Living in the moment……aaah that old chestnut – sounds easy but in reality….?
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How familiar is this scene for you - one minute you’re in your car on the way home from work, you're coasting down the freeway immersed in your thoughts. Next minute, before you know it, you’re parked in your driveway thinking, home already - how did that happen? Automatic pilot becomes the norm.

One day in my previous corporate life the big cheese decided the team was too overworked and too stressed and we needed to do something about it! Enter Uncle Derek, a stress psychologist. Uncle Derek believed that the source of rumination (none of us knew that is meant stress) was due to the fact that most of us spent our time in a waking sleep, that is awake, but not consciously. He believed the key to this rumination freedom lay in the ability to awaken ourselves from this slumber and practice the art of being present.

Living in the moment means you are totally emersed in an experience which is why when I thought  back then about the times that really released my mind of its constant chatter – not suprinsingly, yoga and surfing topped the list.

One of the reasons I think surfing feels so good is that we are truly in the moment while we are doing it. We are present, and for that moment in time when we are out on the ocean soaking it all in, our problems and worries just dissipate. All that important mind chatter - the project that is not going to plan, gone – the shopping that needs to get done – nope not there either, the possible reasons he hasn’t called – don’t care, the diet that we’re about to embark on or the mounting number of to do’s on the list – gone, gone!.

Surfing connects us to mother nature – its just you, your board and the ocean beneath you. For me surfing equates to living in the very moment of 'now'. When you ride a wave you leave behind all those worries - important and unimportant, the purity of the moment is upon you.

This living in the now, or Mindfulness as its known, is a universal quest. Its at the root of Buddhism, Taoism, and many Native-American traditions, not to mention a foundation of yoga. It's also what Emerson and Whitman wrote about in their essays and poems.

I will always think fondly of those sessions with Uncle Derek and how he made something so wonderfully simple. Stop, detach and be present. Enjoy the now. Stop projecting a better future, which implies that there is something wrong with now. To realize that right here, right now is great has been tremendously freeing. It is this lesson that has led to much gratitude, and a surge of energy and strength - as well as alot more time dedicated to surfing and practicing yoga!

Here's to the now and living in it!

Janine

Suggested reading:
The Power of NOW: Eckhart Tolle
The Art of Happiness - A handbook for living: The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler