Come As You Are

I've been sharing this simple line in my meditations and find it to be such a powerful notion that I wanted to bring more attention to it. I welcome you to try it on and see if it brings you the relief it brings me.

Whenever we are in the present moment there is nothing more we need to be. Why is that? In the present moment we are only experiencing that moment. Thoughts don't apply; there's only sensation (seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, moving, feeling). There's only experience. In that way, concepts like I am not good enough, smart enough, funny enough, productive enough, creative enough, successful enough don't enter. If we are in the present moment we have everything we need to be there because we are there. When we experience our breath, which is happening in the present moment or when we come back to hearing sounds, seeing, or sensing, we are whole enough or else we wouldn't be able to be there! 

If I am thinking about the future, what I have to do, want to do, should do, often the feeling is that I need/want something more. Or, if I am ruminating about the past, I am likely thinking about what I or someone else did or didn't say or do. These are all fine and of course we go to these places, regularly, but we can always choose to come back to the present moment where nothing more is needed. What a relief! "It's just like this right now and I am just like this right now." In the present moment there is no fear. There's only experience. The experience is like this and by the time we name it, it is already gone.

Of course, we can't always stay right here sensing or feeling. We need to plan and reflect as part of life, but if we find ourselves in those places more than we are in the present, we miss what's here. We can train ourselves to recognize that we are doing this ( the gift of awareness meditation brings) and we realize that we can come back anytime. We can be reminded that we are just as we need to be to be here. That can be such a gift to the part of us who is always striving, rushing in to fix, or thinking happiness is somewhere in the future where we have something we don't have now.

May you all have a week with many reminders that you can come back to the present where you are all you need to be. The present moment has  a welcome sign that says, "Come As You Are."

❤️❄️
Jean