Chapter 5

Humans Being Versus Humans Doing

In This Chapter

Finding out about the doing and being modes of mind

Understanding the problems of obsessively doing

Discovering how to shift modes

Human beings love doing stuff. You go to work, have hobbies, socialise, and become an adept multi-tasker trying to fit everything into the day. But what about the being in human being?

Every day, in everything you do, your mind switches between doing mode and being mode. This doesn’t mean that you switch between, say, typing an email and staring into space. Instead, it means being in the moment as you’re doing a task. One mode of mind isn’t better than the other. They’re both helpful in different ways. However, using the wrong mode of mind for a particular situation can cause difficulties.

In this chapter, I explain how spending some of your time just being has huge and far-reaching advantages. I also tell you how to ‘just be it’.

Delving into the Doing Mode of Mind

You know the feeling. You’ve got to get the kids ready, drop them off at school, pay the gas bill, pop that letter in the post, renew the car insurance, and make sure that you call your sister to see if she’s feeling better. You’re exhausted just thinking about everything! But you know you have to do it all. Your mind is in doing mode.

Doing mode is a highly developed quality in humans. You can think and conceptualise how you want things to be, and then work methodically in order to achieve them. That’s part of the reason why people have been able to design computers and land on the moon – the products of doing mode.

Doing mode is certainly not a bad thing. If you want to get the shopping done, you need some doing mode! However, sometimes doing mode goes too far, and you start doing more and more without taking a break. That can certainly be draining.

The hallmarks of the doing mode of mind are:

• You’re aware of how things are, and how they should be. For example, if you need to renew your home insurance, you’re aware that you currently haven’t renewed the insurance, and that you need to at some point soon.
• You set a goal to fix things. If you’re in doing mode, you’re setting goals for the way things should be. This problem-solving happens all the time without you being conscious of it. In the home insurance example, your goal may be to call several insurance companies or visit several websites to find the right deal for you.
• You try harder and harder to achieve your goal. In doing mode, you feel driven. You know what you want and you try hard to get it. Doing mode is all about getting to the destination rather than considering anything else. So if an insurance company puts you on hold for too long, you begin to feel tense and frustrated. In this driven state of mind, you don’t come up with creative solutions such as calling a different company or just trying at a quieter time.
• Most of your actions happen automatically. You’re not really aware when you’re in doing mode. You’re completing tasks on automatic pilot. Thoughts pop into your head, emotions emerge, and you act on them largely unconsciously. If the person you’re speaking to on the telephone is rude, you may automatically react, making you both feel bad, rather than considering that the phone operator may have had a really long and bad day too.
• You’re not in the present moment. When engaged in doing mode, you’re not connected with your senses, in the now. You’re thinking about how things should be in the future, or replaying events from the past. You’re lost in your head rather than focused in the moment. While you’re placed on hold on the telephone, your mind may wander into anxious thoughts about tomorrow’s meeting rather than you just taking the chance to have a break and look at the sky or gaze at the beautiful tree through the window.

Doing mode isn’t just the mode you’re in when you’re doing stuff. Even when you’re sitting on the sofa, your mind can be spinning. You’re in doing mode. Trying to run away from negative emotions or towards pleasant ones is also part of doing mode’s speciality.

Doing mode is most unhelpful when applied to emotional difficulties. Trying to get rid of or suppress emotions may seem to work in the very short term, but before long the emotions rise up again. Being mode is a more helpful state of mind for understanding and finding out about emotions, particularly negative ones. See the later section ‘Dealing with emotions using being mode’.

Embracing the Being Mode of Mind

Society values people achieving goals. You see people in the papers who have record amounts of money, or who’ve climbed the highest mountain. How many times has someone made the headlines for living in the moment?!

People are very familiar with and almost comforted by the doing mode of mind. To stop doing so much, whether physically or mentally, isn’t easy. Doing feels attractive and exciting. However, people are beginning to realise that too much doing is a problem. In fact, a whole philosophy has arisen and lots of books have been written all about how you can slow down.

On the surface, the realm of being appears lifeless and boring. In actual fact, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Being mode is a nourishing and uplifting state of mind that’s always available to you, in the midst of busy activity. You can be trading in the stock market or teaching young children maths – if you’re conscious of your physical, emotional, and psychological state of mind – you’re in being mode. In some ways, being mode isn’t easy to cultivate, yet the rewards of accessing this inner resource far outweigh any difficulties in reaching it.

Here are some of the qualities of the being mode of mind:

• You connect with the present moment. When you’re in being mode, you’re mindful of sight, sound, smell, taste or touch. Or you’re consciously aware of your thoughts or emotions, without being too caught up by them. You’re not intentionally getting lost in regrets about the past or concerns about the future.
• You acknowledge and allow things to be as they are. You’re less goal-oriented. You have less of a burning desire for situations to change. You accept how things are before moving to change anything. Being mode doesn’t mean resignation, it means active acceptance of the way things are at the moment. If you’re lost but you have a map, the only way of getting anywhere is to know where you are to start with. Being mode is about acknowledging where you are.
• You’re open to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral emotions. You’re willing to open up to painful and unpleasant sensations or emotions without trying to run away from them. You understand that avoiding an emotion just locks you into the feeling more tightly.

The being mode of mind is what mindfulness endeavours to cultivate. Being mode is about allowing things to be as they are already. When you stop trying to change things, paradoxically they change by themselves. As Carl Jung said: ‘We cannot change anything until we accept it.’

Accepting a situation or emotion just to make it go away doesn’t really work, and misses an important point. For example, say you’re feeling a bit sad. If you acknowledge it with a secret desire that the sadness will go away, you haven’t fully accepted it yet. Instead, accept an emotion wholeheartedly if you can – emotions are here to teach us something. Listen to your emotions and see what they have to say.

Combining Being and Doing

Think of your mind as like the ocean. The waves rise and fall, but the still, deep waters are always there underneath.

You’re tossed and turned in the waves when you’re on the surface in doing mode. The waves aren’t bad – they’re just part of the ocean. Going farther down, the waves of doing rest on the still waters of being, as shown in Figure 5-1. Being is your sense of who you are. Being is characterised as a state of acceptance, a willingness to be with whatever is. Being is tranquil, still, and grounding.

Experience itself is neither doing nor being mode. You determine the mode by how you react or respond to the experience. Doing is getting actively involved in the experience in order to change it in some way. Being is simply seeing it as it is. That lack of fixing can result in a sense of calmness even when things are tricky.

Switching from doing to being doesn’t require years of mindfulness training. It can happen in a moment. Imagine walking to work and worrying about all the things that you need to get done, and planning how you’ll tackle the next project with the manager away on holiday. Suddenly you notice the fiery red leaves on a tree. You’re amazed at the beauty of it. That simple connection with the sense of sight is an example of being mode. The mode of mind changes by shifting the focus of attention to the present moment. You’re no longer on automatic pilot with all its planning, judging, criticising, and praising. You’re in the present moment.

Even something as seemingly mundane as feeling your feet in contact with the ground as you walk is a move towards being mode, too. You can also notice the beauty of a tree, the sounds of birds chirping or the gentle sun on the back of your neck. Changing modes may not seem easy at first, especially when you’re preoccupied by thoughts, but it gets easier through practice. You don’t have to rush through life.

The key to a mindful way of living is to integrate both doing and being modes of mind into your life. Become aware of which mode you’re operating in and make an appropriate choice about which is most helpful for the situation. You need to know where you are on the map before you can move on. Doing mode is important. You need to plan what you’re going to do today, what food to buy, how to give feedback to a colleague, and how best to respond when your children start arguing. These activities make you human. However, as a human being, you need to integrate a being mode of mind into your doing in order to be fully awake to your life.

Overcoming Obsessive Doing: Distinguishing Wants from Needs

One of the most common addictions people have is work. What started as a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job can easily become a 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. job. Naturally, you need to work and earn enough cash to pay the bills. However, before you know it, you’re trying to earn a bit more than you actually need. And then your neighbour gets that new car, and you’re tempted to do the same. So you do, but it’s a touch out of your budget. You go for that promotion, but you need to put in lots more hours – it’s a slippery slope to more and more doing. If working long hours is what you want, you’re fine, but if it’s too much for you, or the long hours are having a negative impact on your relationships, consider looking into a different way of living.

You’re excessively doing when your balance is tipped towards your wants rather than your needs. You need to keep a balance between what you want out of life and what you actually need. I define wants as desires that aren’t really essential to your life, but that you seem to chase after, like an even bigger house or wanting absolutely everyone to like you. Needs are your basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, and a sense of security.

Here are some suggestions for reducing your wants and so helping you to have more time to access being mode:

• Make a list of all the things you need to do today. Then prioritise. Ensure that you put mindfulness on the list too. That goes at the top!
• Put some things on your to-do list that aren’t urgent but are fun, like reading you favourite novel or taking the kids to the cinema. Let’s throw an ice-cream in here too! Non-urgent activities give you a chance to have a breather from energy-draining doing mode.
• Think about people you know who rarely rush from place to place. Ask them how they get everything done, or just spend more time with them. Hang out with those with a mindful disposition, and hopefully their mindfulness will rub off onto you.
• Simplify your life. Remember who and what’s most important in your life, and let go of the rest. As American writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau said: ‘Life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.’
• Switch television channels when adverts come on. Adverts are designed to ignite dissatisfaction in you, making you want more, more, more. Or if you’re feeling really mindful, just copy me and get rid of the television altogether. Why watch television when you can meditate or mindfully hang out with friends!
• Invoke the being mode of mind whenever you’re doing things. Connecting with your breath or the senses is a helpful way of accomplishing this.

Being in the Zone: The Psychology of Flow

Have you ever noticed that when you’re eating your favourite food, you forget all your worries and problems? The experience is so lovely that the sense of who you are, what you do, where you come from, and whatever the plan is for tomorrow all vanish for a moment. In fact, most pleasures that you engage in result in you letting go of the sense of ‘you’ with all your problems and issues.

Imagine skiing downhill at high speed. You sense the wind whooshing past you, feel the cool mountain breeze, and enjoy the deep blue colour of the sky. You’re in the zone, in the moment, at one with all around you. When you’re in the zone, you let go of doing mode and come into being mode – the present moment.

This ‘in the zone’ state of mind is called flow by psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi. But what’s flow got to do with the being mode of mind? Surely being in the zone is always about doing? Not quite. Practising mindfulness helps to generate flow experiences directly. Everything you do, you can do in the moment, giving you a deeper sense of aliveness.

Here’s what you experience when you’re in a state of flow:

• You feel at one with the world.
• You let go of your sense of being an individual and any worries and problems.
• You’re completely focused.
• You feel very satisfied with what you’re doing.
• You’re happy, although you don’t really notice it at the time because you’re so engrossed in whatever you’re doing.

Understanding the factors of mindful flow

Csíkszentmihályi found some key factors that accompany an experience of flow. I’ve adapted them here so you can generate what I call a mindful flow experience. As long as you do a task mindfully, it’s potentially going to be a flow experience.

Here are some of key factors of mindful flow and how you can generate them using mindfulness:

• Attention. Flow experiences need attention. Mindfulness is all about attention, and mindfulness increases your level of attention with practice. Through regular mindfulness practice, your brain becomes better at paying attention to whatever you choose to focus on, making a flow experience far more likely. When driving, you simply pay attention to your surroundings rather than letting your mind wander off.
• Direct and immediate feedback. Flow needs direct feedback as to how you’re doing. When you’re practising mindfulness, you’re getting immediate feedback because you know at any time if you’re paying attention or if your mind has wandered off for the last few minutes. So, if driving, you notice when your mind has drifted into dreaming about what’s for dinner tonight, and you bring your attention gently back to the here and now.
• Sufficiently challenging task. Mindfulness is an active process of repeatedly rebalancing to come back to the present moment while the mind – doing what minds do – wants to pull you away into other thoughts. To drive in a mindful way from work to home would be a suitable challenge for anyone, potentially creating a flow experience.
• Sense of personal control. When you’re mindful of your thoughts and feelings that are arising, you’ve created a choice. You don’t have to react to your thoughts or do what they tell you to do. This generates a sense of control as you become aware of the choices you have. If, while you’re driving, someone cuts in front of you, you’ve got the choice to either react and feel annoyed, or practise letting it go. Even if you do react, you can notice how you react and what effect the reaction has on your thoughts and feelings. Eventually, mindfulness goes beyond trying to control – you discover the flow experience is accessed through letting go rather than controlling your attention.
• Intrinsically rewarding. As you carry out a task, you’re doing it for the sake of itself. If you’re driving your car to get home as fast as possible to have your cup of tea, you’re not going to be in a flow experience. If you drive to simply enjoy each moment of the journey, that’s different. You can feel the warmth of the sunshine on your arms, appreciate the colour of the sky while sitting in traffic, and marvel at the miracle of the human body’s ability to do such a complex task effortlessly. You’re in a flow experience.

Normally, mindfulness would make you a safer driver rather than a more dangerous one. However, begin by being mindful of safer tasks like washing dishes or going for a walk before you attempt mindfulness of driving, just so you get used to being mindful. Don’t use mindfulness of driving if you find the experience distracting.

Discovering your flow experiences

Everyone’s had flow experiences. By knowing when you’ve been in flow, you can encourage more opportunities to experience it in the future. The following are some typical activities that people often find themselves flowing in. You may even find something here to try yourself:

• Reading or writing. When you’re fully engaged in a good book full of fascinating insights or a challenging storyline, you’re in flow. You forget about everything else and time flies by. When writing in flow, words simply pop into your head and onto your page with effortless ease. You stop criticising what you’re creating, and enjoy seeing the report or book pouring out of you. I’ve discovered how to do this myself by writing whatever words arise into my awareness first, and avoiding all self-judgement. Then I go back and edit the writing later on. In this way, the writing seems to flow naturally. This is an example of mindful writing.
• Art or hobbies (such as drawing, painting, dancing, singing, or playing music). Most artistic endeavours involve flow. You’re directly connected with your senses, and people often describe themselves as being ‘at one with the music’. If you’re forced to do a particular hobby, it may or may not be a flow experience, because the intrinsic motivation isn’t there.
• Exercise (walking, running, cycling, swimming, and so on). Some people love exercise so much that they get addicted to it. The rush of adrenaline, the full focus in the present moment, and the feeling of exhilaration make for a flow experience.
• Work. Perhaps surprisingly, you can be in flow at work. Research has found that people are happier at work than they are in their leisure time. Work encourages you to do something with a focused attention, and often involves interaction with others. You need to give something of yourself. This can set the stage for flow. In contrast, watching television at home can drain your energy, especially if you’re watching unchallenging programmes.
• Anything done mindfully. Remember, anything that you do with a mindful awareness is going to generate a flow state of mind, from making love to making a cup of tea. Just let go of your judgement, be fully present as best you can, and see whether you can enjoy the experience.

Encouraging a Being Mode of Mind

Generally speaking, most people spend too much time in doing mode and not enough in being mode. Doing mode results in chasing after goals that may not be what you’re really interested in. Being mode offers a rest – a chance to let go of the usual, habitual patterns of the mind and drop into the awareness that’s always there.

You can be in being mode even though you’re doing something. Being mode doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing nothing. You can be busy working hard in the garden, and yet if your attention is right in the moment, and you’re connecting directly with the senses, you can be in being mode.

Here are ten ways of switching from doing mode to being mode:

• When walking from place to place, take the opportunity to feel your feet on the floor, see the range of different colours in front of you, and listen to the variety of different sounds. (Move to Chapter 6 to discover the art of mindful walking.)
• When moving from one activity to another, take a moment to rest. Feel three complete in-breaths and out-breaths.
• Establish a regular meditation routine using formal mindfulness meditation practices (for more on this, head to Chapter 6).
• Use the three-minute mini meditation several times a day (see Chapter 7). Whenever you catch yourself becoming excessively tense or emotional, use the mini meditation to begin moving towards being mode and opening up to the challenging experience, rather than reacting to try to avoid or get rid of the experience.
• Avoid multi-tasking whenever you can. Doing one thing at a time with your full and undivided attention can engage being mode. Doing too many things at the same time encourages your mind to spin.
• Find time to do a hobby or sport. These activities tend to involve connecting with the senses, which immediately brings you into being mode. Painting, listening to music, or playing an instrument, dancing, singing, walking in the park, and many more activities all offer a chance to be with the senses.
• When taking a bath or shower, use the time to feel the warmth of the water and the contact of the water with your skin. Allow all your senses to be involved in the experience; enjoy the sound of the water and breathe in the scent of your favourite soap or body wash.
• When you’re eating, pause before your meal to take a few conscious breaths. Then eat the meal with your full attention. Check out Chapter 6 for ways to munch mindfully.
• Treat yourself to a day of mindfulness once in a while. Wake up slowly, feel your breath frequently, and connect with your senses and with other significant people around you as much as you can. Chapter 8 sets out some suggestions for having a mindful day.

Dealing with emotions using being mode

Using doing mode in the area of thoughts and emotions is like using the wrong remote control to change the channel on your television. No matter how hard you push the buttons, the channel isn’t going to change – and pushing the buttons harder just makes you more tired and breaks the remote control. You’re using the wrong tool for the job.

Say you’re feeling sad today. Doing mode may feel the emotion and use the problem-solving, goal-oriented mind to try to fight it, asking, ‘Why am I sad? How can I escape from it? What shall I do now? Why does this always happen to me? Let me try watching television. Oh, I feel worse. What if this feeling never goes away? What if I feel depressed again?’

Doing mode sets thoughts spinning in your head, which just makes you feel worse. Your focus is on getting rid of the feeling instead of feeling the emotion. The more you fight the emotion, the stronger it seems to get. So, what’s the solution?

Next time you have an uncomfortable feeling like sadness, anger, frustration or jealousy, try this exercise to get into being mode:

1. Set your intention. Let your intention be to feel the emotion and its effects as best you can with a gentle curiosity. You’re not doing so as a clever way to get rid of it. You’re just giving yourself space to learn from the emotion rather than running away.

   All emotions, no matter how strong, have a beginning and an end.

2. Feel the emotion. Feel the emotion with care, kindness, and acceptance, as best you can. Open up to it. Notice where the emotion manifests itself in your body. Breathe into that part of your body and stay with it. Allow the emotion to be as it is. You don’t need to fight or run away. Be with the experience.
3. De-centre from the emotion. Notice that you can be aware of the emotion without being the emotion itself – create a space between yourself and the feeling. This is an important aspect of mindfulness. As you observe the feeling, you’re separate from it in the sense that you’re free from it. You’re watching it. It’s like sitting on a riverbank as the water rushes by rather than being in the river itself. As you watch the water (emotion) pass by, you’re not in the river itself. Every now and then, you may feel like you’ve been sucked into the river and washed downstream. As soon as you feel this, simply step back out of the river again. Figure 5-2 illustrates this idea.
4. Breathe. Now simply feel your breath. Be with each in-breath and each out-breath. Notice how each breath is unique, different, and vital for your health and wellbeing. Then continue with whatever you need to do in a mindful way.

Finding time to just be

Are you a busy bee? Do you have too much to do to have time to be? One of the attractive things about mindfulness is that you don’t have a fixed amount of time that you’re ‘supposed’ to practise for. Your daily practice can be meditating for one minute or one hour – it’s up to you. The other great thing about mindfulness is that you can simply be mindful of your normal everyday routine and in that way build up your awareness and being mode. That takes no time at all; in fact, it can save time because you’re more focused on your activities.

These mindful practices require almost no time at all:

• When waiting in a queue, rather than killing time, engage your awareness. Time is too precious to be killed. Notice the colours and sounds around you. Or challenge yourself to see whether you can maintain the awareness of your feet on the floor for ten full breaths.
• When you stop at a red traffic light, you have a choice. You can let yourself get frustrated and impatient, or you can do traffic light meditation! Close your eyes and nourish yourself with three mindful breaths – very refreshing!
• The next time the phone rings, let it ring three times. Use that time to breathe and smile. Telesales companies know that you can ‘hear the smile’ on the phone and ask employees to smile when they’re on a call. You’re in a more patient and happy state of mind when you speak.
• Change your routine. If you normally drive to work, try walking or cycling for part of it. Speak to different friends or colleagues. Take up a new hobby. When you change your habits, you engage different pathways in the brain. You instinctively wake up to the moment and just be.

Living in the moment

You’re always in the present moment. You’ve never been in any other moment. Don’t believe me? Every time your mind worries about the past, when does it do it? Only in the present moment. Every plan you’ve ever made is only made in the present too. Right now, as you’re thinking about what you’re reading and comparing it with your past experience, you’re doing so in this moment, now. Your plans for tomorrow can only be thought about now. Now is all you’re ever in. So what’s all the fuss about? The question is how you can connect with the here and now.

Here are some tips for living in the present moment:

• Value the present moment. Spend time considering that the present moment is the only moment that you have. You then discover the value of focusing on the here and now. And once you experience how enjoyable present-moment living can be, you’ve created a powerful shift into a more mindful and happy lifestyle.
• Focus on whatever you’re doing. When you type, feel the contact between your fingers and the keyboard. When getting dressed, try giving it your full attention rather than allowing your mind to wander. When setting the table for dinner, feel the weight of the plates and utensils as you carry them. Appreciate how the table looks once you have set it. Enjoy doing tasks to the best of your ability. Living in the present is trickier than it sounds, but each time you try, you get a little better at it. Slowly but surely, you start really living in the moment.
• Reduce activities that draw you out of the moment. I found that watching too much television sent my mind spinning, so I got rid of it. For you, you may need to reduce the time you spend on social media or surfing websites. Or it may be as simple as not lying in bed in the morning for too long, allowing youself to worry unnecessarily about the day. Nothing’s wrong with any of these activities, but they don’t encourage moment-by-moment living. They capture your attention and lead to a passive state of mind. Switching from channel to channel while slumped on the sofa drains your energy much faster than an activity done with a gentle awareness.
• Establish a daily mindfulness practice. Doing so strengthens your ability to stay in the present rather than being drawn into the past or pulled into the future. The strength of your daily habit extends into your everyday life, without you even trying. You hear the sound of that bird in the tree, or find yourself listening intently to your colleague in an effortless way. Now mindfulness becomes fun.
• Look deeply. Consider and reflect on all the people and things that come together in each moment. For example, you’re reading this book. The book’s paper came from trees which needed sunshine and rain, soil and nutrients. The book was edited, marketed, printed, transported, distributed, and sold by people. It also required the invention of the printing press, language, and more. You were taught English by someone to enable you to understand the words. This awareness of all that’s come together and been provided for you to enjoy naturally creates gratitude and present-moment awareness. This is called looking deeply. You’re connecting in the moment, and also seeing the bigger picture of how things have come together in an interconnected way. Looking deeply isn’t thinking about your experience, but seeing your experience in a different way. You can try it in any situation – it transforms your perspective, and perspective transforms experience.

If you want to let go of your baggage from the past and future, try this meditation. I discovered it from a mindfulness teacher and monk called Ajahn Brahm. This present-moment meditation is also available as an MP3 (Track 6), so you can plug in your headphones and enjoy being guided. To let go of the weight of the past and future:

1. Find a nice comfortable position to sit or lie in. Be kind to yourself, and ensure you’re in a relaxed posture, loosening any tight clothing, removing any glasses you’re wearing and slipping off your shoes if you wish.
2. Take your time to take a few deep, smooth breaths. Let each in-breath represent nourishment and energy. Let each out-breath signify letting go.
3. Gently close your eyes. Imagine you’re holding two heavy shopping bags. Imagine how heavy they feel. Feel the strain on your fingers and how much effort it takes to hold both bags. Their weight is pulling you down. The strain makes you feel tired and tense.
4. Let the bag in one hand represent your past. Imagine the bag is labelled ‘past’. The bag contains all your regrets and mistakes. All your successes and failures. Past relationships. The choices you’ve made and the sorrows you’ve felt. You may even be able to visualise all your past experiences contained within this heavy bag. Holding this bag all day is tiring.
5. Imagine that you decide it’s time to let go of the ‘past’ bag. You want to put the bag down and have a rest. So imagine slowly lowering the bag to the ground. Eventually the bag makes contact with the ground, and as it does so, immediately you begin to feel a release. Eventually your whole bag, representing all your past, is down on the ground. You smile as you let go completely. Imagine your hand opening and imagine yourself feeling so much better. You’re liberated from carrying your past around with you.
6. In your other hand, you’re holding a heavy bag signifying your future. Imagine the word ‘future’ written on the bag. The bag contains all your hopes, dreams, and plans. And also all your anxieties and worries. All your concerns and fears about what may or may not happen. Holding this hefty burden is no joke. The bag slows you down. But now you know how to put this bag, which is full of your future, down.
7. Imagine that you slowly lower the ‘future’ bag until the bottom of the bag starts to make contact with the ground. You begin to feel a relief. As you continue to lower the bag, all the weight is transferred to the earth. You feel an immense burden lifted. Your hand is now free, and you completely let go of your worries about the future.
8. Imagine yourself standing with a bag representing your past on the floor on one side, and a bag representing your future on the floor on the other side. Because you’re standing between the past and future, where are you? You’re in the best place to be: the present moment. Give yourself the go-ahead to feel free. The bags are perfectly safe on the ground. Rest in the joy of being in the present moment. Rejoice in the childlike innocence of the here and now – timelessness.
9. Spend as much time as you want to in this experience of the present moment. And any time you feel you’re carrying too much weight from the past or future, practise this meditation and put the weights down again.