Letting Life be Simple by Krysta Gibson On a regular basis, I am asked how I decide the topics for these monthly editorials. It seems that most months the issues I talk about are exactly what many readers are dealing with. "How did you know I needed to hear about that?" someone will ask. "Your editorial is the first thing I read," another person writes, "because I know it will give me insights into things that have been on my mind." On a few occasions, people I know personally have gotten angry or hurt because the topic hits home for them and they think I am writing about them when I'm not. The topics are decided by my opening my mind to ideas with the express intent of writing about something that will help as many readers as possible. Different ideas will swirl around during the month until one of them becomes dominant. Then I sit down and write. Sometimes I resist the topic that presents itself because to write about it hits too close to my own current issues and I know I can't write about it without becoming more vulnerable than is comfortable. This month several topics presented themselves, but one shouted louder than the others no matter how many times I shooed it away. Like a pesky mosquito, it demanded my attention. A lot of us must be dealing with learning how to live in the present- or need to deal with it! I doubt there is anyone who will argue against the idea that we live best when we're in the present rather than rehashing the past or anticipating the future. And most will agree that although this sounds like an easy thing to do, it isn't. We all know about arriving at our destination and not being aware of how we got there because we were busy having an imaginary conversation with someone or were planning what to say once we got where we were going. All of us have tripped over something because we weren't watching where we were walking. Sliced fingers while cutting vegetables, bit tongues while eating, hands burned on hot kettles- these are all calls to pay attention to the present moment. Many of the things we do in life such as driving and walking simply don't require one hundred percent of our attention. It is easy to slip the mind into neutral and surf through the many different areas of our lives looking for something to obsess about. We are, however, cheating ourselves out of some of our own existence when we do this. Being present with ourselves in the moment is truly living. Everything else is just going through the motions. No wonder so many people are dissatisfied with their lives. When you're not present for your life, not extracting every precious drop from the present moment, how can you be happy? But how do we stay in the present? When our to-do lists are longer than the tail of a kite, how do we give up thinking about the next task before we've finished what we're doing? And when so many people have been abused and wronged in so may ways, how do we stop dwelling on the past and be present now? Intention and detachment are two keys. Simply stating the intention to be present in our own lives starts us on the path to doing so. Being aware that this is something we value and want to make a part of us is the first step. Detachment is a huge help in letting go of the past and the future. When we are preoccupied about either it is because we are placing too much importuned on what has happened or on what will happen. Lots of times the past can't be let go of without the professional help of a therapist. Healing the past allow us to release it. As long as it is still sore we will not be able to be current in our lives. The past aches and pains build a huge wall that keeps us separate from ourselves and the reality of daily living. Use of our senses, especially touch, helps us remain in the present more easily. Try an experiment. For the next few minutes be totally aware of your sense of touch. Actually feel your hands holding the newspaper. Be aware of whatever you are sitting on, really feel it supporting your body. You'll find that it is impossible to think about anything but the present moment when you're totally involved with sense of touch. Listen to the sounds around you. Be aware of the traffic outside. Hear the birds chirping, the dogs barking, the children laughing. Take a deep breath and be aware of what the air smells like. Is it sweet? Stale? sour Besides being an aid to better breathing , being aware of the smells in our world is a great help to staying in the here and now. Some people are afraid that if they focus on the present they will lose their goals and sense of direction. They feel they need the pull of the future to keep them going. Sometimes the best use of the present moment is planning the future. Being present in our lives doesn't mean we don't remember. it simply means that when we are doing either we do it fully and with total awareness of what we're doing rather than it happening by default: nothing else was going on in the mind so it started to wander and landed on next week's meeting with the boss. Something interesting begins to happen when we are present to ourselves. We begin to accept that our everyday lives actually have value. This is something most of us have lost" an sense of the importance of our mundane lives. We think that the lives of famous people are important. We think our lives are important if we're doing something we consider significant. But the everyday stuff? Nah. That can't be of any consequence. So we start focusing on the unusual, the different, even the bizarre. Now that's important. Walking on fire, seeing auras, communicating with space beings, predicting the future: we deem these things important and we'll pay attention while doing them. Washing dishes, vacuuming, walking the dog, brushing our teeth, these things are routine, have to be done, and it's fine to think about other things while doing them. This is not the truth. When we start paying attention to the details of our lives, we start to value what we do- and ourselves- in an entirely new way. We begin to understand that the tiniest action we take reverberates throughout the cosmos and is important. No one else in the entire universe is sitting exactly where you are, right now, doing exactly what you're doing, and never will be. If your do not perform that act with presence and intent no one ever will. People are not great because of what they do. Actions become great because a great person does them. No one has the least bit of interest in the vest I'm wearing today. If I told a certain person that this vest used to belong to Elvis, it would suddenly have tremendous value and I would be lucky to hold onto it. The same is true of everything in our lives. We bring the greatness to what we're doing. We don't have to star in a major motion picture to be great. All we have to do is bring our attention to the details of our lives, perform all actions to the best of our ability, and be truly present to ourselves. There is magic that is released when we do this. Our lives begin to sparkle with meaning and purpose because we're living them consciously. It is also a great relief to realize we don't have to live the past, present, and future all at the same time. All we have to do is attend to whatever is immediately in front of us and it will lead us to the next step we're to take. Doesn't that make life a lot simpler than the way we live it now?