Are your thoughts spending more of their time thinking about the past, the future, or the present moment?
Hi Thriver!
Are your thoughts spending more of their time thinking about the past, the future, or the present moment?
Spending our energy thinking about the past or the future steals joy and opportunity from the present moment if we allow those thoughts to overtake our focus.
Where attention flows, energy goes.
This is also where our energy is expended.
Often we can find our thoughts ruminating on the past or imagining scenarios in the future.
This is why present moment mindfulness is so important.
If we look at our thoughts as measures of energy expended in the same way we run a mile or mop the floor, we can begin to tally where our energy is being truly wasted on thought.
Think for a moment.
Imagine your thoughts were bricks in a bucket that lay out a brick path.
Stand In front of your bucket of bricks and road #1. This road is called Rumination and looks like:
Replaying what you said in a conversation and either regretting or even feeling satisfied with what you said. Even that energy spent in satisfaction is energy expenditure.
Replaying how you acted and regretting it
Basking in what you said or did and feeling proud about it
Wondering how life might have turned out differently if you acted differently. Wasting energy on the myriad of roads you could have taken but you were directed down the road meant for you
Notice how full that bucket is or how long that road is and assess how life might be different if you controlled those thoughts more.
Stand in front of bucket #2. The road entitled Imagination. This looks like:
Imagining what might have happened if you did x, y, or z or x, y and z
Experiencing your own “Choose your own adventure” book where there are ___ number of ways to do ________ all leading to one ending.
We exhaust our present moment energy even more when we play out the myriad of possibilities with multiple endings.
How full is this bucket and how long is that road?
These two states are natural for us to plan our lives and heal from the past but excessive energy spent here leads to missing the present moment flow that occurs when we quiet the examining mind.
Now stand in front of bucket #3 – the present moment.
Can you take in this moment without worrying about what has happened or what will happen?
Can you notice:
What you smell, what you taste, what you see, what you feel, what you hear, what you are intuitively knowing without a doubt?
Can you tap into the space beyond all of those senses and connect with this Divine presence that wants more than anything to shower you with goodness and love? Can you experience the belief that the Divine is always guiding you so you no longer need to force your personal identity because your Divine identity knows exactly where it is meant to be?
Which timeline are you laying the longest road?
Rumination, Illumination or Present Moment.
Rumination and illumination exhaust our thoughts and our energy. How can you shift your life into your present moment experience?
Join me for my Love.Heal.Thrive. Podcast on How to Handle your feelings and learn how to assess how much time you are spending in rumination, imagination and the present moment.
Much love,
Erin
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