Improve Your Health and Wellness By Being Present
Being present is a game changer to improve your health and wellness. What do I mean by that?
Eckhart Tolle said: “The more you are focused on time, past or future, the more you miss out on the now; the most precious thing there is”. Or said another way;
“Perseverating On The Past or Future Can Perpetuate A Loss of Control In The Present”… Mark Marino
Now, very often when you have stress, anxiety, overwhelm, or you’re experiencing pain, either emotional or physical, we can get caught in what I call a:
Negative Time Trap
Your mind, or your thoughts can get trapped in a time where you’re focusing on either, past traumatic events or worrying about a future that hasn’t arrived yet. And each time you do that, your present self gets smaller and smaller. You see if one part of you is focused on a past traumatic event, it pulls away from you in the present. And if the other part of you or another part of your thoughts or your state is focused on worrying about a future that hasn’t arrived yet, again, it continues to take away from your present and in the present you become smaller and smaller and smaller. Taking away from your ability to feel like you’re in control in the present and in this state, what happens is very often, it feels like the world is happening to you rather than you having control.
Now, many of you who know me know I’ve been a physical therapist for over 25 years. You may not know about 25 years ago, I was involved in a very serious car accident where I had multiple surgeries and serious injuries. I didn’t walk for about six months and I was out of work for a year. Now for a long time after that I had chronic pain. Now, when I started delving into and going on my search for answers and how to get past my chronic pain, I realized that I was in that negative time trap. I was worried about the past traumatic event of my accident. So part of my present self was stuck in the past at the accident. And another significant portion of my thoughts and state were stuck worrying about a future that hadn’t happened yet. Will I still have pain? And for a lot of us, what happens in this negative state is we are everywhere, but present. Our present self is stuck in the thoughts and in the state of being of those past traumatic events or worrying about a future that hasn’t arrived yet, creating a present self that’s smaller and smaller and smaller, feeling like we have a loss of control in the present.
And when we were stuck in the cycle, it feels like everything is happening to us. So how do we break this cycle?
Now, the game changer moment for me was when I realized this and I started to let go of that past traumatic event. So instead of that, being a past traumatic event, pulling me away from my present; It became a source of strength that allowed me to be stronger in the present.
And instead of worrying about a future that hasn’t arrived yet, I set goals for myself in the present and decided that instead of worrying about a future, that hasn’t arrived yet, I would create my future and create the journey; setting goals for what I would accomplish in the future. And then over the next period of time, I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was. It wasn’t a light switch. My chronic pain went away.
So this allowed me to break that negative time trap and allowed me to become more present in the moment and have more control and less focus on pain and therefore progressing my wellness forward and eliminating that eliminating that chronic pain loop. So here’s two ways that you can break that negative time trap and be more present in the moment, improving your health and wellness. One; is allow yourself to let go of that past traumatic event or events or use that as a source of strength for the presence. And then also, instead of worrying about the future, set goals for yourself in the present and create your own future. This will allow you to have more control in the present moment and improve your health and wellness.
And as always…
Be Positive, Be Motivated, Be Focused and Be Well,
Have a great day.
Mark
