some of us with a tendency to want to control things all the time we might find that challenging but for the most part I witness and hear from people how much of a relief it is. To not have to think, plan, or figure anything out. They can just be fully present to the experience they are having. They are able to soften into the present moment rather than thinking about what they need to do next, haven’t done, or should be doing. All of that melts away.

This was the powerful realisation my student came to. They were noticing the constriction, tightness, and tension that happened in their body when they found themselves in ‘thinking or planning mode’ rather than ‘being mode’. When they were ruminating on some past experience or starting to plan for the future in some way, it felt uncomfortable, their body felt tight, and they tired quickly. They stopped noticing the beauty in front of them and became less aware of the subtle sensations and experiences in their body. The retreat space created such a big contrast to ‘normal life’ that they were able to feel what was happening in their nervous system when they rejected the present moment in favour of past or future thinking.

I remember saying to them that if this one thing is all you take away from the retreat then that’s a pretty life changing experience! To realise ‘I want to live a life fully in the present moment.’

*Meditating at Maharishi’s ashram on our India Retreat 2024 with Kathleen O’Brien*

The power of the present moment.

How often throughout your day do you find yourself getting caught up in thoughts? From dwelling on the past to speculating about the future. There are endless things that can pull us away from the fullness of the experience that is directly in front of us. When our attention drifts in this way, we often experience anxiety, fear, regret, guilt, or longing. We aren’t present to the incredible information all around us and don’t use our subtle perception to discern where things are going and what our role in it is. Instead, we end up feeling confused, overwhelmed, or uncertain of what choices to make. Imagine if you knew in every cell of your body what was needed in every moment? Imagine a life without confusion or worry. It is possible when we stay in the present. By cultivating present moment awareness, we are not only able to reduce our suffering and have a richer experience of life, we find that it is right here, in the present moment, where we have the power to create the ‘future’ we so often spend our time speculating about.

‘Now’ is really all there is. It sounds like a bumper sticker but when you think about it, when the ‘past’ happened and the ‘future’ happens, these moments are always happening ‘now’. When we reflect on the past, it is simply a memory of something that has taken place in the present. When we speculate about the future, we are using our imagination to create an idea of what the ‘now’ could be. The present moment is the only place we can take action and therefore the only place we can experience the happiness we seek.

When we are alert to what is happening in the present moment we are able to detect the ‘future in the making’. As rain clouds in the sky indicate that rain is on the way, in each moment there are changes happening if we take care to notice them. Attuning our awareness and perception to rest in the present moment and notice these shifts means we are able to engage with them in a proactive way. We are less able to be surprised by things and we can plant seeds we wish to grow, rather than experiencing a constant state of worry, overwhelm, or fear and possibly creating a state of psychological fight or flight.

Psychological fight or flight.

We’ve all heard of ‘fight or flight’ before, the incredible sympathetic nervous system activation that keeps us alive. It developed over thousands of years to help us be able to respond to life threatening situations. Short version is that it’s a really helpful if you’re facing threats! What you may not know about this mighty system (that also takes a lot of energy to run) is that it developed to respond to real physical threats. Like being chased by a wild animal, or being threatened by another tribe, or facing starvation. These are all very real life events that require immediate reponses.

Our fight or flight system is activated through the mind (by our individual perception of what is safe and what is not) that signals a cascade of chemical messengers in the body to release a whole host of helpful hormones and neurotransmitters to help us respond to the threatening scenario. Yes, this is helpful in a real physical threat as it was developed for, but this system will also respond in the very same way for any imagined psychological threats. For scenarios that don’t even exist but we are projecting into the future that they may. Or maybe we are re-living our past experiences again and again because we haven’t taken the time to process and digest them. There’s so much we could explore when it comes to psychological fight or flight but given our topic, mostly what I want to bring to our awareness is how much stress, strain, worry, and tension we cause ourselves both physically and psychologically when we reject the present moment. By projecting into the future or ruminating on the past we may be catalysing a very unnecessary state of fight or flight for ourselves. These perceived or imagined threats create the same stress chemistry in the body as being chased by a wild animal.

This was the direct experience that my student had on retreat. They realised how often they were reacting and responding to experiences that weren’t even happening. How much stress, strain, and anxiety for something that wasn’t even happening! With this in mind, what do we do about it? We practice!

Coming back to the present.

Recognising the effect on our mind and body of losing the present moment is a powerful discovery to make. Becoming aware is step one but staying rooted in the present moment is a skill that can take time to master. We will very innocently forget, which is no problem, we simply must practice. Whenever you realise you are caught up in past or future thinking, that’s the moment you can choose to come back to the present. This is how we can create a whole new paradigm for ourselves. One where you’ll get to experience the beauty of the moment and feel less stress on a daily basis.

In times when you notice yourself drifting there are some simple ways to bring your attention back to the present moment. These are some of the eyes open practices you can do to complement your daily meditation practice, which by the way is already helping to bring you more into the present.

Soften the body - when we’re stressed we tense up, constrict, and hold on. This tension sends a message from the body to the brain saying ‘I’m not safe’. To begin deactivating this response, come into the body and soften it in anyway you can. Start to relax your body bit by bit. Particularly your feet, belly, hands, shoulders, jaw, lips, eyes, and forehead.
Come back to the senses - when you notice yourself drifting away from the ‘now’, bring your attention to what you can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. See how many things you can detect for each. Allow them to ground you into the present moment.
Awareness with the breath - as with the senses, when you notice yourself becoming caught up in thoughts, gently bring your awareness to the sensation of your breath. Feel this natural flow of breathing and allow the sensation to anchor you into your body and the present moment. You may find you take a big inhalation.

A helpful tip to get you started might be to set a gentle bell on your laptop or phone that goes off every hour as a reminder to soften your body, come back to your senses, and take a deep breath. Do that enough times each day and it will become a new habit. You’ll start to naturally reside in the present moment and spend less time activating psychological fight or flight by projecting into the future or ruminating on the past.

With love,
Kathleen x

Resources to explore.

Listen to the polyvagal perspective on ‘how your nervous system creates your entire experience’ with Sarah Baldwin.

Download break timer app to your laptop to set an hourly reminder to soften your body, take a deep breath and come to your senses.

Learn Vedic rounding with us to deepen your mind-body connection and heal your body through present moment awareness.