This is All We've Got: The Now Moment.

This is all we’ve got.

It’s drizzling, there’s a double parked car in front of me stopping traffic, I’ve been working for over twelve hours, and I come to the sudden realization that this is all there is to life.  This is all there is to life, until there is no life anymore.  

This is it.

Calmness flooded my veins and bliss lit up my nervous system.  Not the reaction we expected from that kind of thought form, am I right?

There is such a delicate, freeing feeling associated with living in the Now moment.  It’s an otherworldly high, as when you are in the now, you are no longer constrained by what you think you need on this three-dimensional plane. To think that all we possess in this exact second is all we need to be a living being on this planet Earth?  Wow.  Basically, if you are reading this post, you’ve managed to remain sentient and living, and that is a beautiful observation.

That moment is what we strive for in meditation, what we might find the minute or two after waking up, and where our intuition speaks loudest and clearest.  For most of us, however, the road map to Now-moment bliss is riddled with obstacles.

I could go on for pages and pages about tendencies to travel to the past or the future in our thoughts.  I’ve talked about it here already, so I won’t completely rehash, but I will pop in the most useful piece of advice I have for my fellow time travelers (future-trippers and past-ruminators.)  When you catch yourself in a needless thought spiral (and it isn’t an if, it is a when.  We all do it.), ask yourself the following questions:

Am I able to constructively use this information? How? Now?

Every time.  Ask yourself every damn time.  Most of the time, my answers look like: “Maybe. I don’t know yet. Nope,” because my mind will take over on a drive to SF, and then all hell breaks loose for no good reason.

Please entertain this brief example scenario.  I come from the house of concrete examples.  Most spiritual wind bagginess makes better sense if the teacher gives me a grounded example of what the heck their esoteric, wild, untamed minds are thinking (And that is no shade.  I fill most of my life with that airy wind bagginess, and it makes my heart sing and my feet float to the heavens.  I just also like to land on terra firma here and again).  Without further ado, a “Grounded Earth Example.”  I chose to write it as a short screenplay.  

FADE IN:

EXT.HIGHWAY 280 NORTH-EARLY MORNING

Car speeds a casual 4-7 miles over the actual speed limit, obeying what this UNNAMED WOMAN thinks of as a “gentle speed suggestion.”

Shot tightens in on the car, where it appears WOMAN driving the Hyundai with the Rhode Island license plates is having a problem.  Is she choking? Is she screaming? Is WOMAN posessed? She’s convulsing, she appears to be screaming.

INT. HYUNDAI SONATA-EARLY MORNING

WOMAN
 (off-key and with much vigor)
I DON’T DANCE NOW, I MAKE MONEY MOVES.  I DON’T GOTTA DANCE, I MAKE MONEY MOVES.  IF I SEE YOU AND I DON’T SPEAK THAT MEANS…..

She looks so happy, so blissed out in her little Cardi B concert of one until…until it comes.

(Woman clams up instantly, look of terror crosses her face)

ROGUE THOUGHT FORM
  Oh hey, girl.  Remember that one time you totally misspoke and sounded like a total nincompoop.  That was super embarrassing, right?  That wasn’t the first time, either.  Sometimes you accidentally add a ‘sh’ to words that just start with an ’s’ so you say stuff on the podcast like “Sho” instead of “so.” I bet people think you are a real dumb dumb.  

ROGUE THOUGHT FORM sits quiet for a minute.

ROGUE THOUGHT FORM
 BUT WAIT! That’s not all, my dear.  That one time, in college, you misspoke during a mock trial round and that probably actually cost you the whole round. And also, probably the bid to the national championship. Remember that? No denying it. You saw the scores. And then there was that time that you told that weird lie to your whole third grade class, but you aren’t sure why you did that….damn girl, I’m so sorry to say this, but you appear to be a super sucky human.

How do we fix a runaway rogue like this?  The rumination may flip to a breathless future cast (i.e. “your presentation is in three hours it will probably suck you are very nervous what if there is traffic on the way home oh my god i don’t want to cook dinner why do cars even exist i hate driving shit i have to drive to work tomorrow and the next day ad nauseam GAHHHH.” In my mind, those rarely are punctuated by a pause)

My dearests.  I promise we can stop these rogues in their tracks.  They are honestly just trying to help us.  Truly, even though they are taking away from the blissed out now moment like woah.  Let’s reenter the car to see what this “woman” chooses to do…..

Car is silent. WOMAN takes three deep breaths. Then, a pep talk emerges.

WOMAN
  Am I able to constructively use this information? How? Now? Well, I suppose I can use this, yes.  I am clearly a little insecure about speaking in front of people.  I am probably really hard on myself, but it could be cool to take an acting class or a public speaking seminar just to chill out and really get more exposure. But, I am not taking Improv 101 on the freeway, so…HEY SIRI, remind me to look up improv classes when I get home.  Alright, there we go.  Now, thanks my dear rogue thoughts, thanks for your help, but I kindly release you.  

#blessandrelease (listen to this episode of StrongHer Podcast to get that reference).

WOMAN
(look of contentment on face)  
THESE EXPENSIVE, THESE IS BLOODY SHOES.

Not all of our wild and crazy thoughts are horrible.  We’ve got to look at them from a place of non-judgment.  What that random, totally fictitious “woman” went through up there?  That’s a super best case scenario.  Honestly, if you can’t rationally think through them right then, I highly recommend just releasing them in that moment. It’s totes okay to say, “Yep these are useful probably, but IDK IDK.”

No matter what, we just cannot stay there, guys.  You know what I mean.  We can’t live life up in our minds, especially in thoughts like that—those wisps of regret and vampiric concerns wrap us tight and drag us down to a place far away from Now.   

As I type this, I am sitting in my car, which is becoming ever more chilly at nearly 8:00 pm at night.  I’m full of a BLT and a lot of laughter from my last appointment, and I’m looking forward to going in to make my last appointment of the day.  BUT. But.  What is truly real right now, for me?  This tiny forever, inside my car, unpacking this for you.  

-xoxo,

Allie