In the last post, we talked about reflecting on the past. Now we’re talking about reflecting on the present. What does this mean? If a lot of things happen to us at the moment, they then eventually become our past. When we reflect on our past, we see things that we could have done differently. However, the present is where we make all our actions which then goes into the past. By learning to reflect on each moment we can be cautious of our actions. So when we do reflect on the past we can see that we’re making the right decisions because our actions have become more calculated.
When you reflect on your present moment, you not only reflect on the situation you’re in, but you reflect on your emotions. If things aren’t going our way (which is bound to happen all the time), how do we feel? Are we in tune with our emotions? How do we react? What do we say and do? When you become in tune with your feelings, you will find it easier to change the emotion. You can’t fix something if you don’t know what’s wrong with it. What does that mean? If you don’t know how you feel or how you let your emotions drive your actions, you will constantly do things that you could have easily avoided. When you realise you’re hurt, you stand a better chance at walking away from a confrontation instead of trying to get even and hurting the other person. In hindsight, you may see that you were hurt, which led you to react the way you did. Although, if you remained in tune with your emotions you would have known how you were feeling in the present moment.
So how do you put reflecting of your present into practice?
1. Have a quiet time.
Having a quiet time allows us to quieten down our thoughts. It allows us to focus because life tries to pull us in different directions. We need to call this person, or we need to do this or do that, and so we’re not able to focus on ourselves. When you have a quiet time, you reign in the outside noise and start looking at what is inside of you. Lots of people find it hard to know how they feel because there’s always a lot of things happening. By having a quiet time regularly, you can reflect on how you feel. Eventually, you start to know how you feel when you’re around other people, and you can pinpoint things that made you feel a certain way. Instead of needing minutes to know how you feel, you now need seconds because your body begins to recognise things.
2. Have specific points to think about during your quiet time.
During your quiet time, have a few specific points to think about. Again, this adds to the focus because when you have the points, your mind doesn’t wander. It stays present on what you’re trying to think about. If you’re having your quiet time at night, you might want to retrace your day and go over what you did since you’ve been awake. You might want to think about a specific situation that happened during the day and how it made you feel. You might want to think about your emotions maybe even writing down specific emotions that occurred during the day. However, you want to be observant, and similarly to the last post, you don’t want to dwell. Dwelling means you’re staying there for a period, not knowing if you’re going to leave anytime soon. However, we want to scan our day and look over what’s happened with an observant mind. Also, if you find that you’re busy during the day, then maybe you might want to have multiple quiet times that are about 5 minutes each throughout your day. This is good because it means you’re reflecting on how you feel in the present moment.
3. Make sure to think about positive things.
Our mind has a natural tendency to think of negative thoughts, so when you’re having your quiet time, you need to stay alert of those thoughts. Also think of something positive, which we can all do. We can all think positively, even if we say we can’t. It doesn’t have to be big, but start thinking positively. Think about a good thing that someone did for you. Or something that you did for someone.
Quiet times are a way to reflect on the moment because you can put things in perspective. However, if you have other methods of reflecting on the moment, then do those things. Having a quiet time is simply a suggestion to get you started. Over time, you know what works for you, but the key is to remain in tune with what’s happening in your surroundings and how it’s making you feel.
As a Living Piece, we all have a part to play. You may be a piece by yourself, but together we create the bigger picture, the Masterpiece.
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