There are a couple of difficulties associated with living in your mind. The first one is that
you are either in the past or the future, neither of which actually exist, and not in the
present moment which is all there ever is. No wonder you don’t feel vibrant and alive –
you’re not where life is!

Even though my mind is always in the past, regretting things that happened, I
choose to live in the moment.

Even though my mind is so often in the past relieving traumatic events, I
choose to release the past and recognise it no longer exists except in my mind.

When your mind is in the future it tends to do what I call ‘catastrophising’. I don’t think
that’s actually a word but I know you know what I mean by it! All those ‘what ifs’ that
scare the living daylights out of you. The thing is you can’t possibly deal with the
imagined scenario because it hasn’t actually happened yet. How stressful is that?!

Even though my mind is always creating anxiety for me by imagining the future, I
choose to stay in the present moment with what is here now.

Even though I’m always creating worst case scenarios in my head, I choose to stay
with what is real.

The second difficulty is that you tend to actually believe your thoughts, some of which
are at best highly un-useful and at worst totally untrue. Your thoughts are just passing
through and it really pays to examine whether they are really true.

Even though I buy into my thoughts and react accordingly without ever examining
them to see if they are true, I totally accept myself.

Even though I think thoughts such as “I don’t deserve _______,” I recognise that
this is truly misguided thinking.

Yes, our mind is all over the place and usually not where we are. Check out what
happens when you are doing a routine job like washing the dishes – the odds are you will
find your mind elsewhere, on a track far removed from washing up. And what about
when you drive somewhere, arrive at your destination and wonder how you got there
because your mind was totally on other things!

Even though my body is doing one thing but my mind is elsewhere, I choose to
bring my awareness back to the task I am doing.

Even though I’m so seldom in the present moment with what I am doing, I keep
bringing my awareness back to my body.

The major difficulty we seem to create in our lives is that we don’t like what is
happening, think it shouldn’t be happening and are actively resistant and reactionary to
what is happening! We do it on a small scale like being annoyed because it is raining
when we wanted to have a picnic as well as going into a huge funk because we feel
rejected by someone. Some people are so reactive they kill other people – or themselves,
because we are also resistant and reactive to ourselves (i.e. rejecting of our own
selves). That critical voice that never takes a break - “you should have done this, you
shouldn’t have said that, you are such a loser.” We have little sense of the power of
acceptance in creating the change that we seek.

Even though I’m so reactive to situations and people, I choose to accept how they
are no matter how difficult it seems.

Even though I fight my life, I’m willing to totally accept it as it is.

Even though I think that things will never change if I accept them, I’m ready to
discover the power of acceptance.

When you can start to accept each moment for however it is and however you are in it,
then peace emerges.

It’s quite a journey to recognise that ultimately there are no problems except the ones
created in your mind and you can be free of those when you live in the present moment,
experiencing your eternal nature.
-Margaret Munoz