Savouring the present moment! As you might know by now, my blogs are fed by what I read, the people I meet and certainly a lot of the exchanges I have with some of my readers. These are all moments I cherish and they all feed my heart and soul in so many different ways.

Well, in my recent post I shared a bit about my coming back “home.” If you did read it, you know how it sounded almost ironic since I came back to where I used to live, but this time without a house I can my own. I tried to make the most of this situation and shared my desire to find a place within which I can call home, somewhere in my heart. 

Since writing that post, I went through a rollercoaster of emotions. It’s always easy to understand things with our mind and intellect, but much harder to make them sink in and become a conviction that springs from our hearts. 

What Is Distracting Us From the Present Moment? 

You must know me a bit better by now. I’m a dreamer and an artist. I’ve always been that way. My canvas and paint have always been words. From this source, within meditation, I found inspiration for my homilies back in the days, and now, that’s where I find my inspiration for my weekly posts.

It’s that same side of me that sometimes makes my life miserable. I tend to live things way too intensely. My life is basically a Shakespearean act… I’m a passionate soul and a very sensitive being, but that can be both a strength and a major weakness. 

All that being said, try to imagine how I live with my past wounds, the struggles I’ve been through and the fact of being torn between two countries. Someone else would rationalize… I don’t I write stories in my head and imagine my life in millions of ways.    

That’s a bit of what I spoke about in my last post. Well, after publishing it, a friend reached out. Being Greek-Canadian, she could truly understand and relate to what I was trying to explain. She had a family member who lived the same struggle and could never find peace. 

She wrote to me, “When you stop to think about it, it’s all a question of projection. When you are here, you want to be there and when you are there, you want to be here. So when do you live in the now? Maybe it’s all a just beautiful distraction for what lies deep inside. So, if you are aware of not living in the moment, why do you think you are living this situation? What is it about the precious present moment that can’t be savoured now?”

What Stops Us From Savouring Now the Present Moment?

Wow! That hit home! Someone else might get offended… I don’t, I prefer to see God gently speaking to me through others. But this time, it was clearly a punch in the face! I mean, wake up dude! Haha! 

But, isn’t it true? Don’t we often prefer distractions to the present moment? Isn’t that blocking us from experiencing happiness and true inner freedom? Why is it so difficult to simply enjoy the “now”?

I could give so many examples … the simplest one would have to be our ability to compare all the time. Aren’t we always comparing? You make new friends and you compare them with lost friends. You eat an ice cream and you compare it with the gelato you were having in Italy (wink … wink…). 

But when do we stop and accept that now it is different, that now there is something new for us to enjoy, that now there is a new offer from life? Accepting to let go of the past, and stop worrying about the future is such difficult thing to learn. I admire those who master it!

The Present Moment… Letting Go!

So yes, my friend is right … isn’t that all just a distraction? I truly believe we need to focus on what is keeping us from the present moment and let go of everything that is an obstacle. I doubt we will ever reach perfection … but maybe will we experience glimpses of true happiness. 

As of now, if you ask me what is distracting me from what really lies inside (coming back to my friend’s comment), I cannot fully answer. I mean, I don’t hold the full answer. All I know is that I’m slowly starting to see negative patterns and my incomparable talent to focus on the negative aspects of events and situations. 

What I need to let go of is what I cannot control and change! I need to accept my reality and focus my energy on improving what I have the power to transform. I need to let go of what doesn’t serve the “now” and that keeps me from building my happy place.

However, there is more … it’s not easy to admit, but in all situations in life, even the most painful and disorganizing, there are lessons to be learned.

Learning… School of the Present Moment

I truly believe that we can face situations with two different mindsets. No one can force us into one mindset … only WE can take this decision. Either we face them with a spirit of defeat and become subjected to events, or we tackle them as an opportunity of growth and a school of learning that will bring light to our negative patterns and behaviours and help us correct them. 

I choose the second mindset. I choose it because I want to learn and grow, but I need to confess that it’s far from being perfect. Let’s just say that if the mindset was a path … mine is not the perfect linear one that you choose with conviction and interior freedom. Mine is the rocky and impracticable one … the one where I often fall to my knees and cry, but where I chose to always get back up and move forward. 

So for this next week, I will try even harder to focus on the “beautiful now.” I will do my best to savour every little moment that life offers me. I will make the best of the most banal moments within the day and will try to cherish the lessons I learn along the way.

What do you think? Are you a master in living the present moment? I’d love to hear from you guys as well. Am I the only one struggling in this challenge? 

If you have not yet subscribe to my blog, I invite you to do so … maybe share with some friends and help me extend our family! See you next week…