How Do I Live in the Present?

Many people come to mindfulness practice because they want to learn how to live in the present more. The mindfulness technique is noticing when we are wrapped up in the future or the past, when our mind is caught up somewhere else, and then letting those thoughts go, and coming back to the present. The technique is coming back and feeling the breath, because it’s always happening right now, always happening in the present. That’s the technique. And we practice that. It’s a training. We are training this mindfulness muscle – coming back, coming back, coming back.

In our day-to-day lives, in the midst of busyness and stress, how do we come back and live in the present? Sometimes a mnemonic device can be helpful. To live in the present, we can practice our A-B-C’s.

A is for attention. Paying attention is being in the present. For example, if we are not paying attention when someone is talking to us, we will not hear what they are saying to us. That means we are not in the present. We’re thinking about something else, we’re somewhere else. So, attention means asking ourselves, “Am I paying attention right now?” Just checking in with that.

And if we’re not paying attention, we can practice our B, which is breath. We can come back to our breath, just feeling the coolness in our nose when we breathe in. Immediately, that helps us come back to the present. It helps us pay attention.

But sometimes that’s hard to do, too. When we have so much going on in our minds, thoughts pulling us in different directions, maybe some conflict inside, it can be hard to come back to the breath. When that happens, when we find ourselves in that situation, we can practice our C, which is Compassion. Just having some compassion for ourselves in that moment. We may be struggling, we may be having some judgment – about ourselves, about others. So compassion for ourselves and compassion for others. So as we breathe in, see if can we bring in some compassion for ourselves and for others.

That’s A-B-C. By breathing in and bringing some compassion to the inhalation, we can come back to the present and can pay attention to this moment. Maybe this simple reminder can help us live in the present a little bit more.