What's Here Now?Намуна

Thinking about both the past and the future are ways we contemplate life—but the problem with only thinking about life is that it’s an ineffective way to transform it. In the wise words of Father Richard Rohr, “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” The only place where we actually live is in the present moment.

The spiritual practice of asking the question What’s Here Now? is how to start living out new ways of thinking. It is how we start receiving the gift of the present moment. When Jesus was asked, “What’s the single most important commandment?” he said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27).

Asking the question, What’s Here Now? is a way to practice grounding ourselves in the present moment with God. It is a way to love God with all of who we are and pay attention to what we are experiencing in the present moment. Here’s how to practice being present in your body, heart, and mind. Ask yourself…

• What am I sensing in my body?
• What am I feeling in my heart?
• What am I thinking in my mind?

Sensing, feeling, and thinking. We are all capable of doing these before we ever speak a word or take a step, and if we want to live aware of God’s presence, it means recognizing we have spent a large portion of our lives blind to it. I love how Jesus says in Luke 11:34, “When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light.” When we open our eyes to the present moment, we wake up. We come out of the trance of stumbling and fumbling through this life and wake up to beauty, wonder, and miracles. We start seeing that there is an effortless way of living in flow with God. We experience what living in a prayerful presence is: far beyond bowing our heads, folding our hands, and closing our eyes. Rather it is lifting our heads, opening our hands, and looking at life with eyes wide open to the present movement of God.

John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” For many of us, we are missing out on the full life promised because we have stopped paying attention to what is happening within us. So many of us have learned to ignore our bodies, emotions, and thoughts and still expect to have an abundant life.

Maybe you have learned to assume your body will be dependable without a consistent routine and healthy rhythm of rest. Perhaps you ignore your pace of life and push all of your physical limitations right up to the line. Maybe it has to do with how you fuel your body, and your relationship with food is not about giving your body the nutrients it craves; but instead, it’s a way to numb some of the other things that are going on in your life. My body has been only constant and faithful to me. It is incapable of telling a lie. Incapable of manipulating me or tricking me into thinking anything other than the truth. My body is perhaps the most reliable gift God has given me. If I care for it, my body is dependable to tell me the truth about what is going on in all my other parts—heart, mind, and soul. While our minds and hearts often hang out in the past or the future, our bodies are always and only in the present. Your body is always here. One of the best indicators that you are not here is if you don’t feel present in your body.

When it comes to our emotions, so many of us have learned to either deny or stuff our emotions. But emotions are just energy in motion, and emotions aren’t looking for answers; they are just looking for a healthy space to be felt.When you resist an emotion, it secures itself to you, and over time it stops being an emotion and becomes a mood.

• Unfelt sadness leads to apathy
• Unfelt anger leads to bitterness
• Unfelt fear leads to anxiety
• Unfelt delight leads to depression
• Unfelt excitement leads to gluttony
• Unfelt tenderness leads to living detached

Instead, Jesus invites us to release our emotions in healthy ways by naming what we are feeling and releasing our emotions. He beautifully demonstrates what that looks like when he says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matthew 26:38).

We can experience the power of the present moment not just when we pay attention to our body and heart but when we start to build a new relationship with our thoughts—asking What’s here now? It is like flipping a light switch on the dark and cluttered runway of your mind. Many of us have learned to stop paying attention to our thoughts or fixate and obsess over our thoughts. We need a new and healthy relationship with our thoughts. Many of us unconsciously believe every thought we have is true, which can often lead to mindless suffering. I appreciate what Byron Katie says: “a thought is harmless until we believe it.” When I first started practicing this question, I realized that I was the one taking my thoughts and turning them into beliefs before I ever gave myself a moment to ask, What’s here now? Is this thought even true? It wasn’t the thought that was causing so much angst in my life; it was my attachment to that thought being true.

I started to understand the power and peace in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” My thoughts were taking me captive instead of me taking my thoughts captive. One of the best ways to practice presence in the HERE and NOW is to ask, Do my thoughts take me captive, or do I take captive my thoughts?