We live in a world overflowing with “How to” blogs and tutorials. Every challenge, whether it’s tech trouble, health concerns, or financial stress, seems to have a step-by-step solution just a click away. Yet, once we close the tab, the information often sits idle in our minds, rarely transforming into real life change.
Here is a space that will gently guide you through life, not by shortcuts, but through practices, coping mechanisms, and lessons from my own healing journey. It will provide ways to nurture resilience, emotional strength, and personal growth. My hope is that these reflections guide you in your own journey of self-discovery and healing.
🌸 The Practice That Changed My Life
I wish to start this initiative with that one practice that has stayed with me forever and has helped me, guided me and shaped me into who I am. We often catch ourselves caught in loops of regret about the past or anxiety about the future. Questions like Why did that person betray me? What if my decisions don’t lead to success? Why was life unfair to me? Keep haunting us. As we grow older and accumulate experiences, these thoughts intensify. But pause for a moment and think, was this the case when you were a child?
Children are the happiest not because life was easier back then, but because they live fully in the present. They laugh, play, and experience each moment without the burden of past regrets or future fears. As we grow, we gain experiences and learn the standards set by society for success and well-being. The achievements of others and the idea of a perfect future generates anxiety in our minds.
We keep revisiting our past or worrying about our future and in this process, we lose out on our present. As it’s rightly said, one has to be somewhere; if not in the present, he will either be depressed about the past or anxious about the future. As humans, we have a tendency to either visit our past that drains our energy or anticipate the future that makes us fearful of what might go wrong in future. In both scenarios, the event has already happened or it might most likely never happen in future but we ruin our present by thinking about them.
🧠 The Monkey Mind
Psychologists describe our minds as “monkey minds”, constantly hopping from one thought to another. We can travel decades in time and continents in space in a few seconds. On average, humans have more than 6,000 thoughts a day. Most of these are repetitive echoes of yesterday, ruminations, worries, and mental noise. In both cases, the present moment slips away unnoticed. Physically, we may be here, but mentally we’re decades away.
So, how do we break free? How do we stop being prisoners of time, haunted by the past and anxious about the future? The answer lies in awareness and training. Living in the present is not a gift, it’s a skill. And like any skill, it can be practised and mastered.
Steps for Embracing the present:
- Mindfulness: We have to start by observing our thoughts andeach time we catch ourselves thinking about past or future, we have to catch hold of them and bring them back to the present. Daily meditation acts as a powerful tool to monitor thoughts and control them as and when required. It helps to guide thoughts in the right direction. Journaling is also a wonderful way to become aware of one’s thoughts.
- Sensory grounding technique: It involves using the sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell to anchor yourself in the present moment. Each time we catch ourselves ruminating about the past or future, we must use our sensory organs to bring back our focus on the things present around us.
- Deep Breathing: Taking deep breaths helps in centring our thoughts. Each time we inhale and fill our lungs with air, we force our brain to focus on something that is happening internally at the current moment. It calms our nervous system and brings us back to the present immediately.
- Gratitude: Focusing on your blessings instead of what is missing from your life, helps bring calmness and positivity in our lives. Appreciating the relations, resources and career opportunities we currently have makes us more grateful and soothes our brain.
Adhering to these practices will develop mindfulness and it will eventually help in living in the present. My grandmother remembers the exact fare of a bus ticket she bought 30 years ago, not because she had extraordinary memory, but because she lived each moment fully. That’s the secret, when we immerse ourselves in the present, life becomes vivid, memorable, and meaningful.
Finally, Life is not meant to be lived in the shadows of yesterday or the fears of tomorrow. It is meant to be experienced here and now. By practising awareness, we reclaim our energy, our joy, and our peace.
Always remember that the present is the only place where healing happens.
Aakshi Goel, Well-Being Enthusiast