You already know how important it is to live in the present moment. But what does living in the moment really look like? Feel like? And, most important, how do you actually do it?

Most of the time, our disconnection from the present moment is unconscious. We spend a large part of our lives blocking out what we don’t want to acknowledge and accept. Difficult emotions, most of the time, are at the root of what we resist. In resisting emotion, we not only lose our connection to the present moment, but also to our vitality, our innate joy, and our power to heal and grow.

The following practices are designed to help you find out when, where, and why you might have shut down, and then to bring you back to life as swiftly and enjoyably as possible.

Give yourself some pressure-free time to play with these practices. Their effects will be cumulative. At a level deeper than everyday awareness, your being will begin to blossom. You will feel more peace, love, and contentment than you previously thought possible.

Inner Smile

Feeling joyful is not necessary for presence, but it’s one of the most powerful ways to induce it. Joy creates an almost instantaneous sense of expansion – an inner smile that’s like a warm bath. Some call this warm bath “flow” or “spirit.” No matter the name, experiencing it naturally connects us to ourselves and to everyone and everything around us.

The Practice: Think about someone or something that you love. This could be a child, a place in nature, or a favorite memory. Whatever you choose, make sure that just reflecting upon it creates an automatic inner smile. Then surrender to that inner smile. Let it light you up. Feel it spread through your body and even beyond it, uniting you joyously with your surroundings.

Be Passionately Average

Striving for excellence is how we change, grow, and reach our full potential. But since we can’t excel at everything, it’s also how we become self-critical and perfectionistic. Urging ourselves toward unreachable perfection robs us of the ease and spontaneity that are the hallmark of the Now. But exulting in activities we enjoy, with no intention of great achievement, is a foolproof perfectionist’s cure.

The Practice: Are there pursuits you enjoy but can’t do well? Or ones that you think you’d enjoy but avoid due to lack of aptitude? Pick one or two and pursue them with complete gusto. Perhaps this means salsa dancing with two left feet, knitting sweaters with lopsided patterns, or bowling a record-setting series of gutter balls. Whatever the pursuit, perform it with the intention of celebrating your mediocrity rather than cringing at it. If and when a cringe does occur, just laugh yourself through it and keep going. If possible judgment by others makes this practice too daunting, do it with a friend who’s willing to be just as goofily gung-ho.

Befriend Your Pain

Whenever we feel physical pain, our instinctive response is a whole-body flinch. We immediately gird against the pain in order to get rid of it, which often prolongs and intensifies the pain instead. Eventually, the effects of such a flinch can become worse than the pain itself. The opposite approach – befriending the pain – might seem like choosing to suffer. Actually, it’s a rare form of presence that almost always leads to significant relief.

The Practice: Reserve this practice for the next time you have a headache, muscle ache, or similar bodily pain. Begin when you become aware of your flinch, both its physical aspects and any thought patterns that arise. Gently relax your body as much as possible, and then place your focus directly at the center of the pain. Breathe into it over and over, noticing everything you can about the pain.
Is it hot or cold? Sharp or dull? Does it stay steady or fluctuate? Is a shape or color associated with it? What else does it communicate to you? Continue breathing into the pain and noticing everything about it until it departs completely or becomes more tolerable.

Befriend Your Pain (Revisited)

Just like physical pain, emotional pain resides in the body. There’s nowhere else we ever feel it. But most of the time we feel it only for a few moments before reverting to the same kind of flinch that physical pain evokes. An emotional flinch differs from a physical flinch in one key way, however. It usually lodges somewhere specific – the gut, chest, shoulders, neck, temples – and traps the pain inside. Befriending emotional pain requires that we first access the flinch, which then allows the stuck emotion to release. Such a release, though it’s often intense, is almost always incredibly freeing.

The Practice: The next time you feel a constriction in any part of your body and have an inkling that it’s emotion-related, gently place your attention at that location. Don’t try to change or understand the sensation. Just let it be exactly as it is. Soon this acceptance will allow the constriction to release. Then you’ll be face to face with the emotion it temporarily blocked. Keep your attention on this emotion as it wells up and begins to move through you. Is it easier to feel than you imagined? Do you prefer this feeling to remaining shut down?