SURRENDER TO THE "NOW"
“Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation.” – The Power of Now
Why do we hold onto the past?
How do we know that we exist and that we’re the same person as yesterday? There are many theories that try to explain how we determine our sense of “self”. One that many people agree with is through the passage of time. We know we’re the same person because of everything that’s occurred in our past. We have memories from our childhood to today that prove we are continuously ourself. Even if we have amnesia, there are others in our life who can connect the dots for us.
We use our life’s history to create our sense of identity. So we become dependent on the past to inform us of who we are now. As we age we accumulate more memories, lessons, and life events, but it’s the intense ups and downs that we remember. We want to remember the best times of our lives, yet we tend to hold onto and recall the worst times. When we let the negativities of our past live in the present we’re allowing that pain to define who we are now. So why can’t we let go of our past and focus on the “Now”?
We allow our painful memories and experiences to continually affect us through life for various reasons. The pain may be an excuse for our behavior, it reminds us where we’ve come from, we haven’t confronted it, or it’s apart of our identity and we don’t know how to live without it. Whatever the reason, we’ve all carried some type of pain with us and we know how easy it is to give into it. We give into the negative emotions that stem from those memories. Thus we let our past have control over the present moment.
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If we wish to have a life free of pain and suffering then it’s up to us to let the negativities of our past go. It’s not an easy choice to make, but it is our choice. We can choose to invest the power we give to our past and offer it to the present instead. All it takes is learning to surrender.
In order to surrender to the “Now” we must first be present by bringing 100% of our attention and tuning all of our senses into what we’re currently experiencing. When we’re in this state of present awareness we can then choose to surrender. We must realize that what’s happening now, in this moment, is the only thing that exists or matters. By surrendering to the moment we can decide what we want to let go of from our past. The past is the past and it shouldn’t have the power to continually make us sad, angry, resentful, or negative in any way. When we clear away the past pain we free ourselves to live in the “Now”. By continuing to surrender to each moment, we prevent any current pain from affecting our future.
The only time we have to choose what affects us in life will always be now. So why should we wait? Many times we do wait, sometimes until the very end. Before someone passes away it’s common for loved ones to tell them, “It’s ok, you can let go now”. They want their loved one to die peacefully -not clinging onto what’s left of their pain. Yet this scenario is what many of us do. We cling onto our past pain and we can’t let it go. We need to realize that we have the power to free ourselves and should do so whenever pain creeps in. When we truly release the negative moments so that pain can’t linger or follow us through life, then we’ve embraced the “Now”.
Today, I went to the beachfront with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to
my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her
ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear.
She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is entirely off topic but I had to tell someone!
Thank you for sharing! Your story is a great example of living in the moment. Hopefully one day your daughter will want to go back and leave that fear in the past!