““The only constant in life is change.””
Yet why is it that the majority of us crave stability, patterns and routine?
And literally freak out when we become aware that a change in imminent?
This is a big question with no simple answer.
But it’s high time to become comfortable- even welcoming to the phenomena we know as change. Otherwise we will spend too much time and effort fighting a losing battle with change when it shows up.
One of the key factors in making change more tolerable is the concept of staying in the present moment.
What does that mean exactly?
Well, for one thing, it involves becoming aware of your internal chatter, what you focus on and what you’re giving your attention to in any given moment.
With that awareness we have two options.
1. The most common option is to engage with that mental chatter as if it’s the most important thing facing us.
We tend to believe every thought we have without questioning if it is true or if it needs our attention right now.
2. The second option is to notice that part of us is creating mental or emotional material to distract us from participating in the present moment, to draw us away from the now.
This is a mental habit. A habit that can be changed. And like with all habits it takes awareness and practice.
Labeling our mental chatter either with a nickname or simply as chatter, can help us disengage from it’s content. At this point we can observe that chatter as if we are sitting in the audience watching our mind perform on stage or in the stands watching our thoughts make plays on the field.
The habitual activity of creating a narrative full of drama can continue as usual, OR we can shift our focus back to the present moment, the task at hand, the person we are with, the experience in front of us and engage our attention here.
Focusing on the now by allowing ourselves to experience the now (as opposed to mentally narrating the now) we open up to our experience at that time.
"What am I supposed to be doing right now?"
Once we become practiced with this shifting of our focus, we can begin to notice that change is all around us.
Change in and of itself is not threatening. It simply is.
The less we create stories around our idea of change and simply go with it, the easier it is to accept that change can happen and that it is nothing to fear. And even if it is something to fear, we can manage that- in this moment.