Embrace the Present

Breaking Free from the Illusion of Time and Finding True Harmony

Time has such a grip on our perception of reality. We live as if it governs us, forgetting that we create our perception, and that creates our reality. As ever, to refer to time as a thing creates an illusion, past and future are realities that are not here, as there is only now.

So much of Western life focuses on the notion of time and its shadow, ‘not enough time’. As if time were a commodity, something we could purchase and own. Man’s attempt to govern the unknown has resulted in us attaching money to time. These two most powerful constructs in society shape our work and lifestyles.

So, time is coded with money and thus becomes measurable, quantifiable, a commodity to be negotiated and reasoned with. We separate it out into past, present, and future, as if they all had equal standing, but in truth there is only now. We are either here now, or in an illusion of past and future. In these places we are running on autopilot, allowing the past to rise and repeat.

Predictable as a clock, tick-tock.

Time rushes on, or so we think, and we value ourselves against our perception of it. I have or haven’t achieved X, Y, Z in this amount of time. We have ideas and narratives that tell us what we should do with our time, and yet most people are not even present to now, as now evolves consciousness to be present.

We need to be fully conscious to enter the now. I admit, I can find it hard to be present. After a week meditating in a Buddhist centre, I was reminded of the insanity of my mind and the programme that runs me. To be present is to live in the unknown. It is to be always on the edge of what is known, giving rise, or revealing the unknown. To be present, the mind must become a beginner and the body a place for curiosity to inhabit.

To be here and present to all.

That is all that is being asked to be experienced, as suffering is always a result of fighting reality. There is no control needed, only the deepest of trust and surrender to life.

To be present is to receive the gift of the present. To cultivate a life of returning to ourselves, we must create practices that give us space to pause and reconnect with ourselves. When life gets busy, as the Buddha says, we need to meditate double, never have I resonated with this truth more. We are not victims of time, but of our own suffering that loops us into endless cycles of pain. To change, we must change. When we catch ourselves living in past and future narratives, we have lost our connection to self and source.

To return to now and to receive, recalibrate, and to restore our nervous system and neurology so that we can create an internal environment of homeostasis. We must slow down, breathe, and make space to heal.

When our body reaches a stage of homeostasis, we begin to self-heal, self-orientate, and self-know. To become present is a process and when we attempt to drop in more, we may experience a lot of suppressed emotions, and non-dealt-with traumas.

We need to hold these as they arise and go through them. This is the way not to avoid or spiritually bypass. Stillness is within this noise and as we practice over time, we will find our inner waters settling and returning to ourselves.

This is where joy and contentment live. It is here now; we just need to make new habits to bring ourselves here. When we begin to live from here, time expands generously, and we feel abundant with the gift of life.

From here, life reveals and unfolds itself. We drop the endless trying and find ourselves moved into greater harmony with the world. Life begins to show us and provide for us. Our cognition comes online, and we have access to so much more intelligence.

The path to enlightenment can feel complicated and confusing and yet the irony is, the discoveries are always so simple. Be here now. That’s it, and that’s everything.

Blessings.

Annabelle

My intention is to work with the energies that are needed to help others root into their true nature. I desire to be of support and guidance to those seeking to expand, grow, heal and function at a higher level than they have previously known.