Between countless people promoting mindfulness techniques and Eckart Tolle’s Power of Now, many people are aware of the importance of living in the here and now. When you do, you focus on what’s around you rather than lagging behind or jumping ahead with your thoughts. This article aims to give you a few pointers on how to live in the now.

How to Live in the Now #1 – Be Guided by Your Senses Rather than Your Thoughts

Think back at a time when you worried. Can you remember how your surroundings simply disappeared? Well, that’s what worries and preoccupations do. They suck you out of your body and bring you to a place of fear and dread. One way of stopping this from happening is to let your senses guide you:

• Listen to your breath and focus on it
• Make an effort to survey your surroundings as you do your stuff, focusing your eyes on the task at hand
• Look, listen, taste, touch: When you find yourself drifting away into the worry-zone, look at something, listen, taste something or touch something until you’re back in the present moment
• Get physical: Engaging in any kind of physical activity helps to stop racing thoughts
• Visualise: Picture a quiet zone within yourself in the present moment and put yourself in it.

How to Live in the Now #2 – Gratitude

Expressing gratitude for all the good things you have, right here, right now, is one way of helping you to live in the now. While you identify the good – and there’s bound to be something – you see the good of the here and now. Then, worries and thoughts about things you’re lacking fade into the background.

How to Live in the Now #3 – Connect with Your Unfolding Story

Now that you’ve landed in the now, it’s time to take each moment as a jigsaw puzzle, a page in your the storybook of your life. When you do that, you find little things to enrich you in each instant.

How to Live in the Now #4 – Embrace and Integrate Imperfections

Usually, people run off into the worry-zone because of pain. This takes them out of the present moment and helps to magnify the issue. The thing is, life’s rarely just plain sailing. You may suffer pain, make mistakes, or suffer at the hands of someone else. Whatever the case may be – that’s just life. By accepting life’s imperfections and people’s shortcomings, including your own, you are less likely to fall victim to racing thoughts. In the here and now, you’ll always find the good, the bad, and the ugly. Everyone does.

How to Live in the Now #5 – Inject Love into the Present Moment

Last on out how to live in the now list, I’d like you to find love in your heart and inject the present moment with it. Do that with every moment. In fact, if you use love as the fuel and heartbeat of your life, living in the now will be much easier.