Trusting the Timing of Your Life
Talking about staying present is always easier than actually practicing it. I feel like you can go onto social media, go through countless spiritual, holistic, health and related pages and you will find so many posts, quotes, etc talking about the importance of being grounded, of staying present in your experience. For all this talk, how much of us are actually doing this though, and consistently?
I’ll be honest, it’s something I’ve struggled with often through my entire life, and even though I actively work and do my best to remain aware of when I am not being present, it’s very easy to lose that space.
Losing presence can happen for a lot of reasons, for me, it tends to happen because I project into the future a lot. I have a tendency to always want to be at this future point in my life, this ideal version that I create in my head and which I start planning and thinking of all the steps it will take to get there. Before I know it, I’m not really present with the life around me, I am simply running around with all these steps and goals and putting the importance of a future that’s certainly not a given, above the present moment.
I’ve done this for as long as I can remember, and while I can say that to an extent my ability to plan, envision, and work endlessly through even my own sufferings has helped me to accomplish things I set out to do, I know it’s also not always the healthiest way to be, especially when losing sight of the present moment.
So how does one balance this?How do we balance a place of presence but also make space for the future we want, or even leave space for the moments that were? I don’t have it all figured out just yet, but I think a huge key is in truly trusting the timing of your life.
When I say trusting the timing of your life, I mean that we need to trust that the things that we experience at every point in our journey, from the past to the present to the future, all happen at the moment in which they should. And these experiences are always where they need to be, it’s more so up to us on if we let them dwell in their proper homes.
In my own experience and with how I tend to always look more towards the future, I’ve learned through the years as I’ve reached these certain “futures”, there was no way I could ever have gotten there any faster than the moment that I did. And funny enough, once I am thereI tend to look back and realize that it was within those past moments, which were once my present, that I needed those experiences, those moments, as they helped me to grow. But also, what I’ve learned when I look back in these types of moments, is because of my lack of presence at times, there’s also a lot I missed out on. And usually the things which I find I miss the most and lose when I step out of being present in my life, is connection.
It’s hard to be connected and in tune with the environments and those around you when you are living in a different mode. When you are living in either a past or dreamt up future.
This realization has come to me in usually painful ways, it’s when you realize you can’t always get that time back, that moment back, and when you realize it was right there, you were actually in it, but instead of honoring it, you stepped outside of it.
It happens for different reasons, sometimes we just take so many things in life for granted, we believe the everyday facets of our lives are a given, but the thing is, nothing is a given. Perhaps this year is the strongest proof of that on a collective level.Our lives can really change and be altered forever at any given time.
We can plan as much as we want for our future, we can get lost as deep as we want in the nostalgia and warmer moments of our lives, but it will never prevent us from eventually experiencing the cost of our present; whether we choose to be there with it or not.
I feel that we can’t talk about presence without also talking about our abilities to have trust and faith. And maybe this is where many of us slip up? I know personally, it took me a long time to put these pieces together and to realize where my issues stemmed from when it came to being present in my life.
I feel that more and more with the current world and systems in which we live in, it is easier than ever to lose faith in ourselves and within the directions of our lives and to also lose trust in these same aspects. The thing is though, without faith and trust in ourselves and in our lives, we will inevitably fall victim to the darker aspects of life; depression, anxiety, anger, apathy, and the list can go on.
In a way, we can even start to believe we are victims of circumstance, we start to believe we are powerless, and it’s within all of these patterns of thoughts and beliefs where we can really lose ourselves and miss out on our own lives. The present is stolen from us as we wage wars internally, sometimes without full awareness that this is even going on.
It also doesn’t help when we are bombarded daily through countless mediums, whether it’s the TV, our phones, social media, or even when we are out and you glance at the magazine covers while waiting in line at the store, or you walk by the ads in the mall; we are constantly being suggested that we aren’t enough, we need to do more, be more. We are conditioned to doubt ourselves, our abilities, we find ourselves comparing our lives and selves, constantly, to these photoshopped, made-up and curated personas which are plastered everywhere. We do it ourselves; when we share on social media, we often share only the highlight reel, those best moments, which whether we are conscious of it or not, alters our perceptions.
None of us are immune to this. I’m not only aware of these things, but have studied them in depth for years and I am still susceptible. It takes conscious effort and also discipline in choosing what you allow into your mind. We can’t always control what we see or take in, but on some level such as our social media feeds, we do have that power and should actively participate in creating a feed that promotes our growth, connection, trust, and joy. If every time you get on social media you experience feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out), fear, anger, resentment, and so on, it’s a pretty good indicator that you’re not only following the wrong things, but also aren’t consciously aware of your own thoughts, patterns, and beliefs and how these are being subconsciously triggeredwithin you.
We live in a world now where it isn’t just our own thoughts and beliefs which we need to be aware of, but we now need to remain conscious of those around us, and choose what we allow. What we take in will inevitably form into ways which we relate and interact with the world around us. Does your environment help you to build on your trust, faith and strength in yourself and your life? If not, what needs to change?
Trusting the timing of our lives is in a way, the ultimate trust exercise within ourselves. It takes discipline, awareness, resilience, faith in ourselves, and patience. It’s being able to accept our pasts and lived experiences; the good and bad, and finding a balance of gratitude for all of the good things and also a knowing and firm boundary for those things which we know don’t belong in our present or futures. It’s being able to look towards the future, a vision or goal in mind, and knowing that over time this vision will most likely take different shapes as you grow. But it is through the strength of your awareness, faith and trust that you can live in your current moment, presently, and confidently, knowing that your future is already yours, you just have to be here, right now, and live this moment in your life.
